National Unification, Collaboration and Collective Memory: The Impact of the War of Resistance on Chinese History

"Women’s Defense Corps training at Canton, China, 1938" by Cambridge University

Before answering whether the war of resistance witnessed national unification or furthered the social, political and ideological divisions of the state, one must define what “national unification” is. This essay defines the term “national unification” through the lens of nationalism. Thus, the “national unification” of China lies in the idea that its citizens no longer perceived themselves to be living their lives as individuals acting in their self-interest, but rather in the romanticization of China as a community of people with similar goals, emotions and contextualization of historical events. Essentially, the essay argues the idea that the War of Resistance did bear witness to national unification as the collective experience and memory of the war did push for an unprecedented unity between many opposing groups while paradoxically also witnessing the haemorrhaging of national unification and furthering the social, political and ideological divisions within the nation.

For example, where ideas of national unification thrived was in the development and subsequent actions of the National Salvation Movement. The National Salvation Movement was founded on 9th December 1935 and formalized its goals with the release of its manifesto on 12th December 1935 calling for resistance against Japanese Imperialism in China. (Coble, M Parks, 2007). Before the formal formation of the National Salvation Movement, according to Coble Jr. et al. (1985) the fundamental reason as to why the group gained such prominence was because of Chiang Kai Shek’s unpopular policy of “first internal pacification, then external resistance”. This, being the idea that the nationalist party was in no position to confront the impending imperialist Japanese threat and that he had to eliminate its internal enemies before engaging Japan’s imperialist expansionist tendencies. As a result of Chiang’s appeasement towards Japanese imperialist powers in favour of targeting both the CCP, and his political rivals, led to a strong response from the intellectual class and his political rivals who now felt emboldened to speak out against this policy. Even before the National Salvation movement had formalized, its leaders had started to seek out and create networks in which they could oppose the threat of Japanese imperialism. Journalists such as Zou Taofen according to Coble Jr. et al. (1985) benefitted from having his headquarters strategically located in Shanghai’s foreign concessions meant that although Chinese laws would apply to him, it would be very difficult for them to prosecute him without the cooperation of western authorities. As a result, Coble Jr. et al. (1985) argues that because of his location, he was able to continue publishing his work with minimal interruptions. This resulted in his readership increasing. With his readership numbers increased, so too did the political reputation of his readership improve. As a result of the popularity of his publications, Zou was able to meet Madame Soong Meiling. With her political connections and wealth, Zou also used his newspaper to solicit donations from his readers and help establish a hospital for wounded soldiers fighting against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. One could argue that the political efficiency of these networks, became a massive source of embarrassment for Chiang as his government was unable to even protect or provide adequate support for its soldiers defending the Chinese state. Instead, it became the personal responsibility of the citizens to resist Japanese imperialism. Ultimately, this roused anger within the population as they had lost faith in their own government and could be argued, fundamentally reshaped the way its citizens thought about themselves. In a way, the Chinese people realized they could not rely on their government to protect them and would have to rely on each other to stand against an active threat that threatened the “Chinese” way of life. Ultimately, Chiang’s inability to protect his own people and the increasing presence of political networks which would eventually culminate in the National Salvation Front, forced citizens to recontextualize their relationship with the government and force citizens to take a more civic and communal approach to its country’s politics. Zou’s newspaper also continued to reach even the underbelly of the Shanghai Triads. As Coble Jr. et al (1985) points out, the attack on Shanghai in 1932 began to take a toll on the city, even Chiang’s close allies in the criminal underworld started to see the flaws in Chiang’s policy which led to KMT-aligned Triad Boss Du Zhong Yuan to write an open letter criticizing Chiang’s appeasement policy of non-resistance towards the Japanese. As seen, the effects of the war of resistance, Chiang's appeasement policy and antagonistic policies towards intellectuals, party members, urbanites, and gangsters pushed this unlikely combination of people to think beyond their social class and acted as a catalyst in creating a Chinese national identity which bore witness to an intensification of the ideas of national unification. One could even argue that this collaboration between the many factions against Japanese imperialism laid the groundwork for the KMT to be pressured into forming the united front with the CCP.

In her article, Guo, V (2017) argues that although, the first Women’s National Salvation branch initially started with the idea of opposing the new life’s movement’s ideas of “Women staying at home, prominent feminist and National Salvation Movement Member Shen Zijiu and other feminists started to focus on trying to get women to take an active role in re-thinking their role in the national conflict against Japan. As seen, the war of resistance became a catalyst in redefining not only gender roles within society but also in terms of national unification. The idea of the woman rebelling against the patriarchy was not only the start of her liberation but also how “The Woman” could contribute to the wartime effort as a “Chinese person”. Hence, when the capital fell to Japanese forces, and the Wuhan wartime government was attempting to organize itself as a veritable political force, women’s organizations played a key role in establishing aid and resistance against Japanese imperialism. As Guo, V (2017) points out, several women’s organizations from the occupied city of Shanghai such as The Chinese Women’s Association of War Relief and Self-defence for the Army in Resistance among others continued to operate and expand their operations in the new capital weaving their organizations into the new social fabric of the new-wartime government. Moreover, not only did these women’s organizations provide material aid to the soldiers in terms of military aid, economic or social aid, it also broke down the barriers of the KMT-CCP hostilities that once dominated Chinese politics. 

For example, Guo, V (2017) points out that as a result of the Lushan Women’s conference, the WAC (Women’s advisory council), had redefined itself as a multiparty alliance and its main goal was redefined from ‘improving women’s lives and directing their personal development’ to ‘directing women on the issues of resistance and national reconstruction’. As seen, the idea of womanhood had now been tied to the war of resistance. In many ways, one can argue that the Wuhan government and the role of the national salvation movements enabled these disparate political communities with such different backgrounds to coalesce and synthesize their ideas of national unification on a practical level. This united front in many ways broke down the barrier between private and public spheres as it challenged the new life movements of “Women staying in the home” and actively placed them into the forefront of the public sphere. This not only allowed Chinese women to have an active role in the development of what being a woman meant, it also allowed them to take part in defining what being “Chinese” meant. Thus, one can see how the National Salvation Association with its emphasis on cross-party, nationalist and feminist-based lines bore witness to an intensification in the ideas of national unification as a result of the war of resistance against Japanese imperialism.

While the War of Resistance did bear witness to national unification, it also divided the country. One aspect in which we can analyse the breakdown of the social fabric in Chinese society is through the lens of Japanese collaboration. Collaboration as a concept within the Chinese political lexicon is extremely complicated. Collaboration as understood within the mainstream Chinese lexicon is seen in complete and utter contempt with collaborationists being referred to as Hanjian. This idea of Hanjian essentially plays into the idea of being a traitor to the entire Han race (Xia,2017).  

One of the most interesting aspects of collaboration is highlighted in Dryburgh’s conception of a “Collaborationist nationalist”. (Dryburgh,2009) Dryburgh defines this as the collaborator rationalizing their actions in order to act “as the guardians of a chinese nation that was threatened by western imperialism and GMD misrule.” (Brook, 2000). An example of this “collaborationist nationalist” can be seen in Bai Jinwu. Bai Jinwu by all accounts as Drybugh highlights, drifted between the political left and right of chinese politics and his decision to collaborate with the Japanese at least according to personal diaries, was due to his disappointment in the republican style of government from the onset to the most recent development in republican China.(Drybugh, 2009) What is of particular interest was how he described his ideal collaborationist regime as a form of  “national salvation”. As seen, collaborationists, while their actions within the current Chinese political lexicon would view their use of “national salvation” as the ultimate bastardization of the term, Bai viewed his collaboration as a necessary evil for a new China to flourish. In a way, his use of the same terminology in which most Chinese used in the war of resistance, as an opposing force to the Japanese, strikes a particularly interesting chord. While the end goal of both Bai and the Chinese united front remained the same, they approached it in drastically different ways. This appropriation of “national salvation” to justify collaborating with a government which destroyed the cities and homes of so many Chinese people in many ways is so culturally incongruent, as it fundamentally challenged the development of Chinese national unification during the War of Resistance. For the united front, the act of non-resistance and collaboration with an enemy which wished to subjugate the Chinese state and its peoples was the ultimate form of betrayal. Yet, for someone like Bai and other collaborators like Wang Jingwei, collaboration with what many deemed as the ultimate evil, was necessary in order to preserve the Chinese state. These two irrevocable viewpoints while both so similar and yet so starkly different in many ways tore Chinese society apart with the eventual victors of the war of resistance describing the collaborationist as “race traitors” and as Yun Xia described, eventually led to many people using the idea of being a Hanjian to seek vengeance upon those they felt wronged them during this difficult time. Ultimately, this lack of nuance of discussion on the reasoning behind collaboration and the eventual popularity of anti-Hanjian campaigns created a weak judicial system in which evidence was regularly fabricated and emotional responses often took precedence over understanding and reconciliation. (Xia, 2017)

In conclusion, one can see how the war of Resistance as a historical event acted as the catalyst for the intensification of ideas of national unification as the shared collective memory and trauma of the war of Resistance brought people coming from different backgrounds, ideologies and lifestyles to fight together in service of a common goal. They no longer view themselves as individual people, but rather as a community in which they served and protected each other. However, the other side of the war of resistance, simultaneously also witnessed a breakdown in the social fabric of China as the thought of collaboration as a means of “national salvation” through collaboration with the enemy was so incredulous to many, that it polarized any discussion with regards to the different approaches on how to deal with collaborators. Thus, one can see that the war of resistance bore witness to the strengthening of ideas of national unification, while paradoxically, deepening the ideological, social and political divide of the Chinese state. 

References

1. Brook, T (2000) Collaborationist Nationalism in Occupied Wartime China. In Nation Work: Asian Elites and National Identities (pp 162, 170-172). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press (2000)

2. Coble, M Parks (2008) The National Salvation Movement and Social Networks in Republican Shanghai. In At the Crossroads of Empires: Middlemen, Social Networks, and State-Building in Republican Shanghai (pp. 110).  Stanford University Press (2008)

3. Coble, M Parks (1985) Chiang Kai-shek and the Anti-Japanese Movement in China: Zou Tao-fen and the National Salvation Association, 1931-1937 The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, (293,295-6,297-8) 

4. Dryburgh, M (2009) Rewriting Collaboration: China, Japan, and the Self in the Diaries of Bai Jianwu, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 68, No. 3 (696,697,704)

5. Guo, V (2017) Forging a women’s united front: Chinese elite women’s networks for national salvation and resistance 1932-38, Modern Asian Studies, (7,18,19)

6. Mackinnon, Steven (1996) The Tragedy of Wuhan, 1938 Vol. 30, No. 4, Special Issue: War in Modern China (932) 

7. Xia, Y (2017) Arbiters of Justice in a Lawless state. In Down with Traitors: Justice and Nationalism in Wartime China (pp 72-74,75,79)