Historian: Taiwan can use WWII legacy to improve standing with China

Taiwan can learn important lessons from late Republic of China president Chiang Kai-shek and his leading role in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) — also known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japan — to improve its standing across the strait, according to Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford, in an email to Want China Times on Nov. 22.

In an article entitled "The World's Wartime Debt to China" for the New York Times, Mitter discussed how Beijing is currently trying to establish a new international order in the Western Pacific based on the goals set by Chiang Kai-shek nearly 70 years ago. Mitter said that Taipei may find it harder to follow on from Chiang, however.

"I think that would be hard! The ROC government of today has to deal with regional neighbors with a very different agenda," Mitter told the Want China Times. "For instance, Chiang Kai-shek wanted an independent Vietnam but he would not have approved it having a Communist government."...