Zhiyi Yang’s Poetry, History, Memory: Wang Jingwei and China in Dark Times (“the Book”) is a biased portrayal of a controversial historical figure, packaged in sometimes artful, but frequently obtuse, language. This response, however, focuses on the Book’s biggest problems—distortion of facts, mischaracterizations and selective use of source material. The Book was published by the University of Michigan Press in … Read More
Memorializing Wang Jingwei Today
Plum trees Chen Bijun gifted to Nagoya University Imperial Hospital now stand in front of the Daiko Medical Center. Photo taken in March 2024, courtesy Nagoya University Archives.In commemoration of her grandfather, Chief Editor of the Wang Jingwei & Modern China series Cindy Ho follows Wang’s final footsteps to Japan. Here, we share with our readers how Wang is remembered … Read More
Scholarship in the Occupied Territories Under the Wang Jingwei Regime
The front gate to Nanjing Central University. (Source: Nanjing University website)Bearing the label of a “treasonous traitor,” Wang Jingwei left Chongqing’s anti-Japanese camp and returned to Nanjing. One of his greatest contributions to the two hundred million fellow citizens was resuming school, providing young people in the occupied areas a place to study. School names, locations and numbers remained as before. … Read More
Wang Jingwei’s Associates & Family Members Continue to Preserve His Political Writings
News reports on the 1944 formation of the Editorial Committee to publish Wang Jingwei’s writingsWang Jingwei’s collection of essays and speeches comprises the most prescient and well reasoned political discourse created in China in the last century. Crowds would stand and cheer during his speeches because of what he said. From his early 20s, when Wang Jingwei first published his … Read More
Life in Occupied Territories
Photo shows Nanjing streets with tea houses, broadcast station, train station, Xuanwu Lake, Confucius Temple, taken in 1941, a year after the Wang Jingwei Regime was established. (Shanghai Times, March 30, 1941.)What did Wang Jingwei aim to accomplish in establishing the Reorganized National Government (RNG)? How did the leaders of the regime view the mission, and how was it executed? … Read More
What Did Wang Jingwei Aim to Achieve with His Government?
Wang Jingwei declares the establishment of the Reorganized National Government in Nanjing on March 30, 1940 (Wikimedia Commons)To this day, Wang Jingwei’s breakaway from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government in Chongqing to form the Reorganized National Government (RNG) in Nanjing remains a heated topic. Academics and others around the world continue to debate the RNG’s success and failure; and most of … Read More
What Kind of Wang Jingwei Biography are We Looking for?
I am not clever, or qualified to discuss history; I just connect the historical material together for future generations.HO MANG HANGThis post aims to clarify the relationship between Ho Mang Hang and Cai Dejin, due to a false assertion that Ho helped Cai in the recent book Poetry, History, Memory: Wang Jingwei and China in Dark Times. We also wish … Read More