Research on the Jiangsu collaborationist local regime (1937--1945)

Author: Pan Min
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: From this guiding principle, Dr. Pan Min conducted an in-depth and meticulous study of the Japanese puppet local governments in the Jiangnan and Central Jiangsu regions during 1937-1945. She visited nearly all the archives and libraries in Nanjing and the Jiangnan area to gather as much material as possible on the puppet local governments, especially primary archival sources. She employed theories from political science, sociology, and social psychology, along with empirical historical methods, to clarify the organizational process of the Japanese puppet local governments. Based on this, she conducted an in-depth analysis of the organizational structure, political, and economic functions of the local governments. She devoted considerable space to examining the sources, ages, educational backgrounds, and power distribution of administrative personnel at the county, district, and township levels. Using numerous examples, she analyzed the complex political attitudes and desires of local administrative personnel under the rapidly changing wartime conditions, avoiding the tendency to provide simplistic moral judgments on all figures within the puppet government. One of the important functions of the puppet local governments was to serve the Japanese invaders by procuring military grain and collecting taxes for the Japanese army, yet this issue has received little academic attention. This book uses undeniable historical facts and data to convincingly argue the economic exploitation of the occupied regions by Japan, helping us to more clearly understand the aggressive nature of Japanese militarism.