Though there may be debate over the collaborator status of Jin Xiongba, his merit in preserving and uncovering historical materials of the Wang Jingwei regime is undeniable.
"When I first submitted my manuscript to him, out of sheer lack of interest, I neither attached a title nor decided on a pen name. Unexpectedly, after publication, I discovered he had arbitrarily given it the incongruous title 'The Beginning and End of the Wang Regime' and bestowed upon me the pen name 'Zhu Zijia.' Truly, I was caught between laughter and tears. But black ink on white paper is final—once printed, it cannot be undone."
A life of rich experience and prolific writing
Starting in July 1959, the individual volumes were published serially, and by February 1964, the complete four-volume set was finished. Over the decades, it was reprinted five times and translated into Japanese in 1960. It continued to be expanded and supplemented, eventually published as a compiled volume titled *The Record of the Wang Regime*. After the 1965 deluxe edition was reprinted, it was renamed *The Complete Story of the Wang Regime*. It became wildly popular in Chinese communities and caused a significant stir overseas.
Scholar Hu Zhiwei remarked, "This 700,000 to 800,000-word memoir is a primary source for studying the Wang regime. In the systematic research of the history of the puppet Wang government, it predates the efforts of scholars from both mainland China and Taiwan by decades. Although the content includes self-aggrandizement and the glossing over of faults, and its perspective is limited to personal opinion and one-sided accounts, historical truth is often pieced together from countless such partial narratives. Jin Xiongba's collaborator status may be debated, but his contribution in preserving and uncovering the historical materials of the Wang regime is unquestionable."
"The flaw of this book lies in its origins as a serial publication—most chapters were written hastily without a unified outline. The structure is tangled and disorganized, the narrative often out of sequence, with much repetition, and the writing style is somewhat verbose."
Jin Xiongba himself noted in the preface: "During the period of continuous writing, due to being overwhelmed with deadlines, I had neither prepared an outline in advance nor relied on my fading memory, with all reference materials missing... When the deadline for each issue of *Spring and Autumn* arrived, I would simply grab a past event, finish it hastily to meet the quota, resulting in frequent disorganization and disorder in sequence."
"Moreover, because I strived for accuracy and based everything on what I personally saw and heard, my limited perspective often made the details trivial. If one day I could return to my homeland, I would spend my remaining years gathering materials to rewrite it—though that can only be hoped for in some distant future. This book can only be regarded as my personal memoir of my time in the Wang regime, as well as a memento from my years of wandering. If readers mistakenly regard it as historical material, it would only deepen my sense of shame."
After the serialization of *The Beginning and End of the Wang Regime* concluded, Jin Xiongba wrote *Prince Su and the Father-Daughter Spies: Yoshiko Kawashima*, based on the oral accounts of Jin Dingzhi, the brother of Yoshiko Kawashima (aka Jin Bihui), whom he met in Japan. It was later published as a standalone volume under the title *Female Spy: Yoshiko Kawashima*.
In September 1960, after the serialization of *The Beginning and End of the Wang Regime* in the *World Weekly* of Japan's Jiji Press concluded, it was published as a standalone volume under the title *The Shared Destiny of Life and Death: The Tragedy of Wang Jingwei*. Due to this connection, Jin Xiongba was hired by the news agency as a special correspondent in Hong Kong for 11 years, writing one book for them each year. Thus, his books published in Japan include *Inside the Chinese Communist Party*, *The Top Ten Issues of the Chinese Communist Party*, *The Diplomatic Issues of the Chinese Communist Party* (each one volume), *The Economic Issues of the Chinese Communist Party* (two volumes), and *The Cultural Revolution* (three volumes), each exceeding 200,000 words.
Also through Jiji Press, he was invited by the Research Institute for International Situations and the Popularization of Diplomatic Knowledge to give lectures in Japan annually from 1961 to 1967, and then twice a year (spring and autumn) from 1968 to 1971, traveling to major cities including Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Nagoya, Yokohama, and Maebashi.
On May 30, 1971, Jin Xiongba accepted an offer from Jiji Press in Japan, leaving Hong Kong for Tokyo. However, just three months later, he left the news agency where he had worked for 11 years. From September 1971 to September the following year, he spent a full year unemployed, becoming a jobless expatriate. Later, due to Shigeharu Hasegawa founding a new media company, *Inside and Outside News Agency*, he asked Jin to write for its various publications. Aside from payment, he didn’t need to go to the office and received a salary without working.
On September 30, 1973, he returned to Hong Kong and, at the invitation of Yao Lifu, took on three roles as vice president, editor-in-chief, and chief commentator of the *Hong Kong and Kowloon Daily News*. But the tenure was very brief. Jin Xiongba said, "After just a few months, I felt I was utterly useless to the *Hong Kong and Kowloon Daily News*, and even for Yao Lifu, I was merely adding to his mental burden. Knowing my limits, I resolutely submitted my resignation in November 1973. Two sentences in the letter best expressed my attitude: 'I came for friendship, and I leave for friendship.'"
Thus, on March 14, 1974, he returned to Japan and rejoined the Inside and Outside News Agency, writing one or two specialized commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party for the weekly *World and Japan* each month, along with a separate monthly one-page report titled *China Watch*, and occasionally writing pamphlets of 10,000–20,000 words.
Let the criticism come, even beyond the grave
In 1974, his *Fifty Years as a Journalist* began serialization in the 10th issue of Hong Kong’s *Dacheng* magazine, running until the 43rd issue in June 1977—a total of 2 years and 10 months, comprising 68 chapters
On January 5, 1985, Jin Xiongbai passed away in Japan at the age of 81. He once said that in his prime, while living in the most bustling metropolis of the nation, he indulged in a carefree and leisurely life, frequenting all the glamorous and extravagant places, the scenes filled with singing birds and fluttering swallows—there was hardly a day without his presence.
During the same period, he employed three renowned chefs to cook for him and owned five cars for transportation, living a life of great abundance and luxury. After the victory of the War of Resistance, he suffered imprisonment under the charge of being a “Hanjian (traitor to Han Chinese),” and his family experienced the pain of having their property confiscated. In 1952, his business failed in Hong Kong, and for three years he could barely afford food, enduring scorn and insults from relatives and friends alike. His life could truly be called a legend. (End of article)