In the late 1990s I met a Chinese student studying here in the U.S. He privately told me that one time he was hiking in a remote part of China and came upon a rural village that had a memorial and grave from WW2. It affected him deeply that these rural people lovingly tended the grave of an American airman came from a country so far away and gave up his life to help them fight the Japanese.
The Japanese occupation was brutal. The AVG Fling Tigers are well remembered.
As with most countries, the general population has a favorable attitude towards the U.S.A. The political types say something different. The Chinese population does not dislike America and even under the harsher Communist rule pre 1980s, America was still a shining city on a hill that they looked up to. , I have spoken with people from many different countries and that attitude prevails.
China has been making movies and TV shows about the war with Japan and they try to instill a notion that the Chinese Nationalists and Communists bravely fought off the dull, stupid Japanese. they even make movies about the Korean war with the U.S. as the bad guys.
I wonder how effective this propaganda is.