Ding Mocun

Ding Mocun (simplified Chinese: 丁默村; traditional Chinese: 丁默邨; pinyin: Dīng Mòcūn; Wade–Giles: Ting Mo-ts'un; Hepburn: Tei Mokuson; 1901 – July 5, 1947), also known as Ding Lesheng (Chinese: 丁勒生; pinyin: Dīng Lèshēng), was a politician in the early Republic of China. During Japanese occupation, he was a prominent figure in the secret police of the collaborationist regime.

Ding Mocun
丁默邨
Ding Mocun as pictured in The Most Recent Biographies of Important Chinese People
Born	1901 Changde, Hunan
Died	July 5, 1947 Suzhou, Jiangsu
Nationality	Chinese

Early life

Born in Changde, in Hunan Province, Ding was initially a member of the Chinese Communist Party, but later became a Kuomintang politician active in Shanghai.

Career

He rapidly rose within the Kuomintang hierarchy with the support of the so-called "Central Club Clique" led by Chen Lifu and by 1934 chaired the Research and Statistics Department, which was a cover for the Kuomintang secret police. 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. Under the direction of Japanese spymaster Kenji Doihara, 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 led by Wang Jingwei Ding served in the Central Political Committee, the Military Committee, and the Executive 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.

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

Arrest and death

Following the surrender of Japan and the collapse of the Reorganized National Government of China, Ding was arrested in September 1945 and charged with treason. During his trial, he pleaded that he had been serving with the Nanjing regime as a spy under the orders of Dai Li, the commander of Kuomintang secret service. He was convicted in February 1947 and executed in prison in Suzhou, Republic of China, on July 5, 1947.

References

• Xu Youchun (徐友春) (main ed.) (2007). Unabridged Biographical Dictionary of the Republic, Revised and Enlarged Version　(民国人物大辞典 增订版). Hebei People's Press (Hebei Renmin Chubanshe; 河北人民出版社). ISBN 978-7-202-03014-1.
• Liu Shoulin (刘寿林) (etc.ed.) (1995). The Chronological Table of the Republic's Officer (民国职官年表). Zhonghua Book Company. ISBN 7-101-01320-1.
• The Biographies of Most Recent Chinese Important People (最新支那要人伝). Asahi Shimbun. 1941.
• Ritter, Mana. Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945. Houghton Mifflin (2013). ISBN 054784056X
• Yeh, Wen-Hsin. Wartime Shanghai. Routledge (2003). ISBN 1136858083
• Wakeman, Frederic. Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service. University of California Press (2003). ISBN 0520928768

External links

• Media related to Ding Mocun at Wikimedia Commons