Exemplifying national unity and victory in local state museums: Chongqing and the new paradigm of official World War II memory in China

Abstract

The literature on World War II memory in China is skewed toward the history of the occupation and victimization of the eastern provinces. This study shifts the focus to the southwestern city of Chongqing, which served as China’s temporary wartime capital and the seat of the CCP–GMD united front. Comparing narratives of four thematic state museums—respectively commemorating the Communists, Nationalists, U.S. allies, and the city—this research shows that Chongqing is not an outlier in China’s memoryscape, as is often presumed. On the contrary, it finds that these distinctive narratives draw selectively and purposefully from local experiences and bottom-up impulses to instantiate and hence reaffirm the evolving central line. Chongqing’s story of unified resistance and joint triumph exemplifies the more inclusive and empowering, yet highly stylized, new norm of war remembrance under Xi Jinping, which stresses national cohesion and patriotic loyalty as the key to Chinese ‘victory’ and ‘greatness’.