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3 - Disillusioned Diplomacy: US Policy towards Wang Jingwei’s Reorganized National Government, 1938–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2023

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Summary

Abstract

This chapter interprets and lays bare a new perspective on US-China relations by analyzing official American policy towards Wang Jingwei’s Reorganized National Government from 1938–1945. It examines the intricate diplomatic network present in World War II China and narrates the evolution of US policy towards Wang Jingwei, from the initiation of his relations with Japan, to the establishment of the Reorganized Government, and to the official policy formulation of the US State Department. Analysis and interpretation of US policy towards Wang Jingwei completes a piece of missing history in US-China relations and provides a more nuanced historical narrative.

Keywords: Wang Jingwei, US Policy, US-China Relations, World War II, China 1938–1945

Scholarship on US-China relations during World War II abound, and the overwhelming focus is on the relationship between the United States and Jiang Jieshi. Most historical narration emphasizes the importance of the Republic of China within the diplomatic dynamic held by the United States from 1938–1945. This is attributed to Jiang Jieshi’s role, although obligatory in the eyes of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, within the various Allied conferences during World War II. Unfortunately, the cliché ‘history is written by the victors’ applies to much of the early historical analysis of diplomatic relations between the US and China. Scholarship on American policy towards Wang Jingwei’s government was also affected by an outdated, binary lens of ‘good versus evil’, ‘friend or foe’, that existed before World War II and carried over into the Cold War. This research asks new twenty-first century questions of the diplomatic situation in World War II China to help understand current geo-politics and US-China relations. Just because Wang was pro-Japanese, did that make him anti-American? As discussed in a previous chapter, Li Dazhao was initially pro-American, yet became disillusioned by the United States; on that point, just because Mao Zedong was communist, did that make him anti-American during World War II? Eliminating the archaic ‘Cold War Lens’ of ‘good versus bad’ expands the study of this field.

Type
Chapter
Information
Sino-American Relations
A New Cold War
, pp. 81 - 110
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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