C Raja Mohan writes in The Indian Express - World War II and its forgotten impact on Asia is being weaponised. US, Japan, China all invoke 1945 to justify present.
China says US-Japan alliance is ghost of Japanese militarism, while US says China's claim over Taiwan and South China Sea is ghost of imperial Japan. Japan's new security laws remove "seventy years of pacifism" to challenge China.
Read more - America's Fractured Hegemony
The historical fact, but its qualification: In China it is called War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in Japan it is Pacific War, in India it is both World War and INA's war.
For India, 1945 ghosts matter. India's China policy, Tibet, and Northeast frontier were shaped by World War II. Japan's wartime cooperation with Subhas Bose, and China's wartime role as US ally, both affect current QUAD and Indo-Pacific.
Read more - War, Wealth and Wreckage
Mohan says references to history are rarely innocent. The past is interpreted and reinterpreted to present and future. Since returning to power, Beijing has intensified wartime cooperation with both Russia and China - India-China border memory from 1962 to 2020 is also ghost.
Tags: #USChina #WorldWarll #IndoPacific #C RajaMohan #Geopolitics #Japan #Taiwan #History #QUAD #Asia