Surviving in Violent Conflicts Chinese Interpreters in the Second Sino-Japanese War 1931-1945

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN LANGUAGES AT WAR Surviving in Violent Conflicts Chinese Interpreters in the Second Sino-Japanese War 1931-1945 Ting Guo Palgrave Studies in Languages at War Series Editors Hilary Footitt University of Reading Reading , United Kingdom Michael Kelly School of Humanities University of Southampton , United Kingdom Aim of the Series Languages play a crucial role in war, confl ict and peacemaking: in intelligence gathering and evaluation, pre-deployment preparations, operations on the ground, regime-change, and supporting refugees and displaced persons. In the politics of war, languages have a dual impact: a public policy dimension, setting frameworks and expectations; and the lived experience of those ‘on the ground’, working with and meeting speakers of other languages. Th is series intends to bring together books which deal with the role of languages in situations of confl ict, including war, civil war, occupation, peace-keeping, peace-enforcement and humanitarian action in war zones. It will off er an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, translation studies, intercultural communication, his- tory, politics, international relations and cultural studies. Books in the series will explore specifi c confl ict situations across a range of times and places, and specifi c language-related roles and activities, examining three contexts: languages and the military, meeting the other in war and peacemaking, and interpreting/translating in war. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14615 Ting Guo Surviving in Violent Confl icts Chinese Interpreters in the Second Sino-Japanese War 1931–1945 Ting Guo Department of Modern Languages University of Exeter Exeter , United Kingdom Palgrave Studies in Languages at War ISBN 978-1-137-46118-6 ISBN 978-1-137-46119-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-46119-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950061 © Th e Editor(s) (if applicable) and Th e Author(s) 2016 Th e author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identifi ed as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Th is work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Th e use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Th e publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover image © Peter Horree / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper Th is Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature Th e registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London Acknowledgements I would like to fi rst thank University of Exeter for granting me six months study leave to complete this book. Aston University is also grate- fully acknowledged for a three-year scholarship to work on the project and travel grants for my two fi eld trips to China in 2007 and 2008. I am especially grateful to the series editors, Hilary Footitt and Michael Kelly, who have supported me throughout the writing of this book. Elizabeth Forrest and Chloe Fitzsimmons at Palgrave Macmillan have also provided me with a lot of advice and encouragement. I also want to thank my husband, Jonathan Evans, for his careful reading of this book and look- ing after our young daughter while I was writing this book. Th anks also to Julia Calnan Angelica, who read the earlier form of some chapters and gave me useful feedback. I owe a great deal to a number of people who extended support and help to me throughout this project: Christina Schäff ner, Edwin Gentzler, Leo Tak-hung Chan, Miriam Shlesinger, Franz Pöchhacker and Andrew Chesterman. I owe my greatest debt of gratitude to Kate Sturge, who supervised the PhD that this book is based on. Without her support and guidance, this book might well have never reached fruition. Her encour- aging comments and insightful feedback have greatly helped me explore new things and present this book to the best of my abilities. Special gratitude is also extended to Yan Jiarui, who not only gen- erously shared his experience as a trained military interpreter but also v vi Acknowledgements provided me with invaluable sources of information for my research, including a copy of his military interpreter training textbook. Some of the book has been published in slightly diff erent versions in the following publications: Chapter One is derived, in part, from an article, “䆟଑㚧ᾝॆ㠷䆟଑ ”ษ䁃 -ᣇᡠᱲᵏ഻≁᭯ᓌሽ䓽һ䆟଑ௌษǄ䁃㠷㇑⨶ⲴػṸ⹄ウ (Professionalism in confl icts: China’s training of military interpreters during the second Sino-Japanese War [1931–45]), published in Translation Quarterly , 2012, no. 65, 31–60. Chapter Four is derived, in part, from an article, “Interpreting for the Enemy: Chinese Interpreters in the Second Sino-Japanese War [1931–45]”, published in Translation Studies on February 11, 2014, available online at http://wwww.tandfonline.com/ [DOI: 10.1080/14781700.2014.881302 ]. I am grateful to the editors of these journals for permission to include parts of these two earlier pieces, although both of them were rewritten and expanded at the time this book was written. Th is book is dedicated to my parents, Guo Zhaohe and Wu Kaigui. Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Interpreters’ Role and Agency in Wars 4 1.2 Loyalty and Identity: Hanjian Interpreters in the War 8 1.3 Interpreter Training in Wars 11 1.4 A Bourdieusian Approach to Studies of Wartime Interpreters 14 2 Responsibility and Accountability: Military Interpreters and the Chinese Kuomintang Government 23 2.1 Interpreters and the Changing Field 24 2.1.1 Chinese/Japanese Interpreters 25 2.2 Th e KMT’s Military Interpreters during the War 28 2.2.1 Chinese/German Interpreters and Sino-German Cooperation in the 1930s 28 2.2.2 Chinese/Russian Interpreters 36 2.2.3 Chinese/English Military Interpreters 39 2.3 A Case Study of University Students as Military Interpreters 59 2.4 Conclusions 71 vii viii Contents 3 Political Beliefs or Practical Gains?: Interpreting for the Chinese Communist Party 73 3.1 Chinese/Russian Interpreters 76 3.1.1 Comintern Agents and the Students Returned from Russia 76 3.1.2 A Speculative Stake: Training Chinese/Russian Interpreters in the 1940s 89 3.2 An Unexpected Stake in the Field 94 3.2.1 Th e Visit of Western Journalists and the US Dixie Mission 94 3.2.2 From Interpreters to Diplomats 96 3.3 Conclusions 100 4 Interpreting for the Enemy: Collaborating Interpreters and the Japanese Forces 103 4.1 Hanjian: Collaborating Interpreters 105 4.2 Japanese Recruitment of Chinese Interpreters 108 4.2.1 Th e Japanese-Returned Interpreters 109 4.2.2 Locally Trained Interpreters: Forced Japanese Language Education and Linguistic Habitus 117 4.3 Interpreter Embodiment 123 4.3.1 Fake Interpreters 125 4.3.2 Interpreters’ Border-crossing Strategies 131 4.4 Conclusions 136 5 A Case Study of Two Interpreters: Xia Wenyun and Yan Jiarui 139 5.1 Xia Wenyun: Interpreter as a Double Agent 141 5.1.1 A Brief Biography of Xia Wenyun 141 5.1.2 Xia’s Social Capital and Stake in the Field 151 5.2 Yan Jiarui: A Trained KMT Military Interpreter 158 5.3 Conclusions 167 Contents ix 6 Conclusion 169 Appendix: Chronology of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1931–45) 175 List of References 177 Index 195 List of Abbreviations BMA Beijing Municipal Archive CCP Chinese Communist Party CMA Chongqing Municipal Archive CMC Central Military Commission CPSU Th e Communist Party of the Soviet Union CUTEM Th e Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow FAB [the KMT’s] Foreign Aff airs Bureau FAO [the CCP’s] Foreign Aff airs Offi ce HPA Hunan Provincial Archive IMTFE International Military Tribunal for the Far East KMT Th e Kuomintang Party MSYU Th e Moscow Sun Yatsen University NHA National Historical Archive of China NHAT National Historical Archive, Taipei NMA Nanjing Municipal Archive QMA Qingdao Municipal Archive SMA Shanghai Municipal Archive USNA US National Archive xi List of Figures and Tables Figure 3.1 Th e evolution of the CCP’s Chinese/Russian interpreter training programs (1941–45) 90 Table 2.1 Interpreter origins 62 Table 2.2 Number of university-supplied interpreters 63 Table 3.1 Characteristics of Braun’s two Chinese/Russian interpreters 83 Table 4.1 Chinese/Japanese interpreters employed by Beijing Municipal Court, from 1938 to 1941 111 Table 5.1 A chronology of Xia Wenyun’s life (1906–78) 142 xiii 1 Introduction I n Devils on the Doorstep , a Chinese war fi lm set in the Second Sino- Japanese War (1931–45), a Chinese interpreter, Dong Hancheng,1 serves the Japanese forces but is captured together with a Japanese soldier by Chinese guerrillas and left in the custody of Chinese villagers for inter- rogation. Th e interpreter, knowing that the Japanese soldier’s arrogance and his own collaboration with the Japanese forces will endanger his life, makes full use of his language abilities to mediate between the soldier and the Chinese villagers and to secretly pass a call for help to the Japanese troops stationed nearby.

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