I may be wrong, but it seems the CCP itself has not elevated WW2 into a central part of the national mythos, probably because the bulk of the fighting was done by the Kuomintang.
You're wrong. The Second Sino-Japanese War was a three-sided mess. The KMT certainly had the more traditional forces involved of the two Chinese factions.
that the ROC lost more than 8 times the men than the Commies did. (1.3M killed vs 160k) Either the ROC did the bulk of the fighting or the Commies were a lot better at not getting killed (seems unlikely).
