43 Facts About Wang Jingwei

1.

Wang Zhaoming, widely known by his pen name Wang Jingwei, was a Chinese politician.

2.

Wang Jingwei was initially a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang, leading a government in Wuhan in opposition to the right-wing government in Nanjing, but later became increasingly anti-communist after his efforts to collaborate with the Chinese Communist Party ended in political failure.

3.

Wang Jingwei remained inside the Kuomintang, but continued to have disagreements with Chiang until the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, after which he accepted an invitation from the Japanese Empire to form a Japanese-supported collaborationist government in Nanking.

4.

Wang Jingwei served as the head of state for this Japanese puppet government until he died, shortly before the end of World War II.

5.

Wang Jingwei was among the Chinese nationalists in Japan who were influenced by Russian anarchism, and published a number of articles in journals edited by Zhang Renjie, Wu Zhihui, and the group of Chinese anarchists in Paris.

6.

Wang Jingwei gained prominence during this period as an excellent public speaker and a staunch advocate of Chinese nationalism.

7.

Wang Jingwei was jailed for plotting an assassination of the regent, Prince Chun, and readily admitted his guilt at trial.

8.

Wang Jingwei remained in jail from 1910 until the Wuchang Uprising the next year, and became something of a national hero upon his release.

9.

Wang Jingwei is believed by many to have drafted Sun's will during the short period before Sun's death, in the winter of 1925.

10.

Wang Jingwei was considered one of the main contenders to replace Sun as leader of the KMT, but eventually lost control of the party and army to Chiang Kai-shek.

11.

Wang Jingwei had clearly lost control of the KMT by 1926, when, following the Zhongshan Warship Incident, Chiang successfully sent Wang Jingwei and his family to vacation in Europe.

12.

Wang Jingwei did not believe that Communists could be true patriots or true Chinese nationalists.

13.

In early 1927, shortly before Chiang captured Shanghai and moved the capital to Nanjing, Wang Jingwei's faction declared the capital of the Republic to be Wuhan.

14.

Wang Jingwei later blamed the failure of his Wuhan government on its excessive adoption of communist agendas.

15.

Wang Jingwei's regime was opposed by Chiang Kai-shek, who was in the midst of a bloody purge of communists in Shanghai and was calling for a push farther north.

16.

KMT troops occupying territories formerly controlled by Wang Jingwei conducted massacres of suspected Communists in many areas: around Changsha alone, over ten thousand people were killed in a single twenty-day period.

17.

Between 1929 and 1930, Wang Jingwei collaborated with Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan to form a central government in opposition to the one headed by Chiang.

18.

Wang Jingwei took part in a conference hosted by Yan to draft a new constitution, and was to serve as the Prime Minister under Yan, who would be president.

19.

Wang Jingwei was appointed premier just as the Battle of Shanghai began.

20.

Wang Jingwei had frequent disputes with Chiang and would resign in protest several times only to have his resignation rescinded.

21.

Wang Jingwei traveled to Germany, and maintained some contact with Adolf Hitler.

22.

Chiang was much more of a hardline anti-Communist than was Wang Jingwei, but Chiang was a self-proclaimed "realist" who was willing if necessary to have an alliance with the Soviet Union.

23.

In December 1935, Wang Jingwei permanently left the premiership after being seriously wounded during an assassination attempt engineered a month earlier by Wang Jingwei Yaqiao.

24.

Wang Jingwei accompanied the government on its retreat to Chongqing during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

25.

Wang Jingwei was originally part of the pro-war group; but, after the Japanese were successful in occupying large areas of coastal China, Wang Jingwei became known for his pessimistic view on China's chances in the war against Japan.

26.

Wang Jingwei often voiced defeatist opinions in KMT staff meetings, and continued to express his view that Western imperialism was the greater danger to China, much to the chagrin of his associates.

27.

Wang Jingwei believed that China needed to reach a negotiated settlement with Japan so that Asia could resist Western Powers.

28.

In late 1938, Wang Jingwei left Chongqing for Hanoi, French Indochina, where he stayed for three months and announced his support for a negotiated settlement with the Japanese.

29.

Wang Jingwei then flew to Shanghai, where he entered negotiations with Japanese authorities.

30.

On 30 March 1940, Wang became the head of state of what came to be known as the Wang Jingwei regime based in Nanjing, serving as the President of the Executive Yuan and Chairman of the National Government.

31.

In November 1940, Wang Jingwei's government signed the "Sino-Japanese Treaty" with the Japanese, a document that has been compared with Japan's Twenty-one Demands for its broad political, military, and economic concessions.

32.

In June 1941, Wang Jingwei gave a public radio address from Tokyo in which he praised Japan and affirmed China's submission to it while criticizing the Kuomintang government, and pledged to work with the Empire of Japan to resist Communism and Western imperialism.

33.

Wang Jingwei continued to orchestrate politics within his regime in concert with Chiang's international relationship with foreign powers, seizing the French Concession and the International Settlement of Shanghai in 1943, after Western nations agreed by consensus to abolish extraterritoriality.

34.

The Government of National Salvation of the collaborationist "Republic of China", which Wang Jingwei headed, was established on the Three Principles of Pan-Asianism, anti-communism, and opposition to Chiang Kai-shek.

35.

Wang Jingwei continued to maintain his contacts with German Nazis and Italian fascists he had established while in exile.

36.

Since Wang Jingwei's government held authority only over territories under Japanese military occupation, there was a limited amount that officials loyal to Wang Jingwei could do to ease the suffering of Chinese under Japanese occupation.

37.

Wang Jingwei was demonized and branded as an "arch-traitor" in both KMT and Communist propaganda.

38.

In March 1944, Wang Jingwei left for Japan to undergo medical treatment for the wound left by an assassination attempt in 1939.

39.

Wang Jingwei died in Nagoya on 10 November 1944, less than a year before Japan's surrender to the Allies, thus avoiding a trial for treason.

40.

Wang Jingwei was buried in Nanjing near the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, in an elaborately constructed tomb.

41.

Wang Jingwei's eldest daughter, Wenxing, was born in France in 1915, worked as a teacher in Hong Kong after 1948, retired to the US in 1984 and died in 2015.

42.

Wang Jingwei's third daughter, Wenxun, was born in Guangzhou in 1922 and died in 2002 in Hong Kong.

43.

Wang Jingwei's second son, Wenti, was born in 1928 and was sentenced in 1946 to 18 months' imprisonment for being a hanjian.