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Opinion: In Search Of Historical Parallels For China's Rise

Certain aspects of China today are without historical precedent, but some lessons do arise from Japan's and America's own imperial pasts, write historians Alexis Dudden and Jeffrey Wasserstrom.
Japanese troops enter Manchuria in 1933. Tokyo sent soldiers and settlers to Manchuria and exerted direct and indirect influence there. Japanese official publications treated Manchuria's people much in the same way as China's Xinhua News Agency now treats those of Xinjiang and Tibet.

Alexis Dudden teaches history at the University of Connecticut and is the author of Japan's Colonization of Korea and Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States. Jeffrey Wasserstrom (@jwassers) teaches history at University of California, Irvine, and is the author of Eight Juxtapositions: China through Imperfect Analogies from Mark Twain to Manchukuo and coauthor of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know.

History can be helpful in making sense of what the Chinese Communist Party is doing within and beyond the borders of the People's Republic of China. But when it comes to understanding today's China, history is an imperfect guide. Neat parallels with the past aren't possible. Certain aspects

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