The Chinese Revolution

In 1938, after the Battle of Wuhan, Wang Jingwei left Chongqing and the Republic of China team in Chongqing for Hanoi. He negotiated with Japanese officials and eventually set up a puppet regime know as the Wang Jingwei Regime and also as the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China. It was almost totally under Japanese domination, with little autonomy.

Wang Jingwei's background, including his studies in Japan as a youth, his pessimism towards Japan and his lack of faith that China would ever gain allies against Japan, all contributed to his decision to set up an alternative Republic of China puppet government in Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
He died in 1944, but his successor was executed after the war for treason. Today, Wang is remembered as a hanjian (a traitor to the Han nation) and a kuilei (a puppet).

The Wang Jingwei Regime complicated China's remembrance of the Sino-Japanese War. Until 1982, the Communist Party of China didn't distinguish between Wang Jingwei's Regime in Nanjing under Japanese occupation and Chiang Kai-shek's government in Chongqing resisting Japanese aggression.

Over 200 million Chinese faced difficult decisions in deciding whether to flee their hometowns during the war, or to stay under Japanese occupation and puppet regimes.

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Japan controlled Taiwan as a colony from 1895 to 1945. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese language education and publications stopped and the Imperial Subject Movement tried to Japanize residents of Taiwan. The Baojia system was helpful in controlling the locals and confiscating grain during the war. The Taiwanese were mobilized to support the Japanese War Effort and experienced conscription, bombing and the Comfort Women system. The Cairo Declaration in 1943 announced that Taiwan, the Penghu Islands and Manchuria would be part of the Republic of China after Japan's defeat.

The Kwantung Army created the puppet state of Manchukuo, with Emperor Puyi as figurehead. Its Unit 731 did biological weapons testing and medical experiments on locals. Opium laced cigarettes were also sold to unsuspecting Chinese. Japanese farmers relocated to Manchuria. Industry and mining flourished.

Around 200,000 Chinese women were exploited as Comfort Women, with harrowing stories.

Puppet regimes were also established in North China, Inner Mongolia and at Nanjing. The Japanese military, really in control, found benefit in having Chinese figureheads, like Wang Kemin and Wang Jingwei, maintaining appearances of Chinese led local governments.

Image: "Japanese HK Occupation Poster 1" by greggman is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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By the early 1940s, the Communists in Yan’an were feeling relatively secure. The Japanese advance in north China had not reached that area. The Sino-Japanese War and the United Front meant that Chiang Kai-shek’s main concern had been Japan and not the Communist Party. The Nationalist Government in China even funded the Communists in Yan’an.

Thousands of recruits flocked to Yan'an.

Chairman Mao Zedong used this opportunity to consolidate his leadership of the Communist Party of China. The term Mao Zedong Thought was first introduced and a cult of personality built around Chairman Mao. Mao became the ideological leader of the Chinese Communists. Wang Ming and the 28 Bolsheviks were criticized for Factionalism. Wang Shiwei was purged and executed for criticizing Mao and the "big men" in Yan'an. Intense self-criticism and public criticism sessions re-educated Communists to rebuild them into loyal, obedient Communists with a fighting spirit. This was the first Rectification Campaign, but it was not the last.

Major source: Gao, Hua. (2018). How the Red Sun Rose: The Origins and Development of the Yan’an Rectification Movement, 1930–1945. The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press

Image source: "In Memory of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Publication of Chairman Mao's Splendid “Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art” (纪念毛主席的光辉著作《在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话》发表三十周年)" by Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UofT is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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For ten months in 1938, Hankou in Wuhan was the center of China's Second United Front and defense against the Japanese invasion.

Artistic expression, political parties and free speech all blossomed. Neither the KMT nor the Communist Party fully controlled the city and a variety of generals, thinkers and artists came together to defend against Japanese aggression. Wuhan was under the control of Generals Li Zongren and Bai Zhongxi, heroes of the Chinese victory at Taierzhuang.

There was optimism that the Japanese could be stalled and stopped. Robert Capra came to Wuhan to film the heroic defence. Dr. Norman Bethune brought medical care to the Eighth Route Army. W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood visited and wrote a book about the war zone. General Han Fuju was executed for giving up Shandong without a fight.

But the Chinese underestimated Japanese combined arms and amphibious attacks. The forts they built to defend against the Japanese Navy moving up the Yangzi River were vulnerable to land based attacks. The Chinese Nationalist Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War suffered similar defeats to the Qing defenders during the Opium War.

With the fall of Hankou came an end to the freedom and optimism of Wuhan in 1938. Chiang Kaishek lost 80% of his officers and over a million soldiers dead or injured. The Japanese attackers also suffered their worst losses of the war and stopped their assault on the Yangzi River and instead turned their focus to north China.

The internationalist wing of the Communist Party of China also had their final moment with the fall of Hankou. Soon, Mao Zedong's supremacy from rural Yanan would become dominant.

Major sources:
MacKinnon, Stephen. (1996). The Tragedy of Wuhan, 1938. Modern Asian Studies , Oct., 1996, Vol. 30, No. 4, Special Issue: War in Modern China (Oct., 1996), pp. 931-943. Cambridge University Press
and
Wu, D. (2022). The cult of geography: Chinese riverine defence during the Battle of Wuhan, 1937-1938. War in History, 29(1), 185-204.

Image: "Joris Ivens, John Fernhout en Robert Capa aan het werk in Hankow, China, RP-F-2012-139.jpg" by Rijksmuseum is marked with CC0 1.0.

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The treasures of the National Palace Museum, originally the Forbidden City, followed China's path. They escaped the invading Japanese by leaving Beijing, first for Shanghai, then Nanjing and then followed southern, central and northern routes to Sichuan and safety. The Chinese government followed a similar path, as did countless Chinese individuals and families. Japanese bombers followed these refugees west, devastating China. But the Chinese people, Chinese government, Chinese culture and the antiquities from the National Palace Museum survived the Sino-Japanese War. This is the story of China's survival during the war.

Topics like wartime inflation, the Chinese victory at Taierzhuang and the government decision to breach the Yellow River dikes and to flood Chinese land are also discussed.

Image Source: National Palace Museum
Main Source: Brookes, Adam. (2022). Fragile Cargo: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City. Atria Books
Secondary Source: Bloch, Kurt. Far Eastern War Inflation. Pacific Affairs , Sep., 1940, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Sep., 1940), pp. 320-343. Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia

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