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Laura Zhou

It was a bright spot in the history of Sino-US relations, when more than 250,000 Americans joined Chinese soldiers to fight against Japanese forces in what was then known as the “China-Burma-India” theatre during the second world war.
But that episode of wartime alliance – with its stories of heroism and sacrifice – has largely been forgotten, and is hardly known of among Chinese and American people today.
Now Chinese blogger Zou Dehuai, 34, is bringing these wartime stories back to life through an exhibition curated from his own collection of more than 10,000 photographic artefacts from that time.
“There’s a saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, and it is so true,” said Zou, who studied visual communication at college.
“Both China and the US were once allies, forgotten by history, and it should not be forgotten,” he said. “This friendship, of fighting shoulder to shoulder, should be remembered forever.”
For the exhibition, being held at the Beijing American Centre, Zou selected photos to help to tell the personal stories of some of these wartime heroes.
“There was a time when we, too, did not know about Stilwell or Chennault or Doolittle, much less the tens of thousands of American soldiers, sailors and airmen who had helped China, and who were also just ordinary people, husbands, wives, parents and children,” Zou told a packed audience at the launch of the exhibition, which runs until October 25.

General Joseph Stilwell was US commander of the China-Burma-India theatre, General Claire Lee Chennault headed the US Army Air Forces in China from 1942 to 1945, and Jimmy Doolittle won the Medal of Honour for leading an air raid against Japan in 1942 which has since become known as the “Doolittle Raid”.
“When the world was shadowed by war, they stepped forward and set foot on this distant land to join the Chinese people in defending against the invaders. They gave their blood, hard work, tears and sweat – and they never gave up,” Zou said.
Zou’s passion for “artefact photos” began in 2015, when he was chief editor for a history website in Beijing. He had just completed a project about Chinese survivors under Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, and quickly turned his eyes to the images.
Thanks to the internet, and with the help of his friends around the world, Zou’s collection quickly grew. The photos he collected dated back to as early as the 1860s, when China and the US concluded the Burlingame Treaty to establish formal friendly relations between the two countries. This saw the US grant China the status of most favoured nation with regards to trade.
Zou said the more photos he collected, the more he learned about those involved.
That included photos of Robert McCawley Short, a US Air Force pilot who was killed in 1932 after being boxed by six Japanese fighters in eastern China’s Jiangsu province. He was also the first foreign pilot killed in the lead-up to the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Another pilot featured is Theodore Jung, a Chinese-American who gave up a comfortable life in California to join the Chinese air force in 1934. Three years later, Jung, then aged 24, died in a fierce dogfight with Japanese warplanes near central China’s Henan province.
Photos of Richard Heppner are also on display in the exhibition. He was head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America’s intelligence agency during the war, and he helped the Chinese military found its first parachute unit.
Some of the images capture simple, heart-warming moments. One photo, taken at a camp in Taipa Ga, Burma, in 1941, shows a young private from Indiana, Edward McNamara, being taught how to use chopsticks by a Chinese soldier.
“Apart from the well-known names, there were many unsung heroes, including some Chinese-Americans, women who served as wartime nurses and African-Americans,” Zou said.
“Even today, the veterans are still deeply respected in the US, and are treated as heroes at home.”
But this shared history is complicated for both China and the US, largely because of their ideological differences.

In China, for many years, it was a taboo subject for communist leaders, who were bitterly angered by Washington’s support for Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT) during China’s civil war from 1945 to 1949. The KMT retreated to Taiwan after losing the war to the communists.
Then in the years that followed, Chinese soldiers who had fought alongside the Americans, most of whom were with the KMT, were condemned as “enemies of the people”. Those who stayed in mainland China were imprisoned, especially during the disastrous Cultural Revolution, while others had to bury their past to escape persecution.
Meanwhile, some of the US soldiers who had fought with the Chinese, later faced them from the other side of the battlefield as they took part in the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.
At that time, Chennault, who had led the famed Flying Tigers in China and later advocated international support for Asian anti-communist movements, was denounced as “a flying burglar”.
It was not until 1981, more than 20 years after his death, that his widow Anna Chennault helped thaw relations with a groundbreaking trip to Beijing, where she was received by leader Deng Xiaoping.


More recently, with Beijing and Washington turning bitter and confrontational, the legacy of the Flying Tigers is often cited as an example of how China and the US could overcome their differences.
Last year, the US embassy in Beijing held an official recognition ceremony for the Flying Tiger veterans. Weeks later, these veterans were invited to a welcome banquet during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to San Francisco.
And in September, Beijing – for the first time – released the names of 2,590 US air personnel who died fighting the Japanese on behalf of China. Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the United States, hailed the Flying Tiger spirit as “precious treasure in the past, at this moment and in the future”.
It is that spirit, and the stories of all the wartime heroes featured in the exhibition, which Zou is trying to share with more people.
“The stories of tens of thousands of Americans fighting together with the Chinese should be handed down through the generations,” he said. “This is about the friendship between two peoples.”


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US and China’s forgotten friendship on display in WWII photo exhibition

An exhibition of photos taken during WWII of Chinese and US soldiers serving side by side - including this image of US soldier Edward McNamara being taught to use chopsticks - has opened in Beijing. Photo: Zou Dehuai

General Joseph Stilwell (right) greets his son, Joseph Stilwell Jnr, at an airfield in China on August 9, 1943. This is one of the pictures featured in the exhibition. Photo: Zou Dehuai

Zou Dehuai (right) curated the exhibition from his own collection of more than 10,000 photographic artefacts. Photo: X/USAmbChina

Zou Dehuai’s collection on show at the Beijing American Centre revisits a time when US-Chinese friendship saw soldiers from both countries fight side by side. Photo: Handout

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An exhibition of photos from the China-Burma-India theatre in WWII shows Chinese and American soldiers fighting side by side


An exhibition of photos from the China-Burma-India theatre in WWII shows Chinese and American soldiers fighting side by side.


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War and conflict