Wang Kemin

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Chinese politician (1879–1945)

title: "Wang Kemin" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1879-births", "1945-suicides", "1945-deaths", "republic-of-china-politicians-from-zhejiang", "chinese-collaborators-with-imperial-japan", "world-war-ii-political-leaders", "chinese-politicians-who-died-by-suicide", "prisoners-who-died-in-chinese-detention", "people-who-died-by-suicide-in-prison-custody", "politicians-from-hangzhou", "qing-dynasty-government-officials", "ministers-of-finance-of-the-republic-of-china"] description: "Chinese politician (1879–1945)" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Kemin" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Chinese politician (1879–1945) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox Politician"]

Field	Value
native_name	王克敏
native_name_lang	zh
name	Wang Kemin
image	Wang Kemin.jpg
office	President of the Executive Council of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China
term_start	14 December 1937
term_end	30 March 1940
predecessor	Position Established
successor	Position Abolished
office2	Minister of Administration of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China
term_start2	14 December 1937
term_end2	30 March 1940
predecessor2	Position Established
successor2	Position Abolished
office3	Chairman of the North China Political Council
term_start3	30 March 1940
term_end3	5 June 1940
predecessor3	Position Established
successor3	Wang Yitang
term_start4	2 July 1943
term_end4	8 February 1945
predecessor4	Zhu Shen
successor4	Wang Yintai
office5	Minister of Finance of the Beiyang government
term_start5	1 December 1917
term_end5	23 March 1918
subterm5	Premier
suboffice5	Wang Shizhen
president5	Feng Guozhang
predecessor5	Liang Qichao
(acting since 22 November 1917)
successor5	Cao Rulin
term_start6	10 July 1923
term_end6	24 July 1923
predecessor6
successor6	(acting)
subterm6	Premier
suboffice6	Gao Lingwei (acting)
president6	Gao Lingwei (acting)
term_start7	12 November 1923
term_end7	31 October 1924
president7	Cao Kun
subterm7	Premier
suboffice7	Gao Lingwei (acting)
Sun Baoqi
Wellington Koo
Yan Huiqing
predecessor7
successor7	Chengting T. Wang
term_start8	13 May 1926
term_end8	13 May 1926
subterm8	Premier
suboffice8	Yan Huiqing (acting)
president8	Yan Huiqing (acting)
predecessor8
successor8	Wellington Koo
(acting)
birth_date
birth_place	Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Empire of China
death_date
death_place	Beijing, Republic of China
::

Wang Kemin (; Wade-Giles: Wang K'o-min, May 4, 1879 – December 25, 1945) was a Chinese politician. A leading official in the Chinese republican movement and early Beiyang government, later noted for his role as in the collaborationist Provisional Government of the Republic of China and Wang Jingwei regime during World War II.

Biography

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Wang_Kemin2.jpg" caption="Wang Kemin during the [[Beiyang government]]"] ::

Wang was a native of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province. In 1901, he was dispatched by the government of Qing Dynasty China to Japan, where he studied western economics and accounting from his nominal position as attaché at the Chinese embassy in Tokyo. After his return to China in 1907, he was appointed to a post under the Viceroy of Zhili to manage foreign affairs. After the Republic of China had been established, he was sent to France in 1913. On his return, by orders of Duan Qirui he helped establish the Bank of China, and became its president from July 1917. He served as minister of finance under the Beiyang Government from December 1917 to March 1918. In December 1918, he was the only representative of the Beiyang Government to attend a meeting with the Nanjing Government in an attempt to reunify China.

He served as Minister of Finance again from July–August 1923 under the premiership of Gao Lingwei. However, Wang was strongly opposed by the Fengtian clique led by Zhang Zuolin, and forced to resign his post after only a week. He returned as Minister of Finance with the support of Cao Kun of the Zhili clique from November 1923-October 1924. During this time, he also oversaw the operations of a number of other banks, including the Bank of Tianjin.

After the success of Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition a warrant for Wang's arrest was issued by the Kuomintang and he fled to Dalian in the Kwantung Leased Territory under Japanese jurisdiction.

In 1931, Wang Kemin returned to Beijing when Zhang Xueliang took control of Hebei Province, and took a post in the Peking Finance committee. He became mayor of Tianjin in 1932. In 1935 Wang was in the Kuomintang Hebei Government and had a post in the Northeast Government Affairs Committee, and the Peking Government Affairs Committee and other important posts. However, he retired to Shanghai in 1935.

After the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army quickly overran North China, and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters authorized the creation of a collaborationist regime as part of its overall strategy to establish an autonomous buffer zone between China and Japanese-controlled Manchukuo. This government was based in Beijing, and proclaimed Wang Kemin accepted the post of President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, with its capital in Beijing on December 14, 1937. The government nominally controlled the provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan and Jiangsu. But its activities were carefully prescribed and overseen by advisors provided by the Japanese Northern China Area Army. The failure of the Japanese to give any real authority to the Provisional Government discredited it in the eyes of the local inhabitants, and made its existence of only limited propaganda utility to the Japanese authorities.

The Provisional Government was, along with the Reformed Government of the Republic of China, merged into Wang Jingwei's Nanjing Nationalist Government on March 30, 1940, but in practical terms actually remained virtually independent under the name of the "North China Political Council" (華北政務委員會) until the end of the war. Wang Kemin retained power as Chairman of the North China Political Council, as well as becoming Internal Affairs Minister in the Nanjing Nationalist Government.

Wang was arrested by the government of the Republic of China after the surrender of Japan and tried for treason. He committed suicide before the conclusion of his trial on December 25, 1945.

References

Bibliography

David P. Barrett and Larry N. Shyu, eds.; Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932-1945: The Limits of Accommodation Stanford University Press 2001
John H. Boyle, China and Japan at War, 1937–1945: The Politics of Collaboration (Harvard University Press, 1972).
James C. Hsiung and Steven I. Levine, eds., China's Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937–1945 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1992)
Ch'i Hsi-sheng, Nationalist China at War: Military Defeats and Political Collapse, 1937–1945 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1982).
Frederick W. Mote, Japanese-Sponsored Governments in China, 1937–1945 (Stanford University Press, 1954).
Howard L Boorman and Richard C. Howard, eds.; Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, Volume I: AI - CH'U, Columbia University Press, 1967.

Notes

References

Black, ''World War Two: A Military History'', page 34

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