Confront the CCP's Historical Lies and Seek Liberation

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President Xi Jinping's Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now rewriting history on a global scale. This manipulation was displayed during Russia's WWII Victory Day ceremony on May 9.

Let's take a closer look at China's historical fabrication, its serious implications for Japan, and potential countermeasures.

During his state visit to Russia, Xi became the first Chinese leader to order the People's Liberation Army to take part in Russia's victory parade. President Vladimir Putin praised the occasion, noting it featured the largest number of foreign troops ever to participate in the event.

In response, Xi said, "China and Russia will uphold the correct history." He went on to boast that the CCP led the Chinese people, fought alongside the Soviet Union to defeat Japan, and contributed to the global fight against fascism. In truth, however, the CCP's contribution to the "anti-Japan resistance" was virtually nonexistent.

Haiying Yang is a cultural anthropologist and professor at Shizuoka University

Myth of the Northward Anti-Japan Resistance

The CCP, founded in 1921, shifted its strategy to armed struggle following intense internal disputes. It established bases in the mountainous regions of southern China and formed a regime known as the Chinese Soviet Republic.

When China's Kuomintang (KMT) forces overran these strongholds, the remnants of the CCP began a retreat in 1934. They attempted to flee westward through Sichuan and Tibet toward Soviet territory. Along the way, they engaged in looting and arson, even as they suffered casualties in clashes with Tibetan forces. Mao Zedong later admitted that he had "snatched a few supplies from the Tibetans."

Mao and his group initially characterized their escape to the north as a strategic withdrawal. However, they later rebranded it with the noble-sounding name of the Northward Resistance Against the Japanese.

In reality, the group had little knowledge of how far Japanese forces had advanced and lacked a clear understanding of Manchukuo, which had been established for over two years. Without accurate perception, they referred to Manchukuo simply as the Northeast. Therefore, when the Maoists settled in Yan'an, Shaanxi Province, in late autumn of 1935, they remained apprehensive about potential attacks from neighboring Inner Mongolia.

Mao issued the "Proclamation of the Chinese Soviet Republic" in 1931, publicly asserting that the Inner Mongolians had the same right to secession as the Ukrainians and the peoples of the Caucasus. He also declared that if the Mongolian people chose to remain within Chinese territory in the future, it would be under a federal system.

Resistance in Name Only

Mao's CCP forces did not advance eastward from Yan'an to confront the Japanese on the front lines. Instead, they focused on expanding their power and undermining the KMT forces. In northern Shaanxi and the Ordos Plateau of Inner Mongolia, they cultivated poppies and trafficked refined opium into KMT-controlled areas and Mongolia. This opium trade weakened the KMT's will to fight and brought poverty to Mongolian society.

The CCP forces ambushed retreating KMT troops from the front lines, treating them as if they were allies of the Japanese. In the territories the CCP occupied, they executed wealthy farmers, labeling them as "the exploiting class of landowners." The confiscated land was then handed over to hoodlums and vagrants to bolster the CCP's support base. By the time the eight-year war against Japan ended, much of the country had been turned into revolutionary bases for the party. This is the true extent of the CCP's so-called "anti-Japan resistance."

After the war, the CCP mobilized Japanese technicians from the Manchukuo Film Association to produce numerous anti-Japanese films. The titles, such as "Railway Guerrilla Unit," clearly reveal that the CCP forces were not engaged in large-scale, modern warfare against the Japanese.

Allied forces of the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People's Republic, which had advanced into Manchukuo and Inner Mongolia, were effectively aligned. The Soviet Union guided the CCP forces into Manchukuo and handed over the high-quality arms and ammunition left behind by the Japanese military. This enabled the CCP to gain the upper hand in the Chinese Civil War and ultimately brought Mao Zedong to power.

Anti-Japan as a National Policy

The Mongolian People's Republic sought to liberate its fellow Inner Mongolians, hoping to unify all of Mongolia north of the Great Wall. For Mongolia, this was a war of national liberation. Yet that aspiration was cut short, as Inner Mongolia was to be occupied by China under the secret terms of the Yalta Agreement, signed by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union in the spring of 1945.

Today, the Xi administration no longer acknowledges the southward advance of the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People's Republic, concealing the true nature of anti-fascist history.

At Xi's invitation, Putin is scheduled to visit Beijing this fall to attend China's Victory Day parade. Because the CCP played no real role in resisting Japan during the war, "anti-Japan" has instead become a national policy and a tool for preserving its grip on power today.

Japan Must Take Action

Japan is not only defenseless against the CCP's historical fabrications, but influential Diet members have taken a conciliatory stance, repeatedly visiting Beijing to beg for giant pandas. Even after these delegations returned, Chinese state vessels continued to intrude into the waters around the Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, insisting they have a unilateral claim to the territory. The CCP's aim in targeting the Senkakus is to turn its historical distortions into reality.

Japan's current administration has failed to confront China's historical revisionism and its attempts to reshape the international order. Worse still, on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the government is again engaged in "re-examining the earlier war." It's a process that risks culminating in yet another apology, with no effort to break free from the spell of self-flagellation.

Such self-flagellation not only hinders Japan's healthy development but risks enabling the CCP's aggressive encroachment. Countermeasures must be urgently devised.

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(Read this in Japanese.)

Author: Haiying Yang

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