In 2017, the East Asia Library at Stanford University received a collection of around 200 photographs that had once belonged to Lin Baisheng―a prominent newspaper editor in Republican China who served as the Minister of Publicity (宣傳部長) for the Wang Jingwei 'collaborationist' regime (or "RNG") in Japanese-occupied China, from 1940 to 1945, and who was executed by the government of Chiang Kai-shek in 1946 after being convicted of treason. With its capital in Nanjing, the Wang Jingwei regime nominally ruled over large swathes of Japanese-occupied east, central, and south China from March 30, 1940 until the Japanese surrender in 1945.
There are 194 images in this online exhibit. The majority of these images date from the period of the RNG (1940-1945). Indeed, many have as their subject Wang Jingwei himself, often at events or activities in which Lin's Ministry of Publicity played a key role. These include official visits by Wang (and Lin) to Japan and Manchuria; 'rural pacification' inspection tours, during which Wang toured the countryside to assess the progress made in anti-Resistance campaigns led by his government; Wang's meetings with members of the Axis diplomatic corps in Nanjing, and with leading Japanese officials in the occupation forces; visits by Wang and Lin to important ritual sites for the RNG, such as the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing; and parades by the RNG military, youth groups, and community associations.
