Paper in the People’s Daily

Among the various solicitations the 70th anniversary of the end of W.W.II and victory over Japan is generating in China, the People’s Daily (人民日报) asked Christian Henriot about his views on the contribution of China to W.W.II. The gist of the paper [To rember the contribution of China [to W.W.II] is also a “duty of remembrance” 铭记中国贡献， 也是记忆的责任] is to assert that in the celebrations in Europe a certain europeo-centrism tends to occult the reality that China was at war as early as 1937, that she did not receive any support from Western countries, especially the United States, before 1941, and that although its direct military effort was constrained, it did force Japan to maintain a very large army in China. Japan could simply not deploy its soldiers “stuck” in China to the other theaters of war in the Asia-Pacific area.