00:00Martin Jakes is a distinguished academic, journalist, political commentator and the author of When China Rules the World.
00:07Martin, what role do events like this play in helping societies remember our past?
00:14Well, I think they're extraordinarily important, especially in the Chinese case because they lost between 15 and 20 million people.
00:23They were on their own in the struggle against the Japanese.
00:27And so it was a huge moment in their history.
00:32And to celebrate it in these new circumstances where China has completely transformed, it must be a thrilling moment for the population.
00:42Many other countries, of course, have held Second World War commemorative events in the United States and Europe and the UK.
00:49Are we remembering what happened in this war or are we forgetting the lessons?
00:58Well, it depends partly on which country you're talking from.
01:01Well, I think that we are, I mean, take the UK, we are remembering, we have remembered the victory in Europe.
01:13We've remembered a bit the victory with regard to Japan.
01:20And I think that we are extremely ignorant about China's role in the last war.
01:28I think most people wouldn't really be able to say, even know about it because it's been defined as separate from the Second World War,
01:37even though really it was part of that period between 1931 and 1945.
01:42And why don't we know about it in the West?
01:45Is it the fault of historians, authors, journalists, reporters or politicians or what?
01:51Well, here are two factors.
01:53One is that they were very separate geographies in the sense that China's war was way,
02:03long, long, long, long away from the European theatre, which occupied the United States, but not wholly, and also Europe.
02:15I think the second reason is that we basically devalue what happens in far away.
02:29And in the case of China, which has been such an unknown quantity for so long, that we just don't feel engaged with it.
02:37We don't know about it.
02:38We don't learn about it.
02:39And this has been very characteristic of this celebration now.
02:46People are beginning to get to know a bit more about it, but it's really from more or less ground zero, I think.
02:53How can commemorations like this foster mutual trust rather than misunderstanding?
03:01Well, I think that's a complex question.
03:03I think that this comes at a, I think it's not just an extraordinary celebration, but it comes at an extraordinary moment in global history
03:14with what is happening in the United States with Trump and what is happening in China
03:20and the conference before, just before this celebration, the SCO conference.
03:29And you have these two things being played out.
03:33That one is America first and the other is drawing countries together.
03:38And in a way that is quite an eloquent expression of the historical moment we're living in.
03:46As we mark this 80th anniversary of the end of the war,
03:51I wonder what you see as the most important lessons that we should draw from it.
03:56Well, one thing that we need to remind ourselves is war is a terrible thing.
04:05And the number of people that died in the Second World War,
04:11and I include in that the China's war with Japan,
04:17they're just a waste of humanity.
04:18The second thing I draw from it is that, you know, since then, there hasn't been another one.
04:27And there are dangers in the present situation.
04:33But the fact that we commemorate these conflicts
04:39is a reminder of what we don't want to happen and shouldn't happen again.
04:46What do you think are the most effective ways the international community can address
04:54on the deeper drivers of this conflict?
04:58What are the tools?
04:59How do you effectively stop this happening again?
05:03The institutions that were set up in the aftermath of the Second World War
05:07seem to be crumbling.
05:09They seem to be under fire.
05:11Well, I think we're living in a very unusual period
05:18where we've got, I would say, a breakdown of the post-war order.
05:27It's still in place, but it's clearly in big difficulties.
05:35America isn't any longer prepared to play the role it has.
05:39And that has been the cornerstone of the international system.
05:44So, and on the other hand, you've got what's been happening around China
05:50and the global south and so on,
05:54which is the birth of the beginnings of a new order.
05:59And this is a very complex situation.
06:01Martin, thank you very much.
06:02Martin Jakes, the academic, journalist and political commentator.
Comments