History can serve as a bridge rather than a weapon. China’s appeal to WWII-era documents is more than a mere dispute over the past: it signals an attempt to weave continuity, to turn separation into unity, and to present peace as destiny. From these contested pages to the Global Governance Initiative, China faces a decisive test of whether it can transform the lessons of history into the foundation of its role in the 21st century.
The charge brought against Beijing is serious, and its resonance is easy to understand in light of what Vladimir Putin’s Russia has done in recent years. Moscow has engaged in outright historical revisionism: erasing, falsifying, and reshaping the memory of the Second World War to deny Ukraine’s sovereignty and justify territorial aggression. Against this backdrop, it is no surprise that Taiwan’s government, the United States, and much of the West have accused China of practicing the same distortion when it invokes WWII-era documents over Taiwan’s status.
Yet the nature of China’s operation is of a wholly different kind. It is not a negation of history, but an attempt to unify it — to translate the tragedy of division into a narrative of continuity: one land, one people, one history. Where Russia manipulates the past to obliterate the independence of others, China seeks to weave a bridge across separation, presenting historical destiny as a foundation for normalization. To conflate the two approaches is to miss what is truly at stake.
At first glance, Beijing’s appeal to WWII-era documents appears as mere revisionism, a selective use of history to serve present aims. Yet one can also read it differently. If there is, in the end, one land and one people, then there can only be one history — a bridge between the two separated shores1. In this sense, the WWII documents become less an instrument of distortion than a translation of this idea: history as a continuum that unites rather than divides.
Seen at this level, the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) takes on greater significance. If China succeeds in framing its actions not only in terms of power but also as a pledge that the lessons of history have been learned, then it signals a genuine readiness to step into the 21st century. The true test lies in whether China can transform a contested past into a foundation for shared governance, showing that destiny need not be reduced to coercion but can be carried by the weight of historical responsibility.
This process deserves assent. Mine is already given. The first stake is here; the others will follow. Peace rests on nothing less than this subtle alchemy.
Published on X on 09/16/2025 at 7:40 a.m. – 12 views – 0 likes.
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- As Malraux wrote in Man’s Fate (La Condition humaine, Prix Goncourt 1933), one could see in Shanghai “the executioner passing, his curved sword on his shoulder, followed by his escort of Mauser-armed soldiers on the Avenue of the Two Republics.” Today, nothing remains but an evanescent ghost — yet still a burning rhetoric. Reconciliation, if the auspices are favorable, is destined to take its place. ↩︎
En attendant la Renaissance 