A new English-language book helps readers better understand China's role in the war and how foreigners like Norman Bethune (pictured) supported the cause. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"I want to pay tribute to the translation team for their fine and rigorous work that also helped improve the Chinese version," says Zhi Shaozeng, chief editor of the book.

For example, Zhi says, that when the team translated the section on the Chinese Expeditionary Force to Burma, they put in the bit that the force went there to support not only the British army, as the Chinese version said, but also the Burmese army to fight against Japanese aggression.

"That's the fact," he says.

Speaking of the care that went into the translation of the book, Tong Xiaohua of the translation team says: "We tried to be objective about the war, so we deleted many adjectives that were unnecessary."

The translation of the war's name was also carefully considered.

Holly Snape, one of the two native English speakers on the translation team, says: "Some people use 'anti-Japanese', but it cannot represent the righteousness of the war and readers would not know it was righteous to resist the Japanese aggression."

Echoing a similar view, Tong says: "With the word 'aggression', we wanted to express that the root of the war didn't lie in China. China didn't resist common Japanese people but their aggression. The invasion of a country can sometimes be righteous, so we used 'aggression' instead of 'invasion' to represent the bravery and righteousness of the Chinese people's resistance to the overall Japanese aggression, political, military and cultural."