The Provisional and Reformed Governments
The Japanese have determined, assisted and promoted establishment of a number of friendly Chinese governments. Huapeikuo, a North China separatist state, went the way of the Francophile Rhineland Republic; it never got off the drafting board. The East Hopei Autonomous Anti-Communist Government of Mr. Yin Ju-kêng provided, within the North China demilitarized zone, a vast gateway for smuggling; when the National Government withdrew its forces from North China, the Japanese sought more pretentious aids to conquest. The Provisional Government was the first of these, following an Inner Mongol federation (Mêng-liu Lien-ho Tzŭ-chih Chêng-fu), affiliated with Manchoukuo; it was soon rivaled by the Reformed Government; and in March 1940, both were incorporated into the Reorganized National Government of Mr. Wang Ch'ing-wei. Other governments, sponsored by various quarreling departments of the Japanese military, or organized by Chinese confidence men, have appeared transiently and then disappeared.
Three points concerning Japanophile governments contribute to assessment of their chances; their origin and structure; their ideological (narrowly, propagandist) position; and their personnel. These points illustrate a significantly ambivalent trend: the Japanese have found their degree of freedom of action less than they had expected in Chinese politics, and to that extent have been defeated; they have also yielded to the demands of the situation, and have won, in part, in that their chances of success appreciate with realism.
The Provisional Government of the Republic of China (Chung-hua Min-kuo Lin-shih Chêng-fu) was formed at Peking on December 14, 1937, and ended by merger into the Wang Ch'ing-wei government on March 30, 1940, perpetuating a high degree of separatism under the subgovernmental style, North China Political Council. Like its predecessors and successors, it was created by a self-proclaimed committee organized with the consent and knowledge of the Japanese military, if not by the Japanese directly. The members of the Provisional Government were old, weak men, mostly adherents of the Anfu clique which had been Japanophile during and after the War of 1914-18. A few were even brought forth from more archaic strata, lonely adherents to the abandoned monarchy. The youngest were in their fifties and the leading officers were extreme conservatives—men of some intelligence and reputation, but obsolete.
The structure of the Lin-shih Government was interesting in that it formed a republic of three committees, as follows:[6]
PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT (Committee)
Structurally important features are: the absence of any method of election, direct or indirect, or of any ultimate source of "sovereign" personnel—the government having borne itself out of chaos, constitutionally a remarkable feat; the elimination of even nominal party control of government, or cameral legislation, or constituent assembly, these being hated vestiges of the Chinese and Western, but not Japanese, notion that popular sovereignty is to receive genuflections if not credence; and, most startlingly, the absence of a head! There was no President, Protector, Chief of State, Leader, or Dictator; the highest officer was the Shanghai banker, Mr. Wang K'ê-min, Chairman of the Executive Division (literally, yüan, but not in the Nationalist sense). The scope, succession and competence of this Provisional Government were as much in doubt as its origin.
Under the Provisional Government there flowered a new political philosophy, the Hsin Min Chu I ("Principles of the Renewed People," "People-Renewing Principles," or "Principles of the New People"). The similarity of this principle to the San Min Chu I is striking, but is no more than verbal. Propaganda under this credo resembled the Japanese-prepared state-philosophy of Wang Tao, the kingly (as opposed to tyrannous and unnatural) way of the Confucian canon, which—revered throughout the Far East, even by Sun Yat-sen—had been slanted to suit Manchoukuo through a Concordia Society (Hsieh-ho-hui). Each of the Sunyatsenist principles was refuted in detail, Pan-Asian racialism was encouraged, a class-war between the nations was emphasized, and conservatism in thought, manners, and morals recommended. The Peking propaganda machinery was well-financed; the Hsin-min-hui became the only tolerated political group. This hui was headed by Mr. Miao Ping, a Kuomintang Party veteran whose political-bureau experience dated back to the days of Borodin. His renegation, never publicly explained, enabled Japan to issue a careful parody of the San Min Chu I. His assistant was a Japanese. Business associations, student groups, and educational administration were fitted into the pattern. The principles were not logically or systematically developed, but the key terms sufficed to coordinate opportunist appeals justifying the invasion, and opposing resistance, guerrillas, modernizations, and democracy. The Hsin Min Chu I received no credence through conversion, faith, or loyalty. Operating on sound advertising principles, however, they served well even if they failed to command obedience but did unsettle allegiance to the other side, and ubiquitous iteration muddied thought.
The personnel of the Provisional Government included no actively important political leader. Many had been important long before; some were conspicuous in fields other than politics, and had even served on the semi-buffer Hopei-Chahar Political Council which was Chiang's last compromise with Japan. Japan's failure to obtain an effective political leader is important, for this lack eventually led to the acceptance of Wang Ch'ing-wei. The old age, past misfortunes, the motley reputations of the Provisional Government leaders attested a national sentiment sufficient to enforce unity beyond the reach of national law.
The Reformed Government of the Republic of China (Chung-hua Min-kuo Wei-hsin Chêng-fu) was established March 28, 1938. It lapsed simultaneously with its rival and colleague, the Provisional Government. There were several suggestive points of difference, although the chief difference was the fact that the Provisional Government operated from Peiping and the Reformed from Nanking. Both were national in form, a difficulty which was solved by the creation of a United Council to speak for all occupied China. This Council had only the power to issue news releases, which it did. Despite duplication of capitals and national form, the Nanking government revealed a slipping in the Japanese insistence on conformity to their ideas.
In structure, the Reformed Government was a mutilated copy of the National Government. It possessed five yüan, thereby continuing the Sunyatsenist constitutional system which Japan first sought to destroy. In doctrine, it took over the North China-Manchoukuo pattern, under the name Ta Min Chu I (Principles of the Great People), with a party under the name Ta-min-hui. The walls of Nanking were covered with the emblem of the party, a red circular shield with a yellow crescent moon enclosing a white star. Quasi-educational work approximated that of the North; but the Japanese found the Yangtze sympathetic to the National Government and Kuomintang, and hence employed devices reminiscent of Chungking.
For Reformed Government personnel, the Japanese found individuals who were in most instances either as old as their Peiping colleagues, but less famous, or much younger, and relatively unknown. With the city of Shanghai only partially under its control, because local opportunists reached the tax offices first, the Reformed Government provided an outlet for persons who had felt themselves unjustly denied office, or slighted by the Kuomintang, or who had wrecked careers, once promising, by some ghastly misstep or crime and now saw a miraculous chance to return.
These new governments could not on principle claim the allegiance of their own clerks. The personnel, disloyal and of poor morale, was often so corrupt that no government services—needed by Japanese civilians and army alike—could be entrusted to them. Multiple taxes blocked Japanese trade in the area Japan had occupied. The Japanese realized that the United Council and the senescent politicians were not enough. Instead of abandoning interventionist governments, they tried a leader of genuine importance, considerable ability, and some following. His treason was Japan's last chance to govern China without assuming the task herself, risking a premature undertaking. To understand the moves and motives of Wang Ch'ing-wei it is necessary to regard his character and political history.