Dadao government (Shanghai 1937-1940)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dadao puppet municipal government of Shanghai (1937-1940) was one of a series Japanese-made "countries" and political entities set up in occupied China.
The timeline for these successive creations can be tracked through their flags:
- Hopei Puppet State Flag (1931-32)
- First Mongol State Banner (1932-33)
- the first political entity flag in Shanghai (1937)
- Dadao puppet Independent Municipality Banner (1937)
- First Wang Chingwei State Flag (1940)
Apparently no limits were set (as they might have been by the Japanese government) to the creation of numerous "political entities" or "independent nations" in Japanese-controlled lands, before or during the Pacific War. Presumably the multiplication was to try to attract collaborators, none of whom would have a large personal power: an application of 'divide and conquer'. In practice they became Army fiefs, and largely autonomous.
These "countries" are in detail as follows.
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[edit] The initial 'political banner' entity in Shanghai (1937)
This refers to a notionally-independent political entity which the Japanese administration set up during the early days of its occupation of Shanghai. It had a very brief existence. The flag used was yellow with a green and red yin-yang in the center.
[edit] Dadao Puppet Independent Flag Municipality (1937)
This "independent" entity existed in Shanghai for a few years, being absorbed into the Nanjing pro-Japanese government in 1940. Its flag was a taiji (yin-yang) symbol on a yellow background.
This entity is cited directly in the following text from the article "Hanjian! --Collaboration and Retribution in War time Shanghai" by Frederic Wakeman Jr., a historian at UC Berkeley. This article was published in the book "Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond" (edited by Wen-hsin Yeh, University of California Press, 2000):
- On December 5 1937, Su Xiwen, a Waseda-educated philosopher, inaugurated "the Great Way" (the Dadao) puppet municipal government of Shanghai. Su had taught political theory at the private Chizhi University in Jiangwan. His Buddhist-Daoist syncretism ("All under heaven one family / Myriad laws revert to one" influenced the Great Way government's choice of flag, which is a taiji (=yin-yang) symbol on a yellow background.[...]
- In truth, the Dadao puppet government was short-lived, at least in nomenclature. The malodorous characteristics of its leading members, a potpourri of Venerable Mother religious cultists, smugglers, gamblers, narcotics dealers, panderers, and former rickshaw pullers, were liability enough. But just as damaging was the Japanese handlers' contempt for Su Xiwen, whose philosophizing was not taken very seriously after the Special Services brought in a tough north China hanjian (collaborationist) named Wang Zihui to run their Shanghai operations.
- [...]Consequently, after the puppet administration in north China was incorporated in January into a single provisional government, in South China a "Reform Government" was set up in March 1938 in Nanjing headed by Liang Hongzhi.
- [...] Shanghai sympathizers [...] tepidly celebrated the establishment of the Reform Government on March 28, 1938. The puppet Self-Government Committee held one meeting in the Confucian Temple where, under the old five-bar national flag of the Beiyang warlords
- [...]Within a month, on April 28, 1938, the Reform Government has commissioned a Supervisionary Yamen to take over the functions of municipal administration formerly wielded by the Dadao puppet regime. Su Xiwen formally recognized the superior legitimacy of the Reform Government by adopting its flag in May 3..."
[edit] First Wang-Chingwei State Flag (1940)
Following the creation of a Chinese central government in Nanjing, on 30 March 1940, under the Japanese Central Chinese Army control, a national flag was adopted by the pro-Japanese government. It consisted of five stripes (red over yellow over blue over white over black) with a flame in the centre with the words "Peace, Reconstruction, Anticommunism" (in Chinese characters). Later in 1941- 42, at Japanese suggestion, they adopted the KMT flag and symbols, as representing the "real" Chinese government aiding the "just" Japanese cause.
At same time the Japanese South Chinese Army adopted these ideas. Any "state" or "political entity" in Canton or other under its influence sphere was provided with its own flag, money and leaders, as a civil entity. The Imperial Japanese Army forces in China were characteristically divided.
[edit] Earlier examples of 'state creation'
[edit] Hopei Puppet Stateflag (1931-32)
This political entity was created and managed by the Japanese North Chinese Army and its "native" Japanese establishment. It was founded during 1931-32, at same time as Japanese forces took the Jehol province for the Manchukuo puppet state. It adopted a five-color flag, and used a different national anthem. It was later changed to KMT colours, similar to Wang Chingwei's Reformed Government of the Republic of China in 1940. This state was called from 1937 the East Yi Anti-Communist Autonomous Administration, or, for short, East Yi Autonomous Government.
[edit] First Mongol State banner (1932-33)
This was organized by the Japanese forces, in the Chahar area. It used a flag with blue background, having yellow, red and white square colours on the upper left side. Later this "nation", at the suggestion of Kanji Tsuneoka, a Japanese "counsellor" , adopted the Mengjiang banner of Mongol Prince Tew Wang's government.
