Episode 24: War Memory of the Chinese Expeditionary Force
July 22, 2020 After Communists won the Civil War and founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the history of the Chinese Expeditionary Force (CEF) was excluded from the public discourse for a long time due to their political affiliation with the Nationalist government. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that in the 1980s, that situation began to change. The stories of CEF started to be heard in China and many veterans from the CEF are now honored as national heroes. This thesis will examine this shifting narrative, and ultimately answer how and why the memory of World War II has changed in post-war China through the case of CEF.