Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945

by Rana Mitter

Wang finally got his new government in Nanjing. On March 30, 1940, Wang Jingwei’s huandu—the “return to the capital”—officially came into being. The regime’s newspaper, the Zhonghua ribao (China Daily), was filled with fulsome praise for the government of “Chairman Wang,” positioned not as a new regime but rather as a restoration of the true Nationalist Party to its rightful capital at Nanjing. The cartoons that filled the middle pages were pure propaganda: pictures of Wang as a superhuman giant radiating light toward a group of children representing the Chinese people.17 Zhou Fohai recalled the ceremony in his diary with his usual touch of egomania. “My idea has come to reality,” he declared. “This is the happiest thing that has happened in my life.” He went on: “The National Government has returned to the capital, the national flag is fluttering in the city, and the whole thing was started up by me. After this, the movement will take me as its center . . . my whole life has not been in vain.”