Wang Ching-wei (wäng jĭng-wā), 1883–1944, Chinese revolutionary and political leader. A supporter of Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (s
..... Click the link for more information. , Wang was sentenced (1910) to life imprisonment for attempting to assassinate the regent of China. Freed in 1912, he studied in France until 1917, when he became personal assistant to Sun. Upon Sun's death (1925) Wang became chairman of the national government, though he remained in conflict with Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (jyäng kī-shĕk, jyäng), 1887–1975, Chinese Nationalist leader. He was also called Chiang Chung-cheng.
..... Click the link for more information. , who led the military and the right-wing of the Kuomintang Kuomintang (gwō`mĭn`däng`, kwō`mĭntăng`) [Chin.
..... Click the link for more information. . In uneasy truce, he served as premier (1932–35) and deputy leader of the Kuomintang (1938). Wang broke with Chiang in 1938, advocating peace with Japan and continued struggle against the Communists. From 1940 to his death he was premier of the Japanese puppet government at Nanjing.

Bibliography

See study by G. E. Bunker (1972).

Wang Jingwei

or Wang Ching-wei

(born May 4, 1883, Sanshui, Guangdong province, China—died Nov. 10, 1944, Nagoya, Japan) Chinese Nationalist Party figure, later head of the puppet regime established by the Japanese in 1940 to govern their conquests in China. A leading polemicist for Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary party, in 1910 he tried to assassinate the imperial regent and was caught; his courage in the face of execution resulted in his sentence being reduced. He was released the following year, after the republican revolution. In the 1920s he served as a major official in the Nationalist Party. After Sun's death, he chaired the party while Chiang Kai-shek allied with the communists in the Northern Expedition against China's warlords. Chiang and Wang vied for party control; in a compromise in 1932, Wang became president and Chiang headed the military. After war erupted with Japan, Wang flew to Hanoi, Viet., and issued a statement calling on the Chinese to stop resisting. In 1940, in collaboration with the Japanese, he became head of a regime that governed the Japanese-occupied areas centred on Nanjing. Though Wang had hoped to be granted virtual autonomy, the Japanese continued to exercise military and economic dominance. He died while undergoing medical treatment in Japan.