[temujin77]

Hey guys,

Besides the Wikipedia entry, I'm having a hard time finding a comprehensive summary on Wang Jingwei, who betrayed Chiang Kaishek's government in Chongqing and went over to the Japanese. He held the title of President of a Japanese-controlled puppet government from 1941 until the end of WW2. He died on foreign lands in Nagoya, Japan. Can anyone help me with some details on him, why he butted heads with Chiang, and anything else interesting? Thanks!

[Yun]

Wang Jingwei was, with Hu Hanmin, one of the two most important assistants to Sun Yat-sen before Chiang Kai-shek's rise to prominence. When the KMT came under Chiang's dominance, Wang and Hu were increasingly side-lined. They also were ideological rivals - Hu led the right-wing faction of the KMT, which was very anti-Communist, while Wang led the left-wing which advocated cooperating with the Communist Party. After the Northern Expedition, Wang Jingwei set up a left-leaning KMT government in Wuhan that lost out to Chiang Kai-shek's rival anti-Communist regime in Shanghai. He was a grudging member of the Nanjing KMT government (under Chiang), and then defected to the Japanese after the KMT retreat to Chongqing. The Japanese installed him as head of a government based in Nanjing and ruling over the the Japanese-occupied areas in China.

Wang Jingwei has been very simplistically condemned as a selfish traitor by both the KMT and the Communists. I believe that he wanted to end the war by giving the Japanese an alternative government with which to rule China, since Chiang refused to surrender. If he did anything wrong, it was misreading the Japanese and thinking that peace could be achieved.

Some books that you can read:
Odani Akira, "Wang Ching-wei and the fall of the Chinese Republic, 1905-1935" (1979)

Gerald E. Bunker, "The peace conspiracy: Wang Ching-wei and the China war, 1937-1941" (1972)

Hwang Dongyoun, "Wang Jingwei, the Nanjing government and the problem of collaboration" (1999)

David P. Barrett and Larry N. Shyu (eds.), "Chinese collaboration with Japan, 1932-1945: the limits of accomodation" (2001)

[caocao74]

This is from J.A.G.Robert's 'A Concise History of China' (Harvard, 1999), p.241;

'In December 1937 Japan offered Jiang Jieshi peace terms, but he refused them because they required recognition of Manzhouguo, ....... As Japan could not force Jiang to surrender, the alternative solution was to establish puppet regimes in the parts of China now under Japanese control. In December 1938, Wang Jingwei, leader of the left wing of the Guomindang, defected from the Nationalist side and offered himself as leader of a collaborationist regime with its capital at Nanjing. This regime was to last throughout the war, although Wang himself died in 1944. It claimed to be an independent government, exercising authority over much of central and south-east China. It maintained diplomatic relations with Japan and Germany and had its own armed forces and the trappings of a government, though its dependence on Japan was never in doubt'

Can anyone tell me any more about Wang? What was his title? his puppet regime's name? motivations? etc.
Also other than Manzhouguo/Manchukuo and Wang's regime, what were the other states established by the Japanese as puppets?

[Yun]

Caocao74, there was already a thread on this earlier. I'ver merged the two, and others' comments would be very welcome.

[temujin77]

There are not a whole lot of information on Wang Jinwei, but so far this is what I have compiled thus far for my website: http://www.ww2db.com...hp?person_id=66.

This book seems to offer some good information on Chinese collaboration with the Japanese (duh, it says so in the book title), I might pick it up one day to learn a bit more.

As for other puppet governments -- I think something was set up in Korea? What about Thailand, where the Japanese strong-armed the king of Siam to allow Thailand to become a corridor for Japanese troops to walk straight into Malaya and Burma.

[kaixin]

I know he was left-leaning and probably didn't like Chiang Kai-shek to the end, but didn't he realize the Japanese were on a genocidal rampage in China? Wang probably loved China and the Chinese, but his act would forever put him in the dark pages of history.

Anyway, if he was in power instead of Chiang, would the republic have taken a different course in its early history?

Was he really a closet communist like they say?

[linzexu]

I am not sure if you are thinking of the right person...

Wang Jingwei formed a collaboration government with the Japanese.

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but didn't he realize the Japanese were on a genocidal rampage in China?

He obviously knew. He became the head of the Reformed Government of the Republic of China based in Nanjing in 1940. (Puppet government for Japan like Manchukuo.)

Only a few years before, there were corpses lying all over Nanjing.

So he formed a governemnt with the Japanese despite what is happening all over China, and especially what happened in Nanjing.

So, why would he be loving China and the Chinese as you stated below?:

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Wang probably loved China and the Chinese,

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but his act would forever put him in the dark pages of history.

And why would NOT his act put him in the dark ages of history?

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Anyway, if he was in power instead of Chiang, would the republic have taken a different course in its early history?

Yes, it would!

Reformed Government of the Republic of China headed by Wang Jingwei would be fighting the Communists too. But this time, with the alliance of the Imperial Japanese Army. China under Wang Jingwei would be in the Japanese sphere of influence if not Japanese empire.

You are getting the wrong sense of Wang Jingwei.

[Yun]

Most Chinese nationalists would rather demonise Wang Jingwei as an evil gutless traitor than try and examine his motivations, which must have been rather complex. This was a man who had once risked his life to assassinate a Manchu official as a revolutionary, became one of Sun Yat-sen's most trusted and loyal followers, and for quite some time sided with the Communists against Chiang. He was already safe in Chongqing after the great withdrawal, yet he decided to go east again and defect to the Japanese, knowing that he would be cursed as a turncoat by his countrymen. What was really going on in his mind?

I have merged this thread with an earlier one on Wang Jingwei. I would recommend discussing him with much greater nuance and objectivity than nationalists tend to do. I hardly think that the 'right sense' of Wang Jingwei is simply to condemn him as a selfish, power-hungry man with no love for his country and people. There is much more to it than that.

[bhchao]

Wang Jingwei had a more closer relationship with Sun Yat-sen than Chiang had with Sun. In fact, I think Sun perceived Wang as a better successor to his mantle than Chiang.

[Chen3141]

Wow so much info, I'll have to read all this in my spare time.

[kaixin]

Honestly, I believe Wang probably had more democratic tendencies than Chiang Kai-shek. If all the conditions were right, Wang might have led China and the KMT to semblances of democracy.

But, Wang epitomizes the Chinese character I seem to know too much about. He was distressed by all the bloodshed and confrontations. He thought he can put an end to all that by caving in to the Japanese. In some ways, he was just like Puyi.

And, he probably knew his political career was done with Chiang in power. Who knows? He might have been put under house arrest like so many other KMT figures were when they fled with Chiang to Taiwan.

The past is the past. Wang should be seen not only as the infamous traitor but also one of the leading revolutionaries who helped found modern China. I am sure he would be proud of the path China is taking today.

This post has been edited by kaixin: 13 September 2005 - 02:12 AM

[Koolasuchus]

Wang Jingwei is the ugliest of the Four Pretty Boys of early 20th century China...

[Chiang Kai-shek]

Just a naive man.

[HaSY]

How is Wang Jingwei in the end?

[thirdgumi]

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How is Wang Jingwei in the end?

Commited suicide?