Key role in anti-fascist victory

People from all walks of life mourn for victims died in the war.[Photo/Xinhua]

Seventy-eight years ago near Beijing's Marco Polo Bridge, Chinese people, facing the threat of their nation and people being subjugated by Japanese militarists, fired the first shots of resistance against Japan's aggression on July 7.

In the following years of the war, the united front against Japan's invasion based on cooperation between the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang opened a large-scale theater of war against fascism in the East.

The main battlefield for Japan was still on the Chinese mainland even after Japan declared war against the United States and Britain. When Japan announced its surrender to China in September 1945, Japanese forces in the China war zone totaled 1.28 million, exceeding its surrendered forces in the rest of Asia, and accounting for more than 50 percent of its forces in overseas regions. The number of captive Japanese soldiers and casualties in China was 1.56 million, over 60 percent of the Japanese total during World War II.

China was the earliest country to stage a war of resistance against fascism and its courageous fight consolidated world confidence in the fight against fascism. The role of the Chinese people and their huge contribution to the final victory have increasingly been acknowledged by the international community.

Some Western historians even suggest that without China's resistance against Japanese aggression, the history of World War II might have been different.

The victory the Chinese people achieved in the fight against Japan allows no distortion. A series of activities to be held by China to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the victory is aimed at safeguarding the fruits of the victory in the war against fascism and maintaining the post-war international order. They will fully display Chinese people's aspirations for peace and development.

The above is an abridgement of a People's Daily article published on Wednesday.