11 Facts About Chen Gongbo

Chen Gongbo was a Chinese politician, noted for his role as the second and final president of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, a puppet state of Japan.

Chen Gongbo was born in northern Guangdong, Qing Empire, to Hakka peasants originally from Shanghang County, Tingzhou, western Fujian in 1892.

Chen Gongbo's father was an official in the Qing administration.

Chen Gongbo was one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party and a member of its First Congress in Shanghai in July 1921, but left the party the following year.

Chen Gongbo then moved to the United States, where he obtained a master's degree in Economics at Columbia University in 1925.

Chen Gongbo felt it particularly unfair for Chiang to have replaced Wang in KMT leadership through a military coup in 1926.

However, he remained politically aloof to Chiang Kai-shek and, after Wang Jingwei broke ranks with the Kuomintang and established the collaborationist Wang Jingwei Government, Chen Gongbo soon followed despite his initial opposition.

In mid-1944, when Wang traveled to Japan for medical treatment, Chen Gongbo was left in charge as acting president of the Executive Yuan, becoming president of the government upon Wang's death in November 1944.

Chen Gongbo insisted that as president he had refused to cooperate with the Japanese in several significant matters and had acted only because of his loyalty to his friend, Wang Jingwei.

Chen Gongbo took his fate calmly, saying that "soon I will be reunited with Wang Jingwei in the next world".

Chen Gongbo was executed by firing squad at Suzhou, Jiangsu, on June 3,1946.