From the Series Essential Dissent
Featured Speakers/Commentators: Radhika Desai, Ken Hammond, Chen Weihua, Jodie Evans, Jenny Clegg, Keith Bennett, K.J. Noh
Date Published: Oct. 5, 2025, midnight
Summary: A webinar held by the International Manifesto Group and Friends of Socialist China on September 21, 2025.
The webinar celebrated the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender – marked in China with spectacular celebrations attended by an array of heads of state and government – focusing in particular on the contributions of the Chinese and other Asian forces which are forgotten in the largely Eurocentric narrative of the Second World War.
The old adage that history is written by the victors does not seem to apply to the real victors of the Second World War, the Soviets and the Chinese on the Eastern and Pacific fronts respectively.
The webinar uncovered some crucial but little-known aspects of the war: for example, that China was the first country to wage war against fascist occupation; that in the course of 14 years of war (1931-45) China suffered over 35 million casualties; and that without the contribution of Chinese, Korean, Mongolian and largely Communist-led resistance forces across the region, the Japanese imperial armies would have had free rein to deploy their forces against the Soviet Union and the Western Allies.
The webinar participants assessed the renewed threats to China and other Asian countries emanating from the US, Japan and the rest of the capitalist world.
https://internationalmanifesto.org
https://socialistchina.org
