China and the United States, partners who fought together for peace and justice during World War II, should recapture that spirit of cooperation to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and other common foes, Beijing's top envoy in Washington said on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The anniversary, observed Sept 2 in the US, is commemorated in China on Sept 3 to mark the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War.
Putting aside the mounting tensions between Washington and Beijing, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai took the opportunity to revisit the shared history of the two countries during the war, when China and the US fought "shoulder to shoulder" for peace and justice in the Asian theater.
The ambassador tweeted a video clip Thursday that shows the pictures of the Flying Tigers — officially, the First American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force — and its team leader, US aviator Claire Lee Chennault, who helped China during the war.
"Since then, Flying Tigers, General Claire Chennault and General Joseph Stilwell have become household names in China," Cui said.
In January, the Stilwell Road Museum opened to the public in Tengchong, in southwest China's Yunnan province. Both the road and the museum were named after Joseph Stilwell, the US Army general and a head of the China-Burma-India Theater, according to earlier Chinese media reports.
The neighboring Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region built the Flying Tigers Heritage Park in 2005 on the site of the Yangtang Airfield, the command base of the Flying Tigers.
Since he has been in the US, Ambassador Cui has received letters from US veterans of the Doolittle Raid, the daring April 1942 air attack on Tokyo and other targets, about their wartime memories of China.
"In the letters, they recalled with deep gratitude that when they made crash landings in China after raiding Tokyo in World War II, the Chinese people put themselves in harm's way to rescue them and made huge sacrifices for it," he said. "This part of history will not be forgotten."
According to a 2015 book, Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor, most of the aircrews flew on to China after attacking Japan. Low on fuel, the men either bailed out or crash-landed along the coast and were rescued by local villagers, guerrillas and missionaries.
"That generosity shown by the Chinese would trigger a horrific retaliation by the Japanese that claimed an estimated quarter-million lives," author James M. Scott wrote in the book.
Cui noted that China was the first country to sign the United Nations Charter after the war, and it has always dedicated itself to safeguarding and contributing to the international order.
Over the past 75 years, China, the US and the rest of the world have all gone through tremendous changes, and the growth of relations between China and the US has made a "significant contribution" to the wellbeing of the two peoples and to world peace, stability and prosperity, he added.
Looking back at the history is for a right perspective of the future, Cui said.
Quoting a famous saying — "The best way to predict the future is to create it" — Cui proposed the two countries relive the spirit of cooperation from World War II and "confront our common enemies in the new era: COVID-19, economic recession, climate change and other global challenges".
Cui concluded: "Let's work together to realize the vision enshrined in the UN Charter: 'to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom'."
