The Betrayal of a Nation: The Tragic Story of Wang Jingwei’s Turn Against China
Wang Zhaoming, better known by his pen name Wang Jingwei (1883 – 1944), was a Chinese politician and associate of the revolutionary nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen. After Sun Yat-sen’s demise, Jingwei became a prominent leader in the left wing of the Chinese ruling party, the Koumintang (KMT). From that flank, he contested leadership of the KMT with its leader, Chiang Kai-shek. A failed collaboration with the communists weakened Jingwei politically. It embittered him so much that he abandoned the left altogether, and became a rabid right winger.
He went further, turned traitor, and in shocking betrayal of his country, collaborated with the invading Japanese against his own people. Jingwei had been among the bright Chinese students sent by the dying Qing dynasty to study abroad, and he attended university in Japan. There, he joined radical nationalist Chinese student circles, self-identified as an anarchist, and became a disciple of Sun Yat-sen. When he returned to China, he became a prominent speaker on behalf of Chinese nationalism, and was jailed for conspiracy to assassinate the Qing regent. Freed in the Chinese Revolution of 1911 which did away with the Qing dynasty, Jingwei emerged from jail a national hero.