Elite Collaboration in Japanese-Occupied China: The Cultural Power and Political Influence of Hu Lancheng, 1938-1945
Abstract
Results of the Project: I conducted research at the general
library of the University of Hong Kong from 21-27 May and 11-18
June; at the Second Historical Archives in Nanjing, China from 28
May-10 June; and at the East Asian Collection of Stanford
University and the Chinese Collection of the University of
California-Berkeley from 14-24 August 2004. I perused and
photocopied significant material about the project. For example, at
the Second Archives I found an official document, signed by
Chairman Wang Jingwei in 1941, which appointed Hu Lancheng as
Deputy Propaganda Minister of Wang's puppet Chinese government
headquartered in Nanjing (1940-1945). I also discovered an official
message (dated November 1944), composed by a Japanese consul in
Shanghai, in support of Hu's new journal titled Bitter Bamboo for
publication in Occupied China. At the East Asian Collection I
located the first edition (1940) of Hu's It Is Difficult to Go To
War, But It Is Also Not Easy to Achieve Peace. This volume of
essays was his primary work arguing for China's painful but
necessary collaboration with the Japanese.