Concerns About ‘WWII Allies’ at US-China Summit

At the U.S.-China summit in September 2026, both leaders spoke of the fact that the United States and China had been allies in World War II and had fought together. Of course, the United States and China (the Republic of China) were indeed Allied nations in WWII and fought together against Japan and others, and if the summit remarks were intended simply to reaffirm that historical fact and invoke shared memory, then they should give rise to no particular concern.

It is also worth recalling that in 2015, the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, U.S.-China relations were relatively stable, and China was emphasizing that it had fought alongside the United States and other major Western powers as key members of the Allied coalition, and had jointly created the postwar order. At that time, China was using the phrase “New Model of Major-Country Relations” in its relations with the United States. If the invocation of wartime partnership at the recent summit was intended to evoke memories of that 2015 period and signal an intention to restore the “New Model of Major-Country Relations,” that too would be comprehensible as a matter of Chinese policy.

However, more than ten years have now passed since 2015, and China’s narrative on history today is different from what it once was. So the fact that wartime partnership was raised by both sides at this summit is, in fact, a cause for concern. To explain, it is necessary to look at how China has recently been employing its historical narrative — with particular attention to its relationship with Russia.

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and China’s response to it, together with Russia’s war in Ukraine beginning in 2022, generated widespread international criticism of both countries. That criticism brought China and Russia closer together, and the two countries more openly positioned themselves in opposition to Western nations. In 2024, the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Russian diplomatic relations and a year in which the pandemic was still fresh in mind and the war in Ukraine was very much ongoing, Russian President Vladimir Putin made an official visit to China in May and issued a joint statement. It included the following passage:

“China and Russia will continue to firmly defend the results of the victory of the Second World War and the postwar world order enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, and oppose the negation, distortion, and falsification of the history of World War II. They plan to solemnly celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the Soviet Union’s Patriotic War in 2025 and jointly promote a correct view of the history of World War II.”

This statement signaled that China and Russia intended to jointly insist on what they view as the “correct history” of WWII to the world, while refusing to accept any historical perspective that differs from their own.

In March 2025, at a press conference on the occasion of China’s National People’s Congress, State Councilor Wang Yi stated that, marking the 80th anniversary of victory in WWII, China and Russia were reaffirming that they had fought together in Asia and Europe at the cost of blood, and went on to say that, building on this past, the two countries would jointly promote a correct understanding of WWII history, defend the fruits of that victory, uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core, and advance the international order in a more just and reasonable direction. China and Russia have thus pledged not only to reaffirm their wartime partnership but to jointly seek to shape the present international order on that basis. For China and Russia, historical narrative is inseparable from the shaping of the current international order.

Then, on May 9, 2025, Russia’s Victory Day commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Russia and issued a joint statement with the Russian president. This statement explicitly identified Japanese militarism and Nazi Germany as the adversaries China and Russia fought in WWII, and made clear that China and Russia would together resist any moves to revive the militarism or Nazism of the past. On Japan specifically, the statement declared that “the Japanese government should learn lessons from the brutal crimes it committed in history, exercise caution in its words and deeds on historical issues such as the Yasukuni Shrine, and completely cut ties with militarism that once brought deep disasters to the peoples of the world and Japan itself.”

In its discourse on WWII, China was not only seeking to spread what it calls the “correct historical perspective” together with Russia, but was also issuing strong warnings against “Japanese militarism.” And this was positioned not merely as a matter of the past but — particularly in the context of the Sino-Russian relationship — as something linked to joint efforts toward a “just” reshaping of the international order.

In 2025, China made a qualitative leap in its narrative on history, in both substance and in method. China generated narratives connected to the invalidity of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the Taiwan issue, and the status of Okinawa — areas directly linked to China’s interests in the First Island Chain. Yet China’s actions were moving faster than its words; its military activity had already extended well beyond the First Island Chain, expanding into the Second Island Chain, the Western Pacific, and the South Pacific.

From around the time of Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s remarks in November 2025 and into 2026, China’s verbal attacks on Japan began to employ the term “neo-militarism,” and its criticism of Japan became more comprehensive. Japan’s security policy as a whole began to be characterized and challenged as “neo-militarism.”

In May 2026, when Putin made another official visit to China and a Sino-Russian joint statement was issued, language criticizing Japan’s “neo-militarism” and “remilitarization” was incorporated into the text, which represented an expansion of Sino-Russian historical cooperation on WWII. China also sought to extend its criticism of Japan to countries beyond Russia, inserting language critical of Japan — such as opposition to “militarism” — into joint statements issued in the context of bilateral relationships with various countries. At the UN General Assembly in September 2026 as well, the Chinese representative strongly criticized Japan using terms such as “remilitarization” and “neo-militarism,” and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov joined in, expressing agreement with the Chinese position by similarly characterizing Japan as following a path of militarism.

Which brings us to the recent U.S.-China summit, where Xi and U.S. President Donald Trump raised the subject of the wartime relationship between the United States and China in WWII. The United States and China were Allied nations in WWII. But in light of the account above, China’s recent discourse on WWII is certainly not limited to pointing out historical facts or evoking memories of the past. And for Japan, that is cause for concern.