Provisional Government of the Republic of China (1937–1940)
The Provisional Government of the Republic of China was a Chinese puppet state of the Empire of Japan that existed from 1937 to 1940 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It had been formed largely on the initiative of Imperial Japanese Army commanders in north China, before securing approval from Japanese government authorities in Tokyo. Thus the Provisional Government had nominal authority in Japanese occupied zones in north China, while to the south the Central China Expeditionary Army established the Reformed Government of the Republic of China in 1938, which had authority in the Yangtze River area. Both essentially served as a local organ of the Japanese military authorities, due to the presence and extensive powers of Japanese advisors within the Provisional Government over native Chinese bureaucrats, and because it never made any attempt to secure international recognition, even from Japan.
The sign of the government unveiled in Zhongnanhai in Beijing on December 14, 1937
Signs on Tiananmen Gate hailing the founding of the government in 1937
Image: Wang Kemin
Image: Tang Erhe
A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government is a state that is de jure independent but de facto completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders. Puppet states have nominal sovereignty, except that a foreign power effectively exercises control through economic or military support. By leaving a local government in existence the outside power evades all responsibility, while at the same time successfully paralysing the local government they tolerate.
Wang Jingwei receiving German diplomats as head of state of the Reorganised Nationalist Government of the Republic of China in 1941
Abkhazian President Alexander Ankvab with Transnistrian President Yevgeny Shevchuk in 2013. Both Abkhazia and Transnistria have been described as puppet states of Russia.