On every September 3 since 1945, the Chinese people observes the day, as a special day to commemorate the victory of the country in the war of resistance against Japanese aggression and the triumph in the world anti-Fascist war. 

The victory was not only significant for the Chinese, it also contributed to worldwide triumph over Fascist aggression in the WWII. 

The fact was that, even before the European theater of the war was opened with the Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland, the Asian theater of the war has started with Japan’s earth-scorched aggression against China. The Chinese people did not meekly endure the brutal aggression of Japan but rather mounted effective resistance. It is taken for granted in modern times that China was actually the first country to enter what would become known as WWII. The sheer scale of China’s resistance destroyed Japan’s war strategy. At the time of Japan’s attack of the U.S Pearl Harbor, about 80 percent of Japanese troops were held down in China, and Japanese troops could not be released to form pacific perimeter against the U.S due to China’s resistance. A clear vanguard in the defeat of Japan, the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japanese aggression and China's contribution to the world war against fascism was obtained at a very high cost of sacrifice and devastation. 

China in modern times makes unremitting efforts to secure global peace through vigorous contributions to sustainable and inclusive development, which is the only meaningful guarantee to peace and security. The effort to secure peace and guarantee security cannot be achieved without putting history in context and drawing the relevant lessons. The most vital in this regard is to ensure that history is neither trivialized nor distorted. 

Japan's imperial army having suffered defeat in its war of aggression may have been weaned off its imperial mindset, but Japan should never seek to tamper with the historical facts of its past behavior. The continuous visits of Japan’s leadership to the Yasukuni shrine that holds the remains of Japan’s class A convicted war criminals is a provocation, to which not only China objects but the rest of Asia and which also a revulsion against all human conscience. 

In recent times, China has contributed some important ideas to global governance through the vital Belt and Road Initiative. The initiative, which currently enjoys universal acceptance, puts into practice the idea of a functional global village, with the concrete network of infrastructure connectivity through a global participatory framework of extensive consultations, joint contributions and shared benefits. The aim is that shared development and prosperity, in which every member of the human community is a stakeholder, will give practical expression to the idea of a community of shared future for humanity. Under a shared future for humanity, a global dialogue of civilizations would replace clash of civilizations and bring humanity not to the end of history but to the threshold of a new chapter of history. 

Africa and China that have endured in the past the brutality and expropriation of imperialist aggression can play pivotal roles in the emerging multi-polar world order with the UN system at its core, not only to advance the building of a community of shared future for humanity but also to contain such non-traditional global security threat as the current raging COVID-19 pandemic. 

(The author is director of the Center for China Studies, Abuja, Nigeria)