Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the celebrations to commemorate the 70thanniversary of the defeat of the Nazisduring World War II in Moscow on May 9.

This year also marks the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's War ofResistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945).

As the main battlefield of WWIIin Asia, China's sacrifices and war effortsto date have beenlargely overlooked from a traditional Europe-centric historical perspective, experts said.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of historians and scholars are noting the historicalcontributions of the Chinese and calling for a re-evaluation of China's position and role inWWII.

China was the first country to fight the Axis invasion, and the Chinese People's War ofResistance Against Japanese Aggression is one of the greatest stories of WWII, which hasnot been fully acknowledged by the international community, Rana Mitter, a historyprofessor and director of the Center for Chinese Studies at Oxford University, told thePeople's Daily.

In his book "Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945," Mitter brings focus to theeight-year war against Japan, whichbegan two years before the Nazis invaded Poland- thewidely-regarded starting point of World War II.

"The politics of the Cold War covered over that what is coming to be realized, I think, asone of the great missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of World War II," Mitter said.

From 1931 to 1945, a total of 1.5 million Japanese soldiers were killed on Chinese soil,accounting for 70 percent of Japan'sWWII casualties. By the end of the war, 64 percent ofthe Japanese army was in China.

There were about 1.28 million Japanese soldiers in China when Japan surrendered,exceeding the total number of Japanese soldiers fighting in the Pacific and SoutheastAsiantheaters.

China made tremendous sacrifices during their 14-year-long war. A total 35 million people,including soldiers and civilians, were killed and wounded. China's economic losses reached$600 billion.

Yuri Tavrovsky, a famous Russian publicist and professor at the Peoples' FriendshipUniversity of Russia, told the People's Daily that China's efforts saved the Soviet Union'sRed Army fromsimultaneously fighting on two fronts.

Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt once commented that, without China, or ifChina had been defeated, many more Japanese divisions would have been deployed toother areas and they would have been able to occupy Australia and India, and then push tothe Middle East.

Former Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin said, "Only when thehands and legs of theJapanese invaders were tied up could we avoid fighting on two fronts when the Germansinvaded."

Tavrovsky said that, on the Eastern front, China long played a key role in fighting againstthe Japanese since they invaded Manchuria (now northeast China)in 1931.

Koketsu Atsushi, a famous historian and vice president of Yamaguchi University inJapan,told the People's Daily that Japan deployed more troops to fight China than againstthe US. Japan fought China three times longer than it did the US.

Cheng Guoping, vice foreign minister of China, said at the 12th Blue Room Forum in Beijingon Tuesday that, China was a key member of the anti-fascist alliance and a main victor ofWorld War II.

By fighting against the Japan'smain military forces, Cheng said China provided strongsupport to the Allied Forces in the European and Pacific battlefields, as well as worked tohelp form the anti-fascist united front.