With a clarity informed by thorough research, Rana Mitter reports on World War II’s growing importance in China’s popular culture and official self-representation. American readers may find his account in China’s Good War perplexing, for much in the Chinese view strikes us as distorted or self-contradictory. Now, it must be admitted that no nation treats its wars with scrupulous fidelity to the whole truth. In the V-E Day speeches with which the Allies congratulated themselves for defeating Hitler, it was not customary to mention the Vichy regime, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, or the America First movement. But one of the main takeaways from this book is that the Chinese understanding of World War II undergirds claims they now make on the rest of the world. As rude as it may seem to challenge misconceptions of the type to which we all are prone, we cannot finesse the disagreement here.
