Oxford exhibition highlights nations' shared wartime experience

Parallels are seen in the Chongqing pictures, such as one in which a family sits together for a meal in a simple shelter. The father holds a bowl in his hand to feed a young boy.

Another picture shows two beautifully dressed young female teachers standing tall amid the bricks and rubble that was all that was left of their bombed classrooms in Chongqing.

Rana Mitter, director of the University of Oxford China Centre, said the exhibition “adds historical depth to some of the geopolitics of the present day”.

As China increasingly integrates into the global community, and as the United Kingdom looks to build strong partnerships with China amid the uncertainty of leaving the European Union, the exhibition recognizes that the two countries’ historical friendship is significant, Mitter said.

Zhang Bo, deputy head of Chongqing Library, said the exhibition helps to cement strong friendship between the two countries because it highlights the shared perseverance and incredible resistance of the cities in the face of atrocities and trying circumstances.

Nie Hongping, a scholar at the University of Oxford who is also curator of the exhibition, said China’s growing tendency in recent years to understand its resistance against Japan within the context of the history of World War II serves not only as a reminder that China fought side-by-side with the UK, but indicates that a rising China is keen to engage itself with the rest of the world.

During the war, Britain and China were both important members of the Allies’ war effort and shared the goal of defeating the Axis powers.

The Blitz happened during 1940 and 1941, when Germany bombed London and other industrial areas and port cities in the UK. The Chongqing bombings took place between 1938 and 1944.

Chongqing was China’s wartime capital during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).

The pictures in the exhibition have been selected from collections within London’s Imperial War Museum, the Chongqing Library, and the Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum. Some are being displayed publically for the first time.