Serving the Occupation State: Chinese Elites, Collaboration, and the Problem of History in Post-war China by Jonathan Henshaw B.A. Calvin College, 2005 M.A. University of Alberta, 2010 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (History) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2019 © Jonathan Henshaw, 2019 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: Serving the Occupation State: Chinese Elites, Collaboration, and the Problem of History in Post-War China submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements by Jonathan Henshaw for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Examining Committee: Timothy Brook Co-supervisor Glen Peterson Co-supervisor Supervisory Committee Member Christopher Rea University Examiner Rana Mitter External Examiner Additional Supervisory Committee Members: Steven Lee Supervisory Committee Member John Roosa Supervisory Committee Member ii Abstract This dissertation examines the problem of Chinese collaboration with Japan during the Second World War. It does so by considering the pre-war context of Republican China’s politics, the ways in which political collaboration occurred during the Japanese occupation, as well as collaboration’s aftermath in the Chinese Civil War and as a problem of postwar history and memory. Methodologically, this study adopts a biographical approach, examining four individuals—Kiang Kang-hu (Jiang Kanghu), Chu Minyi, Hao Pengju and Jiang Zemin—whose lives became entangled with the problem of collaboration as it occurred under the Re-organized National Government (RNG) of Wang Jingwei in Nanjing. Since the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, China entered a period of state fragmentation that saw a series of different political parties, movements, and warlords compete for power under a political culture of factional politicking. This provided the context in which the decision to collaborate with Japan made sense for certain members of China’s “alternate elite” whose anti-communism and opposition to military resistance set them in opposition to the Chinese Communist Party and Jiang Jieshi’s Nationalist Party in Chongqing. Once in office, these individuals pursued policies that were often closely aligned with their pre-war political behaviour or beliefs, including advocating for the republican political model, maintaining the symbolism and policy of the Nationalist Party, or establishing military cliques. Despite this consistency, however, taking office in one of the occupation states established by Japan has been framed as an aberration committed by a particular subset of individuals who have been condemned as traitors, or hanjian, for their moral failure and betrayal of the nation. Stepping back from moral judgment, this study shows that the political fragmentation of pre-war China shaped collaboration under the RNG as politicians attempted to turn occupation into an opportunity to preserve the Republican model, even to perpetuate Nationalist Party policies. Although the occupation failed and the RNG was officially discredited, collaboration has endured as a lingering historical controversy that reflects the lengths to which the Chinese state will go to police the allegiance of individuals, even within the realms of history and memory. iii Lay Summary This dissertation explores the problem of Chinese wartime collaboration with Japan during the Second World War through the lives of four individuals: Kiang Kang-hu, a Chinese socialist; Chu Minyi, a Nationalist Party intellectual; Hao Pengju, a military officer; and Jiang Zemin, a university student who later became President of China. Rather than understanding wartime collaboration as an action to be condemned, this study seeks to understand how the decision to collaborate under enemy occupation might have made sense at the time and how it has been retrospectively misunderstood. It does so by examining the course of these four individual lives, from the politics of the pre-war Republican era beginning in 1911, through the occupation and subsequent Civil War, and on to the renewed attention to wartime history in the 1980s and 1990s. iv Preface This dissertation is an original, unpublished and independent work by the author, Jonathan Henshaw. It was written under the co-supervision of Professor Timothy Brook and Professor Glen Peterson and is the result of research conducted in libraries and archives in Canada, China, Taiwan, and the United States. v Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ............................................................................................................................ iv Preface ......................................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................... viii Dedication ................................................................................................................................ xii 1. Introduction: Hanjian, History and Occupation ....................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Method ................................................................................................................................................. 12 1.3 Literature Review ............................................................................................................................ 17 1.4 Outline .................................................................................................................................................. 28 1.5 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 35 2. Precedents: Factional Politics and Republican China ......................................... 38 2.1 Introduction: From Condemnation to Precedent .............................................................. 38 2.2 Kiang Kang-hu ................................................................................................................................... 44 2.3 The Soviet Union and Mongolia, 1920 .................................................................................... 50 2.4 Southern University, 1922-1927 .............................................................................................. 54 2.5 Sojourn in Canada and the Fujian Incident, 1933 ............................................................. 68 2.6 Joining the Peace Movement ...................................................................................................... 74 2.7 In the Wang Jingwei Regime ....................................................................................................... 77 2.8 Resignation and aftermath, 1944-1954 ................................................................................. 87 2.9 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 89 3. Continuities: Foreign Policy in the Wang Jingwei Regime ................................. 92 3.1 Introduction: Influence without Autonomy ......................................................................... 92 3.2 Chu Minyi ............................................................................................................................................ 97 vi 3.3 Groundwork: Initial contacts with foreign diplomats and establishing a state 102 3.4 Political Diplomacy ...................................................................................................................... 114 3.5 Cultural Diplomacy ...................................................................................................................... 124 3.6 Handing over Guangdong ......................................................................................................... 134 3.7 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 143 4. Realignments: From Occupation to Civil War ...................................................... 150 4.1 Introduction: The Persistence of Warlord Politics ........................................................ 150 4.2 Hao Pengju ....................................................................................................................................... 158 4.3 In the Occupation State .............................................................................................................. 166 4.4 Governor of Huaihai Province ................................................................................................. 171 4.5 China Democratic Allied Army ................................................................................................ 177 4.6 Endgame ..........................................................................................................................................