Ding Mocun (; Hepburn: Tei Mokuson; 1901 – July 5, 1947), also known as Ding Lesheng (), was a politician in the early

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

. During Japanese occupation, he was a prominent figure in the secret police of the collaborationist regime.

Early life

Born in

Changde Changde ( ) is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Hunan province, People's Republic of China. In addition to the urban districts, Changde also administers the county-level city of Jinshi City, Jinshi and six counties. Changde is adjacent ...

, in

Hunan Province Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi t ...

, Ding was initially a member of the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...

, but later became a

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

politician active in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

Career

He rapidly rose within the Kuomintang hierarchy with the support of the so-called "Central Club Clique" led by

Chen Lifu Chen Lifu or Ch'en Li-fu (; 21 August 1900 – 8 February 2001) was a Chinese politician and anti-communist of the Republic of China. Chen was born in Wuxing, Zhejiang, China (modern Huzhou). In 1925, Chen formally joined Kuomintang (KMT) in Sa ...

and by 1934 chaired the Research and Statistics Department, which was a cover for the Kuomintang

secret police Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...

. However, when forced out of power due to numerous corruption scandals in a reorganization of the Kuomintang in 1938, he defected to the Japanese side along with

Li Shiqun Li Shiqun (; 1905 – September 9, 1943) was a politician in the Republic of China. During the Japanese occupation, he was the head of the secret police ''Tèwu'' (also known as Jessfield 76, after the address of its Shanghai headquarters) of W ...

. Under the direction of Japanese spymaster

Kenji Doihara was a Japanese army officer. As a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, he was instrumental in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. As a leading intelligence officer, he played a key role to the Japanese machinations that le ...

, the two worked to create an intelligence and secret police security service, which was founded in April 1939 and whose headquarters was located at 76 Jessfield Road in Shanghai. This address contained holding cells, where suspected Communists and Kuomintang prisoners could be interrogated and executed. Under the collaborationist

Reorganized National Government of China The Wang Jingwei regime or the Wang Ching-wei regime is the common name of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China ( zh , t = 中華民國國民政府 , p = Zhōnghuá Mínguó Guómín Zhèngfǔ ), the government of the pup ...

led by

Wang Jingwei Wang Jingwei (4 May 1883 – 10 November 1944), born as Wang Zhaoming and widely known by his pen name Jingwei, was a Chinese politician. He was initially a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang, leading a government in Wuhan in oppositi ...

Ding served in the Central Political Committee, the Military Committee, and the

Executive Yuan The Executive Yuan () is the executive branch of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Its leader is the Premier, who is appointed by the President of the Republic of China, and requires confirmation by the Legislative Yuan. ...

of the Reorganized National Government. He later held the cabinet-level posts as Minister of Society and Minister of Transport in the Reorganized National Government and served at one point as governor of

Zhejiang Province Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiangs ...

. On December 21, 1939 he escaped an assassination attempt involving

Zheng Pingru Zheng Pingru (1918 – February 1940) was a Chinese socialite and spy who gathered intelligence on the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. She was executed after an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Ding Mocun, the sec ...

Arrest and death

Following the

surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy ...

and the collapse of the Reorganized National Government of China, Ding was arrested in September 1945 and charged with

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

. During his trial, he pleaded that he had been serving with the Nanjing regime as a spy under the orders of

Dai Li Lieutenant General Dai Li (Tai Li; ; May 28, 1897 – March 17, 1946) was a Chinese spymaster. His courtesy name was Yunong (雨農). Born Dai Chunfeng (Tai Chun-feng; 戴春風) in Bao'an, Jiangshan, Zhejiang province, he studied at the Whamp ...

, the commander of Kuomintang secret service. He was convicted in February 1947 and executed in prison in

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...

, on July 5, 1947.

References

* * * *Ritter, Mana. ''Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945''. Houghton Mifflin (2013). *Yeh, Wen-Hsin. ''Wartime Shanghai''. Routledge (2003). *Wakeman, Frederic. ''Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service''. University of California Press (2003).

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ding, Mocun 1901 births 1947 deaths Republic of China politicians from Hunan Executed Chinese collaborators with Imperial Japan Kuomintang collaborators with Imperial Japan Members of the Kuomintang People executed by the Republic of China Politicians from Changde Executed Republic of China people Executed people from Hunan