Collaborationist Chinese Army

The Collaborationist Chinese Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War went under different names at different times depending on which leader or regime it was organized under.

Several Chinese military organizations fought on the side of Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, and these were affiliated with more than one collaborationist regime. Japan occupied Manchuria, or northeast China, in 1931. A puppet state called Manchukuo was organized to administer this area in 1932. After the Sino-Japanese War began in 1937, most of China's populated area came under Japanese occupation. Wang Jingwei, a defector from China's ruling Nationalist Party, led the Nanjing Nationalist Government in 1940-1945. This regime administered eastern China.

During the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, General Xi Qia organized the "New Jirin" Army, while Zhang Haipeng at Taonan in the Liaoning Province organized the Xingan Reclamation Army. Both armies unsuccessfully fought Nationalist Chinese forces in Heilongjiang Province and at Harbin. Along with Zhang Jinghui's army and other forces, they were incorporated into the Manchukuo Imperial Army, which was formed in March 1932. In it's early years, this force was plagued with disloyalty. In April 1932, War Minister Ma Zhanshan defected with artillery and several thousand soldiers. But by the end of the war, it was a well-equipped and disciplined force of about 200,000. The commander and senior officers were Japanese, while junior officers were Chinese.

During the Battle of the Great Wall in 1933, Li Chi-chun's "National Salvation Army", which used the five-striped flag of the pre-1928 Chinese government, and Zhang Haipeng's Taoliao Army of Manchukuo fought on the Japanese side.

At the beginning of their intervention in Inner Mongolia the Japanese used Chinese forces under Liu Guitang and Li Shouxin. Later, they used Wang Ying's Grand Han Righteous Army to form part of an Inner Mongolian Army and later the Mengjiang National Army. Once they formed the Autonomous Government of Eastern Hopei they established the East Hopei Army.

In the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the Japanese created various collaborationist armies with names such as "IJA Assistant Army", "Peace Preservation Corps" or "Police Garrisons." Later, these forces were organized as divisions, corps and armies under Wang Jingwei's regime in Nanjing.

The Japanese-occupied area of China was in continuous need for troops to suppress revolts and to defend against sabotage to supply lines, which diverted much of Japan's manpower. In order to solve its manpower shortage on the front line, especially after 1942 and the outbreak of the Pacific War, and maintain rule over already occupied areas in China, the Japanese began employing existing local soldiers and recruiting local people to be responsible for the occupied areas' public security. Accordingly, the Japanese occupied area puppet regimes established the North China Zhi'an Army and Nanjing collaboratist army. The various puppet regimes had nominal control over their own collaborationist army only, but Japanese military officers were authorized to command and transfer any collaborationist army units as they saw fit. In 1938, there were about 78,000 soldiers in the puppet armies. Most of these served in North China under the Provisional Government of China. After Wang Jingwei's regime was established in 1940, the number rose to 145,000 men. Most of these had been serving in local forces in Eastern, Central and South China.

From 1942 to 1943, probably as a result of the United States' entry into the war, the Imperial Japanese Army commanders permitted the collaboratist army commanders faced with a disadvantageous situation (often a result of being caught between the Communists and the Japanese army) to preserve their strength by temporarily surrendering to the Japanese, and then joining the Nanjing collaborationist army en masse. The result was the collaborationist army manpower started growing rapidly. According to the Chinese Communist Party statistics at the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War, about 62% of the men in the Chinese collaborationist army were originally with the Nationalist Army. Though these results could possibly have been trumped up and used as propaganda due to the longstanding rivalry between both the Kuomintang and the Communists.

Furthermore, the worsening situation for Japan from 1943 onwards meant that the Nanjing collaborationist army was given a more substantial role in the defence of occupied China than the Japanese had initially envisaged, and this army was almost continuously employed against the communist New Fourth Army, and the target of guerrilla and sabotage operations led by the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics and the Communist New Fourth Army. In March 1943, a British intelligence report estimated the total number at 345,130 men.

Despite rapid growth in manpower and increased responsibility to support the Japanese, the collaborationist Chinese army suffered from very low morale because the general public in the occupied areas viewed them as Hanjian, or traitors to China, and many surrendered quickly to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's forces during military engagements. Enemy prisoners of low rank were persuaded to renege and fight alongside anti-Japanese forces, but high-ranking prisoners were executed. Many commanders of collaborationist army secretly cooperated with the Chinese Secret Service under General Dai Li, exchanging intelligence about IJA troop movements as well as taking orders from him to suppress communists activities.

Source

 * Jowett, Phillip S., Rays of The Rising Sun, Armed Forces of Japan’s Asian Allies 1931-45, Volume I: China & Manchuria, 2004. Helion & Co. Ltd., 26 Willow Rd., Solihul, West Midlands, England.
 * VIII— "The Gun and the Peasants", from Resistance and Revolution in China