A WWII cemetery in Yunnan still remembers the ROC army’s battlefield triumphs over the Japanese.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/12/03
By: Nick Aspinwall

The flag of the Republic of China (ROC) is not often seen across the Strait in China. Chinese iPhones don’t show the Taiwan flag emoji and, until July, were prone to crashing whenever they received the emoji in a message. In 2018, China has pressured Australian students to paint over the flag and has unsuccessfully ordered a Taiwanese furniture manufacturer in Vietnam to yank it from its flagpoles.

Of course, the flag is controversial within Taiwan for different reasons. For some, it represents decades of martial law and an outdated claim over what is now the People’s Republic of China (PRC), along with parts of states including Russia, Pakistan and Mongolia.

But during World War II, the flag was also carried into battle by solders resisting the Japanese occupation of southwestern China and Burma (now Myanmar). Some of these battles were fought in and around Tengchong, in the mountains of China’s Yunnan province. Today, Tengchong’s Cemetery of Revolutionary Martyrs and the adjacent Anti-Japanese War Museum still honor the sacrifices of ROC and foreign soldiers. Within the museum, there are portraits of former ROC leader Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who fled along with the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949.

Tengchong is known nowadays for its sweeping mountain vistas, spatterings of active volcanoes, and its numerous natural hot springs. During World War II, however, Tencghong was home to fierce battles between Japanese troops, invading from Burma, and combined Nationalist (ROC) and Communist (PRC) forces receiving U.S. assistance. American air squadrons passed over Tengchong while flying the harrowing supply route known as “The Hump,” during which they passed over the Himalayas from India to China to replenish Chiang Kai-shek’s troops.    [FULL  STORY]