Xi Revisits WWII to Boost China in Great-Power Rivalry With the U.S.

Eighty decades after the end of World War II, China's Communist Party is still battling for recognition of its role in securing final victory and its claims to the territorial spoils—amid a bruising rivalry with the U.S.

- Chun Han Wong

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has directed an expansive propaganda campaign in recent months to trumpet the party's account of how it helped defeat Japan. On Sept. 3, he will oversee a grand parade of troops, missiles and tanks rumbling through central Beijing to commemorate the 1945 victory.

Xi's goal is to rouse popular support for the party and for his agenda as he grapples with a sluggish economy and the escalating competition with the U.S., officials and scholars say.

By promoting the party's war narratives, Xi aims to boost China's standing as a world power, justify Beijing's territorial claim over the island democracy of Taiwan and rally international support for China's efforts to challenge U.S. pre-eminence.

"Xi Jinping is rewriting the history of the Second World War" to serve his political interests, said Hans van de Ven, a professor of modern Chinese history at Cambridge University.

In China, the party's messaging is unavoidable ahead of the 80th anniversary celebration. Films and television shows lionize Communist guerrillas for resisting the Japanese invasion. Party scholars and curators produced essays and exhibitions portraying the Communists as a foundation of Chinese war efforts against Japan—diluting the credit traditionally given to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Party, which governed mainland China until 1949.

Abroad, Chinese diplomats have stressed that China helped defeat the Axis powers and build an international order centered on the United Nations—a multilateral system that Beijing accuses President Trump of trying to dismantle to advance his "America First" agenda.

In its place, Beijing has cast itself as a force for global stability.