Wang Jingwei

In this Chinese name, the family name is Wāng.

Wang Jingwei Wang Ching-wei
汪精衞
1st Chairman of the National Government Committee of China (Wang Jingwei regime)
In office 28 November 1940 – 10 November 1944
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Chen Gongbo
Premier of China (Wang Jingwei regime)
In office 30 March 1940 – 10 November 1944
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Chen Gongbo
1st Chairman of the Central Political Committee (Wang Jingwei regime)
In office 24 March 1940 – 10 November 1944
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Chen Gongbo
Chairman of Kuomintang (Wang Jingwei regime)
In office 28 November 1939 – 10 November 1944
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Chen Gongbo
Other offices Chairman of the National Political Consultative Conference In office 6 July 1938 – 1 January 1939 Preceded by Office established Succeeded by Chang Po-ling (acting) Vice Director-General of the Kuomintang In office 1 April 1938 – 1 January 1939 Preceded by Office established Succeeded by Chen Cheng (acting) Chairman of the Central Political Committee of the Kuomintang In office 7 December 1935 – 17 November 1937 Preceded by Chiang Kai-shek Succeeded by Chiang Kai-shek In office 1 July 1925 – 23 March 1926 Preceded by Hu Hanmin Succeeded by Tan Yankai Chairman of the National Defense Committee of the Kuomintang In office 3 March 1937 – 11 August 1937 Preceded by Chiang Kai-shek Succeeded by Chiang Kai-shek 24th Premier of China In office 28 January 1932 – 1 December 1935 President Lin Sen Preceded by Sun Fo Succeeded by Chiang Kai-shek Chairman of the Military Affairs Commission In office 3 July 1925 – 16 April 1926 Preceded by Office established Succeeded by Chiang Kai-shek Chairman of the National Government Committee In office 1 July 1925 – 23 March 1926 Preceded by Office established Succeeded by Chiang Kai-shek
Personal details
Born	(1883-05-04)4 May 1883 Sanshui, Guangdong, China
Died	10 November 1944(1944-11-10) (aged 61) Nagoya, Japan
Party	Kuomintang Kuomintang-Nanjing
Spouse	Chen Bijun
Children	6
Military service
Branch/service	Collaborationist Chinese Army
Years of service	1940–1944
Rank	Generalissimo (特級上將)
Battles/wars	Second Sino-Japanese War
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	汪精衞
Simplified Chinese	汪精卫
Hanyu Pinyin	Wāng Jīngwèi
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wāng Jīngwèi Wade–Giles Wang1 Ching1-wei4 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Wōng Jīng-waih Jyutping Wong1 Zing1-wai6
Birth name
Traditional Chinese	汪兆銘
Simplified Chinese	汪兆铭
Hanyu Pinyin	Wāng Zhàomíng
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wāng Zhàomíng Wade–Giles Wang1 Chao4-ming2 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Wōng Siuh-míhng Jyutping Wong1 Siu6-ming5

Wang Zhaoming (Chinese: 汪兆銘; Wade–Giles: Wang Chao-ming; Japanese: Ō Chōmei; 4 May 1883 – 10 November 1944), widely known by his pen name Wang Jingwei (Chinese: 汪精衞; Wade–Giles: Wang Ching-wei; Japanese: Ō Seiei), was a Chinese politician and poet who was leader of the reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, a puppet state of the Empire of Japan during World War II.

Wang, a xiucai by the imperial examination, attended Hosei University in Japan on a Qing government scholarship, where he joined the revolutionary Tongmenghui in 1905. He gained prominence in 1910 for a failed attempt to assassinate the Qing prince regent Zaifeng, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released after the Wuchang Uprising the following year. He took part in negotiations between Yuan Shikai’s Beiyang Army and Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary forces, supporting Yuan's presidency in order to facilitate the abdication of the Qing court.

After the assassination of Song Jiaoren, widely attributed to Yuan Shikai, Wang advocated political compromise before joining the opposition to Yuan during the Second Revolution. Following its failure, he left for France, returning briefly for the National Protection War. After Yuan's death, Wang remained a close associate of Sun Yat-sen and drafted his political testament. Following Sun's death in 1925, Wang became the first president of the Nationalist government and Chiang Kai-shek's principal rival within the Kuomintang (KMT). As Wang adhered to Sun’s policy of cooperation with the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the right-wing Western Hills Group purported to suspend him from the KMT for six months and set up a rival party leadership in Shanghai in 1925. After losing control of the party and military to Chiang in the Canton Coup, Wang departed for France. He returned in April 1927, when he issued a joint declaration with Chen Duxiu reaffirming KMT–CCP cooperation and led the left-wing Wuhan government in opposition to Chiang's in Nanjing. Wang purged the Communists in the July 15 Incident and reconciled with Nanjing, whereupon both he and Chiang were forced to resign as the New Guangxi clique took control of the reunified government. In late 1929, he joined a series of military revolts against Chiang, who had since resumed power, but was defeated in the Central Plains War; Wang fled to British Hong Kong and was expelled from the KMT. He joined an anti-Chiang government in Guangzhou in 1931, and following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria reached an accommodation with Chiang whereby Wang led the government while Chiang commanded the military.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Wang initially advocated resistance while pursuing negotiations. Following China's defeat in the First Battle of Hopei, he increasingly favored the peace movement. In December 1938, as the second-ranking leader after Chiang, Wang left China's wartime capital Chongqing for Hanoi and called for a peace settlement with Japan, after which he was expelled from the KMT again. In 1940 Wang established a collaborationist government in Nanjing, administering Japanese-occupied China. Both the KMT and the CCP denounced him as a hanjian. Wang died in Nagoya, Japan in 1944.

Early life and education

Wang Jingwei in his twenties

Former residence of Wang Jingwei in Nanjing.

Born in Sanshui, Guangdong, of Zhejiang origin, Wang obtained a xiucai degree by passing the imperial examination at the county-level in 1902, and went to study at Hosei University in Japan on a Qing government scholarship in 1903. In 1905, Wang first met Sun Yan-sen, the exiled revolutionary leader, and soon joined the Tongmenghui, predecessor of the Kuomintang, in Tokyo. He gained attention as a polemicist for the Tongmenghui organ People's News, notably in his debates with Liang Qichao, who advocated constitutional monarchy. His sobriquet "Wang Jingwei," initially a pen name for the newspaper, was adopted in 1905 and named after the mythical jingwei bird that attempts to fill the ocean with twigs and pebbles.

As a young man, Wang came to blame the Qing dynasty for holding China back, and making it too weak to fight off exploitation by Western imperialist powers. In Japan, he cut off his queue and embraced theories of democracy and liberalism. Wang 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 a group of Chinese anarchists in Paris.

Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War impressed Wang, and influenced his view of nationalism as an ideology that could unite a country around the idea of self-strengthening.

Early career

In the years leading up to the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, Wang was active in opposing the Qing government. During this period he emerged as an excellent public speaker and a staunch advocate of Chinese nationalism.

Wang was part of a Tongmenghui cell which attempted to assassinate the regent, Prince Chun. Wang and Chen Bijun, an admirer of Wang's revolutionary ambitions, were betrothed and informally married shortly before the assassination attempt. The bomb that Wang and his cell planted was discovered, and Wang and two others who planned the assassination were arrested two weeks later. Wang readily admitted his guilt at trial and was not repentant. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

A number of factors may have contributed to Wang's receiving a life sentence instead of being executed. Shanqi, Prince Su, who was in charge of the Beijing police and presided over the interrogation of Wang, was believed to have been moved by Wang's confession. In his view, leniency would show the government's magnanimity and its commitment to reform. Additionally, Shanqi's advisor Cheng Jiacheng was an undercover Tongmenghui agent and there were other sympathetic officials. Finally, Tongmenghui leaders threatened reprisals if Wang were executed, and these threats may have had an intimidating effect on government officials.

Wang remained in prison for a year, during which he was well treated by Prince Su, who often engaged him in discussions of politics and poetry, an experience that largely softened his violently revolutionary ardour. Following the Wuchang Uprising, he was released as a national hero; accounts differ as to whether this was part of a general amnesty the Qing court extended to placate the revolutionaries, or specifically arranged by Yuan Shikai, a capable general newly appointed as imperial premier who sought to use Wang as an intermediary in negotiations with the southern forces. A book of poems written by Wang during his incarceration was published after his release and became widely popular.

Amid the dynastic collapse, Wang found himself courted by rival factions. Yuan Shikai invited Wang to his mansion in order to "study republican theory", and Yuan's son Keding became Wang's sworn brother. Wang soon co-founded a lobby group with Yang Du, a friend from their shared years at Hosei University and a close associate of Yuan's, with the two men presenting themselves as representatives of the revolutionary and constitutionalist camps respectively. They called for an immediate ceasefire, the convening of a provisional national assembly, and a peaceful resolution of the monarchy-versus-republic question, but the proposal was rejected by both the Qing court and the revolutionaries. The organisation was swiftly dissolved.

Wang subsequently took part in negotiations between the Beiyang Army led by Yuan Shikai and the revolutionary forces led by Sun Yat-sen. Wang supported Yuan's presidency in order to facilitate the abdication of the Qing court and a peaceful transfer of power.

After the Xinhai Revolution, Wang pledged not to accept government positions and declined Yuan's offer to appoint him governor of Guangdong. Despite Yuan's personal fondness for him, Wang grew increasingly uneasy with Yuan's political ambitions as incompatible with the republic. Following the assassination of Song Jiaoren, widely believed to have been orchestrated by Yuan, which reignited tensions between the North led by Yuan and the South led by Sun, Wang advocated for political compromise and a peaceful settlement, before voicing support for Sun's Second Revolution in opposition to Yuan.

After Yuan quickly suppressed the Second Revolution, Wang left for France with his wife, funded by Yuan and Wang's wealthy father-in-law. He studied sociology at the University of Lyon and befriended his neighbor Cai Yuanpei. He refused Yuan's invitations to return home with promises of political reward, but accepted Yuan's financial gift, which he used to launch Xuefeng magazine with Cai. Wang briefly returned to China with his wife to take part in the National Protection War against Yuan. In 1917, Wang ended his three-year stay in France when Sun Yat-sen summoned him back to China for the Constitutional Protection Movement.

In 1919, Wang was appointed as a delegate by the Constitutional Protection junta, as opposed to the delegation of the internationally recognized Beiyang government, to attend the post-World War I Paris Peace Conference. Honoring his pledge to decline official positions, he did not accept the appointment but attended the conference as an observer nonetheless. In Paris, the two delegations from rival governments set aside their differences to present a united front for China on the international stage. Witnessing China receive no better treatment than a defeated power despite its role as a victorious ally, Wang was outraged by the diplomatic fiasco and the European powers' dismissal of China's interests at the conference.

In 1921, when Sun Yat-sen assumed the presidency of the Guangzhou government of the ROC that succeeded the Constitutional Protection junta, Wang became Sun's minister of education, the first official office of his career. He also held several other posts, notably as Sun’s Chinese secretary and trusted confidant. In late 1924, he was one of the few members of Sun's inner circle to accompany him on trips outside of KMT-held territory to Beijing, months before Sun's death. He drafted Sun's political and personal testaments, to the KMT and to his family respectively, before Sun's death in March 1925.

Wang Jingwei addressing the students before a demonstration in Shakee in June 1925 in Guangzhou

Mid-career

Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kai-Shek in 1927

Leader of the Guangzhou Government

After Sun's death in 1925, Wang, considered Sun's successor as leader of the KMT, became the first president of the Nationalist government, which at the time controlled only Guangdong province in opposition to the internationally recognized Beiyang Government that held sway over much of the rest of China. At this time, Wang's view was that the KMT should be the lead party in a democratic coalition based on constitutionalism and that it should guide mass movements to change China's social structure. Wang also adhered to Sun's policy of collaborating with Soviet Union, such as with advisors Nikolay Kuybyshev and Mikhail Borodin, as well as accommodating Chinese Communist Party. In October 1925, Wang appointed a number of CCP members to prominent positions within the KMT, including Mao Zedong, who assumed Wang's concurrent post as head of the KMT's Publicity Department.

Wang, leader of the KMT left wing, Chiang Kai-shek, the centre, and Hu Hanmin, the right, emerged as the three principal contenders for power within the KMT. Following the Canton Coup, which some historians believe was a false flag incident orchestrated by the Sun Yat-senism Study Society, a radical right-wing faction within the KMT, Wang lost control of the party and military to Chiang. He resigned and left for France with his family.

Leader of the Wuhan Government

Following the Northern Expedition, the Nationalist government relocated from Guangzhou to Wuhan, which it declared as its temporary capital. In April 1927, Wang travelled back to China via the Soviet Union, where he met Joseph Stalin. Passing through Shanghai, Wang issued a joint declaration with Chen Duxiu reaffirming his commitment to KMT–CCP cooperation, before proceeding to lead the left-wing Nationalist government in Wuhan. As soon as Wang arrived in Wuhan, Chiang purged CCP in the Shanghai massacre and then established a rival right-wing government in Nanjing. The separation between the governments of Wang and Chiang is known as the "Nanjing-Wuhan Split" (traditional Chinese: 寧漢分裂; simplified Chinese: 宁汉分裂; pinyin: Nínghàn Fenlìe).

In May 1927, the Comintern issued an urgent directive instructing the CCP to strengthen its position within the Wuhan government by organizing a peasant army and establishing a military tribunal to try Chiang over the Shanghai massacre. Mikhail Borodin and Chen Duxiu considered the directive unrealistic. Comintern agent Manabendra Nath Roy, however, showed the directive to Wang, who reacted with alarm, precipitating the July 15 Incident in which Wang followed Chiang's lead in purging the Communists. In a subsequent interview with The New York Times, Wang explained his split with the Communists:

Sun Yat-sen, as you know, was greatly influenced by the American radical Henry George, but he was never a Communist. His economic program, which is ours, means three things: Henry George's method of assessing land, definite laws against monopoly under private ownership, and Government ownership of large public utilities. We propose to realize this program without violence and without confiscation.

As Wang became the last of three KMT leaders to break with the Communists, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Shanghai reached a compromise and established the Central Special Committee as the supreme decision-making body for party and political affairs, ending the period of fragmentation that had seen three separate KMT central party organs and two rival central governments coexist since 1926. However, the New Guangxi clique exploited the tensions between the Nanjing and Wuhan factions to seize effective control of the Committee. Both Chiang Kai-shek and Wang were edged out before the formal reunification was completed, and Wang departed for France again at the end of 1927.

Collaboration with Anti-Chiang Powers

In late 1928, when Wang was in France, KMT left-wing figures such as Chen Gongbo and Gu Mengyu founded the Reorganization Group in Shanghai, recognizing Wang as their de facto leader in absentia. In late 1929, following Zhang Fakui's uprising against Chiang and his appeal for Wang's return, Wang came back to China. In 1930, Wang allied with Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, and Li Zongren to form a government based in Taiyuan and then Peiping in opposition to Chiang, but their coalition was defeated in the Central Plains War. Wang then fled to British Hong Kong, where the Reorganization Group was dissolved. In 1931, Wang joined an anti-Chiang government in Guangzhou, composed primarily of the defeated powers in the Central Plains War.

Premiership of the Chiang Government

Wang Jingwei (second from left) and Chen Bijun (far left) in British Malaya, 1935

Following the Mukden Incident, Chiang and Wang set aside their intra-party rivalry and reached an uneasy accommodation, whereby Wang served as premier while Chiang commanded the military. During his premiership of the Nanjing government, Wang initially advocated resistance during the Shanghai War of 1932, but as the conflict dragged on, he presided with Chiang's endorsement over settlement negotiations with Japan, drawing criticism for perceived appeasement. From July 1932, Wang repeatedly urged Zhang Xueliang to resist Japanese incursions into Rehe, and in August threatened resignation over the general's policy of non-resistance, which admittedly stemmed from the profound military imbalance between the Northeastern Army and Japanese forces. Wang proceeded to resign in August and departed for Europe on the stated grounds of medical leave. On the recommendation of his family physician, Kurt Noll (1900–1955) of Giessen, he spent much of his leave at clinics and spas in Germany and Austria. Following Zhang's defeat in the Battle of Rehe, Zhang resigned and left for Europe as well, whereupon Wang returned to the premiership in March 1933. His confidence in military resistance was soon shaken, however, by China's disastrous defeat in the First Battle of Hopei, where Japanese firepower and equipment far outmatched Chinese forces. As head of government, Wang attracted significant criticism over the Tanggu Truce, which many viewed as a humiliating capitulation to Japan. Facing the prospect of a full-scale war with Japan, Wang grew increasingly pessimistic.

Wang Jingwei on a 1935 cover of Time magazine

While being opposed to any effort at this time to subordinate China to Japan, Wang also saw the "white powers" like the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States as equal if not greater dangers to China, insisting that China had to defeat Japan solely by its own efforts if the Chinese were to hope to maintain their independence. But at the same time, Wang's belief that China was too economically backward at present to win a war against a Japan which had been aggressively modernizing since the Meiji Restoration of 1867 made him the advocate of avoiding war with Japan and trying to negotiate an agreement which would preserve China's independence. Chiang by contrast believed that if his modernization program was given enough time, China would win the coming war and that if the war came before his modernization plans were complete, he was willing to ally with any foreign power to defeat Japan, even including the Soviet Union, which was supporting the Chinese Communists in the civil war. Chiang was much more of a hardline anti-Communist than was Wang, but Chiang was also a self-proclaimed "realist" who was willing if necessary to have an alliance with the Soviet Union. Though in the short-run, Wang and Chiang agreed on the policy of "first internal pacification, then external resistance", in the long-run they differed as Wang was more of an appeaser while Chiang just wanted to buy time to modernize China for the coming war.

In 1934, as Chiang launched the New Life Movement, where law enforcement police sometimes inspected people's homes for cleanliness, Wang sought to persuade Chiang to rely less on coercive measures, contending, "Morality sets the highest standards, but the law should only enforce the minimum standard." Chiang partially accepted this perspective, announcing a modification to the movement's implementation whereby the state would less directly intervene in common people's homes and bodies, and would focus more on government employees, soldiers, and students before expanding to the common people more gradually.

In November 1935, Wang was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt at a group photograph session; the gunman, Sun Fengming, had been hired by Wang Yaqiao and cited Wang's appeasement policy toward Japan as justification, a popular opinion following Wang's role in the truce negotiations after the Shanghai War of 1932 and the Tanggu Truce. Zhang Xueliang, who along with Zhang Puquan had subdued Sun on the spot, instead claimed that the real plotter was Liu Luyin, a close associate of Hu Hanmin, as Liu sought to eliminate the Guangdong faction in the government, including Wang, T. V. Soong, Yang Changqing, and Yang Yongtai.

Wang took a three-month medical leave and, following treatment in Hong Kong, resumed office in January 1936. The same year, Wang clashed with Chiang over foreign policy. In a role reversal, the left-wing "progressive" Wang argued for accepting the German-Japanese offer of having China sign the Anti-Comintern Pact while the right-wing "reactionary" Chiang wanted a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. During the 1936 Xi'an Incident, in which Chiang was taken prisoner by Zhang Xueliang, Wang favored sending a "punitive expedition" to attack Zhang. Chiang's wife, Soong Mei-ling, and brother-in-law, T. V. Soong, feared that such an action would lead to Chiang's death and his replacement by Wang, so they opposed this action.

In 1937, Wang accompanied the government in its retreat to Chongqing, China's wartime capital. As Chinese forces suffered a succession of defeats, Wang continued to advocate a negotiated peace, his growing defeatism increasingly at odds with Chiang's position and a source of division within the KMT.

Later career

Breakaway from Chongqing

Wang receiving German diplomats while serving as the head of state in 1941

Hideki Tojo and Wang Jingwei meet in 1942

From 1937 to 1938, Wang conducted a series of secret negotiations with Konoe Fumimaro, who approached him in an effort to split the Chinese leadership and agreed in principle to a conditional Japanese troop withdrawal within two years, alongside a coordinated schedule of public statements. In December 1938, as the second-ranking leader of the Nationalist government and KMT to Chiang, Wang left Chongqing for Hanoi via Kunming, with the assistance of the Yunnan warlord Long Yun.

On December 22, Konoe issued a public statement on China policy, but under pressure from the hawkish military, the statement omitted the two-year withdrawal commitment. Despite his disappointment, Wang proceeded to issue a responding statement per their secret agreement, declaring his support for a negotiated settlement with Japan. He was subsequently expelled from the KMT and placed on a wanted list by the Chongqing government.

Wang had originally planned to establish a rival government in southwestern China, relying on anti-Chiang warlords to provide a territorial base. However, Konoe's cabinet suddenly resigned in January 1939, and the warlords Wang had counted on, including Long Yun, Zhang Fakui, and He Jian, did not respond as expected, leaving him stranded in Hanoi without political or military backing.

In February 1939, Chiang dispatched emissary Gu Zhengding to Hanoi, offering Wang three passports and funds, urging him to leave for Europe. Two were diplomatic passports, issued to Chen Bijun and Wang's secretary Zeng Zhongming; the third was an ordinary passport for Wang himself, as Chiang considered him stripped of party membership and public office and therefore ineligible for diplomatic travel documents. Wang indignantly demanded that all three be of the same type and the dispute dragged on until March. Wang also conveyed to Chiang that he had not abandoned his commitment to a negotiated peace and would return to China if circumstances required. Wang later attributed this intransigence as a factor that provoked the subsequent KMT assassination attempt in Hanoi, which mistakenly killed Zeng Zhongming instead of Wang.

With his break with Chiang now irreparable and British Hong Kong unwilling to offer protection, the Japanese government proactively sent representatives to Hanoi and offered Wang safe passage. Wang chose to proceed to then Japanese occupied Shanghai, where he entered into negotiations over the formation of a new government.

Wang Jingwei Regime

On 30 March 1940, Wang became head of the reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, commonly known as the Wang Jingwei regime. Established at Nanjing, the capital of the Republic before its fall to Japan, the regime nominally governed Japanese-occupied China excluding Manchuria, where Japan had already installed the separate Manchukuo puppet state. Deliberately mirroring the institutional structure of the Chongqing government to assert its claim as the legitimate Nationalist government, the regime retained Lin Sen, then the president of the Chongqing government, as its own nominal president, with Wang serving as premier and acting president. The regime adopted the blue sky and white sun flag, though Japan imposed its use alongside the slogan banner of "peace, anti-communism, and national reconstruction" (和平反共建國).

On 15 June 1940, Wang published an article entitled "Chiang Kai-shek's 'Magnet War'", in which he articulated his justification for the peace movement. Wang summarized his position in three propositions, followed by an extended critique of Chiang's wartime strategy:

1. China and Japan ought properly to be friends, not enemies.
2. If, through temporary misfortune, China and Japan have become enemies, one must at all times strive to recover the path to friendship; once attained, it must never again be abandoned.
3. The Konoe Statements had already provided a path by which enemies could be transformed into friends. Yet at this very moment Chiang Kai-shek continued to advocate his so-called "Magnet War", which held that China, vast in territory and numerous in population, could preserve its main forces, make use of its broad lands and masses, and entangle the Japanese army in a prolonged struggle. Hence the strategy of protracted war, scorched-earth warfare, and guerrilla warfare—Japan could occupy points and lines, but never the whole.

Wang argued that such a strategy could never lead to final victory, as it depended only on two uncertain expectations: international assistance, and Japan's economic collapse. With the outcome of the European war still unknown and international assistance no longer reliable, prolonged war would inevitably exhaust China. While Japan might suffer injury from a long conflict, China, Wang asserted, would face only destruction.

Drawing on historical analogy, Wang noted that the Qing armies entered the Shanhai Pass into China proper and the Ming dynasty perished sixteen years later; the Southern Song maintained a precarious existence for one hundred and fifteen years before its fall. By contrast, the War of Resistance had lasted only three years—hardly a long duration by historical standards. He further argued that the higher an organism stands in the scale of life, the more concentrated its nervous system: a frog, when cut into pieces, may still leap, but such movement is without function. The slower the death, the more difficult and protracted the recovery.

According to Wang, modern China was no longer comparable to the Song or the Ming. If it did not perish, all would be well; but once it perished, its economy, culture, and social foundations would perish with it, with no definite prospect of recovery. Although China proclaimed itself an agrarian nation, its annual grain output could not meet domestic needs. Only under conditions of stability, with coordinated political, scientific, and technical efforts, might recovery be possible. Scorched-earth and guerrilla warfare, by contrast, would destroy the countryside at its very roots.

Wang concluded by likening such strategies to "swallowing arsenic in order to poison a tiger." The person who swallowed arsenic would certainly die, while the tiger that consumed the poisoned body might merely vomit and survive. If no path existed by which enemies could be transformed into friends, Wang argued, then all Chinese would have no choice but to swallow arsenic. Since such a path did exist, he maintained that even if personal sacrifice were unavoidable, the survival of the nation had to be sought first. Wang closed by stating that he spoke in accordance with his conscience and was prepared to bear responsibility for his words.

In November 1940, Wang's government signed the "Sino-Japanese Treaty", a document that has been compared with Japan's Twenty-One Demands for its broad political, military, and economic concessions. In June 1941, Wang 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. Wang's government took back the French Concession and the International Settlement of Shanghai in 1943, after Western nations agreed by consensus to abolish extraterritoriality. Wang's government was recognized by Nazi Germany and Kingdom of Italy.

Death

In March 1944, Wang left for Japan to undergo medical treatment for the wound left by an assassination attempt in 1935. He died at the Nagoya Imperial University Hospital on 10 November 1944, less than a year before Japan's surrender to the Allies. On his deathbed, Wang dictated a political testament to his wife Chen Bijun, requesting that it not be published until twenty years after his death. In it, he lamented that China's weakness had left him no choice but to cooperate with Japan in the nation's darkest hour, expressed hope at the turning of the tide in the Pacific War as China joined the Allied powers, and declared his confidence in Japan's eventual defeat. He also instructed: "Whatever the future may hold for our nation, my comrades must uphold the principle that the party shall remain united and the country shall not be divided; none may pursue private interests by fomenting separatism."

His death was not announced until 12 November, after commemorative events for Sun Yat-sen's birth had concluded in China. Many of his senior followers who lived to see the end of the war were executed by Chiang kai-shek. Per his dying wishes, Wang was buried on Plum Flower Mountain, near the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, showing his devotion as Sun's follower in death as in life. Construction of Wang's tomb was suspended upon the regime's collapse the following year. After Chiang retook Nanjing, he ordered the tomb demolished, Wang's body exhumed and cremated together with the coffin.

In 1947, a pavilion was constructed on the site of the former tomb. In 1988, a memorial tomb was erected at Sotai-in Temple, Tokyo, within which a fragment salvaged from the destroyed Nanjing tomb was interred. The inscription eulogizes Wang as "a patriot, a distinguished disciple of Sun Yat-sen, and a great figure of East Asia." In 1994, a kneeling statue of Wang was installed at the summit of Plum Flower Mountain. As Wang's legacy became the subject of renewed and contested historical reassessment, and as the statue attracted visitors who repeatedly defaced it, the monument was removed in 1997.

Poetry

As a poet, Wang was critically acclaimed by his contemporaries, among them Qian Zhongshu, Chen Yinke, Zhang Bojun and Chen Yan. Swimming against the tide of the modern poetry written in vernacular Chinese of his time, Wang is regarded as one of the last great poets in the classical Chinese tradition. His early poetry is characterized by revolutionary passion and moral fortitude; his middle-period work turns to quieter, contemplative verse on nature and everyday life; while his late poetry grows increasingly dense, desolate, and elegiac, read by some scholars as a palimpsest of an often unfathomable inner life in his collaborationist years. His literary legacy was largely buried and forgotten after his death. In 2012, the republication of his collected poems in Hong Kong, coupled with the rediscovery and reassessment of his work by scholars such as Chia-ying Yeh and Yu Ying-shih, brought renewed interest and readership.

His best-known poem, composed at the age of 27 before his literary reputation was eclipsed by his political career, is a set of verse quatrains written upon his capture following the failed assassination attempt on Prince Chun of the Qing dynasty:

被逮口占

啣石成癡絕
滄波萬里愁
孤飛終不倦
羞逐海鷗浮

姹紫嫣紅色
從知渲染難
他時好花發
認取血痕斑

慷慨歌燕市
從容作楚囚
引刀成一快
不負少年頭

留得心魂在
殘軀付劫灰
青燐光不滅
夜夜照燕臺

— 汪精衛（1914）

Translation:

Orally Composed upon Being Captured

Carrying pebbles in its beak—what extreme folly!
Over ten thousand miles of dark waves spreads its sorrow.
Its tireless wings empower a solitary flight,
Ashamed to follow the seagulls or float with the tide.

Shades of rich purple and of crimson scarlet—
These bright colors, I know, are hard to dye.
One day when the tender blossoms bloom,
Please recognize on them stains of my blood.

With heroic abandon I sing in the market of Yan;
At utmost ease I become a prisoner from Chu.
The blade drawn turns into a sharp thrill,
That truly deserves this fine young head!

I will preserve only my heart, my soul,
And let the maimed body incinerate in the flames of kalpa.
Its blue ghost-light will never die—
Night after night, it shines upon the Terrace of Yan.

— Wang Jingwei (1914)

Some accounts state that, when Chiang ordered Wang’s tomb demolished, a collection of poems was found in the coffin, including a final piece believed to have been composed shortly before Wang's death:

自嘲

心宇將滅萬事休
天涯無處不怨尤
縱有先輩嘗炎涼
諒無後人續春秋

Translation:

Self-Mockery

As the chamber of the heart falls dark, all things come to rest;
Nowhere at the world’s edge is there not grievance and reproach.
Though those before have known the turns of heat and cold,
Surely none will come after to carry on this Spring and Autumn.

Legacy

Politics

For his role in the Second Sino-Japanese War, Wang has been denounced as a hanjian by both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. His name has become a byword for "traitor" or "treason" in the Chinese world, much like that of Vidkun Quisling in Norway or Benedict Arnold in the United States. Both sides chose to minimize his earlier association with Sun Yat-sen.

Collections

Following the Chiang Kai-shek government's resumption of Nanjing in 1945, Wang's estate was seized and his personal collections inventoried and confiscated. The collections, noted for their refined taste and wide-ranging interests, comprised over 400 books — including his own compiled works alongside volumes spanning literature, history, and the arts in multiple languages — and over 370 works of calligraphy, paintings, seal carvings, and ink rubbings; these were transferred to the National Central Library, now mostly held at the Nanjing Library. Wang also held some 350 objets d'art, among them vases, porcelain, and silverware, mostly gifts from political associates and foreign governments, particularly Japan; these were transferred to the National Central Museum, and now housed at the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Since the 2000s, Wang's calligraphy has attracted considerable interest on the art auction market.

Wang Jingwei Irrevocable Trust

In 2010, Wang Wenxing (Chorfu), Wang Jingwei's eldest daughter, and her husband, Ho Mang Hang, established the Wang Jingwei Irrevocable Trust, an independent nonprofit educational organization. The Trust maintains a comprehensive archive of materials spanning Wang's adult life, with the stated aim of promoting scholarly and public understanding of Wang through his own writings and the accounts of his associates.

Personal life

Wang was married to Chen Bijun. They were betrothed and had an informal wedding shortly before the assassination attempt on Prince Chun and were formally married in 1912. The couple had six children, five of whom survived into adulthood. Of those who survived into adulthood, Wang's eldest son Ying (later changed to Wenying), born in France in 1913, studied political economy in Germany and worked for the Wang regime before immigrating to the US. He donated Wang's personal papers and artifacts to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in 2021. Wang's eldest daughter, Wenxing (Chorfu), born in France in 1915, worked as a teacher in Hong Kong after 1948, retired to the US in 1984 and died in 2015. Wang's second daughter, Wenbin, born in 1920, worked for the Indonesian government before becoming a nun. Wang's third daughter, Wenxun, born in Guangzhou in 1922, became a professor of education at the University of Hong Kong and died in 2002. Wang's second son, Wenti, was born in 1928 and was sentenced in 1946 to 18 months' imprisonment for being a hanjian. After serving his sentence, Wenti settled in Hong Kong where he worked as a bridge engineer and participated in several projects on the mainland in the 1980s.

Popular culture

Wang appears as a character in Chinese-language film and television, typically in minor roles depicting his early years. Notable directors including Edward Yang, Jiang Wen, and Ang Lee have each attempted to develop films featuring Wang, without success, and reflecting the highly sensitive and politically contentious legacy of his later years. Wang Shuo has written a film script for the planned project by Jiang Wen, while Sha Yexin had, before his death, been working on a stage play centred on Wang Jingwei and Chen Bijun, both works remaining unpublished.

The period of Wang's collaborationist government (1940–1945) was a taboo subject on Chinese screen until Ang Lee's 2007 Chinese-American co-production Lust, Caution, the first film the Chinese authorities permitted to be set against this backdrop. The film, in which Wang is not a character, drew controversy for its alleged sympathy for the Wang regime, among others.

Film

• In the 1983 film He Long (Chinese: 賀龍軍長), Wang is portrayed by Ma Hongying.
• In the 1988 film Assassinating Wang Jingwei (Chinese: 刺殺汪精衛), Wang is portrayed by Sun Yanjun.
• In the 2007 film Axis of War: The First of August (Chinese: 八月一日), Wang is portrayed by Waise Lee.
• In the 2011 film 1911 (Chinese: 辛亥革命), Wang is portrayed by Yu Shaoqun.
• In the 2011 film The First President (Chinese: 第一大總統), Wang is portrayed by Liu Xiaofeng.
• In the 2017 film The Founding of an Army (Chinese: 建軍大業), Wang is portrayed by Yu Shaoqun.

Television

• In the 1997 television series Pan Hannian (Chinese: 潘漢年), Wang is portrayed by Yuan Chaoqun.
• In the 1997 television series Originally is Thickly Full of Affection (Chinese: 儂本多情), Wang is portrayed by an unidentified actor (the character is named Wang Jianguo, written as an allusion to Wang Jingwei).
• In the 2001 television series Sun Yat-sen (Chinese: 孫文), Wang is portrayed by Chen Xiaofei.
• In the 2003 television series Towards the Republic (Chinese: 走向共和), Wang is portrayed by Jia Zhigang.
• In the 2003 television series Yan'an Song (Chinese: 延安頌), Wang is portrayed by Qu Guoqiang.
• In the 2006 television series Guangzhou Storm (Chinese: 羊城風暴), Wang is portrayed by Meng Jianhua.
• In the 2008 television series Zhou Enlai in Chongqing (Chinese: 周恩來在重慶), Wang is portrayed by Chen Tianlu.
• In the 2009 television series General Ye Ting (Chinese: 葉挺將軍), Wang is portrayed by Liu Xinfen.
• In the 2009 television series Originally is Thickly Full of Affection (Chinese: 儂本多情), Wang is portrayed by Wang Jianguo (the character shares the actor's name in this remake of the 1997 series).
• In the 2010 television series The Incredible Conspiracy (Chinese: 驚天陰謀), Wang is portrayed by Xia Zhiying.
• In the 2010 television series Huang Yanpei (Chinese: 黃炎培), Wang is portrayed by Liu Xiaoxi.
• In the 2010 television series Freedom Fighter, Lee Hoe-young (Korean: 자유인이회영), Wang is portrayed by Jeong Heung-chae.
• In the 2011 television series Revolution of 1911 (Chinese: 辛亥革命), Wang is portrayed by Ma Guangze.
• In the 2011 television series Heaven and Earth (Chinese: 開天辟地), Wang is portrayed by Yu Yi.
• In the 2013 television series Mao Zedong (Chinese: 毛澤東), Wang is portrayed by Liu Yijun.
• In the 2013 television series Bloody Rose: Women's Special Forces (Chinese: 血色玫瑰之女子特遣隊), Wang is portrayed by Wen Zhang.
• In the 2014 television series Battle of Changsha (Chinese: 長沙保衛戰), Wang is portrayed by Guo Hao.
• In the 2015 television series Young Marshal (Chinese: 少帥), Wang is portrayed by Qiao Minglin.
• In the 2016 television series Eastern Battlefield (Chinese: 東方戰場), Wang is portrayed by Gallen Lo.
• In the 2017 television series Passionate Military Flag (Chinese: 熱血軍旗), Wang is portrayed by Zhang Gong.
• In the 2021 television series Glory and Dream (Chinese: 光榮與夢想), Wang is portrayed by Huang Jue.
• In the 2021 television series Swim Against the Current (Chinese: 中流擊水), Wang is portrayed by Shao Feng.
• In the 2021 television series Xiang Jingyu (Chinese: 向警予), Wang is portrayed by Wang Zheng.
• In the 2023 television series The Forerunner (aka Wondering the Vast) (Chinese: 問蒼茫), Wang is portrayed by Zhang Xiaolong.
• In the 2023 television series Stay Young Stay Passion (Chinese: 珠江人家), Wang is portrayed by an unidentified actor.
• In the 2025 television series Glorious Struggle (Chinese: 浴血榮光), Wang is portrayed by Tan Kai.

Stage

• In the 2026 stage production Jingwei (Chinese: 精衛), Wang is portrayed by Li Jiade.

See also

• Reorganization Group
• Collaboration with the Axis powers

Further reading

• David P. Barrett and Larry N. Shyu, eds.; Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932–1945: The Limits of Accommodation Stanford University Press 2001.
• Gerald Bunker, The Peace Conspiracy; Wang Ching-wei and the China war, 1937–1941 Harvard University Press, 1972.
• James C. Hsiung and Steven I. Levine, eds. China's Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937–1945 M. E. Sharpe, 1992.
• Ch'i Hsi-sheng, Nationalist China at War: Military Defeats and Political Collapse, 1937–1945 University of Michigan Press, 1982.
• Wen-Hsin Yeh, "Wartime Shanghai", Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
• Rana Mitter, "Forgotten Ally: China's World War II. 1937–1945" Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. ISBN 978-0618894253. Complete re-examination of the Chinese wars with Japan which argues that the memory of 'betrayals' by Britain, America, and Russia continues to influence China's worldview today.
• Zhiyi Yang, "The Road to Lyric Martyrdom: Reading the Poetry of Wang Zhaoming (1883-­‐‑1944)", Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 37, 2015, https://www.zhiyiyang.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Yang-2015-Road-to-Lyric-Martyrdom.pdf.
• Peter Kien-hong YU/俞劍鴻, WANG Jingwei: The Unknown Two New Sides/汪精衛：你不知道的真相 (New York: Bouden House/博登書屋, April 2024), and Debunking Social Science (San Francisco: www.Academia.edu., January 2022), (PDF).
• Zhiyi Yang, "Poetry, History, Memory: Wang Jingwei and China in Dark Times", University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, November 2023, https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/76845/9780472903917.pdf.

External links

• Japan's Asian Axis Allies: Chinese National Government of Nanking Archived 14 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine
• Newspaper clippings about Wang Jingwei in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
• The Wang Jingwei Irrevocable Trust