In Moscow, Xi Defends the International Order by Misremembering It

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Age: 16 hours

Xi Jinping talking with Putin during the Victory Day military parade. (Source: Xinhua)

Executive Summary:

  • At Moscow’s 80th Victory Day parade, President Xi Jinping positioned the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a key anti-fascist power alongside Russia, using a selective World War II narrative to legitimize the PRC’s present-day international role and deepen symbolic ties with the Kremlin.
  • Xi’s op-ed in Russian state media invoked the UN Charter and a shared anti-fascist legacy to advocate for a “multipolar world,” indirectly blaming the United States for global instability while sidestepping inconvenient historical truths like the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) limited wartime role.
  • Aligning with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s revisionist memory politics, Xi reinforces a domestic and international propaganda campaign that roots the PRC’s modern legitimacy in its contested World War II role, making historical narrative control a strategic imperative.

Authoritarian leaders are adept at creative re-rememberings. Vladimir Putin’s recasting of his illegal invasion of Ukraine as a continuation of Russia’s World War II struggle against the Nazis takes the exercise to new heights. At this year’s commemoration of Victory Day in Moscow, marking the eightieth anniversary of the war, Putin presided over a military parade and delivered a rousing speech linking Russia’s anti-fascist victory of last century to its conquests of today. “We remember the lessons of World War II and will never agree with the distortion of those events,” he said, without irony (President of Russia, May 9).

The purpose of hosting such a lavish celebration of the war anniversary—after three relatively toned down commemorations in the wake of the 2022 invasion—was for Putin to show the world that he is not alone. In his extraterritorial claims, use of unjustifiable force, and, perhaps most brazenly, wholesale recasting of wartime history, Putin sought to demonstrate that he retains the backing of international allies who endorse—or at least tolerate—his revisionist agenda.

Many of these allies were present at the May 9 military parade. Attendees included Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas (CNN, May 9). Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), was the guest of honor.

Xi published an opinion piece in Russian state media titled “Learning from History to Build Together a Brighter Future” (China Daily, May 7). History is a central preoccupation for Xi. He perceives “historical nihilism”—the CCP’s term for deviating from its often undisclosed script—as posing an existential threat: conflicting historical narratives could, according to high-level speeches and documents released under Xi, “precipitate the CCP’s collapse if left unchecked” (China Brief, March 28). In this context, Xi’s op-ed is not a puff piece; rather, it is a reclamation of anti-fascist credentials the CCP never actually earned, repurposed to justify its current and possibly forthcoming aggression.

In its selective story of Sino-Soviet friendship, the article highlights the PRC’s historical ties to Russia insofar as they help center his country in the history of World War II—a recognition Xi believes China has been denied. [1] As is now routine, Xi skips any mention of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) erstwhile rival, the Nationalist Party (国民党, KMT), which led the government in the 1940s and directed China’s wartime strategy. Perhaps one reliable benefit of the PRC’s asymmetric friendship with Russia is historiographical subservience. No one in the Kremlin will challenge such inconsistencies in Xi’s story, like which political party was actually in power. It also helps that Xi’s essay offers direct upsides to Russia.

The article describes a form of patriotism aligned with a globalist agenda. It touts the PRC’s and Russia’s roles as responsible major powers within the United Nations system. After noting that the two countries were among the first to sign the UN Charter following World War II, Xi writes: “Our permanent membership in the UN Security Council is a product of history, earned through blood and sacrifice” (两国在联合国安理会的常任理事国地位是历史形成的，是用鲜血和生命换来的) (Xinhua, May 7). While this dramatic analysis is technically accurate, it could just as easily apply to many other UN members.

Xi goes on to describe an increasingly “turbulent and complex international situation” (国际形势越是变乱交织) that is spurring a need to defend the authority of the UN in service of an “equal and orderly multipolar world” (平等有序的世界多极化) (Xinhua, May 7). The United States is the implied instigator of the turbulence. Under Trump, Xi likely perceives a protectionist and isolationist United States, ceding ground for for him to “tell China’s story well” (讲好中国故事). [2]

He also manages to weave in the CCP’s sovereignty claims over Taiwan by noting—technically accurately—that “this year also marks the 80th anniversary of the restoration of Taiwan [to China].” Taiwan was ceded by Japan to China in the aftermath of the war, but it was granted to the Nationalist Party led by Chiang Kai-shek, who, upon his defeat in the civil war that ensued on the mainland, consolidated control over the island with deadly force. Since then, Taiwan has cultivated and sustained a free and open society.

In his own speech marking the 80th anniversary, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) made a case for protecting his homeland: “At many points in history, people have thought to give the aggressor a small concession to earn peace. But we all know from the painful lessons of WWII, indulging aggressors with a taste of expansion only whets their appetite” (Office of the President, May 8). Taiwan’s problems, then, are the free world’s problems. Lai also directly tied Taiwan’s plight to that of Europe, linking the aggression of the PRC and Russia as their leaders rubbed elbows in Moscow.

Yet Xi’s story remains stubbornly tethered to World War II. His op-ed is not primarily aimed at clarifying the current depth of Beijing’s ties with Moscow, a subject that continues to preoccupy analysts and policymakers. Instead, it is focused on what many might consider a far less pressing issue: who were the good guys in the good war? And can friendliness with Russia help Xi, who was born nine years after the war ended, claim a place among them?

By the traditional dividing lines of World War II, China was on the Allied side—even if it never became a formal ally. Japan’s invasion in 1937 (or 1931, depending on whom you ask) sealed that designation. No matter what governance system China eventually settled on, the country had been sufficiently victimized by Asia’s aggressor to warrant de facto friend status. Those dividing lines were imperfect; neither the young Mao Zedong nor his Nationalist rival, Chiang Kai-shek, could be convincingly described as anti-fascist. At best, they were less fascist, and certainly less expansionist, than Japan. That distinction proved sufficient to earn U.S. assistance in China’s protracted fight against Japan. Xi’s ongoing fixation with the “correct World War II historical perspective” (正确二战史观), however, suggests that it was not enough to secure China a place among the transatlantic heroes in the history books—at least not those published outside the PRC.

That is where Russia and Putin prove useful. In their disproportionate partnership, the PRC offers crucial practicalities: technologies, weapons systems, and a long-awaited gas pipeline (Tass, May 6). In focusing not on the details of the modern Sino-Russia relationship but on its historical underpinnings, Xi betrayed how deeply he relies on his endorsed version of historical memory. Without it, the CCP’s success story risks sounding hollow. The narrative the Party promotes, both internationally and domestically, would begin to unravel, revealing more holes than even a tightly controlled propaganda machine could patch. That makes historical narrative alignment a prerequisite to, not a bonus of, Russia’s partnership with the PRC.

Eighty years ago, Xi writes, the people of both countries triumphed in the anti-fascist war. “We should be guardians of historical memory, partners in national development and rejuvenation, and champions of global fairness and justice” (坚定做历史记忆的守护者、发展振兴的同行者、国际公平正义的捍卫者) (Xinhua, May 7). The implication is clear: without “guarding” a politically convenient version of the past from unnamed revisionists, Beijing and Moscow cannot truly cooperate in addressing the shared challenges of the present. Even as World War II dissolves out of living memory, Xi is compelled to cling to it. Too much of the PRC’s more recent history, forged under the control of the Party, fails to convincingly portray him and his compatriots as the unequivocal “good guys.”

Notes

[1] To an extent, Xi has a point. China is often absent from or extremely downplayed in retellings of the war. Many historians nevertheless concur that the Chinese theater was nowhere near as central to the broad contours of the global conflict as Xi would have his readers believe.

[2] Xu, J., & Gong, Q. (2024). ‘Telling China’s Story Well’ as propaganda campaign slogan: International, domestic and the pandemic. Media, Culture & Society, 46(5), 1064–1074. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437241237942