page_title: Wang Jingwei regime
hierarchical_section_title: Wang Jingwei regime
context_page_description: The Wang Jingwei regime is the common name of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China, the government of the puppet state of the Empire of Japan in eastern China called simply the Republic of China. This should not be confused with the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek, which was fighting with the Allies of World War II against Japan. The country was ruled as a one-party republic under Wang Jingwei, a very high-ranking former Kuomintang official. The region that it would administer was initially seized by Japan throughout the late 1930s with the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Wang, a rival of Chiang Kai-shek and member of the pro-peace faction of the KMT, defected to the Japanese side and formed a collaborationist government in occupied Nanking in 1940. The new state claimed the entirety of China during its existence, portraying itself as the legitimate inheritors of the Xinhai Revolution and Sun Yat-sen's legacy as opposed to Chiang Kai-shek's government in Chunking, but effectively only Japanese-occupied territory was under its direct control.
context_section_description: The Wang Jingwei regime is the common name of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China (Chinese: 中華民國國民政府; pinyin: Zhōnghuá mínguó guómín zhèngfǔ), the government of the puppet state of the Empire of Japan in eastern China called simply the Republic of China. This should not be confused with the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek, which was fighting with the Allies of World War II against Japan. The country was ruled as a one-party republic under Wang Jingwei, a very high-ranking former Kuomintang (KMT) official. The region that it would administer was initially seized by Japan throughout the late 1930s with the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Wang, a rival of Chiang Kai-shek and member of the pro-peace faction of the KMT, defected to the Japanese side and formed a collaborationist government in occupied Nanking (Nanjing) (the traditional capital of China) in 1940. The new state claimed the entirety of China during its existence, portraying itself as the legitimate inheritors of the Xinhai Revolution and Sun Yat-sen's legacy as opposed to Chiang Kai-shek's government in Chunking (Chongqing), but effectively only Japanese-occupied territory was under its direct control. Its international recognition was limited to other members of the Anti-Comintern Pact, of which it was a signatory. The Reorganized National Government existed until the end of World War II and the surrender of Japan in August 1945, at which point the regime was dissolved and many of its leading members were executed for treason.
  The state was formed by combining the previous Reformed Government (1938–1940) and Provisional Government (1937–1940) of the Republic of China, puppet regimes which ruled the central and northern regions of China that were under Japanese control, respectively. Unlike Wang Jingwei's government, these regimes were not much more than arms of the Japanese military leadership and received no recognition even from Japan itself or its allies. However, after 1940 the former territory of the Provisional Government remained semi-autonomous from Nanjing's control, under the name "North China Political Council". The region of Mengjiang (puppet government in Inner Mongolia) was under Wang Jingwei's government only nominally. His regime was also hampered by the fact that the powers granted to it by the Japanese were extremely limited, and this was only partly changed with the signing of a new treaty in 1943 which gave it more sovereignty from Japanese control. The Japanese largely viewed it as not an end in itself but the means to an end, a bridge for negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek, which led them to often treat Wang with indifference.
caption: The Republic of China (dark red) and Menchiang (light red) within the Empire of Japan (pink) at its furthest extent