The Wrong President Will Attend China’s Military Parade

Of all the major allied powers during the Second World War, the Soviet Union did the least to help China throughout its struggle and the United States did the most.

This a guest post by Dr. David M. Finkelstein, vice president and director of CNA's China and Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Division.

On September 3, the People’s Republic of China will stage what no doubt will be a spectacular military parade to commemorate the 80^th anniversary of the end of the Second World War—known in the PRC as the “Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.” It is a long name. Long, perhaps, because China was at war longer than most countries. Depending upon how one chooses to fix the date, China’s fight in the Second World War began either in 1931, when Imperial Japan’s Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria, or in 1937, with the full-scale invasion of China proper. Regardless, it is undeniable that the people of China fought alone for many years and suffered horrifically, with tens of millions of casualties among soldiers and civilians. The Chinese people have earned their parade.

Among others, the media reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin will share the reviewing stand with President Xi Jinping. While this would certainly reflect current political alignments it would be an ironic twist to the historical record.

Of all the major allied powers during the Second World War, the Soviet Union did the least to help China throughout its struggle and the United States did the most. Moreover, it is arguable that wartime Soviet policies often worked against the interests of both the Nationalist government in Chongqing and the Chinese Communist Party headquartered in Yan’an. Consider the following.

In April 1941, Moscow and Tokyo signed a Treaty of Neutrality, pledging not to fight each other (if not each other’s allies), which freed up Japanese forces in Manchuria to move south into northern China. The Soviet-directed Communist International (Comintern) pressured the Chinese communists to cease hostilities with the Nationalists and enter into the Second United Front with Chongqing. And the Soviets did not declare war on Japan or enter the fight in Asia until August 9, 1945—the day after the US dropped the first atomic bomb. On that day, Moscow launched its invasion of Manchuria. And in the waning hours of the war, on August 14, 1945, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China signed the “Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance.” As historian Rana Mitter has written, “Mao was shell shocked. He had never imagined that Stalin would betray him by signing a separate agreement with Chiang.” True, in the early years of China’s fight, in the late 1930s, the Soviets provided miliary equipment, aircraft, and even pilots. But that military assistance dried up before Pearl Harbor. Overall, Moscow’s policies towards Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government and Mao Zedong and the CCP reflected cynical self-interest.

By contrast, the American military effort to assist wartime China was considerable.

Yes, the China-Burma-India Theater (CBI) was considered what today’s military planners would call an “economy of force theater”—meaning that other theaters of war were of higher priority for equipment and personnel. This was part and parcel of the allied decision to pursue a “Europe First” strategy. But this does not detract from the remarkable efforts that were made in this politically, geographically, operationally, and logistically difficult warzone.

Even before Pearl Harbor, while the US was still a neutral nation, it was clear that many Americans were in full sympathy with China’s plight. American citizens raised millions of dollars to help Chinese war refugees through charities such as the United China Relief. The US Army sent a military mission to China before the US entered the war to assess Chongqing’s military needs and to manage the Lend Lease military supplies that Washington was providing. And with a wink and a nod, President Roosevelt permitted the formation of the American Volunteer Group (AVG), more famously known as the Flying Tigers, to send American-supplied P-40 fighter aircraft flown by American pilots to fight in the air war in Chinese skies. Once the United States entered the war US ground, air, and combat support assets came into the theater with the missions of training, equipping, and supplying the Chinese military to take back Burma and eventually push the Imperial Japanese Army out of China proper.

There are some US efforts and episodes during the war that even today remain in the consciousness of the Chinese people. These include the exploits of the previously mentioned Flying Tigers. It also includes the daring raid in April 1942 by then-Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and his group of B-25 aircraft that bombed Tokyo, giving Americans their first positive war news since Pearl Harbor. Short of fuel, most of the aircraft had to land in China, many of which crashed. The surviving crews were saved by local Chinese, who paid an enormous price in retaliation for doing so.

But there was much more to the American military effort in China than Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers and the Doolittle Raid, and it is quite a story.

It is a story set in arid Assam, in the sub-zero temperatures flying over the Himalayan Mountains (“The Hump”), of ground force operations in the steaming jungles and mountains of Burma, and in lush southwestern and central China. It is the narrative of American and Chinese ground forces working together to regroup, retrain, and re-equip to take back Burma from the Imperial Japanese Army. It is a mostly forgotten saga of the US military training tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers at bases in India, Guilin, and Kunming by mostly forgotten US organizations, such as the Chinese Combat and Training Command. It is a narrative of the US Army Air Transport Command keeping the Republic of China in the fight by executing the world’s first sustained strategic airlift (foreshadowing the Berlin Airlift in 1948), creating US bomber bases in Sichuan Province, and executing precision air drops of supplies to US special operations forces deep in Burma’s jungles. It is also the story of US combat engineers building the “Stilwell Road” from Burma to China and of US Army doctors and nurses providing medical support in combat zones. It is a narrative of US Army officers and non-commissioned officers being embedded in Chinese combat units to serve as advisers—over 3,000 of them by 1945. Most of all it is a story of Americans and Chinese—military and civilian—working together to keep China in the fight. So, Beijing has invited the wrong president to its victory parade.

That said, the idea of a sitting US president sharing the reviewing stand with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at a PRC military event would be difficult to imagine even for an administration as unconventional as this one. Today, the US and PRC eye each other warily. The Pentagon has identified the PRC as the US military’s “pacing challenge.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army refers to the US military as “the strong enemy.” The Japan of 2025 is not the Japan of 1945; Tokyo is counted among Washington’s closest security partners in Asia. For its part, Russia continues its brutal war against Ukraine, which is reminiscent of the military assaults on sovereignty that China suffered in the 1930s.

So, in this year of international commemorations it appears that the efforts of the US armed forces in the China-Burma-India theater will likely remain uncelebrated. But when Beijing has its parade, I will be imagining that the last elements to march by the reviewing stand will be the ghostly ranks of thousands of American service members who fought far from their homes to help China in its most dire hour.