Manchukuo, the Country Lost in History
A country forgotten and left in the past. Just how unique was Manchukuo? And what can we learn from its legacy?
Not a lot of people have heard of Manchukuo, sometimes called Manzhouguo, which was a puppet state founded with the support of the Japanese empire in 1932. This happened six months after the Mukden Incident, a staged event by the Japanese army that eventually led to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in northern China. Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, was installed as the emperor of Manchukuo. In reality, however, he was merely a puppet emperor submissive to the superior Japanese rulers.
During the Second World War, Manchukuo was used by Japan as a war base from where China could be invaded and from where their imperial rule could be further expanded into the Asian continent. After the war, Manchukuo was annexed by China and the area was used as a base area for the Chinese Communists in the civil war against the nationalists. Manchukuo lost its global significance ever since. Designating Manchukuo as a Japanese puppet state during their imperial era seems to end the discussion of what Manchukuo exactly was. However, the case of Manchukuo is an interesting one. It is a place where the imperialism of the Japanese empire and the idealistic aspirations of Manchukuo came together. Manchukuo as a textbook puppet state may not be so straightforward as might seem at the first glance.
Despite the imperialistic intentions of Japan connected with the founding of Manchukuo, the country was not being developed as a colony, but rather as a legitimate nation-state. Manchukuo desired international and domestic recognition. This article will cover the legitimacy of Manchukuo as a sovereign nation-state in east Asia. Was Manchukuo more than a puppet state of Japan and did it have the potential, and maybe even the right, to become an independent nation-state in East Asia?
A puppet state or sovereign after all?
To find out in what way Manchukuo distinguished itself from most puppet states we must first comprehend the fundamental characteristics of a so-called puppet state. A puppet state is considered a sovereign state which is in fact effectively controlled and influenced by a foreign power. A puppet state preserves characteristics of independence like a name, flag, anthem, ideology, etc., but is subservient in some way to another state that created or sponsored them. Japan in fact founded Manchukuo after occupying Manchuria, which occurred in 1931. But this event requires further explanation.
The Kwantung Army, also known as the Kantōgun, was the active Japanese army force that occupied Manchuria after the Mukden incident in 1931. However, both the Mukden Incident and the occupation of the entire Manchurian region that followed were independent actions initiated by the commanders of the Kwantung division. This was a massive act against the orders of the political and military supremacy leadership based in Japan. Even after the founding of Manchukuo in the conquered area, the Kwantung army remained in control over the state even beyond the influence of Tokyo. Was Manchukuo perhaps a rogue state controlled by the Kwantung army rather than a puppet state subservient to the Japanese empire?
People might see the level and character of “puppetry” in Manchukuo differently than others, and opinions will always differ as a result of personal, or cultural objectivity. Nevertheless, considering the definition of a puppet state and the history around the founding of Manchukuo, which was by the hand of a foreign power, namely Japan in this case, there is not much room for discussion about the statement that Manchukuo was in fact a puppet regime of Japan. Despite this, after the abolishment of the state in 1945, another view has continued to grow; Manchukuo as the base of a continental movement to expel Western imperialists and to build an ideal state in Asia.
This is in sharp contrast with the conventional view that Manchukuo was a military and industrial base from where Japan could exercise its imperialistic desires throughout the Asian continent. In the new movement arising after 1945, the establishment of Manchukuo is seen as an effort to realize a sort of East-Asian utopia, an ideal state based on ethnic harmony, peace, and prosperity in the land of Manchuria.
“(…) The nurturing that went into the establishment of the state of Manzhouguo was a trial without historical precedent…. It was the pride of the Japanese people that, in an era dominated by invasion and colonization, our efforts to build an ideal state were based on ethnic harmony in the land of Manchuria. (…)”— Furumi Tadayuki (1900–1983)
This view and ideal around the founding of Manchukuo have been confirmed by multiple Japanese officials functional in Manchukuo at that time, for example, Nobusuke Kishi, who became the prime minister of Japan after his time as an official director in Manchukuo. This idealistic view around the birth of Manchukuo is of course from a Japanese perspective. On the other hand, in Chinese history texts and papers, Manchukuo is often referred to as ‘Wei Manzhouguo’ or ‘Wei Man’ for short, which means ‘false state of Manchuria’. Chinese historians often stress the Japanese political, economic, military, and cultural manipulation in order to highlight its puppet nature and Manchukuo’s un-popular stigma in Chinese society.
The ideology of Manchukuo
Was Manchukuo more than an ‘ordinary’ imperialistic puppet state from which Japan could more effectively express its power and influence onto the rest of the world? This is what the Chinese have been claiming, and it has become the conventional global definition of Manchukuo ever since the state dissolved in 1945. Was Manchukuo indeed an ideal by Japanese supremacy of becoming a multi-cultural East-Asian utopian nation-state, with the potential to stand up against a 200-year history of Western aggression against Asia? To find out the plausibility of this utopian Japanese ideology about the desired destiny of Manchukuo, researching original propaganda posters published in Manchukuo could bring more clarity.
When looking at promotional nation-state material from Manchukuo, the significance of the idealized multiculturalism is undeniable. For example, looking at figure one, we see three smiling children and being pushed forward on a cart by a laborer. The boy seems to be wearing western clothing while one of the girls is wearing traditional Chinese garments. While they are respectively waving a Manchukuan and a Japanese flag, they express a feeling of ethnic solidarity. Multiple propaganda images can be found where the same message is being transmitted, of which a few examples are shown with figures two, three, and four. This seems to be the reflection of the Japanese multicultural ideology in Manchukuo.
This multicultural reflection is even more noticeable somewhere else; the official flag of Manchukuo (figure five). The colours of the flag — yellow, red, blue, white, and black — depict the different ethnicities inhabiting Manchukuo. Respectively, the Manchu people, the Japanese people, the Han Chinese, the Mongol people, and the Korean people. However, it is important to take a look at the demographic landscape of Manchukuo around the time these propaganda images were published.
Around 1940 the population of Manchukuo counted 43,2 million people, of which the ethnic representation in the demographic landscape was unevenly divided. In this year the Han population in Manchukuo counted over 36 million people, a share of 85,3% of the total population. The second-largest ethnic group was the Manchus, with just over 2,5 million people. Followed by a Korean population of just under 1,5 million, and both the population of Mongols and ethnic Japanese barely reached one million. In addition, the different ethnic groups were not living among one another in a harmonious society as the posters and Manchukuan flag demonstrate.
Japanese-sponsored Manchukuo seemed to be based on multicultural harmonic ideals. However, this ideology was in contrast with the actual situation in Manchukuo. In reality, there was antagonism, as well as marginalisation, and spatial division among the different ethnic groups. Historians even claim that the Japanese population in Manchukuo lived in seclusion from the other ethnic groups, and Japanese interaction with the other groups was uncommon. Manchukuo was not the idealised ‘ethnic melting pot’ it claimed to be.
What do these misleading ideologies say about the identity and legitimacy of Manchukuo? It does not rule out the possibility that a multi-cultural utopia was the true desire of the Japanese when they founded Manchukuo. It could mean that this ideological dream was sincere but that it was not realised. However, turning Manchukuo into a utopian state was not the only purpose of the Japanese.
The impact of Manchukuo
From the very beginning, the influential Kwantung division intended to turn the newly founded state into the industrial centre of the Japanese empire. The Kwantung-led industrial development was fuelled by the exploitation of Chinese labor and later Japanese private investments. The Manchukuan industry became one of the biggest industries in the entire region throughout the 1930s.
At the end of the decade, the steel production of Manchukuo even exceeded that of Japan itself. The cotton production in Manchukuo was even one of the highest in the world. Much of the country’s economy was being controlled by Japanese interest and thus, during the second world war, most of the raw materials were exported to Japan to fuel the demand of the war. As can be understood, Manchukuo’s industry was a vital organ for Japan during the war. It is likely that the industrial and economical value of Manchukuo exceeded the utopian aspirations of the country in this particular period of time.
Altogether it is extremely hard to tell what the true purpose of the founding of Manchukuo was, and we can only imagine what Manchukuo might have become if Japan had not lost the Second World War. Like the Japanese writer Hayashi once said: “It may take another one hundred years to come to a proper evaluation of Manzhouguo.”
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