Russian screening of film on Japan raises questions

In a small meeting room in a downtown Taipei office building, Russian officials hosted an unusual screening of an old Soviet documentary called Smashing Militarist Japan for about 20 Taiwanese guests.

Despite the small audience, the screening of the 81-year-old film has alarmed the Taiwanese government.

Russia is helping China push its narrative of a rising military threat from Japan, and is seeking to sow discord over Taipei’s relations with Tokyo and other Western partners, it said.

Posters displaying Russia’s role in World War II in East Asia at an exhibition held by the Moscow-Taipei Coordination Commission on Economic and Cultural Cooperation in Taipei on Thursday last week.

Photo: Reuters

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a Japanese military response, causing a diplomatic crisis between Tokyo and Beijing and prompting repeated warnings from Beijing that Japan is seeking a return to its aggressive past.

Officials in Taiwan say they believe the closed-door screening last week of the film by the de facto Russian embassy in Taipei is part of a new effort to spread and bolster China’s “new militarism” line against Japan.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was unaware of the screening.

It added that Allied powers, including China, Russia and the US, had defeated Japanese militarism, and that “upholding and promoting a correct historical view of World War II is the shared responsibility of the international community.”

The film shown was 1945’s black-and-white The Defeat of Militarist Japan, which the Russian office translated into Chinese on Facebook as Smashing Militarist Japan. The film, available on YouTube under the name “The defeat of Japan,” shows images of the Soviet attack on Japanese-occupied Manchuria and the Kuril Islands.

A voiceover denounces the “robber philosophy of the divine superiority of the Japanese race” and shows footage of Japanese atrocities against Chinese civilians.

The showing of the film sits in a sensitive area for Taiwan. Freedom of speech is constitutionally protected, but it also has laws, including the 2019 Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), aimed at preventing hostile foreign forces — chiefly China — from covertly influencing its politics.

There was no police presence outside the screening and no effort was made to shut it down.

The National Security Council said it was “closely monitoring” Chinese-Russian military and “cognitive warfare” cooperation when asked about the screening.

“The two countries are attempting to amplify specific topics and distort historical facts and political issues,” it said.

Taiwanese officials said Russia posed a new challenge, as Moscow could approach some Taiwan contacts with less immediate legal scrutiny than if Chinese officials were to do so, as their activities are subject to Taiwan’s security laws.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that about 20 people from the “academic world” had been invited to the screening.

While Taiwan respects the “lawful conduct of normal exchanges,” activities held by the Russian office “should also respect historical facts and conform to universal values such as democracy and freedom,” the ministry added.

Staff from the Russian office, including Deputy Representative Sergey Chudodeev, declined entry to Reuters reporters, saying it was an invitation-only event.

After the screening, Russian Representative Pavel Lapin said Moscow’s Taipei office hoped to organize similar events in the future, a person who attended the event said.

“The Soviet Union and the Chinese people endured the heaviest casualties in that war. The contributions they made toward crushing German fascism and Japanese militarism are indisputable and cannot be diminished,” the Russian office said in a Facebook post about the screening.

A person who attended said those present included former journalists, business figures, academics and other public-facing figures.

Last month, China and Russia issued a joint statement warning against remilitarization in the Asia-Pacific region.

Russian diplomats in Taipei have generally kept a very low profile since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, diplomatic sources said.

The Russian office in Taipei opened in 1996, and it has always had a more understated presence in Taiwan compared with the de facto embassies of the US, the EU, the UK and others, diplomatic sources say.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office dismissed Taiwan’s concerns about the film as “another ploy to manipulate anti-China sentiment for political gain.”

Taiwan has been on Russia’s “unfriendly” countries and territories list since it joined other Western allies in sanctioning the country following its invasion of Ukraine, and senior Russian officials have openly backed China’s claims to Taiwan.

Moscow and Tokyo have their own long-running dispute over Russia’s seizing four Kuril Islands off northern Japan at the end of World War II, one of which Russian President Vladimir Putin visited last month, drawing condemnation from Tokyo.