Samuel Hui
A leaflet targeting Chinese collaborationists accused the Japanese forces of failing to provide the puppet army officers and soldiers with sufficient clothing, food, and weapons. It demanded that the Japanese address these issues and questioned, “How can we fight a war under such conditions?” (Source: National Archives and Records Administration)
Abstract: This article explores the little-known U.S. psychological warfare campaign against the Chinese Reorganized National Government under Wang Jingwei during World War II. Drawing on declassified Office of Strategic Services (OSS) documents, U.S. Air Force records, and interviews with former puppet soldiers, this piece examines how American psychological operations targeted Chinese collaborationist forces—not to destroy them, but to win them over at a crucial moment at the dawn of the Cold War.
Most scholars consider the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 or the Korean War (1950–1953) as the opening shots of 20th century military conflict between the United States and China. Yet beyond these two well-known confrontations, there was another overlooked episode: the World War II shadow war between the United States and China’s Reorganized National Government under Wang Jingwei—an Imperial Japanese puppet government comprised of Chinese collaborationists. In the final stages of the war, the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) executed psychological operations targeting the Wang Jingwei regime in China.
The OWI primarily employed so-called “white propaganda” using platforms such as the Voice of America and air-dropped leaflets to urge both Chinese military personnel and civilians in Japanese-occupied territories not to collaborate with the invading forces. In contrast, the OSS focused on “black propaganda” aimed at driving a wedge between the Wang Jingwei regime and the Japanese military. Such psychological operations involved disseminating false information and fabricating rumors to exploit internal divisions within the enemy camp to encourage the defection of Chinese puppet troops.
Examining the psychological dimensions of the conflict between Wang’s regime and the United States offers valuable insight for today’s U.S.–China rivalry. The physical landscape may have shifted from Imperial Japan to the PRC, but the lessons of OWI and OSS-style “morale operations” remain highly relevant for strategic competition into the future.
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