Shanghai’s War-time Collaborators – Posies and Pistols in 1941

China is to have a two day public holiday this September to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the war. Of course the Communist Party’s role in WW2 has been massively overblown, the KMT’s downplayed and the interesting question of collaboration and Wang Ching-wei ignored completely. Came across this great picture of the inauguration in early 1941 of Chen Kung-Po (Chen Gongbo – far right in overcoat) as the Mayor of Shanghai in the puppet collaborationist government of Wang Ching-wei (Wang Jingwei). At the time Nationalist hit squads were highly active in Shanghai and had already assassinated a number of leading collaborators. Chen was a major target and so his bodyguard carry flowers in one hand and a pistol at the ready in the other. Events eventually caught up with Chen and he was executed in 1946 in Suzhou. Unrepentant, his final words to the firing squad were “Soon, I will be reunited with Wang Ching-wei in the next world”.