Rethinking Wang Jingwei Puppet Regime's Value to Japan: The Case of Overseas Chinese Remittance to Occupied South China

• In Event: 366. Reassessing Chinese Collaborationist Regimes under Japanese Wartime Occupation, 1938–1945

Abstract

In contrast to previous studies that generally dismiss Wang Jingwei’s Nanjing government (1940–45) as an ineffectual "puppet" regime of Japan’s occupation, this presentation reassesses the value of Wang’s regime to Japan through the case study of overseas Chinese remittance from Southeast Asia to South China. One of the key reasons why Japan occupied South China’s port cities, such as Shantou, was in order to redirect overseas Chinese remittance away from Chiang Kai-shek’s Chongqing government instead toward Japan. The presentation argues that Wang’s regime played a central role in collecting overseas Chinese remittance in Shantou.

After Japan occupied the port cities of South China in 1938, Chiang’s Chongqing government faced the problem of a decrease in remittances from the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Japan and its local Chinese puppet governments in Shantou and Chaozhou controlled organizations to act as remittance agencies for villages in their hinterlands. Overseas Chinese remittance was critical for Japan as a means to obtain foreign currency and simultaneously cause financial problems for Chiang’s Chongqing government.

Because overseas Chinese needed to deliver remittances to their relatives in South China, they were hard pressed to avoid using Japan’s puppet agents in the port cities. In this way, Japan successfully obtained overseas Chinese currency. To counter the Japanese, Chiang’s government sent envoys to Thailand, which had a large population of overseas Chinese from Shantou and Chaozhou. Though Chiang’s envoys attempted to persuade them to use Nationalist government remittance institutions instead, Chiang faced difficulties in achieving this goal.

Author

• Shin Kawashima, University of Tokyo