Wartime Memory Shows China-Russia Ties Far From 'Limitless'

Invoking the“scourge” of the Second World War enables both Russia and China to frame these concerns while advocating a multipolar world defined by regional spheres of influence. Yet, as my research shows, three trends in Russia and China's official war remembrance reveal strains in their proclaimed no-limits partnership.

First, there is little convergence in their historical narratives on key episodes of the war or on the nature of their wartime relationship. Both sides advance different claims about who contributed most to defeating Japan and who assisted whom.

Russian narratives emphasize the Red Army's decisive contribution, downplaying China's role in tying down Japanese forces. Beijing, meanwhile, suggests it made the largest sacrifice among the allies. It claims to have been decisive in prolonging Japan's entanglement in China and securing its ultimate defeat.

In 2023, I carried out an analysis of more than 14,000 Chinese and Russian state-sponsored news articles with my colleague Eric Zhang. Combined with extensive fieldwork in China, our findings suggest that convergence with Russia's preferred historical narratives has been limited to shared silences about episodes that would embarrass each other.

These include wartime mutual frictions or Soviet crimes during the liberation of northeastern China.

Even more striking, given the strategic importance both sides attach to their friendship, is how little they have made of personal wartime stories. This is despite the rich historical material available for constructing a shared memory.

Roughly 1,500 Soviet advisers and 2,000 combat pilots supported China's early war effort. About 200 of these so-called“Flying Eagles” were killed. Yet their stories remain largely unknown to the public, with only a few of these aviators commemorated in China.

One exception is Hryhorij Kulishenko, a Ukrainian-born Soviet Air Force pilot who was killed during the battle for Wuhan in October 1939. During a 2013 state visit to Russia, Chinese leader Xi Jinping highlighted Kulishenko's story as a symbol of enduring solidarity between the two countries.

Addressing the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Xi described Kulishenko as a hero who had fought“side by side with the Chinese people” and would never be forgotten. But in recent years, these“Flying Eagles” have gradually faded from China's official narrative of friendship with Russia.

By contrast, Chinese official accounts and history exhibitions are replete with references to Sino‐US cooperation during the war, especially the American volunteer group of the Chinese Air Force known as the“Flying Tigers.” They have been portrayed by Chinese state media as a lasting symbol of shared struggle and friendship.

This leads to the second trend: the China-Russia memory alliance is being diluted by Beijing's increasingly active memory diplomacy toward the US.

China's efforts to highlight its wartime cooperation with the US reached a peak during Xi's recent state visit to Washington. At the White House welcome ceremony, Donald Trump echoed Xi's praise for the Flying Tigers. He even recalled that the US and China had fought together as“allies” during the war.