Abstract
AbstractThis paper explores the development of the Wang Jingwei personality cult during the Japanese occupation of China (1937–1945). It examines how the collaborationist Chinese state led by Wang sought to distinguish its figurehead from the person he had replaced, Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. Drawing on visual, archival, and published sources, it traces the development of the Wang cult from the early years of the war, and argues that the unusual context in which the cult evolved ultimately undermined its coherence. The case of Wang Jingwei illustrates how the Chinese case more broadly can enhance our understandings of personality cults that develop under occupation. To this end, I compare the Wang regime with various European “collaborationist” governments that sought to promote their leaders in similar ways.
Highlights
In his recent book The Stalin Cult, Jan Plamper notes the importance of “contradistinction”—a concept used most often in the field of marketing—in the making of many mid-twentieth-century personality cults
If Chiang was presented as a war hero blessed with “superhuman” powers and brilliant personal attributes, Wang was to be promoted as a reluctant patriot. In this respect we find further parallels between the Wang cult and Pétainism, for just as Nicholas Atkin has argued, that Vichy propaganda was very much “a French experiment”,61 the Wang personality cult drew overwhelmingly on Chinese political traditions
PERSONALITY CULTS UNDER OCCUPATION For much of their political careers, both before and during the war against Japan, Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei sought to present themselves in vastly different ways
Summary
In his recent book The Stalin Cult, Jan Plamper notes the importance of “contradistinction”—a concept used most often in the field of marketing—in the making of many mid-twentieth-century personality cults.
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