Tokyo Report | Diplomacy | East Asia

Concerns About ‘WWII Allies’ at US-China Summit

How China is weaponizing WWII history

At the U.S.-China summit in September 2026, both leaders spoke of the fact that the United States and China had been allies in World War II and had fought together. Of course, the United States and China (the Republic of China) were indeed Allied nations in WWII and fought together against Japan and others, and if the summit remarks were intended simply to reaffirm that historical fact and invoke shared memory, then they should give rise to no particular concern.

It is also worth recalling that in 2015, the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, U.S.-China relations were relatively stable, and China was emphasizing that it had fought alongside the United States and other major Western powers as key members of the Allied coalition, and had jointly created the postwar order. At that time, China was using the phrase “New Model of Major-Country Relations” in its relations with the United States. If the invocation of wartime partnership at the recent summit was intended to evoke memories of that 2015 period and signal an intention to restore the “New Model of Major-Country Relations,” that too would be comprehensible as a matter of Chinese policy.

However, more than ten years have now passed since 2015, and China’s narrative on history today is different from what it once was. So the fact that wartime partnership was raised by both sides at this summit is, in fact, a cause for concern. To explain, it is necessary to look at how China has recently been employing its historical narrative — with particular attention to its relationship with Russia.

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and China’s response to it, together with Russia’s war in Ukraine beginning in 2022, generated widespread international criticism of both countries. That criticism brought China and Russia closer together, and the two countries more openly positioned themselves in opposition to Western nations. In 2024, the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Russian diplomatic relations and a year in which the pandemic was still fresh in mind and the war in Ukraine was very much ongoing, Russian President Vladimir Putin made an official visit to China in May and issued a joint statement. It included the following passage:

“China and Russia will continue to firmly defend the results of the victory of the Second World War and the postwar world order enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, and oppose the negation, distortion, and falsification of the history of World War II. They plan to solemnly celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the Soviet Union’s Patriotic War in 2025 and jointly promote a correct view of the history of World War II.”

This statement signaled that China and Russia intended to jointly insist on what they view as the “correct history” of WWII to the world, while refusing to accept any historical perspective that differs from their own.

In March 2025, at a press conference on the occasion of China’s National People’s Congress, State Councilor Wang Yi stated that, marking the 80th anniversary of victory in WWII, China and Russia were reaffirming that they had fought together in Asia and Europe at the cost of blood, and went on to say that, building on this past, the two countries would jointly promote a correct understanding of WWII history, defend the fruits of that victory, uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core, and advance the international order in a more just and reasonable direction. China and Russia have thus pledged not only to reaffirm their wartime partnership but to jointly seek to shape the present international order on that basis. For China........

© The Diplomat