CGTN Europe spoke to Jenny Clegg, daughter of Arthur Clegg (an organiser of the China Campaign Committee in the 1930s), and a Vice-president of Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding.
00:00Now this week has been dominated by Beijing's massive military parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory over Japan in the Second World War.
00:10Writer, researcher and China expert Jenny Clegg says that the role China played in the war was enormously significant.
00:18China's role in World War II has been overlooked in the West.
00:21If you ask most people in this country, Britain, who won the war, they would say Roosevelt and Churchill.
00:29They'd avoid mentioning the Soviet Union and they probably don't have a clue that China was an ally.
00:35And of course, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong, the British and the U.S. governments realized how important it was that China was resisting and kept, you know, over half, you know, around 60 percent of Japanese troops occupied in China.
00:56Because if they hadn't been so occupied, they would have been all over the Pacific and America's war in the Pacific would have been that much more, that much harder and more brutal, as well as Britain's war against the Japanese in Burma.
01:13And, you know, had the Chinese people not kept up continual resistance, the outcome of the World War would not necessarily have been favorable.
01:27And indeed, the war could have gone on and on considerably longer.
01:32And what has China's development since that terrible time of World War demonstrated, especially for the global south?
01:39And how does China's position in an increasingly multipolar world reflect a new world order that is very different from that post-war status quo?
01:49It's introduced now four initiatives, the Global Development Initiative, which brought forward the ideas of a new economic, international economic order from the 1970s,
02:03the Global Security Initiative, which involved China and Brazil and other countries putting forward proposals to settle the Ukraine war.
02:16Then there's the Global Civilization Initiative, which really appeals to all countries to engage in dialogue and share their different conceptions of the world, rather than dividing into Cold War blocs.
02:32And we now have the Global Governance Initiative, which was unleashed at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
02:38So in all of these ways, China has extended its diplomacy, strengthened its diplomacy, focused on the global south and linking together the themes of peace and development.
02:52And you can't have peace without development and you can't have development without peace.
02:57That's what China's message is.
02:59And it is increasingly a message that is heard and resonates across the global south.
Be the first to comment