World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseChen Gongbo was born in Nanhai, Guandong Province, China in 1892. Originally a member of the Nationalist Party, he became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party in Jul 1921, but left the communists in the following year. He lived in the United States for several years in the early 1920s, returning to China and the Nationalist Party in 1925. He was named the head of the Nationalist government's Department of Peasants. In 1932, he was named Minister of Enterprises while holding party leadership positions in the Sichuan Province. In 1938, he joined his friend and political ally Wang Jingwei's Japanese-sponsored puppet government based in Nanjing, China as its speaker of the Legislative Yuan and mayor of Shanghai. When Wang was abroad in Japan, he was the acting president and premier (head of the Executive Yuan). Near the end of WW2, he fled to Japan, but was extradited to China on 3 Oct 1945. He was placed on trial for treason. Chen defended himself by presenting his disagreements with the Japanese on several significant matters while serving as acting president of the puppet government, but ultimately he was found guilty. "Soon, I will be reunited with Wang Jingwei in the next world", he said when his death sentence was announced. He was executed by a firing squad at Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China in 1946.

Chen Gongbo Timeline