21. Falling In With the Communists, Then With the Japanese
Wang Jingwei formed a government in northern China in collaboration with the communists. However, he eventually fell out with the communists and purged them, at which point his government collapsed and his supporters flocked to Chiang Kai-shek. Bitter, Jingwei became an extreme right-winger. When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, he flew to meet their representatives in Hanoi, and issued a declaration calling for peaceful negotiation with the invaders.
In 1939, he flew to Japan for negotiations, and while there, betrayed China and negotiated a deal on his own behalf. In 1940, he defected and was appointed by the Japanese to head a puppet regime, based in Japanese-occupied Nanking, that nominally “governed” the Japanese-conquered territories in China. During WWII, he remained Japan’s Chinese puppet ruler until his death in 1944.