Taiwan to mark World War II’s end in history narrative battle

Xi Jinping to attend Moscow military parade a day later, write Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee

- Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee

Resident Lai Ching-te will next week mark for the first time in Taiwan the end of World War Il in Europe and underscore that aggression must be defeated, sources told Reuters, ata time the island is facing increasing military pressure from China.

Taiwan has, since the start of this year, sought to cast the war as a lesson to China in why aggression will end in failure, and take back the narrative from Beijing that it was not the communist forces who took victory.

World War II, and the full-scale Japanese invasion of China in 1937 that preceded the start of the conflict in 1939, is a touchy historical subject in both China and Taiwan.

The Chinese government at the time was the Republic of China, part of the US and British-led alliance, and its forces did much of the fighting against Japan, putting on pause a bitter civil war with Mao Zedong’s Communists whose military also fought the Japanese.

The republican government then fled to Taiwan in 1949 after finally being defeated by Mao, and the Republic of China remains the democratic island’s official name.