Zhou Fohai

Zhou Fohai (May 29, 1897 – February 28, 1948), Chinese politician, and second in command of Wang Jingwei's collaborationist Nanjing Nationalist Government Executive Yuan.

Biography
Zhou was born in Hunan Province in the Empire of China, where his father was an official in the Qing Dynasty administration. After the Xinhai Revolution, he was sent to Japan for studies, attending the No. 7 Military Preparatory School (the predecessor of Kagoshima University), followed by Kyoto Imperial University. During his stay in Japan, he became attracted to Marxism, and on his return to China, became one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party. He attended the First Congress in Shanghai in July 1921, but quit the Communist Party in 1924 to join the Kuomintang. He was assigned as a secretary to the Public Relations Department of the central government, but maintained strong ties with the party’s leftist clique, headed by Wang Jingwei and Liao Zhongkai. He strongly opposed Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition and Chiang Kai-shek’s conduct of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

After Wang Jingwei broke ranks with the Kuomintang and established the collaborationist Nanjing Nationalist Government, Zhou soon followed. Within the new government, Zhou became the Minister of Finance, Treasury, Foreign Affairs and had control over part of the army. He was also police minister, treasurer and mayor of Shanghai after Chen Gongbo. At the end of World War II, Zhou was captured and taken to Chongqing where he remained in custody for nearly a year. He was then sent to Nanjing in Jiangsu Province where he stood trial for treason due to his wartime roles. He was sentenced to death but this was commuted to life imprisonment by Chiang Kai-shek, after his wife had interceded for him. He suffered from heart and stomach problems while in prison and died on February 28, 1948, aged 50.