The Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was a great struggle for national survival and a vital part of the World Anti-Fascist War. Yet for decades, Western academia has exhibited a systematic bias in its assessment of China’s role in the war. While recent scholarship has begun to correct some of these misconceptions—such as Harvard professor Rana Mitter’s Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937–1945, and Cambridge professor Hans van de Ven’s call to integrate the Chinese experience into broader WWII narratives—Western academic portrayals still fall short of fully recognizing the historical significance and global impact of China’s war efforts.

Deviances of Western research

Western academic discourse tends to mischaracterize China’s resistance against Japanese aggression in four key ways.

First, it marginalizes the Eastern theater within global narratives. Mainstream Western WWII historiography has long followed a Western-centric perspective. Gerhard Weinberg, for instance, acknowledged that Chinese resistance diverted Japanese forces but argued it failed to significantly alter the strategic balance in the Pacific. Although the 21st century has seen a shift toward global history and a growing application of Chinese-centered approaches, the strategic role of China as the main theater in the East remains underemphasized. Mitter, while highlighting China as a “forgotten ally,” still frames the Chinese battlefield within the context of the Pacific War, offering a limited evaluation of its broader significance.

Second, there is a persistent tendency to downplay the strategic importance of China’s resistance by casting it as a mere “war of attrition,” though Western scholars often acknowledge the intensity and tenacity of China’s resistance. In his book Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze, Peter Harmsen described the Battle of Shanghai as a model of modern urban warfare, but he confines its strategic value to an attritional campaign that merely bought time for the United Kingdom and the United States to prepare. Such interpretations not only diminish the strategic value of the Chinese theater but also reflect the biases of Western historiography regarding the Eastern front.

Third, Western academia often fails to grasp the full complexity of China’s war efforts, misconstruing the nature of the “people’s war” and neglecting the internal diversity of the resistance. Excessive focus on KMT (Kuomintang)–CPC dynamics has obscured broader societal participation, including the critical roles played by local governments and ethnic minority regions. Jonathan Spence’s The Search for Modern China largely overlooks the multi-layered political and social mobilization behind the resistance. Jonathan Fenby’s accounts similarly downplay the importance of national unity. Andrew Kennedy reduces the concept of people’s war to a political tactic employed by the CPC, while Michael Lynch suggests it was merely a necessary strategy rather than a reflection of widespread popular mobilization. These views misrepresent the character of China’s resistance and, in some cases, verge on distortion or slander.

Fourth, Western scholars have often overstated the role of foreign aid. While assistance from allied powers was indeed important, it was neither the sole nor the decisive factor in China’s eventual victory—the autonomy and perseverance of the CPC cannot be dismissed or diminished. In How the Far East Was Lost, Anthony Kubek advances a narrative of American aid determinism, attributing China’s success to external factors such as the Burma Road. Similarly, John Dower’s War Without Mercy emphasizes how US aid shifted the balance in China’s favor, without giving due consideration to the country’s own agency and strategic persistence. Such portrayals risk undervaluing China’s central role and long-term contribution to WWII.

Structural sources of bias

Western academic bias regarding China’s position in WWII is not merely a transient phenomenon; rather, it is rooted in entrenched ideological prejudices, limitations of academic theories, and selective biases in access to and interpretation of research materials.

One contributing factor is the enduring Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice against communist China. These biases have led some Western scholars to downplay China’s international standing during WWII.

Second, the theoretical framework of Western-centrism has constrained historical inquiry. From its inception, Western WWII historiography has prioritized the European theater and the US’s role in the Pacific War, relegating the Chinese front to the margins.

Third, there are selective biases in source usage, particularly in access to and interpretation of archival materials. Early Western scholarship on WWII relied heavily on Western documents, reinforcing a Western-centric perspective and neglecting the Chinese battlefield. More recently, the digitization of Japanese sources has increased the weight of Japanese perspectives in Western research, further obscuring China’s international contributions and its status as the principal theater in the East.

Liu Bensen is a professor from the School of Marxism at Shandong Normal University.