A screening of a film in a small room in a downtown Taipei office building has raised fears in the country’s government. It comes after Russian officials hosted an unusual screening of an old Soviet documentary called "Smashing Militarist Japan" for some 20 Taiwanese guests. Despite the small audience, the screening of the 81-year-old film has alarmed Taiwan's government.
Russia, it believes, 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. 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, a key though unofficial ally of Taipei.
Russia's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. China's foreign ministry said it was unaware of the screening of the old Soviet-era film. It added that Allied powers, including China, Russia and the U.S., had defeated Japanese militarism, and that "upholding and promoting a correct historical view of World War Two 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, 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. Taiwan's National Security Council, its highest government body overseeing security and counter-intelligence, told 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 because 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. Taiwan's foreign ministry told that around 20 people from the "academic world" had been invited to the screening.
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