World War II in China — Seriously Understudied History

On 22 January, 2016 Judd Kinzley, Assistant Professor at the Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA gave a presentation, ‘Wartime Atrocities and the Historical Legacies of World War II in China’at the academic seminar of the HSE International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences.

In this talk Assistant Prof. Kinzley sought to understand the long term legacies of Japan's war in China by thinking about the shifting ways in which punishment and reparations have been pursued by various Chinese governments. Beginning with a description of Japan's atrocities and its war effort in China, the talk continued with the immediate post war pursuit of war criminals, the changes to that policy brought about by the Cold War and the ways that memories of the war continue to be shaped and manipulated by leaders in the People's Republic today.

Judd Kinzley says that, ‘In the context of China, World War II is really understudied.’ Why it is understudied and the role that memories of the war have had in shaping modern China was the focus of his talk. ‘I think that so much more work remains to be done on the experience of China at war,’ explains Kinzley. ‘ The most impressive thing for me about the war is just how little the war was talked about in China from 1950 to 1985. In a war in which perhaps 35 million Chinese died, the fact that it was talked about so little for nearly all of the second half of the 20th century is quite shocking to me.’

 The most impressive thing for me about the war is just how little the war was talked about in China from 1950 to 1985. In a war in which perhaps 35 million Chinese died, the fact that it was talked about so little for nearly all of the second half of the 20th century is quite shocking to me

Judd Kinzley is an expert in the history of modern China. His research interests include environmental history, state power, industrial development, and wartime mobilization. Russia, he explains, has come into his field of research through his interest in China, ‘The Soviet Union was the main supporter of China in the early years following the Japanese invasion. We tend to think of the US as being China's main ally during the war, but this was not the case until December of 1942. In fact, Soviet military aid and the efforts of Red Army pilots kept China in the war in 1937, 1938, 1939, and 1940.’

This is Judd’s first trip to Moscow and he hopes to develop the connection he has made with HSE through Liudmila Novikova to whom he was introduced by a colleague back in Wisconsin who heard he was organising a research trip to Moscow. Judd hasn’t had much time to look around, ‘I have spent most of my time in the RGAE, the Russian State Economics Archives,  which has been a really great experience. I don't have any specific plans for on-going projects but now that I know more about Moscow and the research opportunities available here, I want to try and find more reasons to come back!’

Anna Chernyakhovskaya, specially for HSE News service