National Salvation Movement Research Articles

Ambivalent fatherland: The Chinese National Salvation Movement in Malaya and Java, 1937–41

China's resistance to Japanese aggression escalated into a full-scale war in 1937. The continuously deteriorating situation stimulated the rise of Chinese nationalism in the diaspora communities worldwide. The Japanese invasion of China, accompanied by the emergence of the National Salvation Movement (NSM) in Southeast Asia, provided the overseas Chinese with a rare opportunity to re-examine their ‘Chineseness’, as well as their relationships with the colonial states and the increasingly self-aware indigenous populations. This research problematises traditional approaches that tend to regard the NSM as primarily driven by Chinese patriotism. Juxtaposing Malaya and Java at the same historical moment, the article argues that the emergence of the NSM was more than just a natural result of the rising Chinese nationalism. Local politics and the shifting political orientations of overseas Chinese communities also profoundly shaped how the NSM played out in different colonial states.

Palestinian Hamas and Algerian Front Islamique du Salut (FIS): The Way to Power

This article shows the similarities and differences in the establishment and activities of the two movements: the Algerian FIS (Algerian National Salvation Movement) and the Palestinian Hamas (Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement). Both movements had a complex interplay between religion and politics. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, political Islam developed in response to the development of the Jewish community in those areas, while such development in Algeria took place in the shadow of the French occupation and the economic problems created in Algeria following the drop in oil prices. The article also represents the struggle of both movements to achieve their goal: the establishment of an Islamic national entity conducted in accordance with their religious precepts. The article presents the ways, of FIS and Hamas to mobilize the masses while emphasizing the similar and different elements of both. I have to add that Hamas is regarded, either in whole or in part, as a terrorist organization by several countries and international organizations, most notably by Israel, the United States and the European Union. Russia, China, and Turkey are among countries who do not regard it so.

홍암 나철의 구국계몽운동 - 몇 가지 문제점을 중심으로 -

홍암 나철의 구국계몽운동 - 몇 가지 문제점을 중심으로 -

Forging a Women's United Front: Chinese elite women's networks for national salvation and resistance, 1932–1938

AbstractFocusing on Chinese elite women who gravitated towards national affairs in the pre-war urban sites of eastern China and who migrated to Wuhan after the outbreak of the War of Resistance (1937–1945), this article analyses the emergence, development, and integration of their sociopolitical networks for the purpose of promoting women's participation in national salvation, against a backdrop of the deepening national crisis in the 1930s. I argue that two years before the Second Kuomintang-Chinese Communist Party (KMT-CCP) United Front was officially formed, these elite women, hailing from diverse social and political backgrounds and different professions, had already established their own leadership during the national salvation movement and called for a women's united front. Therefore, rather than being simply political rhetoric enhanced under the auspices of the KMT-CCP alliance, the women's united front served as an important institution with which Chinese elite women identified and through which they empowered themselves at a local and then national level, across and beyond geopolitical boundaries. I conclude that the birth and evolution of this women's united front, which have been neglected in the historiography of China's War of Resistance, are crucial to an understanding of unsettling negotiations, communication, and cooperation between the various forces signed up to the cause of national salvation in the 1930s, and to the interpretation of popular resistance before the war.

China’s War Reporters: The Legacy of Resistance against Japan by Coble, Parks M

Reviewed by: China’s War Reporters: The Legacy of Resistance against Japan by Coble, Parks M Aaron William Moore Coble, Parks M. China’s War Reporters: The Legacy of Resistance against Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. 288pp. $39.95, £29.95, €36.00 (hardcover). In issues of the wartime newspaper Qianxian (前線 Frontline), Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD) member and Third War Zone propagandist Chen Sibai (陳斯白 1899–1980) published, along with illustrations by Xu Fubao (徐甫堡 1913–2004), a series of short articles under the title “The Beasts in Jiangnan” (野獸在江南 “Yeshou zai Jiangnan”) which, as the title suggests, chronicled the abuses of the Japanese in the GMD heartland. In the issue of October 17, 1938, Chen described the violation of Guangde (廣德), the assault on its women, the abuse of its elderly residents, the theft of the residents’ property. These and other crimes were all “a responsibility that we cannot escape.” The degree to which Chinese people embraced this view is a matter of some debate, but there is little question that the mavens of the written word, both on the political left and on the right, pushed the discourse of total resistance against Japan. Parks Coble’s new monograph is an important contribution to the field of Chinese wartime print culture, focusing largely on the leftist tradition of reportage. Coble’s book follows other volumes on the subject by authors such as Charles Laughlin, Stephen MacKinnon, and Chang-tai Hung.1 Coble’s analysis of leftist reportage writers, and their lives after 1949, shows us not only how political opponents of a wartime regime could still enable mass mobilization, but also how these authors shaped and were shaped by memory in the postwar era, as well as how their wartime patriotic bona fides failed to protect them when putatively sympathetic new regimes came to power. In China’s War Reporters, Coble seeks to “understand how the rather unusual way in which the legacy of the war has been ‘remembered’ in China had constrained a deeper understanding of the war” (5); he splits the book between the study of wartime literary trends and postwar interpretations. His study focuses on the National Salvation Movement (NSM; 救國運動 Jiuguo yundong), which was admittedly a fairly porous and disorganized group; nevertheless, it is fair to say that the NSM was largely populated by educated individuals who were critical of Chiang Kai-shek’s prewar anticommunist policies. In numerous publications, Coble has already pointed out that the GMD government’s policies were opaque to even [End Page 201] educated and informed Chinese citizens but, once the war started, those on the left who decried the GMD as “the traitorous Nanjing government who will sell our country”2 were proven wrong about Chiang and his followers. In moving prose, supported by years of thorough research, Coble captures well how the leftist intellectual class celebrated the GMD’s advance into Shanghai against the Japanese, and their eventual despair. The “euphoria” that these writers expressed was surely genuine, and, as Coble writes, they “universally believed that if the Chinese people united and were mobilized, China could take on Japan, ” balancing previous critiques of the GMD right against their indispensability for the resistance (25, 52–54). The failure of the GMD to defend China devastated these writers, who had invested so much in the decision to resist Japan openly. Nevertheless, writers like Guo Moruo, Fan Changjiang (范長江 1909–1970), and Zou Taofen (鄒韜奮 1895–1944) began to speculate that the failures in the East would lead to the construction of a new China (39). What followed, however, was a tragic suppression—simultaneous to the collapse of the Second United Front (112–15)—of leftist reportage writers like Zou Taofen who had nowhere to hide when the Japanese armed forces dismantled areas of Western privilege. The losses during the Ichigō Campaign in 1944 were almost fatal, and Coble writes that China did not therefore “successfully organize for total war” (129). Here I have some doubts regarding Coble’s argument: writers on the left and the right bemoaned the rural population’s “ignorance” of the war effort, but this was also a genre convention of reportage literature. Digging into the scant documents left behind by non...

China's war reporters: the legacy of resistance against Japan

When Japan invaded China in the summer of 1937, many Chinese journalists greeted the news with euphoria. For years, the Chinese press had urged Chiang Kai-shek to resist Tokyo s aggressive overtures. This was the war they wanted, convinced that their countrymen would triumph.Parks Coble recaptures the experiences of China s war correspondents during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 1945. He delves into the wartime writing of reporters connected with the National Salvation Movement journalists such as Fan Changjiang, Jin Zhonghua, and Zou Taofen who believed their mission was to inspire the masses through patriotic reporting. As the Japanese army moved from one stunning victory to the next, forcing Chiang s government to retreat to the interior, newspaper reports often masked the extent of China s defeats. Atrocities such as the Rape of Nanjing were played down in the press for fear of undercutting national morale.By 1941, as political cohesion in China melted away, Chiang cracked down on leftist intellectuals, including journalists, many of whom fled to the Communist-held areas of the north. When the People s Republic was established in 1949, some of these journalists were elevated to prominent positions. But in a bitter twist, all mention of their wartime writings disappeared. Mao Zedong emphasized the heroism of his own Communist Revolution, not the war effort led by his archrival Chiang. Denounced as enemies during the Cultural Revolution, once-prominent wartime journalists, including Fan, committed suicide. Only with the revival of Chinese nationalism in the reform era has their legacy been resurrected.

The Education Movement of the royal family of the Empire of Great Han and Myeongshin Girls’ School

The purpose of this study is to examine various aspects of the civilization policy and education movement of King Gojong, who tried to protect independence through the modernization of the Empire of Great Han (1897~1910) and to trace the establishment process and spirit of Myeongshin girls’ school, which was established and supported by the royal family. This study will give readers an opportunity to reconsider their perspective of King Gojong, which has been distorted by Japan, and to grasp a better idea of how the royal family supported the national salvation movement through education. King Gojong demonstrated his will for enlightenment by often signing protective trading treaties with powers of the West despite violent opposition by the conservatives in the cabinet against his opening policy after 1880, and by emphasizing that education is the basis for the preservation of state through his “national salvation movement through education.” Gojong sought to establish a modern educational system, thus positively promoting the project of educational modernization and the educational project through missionaries. Myeongshin girls school was a royal women’s school established by Wunheon Hwang-gwibi, the wife of the king, in order to educate and train elite persons to restore the sovereignty of the state. Even though it was established based on the Japanese noble women’s school as a model, the school actively and continuously participated in the protest movement against Japan with an outstanding sense of sovereignty and patriotism against the colonization of Korea. This school was different in its characteristics compared to the Japanese noble women’s school in that it was established with the objective of training and nurturing wise mothers and good wives who could learn and accept the modern education of the West. Myeongshin girls school was in fact a private school established by the sponsoring and support of Soonheon Hwang-gwibi, the wife of King Gojong. More specifically, it was the monarchy’s best education agency for training elite women operating with the financial support of the royal court.

Together with the Homeland

This article draws on a wide variety of sources and recent scholarship on citizenship to reconceptualize the Chinese National Salvation movement in the 1930s. Instead of emphasizing partisan manipulation or intellectual advocacy as past research has done, it argues that broadly based civic activism was vital for national salvation. In Hong Kong, where national salvation activism emerged in a time of political repression but developed under forced tolerance by the British authorities, widely shared commiseration with their fellow Chinese became a motivating and unifying force that cut across social and class divides. Built upon traditions of charity by the rich and of anti-foreign protest by the laboring population, civic activities for national salvation in the 1930s had a transformative effect in this British colony and affected developments in Hong Kong for decades thereafter.

Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave (review)

Reviews 597 tivities in the 1930s and 1940s, therefore, can be seen, on the one hand, as Chinese nationals' patriotic support oftheir homeland's national salvation movement and, on the other hand, as a struggle to improve their image and status in American society" (p. 83). This book achieves something few other studies ofAsian Americans have done. It clearly identifies the significant contributions ofChinese in America to Chinese in China. Additionally, the realities oflife for the Chinese in New York are explored over three decades. This study destroys such myths as "the apolitical Chinese heathen" and explores the inner dynamics ofan ethnic community. Yu brings to life the humanity ofmen perceived by many as nameless and faceless. He reminds us that Chinese laundrymen, just like other Americans, had histories, interests, needs, and dignity. Gregory Yee Mark University ofHawai'i NOTES1. For additional information referto Paul C. P. Siu, The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation (New York: New York University Press, 1987), and John Gioia, "A Social, Political , and Legal Study ofYick Wo v. Hopkins," in The Chinese American Experience: Papers From the Second National Conference on Chinese American Studies, ed. Genny Lim (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society ofAmerica and Chinese Culture Foundation, 1980), pp. 211-219. 2. Gregory Y. Mark, "A Chinese Laundryman Fights Back: Case of In Re Byron Mark," in Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1988 (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1988), pp. 58-79. Min Zhou. Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential ofan Urban Enclave. Foreword by Alejandro Portes. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992. xxiv, 275 pp. Hardcover $44.95. Paperback $18.95. Immigrant adaptation has been an interest of sociologists since the emergence of the Chicago School ofintergroup analysts and the writings ofone ofits founders, Robert E. Park. Park's Cycle ofRace Relations (cited in McLemore 1991), ofwhich assimilation is the last stage wherein the smaller ofthe groups in contact is even-© 1995 by University tuallymerged into the larger, has influenced generations ofscholarswho work in ofHawai'i Pressthe field ofrace relations. Over the latter halfofthis century, a number ofstructural theories have emerged and fueled the debate within the study ofimmigrant adaptation in American society. One such theory, the dual or segmented labor 598 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995 market theory, views the economy as made up oftwo markets: the first is the primary market, which has the positive characteristics ofjob stability, good working conditions and wages, and vertical mobility; the second is the secondary labor market, which has the negative characteristics ofjob instability, poor wages and working conditions, and little opportunity for promotion (Wilson and Portes 1980). The enclave-economy hypothesis was deduced from this body ofliterature. It states that immigrant workers who find work in the immigrant enclave will have significant economic returns from past human-capital investments similar to those in the primary sector. Those who find work in the secondary labor market will have less-favorable returns from their past human capital investments (Wilson and Portes 1980). The belief, then, is that in segregated ethnic-immigrant communities, the economy in these communities can provide "positive economic consequences" (Portes and Jensen 1987), that is, be conducive to positive adaptation . This body of sociological theory and this particular hypothesis form the theoretical perspective of Min Zhou's book. Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential ofan Urban Enclavéis a book of dualisms . It is constructed of two distinct halves. The first part of the book is historical and descriptive. Chapter 2 contains the obligatory discussion ofthe "sojourning " nature ofthe migration ofthe early Chinese to the Gold Mountain and the social and legal discrimination they encountered here in the United States that forced them into segregated enclaves—the Chinatowns. Zhou presents tables offacts about Chinese immigration to the United States—for example province ofemigration, when they emigrated, and how many arrived. In addition, Zhou provides aggregate figures, by decade, on the sociodemographic characteristics of the Chinese population in the United States and in New York. These figures, along with interviews interspersed throughout the text, give a quick history and description of Chinese immigration and adaptation to the United States. This history is found elsewhere (Barth 1964; Lyman 1974; Mark 1982; Miller 1969...

The Effect of Wang Ming's Ultra-Leftist Line on the Student Movement for National Salvation

The September 18 Incident shocked the whole nation. People all over the country rose up in protest the atrocities of the Japanese imperialist aggressors, the huge loss of territory, and the nonresistance of the KMT government. Within a short time, an anti-Japanese national salvation movement spread across the nation. Students were the vanguard in this movement. They organized numerous petition drives and demonstrations, and demanded that the KMT government send out its army to resist the aggressors. But after the Pearl Bridge Tragedy of December 17, this flourishing student movement was swiftly suppressed by the KMT government.

Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931-1937.

Part 1 Manchuria, Shanghai and nonresistance: background to nonresistance - Nanking and Japan, 1927-1931 military and political alignments in China, 1927-1931 challenges to nonresistance the Shanghai incident legacy of the Shanghai incident. Part 2 First pacification, then and the policy's opponents: political difficulties within the government resistance in the northeast Nanking and the boycott movement popular reaction to nonresistance Tsou T'ao-fen and the journal Sheng-huo. Part 3 New crisis in the north - Shanhaikuan, Jehol, and the Tangku truce: reaction to the Jehol crisis war at the Great Wall Huang Fu and the Tangku truce reaction to the Tangku truce. Part 4 The Tangku truce and Chinese politics: Feng Yu-hsiang and the People's anti-Japanese allied army the Japanese issue and the politics of the south Tangku and the political makeup of the Nanking regime. Part 5 Nanking's policy of accommodation, 1934: the Amo doctrine tariff and trade issues rail and postal links with Manchukuo first pacification, then renewed. Part 6 Enemy or friend?: Sino-Japanese friendship the Kwantung army opposes peace moves the Ho-Umezu and Chin-Doihara agreements the Hsin-sheng incident aftermath of the crisis the blue shirts in north China. Part 7 Until there is no hope of peace: political turmoil in Nanking Sino-Japanese economic co-operation the autonomy crisis, November-December 1935 the Peace Cabinet. Part 8 The popular tide for resistance: Tsou T'ao-fen and the National Salvation Movement Japan's hardening attitude Japanese-sponsored smuggling in north China Kuomintang politics and the issue of resistance, 1936 a harvest of incidents the Suiyuan incident. Part 9 Toward collission - Sian and beyond: the Sian incident Sian - unanswered questions Japan and the Sian incident war.

Strange Bedfellows: The Communist Party and Shanghai's Elite in the National Salvation Movement

During the National Salvation Movement of the mid-1930s, the Shanghai Party forged its most workable alliance not with members of the proletariat but with progressives from the city's middle and upper classes. Making use of multi-class patriotism, Party leaders established a co-operative relationship with members of the elite that became a crucial part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) resistance work against Japan. In many cases, the relationship continued into the post-war years and contributed significantly to the CCP's easy takeover of the city in May 1949.

Chiang Kai-shek and the Anti-Japanese Movement in China: Zou Tao-fen and the National Salvation Association, 1931–1937

AbstractsJapanese imperialism relentlessly besieged the Nationalist government of China during the Nanking decade. Chiang Kai-shek, believing that China was not ready to confront Japanese military power and obsessed with the desire to eliminate the Communists, adopted a policy of consistent appeasement toward the.Japanese. This enraged public opinion in urban China, and Zou Tao-fen, a popular journalist, led the cry for resistance to Japan. He and his associates were continually suppressed by the Nanking government; nevertheless, they published several journals in succession, each of which denounced Chiang's policy toward Japan and all of which achieved enormous circulation. Late in 1935 Zou and his followers helped organize the National Salvation Movement, which demanded that Chiang suspend the civil war against the Communists and fight the Japanese. When Chiang Kai-shek, acting under Japanese pressure, arrested Zou and the leaders of the association in 1936, they became national heroes, the legendary “Seven Gentlemen.” Zou's martyrdom and that of his associates transformed their movement into a powerful political force, one that opposed Chiang and increasingly favored the Chinese Communists.

Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Singapore during the 1930s

The 1930s was a unique, exciting, explosive and highly politicised decade for the Chinese in Singapore and Malaya due to the blossoming forth of Chinese nationalism aimed at China's national salvation in the wake of the Japanese invasion. This China-oriented nationalism took various forms. There was a boycott movement against Japanese goods; there were public and political rallies, cultural variety shows, and propaganda in the press and the schools, stirring up national feelings. There were campaigns for the return of skilled and professional Chinese in serving the Kuomintang (KMT) Government at Chungking, and for relief funds and funds for strengthening China's war footing. Undoubtedly, the Chinese nationalism that began in 1928 was a mass movement, and at its height in 1938 and 1939, the movement involved some 300,000 Chinese in Singapore for national salvation work, or 50 per cent of the total Chinese population on the island. It was during this politically volatile decade that various socio-enonomic forces within the Chinese community surfaced or re-surfaced in the bid for leadership. It also saw the rise, consolidation, collaboration and rivalry of various emergent elites and counter-elites in a rather restricted political arena, sensitively guarded and regulated by the British authorities. It is the concern of this paper to identify the nature and composition of various contending elites and counter-elites, to examine their roles in the national salvation movement and, finally, to analyse why a non-partisan elite headed by Tan Kah Kee ( 1874–1961) was able to capture and maintain the leadership during the period under examination.

The ‘Double-Seventh’ Incident, 1937: Singapore Chinese Response to the Outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War

In his two pioneer studies on the Nanyang Chinese national salvation movement between 1908 and 1941, Professor Yoji Akashi stresses developments in China, and the extension of KMT and CCP structures in the Nanyang as basic “to any investigation of Nanyang Chinese political motive and orientation”. These developments, if viewed from a rather Sino-centric standpoint, are indeed important in explaining why the Singapore hua-ch'iao (overseas Chinese) responded as they did to the Double-Seventh Incident of 1937. However, contemporary local sources reveal that forces and conditions in Singapore played a decisive part in shaping the stand and modus operandi adopted by Singapore Chinese at the outbreak of the 1937 Sino-Japanese War.

The Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Movement, 1937-1941

The Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Movement, 1937-1941

The Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Movement, 1937-1941

The Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Movement, 1937-1941

Yoji Akashi. <italic>The Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Movement, 1937–1941</italic>. (International Studies, East Asian Series. Research Publication, Number 5.) [Lawrence:] Center for East Asian Studies, University of Kansas; distrib. by Paragon Book Gallery, New York. 1970. Pp. 211. $6.50

Journal Article Yoji Akashi. The Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Movement, 1937–1941. (International Studies, East Asian Series. Research Publication, Number 5.) [Lawrence:] Center for East Asian Studies, University of Kansas; distrib. by Paragon Book Gallery, New York. 1970. Pp. 211. $6.50 Get access Akashi Yoji. The Nanyang Chinese National Salvation Movement, 1937–1941. (International Studies, East Asian Series. Research Publication, Number 5.) [Lawrence:] Center for East Asian Studies, University of Kansas; distrib. by Paragon Book Gallery, New York. 1970. Pp. 211. $6.50. John Israel John Israel University of Virginia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 77, Issue 2, April 1972, Page 565, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/77.2.565 Published: 01 April 1972

A Summary of The Nanyang Chinese and the Manchurian Incident

After the successful unification o China under Chiang Kai-shek in 1927, the Kuomintang (KMT) attempted to extend its influence over Chinese communities in Southeast Asia Being revolutionary in nature, the KMT tried to place Chinese nationalist movements at home and abroad under party control. In the years between 1928, the year of the Tsinan Incident, and 1932, the second year of the Manchurian Incident, the KMT and its party-controlled government enacted a series of acts and regulations aiming at strengthening the party's hold over the Nanyang Chinese. As a result, the anyan Chinese anti-Japanese movement, which began in 1908 over the Tatsu-Maru Incident, was transformed from a boycott movement led by merchants to a national salvation movement directed by the party and the government, as well as by their overseas agents. At the same time, modern Chinese Nationalism, epitomized in Sun Yat-sen's “People's Three Principles”, had gained strength as China was being unified under a single government for the first time in nearly two decades. She was also being faced with external threat. This nationalism, kindled by propaganda and a desire for the emergence of a strong China, was prevalent among Nanyang Chinese, particularly among students and young intellectuals and leaders of business circles who had immigrated from China in the recent past, and who had received traditional Chinese education.It is in this context that the Nanyang Chinese started the national salvation movement when the Manchurian Incident broke out in Septemder 1931. Boycotts began in early October throughout Southeast Asia, attesting to the degree of KMT coordination in the movement. For a few months, the boycotts had a telling effect on Japanese trade in Southeast Asia but they petered out by February, 1932. Other methods used by the national salvation movement, such as monetary contributions and material donations, were also comparatively ineffective. The overall effect o the movement upon Japan's trade position vis-a-vis the Nanyang region was light compared with that of the 1928 national salvation movement, a consequence of the Tsinan Incident, whose boycott lasted much longer, and had a more severe economic effect on Japan.Reasons for the rather disappointing results of the 1931-32 movement are as follows:1. The economies of the Nanyang countries were suffering from the Great Depression. The Nanyang Chinese, particularly merchants who were principals in boycott, were simply in no position to conduct the boycott so soon after the Tsinan Incident boycott, from which Chinese communities suffered as much as they succeeded in hurting Japan's economic and trade position in Southeast Asia.2. By nature, the Nanyang Chinese economy had small capital accumulation and depended on handling Japanese consumer goods for livelihood. Chinese merchants could not continue the boycott for long without hurting themselves and undermining their business and economic position. In short, the longer they continued boycotting, the more they lost their economic position to Japanese who, with government subsidies, tried to establish their own retail network in order to be less dependent upon Chinese merchants for the distribution and sale of their merchandise.3. The national salvation movement, which had been evolving gradually into a political movement as the KMT's influence grew, became the object of suppression from colonial and native governments. Colonial governments were afraid of indigenous nationalist movements being contaminated of Chinese nationalism. On the other hand, the native governments of Siam and the Philippines were increasingly resentful of the predominant Chinese hold over their economies. Consequently, these governments, motivated by their own brands of nationalism-Thai-ification and Filipinization-tried to wrest economic control from the Chinese and restore it into their own hands. Because of these factors, Chinese had to be

Thai Society During World War II

Because she was not a Western colonial country, but an Asian Kingdom and a member of the Axis Power, wartime Thailand was free from Japanese military administration and a able to keep aloof from warfare after the friendly entry of the Japanese army, Thai political leaders assumed a pattern of “compromise” rather than “hostility” in response to the Japanese impact. Although intellectually, most Thai leaders did not agree with the Japanese idea of “The Great East Asia Go-prosperity Sphere, ” they accelerated an allied relationship with Japan to avoid a possibly critical situation of Japanese militarism sweeping all over the country. For her own national benefit in facing increasing Japanese power in Southeast Asia, Thailand put pressure on the anti-Japanese boycott movement of the Chinese within a country, sat on her fence of neutrality and tried to remain out side the Japanese military occupation until the opening day of the war. Even after December 8, 1941, when she recognized the friendly entry of the Japanese army, Thailand tried hard to stand behind the bay line by contributing economic ally to the Japanese military operation in Burma, Malaya and Singapore.In wartime, Pibul Songkram, Prime Minister of the Government, promoted Rathaniyom (Patriotic Movement) and Thai Yai (Great Thai Nation Movement through which he wanted to keep national stability based on of traditional Thai sentiment rather than the idea of individual freedom from the Constitutional Revolution in 1932. In terms of motivation, therefore, these movements were quite different from the Japanese idea of the “Co-prosperity Sphere.” Meanwhile, the dynamics of the anti-Japanese “Free Thai” movement were accelerated by Thai elites and university students then in the United States and the United Kingdom. There they carried out the actual plan to develop their resistance against Japan. On the other hand, Thai leaders, except several domestic “Free Thai” leaders, outwardly continued their friendly relations with the Japanese while secretly linking up with the “Free Thai” members in order to find a new place for themselves after the war. With the benefits of this duality, they reserved their own clear cut opinion and left rooms for changing attitudes to their advantage.Chinese leaders in economic circles also had similar patterns of response. Although they started the anti-Japanese National Salvation Movement in 1937, which was motivated from loyalty to their native land, they joined neither the all Chinese united front in Southeast Asia nor the overseas Chinese good-will tour party to Chungking and Yennan in 1938. However, from 1938 the Chinese in Thailand began cooperating with the national policy of the Thai government and, after war erupted, made contributions by procuring for the Japanese army. In reply to a requisition for labour for army railway construction between Burma and Thailand in 1943, the Chinese again tried to keep their security in the country by means of economic cooperation in offering munitions war, rather than by sending labour power for dreadful construction. In the meantime, however, they donated funds secretly to members of the “Free Thai” movement. Chang Lan-ch'en, former President of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Thailand, was a leader of pro-Japanse group during the war, but was able to return to the some position again in 1948 and held thee post until 1961 when he died. Pibul was also reinstalled in his former position in 1948 and was Prime Minister until 1957. These two political and economic leaders began to leave room for changing attitudes by the end of the war, to enhance their reinstatement in the post-war period.