War Remembrance in China and Its Influence on Contemporary Sino-Japanese relations

Abstract

Problems of the historical past remain one of the most important factors that plague Sino-Japanese relations for the last few decades. Questions that are related to events of WWII and in particular events of the Second Sino-Japanese war are still actual and remain a sensitive issue in contemporary China. Calls to Tokyo, made by Beijing, in order to impel Japan to accept liability for aggression and war crimes of Japanese Empire in Asia in the first half of the 20th century are sometimes muted (when Sino-Japanese relations improve) and sometimes actualized (when bilateral relations deteriorate). The paper analyzes Chinese approaches to interpretation of questions of history past, related to the Chinese War of Resistance against Japan (1937—1945), that were typical for the second half of the 20th century, period of uneven development of Sino-Japanese relations (2000—2005), period of “defusing” of history questions (2006—2009), actualization of these problems on the back of escalation of territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo (2010—2013) and period of “unfreezing” of bilateral relations as well as transformation of approaches to the problems of history past.