TAIPEI: Taiwan criticised Russia and China on Friday for distorting World War Two history, saying Chinese communist forces made “no substantial contribution” to fighting Japan and instead took the opportunity to expand their own forces.
Taiwan has this year sought to cast the war as a lesson to China in why aggression will end in failure, reminding the world it was not the government in Beijing that won the war.
The Chinese government at the time was the Republic of China, part of the US, British and Russian-led alliance, and its forces did much of the fighting against Japan, putting on pause a bitter civil war with Mao Zedong’s Communists whose military also fought the Japanese.
The republican government then fled to Taiwan in 1949 after finally being defeated by Mao, and Republic of China remains the democratic island’s official name.
Responding to comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chinese President Xi Jinping that the war was won under the leadership of China’s communist party, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said it was the Republic of China government and people who fought and ultimately won.
