Official accounts of Nationalists' role in fight against Japan now seen more positively on 70th anniversary of Chinese liberation

When Fan Hao was first told about a family secret almost 20 years ago, his heart sank. He learned that his doting grandfather was actually a Kuomintang soldier who only joined the Communist Party's People's Liberation Army in 1949.

Five years later there was another surprise for the family: their 90-something patriarch, Nationalist veteran Zhong Zilin, had taken part in the second Sino-Japanese war. Thus began the family's quest to restore a piece of history that had until recently been painted by mainland authorities in a completely different light.

Their efforts mirror the shift in Beijing's narrative on the second world war in its effort to create a national identity to unite the country and stand up to the scrutiny of growing public scepticism. As part of that shift, the Communist government is finally giving the Nationalist army credit for its role in the eight-year resistance war against Japan's invasion.

Nevertheless, historians argue there is a limit to how far the authorities will go, saying the government's revised official version of the event is still far from accurate.

For decades, the Nationalist army led by Chiang Kai-shek was described as corrupt, incompetent and evil by the government's propaganda and education systems. Even though the KMT lost more soldiers than the Communists during the war, its role merited hardly a mention.

"I grew up watching propaganda movies and reading 'red' textbooks," said Fan, who works in the education business in Guangzhou.

"So when my mother told me that grandfather was once a KMT soldier, my heart sank and I thought it meant he was a counterrevolutionary. I didn't dare tell anyone."