The View from Japanese-occupied Nanjing

Abstract

A Chinese intellectual and political activist, Kiang Kang-hu was chair of the Department of Chinese Studies at McGill University in the 1930s. In the following 1940 lecture, Kiang provides an introduction to Canada for an audience of Chinese civil servants. By this time, Kiang had returned to China’s fallen capital, Nanjing, and taken office in a Japanese-backed occupation state. Although Chinese historiography has typically cast collaborators such as Kiang as traitors, Kiang’s analysis of his time in Canada offers grounds for understanding why those in Nanjing despaired of the West in their struggle against the Japanese Empire. Kiang’s lecture is introduced and translated by Jonathan Henshaw.