self-rule. Nanjing–Wuhan split On 1 April 1927, Wang Jingwei returned to China, and arrived at Shanghai, which had been occupied by the National Revolutionary Army. Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren met with him to urge him to end the collaborative relations with the CCP as the president of the Wuhan government, but Wang stated that he would "pick up side with the workers and farmers", and proposed to tolerate the communists for the time being. Concurrently, violence broke out in Hankou, part of Wuhan, when trade unionists and communist agitators attacked the Japanese concession there, sparking the "Hankou incident". Wuhan garrison commander Tang Shengzhi and foreign minister Eugene Chen rushed to quell the disorder and assuage the Japanese. At a KMT senior officials' meeting in Shanghai on the following day, Wu Zhihui went so far as to kneel down and beg for Wang's assent to Chiang's proposals. The meeting only managed to proceed with Chiang Kai-shek's and others' mediation. In the fourth Plenary Session of the 2nd KMT Central Committee held in Nanjing, a consensus was reached on how to resolve the KMT-CCP dispute: However, on 5 April, Wang decided to take the initiative by privately publishing with Chen Duxiu the "Joint Declaration of the Leaders of the Nationalist and Communist Parties", in which he proclaimed a permanent collaboration between the two parties. This declaration drove the anti-communist KMT officials into a rage. Wu Zhihui, who had previously knelt down to beg Wang, mocked him as paternalistic, "the parent of the KMT". Wang left Shanghai that night for Wuhan, the government there being made up mostly of the communists and the KMT left-wing. Wang Jingwei arrived at Wuhan on 10 April and met Tang Shengzhi and Tan Yankai, nominally to call together members of central committee to attend the fourth plenary session of the 2nd KMT Central Committee held in Nanjing. He thought that the meeting would be held as planned, but unexpectedly, Chiang Kai-shek rallied the anti-communist factions of Hu Hanmin and Li Jishen to "exterminate the communists" on 12 April, and formed a rival government in Nanjing (). Incensed and shocked, Wang declared that Chiang had been "expelled from the party and dismissed from all his posts", namely, the KMT central executive membership. The Wuhan government responded by accusing Chiang and his followers of being the puppets of foreign imperialists and criticised his close cooperation with Shanghai's merchant