Patriotism, peace and pain: The politics behind China's WWII narrative

Drawing from past lessons, Beijing's strategy is: Only strength can keep China safe

- Yew Lun Tian

In a dark museum hall, a seven-year-old girl stared intently at a black-and-white image of corpses strewn haphazardly in a pond, part of a slideshow depicting the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in Nanjing during World War II.

The next slide showed a close-up of a dead toddler. The girl blinked and turned away.

"No, I don't worry that my daughter will have nightmares from such gory photos," her father Zhao Fei told The Sunday Times. "She needs to know what terrible things the Japanese did to us, so that one day, if our country needs her, she will step up."

Asked whether he meant that if there is a war, he would want his daughter to take up arms, he replied emphatically: "Yes, of course. Boy or girl, we must all do our part."

Mr Zhao had travelled with his daughter from Jinan city in Shandong province, some 400km away, to Beijing to visit the newly reopened Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

China officially counts its anti-war efforts as starting from 1931, when the Japanese invaded its north-eastern territories. The museum was established in 1987 at the site of the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident, which marked the beginning of Japan's full-scale invasion of China.

The museum exhibition is one of a series of events China is organising to mark the 80th anniversary of its "victory against Japan and fascism". The commemoration will culminate in a military parade at Tiananmen Square on Sept 3, which Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend and US President Donald Trump has reportedly been invited to.