LONDON, Sept. 3 (Xinhuanet  By Ma Guihua ) -- Amid all the pomp and fanfare featuring the commemorative events held this year across the United Kingdom to mark the end of the Second World War in the Far East, something is disturbingly missing.

    Not only had British soldiers who fought in the Far East earned a reference as the "forgotten army", but the Chinese who had endured 14 years of resistance against Japan were barely mentioned.

    It is quite obvious that the general public in Britain know little about the war going on in the Asian theatre during the war period.

    This is also reflected in the latest research undertaken by the Royal British Legion, the leading charity in Britain dedicated to the service of war veterans.

    It revealed that only two percent of 11-to-18-year-olds could correctly identify the date of the Victory in Japan (VJ) Day anniversary, let alone the war of resistance against Japan.

    What's encouraging, however, is the increasing attention drawn from Western historians in the last few years to the Asia theatre in World War II, and Chinese battle fields in particular, as they start to reflect on how China's endeavors contributed to the ending of the WWII.

    In his article "Remembering the Forgotten War" published by History Today in August, Dr Rana Mitter, lecturer in Chinese history and politics at Oxford University, wrote "The achievement of the Chinese in holding down close to a million Japanese troops in China has been underplayed in later historical accounts, even though the conflict became a part of the wider world war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941."

    Mitter, whose special research interest is in China-Japanese relations in the Manchurian period, estimated that the number of Chinese killed in the war runs from 15 to 35 million, which is "comparable to the huge loss of life in the Soviet Union".

    He also puts the calculated number of refugees within China at 80 million.

    In Mitter's view, without China's efforts in diverting the Japanese troops, the warfare would be more "hazied" with other unfathomed changes in European war field.

    In fact, he said, "China was the first country that entered thewar", holding down some one million Japanese troops. In doing so, China had been engaged in 137 local wars, which is "amazing".

    The Oxford researcher admitted that only in the last decade scholars from Europe and the United States started to realize China's contribution to WWII, partially because people's attentionhas been mostly concentrated on Germany and Europe as a whole.

    But to the wider Western world, it was the book "Rape of Nanking" that accelerated interest in the China-Japanese war.

    The book written by American Chinese author Iris Chang had topped international best-selling list for weeks and captured Western attention to China's eight-year war of resistance.

    Such interest has been increased in the last ten years when Western scholars and students alike become keen to studying China's modern history as a way to understand its past.

    "Some of my students even visited the Chinese National Museum on Anti-Japanese War at Lugouqiao when they traveled to China. Andthey were very interested! I also enjoyed my research at the Shanghai Municipal Archive, which is very keen to help Western researchers study the history. China has opened up its historical documents for scholars to study, although it's a pity that some documents had been destroyed," said Mitter.

    Mitter believed that China's war of resistance against Japan isnot only a national war, but also an international one.

    It's good to see that over the years, new and powerful understanding of the history has emerged.

    But he cautioned that anger should not overwhelm understanding.

    Understanding the past and passing it onto future generations as a lesson is a good way for reconciliation before moving on.

    Like Mitter, Dr Hans van de Ven at the Cambridge University is also one of the Western scholars intrigued by China's resistance against Japan, and indeed one of the forerunners in studying the military aspect of the history.

    In his book "War and Nationalism in China (1925-1945)" published in 2003, he dwells on details of the resistance, as well as the roles played by Nationalists and Communists in the war.

    In his latest paper titled "The Sino-Japanese War in the Context of Chinese Military History", van de Ven tackles the difficult and complex military aspects of the war and brings forthsome of his novel understanding.

    In his opinion, the fact that China's war of resistance was largely ignored by the West has much to do with the Western assessments of China's pursuit of the war.

    "These judged the Nationalists by the yardstick of China's ability to wage modern offensive warfare and, 'the habit of discussing military capability in terms of the material culture ofwar, specially technological prowess.'"

    However, "Chinese resistance illustrated the limits of modern warfare and made clear that a society's potential to resist an invader is not just a function of having well trained armies and advanced weapons. There were important cultural, political, and military resources in the Chinese past on which the Nationalists could draw as they pursued their war with Japan," he explained.

    Some moves and operations undertaken by the Chinese "were not necessarily evidence of feudal backwardness but can also be read as sensible ways of pursuing a difficult war in an agrarian empire with limited resources and a weak state."

    Despite China's contribution to the WWII, van de Ven noted the war efforts of the Chinese troops had not been taken seriously by the allies.

    In 1941, following the Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbor, "Britain made use of Chinese forces to protect its own armies and recover its colonial possession in Burma, while the USA compelled Chinese forces in Yunnan to enter Burma at the same time that Japanese forces pushed deep into south China. China was a bargain basement partner of whom was demanded much at little cost."

    Nonetheless, he said, "Burma was the only place where the Nationalists could fight with the British and the USA against Japan. Although ultimately of little strategic consequence, the most significant tactical defeats inflicted on Japan on the Asian mainland took place in Burma."

    Van de Ven therefore believes "China is a serious and major component of the Second World War" and its role in the conflict needs to be "reassessed". Enditem