Wang Jingwei regime

Commons reasons from China's position: China has always claimed east China and never recognized the regime. It then applies China's limit on corporate copyright, 50 years from publication, and says any copyright in the regime's stamps would have expired no later than January 1, 1996. It adds that it is no longer known who designed the stamps.¹ Commons' license tag for these stamps says the regime has ceased to exist and cites Article 21, Section 2 of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China.²

The regime was set up in Nanjing on March 30, 1940, under Japanese occupation, and was dissolved on August 16, 1945.³ Commons says it was founded after Japanese troops occupied east China and that China has never recognized it.¹ In occupied China, Chinese stamps were at first used as they were; from 1941 they were overprinted separately for Nanjing, Shanghai and other regions, and some areas had locally designed stamps.⁴ Commons' tag covers stamps issued by the regime's government. Its note does not discuss overprints, and so does not say whether the rule reaches the Chinese designs underneath them. That question is open.