Rana Mitter

Editor's Note:

In WWII, 14 million or more Chinese people were killed, 80 million to 100 million became refugees, and some three quarters of 1 million Japanese were held down by Chinese. However, such huge sacrifice and resistance "disappeared down in a hole created by the early Cold War," said Rana Mitter (Mitter), a professor of Chinese history at Oxford University in his new book Forgotten Ally: China's War with Japan, 1937-1945. Mitter talked with Global Times (GT) London correspondent Sun Wei about the untold stories of WWII and the unfinished business of 1945 in his eyes.

GT: Why did you decide to research China's contributions to WWII? Why is it relevant to today's geopolitics?

Mitter: The major reason is it seems to me that it is the last major narrative story of that wartime period that has not been sufficiently explored by Western historians.

If you look at the numbers on British, American or even Japanese roles in the war, they fill dozens of shelves. On the war in China, particularly if you look at English language scholarship, the total amount is much smaller.

It struck me that it was important to try draw together the native research to place the Chinese story of WWII in a wider historical context.

In terms of significance for today, there is great relevance. One reason is that China itself is beginning to look once again at those wartime years, and use it to make statements about its own identity.

One example is Chongqing, which was the wartime capital of the Chinese government. It has begun to preserve the history of that period.

Some embassies of foreign countries in Chongqing have now been preserved as historical relics.

You can go to the museum that was the old house where an American general stayed.

Aspects of that wartime period are now being used by Chongqing to talk about its own history in quite a new way compared to 20 and 30 years ago.

GT: What challenges and difficulties have you encountered while doing this research?

Mitter: It's very challenging for a variety of reasons. A lot of materials were destroyed in fires or bombings or in the political upheavals. In some cases it exists, but has been locked away.

There are also some topics that are still difficult to explore. For instance, the character I talked about in my book at some length is Wang Jingwei, the figure who collaborated with Japan rather than resisting them.

I am interested in looking at the motivations of Wang, not to excuse his behavior but to understand it. But sometimes it is still difficult to discuss him in China as he is simply described as a "traitor."

The complexity behind some of those historical decisions is also challenging to discuss.

GT: In your article "The World's Wartime Debt to China" published in October 2013 in the New York Times, you said "China's resistance to Japan is one of the great untold stories of WWII." In July this year, you expressed a similar opinion in another Q&A piece. What has been the feedback so far?

Mitter: There has been an expert response in two ways. One is in the West itself: There has been a growing interest in China's role in WWII.

One of the things I found very gratifying is the book I wrote received a very large number of reviews, most of which were positive, and which agreed that looking into China's role is something that the West needed to do.

As China becomes a more important factor in global politics, people of the rest of the world will begin to appreciate its history more, and they will know its history and present more clearly, although this takes time.

On the other hand, it has been very gratifying that even before the book was translated, there seems to have been quite a lot of tension in social media in China about the fact that a foreign professor has written about the war. It opened some discussion in social media about China's role.

The book has just been translated into Chinese. It was released in Taiwan and Hong Kong three months ago. The mainland edition has just come out. Now it's available for the Chinese people to read in Chinese.

I am interested in seeing if the idea that there is foreign interest in the war helps to stimulate more discussion in China itself.

GT: What's the Western view on China's contribution in WWII in general?

Mitter: Let's find out what the contribution is, and why it's ignored for the main historical argument.

In terms of sacrifice, we have to remember that 14 million or more Chinese were killed, 80 million to 100 million Chinese became refugees during the war, some three quarters of 1 million Japanese troops were pinned down by the Chinese army.

If China had surrendered in 1938, the whole shape of Asia would have been different for decades, and Japan's empire would have had a much higher chance of dominating all of Asia.

So the Chinese resistance is really important for the shape of Asia, and global history.

GT: Is this topic drawing increasing attention in the West? Why did Western historians treat China's role in WWII as a sideshow?

Mitter: There are two reasons, one in the West and one in Asia, both linked to the Cold War.

The history of China's wartime experience disappeared down a hole created by the Cold War. And the hole in the history came because in the West China was reframed from a wartime ally to a Cold War opponent.

After 1949, China's relations with the West became very chilly. Western historians couldn't go to China to find the archives, they couldn't have conferences and discuss it with their colleagues.

And therefore that element of that story fell out of the way in which they considered the global war. The Cold War made it very difficult for this to continue.

Also, the Cold War created a closing of China to the Western world. China's historians were not able to interact with their colleagues from overseas, and to talk about the way in which China's wartime history fitted in to the global story.

From both sides, there was a real difficulty in taking part of the global historical conversation which is necessary to write that war.

The situation has changed a lot in the last 20 or 30 years. Now there is much more of a sense in China and West that they are taking part in a global writing of history, rather than something that just sits in one country or another on its own.