China is Right to Backdate Its War With Japan to 1931 (But for the Wrong Reasons)

Michael Peck

Security, Asia

The government is making a bold play to stoke nationalism and burnish the credentials of the Communist Party.

The history books tell us that the Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937, ended with Japan's defeat by the Allies in 1945, and cost the lives of perhaps 20 million Chinese soldiers and civilians.

China now says the history books are wrong. The Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1931, according to the Chinese government.

China is right. Unfortunately, it is right for the wrong reasons.

Until now, the accepted version of history has been that the Second Sino-Japanese War began in July 7, 1937, with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. During training exercises by the Japanese army, which was already occupying Manchuria and parts of northern China, a Japanese soldier went missing near the Marco Polo Bridge southwest of Beijing. The soldier later turned up unharmed, but the incident became a pretext for Japan to launch a full-scale war to conquer all of China.

However, China now dates the war back to 1931, with Japan's invasion of Manchuria. The Manchurian Incident began on September 18, 1931, with Japanese soldiers who had allowed by treaty to guard Manchurian rail lines -- even though this was Chinese territory -- that were servicing Japanese economic interests in the region. Fearing rising Chinese nationalism and eager to expand Japan's empire, these soldiers defied orders from their own civilian government, and staged a fake sabotage attempt on the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway. This gave Japanese militarists an excuse to seize all of Manchuria and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo.

Just to keep the math consistent, China has also changed the official name of the conflict in school textbooks from the “Eight-Year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression” to the “14-Year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.”

“The Chinese Ministry of Education said the decision to add six years to the war sought to promote patriotic education and to highlight the Communist Party’s 'core role' in resisting Japanese fascism in the prelude to World War II,” the New York Times wrote. “It also seemed intended to rally support for the party among young people as Mr. Xi [Chinese President Xi Jinping] vigorously promotes Communist history and thought in schools.”

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