An illustration to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Japan's surrender to China published in The Washington Times, Sept. 8. (Photo/Liu Ping)
Recent article in The Washington Post and The Washington Times have attempted to pull the rug out from under Chinese president Xi Jinping and his trumpeting of China's victory over Japan during World War II over recent weeks, stating that the Republic of China (ROC) government under Chiang Kai-shek contributed greatly to Japan's defeat in the war, our Chinese-language sister newspaper Want Daily reports.
A Sept. 4 editorial in The Washington Post commented on China's military parade on Sept. 3, marking the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Japan in World War II, stating that, "As a commemoration of World War II, Mr. Xi's parade was mendacious. Though China contributed greatly to the allied victory, the fight was led by the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, a fact unacknowledged in the propaganda trumpeting the Communist Party's role. As a gathering of leaders, the event was an embarrassing flop."
The Washington Time piece was entitled "Taiwan's remembrance of World War II victory–Aggression might be forgiven but will never be forgotten" and was penned by Taiwan's representative to the US Shen Lyushun. It stated that today's ROC in Taiwan is the direct and legitimate successor to the government of Chiang Kai-shek, who died in Taiwan in 1975 while acting as ROC president.
Shen said Chiang decided on a policy of benevolence toward his former Japanese enemies, including expeditious repatriation for over 2 million Japanese soldiers and civilians in mainland China and Taiwan at the time of surrender, a sharp contrast to the Soviet policy of holding hundreds of thousands of Japanese prisoner of war in Siberia as slave laborers until 1956. Chiang respected the Japanese people's right to retain their system of imperial rule and opposed dividing Japan into different zones.
Japan's first post-war prime minister Higashikuni Naruhiko wrote of Chiang Kai-shek's policy in his memoirs, "Not only did Japan lose to China in the war but we lost to them on the level of morality as well."
Shen said at the end of his article that Taiwan has maintained a close friendship with Japan since the end of World War II. A most notable case was in 2011, when the tsunami struck Japan's Fukushima, Taiwan showed public sympathy with a donation of US$260 million, more than any other single country except for the US.