Taiwan is pushing back against what it sees as Beijing’s efforts to reshape the history of World War Two after Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump highlighted the wartime alliance between their countries at a summit last week.
The development has raised concern in Taipei, which fears Washington could be persuaded to accept Beijing’s interpretation of the war and potentially reduce its support for Taiwan, its most important arms supplier.
Taiwan, which is democratically governed but claimed by China as its territory, says Beijing’s version of events distorts the historical record because the Republic of China was the government at the time and fought alongside the Allies.
The Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communist forces. It has retained the formal name to this day.
Beijing says communist guerrilla forces were the “backbone” of China’s resistance during the war, while its official historical account gives little attention to the Republic of China’s forces.
At their state dinner in Washington on Thursday, Xi and Trump praised the cooperation between their countries during the war.
A White House fact sheet issued after the summit said Trump and Xi recalled that the US and China “were allies in World War Two and fought side by side to win the war”.
Shen Yu-chung, deputy head of Taiwan’s China policy-making Mainland Affairs Council, said Xi is “continuously trying to guide the World War Two historical narrative to be led by the People’s Republic of China”.
Taiwan would continue to send messages to the US so it “correctly understands that during the entire World War Two process, the Republic of China was America’s steadfast ally”, he added.
The White House, US State Department and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to requests for comment.
Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu accused Beijing of trying to overwrite the “true history”.
“China is trying to replace the Republic of China’s role during World War Two,” he said. “I think this is something we should feel very sad about.”
Last year, during the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, the de facto US embassy in Taipei said China was spreading “false” World War Two narratives to pressure Taiwan.
Chen Fang-yu, an associate professor at Taipei’s Soochow University, said Taiwan faced a challenge in countering China’s narrative among US audiences.
“We’re facing the Chinese communists’ enormous propaganda resources and their continuous attempts through various means to brainwash and influence US public opinion,” he told a forum in Taipei on Sunday.
The legacy of the war is also contested within Taiwan. The island was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945, while the ruling Democratic Progressive Party traditionally promotes Taiwan’s distinct identity and history from China.
Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), which was the Republic of China’s ruling party during the war, said the government’s historical account was accurate but criticised it for attacking Beijing for political reasons.
President Lai Ching-te’s government refers to pre-1949 Republic of China history only when it is politically useful, the KMT said, accusing it of “bringing back the 1945 Republic of China when they need to confront Beijing and compete for the narrative rights”.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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