When Wang Jingwei prepared to organize a collaborationist government in nanjing in early 1940, the Chinese situation seemed to support his decision. By then, over half of the Chinese population lived in occupied China, with the rest suffering from “famine, cold, disease, and air-raids” under nationalist rule. Military defeats, economic problems, and corrupt management continued to paralyze the Chongqing government beyond the end of the war. Such “organization decay” became “a consistent feature” of Jiang Jieshi’s rule and eventually accounted for his loss of China to the Communists in 1949. 24
While in nanjing Wang Jingwei hoped that Jiang Jieshi would accept direct and immediate peace with Japan in order to save China as a modern nation and avoid further suffering of the Chinese people. However, regardless of the hopeless and shocking situation China was facing and his inability to improve it, Jiang denounced Wang’s peace efforts and disparaged the “three principles” Tokyo suggested to end the war. 25 Jiang’s criticism did not surprise Wang. Wang knew that with Manchuria under Japanese control following the September 18 Incident of 1931, many Chinese politicians found it a political liability to make compromises with Japan. Therefore, they chose to advocate tough resistance, though they knew such a “hightone” policy could not help save the nation nor reduce the suffering of millions of ordinary Chinese. 26 But the “high-tone” nationalism served them well, for it projected them as national heroes. While the common Chinese were suffering, these “true patriots” continued to enjoy “quality life” in the rear areas secure from Japanese attacks. They knew China could hardly defeat Japan alone but they expected others to become “hanjian” and to negotiate peace with Japan in order to end the
destructive war. 27
Chongqing’s denunciation did not shake Wang Jingwei’s determination to continue the “peace movement.” Wang knew China fought against Japan alone. few Western powers, including the United States, were willing to offer China any substantial help. Even after Pearl Harbor foreign assistance often came either too little or too late. 28 As one scholar comments, lack of foreign support “deepen[ed] China’s sense of isolation from her potential allies, and cast gloom over the Chinese leaders that the war was to last much longer than they had recently projected, if victory would ever come at all.”29
The discouraging international situation added to Wang Jingwei’s conviction that he was right to seek direct peace with Japan.30 By collaborating with Japan he hoped not only to spare his countrymen further grief or suffering but also to destroy the Communist movement, recover foreign concessions, and restore national sovereignty from Western “imperialism.”31
In order to legitimatize his government and bring a sense of normalcy to the people under his rule, Wang Jingwei struggled successfully with the Japanese military authorities to maintain the “nationalist government” as the title for his government and retain the same national flag. Meanwhile, Wang continued to project himself as Sun Zhongshan’s successor, declaring his policy based on Sun’s sanmin zhuyi (Three People’s Principles) and xianzheng (constitutionalism). Wang promised to honor Sun’s legacy by first shixian heping (realizing peace) and then shishi xianzheng (implementing constitutionalism). rule by law, not by a man, had always been on Wang’s political agenda. Even qingxiang yundong (the rural Pacification Movement) was designed to help realize sanmin zhuyi in the countryside, where the great majority of Chinese lived.32
Wang Jingwei knew he could achieve nothing without Japanese support. He also believed once Japanrecognized his government, it had no other choice but to “take our social and economic needs(minsheng xuyao) and our government structure (zhengfu tizhi) into consideration.” Besides, in Japan’s support Wang saw a chance for “our democracy,” a top political priority he had maintained since he followed Sun Zhongshan in the struggle for a modern, democratic China. Wang had no doubt that his collaboration with the Japanese meant his personal sacrifice given the Confucian tradition of filial piety to the nation based on the “nationalistic propaganda” of the nationalists and the Communists. But, he was willing to risk his reputation in the best interest of the people who, in his mind, were the backbone of the nation.33
Wang Jingwei never thought that his collaboration with Japan would make China disappear as a nation. nor did he believe Japan had a plan to turn China into a colony.34 While defining a nation based on common blood, language, territory, customs, religions, spiritual and physical nature, and history, Wang might also have looked at the issue of Japanese invasion or occupation based on the theme of historical assimilation he had developed earlier—“a fourfold typological scheme” in which:
1. races of equal strength merge to form a new nation;
2. a majority conquering race absorbs the conquered minority;
3. a minority conquering race assimilates a majority race;
4. a conquering minority is assimilated by a conquered majority.35
There is no evidence to prove or disapprove that Wang wanted to assimilate “a minority conquering race,” in this case Japan. Yet, familiar with Chinese history, Wang knew China, or Han China, just like a “huge snow ball,” had succeeded in assimilating any conquering minorities, or “barbarians”, including the Manchus and the Mongols.
While collaborating with the Japanese, Wang Jingwei insisted on Asian spiritual unity under Japaneseleadership. He justified his position simply on Sun Zhongshan’s Pan-Asianism. While alive Sun always had called on the Chinese to follow the Japanese in their common efforts to preserve “the purity of Asian culture” against European imperialism.36 Wang also knew that Sun had been “willing to strike a bargain with any foreign power which would agree to help his political ambitions.”37
We can never be certain whether Sun Zhongshan, founding father of republican China, would have been able to avoid the Sino-Japanese War or even lead the collaborationist government had he lived through the era. But we do know that Sun often insisted that the prosperity of East Asia depended on a Sino-Japanese alliance with more advanced Japan as the leader. We also know that frustrated with his repeated failures, Sun vigorously sought Japanese support, for which he was even willing to offer concessions that would have cost China no worse than what Japan had forced Yuan Shikai to sign—the infamous “Twenty-one Demands.” nevertheless, Sun, his nationalist Party, and the Communist Party all condemned Yuan for the “Twenty-one Demands” or used these Japanese demands as evidence to charge Yuan of betraying national interests and turning China into a Japanese colony.38
It is no longer a secret that Sun Zhongshan made friends with the leaders of the Black Dragon Society, an expansionist organization that supported the Japanese invasion of China and financed Sun’s revolution around the same time.39 While seeking russian support in the early twenties, Sun ignored his northern rivals’ request that russian troops withdraw from outer Mongolia, part of China under Manchu rule.40 Sun even asked the United States around the same time, though unsuccessfully, to send its troops and occupy China for a few years in order to save China “from ultimate ruin.”41All these facts regarding the “other side” of Sun’s story have remained a taboo in Chinese “official” or “nationalist history.” But Wang Jingwei knew it. He was also familiar with the Chinese tradition or history of making accommodations with foreign or “barbarian” invaders.42
regardless of both Communist and nationalist condemnations or denials, Wang Jingwei’s collaboration with Japan brought forth positive results for his government and for the common people under his rule. In early 1942 Japan’s “new China policy” gave Wang greater control over the lower Changjiang Valley, the economic and political basis of the nanjing collaborationist government. In early 1943 Tokyo allowed nanjing more freedom to move goods into Shanghai, which helped drive down the price of rice. According to John King fairbank, this new policy implied a more genuine collaboration between Wang and Japan.43
While collaborating with Japan, Wang Jingwei focused on restoring economic order in occupied China.Although a thoroughly researched work on the life of ordinary people in occupied China is still missing, some primitive and revisionist studies have offered a positive assessment of the economic achievements of the collaborationist government. one study argues that economic prosperity gradually appeared in occupied China after the establishment of the collaborationist government. Trade expanded not only in the region under collaborationist rule but also with “free China” through the Japanese lines. foreign trade also increased due to the economic recovery in occupied China.44
This author’s research, ironically based on the Communist documents known for their partiality againstcollaborationist rule, indicates that soon after the “return” of Wang Jingwei’s government the economy quickly recovered and expanded, particularly in Jiangnan (the southern part of the Changjiang Delta and the heartland of Wang’s government). In Suzhou, capital of Jiangsu province, for instance, people who had fled the city during the early months of the war soon returned and restored their businesses. By 1943, on guanqiang Street alone—still a famous commercial center today—about sixty-three renowned stores, including department stores reopened. Meanwhile, about a dozen hotels had opened or reopened in surrounding area. Economic recovery under collaborationist rule turned into an “abnormal” prosperity (jixing fanrong), recognized even in Communist sources.45
In Shanghai, the “isolated island” surrounded by Japanese occupation forces until Pearl Harbor, people also enjoyed “a seemingly anomalous economic boom” under collaborationist rule. With shipping and insurance industries booming, foreign trade also expanded tremendously. Meanwhile, the collaborationist government persuaded the Japanese authorities to return four hundred small enterprises to their Chinese owners.46
Between 1941 and 1945 Shanghai, though twice as large as Hong Kong, a territory Britain lost to Japan during the war, found its residents enjoying a much better life because the collaborationist government helped restore the social and economic order of the largest metropolitan city of China.47
Economic recovery and subsequent prosperity under collaborationist rule contrasted sharply with the nearly bankrupt economy of Chongqing under Jiang Jieshi’s rule. Both the Communist and nationalist leadership also lost their credibility as many of their troops defected to the nanjing side in search for a better life. Many regional military leaders, or rather warlords, though still claiming to be “loyal” to Chongqing and the fight against the Japanese in the name of the nation, actually maintained “working relations” with the Japanese military as well as the Wang government, and profited from economic gains by “smuggling” with the collaborationist China.48
The economic achievements of the collaborationist government benefited it politically, which explained itspopularity and support among the people in occupied China.49 With its economic achievements andsubsequent political stability, the collaborationist government eventually managed to create a new national order that the “existing state,” that is Chongqing, had failed to maintain.50
When Wang Jingwei decided to collaborate with the Japanese it never occurred to him that such collaboration meant total capitulation to Japanese demands. True collaboration necessitated concessions or costs for it to work; yet there was always resistance in collaboration. Such resistance was the driving force behind the success of the collaborationist government in recovering the economy and in restoring social stability, which contributed to the survival of millions of ordinary Chinese in occupied China.
China’s final victory over Japan during World War II facilitated the expansion of Chinese “official” nationalism at the expense of collaborationism. recent research on Japanese occupation of Manchuria and Japanese rule over Taiwan, however, confirms the complicated nature of collaborationism. In his groundbreaking study, rana Mitter finds that collaboration with the Japanese was “attractive [to local elites] in comparison with a powerless life in exile.” Japanese occupiers convinced regional social elites that normal and secure life would return with their cooperation. With their help the Japanese eventually managed to win over the local people. With a booming economy under Japanese occupation, the Chinese living in Manchuria found life much better than what they had under Chinese warlords or what their compatriots concurrently had under nationalist rule on the other side of the great Wall. little wonder that those who lived throughout Japanese occupation concluded that the Japanese had been “not as bad” as the nationalist or Communist propaganda insisted despite the fact that both the nationalists and Communists did their best to euphemize their own rule by demonizing Chinese collaborationists in Manchuria. A postwar British source also admitted that the Japanese occupation of Manchuria had actually benefited “the people in general.”51
While supposedly fighting the Japanese, many Manchuria warlords actually defied “official” nationalism by seeking private deals with the Japanese and the Manchurian government—a Japanese puppet denounced by Chinese “patriots” and their “patriotic” scholars even today.52 Contrary to its propaganda the Communist Party failed to attain local support in Manchuria due to the “indiscriminate killings and destruction” committed by the Communist guerrilla forces. one classic case in defiance of Communist “nationalism” was that of Ma Zhanshan, a Manchurian warlord who supposedly fought the Japanese. nevertheless, Communist history books have so far kept silent on Ma’s secret, “unpatriotic,” and even dirty deals with the Japanese.53
注释：
24 Julia Strauss, “The Evolution of republican government,” The China Quarterly, no. 150, 346 and “Symbol and reflection of the reconstituting State: The Examination Yuan in the 1930s,” Modern China, Vol. 20, no. 2, 234.
25 Jiang Jieshi, “Japan’s So-Called new order,” a speech addressed to government leaders at the Central guomindang Headquarters on December 26, 1938, cited from Chiang Kai-shek, Resistance and
Reconstruction: Messages during China’s Six Years of War, 1937-1943 (new York: Harper, 1943),57-62.
26 John Hunter Boyle, “Peace Advocacy during the Sino-Japanese Incident,” 250.
27 To rescue the nation and save the people was a popular argument that Chinese collaborationists used to justify their peace movement and later defend themselves during the postwar trials.
28 only in December 1938, nearly one year and a half after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War did Britain and the United States start to give Chongqing modest financial help. The United States offered a loan of $25 million and Britain ￡500,000 (U.S. $2 million). However, both prohibited China from buying weapons with these loans, afraid it would provoke Japan. During 1941 and 1942, only around 1.5% of the total lend-lease aid went to China. In 1943 and 1944, that number was reduced to 0.5%. See Arthur n. Young, China and the Helping Hand, 1937-1945, 207; lloyd Eastman, “nationalist China during the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945,” in lloyd Eastman, Jerome Chen, Suzanne Pepper and lyman P. Van Slyke, eds., The Nationalist Era in China, 1927-1949, 144-45. Ironically, the guangxi authorities appreciated the Japanese generosity in offering loans, while their appeal to the British for funds turned unsuccessful. See also graham Hutchings “A Province at War: guangxi during the Sino-Japanese Conflict, 1937-1945,” The China Quarterly, no. 108, 654.
29 Hsi-sheng Ch’i, Nationalist China at War: Military Defeats and Political Collapse, 1937-1945 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1982), 61.
30 Wumien Zhao, Bainian gongzui (Achievements and crimes of the past centuries), China New Digest, January 15, 2003, 12. The anonymous author is very knowledgeable about this period of history. given Chinese “official nationalism,” it is understandable that he does not want anyone to know his name as he defends Wang, still the no. 1 hanjian in the eyes of the Chinese “patriots.”
31 one can hardly miss these points if he/she reads official documents of the Wang Jingwei government.
32Andrew Cheung, Slogans, Symbols, and Legitimacy: The Case of Wang Jingwei’s Nanjing Regime (Indiana University, working paper, no date), 5-6.
33 Andrew Cheung, 8.
34 Donald A. Jordan criticizes that Chinese scholars are not interested in studying how “the Chinese aggravated Japanese tensions,” which eventually contributed to the breakout of the Sino-Japanese War. See Donald Jordan, “The Place of Chinese Disunity in Japanese Army Strategy during 1931,” The Chinese Quarterly, no. 109, 42.
35 Presenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation, 36.
36 Presenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation, 208.
37 Michael r. godley, “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: Sun Yatsen and the International Development of China,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs no. 18, July ’87.
38 C. Martin Wilbur, Sun Yat-sen: Frustrated Patriot (Columbia University Press, 1976), 83.
39 Harold Z Schiffrin, Sun Zhongshan and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution (University of California Press, 1970), 147; 358; also see C. Martin Wilbur, 57; 272.
40 See Bruce Elleman, “Soviet Diplomacy and the first United front in China,” Modern China, Vol. 21, no. 4, 465.
41 Bruce Elleman, 465-70.
42 David P. Barrett, “The Wang Jingwei regime, 1940-1945: Continuities and Disjunctures with nationalist China,” in David P Barrett and larry n. Shyu, eds., 112-3.
43 John King fairbank, Chinabound: A Fifty-Year Memoir (new York: Harper & row, Publishers, 1982), 48, 52.
44 frederic Wakeman, Jr., The Shanghai Badlands: Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime, 1937-1941(Cambridge University Press, 1996), 54.
45 li Changgen and Yu Qing, “guanqian shangye de lishi tese (The unique commercial features of the guanqian street] in Suzhoushi difangzhi bianzhan weiyuanhui bangongshi, suzhoushi zhengxie xueshi he wenshi weiyuanhui (the editorial committee of Suzhou history and the study and historical literature committee of Suzhou political consultation conference), Suzhou shizhi (The history of Suzhou), 2000, Vol. 25, 102-3.
46 frederic Wakeman, Jr., 7.
47 frederic Wakeman, Jr., 135.
48 His-sheng Ch’i, 97-103. To reduce embarrassment, Jiang Jieshi’s government euphemized thesewidespread defections as quxian jiuguo (save the nation through false defections). While keeping silent on the defections of their own forces, Communists used these nationalist defections as evidence to support their claim that the Jiang government did not really fight with the Japanese.
49 Christian Henriot, “rice, Power and People: The Politics of food Supply in Wartime Shanghai (1937-1945),” Twentieth-Century China Vol. 26, no. 1 (november, 2000), 60.
50 Dongyoun Hwang, 26.
51 rana Mitter, The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 6, 80, 110.
52 read what Pu Yi, wrote about his collaboration with Japan and one finds how hard the last Manchu emperor actually struggled to control Manchuria, contrary to what nationalist or Communist scholars have always interpreted. See Pu Yi, From Emperor to Citizen (Beijing: foreign languages Press, 1979).
53 Edward friedman, “reconstructing China’s national Identity: A Southern Alternative to Mao-Era Anti-Imperialist nationalism,” Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 53, no. 1 (feb. 1994), 82. See also Tang Degang and Wang Shuqun, Zhang Xueliang shiji chuanqi (Zhang Xueliang’s story: an oral history) (Shandong youyi chubanshe, 2002), 456. |
