Wang Jingwei (or Wang Ching-wei) (1883–1944)

Chinese politician. In 1927, after the death of Sun Zhong Shan (Sun Yat-sen), he was appointed head of the new Guomindang (nationalist party) government at Wuhan, and between May and December 1931 led an alternative Guomindang government based in Guangzhou. In 1932 became the party's president, with his main rival for control of the Guomindang, Jiang Jie Shi (Chiang Kai-shek), in charge of the military. A rapprochement with Jiang ended after Wang was seriously injured in an assassination attempt in November 1935. In 1938, after the outbreak of war with Japan, Wang offered to cooperate with the Japanese, and in 1940 he became head of a puppet regime ruling the occupied areas, centred on Nanjing.

By 1943 this puppet government had secured control of Shanghai and had an army of half a million. Wang died in November 1944, before the Japanese were defeated.

An associate of Sun Zhong Shan, he studied in Japan, where he joined Sun's revolutionary party, and from 1917 became his personal assistant.