Taiwan’s denial of communist role in World War II is ‘blasphemy’, China says
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Taiwan says China's ruling Communist Party is falsely claiming credit for leading the fighting when most of it was done by Republic of China forces.
PHOTO: AFP
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BEIJING – China said on Aug 27 that Taiwan was “blaspheming” the sacrifices of those who died fighting Japan in World War II by denying the pivotal role of the Communist Party, and denounced Taipei’s call for Taiwanese to stay away from Beijing’s commemorations.
The 80th anniversary of the end of the war in 2025 has set off a bitter battle of narratives between Beijing and Taipei.
Taiwan says China’s ruling Communist Party is falsely claiming credit for leading the fighting when most of it was done by Republic of China forces, whose government then fled to the island in 1949, after losing a civil war.
Democratically governed Taiwan retains the Republic of China as its formal name.
Taiwan was “slandering and obliterating” the Communist Party’s role as the country’s “backbone” in fighting Japan, Ms Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said in Beijing.
“This is a grave blasphemy against all the loyal martyrs and heroes and a shameless betrayal of the entire Chinese nation,” she said during a press briefing.
Taiwan has urged people not to attend Beijing’s large-scale military parade next week for the anniversary and threatened punishment, such as pension suspension, for current or former senior defence, intelligence or diplomatic officials who do.
Ms Zhu said the war anniversary should be commemorated by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and that representatives from Taiwan had been invited to China’s events, but gave no details.
“Our compatriots in Taiwan should not, and cannot, be absent from the relevant commemorative activities.”
Threats, intimidation, interference or obstruction of Taiwanese taking part by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party were “despicable acts that betray history and the nation”, she added.
China is also marking the anniversary of the handover of Taiwan, a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945, to the Chinese government at the war’s end.
Taiwan calls that another distorted claim, saying sovereignty was ceded to the Republic of China, not the People’s Republic of China, which came into existence only in 1949 with Mao Zedong’s revolution.
China views Taiwan as its own territory, a sovereignty claim rejected by the island’s government, which says only its people can decide their future. REUTERS
