03.18.21 (Ma) Remembering China’s “Last War”

On October 23, 2020, Chinese President Xí Jinping held a state ceremony to commemorate the 70th anniversary of China’s entrance to the Korean War. In the same month, three documentary film series were aired on CCTV, a war movie (featuring action star Wu Jing) opened in theaters across the country, and China also reopened two national Korean War memorials after years of renovation. The flurry of remembrances across films, museums, and political spectacles leaves one wondering why the war has had such a hold on Chinese historical imagination? How has the memory of war shifted from the communist era to the post-socialist present? How does China remember its “last war” in the shadow of a new US-China Cold War?