This is a question that is the corollary of ‘what do we choose to remember’. As nations we decided this long ago with the way in which we teach history to children; the overriding aim of which is the past was nationalistic and today seeks to arouse deep patriotism as a default position.
How we remember things – from the Cenotaph in London to festivals around the world both happy and sad, is very hit-and-miss. If we had chosen to remember in the UK the Napoleonic dead which took 50% of the male population of the country in 15 years, more than WWI as a percentage, we might not have been drawn into WWI – and the Cenotaph remembers the 20th century more than any other, or any other war. It has as much right to remember the Chinese dead as ours.
Our memories as nations are jingoistic in essence because we fail to realise that every memory is our human inheritance against which idea, national festivals are insignificant.