China's Victory Day parade on September 3 has been endorsed by the presence of more than 30 global leaders, including Russian President Vladmir Putin, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang, and Myanmese President U Thein Sein. This commemorative event is meant to show China's pride in its part in the defeat of imperial Japan 70 years ago.
Frankly speaking, most Chinese expect that the US will pay due attention to and join the parade, as the two countries were allies during WWII. The US government in 1941 started to massively aid China through the Lend-Lease Act. Most Chinese are grateful for US help during the war, especially Claire Lee Chennault and his "Flying Tigers."
In fact, if the US showed its support to China's commemoration, the Chinese would be willing to know more about how both countries joined hands for a just cause. After the 19th century, the US, unlike its European counterparts and Japan, didn't engage in large-scale imperialism in China. On the contrary, American missionaries built modern universities, medical schools and hospitals in China.
During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), over 50 US NGOs founded a variety of programs to raise fund to aid the Chinese people, such as the United China Relief. Henry Luce, the legendary publishing magnate, asked his magazines to print articles every week that could inform ordinary Americans about how the Chinese suffered at the hands of the Japanese army. The extent of people-to-people exchanges between the US and China at that time was beyond many people's expectations nowadays.
Chinese casualties during the war are estimated at 35 million. Over 300,000 people were brutally butchered in several weeks in the Nanjing Massacre. The numbers might be different, but China and many victim countries of WWII share the same bitter feelings.
When Chinese tourists visit holocaust memorial museums in Washington, Berlin and Jerusalem, they have great empathy with the Jews who were tortured and killed in concentration camps. In the war, China took in and protected more than 30,000 Jewish people in Shanghai, which is still regarded by some Jewish people as their second hometown.
In the upcoming parade, the war heroes, be they Chinese, Americans or Russians, who fought in the war and are still alive, will have a reunion. This might be the last chance for these 90-year-olds to relive their glory.
China has every reason to commemorate the war. On its own turf, it occupied the attentions of nearly 64 percent of the Japanese army, which is a great contribution to the final victory of the war.
However, unfortunately, Washington has chosen politics over past brotherhood. By showing reluctance to join China's parade, the Obama government has soured the Chinese people's feelings about the US.
In order to make Japan the most loyal henchman to counter China, the US has even compromised morally, and submitted to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's historical revisionism. Now, Japan's Class-A war criminals are still enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine, and Abe, in his speech to commemorate the end of WWII, claimed that Japan didn't have to stick to a regretful and apologetic attitude toward the war in the future.
The Chinese find it hard to understand why the US government has a distorted view about China's military parade, and why it doesn't oppose such events when they happen in France or India. It is true that the US rarely holds large military parade, but it conducted its "parades" on other countries' turf, from Vietnam to Afghanistan and to Iraq through waging wars. In this case, China's parade is much less costly and more moral than the US, as it doesn't harm humanity.
The author is a research fellow with the Charhar Institute and an adjunct fellow with the Center for International and Strategic Studies, Peking University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn