With Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un among 26 world leaders watching, China’s president Xi Jinping made a muscular address to 50,000 people in Tiananmen Square marking 80 years since the end of the second world war. China is “never intimidated by bullies” and would “stand by the right side of history”, Xi said, adding that “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation was unstoppable”.
Absent from the ceremony was Taiwan’s leader, Lai Ching-te, who instead took to Facebook, writing that Taiwan does not “commemorate peace with the barrel of a gun”. Taiwan had barred public officials from attending the event.
China and Taiwan both claim their forces bore the true burden of Chinese resistance against Japan during the second world war, and use this contested history to lay claim to power and territory. Now China is weaponising this history, pushing for a “correct” perspective of the war as it seeks to reshape the world order and assert its ambitions over Taiwan.
