The Unsung Ally｜"China's done a lot. It's trapped Japan."

Cambridge historian Hans van de Ven, one of the first Western scholars to systematically articulate China's decisive role in World War II, is currently writing a book that interprets WWII history from an Asian perspective. Professor van de Ven attributes his motivation partly to his family history, saying, "I think the kind of fate that my grandfather had would have been very similar to those of many people in China," since both his country, the Netherlands, and China suffered under wartime occupation. He goes on: "It's very different from the experience, or the perspective, of countries that were not occupied, like the United Kingdom or the United States."