Short History of the Provisional, Reformed and Reorganized National Governments of China

The Second Sino-Japanese War began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937. Japanese forces completed their invasion of much of north China within a matter of weeks. As the Japanese advanced inland, they established client regimes. These client (widely known as puppet) regimes drew on templates developed earlier in other parts of Japanese-occupied Asia, such as the quasi state of Manchukuo, which had been established in 1932 by the Kwantung Army and existed as a nominally independent "empire", with the Manchu emperor Puyi as its head of the state. In occupied Beijing, a Provisional Government of the Republic of China (Zhonghua minguo linshi zhengfu) was inaugurated in December 1937. This regime would nominally rule over large swathes of the north China plain and many of the major cities of the region until 1940. In east China, a Reformed Government of the Republic of China (Zhonghua minguo weixin zhengfu) (was established in 1938 along the same lines. Both of these administrations claimed only limited autonomy from the Japanese, and both were shrill in their condemnation of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, international (and Chinese) communism, and Western colonialism.


"New Government The Provisional of the Republic of China/新政 中華民國臨時政府."
New Regime the Provisional Government of the Republic of China  新政 中華民國臨時政府.jpg



Over the course of 1939, however, the longevity of both these regimes would be brought into question. With the defection of the former Republican Chinese premier Wang Jingwei from the wartime Chinese capital of Chongqing in late 1938, and the start of negotiations between Wang and the Japanese government, the notion of some new and much larger client regime began to crystallize. The consequent Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China was officially inaugurated on March 30, 1940, with the Provisional Government of the Republic of China and the Reformed Government of the Republic of China both being technically subsumed into this new entity. Despite ongoing tensions between Wang Jingwei and the Japanese (which would last until Wang’s death in 1944), the Reorganized National Government would administer much of east and south China for the remainder of the war. It would claim to administer many of the wealthiest areas of the country and would rule over many millions of Chinese people. Wang’s regime would become virtually synonymous with “collaboration” and “treason” in many official, academic, and lay interpretations of the occupation, and Wang himself would become one of the most reviled figures in modern Chinese history.


"Celebrate the fall of Hankou City [October 25-26, 1938]/慶祝漢口陷落".
“The Provisional Government of the Republic of China.中華民國臨時政府“ and "The Reformed Government of the Republic of China” Chinese/中華民國維新政府".

慶祝漢 陷落.JPG



The Provisional Government of the Republic of China /中華民國臨時政府/ was a Chinese provisional government protected by the Empire of Japan that existed from 1937 to 1940 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

中华民国临时政府成立.jpg

The sign of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China unveiled in Zhongnanhai in Beijing on December 14, 1937

After the conquest of Northern China, Japanese Imperial General Headquarters authorized the creation of a collaborationist regime as part of its overall strategy to establish an autonomous buffer zone between China and Japanese-controlled Manchukuo. It nominally controlled the provinces of Hopei, Shantung, Shansi, Henan and Kiangsu.

The Provisional Government of the Republic of China was officially inaugurated by Wáng Kèmǐn, former Kuomintang Minister of Finance, on 14 December 1937, with its capital at Beijing. Wang was assisted by Tang Erho, who served as chairman of the Legislative Yuan and Minister of Education.

Its activities were carefully prescribed and overseen by advisors provided by the Japanese Northern China Area Army. The failure of the Japanese to give any real authority to the Provisional Government discredited it in the eyes of the local inhabitants, and made its existence of only limited propaganda utility to the Japanese authorities.

The Provisional Government was, along with the Reformed Government of the Republic of China, merged into Wang Jingwei's Nanjing-based reorganized national government on 30 March 1940, but in practical terms actually remained virtually independent under the name of the "North China Political Affairs Commission/華北政務委員會" until the end of the war.


"Celebrate the founding of the United Committee of the Republic of China/慶祝中華民國政府聯合委員會成立".
At the bottom of the poster “The Provisional Government of the Republic of China/臨時政府" and “The Reformed Government of the Republic of China/維新政府".

Celebrate the founding of the United Committee of the Republic of China.jpg



The Reformed Government of the Republic of China /中華民國維新政府/ was a Chinese puppet state created by Japan that existed from 1938 to 1940 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The regime had little authority or popular support, nor did it receive international recognition even from Japan itself, lasting only two years before it was merged with the Provisional Government into the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China under Wang Jingwei. Due to the extensive powers of the Japanese advisors within the government and its own limited powers, the Reformed Government was not much more than an arm of the Japanese military administration.

After the retreat of Kuomintang forces from Nanjing in 1938, and from their defeat in the Battle of Nanjing, the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters authorized the creation of a collaborationist regime to give the semblance of at least nominal local control over Japanese-occupied central and south China. Northern China was already under a separate administration, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, from December 1937. The Japanese Central China Area Army drafted plans that month to set up its own puppet government in the Lower Yangtze region. Several documents were made that laid out the details of providing it with financial support as well as the economic and political goals for forming the regime. The documents also acknowledged the eventual merger of the Provisional Government with the one in Central China. The task they focused on was recruiting political and military leaders to head the government.

The first candidate to lead the government was Tang Shaoyi, a former Kuomintang leader who was in opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. He was willing to do it but the Japanese were not able to grant his demand to unite the Provisional Government under his leadership, and thus they decided to save him for a later date. Tang was assassinated not too long after that. They ended up finding and negotiating with Liang Hongzhi, a former Anhui clique politician of the early Republican era who had ties to Japan. He and several other recruited candidates met in Tokyo and it was later decided at a meeting on 19 February 1938 that the regime would use the old flag and anthem of the Chinese Republic.

The Reformed Government of the Republic of China was established by Liang Hongzhi and others on 28 March 1938, and was assigned control of the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui as well as the two municipalities of Nanjing and Shanghai. The regime's manifesto pointed out the consequences of the Kuomintang government and thanked their Japanese allies for "rescuing" China, claiming that the Reformed Government was the solution. Its activities were carefully prescribed and overseen by “advisors” provided by the Japanese China Expeditionary Army. The failure of the Japanese to give any real authority to the Reformed Government discredited it in the eyes of the local inhabitants, and made its existence of only limited propaganda utility to the Japanese authorities.

The Reformed Government was, along with the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, merged into Wang Jingwei's Nanjing-based reorganized national government on 30 March 1940.

"All people desire the North-South unification/全民渴望南北統一"
All people desire the NorthSouth unification 全民渴望南北統一.jpg

On the left and right flags “North China/華北" and “Central China/華中".


The Reorganized National Government /中華民國國民政府/ a.k.a. The Wang Jingwei Regime was the name of the collaborationist government established in the Republic of China from 1940-45. It was led by former Kuomintang (KMT) party member Wang Jingwei.
Wang Jingwei.jpg


Wang Jingwei was the leftist leader of a Kuomintang faction called the Reorganizationists, who were often at odds with Chiang Kai-shek. After the fall of the capital city of Nanjing to the Imperial Japanese Army soon after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Nationalist government went into exile to Chongqing. On 30 March 1940 defectors under the tutelage of the Japanese army established a collaborationist government that claimed to be the legitimate representative of all of the Republic of China. This reorganized national government was formed out of a number of previous collaborationist governments that existed in northern and central China, including the Reformed Government of the Republic of China based in eastern China, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China in northern China, and later on the Mengjiang government in Inner Mongolia, though in reality northern China and Inner Mongolia stayed relatively free of its influence. Although using the same state symbols and name of the republic, the new government obtained international recognition only from the Anti-Comintern Pact countries. The exiled nationalist government in Chongqing continued to be recognized by most of the rest of the world as the legitimate government of China. The reorganized national government declared war on the Allies on 9 January 1943. It was disbanded following the surrender of Japan in August 1945.
"National Government/國民政府".
On the globe "Beijing/北京"; "Republic of China/中華民国".
國民政府  National Government 北京 Beijing中華民国  Republic of China.jpg
 
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日軍為正義解除人民的倒懸來徹底剷除萬惡的自私自利的黨軍和慘無人道的共產黨.JPG



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日軍的勇敢善戰所向崩潰,日軍的新銳軍械舉世無雙.JPG
 
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民國新政 - New government for the Republic of China.JPG



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    history national governments of china history reformed national governments of china history reorganized national governments of china 中華民國國民政府 中華民國維新政府 中華民國臨時政府
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