By Blessing Moyo
Eighty years ago, on September 3, 1945, the guns of war finally fell silent in Asia.
For China, this was not only the end of the brutal Japanese occupation, but the culmination of 14 long years of unimaginable suffering in what it calls the “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.”
Historical records show that 14-20 million Chinese lost their lives and around 35 million were casualties in total. Entire cities were reduced to rubble, rural communities were ravaged by famine, and millions were displaced. Yet from this crucible of fire, the Chinese people emerged with their dignity unbroken and their sovereignty reclaimed.
The significance of this victory is often understated in Western narratives of World War II, but history is clear: by tying down roughly 750 000 Japanese troops, over half of Japan’s Imperial Army on the Asian mainland, China prevented Tokyo from redeploying those forces to the Pacific. A major Japanese military campaign in 1944 alone, Japan’s sprawling Ichi-Go offensive, involved nearly half a million Japanese soldiers. I
n strategic terms, the sacrifices of millions of Chinese peasants, workers, and soldiers helped create the conditions for the total defeat of Imperial Japan.
China’s victory, therefore, was not just a triumph for itself, but for all humanity.
For us in Africa, the parallels are vivid.
Just as China endured the cruelty of occupation, our continent endured the lash of colonialism. Just as Chinese peasants became soldiers of resistance, so too did our farmers and workers rise as liberation cadres.
When independence movements gathered strength in the mid-20th century, it was China that opened its doors to Africa’s freedom fighters. Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF cadres, Mozambique’s FRELIMO guerrillas, and South Africa’s Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) fighters all received training and support in China’s embrace.
Tanzania, in turn, became a strategic partner and host for many of these efforts, linking Chinese solidarity to African struggles.
Even today, the concept of ideological training schools in Africa owes much to Chinese models. The Nyerere Leadership School in Tanzania, supported by the Communist Party of China (CPC), molds cadres from six ruling liberation-era ruling parties, ZANU-PF, ANC, CCM, FRELIMO, MPLA, and SWAPO, ensuring that Chinese political philosophy continues to shape Africa’s future. These are not mere schools; they are crucibles where Africa’s leaders are forged, where nationalism and internationalism are fused into visions of statehood.
But anniversaries are more than milestones, they are mirrors held to the soul.
China’s 80th Victory Anniversary reminds us that humanity is both arsonist and architect. War is humanity’s most grotesque invention, yet from its ruins rise new possibilities for justice.
The philosopher Hegel wrote that “freedom is the insight into necessity”, and in China’s case, the necessity of resisting aggression gave birth to the freedom of a reawakened nation. Similarly, Africa’s necessity of resisting colonial domination gave birth to our independence.
The bond between Africa and China is profound and unbreakable: both peoples transformed suffering into agency, and humiliation into renaissance.
What makes China’s trajectory especially instructive is its refusal to be defined by victimhood. Instead, in the decades after 1945, China embarked on the greatest poverty-eradication programme in human history, lifting more than 800 million people out of destitution.
Today, China is a technological powerhouse, yet it continues to speak the language of shared development.
Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global project building roads, ports and links between countries, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), where China and African countries meet to plan together as equals, and direct infrastructure projects across our continent, China shows that peace is not guarded by tanks, but by bridges that connect nations and communities, railways that carry hope, ports that open doors, fiber optics that share knowledge, and scholarships that light futures. This is the true guarantee of world peace: nations rising together, no one left behind.
As Africa contemplates its future and charts its course, China’s example is both a mirror and a compass. The mirror shows us that we too can turn scars into strengths.
The compass points us towards solidarity, industrialisation, and clarity of purpose. China teaches us that national liberation without economic liberation is incomplete, and that development must be shared, otherwise peace becomes fragile.
This 80th anniversary, then is a torch. It reminds us that the price of freedom is always high – but so too are the rewards of perseverance.
It reminds us that victory is never merely military, but spiritual and civilisational. And it reminds us that the building of a fairer, more just world requires more than memory, it demands action, solidarity, and vision.
For China and Africa alike, the ultimate lesson is this: history’s greatest victories are not those that crush enemies, but those that create futures.
Eighty years ago, the Chinese people proved that aggression could be defeated. Today, together, Africa and China must prove that inequality, poverty, and injustice can be defeated as well.
That is the victory that will honour the sacrifices of our ancestors, and that is the victory that will ensure our children inherit not the ruins of war, but the promise of peace.
(Blessing Moyo is a Zimbabwean political commentator.)
