Kakyo - Famous Chinese in Pre War Japan

The earliest ancient record of mass Chinese immigration to Japan was the legend of Xu Fu, a Qin Dynasty court sorcerer, who was sent by Qin Shi Huang to Penglai Mountain (Mount Fuji) in 219 BC to retrieve an elixir of life. Unwilling to return without the elixir, the myth asserts that Xu instead chose to settle in Japan.

Documentary recorded mass Chinese immigration to Japan started from 1858, when the Edo Shogunate concluded a treaty with the USA and Europe agreeing to the opening of its ports and markets, which had long been closed. Most Westerners arrived in Japan together with their Chinese employees with whom they were already working in Chinese ports (Nishikawa and Ito 2002). The other major event leading to an increase in the number of Chinese in Japan was the opening of shipping lines between Yokohama and Shanghai. After Japan defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, in order to know how Japan was able to won the war and become strong. In 1896, the first group of 13 Chinese students was sent by Manchu government under Qing Dynasty to Japan. In 1901, there were more than 600 Chinese students in Japan. In the peak year of 1906, after Japan won the Russo-Japanese war(日俄战争)in 1905, the number of students in Tokyo alone amounted to over eight thousands(Linqing Yao,2004).

Most Chinese residents in Japan live in major urban areas, such as Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka, the latter two of which have a recognized Chinatown as well as schools which use Chinese as the medium of instruction. They are called Kakyo(華僑)literally means "Chinese sojourners" or Zainichi Chūgokujin(在日中国人), which means "Chinese people resident in Japan".

Official classification based on law

Officially Chinese in Japan can be classified into two groups based on nationality or citizenship. Chinese nationality here refers not only to the People’s Republic of China (mainland China), but also to the Republic of China (Taiwan). All ethnic Chinese who are not naturalized in their country of residence are called kakyo(華僑. They are registered as Chinese, according to the Japanese alien registration (gaikokujin toroku)system. The second group consists of those Chinese who have naturalized and obtained Japanese nationality. These are called kajin (華人). Japanese Family Law(戸籍法, こせきほう) requires all Japanese households to report births, acknowledgments of paternity, adoptions, disruptions of adoptions, deaths, marriages and divorces of Japanese citizens to their local authority, which compiles such records encompassing all Japanese citizens within their jurisdiction. This Japanese family registry is called koseki(戸籍, こせき). Only Japanese citizens can be registered in a Koseki, because Koseki serve as certificates of citizenship. Another registry, jūminhyō (住民票じゅうみんひょう) is a registry of current residential addresses maintained by local governments, (市町村（しちょうそん)と特別区（とくべつく) in Japan. Japanese law requires each citizen to report his or her current address(現住所) to the local authorities who compile the information for tax, national health insurance and census purposes. They are not categorized by ethnicity in any Japanese official identification. Officially they are Japanese. So naturalized Chinese or Kajin, because they have Japanese nationality(日本国民), are registered both in Japanese family registers (koseki,戸籍)and residence registers (juminhyo, 住民票). Once a Chinese have naturalized, only their ethnic background and personal identity distinguish them as kajin, otherwise they are like other Japanese citizen.

Social classification based on time

Before the war during 20th century, many famous Chinese intellectuals have studied in Japan, among them Sun Yat-sen, Lu Xun, and Zhou Enlai. It was estimated that in 1906, more than six thousand Chinese students lived in Japan; many of them resided in Tokyo's Kanda district. The Chinese population has grown every year since 1858, except for 1931 (the 918 Incident or Mukden Incident) and 1937 (the Marco Polo Bridge Incident), when military conflicts occurred between Japan and China. They are the Kakyo, many returned to China and become historical figure in modern China. Kakyo from the period after Meiji restoration to World War 2 period are the main source of intellectuals for late Manchu Dynasty and early Republic of China era, some even continue to have play major role in People Republic of China.....this is the era of significance for modern Chinese history.

During the war, many Taiwanese and its natives, being ruled by Japan, were recruited for fighting along with Imperial Japanese Army in WW2, served in the Japanese army. Some Chinese (together with Korean)were forced laborers or comfort women in Japan or Japanese occupied territories. This was the sad chapter of history for Chinese as well as Japan, which ruins the established historical close relationship between the two countries.

After Post-World War II Chinese immigrants to Japan, typically referred to as shin-kakyō(新華僑) or new kakyo. A term setting them apart from earlier generations of Chinese citizens who came to Japan before them. They have come to Japan from both Taiwan and mainland China. Many are students or economic immigrants. The era for rebuilding of nation after the war, strong economic development in Japan attracted many shin-kakyo who were seeking new knowledge or economic improvement, as China or Taiwan still economically developing and under political instability. Some historian classified shin-kakyo as Chinese who came directly from mainland China after the start of its Open Door Policy in 1978(the era of 80's), wikipedia however classified it as post WW2 Chinese immigrants to Japan. The pre 1978 period were mainly from Taiwan or other oversea Chinese, as China under the communist ruled since 1-10-1949 was having political isolation, and going through difficult time, immigration was highly regulated by the state. The period of post 1978, the immigration from mainland China become dominant.

Those in Yan's generation shinkakyo, Chinese who went to Japan in the 80s, are Shin-kakyo; Japanese who leave Japan to work in rapidly developing China, are collectively referred to as "wakyo". As of the end of 2009 some 250,000 Chinese had settled in Japan, nearly double the figure of 10 years earlier. Many young people are seeking to start businesses in areas including the IT sector.



Kakyo during the Pre-War Japan

The most remarkable group are the group from early 20th century; many of them are famous personalities or hero in the modern history of China. Many Chinese went to Japan during the period, it increased to 20,000. Many of the students among them later became prominent back in their mother countries, including Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, and many other Chinese senior/working-level government officials. Among the members of the first Chinese parliament convened in 1913, 67 out of 596 members of the Chinese House of Representatives (11%) and 165 out of 274 members of the Chinese Senate (an astounding 60%) had experience studying in or visiting Japan for research. The chairmen of both houses of Parliament were alumni of Japanese schools. Out of the 30 members from each legislative branch selected for a committee to draft the Constitution, 20 of the House of Representatives members and 26 of the Senate members had experience studying in Japan.(source: (source:JAPAN'S ASIANISM, 1868-1945,http://www.sais-jhu.edu/bin/a/n/Asianism.pdf)

Some of them are reformers/revolutionists like Kang U Wei, Dr Sun Yat-sen who fight for reform and found Republic of China; others are communists like Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu who go on to found Chinese Communist Party; others are students from military academy who become generals of Chinese army, and later fight against Japanese Imperial Army during the Sino-Japanese War; many are writers who are involved with May Forth Movement. No matter what happen in their life after graduation or leaving Japan, they learn greatly from Japan. Dr Sun Yat-sen have supports from many Japanese friends and oversea Chinese in Japan, which make his dream of new Republic of China into reality. Many of them become actively involved in War of Resistance Against Japan (抗日战争), which is also known as the Eight Years' War of Resistance(八年抗战/八年抗戰),either in military uniform or by using their pen. They were all have been to Japan, and sorry to face Japan militarism. They are all great man/woman in history, and were the cream of modern China. Japan should be proud of these people, who obtained education and training, even support the Chinese revolution from Japan ..... They are having close relationship with Japan, some even married Japanese wife. If not because of the war, Japanese militarism, the relationship will be cherish and blossom into closer and better relationship.....

Chinese residents in Japan, if not involved in the Chinese Revolution, were critical of Japanese imperialism and conscious of anti-Japanese sentiments and Chinese nationalism in China. A Chinese student who came to Japan after the Russo-Japanese War to study criticized Japan as “a common enemy of Asia” and wrote: “In order to protect peace in Asia and to achieve the independence of weak Asian races, it is needless to say that white authoritarianism should be eliminated; however, Japan should also stop despising Asia with its own authoritarianism.”. The protégés of Compassionate Asianists and foreign students in Japan also voiced their opposition. For example, Bose wrote in 1926 that “what we regret the most is that Japanese intellectuals who cry for free Asia and an alliance among colored people, despise China, insist on invading China, and even think that colored people are inferior to whites by nature, like the whites.
Among the China experts in Japan, only a few really know themselves and understand Asia.” The number of foreign students studying in Japan plummeted from more than 7,000 in 1906 to less than 1,500 a decade later,partly due to Tokyo’s joining the ranks of the colonial Powers.
(source:JAPAN'S ASIANISM, 1868-1945,http://www.sais-jhu.edu/bin/a/n/Asianism.pdf)

Japan became political hub for Chinese intellectuals; a political based for Reform Movement and Chinese Revolution during the period....

List of some prominent Kakyo

The following are some of famous Chinese in Japan during Early 20th century, the list may not be exhaustive;

1.Chen Kenmin, chef regarded as the "father of Sichuan cuisine" in Japan and father of Chen Kenichi

2.Go Seigen, professional Go player

3.Sun Yat-sen(孫文/孫中山/孫逸仙), politician, founding father of China. Sun Yat-sen (b 12 November 1866 – d 12 March 1925) was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the Founding Father of Republican China, a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Sun played an instrumental role in inspiring the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China. Sun was the first provisional president when the Republic of China (ROC) was founded in 1912 and later co-founded the Chinese National People's Party or Kuomintang (KMT) where he served as its first leader. Sun was a uniting figure in post-Imperial China, and remains unique among 20th-century Chinese politicians for being widely revered amongst the people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

4. Lu Xun(鲁迅), famous Chinese writer, was the pen name of Zhou Shuren(周树人) (b September 25, 1881 – d October 19, 1936) is one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the founder of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in baihua (白話) (the vernacular) as well as classical Chinese. Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai.

On a Qing government scholarship, Lu Xun left for Japan in 1902. He first attended the Kobun Gakuin (Kobun Institute) (Hongwen xueyuan, 弘文學院), a preparatory language school for Chinese students attending Japanese universities. His earliest essays, written in Classical Chinese, date from here. Lu also practised some jujutsu. Lu Xun returned home briefly in 1903, complied to an arranged marriage with a local gentry girl, Zhu An(朱安).

Lu Xun left for Sendai Medical Academy in 1904 and gained a minor reputation there as the first foreign student of the college. At the school he struck up a close student-mentor relationship with lecturer Fujino Genkurou (藤野厳九郎); Lu Xun would recall his mentor respectfully and affectionately in an essay "Mr Fujino" in the memoirs in Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk. (Incidentally, Fujino would repay the respect with an obituary essay on Lu Xun's death, in 1937.) However, in March 1906, Lu Xun abruptly terminated his pursuit of the degree and left the college.

Lu Xun, in his well-known Preface to Nahan (Call to Arms), the first collection of his short stories, tells the story of why he gave up completing his medical education at Sendai. One day after class, one of his Japanese instructors screened a lantern slide documenting the imminent execution of an alleged Chinese spy during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05). Lu Xun was shocked by the complete apathy of the Chinese onlookers; he decided it was more important to cure his compatriots' spiritual ills rather than their physical diseases.

"At the time, I hadn't seen any of my fellow Chinese in a long time, but one day some of them showed up in a slide. One, with his hands tied behind him, was in the middle of the picture; the others were gathered around him. Physically, they were as strong and healthy as anyone could ask, but their expressions revealed all too clearly that spiritually they were calloused and numb. According to the caption, the Chinese whose hands were bound had been spying on the Japanese military for the Russians. He was about to be decapitated as a 'public example.' The other Chinese gathered around him had come to enjoy the spectacle." (Lyell , pp 23).

Moving to Tokyo in spring 1906, he came under the influence of scholar and philologist Zhang Taiyan and with his brother Zuoren, also on scholarship, published a translation of some East European and Russian Slavic short stories, including the works of a Polish Nobel laureate, Henryk Sienkiewicz. He spent the next three years in Tokyo writing a series of essays in classical Chinese on the history of science, Chinese and comparative literature, European literature and intellectual history, Chinese society, reform and religion, as well as translating the literature of various countries into Chinese.

Lu Xun's works exerted a very substantial influence after the May Fourth Movement to such a point that he was highly acclaimed by the Communist regime after 1949. Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun's works. Though sympathetic to the ideals of the Left, Lu Xun never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party - like fellow leaders of the May Fourth Movement, he was primarily a liberal. Lu Xun's works became known to English readers through numerous translations, beginning in 1960 with Selected Stories of Lu Hsun translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, and more recently in 2009 when Penguin Classics published a complete anthology of his fiction titled The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, of which Jeffrey Wasserstrom said "could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published.

5.Qiu Jin (秋瑾), (b November 8, 1875 - d July 15, 1907) was a Chinese anti-Qing Empire revolutionary, feminist and writer. She was executed after a failed uprising and today is considered an hero in China.
Born in Xiamen, Fujian Province, Qiu grew up in her ancestral home, Shānyīn Village, Shaoxing Subprefecture, Zhejiang Province. Married, Qiu found herself in contact with new ideas. In 1904 she decided to travel overseas and study in Japan, leaving her two children behind. She was known by her acquaintances for wearing Western male dress and for her left-wing ideology. She joined the Triads, who at the time advocated the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and return of Chinese government to the Chinese people. She joined the anti-Qing societies Guangfuhui, led by Cai Yuanpei, and the Tokyo-based Tongmenghui led by Sun Yat-sen. She returned to China in 1905.

After returning to China, Qiu Jin started publishing a women's magazine in which she encouraged women to gain financial independence through education and training in various professions. She encouraged women to resist oppression by their families and by the government. At the time it was still customary for women in China to have their feet bound at the age of five. The result of this practice was that the feet were small but crippled. Women's freedom of movement was severely restricted and left them dependent on other people. Such helpless women were, however, more desired as wives, so their families continued the practice to protect their daughters' future security.

Qiu Jin felt that a better future for women lay under a Western-type government instead of the corrupt Manchu government that was in power at the time. She joined forces with her male cousin Hsu Hsi-lin and together they worked to unite many secret revolutionary societies to work together for the overthrow of the Manchu government. On July 6, 1907 Hsu Hsi-lin was caught by the authorities before a scheduled uprising. He confessed his involvement under interrogation and was executed. Immediately after, on July 12, the government troops arrested Qiu Jin at the school for girls where she was a principal. She refused to admit her involvement in the plot, but they found incriminating documents and she was beheaded. Qiu Jin was acknowledged immediately as a heroine and a martyr who died fighting enemies of the Chinese people and she became a symbol of women's independence.

6.Shosei Go, professional baseball player

7.Chiang Kai-shek(蔣中正 / 蔣介石)(b October 31, 1887 – d April 5, 1975) was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin. Chiang grew up in a time period in which military defeats and civil wars among warlords had left China destabilized and in debt, and he decided to pursue a military career. He began his military education at the Baoding Military Academy, in 1906. He left for a preparatory school for Chinese students, the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in Japan, in 1907. There he was influenced by his compatriots to support the revolutionary movement to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and to set up a Chinese republic. He befriended fellow Zhejiang native Chen Qimei, and, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui, a precursor of the Kuomintang (KMT) organization. Chiang served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1909 to 1911.

8.Song Jiaoren(宋教仁), revolutionary and political figure, founder of Tongmenghui. President of the Kuomintang 1912–1913 He was assassinated in 1913 after leading his Kuomintang party to victory in China's first democratic elections. Evidence strongly implied that China's provisional president, Yuan Shikai, was responsible for his assassination.

9.Jiang Baili(蒋百里), general . Jiang was married to a Japanese nurse, Satô Yato (佐藤屋子). His third daughter Jiang Ying蒋英became a musician, and married Tsien Hsue-shen钱学森, the father of Chinese rocketry.

10.Guo Moruo(郭沫若), poet and political figure. Following his elder brothers, Guo left China in December 1913, reaching Japan in early January 1914. After a year of preparatory study in Tokyo, he entered Sixth Higher School in Okayama.[1] When visiting a friend of his hospitalized in Sain Luke's Hospital in Tokyo, in the summer of 1916, Guo fell in love with Sato Tomiko, a Japanese woman from a Christian family, who worked at the hospital as a student nurse. Sato would become his common-law wife. They were to stay together for 20 years, until the outbreak of the war, and to have five children together.[3] In the summer of 1937, soon after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Guo returned to China to join the anti-Japanese resistance. His attempt to arrange for Sato Tomiko and their children to join him in China were frustrated by the Japanese authorities,[3] and in 1939 he remarried to Yu Liqun (于立群; 1916–1979), a Shanghai actress.[3][5] After the war, Sato went to reunite with him but was disappointed to know that he had already formed a new family. Guo and Sato Tomiko's house in Ichikawa, Japan, where they lived in 1927-37, is a museum as well.[14] Due to the Guo Moruo connection, Ichikawa chose to establish sister city relations with Leshan乐山in 1981 Ichikawa (市川市 Ichikawa-shi?) is a city located in northwest Chiba, Japan, approximately 20 kilometers from the center of Tokyo.After graduation from the Okayama school, Guo entered in 1918 the Medical School of Kyushyu Imperial University in Fukuoka.[1] He was more interested in literature than medicine, however. His studies at this time focused on foreign language and literature, namely the works of: Spinoza, Goethe, Walt Whitman, and the Bengali poet Tagore. Along with numerous translations, he published his first anthology of poems, entitled The Goddesses (女神 - nǚ shén) (1921). He co-founded the Ch'uang-tsao she ("Creation Society") in Shanghai, which promoted modern and vernacular literature.

11. He Yingqin(何应钦), general. In August 1945, when Japan announced its unconditional surrender, He was appointed as representative of both the Chinese Government and the Southeast Asia Ally Forces to host the surrender of Japanese troops in China. On Sept 9th, He accepted the statement of surrender submitted by Yasuji Okamura, who was General Commander of Japanese troops in China at that time. This historic moment put He under the spotlight of the world, and was the peak of his career. Commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army Yasuji Okamura presenting the Japanese Instrument of Surrender to He Yingqin in Nanjing on 9 September 1945.

12. Wang Jingwei(汪精衛), revolutionary and political figure . He was initially known as a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang (KMT), but later became increasingly anti-Communist after his efforts to collaborate with the CCP ended in political failure. His politics veered sharply to the right later in his career, after he joined the Japanese. Wang went to Japan as an international student sponsored by the Qing government in 1903, and joined the Tongmenghui in 1905. As a young man, Wang came to blame the Qing dynasty for holding China back, and making it too weak to fight off exploitation by Western Imperialist powers. While in Japan, Wang became a close confidant of Sun Yat-Sen, and would later go on to become one of the most important members of the early Kuomintang.[1] He was considered one of the main contenders to replace Sun as leader of the Kuomintang, but eventually lost control of the party and army to Chiang Kai-shek.[3]. Wang had clearly lost control of the KMT by 1926, when, following the Zhongshan Warship Incident, Chiang successfully sent Wang and his family to vacation in Europe.[4] The Zhongshan Warship Incident (Chinese: 中山舰事件; pinyin: Zhōngshān Jiàn Shìjiàn), or "March 20th Incident", on March 20, 1926, involved a suspected plot by Captain Li Zhilong of the warship Chung Shan to kidnap Chiang Kai-shek. It triggered a political struggle between the Communist Party of China and Kuomintang. Left wing led by Wang Jingwei against Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang Right wing faction resulting in Chiang becoming the head of the Kuomintang party and commander-in-chief of all the armies for the Northern Expedition. During the Northern Expedition, Wang was the leading figure in the left-leaning faction of the KMT that called for continued cooperation with the Communist Party of China. It should be noted however, that Wang was personally opposed to Communism and regarded the KMT’s Comintern advisors with suspicion.[5] He did not believe that Communists could be true patriots or true Chinese nationalists.[6] Wang's faction, which had set up a new KMT capital at Wuhan in early 1927, was opposed by Chiang Kai-shek, who was in the midst of a bloody purge of Communists in Shanghai and was calling for a push north. The separation between these two sides was known as the Ninghan Separation (simplified Chinese: 宁汉分裂; traditional Chinese: 寧漢分裂; pinyin: Nínghàn Fenlìe). While attempting to direct the government from Wuhan, Wang was notable for his close collaboration with leading Communist figures, including Mao Zedong, Chen Duxiu, and Borodin, and for his faction's provocative land-reform policies. He later blamed the failure of his Wuhan government on its excessive adoption of Communist agendas.[7] Wang's faction was militarily weak, and he was ousted by a local warlord the same year. Lacking the military or financial resources to resist the increasingly powerful Chiang, his faction was forced to rejoin Chiang Kai-shek at Nanjing in September, 1927.
Between 1929 and 1930, Wang collaborated with Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan to form a central government in opposition to the one headed by Chiang. Wang took part in a conference hosted by Yan to draft a new constitution, and was to serve as the Prime Minister under Yan, who would be President. Wang's attempts to aid Yan's government ended when Chiang defeated the alliance in the Central Plains War[8][9]
In 1931, Wang joined another anti-Chiang government in Guangzhou. After Chiang defeated this regime, Wang reconciled with Chiang's Nanjing government and held prominent posts for most of the decade. Wang was appointed premier just as the Battle of Shanghai (1932) began. He had frequent disputes with Chiang and would resign in protest several times only to have his resignation rescinded. As a result of these power struggles within the KMT, Wang was forced to spend much of his time in exile. He traveled to Germany, and maintained some contact with Adolf Hitler. The effectiveness of the KMT was constantly hindered by leadership and personal struggles, such as that between Wang and Chiang. In December 1935, Wang permanently left the premiership after being seriously wounded during an assassination attempt a month earlier.
During the 1936 Xian Incident, in which Chiang was taken prisoner by his own general, Zhang Xueliang, Wang favored sending a "punitive expedition" to attack Zhang. He was apparently ready to march on Zhang, but Chiang's wife, Soong Meiling, and brother, T.V. Soong, feared that such an action would lead to Chiang's death and his replacement by Wang, so they successfully opposed this action.[10]
Wang Jingwei accompanied the government on its retreat to Chongqing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). During this time, he organized some right-wing groups under European fascist lines inside the KMT. Wang was originally part of the pro-war group; but, after the Japanese were successful in occupying large areas of coastal China, Wang became known for his pessimistic view on China's chances in the war against Japan.[11]. He often voiced defeatist opinions in KMT staff meetings, and continued to express his view that Western Imperialism was the greater danger to China, much to the chagrin of his associates. Wang believed that China needed to reach a negotiated settlement with Japan so that Asia could resist Western Powers.
In late 1938, Wang left Chongqing for Hanoi, French Indochina, where he stayed for three months and announced his support for a negotiated settlement with the Japanese.[11] During this time, he was wounded in an assassination attempt by KMT agents. Wang then flew to Shanghai, where he entered negotiations with Japanese authorities. The Japanese invasion had given him the opportunity he had long sought to establish a new government outside of Chiang Kai-shek’s control.
On March 30, 1940, Wang became the head of state of what came to be known as the Wang Jingwei regime based in Nanjing, serving as the President of the Executive Yuan and Chairman of the National Government (行政院長兼國民政府主席). In November, 1940, Wang's government signed the "Sino-Japanese Treaty" with the Japanese, a document that has been compared with Japan's Twenty-one Demands for its broad political, military, and economic concessions.[11] In June, 1941, Wang gave a public radio address from Tokyo in which he praised Japan, affirmed China's submission to it, criticized the Kuomintang government, and pledged to work with the Empire of Japan to resist Communism and Western imperialism.[12]. Wang continued to orchestrate politics within his regime in concert with Chiang's international relationship with foreign powers, seizing the French Concession and the International Settlement of Shanghai in 1943, after Western nations agreed by consensus to abolish extraterritoriality.[13].
A close associate of Sun Yat-sen, Wang is most noted for disagreements with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his formation of a Japanese-supported collaborationist government in Nanjing. In March 1940 a puppet government led by Wang Jingwei was established in the Republic of China under the protection of Empire of Japan. The regime officially called itself the Republic of China (中華民國, Zhōnghuá Mínguó). Another official name used by the regime was the Reorganized National Government of China.[1 . For this role he has often been labeled as a Hanjian. His name in China is also now a term used to refer to a traitor
The Government of National Salvation of the collaborationist "Republic of China", which Wang headed, was established on the Three Principles of Pan-Asianism, anti-Communism, and opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. Wang continued to maintain his contacts with German Nazis and Italian fascists he had established while in exile. In March 1944, Wang left for Japan to undergo medical treatment for the wound left by an assassination attempt in 1939.[14][15] He died in Nagoya on November 10, 1944, less than a year before Japan's surrender to the Allies, thus avoiding a trial for treason. Many of his senior followers who lived to see the end of the war were executed. Wang was buried in Nanjing near the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, in an elaborately-constructed tomb. Soon after Japan's defeat, the Kuomintang government under Chiang Kai-shek moved its capital back to Nanjing, destroyed Wang's tomb, and burned the body. Today the site is commemorated with a small pavilion that notes Wang as a traitor.

13. Tai Chi-tao(戴季陶), political figure Tai was born Dai Liangbi (戴良弼; Wades-Giles: Tai Liang-pi) in Guanghan, Sichuan to a family of potters. He went to Japan in 1905 to study in a normal school and entered Nihon University's law program in 1907. He graduated and returned to China in 1909. Tai started to write for the Shanghaiese China Foreign Daily (中外日報) and Tianduo Newspaper (天鐸報) at 19. At this time, his sobriquet for himself was Dai Tianchou (天仇), or Heaven-Revenge Dai, to signify his dissatisfaction for the Qing Empire. The Manchus threatened him with imprisonment for his writings, so in 1911 he fled to Japan, and then to Penang, where he joined Tongmenghui (同盟會) and wrote for its Guanghua Newspaper (光華報). Later that year, he returned to Shanghai after the Wuchang Uprising and founded the Democracy Newspaper (民權報). In 1926, he served as principal of the Sun Yat-sen University, and the chief of politics at Whampoa Academy, with Zhou Enlai as his deputy. From 1928 until 1948, he served as head of the Examination Yuan考試院. He was Minister of Information (宣傳部長) in 1924

14. Chen Duxiu(陈独秀), co-founder of Chinese Communist Party. He was its first General Secretary. Chen was an educator, philosopher, and politician. His ancestral home was in Anqing (安慶), Anhui, where he established the influential vernacular Chinese periodical La Jeunesse. He moved to Nanjing in 1902, after he was reported to have given speeches attacking the Qing government, and then to Japan the same year. It was in Japan where Chen became influenced by socialism and the growing Chinese dissident movement. While studying in China, Chen helped to found two radical political parties, but refused to join Sun Yat-sen's Revolutionary Alliance (Tomngmenghui), which he regarded as narrowly racist.[1] In 1907, Chen left Japan to visit France, before returning to Anhui to teach in a high school later that year. In 1908, he visited Manchuria before accepting a position at the the Army Elementary School in Hangzhou.[2] Chen fled to Japan again in 1913 following the short-lived "Second Revolution" against Yuan Shikai (袁世凱), but returned to China soon afterwards.[2] Chen joined the faculty of Peking University in 1917 as the university's dean, at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei.[1] A Marxist study group at the university, led by Li Dazhao, attracted his attention in 1919. At the time, New Youth was highly popular, and Chen decided to run a special edition on Marxism with Li Dazhao as the edition's general editor. The edition of this magazine was the most detailed analysis of Marxism then published in China, and achieved wide readership due to the journal's popularity. Chen's decision to run this edition, and his activies in the May Fourth Movement that same year, motivated conservative opponents within the university to force his resignation in the fall of 1919.[4] Around the time that he was forced out of Peking University, he was jailed for three months for distributing literatue that Peking authorities considered inflammatory, demanding that all pro-Japanese ministers resign, and that the government guarantee and freedom of speech and assembly. After his release, Chen moved to Shanghai and became more interested in Marxism and the promotion of rapid social change.[5] His settlement in the French Concession[6] allowed him to pursue his intellectual and scholarly interests free from official persecution. In 1920, Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, and other prominent revolutionary leaders founded the Communist Party of China (中国共产党/中國共産黨). It has been generally asserted that Chen, Li and the other Chinese radicals of the time (including future chairman Mao Zedong) formed the CCP out of diligent study of Marxist theories, inspired by the Russian Revolution of 1917.[2] However, many historians now believe that, for this generation of Chinese radicals, Chen included, the road to Marxism was a long one, with numerous prominent members initially attracted to anarchism or anarcho-communism. Many of the prominent members of the party in 1920 had a very poor understanding of Marxist theory. Over time, the more prominent revolutionaries attracted to the early Chinese Communist Party eventually adopted a more orthodox interpretation of Communism, and were organized through the influence of a Comintern advisor, Grigori Voitinsky, who made a tour of China during 1920-21. Chen was elected (in absentia) as the party's first General Secretary; and, with the assistance of Li Dazhao. After the collaboration between the Communists and Nationalists collapsed in 1927, the Comintern blamed Chen, and systematically removed him from all positions of leadership. In 1929, he was expelled. Afterwards, Chen became associated with the International Left Opposition of Leon Trotsky. Like Chen, Trotsky opposed many of the policies of the Comintern, and publicly criticized the Comintern's effort to collaborate with the Nationalists. Chen eventually became the voice of the Trotskyists in China, attempting to regain support and influence within the party, but failed.[2] Chen continued to oppose measures like "New Democracy" and the "Bloc of Four Classes" advocated by Mao Zedong. In 1932, Chen was arrested by the government of the Shanghai International Settlement, where he had been living since 1927, and extradited to Nanjing. Chen was then tried and sentenced to fifteen years in prison by the Nationalist government. Chen was released on parole in 1937, after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. After his release, Chen travelled from place to place until the summer of 1938, when he arrived at the wartime capital of Chongqing and took a position teaching at a junior high school. In poor health and with few remaining friends, Chen Duxiu later retired to Jiangjing, a small town west of Chongqing, where he died in 1942 at the age of 62. Today, he is today buried at his birthplace of Anqing.

15. Li Dazhao(李大钊),co-founder of Chinese Communist Party . From 1913 to 1917 Li studied political economy at Waseda University in Japan before returning to China in 1918. As head librarian at the Peking University Library, he was among the first of the Chinese intellectuals who supported the Bolshevik government in the Soviet Union. He also wrote in Chen's New Youth and his works had a major influence on other Chinese as well. Mao Zedong was an assistant librarian during Li's tenure at the library, and Li was one of Mao's earliest and most prominent influences. Tensions between the Comintern, the KMT, and the CPC presented opportunities for political intrigue and opportunism. With the collapse of the United Front in 1927, Li was captured during a Fengtian ordered raid on the Soviet embassy in Peking (Beijing). Along with nineteen others arrested in the raid, he was executed on the orders of the warlord Zhang Zuolin on April 28, 1927.

16. Zhou Zuoren(周作人), writer. He was the younger brother of Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren), the second of three brothers. Following the steps of his brother Lu Xun, he left for Japan to pursue his studies in 1906. During his stint in Japan, he began studying Ancient Greek, with the aim of translating the Gospels into Classical Chinese, and attended lectures on Chinese philology by scholar-revolutionary Zhang Binglin at Rikkyo University. , although he was supposed to study civil engineering there. He returned to China in 1911, with his Japanese wife, and began to teach in different institutions. Zhou was a key figure in the May Fourth Movement. In 1945, after the Second Sino-Japanese War, Zhou was arrested for treason by the Nationalist government of Chang Kai-shek, stemming from his alleged collaboration with the Wang Jingwei government during the Japanese occupation of north China. Zhou was sentenced to 14 years in Nanjing Prison, but was released in 1949 by the Communist government after a pardon. Later that year he returned to Beijing. He continued to write and translate, but published his works under pseudonyms. He died during the Cultural Revolution.

17. Huang Fu (黃郛), general and politician Huang studied at Zhejiang Military College and Qiushi Academy (current Zhejiang University), later went to Japan.[1] Huang came in contact with the Revolutionary Alliance while studying in a military academy in the Empire of Japan. During the Xinhai Revolution, he and Chen Qimei declared Shanghai independent and became blood brothers of Chiang Kaishek. After the fall of Cao Kun in the 1924 Beijing coup, he became acting president of the Republic of China on the request of Feng Yuxiang. He declared Cao's term illegal because it was obtained through bribery and also repudiated the agreement which allowed Puyi to live in the Forbidden City.

18. Chen Qimei(陈其美), revolutionary a Chinese revolutionary activist, close political ally of Sun Yat-sen, and early mentor of Chiang Kai-shek. He was as one of the founders of the Republic of China, and the uncle of Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu.
Born in Wuxing, Zhejiang, China, he went to Japan for studies in 1906, and there joined the Chinese Tongmenghui. Befriended by fellow Zhejiang native Chiang Kai-shek, in 1908, Chen brought Chiang into the Tongmenghui.
In 1911, after the Wuchang Uprising, Chen's forces occupied Shanghai. He was then made military governor of the region. He fled to Japan with Sun Yat-sen upon the failure of the revolution against Yuan Shikai's dictatorship. They subsequently formed the Chinese Revolutionary Party, later became the Kuomintang, or the Chinese Nationalist Party. Returning to Shanghai for another round of revolution, Yuan had him assassinated on May 18, 1916. The assassination was believed to have been carried out by Zhang Zongchang, a general loyal to Yuan.
Chen is perceived as one of the early revolutionary heroes and one of the founding fathers of the Republic of China. He was also the eldest member of which later came to known as the Chen Family, one of the four most powerful and influential families at the time. The university which had originally named after him had become a part of today's Fudan University and Zhejiang University after the Chinese Civil War. A monument of him is located in Huzhou, Zhejiang, China.

19. Yen Hsi-shan (閻錫山) (1883 - 1960) was a China|Chinese politician who served in the Republic of China government. Yen received his formal military training first in China and later at Japan's Imperial Military Academy. In Japan he became a member of Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui|Revolutionary Alliance and following the Xinhai Revolution|1911 uprisings he seized power in Shanxi Province.

Yen ruled the province until the Communist Party of China|Communists ousted him in 1949. Although Yen was known as the "Model Governor" for his enlightened policies, he was nonetheless a military dictator. In 1926, Yen pledged his loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek's new government, but in 1929 he joined Feng Y?-hsiang and Wang Ching-wei in their attempt to overthrow the Generallisimo. After a brief retirement in the early 1930s, Yen returned to power in Shanxi and undertook social and military reforms to counteract the spread of Communism in the province. He also supported Chang Hs?eh-liang's seizure of Chiang Kai-shek in 1936 (see Xian Incident). During WWII, Yen effectively resisted Japanese attempts to seize Shanxi, and his troops (including thousands of Japanese) held out against the Communists during the Chinese Civil War until the fortress city of T'ai-yüan fell in April 1949. Yen fled (with the provincial treasury) to Taiwan along with the rest of the ROC government.

From June 3, 1949 to March 7, 1950 he served as Premier of the ROC.

20. Zhou Enlai or Chou En-lai(周恩来); b 5 March 1898 – d 8 January 1976 was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou was instrumental in the Communist Party's rise to power, and subsequently in the development of the Chinese economy and the restructuring of Chinese society. Zhou went to Japan in July 1917 for further studies. During his two years in Japan, Zhou spent most of his time in the East Asian Higher Preparatory School, a language school for Chinese students. Zhou's studies were supported by his uncles, and apparently Nankai founder Yan Xiu as well, but their funds were limited and during this period Japan suffered from severe inflation. Zhou originally planned on winning one of the scholarships offered by the Chinese government; these scholarships, however, required Chinese students to pass entrance examinations in Japanese universities. Zhou took entrance examinations for at least two schools, but failed to gain admission. Zhou's reported anxieties were compounded by the death of his uncle, Zhou Yikui, an inability to master Japanese, and an acute Japanese cultural chauvinism that discriminated against Chinese. By the time that Zhou returned to China in the spring of 1919, he had become deeply disenchanted with Japanese culture, rejecting the idea that the Japanese political model was relevant to China and disdaining the values of elitism and militarism that he observed. Zhou returned to Tianjin sometime in the spring of 1919.

(source: mainly extracted from wikipedia)

Suggested articles/books/websites:
1. Japanese, Chinese entrepreneurs paving roads of success overseas, The Mainichi Daily News, http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/archive/news/2011/02/20110216p2a00m0na003000c.html
2.The Increasing Presence of Chinese Migrants in Japan(2008), by Tien-shi Chen, National Museum of Ethnology, http://ir.minpaku.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10502/2041/1/SER77_004.pdf
3. The Chinese overseas students: An overview of the flows change(2004), by Linqing Yao, The Australian National University, http://www.apa.org.au/upload/2004-6C_Yao.pdf