I’ve developed a bit of a fascination with Wang Jingwei lately. There’s just something odd and intriguing about him and his legacy. From a would-be revolutionary martyr, to the heir-apparent of Sun Yat-Sen, to a sidelined statesman, to perhaps the most loathed individual in all of China, and nearly consigned to historical oblivion save for a name synonymous with Vidkun Quisling and Benedict Arnold and every arch-traitor of history.
But the most lasting question of Wang Jingwei was, perhaps, *why?* Why did this once proud revolutionary and bastion of leftist politics defect and form a collaborationist government under the auspices of the Empire of Japan in the ruins of Nanjing? What drove a, by all accounts of his time, principled and honorable statesman into the arms of the enemy?
The answers, of course, vary. And the true answer, found only within his own mind, will likely never be known to us. The popular legacy is of a man who was nothing more than a power-hungry schemer willing to stab his own nation and race in the back for personal gain. Others suggest it was a final, ill-conceived act of self-sacrifice to rescue his nation from the brink of destruction.
But, as Zhiyi Yang said in her book *Poetry, History, Memory: Wang Jingwei and China in Dark Times*, what started as perhaps worry and cautiousness in 1939 and 1940 had, by late 1941 and early 1942, turned into resigned, but perhaps grateful, defeat.
>”The deterioration of the RNG’s prospects is thus curiously coupled with the increasing tranquility and lightness in Wang’s poetry, which fluctuates through the spring of 1942 and becomes especially pronounced after the summer, coinciding with the US Navy’s decisive victory in the Battle of Midway. It seems that Wang, seeing that China’s[Nationalist China a.k.a the Chiang Kai Shek regime] hope of victory might be realized, feels finally released from the duty to make history” (Pg 160).
(Zhiyi Yang also relates a quote from Wang Jingwei to his son Wenying, though it is second-hand and perhaps apocryphal:
>”If China can still be saved, I only hope that my reputation will be ruined and our family broken. You must be prepared and be courageous to face this destiny.”
I’m admittedly quite sympathetic to Wang Jingwei but I have trouble believing the quote is real.)
But the entrance of Britain and the United States into the Pacific war in December 1941 represented also represented a final twist of irony in Wang Jingwei’s life.
Throughout the tumultuous 1920’s and early 1930’s, whilst China still reeled from economic backwardness and the strain of the warlord era, Wang Jingwei at multiple times approached the League of Nations and the West for aid and support against the increasingly expansionist and imperialistic ambitions of the Empire of Japan. And at essentially every turn, he and China was turned away.
But finally in 1942, the West came to China’s rescue, but only too late to save Wang Jingwei.
Braziliashadow on
Did Wang manage to find exhile in Afghanistan or some neutral country or was he captured and executed/ sentenced for life
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I’ve developed a bit of a fascination with Wang Jingwei lately. There’s just something odd and intriguing about him and his legacy. From a would-be revolutionary martyr, to the heir-apparent of Sun Yat-Sen, to a sidelined statesman, to perhaps the most loathed individual in all of China, and nearly consigned to historical oblivion save for a name synonymous with Vidkun Quisling and Benedict Arnold and every arch-traitor of history.
But the most lasting question of Wang Jingwei was, perhaps, *why?* Why did this once proud revolutionary and bastion of leftist politics defect and form a collaborationist government under the auspices of the Empire of Japan in the ruins of Nanjing? What drove a, by all accounts of his time, principled and honorable statesman into the arms of the enemy?
The answers, of course, vary. And the true answer, found only within his own mind, will likely never be known to us. The popular legacy is of a man who was nothing more than a power-hungry schemer willing to stab his own nation and race in the back for personal gain. Others suggest it was a final, ill-conceived act of self-sacrifice to rescue his nation from the brink of destruction.
But, as Zhiyi Yang said in her book *Poetry, History, Memory: Wang Jingwei and China in Dark Times*, what started as perhaps worry and cautiousness in 1939 and 1940 had, by late 1941 and early 1942, turned into resigned, but perhaps grateful, defeat.
>”The deterioration of the RNG’s prospects is thus curiously coupled with the increasing tranquility and lightness in Wang’s poetry, which fluctuates through the spring of 1942 and becomes especially pronounced after the summer, coinciding with the US Navy’s decisive victory in the Battle of Midway. It seems that Wang, seeing that China’s[Nationalist China a.k.a the Chiang Kai Shek regime] hope of victory might be realized, feels finally released from the duty to make history” (Pg 160).
(Zhiyi Yang also relates a quote from Wang Jingwei to his son Wenying, though it is second-hand and perhaps apocryphal:
>”If China can still be saved, I only hope that my reputation will be ruined and our family broken. You must be prepared and be courageous to face this destiny.”
I’m admittedly quite sympathetic to Wang Jingwei but I have trouble believing the quote is real.)
But the entrance of Britain and the United States into the Pacific war in December 1941 represented also represented a final twist of irony in Wang Jingwei’s life.
Throughout the tumultuous 1920’s and early 1930’s, whilst China still reeled from economic backwardness and the strain of the warlord era, Wang Jingwei at multiple times approached the League of Nations and the West for aid and support against the increasingly expansionist and imperialistic ambitions of the Empire of Japan. And at essentially every turn, he and China was turned away.
But finally in 1942, the West came to China’s rescue, but only too late to save Wang Jingwei.
Did Wang manage to find exhile in Afghanistan or some neutral country or was he captured and executed/ sentenced for life