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Republican Personality Cults in Wartime China: Contradistinction and Collaboration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2015

Jeremy E. Taylor
Jeremy E. Taylor*
Affiliation:
School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham (UK)
*
Jeremy.Taylor@nottingham.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper explores the development of the Wang Jingwei personality cult during the Japanese occupation of China (1937–1945). It examines how the collaborationist Chinese state led by Wang sought to distinguish its figurehead from the person he had replaced, Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. Drawing on visual, archival, and published sources, it traces the development of the Wang cult from the early years of the war, and argues that the unusual context in which the cult evolved ultimately undermined its coherence. The case of Wang Jingwei illustrates how the Chinese case more broadly can enhance our understandings of personality cults that develop under occupation. To this end, I compare the Wang regime with various European “collaborationist” governments that sought to promote their leaders in similar ways.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 665 - 693
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2015 

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93 Ironically, and as Wang Ke-wen has pointed out, contradistinction was also at play in this process, for “destroying Wang's place in history was necessary to the establishment of Jiang [Chiang Kai-shek] as the legitimate, and only, heir to Sun Yat-sen….” Wang Ke-wen, “Irreversible Verdict?,” 59.