Professor Rana Mitter looks to Chinas past for lessons for today

In an article written for Australias ABC News (8 April), Rana Mitter argues that in order to understand contemporary Chinese foreign policy we must look to the countrys experiences during World War II.

Rana notes that the contribution China made to helping the Allies emerge victorious from the war is often neglected in the West. Chinas role in helping defeat Japan proved critical to the overall Allied effort, and marked Chinas emergence as a power in global diplomacy, making it the only non-Western country to sit permanently in the new UN Security Council. Yet following the 1949 civil war in which Mao came to power, China grew isolated from the West and its wartime contributions were quickly forgotten.

Rana concludes, A greater understanding of Chinas World War II experience would be good both for China and for the West. For China, it would mean that a long-unhealed wound would at last be acknowledged But the post-war settlement also provides a lesson for China, and it is not an easy one. The Allied victory meant not a free pass for the winners in global society, but rather new responsibilities China should be given credit for its contribution to the Allied victory, but it will also need to shoulder the responsibilities of being a great power in the Pacific in the present day.

The article can be read in full here.