Hanjian is a powerful term in China. Yun Xia reminds us that while the motivations of collaborators during “China's war of resistance against Japan” were complicated, and though the lived experiences of real people defied the simple resistance–collaboration narrative promoted by post-war Chinese governments, the term hanjian has significantly influenced perceptions of the war. Hanjian is sometimes translated as “traitor” or “collaborator,” but neither fully conveys the term's condemnation not just of the act of betrayal, but also the fundamental character flaws and immorality of the person who is hanjian. Utilizing legal regulations, court cases and press accounts, Yun Xia traces the development of the discourse of hanjian in the legal, political and popular realms, as well as the long-lasting consequences of efforts to punish these “internal others.”
The connotations of hanjian in China's late imperial era were varied, sometimes referring to foreigners who threatened ethnic Han subjects and sometimes to cunning Han who threatened the tranquillity of the empire by causing trouble among non-Han groups. During the mid-Qing, however, court documents applied the term to those who illegally aided foreigners in military or commercial ways, thereby damaging the multi-ethnic empire. With the fall of the Qing, revolutionaries emphasized the ethnic part of the formula, as Han officials who aided the “foreign” rule of the Manchu Qing, were labelled hanjian as well. Despite Republican-era ideals of ethnic inclusiveness, nationalist writers conflated Chinese with Han, and now anyone who colluded with foreigners was potentially hanjian.
After total war began in 1937, the Nationalist government hastily created anti-hanjian regulations as a means of inspiring loyalty, with little concern for due process. During the war, enforcement was left in the hands of military courts, members of competing intelligence agencies, and even civilians. Punishing hanjian was an extremely popular way to strike back at “internal enemies” when it was otherwise difficult to attack the Japanese military or civilians. In encouraging extra-legal means to punish traitors, however, the Nationalist state ultimately made it impossible to establish “rule by law” after the war. Focusing on post-war trials, Yun Xia shows how the judiciary branch was beset with many problems including insufficient staff and the active interference of rival military and intelligence organizations that did not want to cede authority to civilian courts. The state, then, resorted to mass campaigns, whereby individuals were encouraged to inform against hanjian, who could then be brought to “justice” through public pressure. This encouragement further eroded the efficacy of the judiciary as many individuals took the opportunity to file inflammatory false accusations that were difficult to prosecute through legal processes.
Throughout this study, Yun Xia shows how the reality of wartime collaboration was indeed complicated. Whether one was a lawyer, the owner of a business, a writer, or even a resident of the Japanese colony of Taiwan, if one did not or could not flee into the interior with the Nationalist leaders, it was difficult, if not impossible, to survive without working with the Japanese authorities. Business leaders in Shanghai often engaged in complex strategies of trying to help the resistance (e.g. by conducting clandestine trade with Nationalist-held regions) while being forced to make concessions to Japanese authorities just to stay open. Authors, particularly women, often chose to write about “non-political” subjects such as family, love and intimacy. In circumventing due process, however, and encouraging broad, moralistic campaigns against hanjian instead, the state ensured that there would be no room for complicated or apolitical understandings of wartime experiences. As public opinion prosecuted political, economic and cultural hanjian during and after the war, complexities were reduced to a simplistic loyalty-versus-betrayal narrative that meant anyone who had worked with the Japanese was potentially guilty. This left Nationalist leaders themselves ultimately vulnerable, because party leaders had often worked with, indeed collaborated with, those now called hanjian. Having helped establish the narrative, the Nationalists fell victim to it as the Chinese Communist Party was able to present itself as more consistent in punishing traitors than the Nationalists, who seemed to be more obviously self-serving in using the post-war campaigns to serve partisan interests.
Yun Xia illustrates how anti-hanjian precedents had significant influence on politics and society in both Communist and Nationalist areas. Anti-hanjian laws remained in effect on Taiwan until the 1960s, though now they were applied to Communist sympathizers. The CCP meanwhile used anti-hanjian campaigns of the 1950s as a means to undermine wealthy classes and consolidate its power and legitimacy. Nationalist-era regulations also served as a legal model for similar laws against counterrevolutionaries. Even today, the distillation of complicated circumstances into simplified notions of loyalty versus betrayal continues to be seen in the popular use of the term hanjian in a China that again promotes moralistic nationalism while the “rule of law” remains hampered by competing interests.
Overall, Yun Xia has effectively described the importance of hanjian in the Chinese “national imagination,” while also revealing some of the fundamental dilemmas and problems of states that rely on moralistic populist campaigns at the expense of due process.
