Wang Jingwei

Life & Legacy

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 became leader of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China (RNG), a collaborationist regime with the Empire of Japan during World War II.
Wang attended Hosei University in Japan on a Qing government scholarship, and joined the revolutionary Tongmenghui in Tokyo in 1905. He gained prominence in 1910 for an attempted assassination of the Qing prince regent Zaifeng, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released after the Wuchang Uprising the following year. Trusted by both sides, he mediated between Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army and Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary forces, supporting Yuan's presidency to facilitate a peaceful abdication of the Qing court. In 1912, Wang left for France, where he initiated the Work–Study Movement. Returning to China in 1917, he rejoined Sun's inner circle and in 1925 drafted his political testament. Following Sun's death, 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 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, but 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 hanjian. Wang died in Nagoya, Japan in 1944.