The Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Politics of Memory in PRC

Abstract

The article deals with the impact of the Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945) on the politics of memory in PRC. Some events of this war, for example, the Nanjing massacre as well as the problem of comfort women are still a vital part of collective memory of Chinese. In recent years studies on Sino-Japanese war and its impact on the politics of memory in China have been constantly growing in number. Less attention has been paid to the history of the issue and its impact on foreign relations in Asia, including China-Japan relations. While work has been done on the revealing of political motives for shaping of PRC’s politics of memory, the impact of Chinese cultural characteristics on this issue has been neglected. Therefore, the historical transformation of war memories in PRC’s memory politics and above all the influence of cultural characteristics and specific worldview of Chinese on memory politics in modern China need further research. This article focuses on (1) the historical transformation of collective memory related to the Sino-Japanese war in China’s historical politics, (2) the influence of Chinese cultural peculiarities, such as “ritual thinking”, on politics of memory in China and (3) the impact of PRC’s historical politics on relations between China and Japan nowadays.