Japan's Colonialism and Wang Jingwei's Neo-Nationalism, 1938–1945

Abstract

After Japan pragmatized militarism and formed a modernized nation-state in the latter nineteenth century, it extended that same methodology to its East Asian neighbor, China, from 1938 to 1945. This is an intellectual history that comparatively analyzes rhetorical, political, and military exchange between Japan and China. Furthermore, it is a reinterpretation of Pan-Asian exchange during World War Two that utilizes a transnational lens. The Japanese nation formed within a military culture, constant civil war, centered around a martial class. Japanese nationalism juxtaposed that of China, which experienced external threats, consisted of various ethnic groups.

Keywords:

• Chinese nationalism
• Japan's invasion of China
• colonialism
• Wang Jingwei
• pan-Asianism
• reorganized national government 1940–1945
• World War Two
• Japanese occupation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Joseph K. Yick, “Self-serving Collaboration: The Political Legacy of Madame Wang in Guangdong Province, 1940–1945,” American Journal of Chinese Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (October 2014): 217–34.

2 Wai C. So, “Race, Culture, and the Anglo-American Powers: The Views of Chinese Collaborators,” Modern China, vol. 37, no. 1 (Jan. 2011): 82.

3 Timothy Brook and Andre Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism in Occupied and Wartime China,” in Nation Work: Asian Elites and National Identities (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 162.

4 Brook and Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism in Occupied and Wartime China,” 161.

5 Brook and Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism in Occupied and Wartime China,” 177.

6 Joyce C. Lebra, Japanese Trained Armies in Southeast Asia (Pasir Panjang: ISEAS Publishing, 2010), 167–70. Lebra examines various armies trained by the Japanese which eventually led their countries’ national movments.

7 Phillip S. Jowett, Rays of the Rising Sun: Armed Forces of Japan's Asian Allies 1931–1945, vol. 1, China and Manchukuo (Lancaster, England: Helion & Company Ltd., 2004), 2436.

8 Lebra, Japanese Trained Armies in Southeast Asia, 167–70.

9 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso Books, 1983), 163–87. Anderson asserts that nations are “imagined communities” or the product of social construction based on pastoral narrations.

10 Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan (New York: Ballantine Books Inc., 1955), 112. Written by officers of the Japanese military, served in World War Two.

11 Takashi Yoshida, The Making of the “The Rape of Nanking” (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 64.

12 Takekoshi Yosaburo, Japanese Rule in Formosa (London: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1907), vii.

13 For Japanese colonial theorists and architects, see Togo Minoru, Nihon shokuminron (On Japanese colonialism) (Tokyo: Bunbudo, 1906); Inazo Nitobe, Zenshu (Collected works), IV (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1943); Mochiji Rokusaburo, Taiwan shokumin seisaku (Colonial policy in Taiwan) (Tokyo: Fuzambo, 1912); Takekoshi Yosaburo, Japanese Rule in Formosa (London: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1907); Kumamoto Shigekichi, “Dai naru Nihon to doka mondai (The great problem of assimilation),” Taiwan jiho (Jan. 1920); Yadao Yanaihara, Shokumin seisaku kogian (Lectures on colonial policy), (Tokyo: 1924), Shokumin oyobi shokumin seisaku (Colonization and colonial policy), (Tokyo: 1926), Teikokushugika no Taiwan (Taiwan under imperialism), (Tokyo: 1929), Manshu mondai (The Manchurian problem), (Tokyo: 1934), Nan’yo gunto no kenkyu (Studies of the South Sea Islands), (Tokyo: 1935), Teikokushigi kenkyu (Studies in imperialism), (Tokyo: 1948).

14 Akira Iriye, “Japan's Policies Towards the United States,” Japan's Foreign Policy, 1868–1941, A Research Guide, James Morley ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 425.

15 Togo, Nihon shokuminron, 358–59. Togo argued for agricultural colonization of Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan to support Japanese military efforts and the nation.

16 Inazo Nitobe, Zenshu (Collected works), IV (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1943), 474–78.

17 Nitobe, “Japanese Colonization,” Asian Review, Series 4, vol. 16 (Jan. 1920), 120–21; See also Mark R. Peattie, “Japanese Attitudes Towards Colonialism 1895–1945,” The Japanese Colonial Empire, Ramon H. Meyers and Mark R. Peattie eds. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 93.

18 Mochiji, Taiwan shokumin seisaku, 407.

19 Peattie, “Japanese Attitudes Towards Colonialism 1895–1945,” 103.

20 Kumamoto, “Dai naru Nihon to doka mondai,” 55–63.

21 Togo Minoru, Shokumin seisaku to minzoku shinri (Colonial policy and racial consciousness) (Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1937), 56–58.

22 Tang Leangli, “Wang Jingwei: A Biographical Sketch,” In Wang Jingwei's China's Problem and Their Solution (Shanghai: China United Press, 1934), ix–xii.

23 Tang, “Wang Jingwei,” xix.

24 Tang, “Wang Jingwei,” xx.

25 Compilation of the ROC History, A Pictorial History of the Republic of China (Taipei, Taiwan: Modern China Press, 1981), 1: 443.

26 Xiaobing Li, The Cold War in East Asia (New York: Routledge Group, 2018), 29.

27 “Wang Pursues Peace Aim, Attacks Former Reds,” China Weekly Review (Jan. 14, 1939).

28 J. Kennedy, Asian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1968), 125.

29 Kennedy, Asian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, 89.

30 Steven Grosby, Nationalism: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 60.

31 Kennedy, Asian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, 79–80.

32 Kennedy, Asian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, 79.

33 See Hugh Borton, Japan Since 1931: Its Political and Social Developments (New York: International Secretariat Institute of Pacific Relations, 1940), 32. Borton points out that the Genyosha society was a Japanese ultra-nationalist group formed in 1881 by Toyoma Mitsuru. Its purpose was to develop Japan's continental policy.

34 Kennedy, Asian Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, 19.

35 Masanobu Tsuji, Singapore: The Japanese Version (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1961), 197.

36 Xiaotong Fei, From the Soil: Foundations of Chinese Society (Berkelely: University of California Press, 1992), 62.

37 Komori Tokuji, Akashi Motojiro, II (Tokyo: Hara Shobo), 60.

38 Peattie, “Japanese Attitudes Towards Colonialism 1895–1945,” 125.

39 Joshua A. Fogel, Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naito Konan (1866–1934) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 48.

40 Fogel, Politics and Sinology, 49.

41 Fogel, Politics and Sinology, 49.

42 Fogel, Politics and Sinology, 50.

43 Kenneth Ruoff, “Japanese Tourism to Mukden, Nanjing, and Qufu, 1938–1943,” Japan Review, no. 27, (2014): 189.

44 Fogel, Politics and Sinology, 54.

45 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso Books, 1983), 163–87. Benedict Anderson is a prominent scholar on nationalism and nations and their formation as “imagined communities” or social constructs.

46 Ruoff, “Japanese Tourism,” 180.

47 Ruoff, “Japanese Tourism,” 184.

48 Ruoff, “Japanese Tourism,” 185.

49 Fogel, Politics and Sinology, 252.

50 Fogel, Politics and Sinology, 265.

51 Mamoru Shigemitsu, Japan and Her Destiny (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1958), 283. Japanese foreign minister Shigemitsu described the Greater East Asia Ministry's policy. Foreign relations were divided into two parts: (1) East Asia and (2) the rest of the world. The head of the Greater East Asia Ministry was Kazuo Aoki, who had been advisor to Wang Jingwei's government; See also James L. McClain, Japan: A Modern History (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2002), 470. McClain explains the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere included Japan, Manchukuo, China, Korea, and Vietnam and was a politico-economic entity.

52 Shigemitsu, Japan and Her Destiny, 291.

53 Shigemitsu, Japan and Her Destiny, 330.

54 Sun Yatsen, Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary: A Program for National Reconstruction for China (London: Forgotten Books & Co., Ltd., 2017), 103.

55 Wang Jingwei, China's Problems and Their Solutions (Shanghai: China United Press, 1934), 107.

56 Wang, China's Problems, xiii.

57 Wang, China's Problems, 61&150.

58 The CCP despised the Japanese, not simply for their invasion of China, but also because the Japanese government was overtly anti-communist. See Mao Zedong, “The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party,” [Dec. 1939], Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 2. (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1967).

59 Brook and Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism,” 164.

60 Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War Two (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 199. Also see Noburo Kojima, “How Long Must We Apologize?” New York Times (November 3, 1991); Robert Orr, “Hashimoto's War Remarks Reflect the Views of Many of His Peers,” Tokyo Keizai (December 13, 1994).

61 Brook and Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism,” 169.

62 Brook and Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism,” 169.

63 Wang, China's Problems, 183.

64 Yick, “Self-serving Collaboration,” 221–23. Kagesa Sadaaki of the Nakano School of Japanese military intelligence.

65 Shigemitsu, Japan and Her Destiny, 330.

66 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 3.

67 Yick, “Self-serving Collaboration,” 221.

68 Yick, “Self-serving Collaboration,” 221. Colonel Nakano of Japanese special services.

69 Brook and Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism,” 159.

70 Brook and Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism,” 179.

71 Yick, “Self-serving Collaboration,” 222.

72 Yick, “Self-serving Collaboration,” 223.

73 Yick, “Self-serving Collaboration,” 225.

74 Yick, “Self-serving Collaboration,” 230.

75 Yick, “Self-serving Collaboration,” 230.

76 Wai C. So, “Race, Culture, and the Anglo-American Powers: The Views of Chinese Collaborators,” Modern China, vol. 37, no. 1 (January 2011): 70.

77 So, “Race, Culture, and the Anglo-American Powers,” 70.

78 So, “Race, Culture, and the Anglo-American Powers,” 72.

79 So, “Race, Culture, and the Anglo-American Powers,” 82.

80 So, “Race, Culture, and the Anglo-American Powers,” 78.

81 Philip S. Jowett, Rays of the Rising Sun: Armed Forces of Japan's Asian Allies, 1931–1945, Vol. 1: China and Manchukuo (Lancaster, England: Helion & Company, Ltd., 2004), 2301.

82 Jowett, Rays of the Rising Sun, 2314.

83 Jowett, Rays of the Rising Sun, 2314.

84 Brook and Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism,” 162.

85 Brook and Schmid, “Collaborationist Nationalism,” 160.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Travis Chambers

Travis Chambers is an adjunct professor of history at the University of Central Oklahoma. His research focuses on East Asia with an emphasis on Japanese colonialism during World War Two as well as US–China relations. Additionally, he teaches United States history, World War Two, and Cold War in East Asia. Correspondence to: Travis Chambers. Email: [email protected]