十四年抗战(shísìnián kàngzhàn):14-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression

In the new textbooks for primary and secondary schools to be used nationwide from Friday, the period of the Chinese People's War Against Japanese Aggression has been extended from eight to 14 years.

The Ministry of Education, China's top education authority, recently decided to revise the contents of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Chinese and history textbooks for students receiving compulsory education. In the previous Chinese textbooks, the war of resistance lasted eight years－starting on July 7, 1937, when Japanese troops bombed the Marco Polo Bridge and Wanping county in Beijing, and ending with Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II on Aug 15, 1945.

According to the new textbooks, which scholars and historians have supported, the war of resistance began on Sept 18, 1931, when Japanese troops blew up a section of a railway in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning province, and attacked the Chinese garrison in the city, marking the beginning of Japanese occupation of China's northeast region.

The new textbooks give a detailed historical account of the 14-year Chinese War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), starting from the regional war of resistance against Japanese aggression to the launch of the comprehensive anti-Japanese war that ended in China's victory.