Opinion | The World’s Wartime Debt to China - The New York Times

OXFORD, England — At the same time that China has stated its desire for peace in Asia, the country has been making assertive claims over waters in the East and South China Seas. The confrontational rhetoric suggests, to many observers (and to China’s uneasy neighbors in the Pacific region), a sense of pent-up entitlement, stemming from Beijing’s growing importance in the world. But another, little-remembered factor is also at play: China’s lingering resentment that its contributions to the Allies’ victory against Japan in World War II were never fully recognized and have yet to translate into political capital in the region. China’s resistance to Japan is one of the great untold stories of World War II. Though China was the first Allied power to fight the Axis, it has received far less credit for its role in the Pacific theater than the United States, Britain or even the Soviet Union, which only joined the war in Asia in August 1945. The Chinese contribution was pushed aside soon after

OXFORD, England — At the same time that China has stated its desire for peace in Asia, the country has been making assertive claims over waters in the East and South China Seas. The confrontational rhetoric suggests, to many observers (and to China’s uneasy neighbors in the Pacific region), a sense of pent-up entitlement, stemming from Beijing’s growing importance in the world. But another, little-remembered factor is also at play: China’s lingering resentment that its contributions to the Allies’ victory against Japan in World War II were never fully recognized and have yet to translate into