00:00Our military parade has begun in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the capital of the Asian giant in China,
00:08as the President Xi Jinping opened in speech this parade and he recalled
00:14to remember history is the only way to create a better future.
00:20And in this context to go deep into the relevance of this moment,
00:24this historical moment for the Chinese people and also for the entire humanity,
00:28we invite to our Telesur English, Atilio Boron, political scientist from Argentina.
00:37Hi, Atilio. Thank you very much for joining us today.
00:41Good evening. Thank you for your invitation.
00:44What do you think or what do you see as the most significant turning point in China's resistance against Japanese aggression
00:52during the World War II, regarding the context in which this celebration is taking place?
01:01Well, you know, the Japanese invasion was really a major catastrophic event for Chinese society.
01:10This situation is, how can I say, notorious, okay, because of the brutality which was executed in China,
01:29not only in the main cities, but especially in the case of Nanking, which was the capital of China in those years.
01:40The massacre of Nanking is something incredibly violent, vicious, et cetera, in which people were executed in the most infamous way.
01:56And this was a long war, a long war, because it lasted during eight years from 1937, which was the invasion in the beginning in July, 1937, until 1945.
02:14There were eight years of very, very dramatic, full-scale war, and, of course, just left a mark, a decisive mark in Chinese history,
02:33and also in the history between China and Japan, which is still something which has to be settled, right?
02:43Because even if Japan expressed her apologies because of the Nanking massacre, the apologies were not strong enough for most of the people in China.
03:04And this is still a wound which is open and which is bleeding in this moment.
03:11It was a terrible war and the war which finally was decided once the communist guerrillas, led by Mao Zedong,
03:24were able to defeat the faction of the Kuomintang, which was under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek,
03:36and with all the support of the West. And because of that, in 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek was defeated, he seek refuge in Taiwan, in the island of Taiwan.
03:52This is today's problem, okay? And Mao founded the popular socialist communist Republic of China.
04:02So this is a crucial period in the history of China. But China was in an extremely bad situation after these eight years of war, beyond the brutality, the massacres, and the ethnic cleansing, as we say today, practices by the Japanese.
04:21In his opening speech, President Xi Jinping mentioned the Chinese people who fight a great war to defend the nations.
04:30He referred to the veterans also in this feat of the Chinese people in resisting foreign aggressions.
04:37And I wanted to ask you, what lessons can be drawn from China's struggle against the invasion, and also the way in which the country has overcome those years of aggression, positioning today as a leading economy worldwide?
04:52Well, I think there are several factors, you see. One of them was the unity of the national forces, including several factions, which were not in agreement on all the items, but which were enough in agreement to defeat the Japanese invaders.
05:18That was very, very important. The unity of the people. The unity of the people is something which is absolutely essential to defeat all kind of invasions like the one which happened in China.
05:33The second one was the importance played by the Pacific War. You have to remind that in December 1941, Japan entered in war with the United States, and that meant that some of the military which were occupying and destroying China had to be removed in order to contain the offensive,
06:02offensive to the United States, which was attacked in the famous Pearl Harbor incident in December 1941. So, that was another factor, the destruction of some of the Japanese forces to another theater of operation.
06:20And third, I would say that the brilliant conduct of the war under the leadership of Mao Zedong. Mao proved to be a serious disciple of Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu, the greatest general from Memorial Times in China, who wrote a very small book, which is full of wisdom.
06:49The book is the art of wisdom. The book is the art of war. And Mao was a careful reader of Sun Tzu and was able to develop a tactic, which despite the fact that they were in inferior conditions in front of the Japanese. Finally, they, I mean, the faction led by Mao was able to prevail.
07:17And that did not happen with another section, which after 1945, which after 1945, had received all the support of the United States. This was the Nationalist Section led by Chang Kai-shei, as I mentioned before, which was very well equipped with last generation weapons, but did not have the strategic vision and the ability of it.
07:45And the ability that Mao has in terms of conducting a sort of guerrilla warfare in China. You have to take in mind, bear in mind that China is an enormous country. Many times people think of China the same way. It has a one and a half billion people, the population, but China has nine million square kilometers.
08:13It's a little bit bigger than, or as big as the United States. And it was essentially a rural country in that moment. And Mao genius was able to mobilize the peasantry with very rudimentary weapons where they able to defeat in the civil war.
08:38Because once the Japanese war, because once the Japanese war, because once the Japanese war exploded, you know, exploded the civil war between the nationalists, which were pro-West, pro-US, and the communist guerrilla led by Mao.
08:52Mao proved to be a master, a genius in terms of warfare. And I think that was the key factor which decided the fate of this war in favor of the communist movement.
09:10Also, President Xi Jinping made a call for memory to prevail. And this amidst the persistent attempts from Western powers to distort the history of the World War II and also the role played by the Chinese people in this victory.
09:28What are the underlying intentions behind these attempts from your point of view and also why the historical truth is so important?
09:35Well, because if you convince the people, for instance, that the Nazi regime was defeated by the US and the British, this is how the history goes, then you are able to gather all the recognition for such a fantastic victory.
10:01The fact is that this was not what happened in terms of the war in the European theater. The real fact is that the Nazi regime was defeated by the Soviet Union. This is what all people in Europe knew very well by the end of the war, you know.
10:21So, there are some polls, surveys made in those years, especially one in France, which was very, very important, in which people were asking what a country would defeat the fascist regime in Germany.
10:42And almost two out of three Frenchmen asked, okay, say, the Soviet Union. That was in the year 1945, at the end of 1946. The very late polls asking the same because of this 80th anniversary.
11:00Today, today, even in France, the overwhelming majority say that the US was the one who defeated the Nazi regime. But if you look at the historical record, the US was in Europe no more than 11 months, okay, because their special focus of interest in the war was in the Pacific.
11:25In the Pacific, there were almost four years, a little less than, more than one year in the case of Europe. But the idea is that once you make a narrative prevail, when that is political propaganda, which is extremely useful to create a consensus that the country which brings liberty, freedom, human rights, democracy in the world is the US.
11:51This was not the case. The concentration camps in the US. This was not the case. The concentration camps in which the Jewish population was decimated were opened by the Soviet forces, not by the American forces.
12:06This is something which is something which is in the historical record. However, you ask anybody today, even in Poland, in which most of the concentration camps in which the Jews were exterminated were established there, okay, even today you ask a public opinion in Poland, they will say that those concentration camps were opened by the Americans, which is absolutely false.
12:32The reality was false. The reality was where the Soviet, which is the Red Army, which opened. So now, the same happened with the war in the Pacific. In which there was a complete underestimation of the toll paid by the Chinese people in the struggle against fascism in Pacific.
12:52Because fascism was not only a problem which developed in the West, in Europe, but also there was the Japanese fascism, a special form of fascism in which the brutality and the humanity of repression was tremendous.
13:14Well, fascism was defeated in the Pacific. Well, fascism was defeated in the Pacific area by China, okay. And that is something which is very important. And the toll paid by China in this struggle against the Japanese fascism is estimated among between 25 and 30 thousand million.
13:36And the casualties civilian and military paid by China in order to defeat the imperial fascism of Japan.
13:47Thank you, Adilio. Now we are going to make a brief pause so we can retake our conversation in a few minutes because we are going now to see some live images of this large-scale military parade in Tiananmen Square. Thank you. And we will be speaking very shortly.
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