Organizer and Chair: Sophia Lee, California State University, Hayward
Discussants: R. Keith Schoppa, Valparaiso University; John H. Boyle, California
State University, Chico
Japanese wartime atrocities in China will always be our most enduring image of the second Sino-Japanese war. But room must also be made for serious consideration of the less horrific, the less dramatic. The multi-faceted effects of the Japanese military occupation on daily life in metropolitan China from 1937 to 1945 are issues that, for the most part, await investigation. Aiming to explore these issues, this panel offers detailed illustrations of how individuals, groups, and institutions adjusted to a wide range of changes brought about by the Occupation.
Parks Coble's paper examines the options available to adaptive Shanghai capitalists before the city came under complete occupation in December 1941. Mark Eykholt's study of student life in Nanjing demonstrates that, even in the political center of occupied China, schools provided opportunities that far exceeded the boundaries conventionally associated with the Nanjing regime. Sophia Lee's analysis of the Beijing municipal administration points to some fundamental problems that the occupation authorities never adequately addressed.
These papers not only stress characteristics specific to each case study but also highlight similarities among the three occupied cities. For some among the individuals, groups, and institutions discussed by the panelists, the Occupation brought about striking transformation in their modus operandi; for others, only slight alteration. Nonetheless, no one was able to return to ante-bellum status after the Japanese surrender.
Life in a Divided City: Chinese Capitalists in Shanghai, 1937-1941
Parks M. Coble, University of Nebraska
After the fall of Shanghai in autumn 1937, much of the city came under Japanese control for the next eight years. Key industrial areas of Shanghai were occupied. The heart of the city's commercial and financial sector-the International Settlement and the French Concession-however, remained unoccupied until December 1941. The foreign zones became a "solitary island" in the midst of Japanese-occupied China.
For the Chinese capitalists of Shanghai, war provided both a disaster and an opportunity. Many industrialists saw their plants destroyed or confiscated by the Japanese. Most tried to salvage their property and relocate in the foreign concessions. Many turned to foreign partners-essentially front men-to provide protection from Japanese control. For those industrialists able to continue operations in the "solitary island," the war was often a period of opportunity. The refugee-swollen city offered both cheap labor and great demand. Trade with unoccupied China was often possible through ports on the southeast coast. For bankers, the war brought an influx of capital from the regional areas into Shanghai.
A study of the actions of Shanghai's capitalists during the early years of the war thus offers an opportunity to examine their remarkable adaptability. Operating under strained and rapidly changing circumstances, they revealed a striking capacity to find opportunities in the midst of disaster. At the same time, because the "isolated island" offered an attractive alternative to either removal to the unoccupied interior or collaboration with the Japanese in the occupied zone, it left the Chinese capitalists very vulnerable when the foreign zones were occupied in December 1941.
Student Life in Nanjing Under Japanese Occupation
Mark Eykholt, University of California, San Diego
The Japanese army brutally invaded Nanjing in December 1937. This Nanjing Massacre has become a defining event of China's wartime experience and in Sino-Japanese relations. Less talked about but no less important is the fact that after this invasion, the Japanese military maintained control over Nanjing until September 1945. This paper examines student life in Nanjing under Japanese occupation.
By early 1938, missionary schools in Nanjing were reopening, and by September many public schools also resumed operation. Enrollment was far below what it had been prior to the massacre, but as the population increased over the years, the school system expanded. In 1940, with the return of Wang Jingwei to the city, Zhongyang University was allowed to reopen-an affront to the Zhongyang University that had moved inland with the Nationalists. The new university in Nanjing supplied an educated elite to assist the puppet government and the Japanese mission. But the university also became a center for anti-Japanese and anti-government agitation. University students mounted impressive protests against the school administration and orchestrated a large-scale movement against opium use in Nanjing.
Based on interviews with former Zhongyang students, police and social bureau files, Japanese guides to Nanjing, and Nanjing periodicals, I will answer the following questions: (1) what kinds of students went to school and what did they learn? (2) how did the youth react to conflicting messages of resistance and cooperation? and (3) how pervasive were Japanese influence and anti-Japanese feeling?
Municipal Government in Occupied Beijing
Sophia Lee, California State University, Hayward
In August 1937 Beijing was officially occupied by Japanese troops; four months later the city became the capital of a regional "puppet" government. Occupied Beijing's municipal government-with little personnel and structural change-was allowed to maintain its prewar status as a special municipality, directly subordinate to the "central government." The legitimacy and authority of that "central government," however, was compromised by Japanese sponsorship. In theory, the municipal government was overseen by the Chinese "puppet" regime and had just a handful of Japanese advisors attached to it. In fact, various representatives of Japanese official agencies competed for influence in city affairs.
Other wartime conditions exacerbated the difficulties in administering a city as large and complex as Beijing. During the eight years of occupation, the fastest growing segment of the city's population comprised of Japanese and Koreans. They played no small role in contributing to the city's mounting material shortage and social disorder, but their extraterritorial rights placed them outside the city's jurisdiction.
These administrative difficulties heightened intra-bureau tension within the city administration. Moreover, the occupiers' paramount concern for security elevated the status of the police bureau above all others. As a disproportionate amount of scarce resources was allocated for law enforcement, other bureaus were reduced to penury.
The municipal government failed to realize the grand ideals of the higher authorities and to meet the basic needs of the city's Chinese population. After the war, many individuals who had striven to provide municipal services under adverse conditions found themselves stigmatized by the aura of collaboration.