Chinese Emperor Pu Yi Enthronement Photo 新京 Manchoukuo Vintage 1934

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 176277816036 CHINESE EMPEROR PU YI ENTHRONEMENT PHOTO 新京 MANCHOUKUO VINTAGE 1934. 1934 Press photo of enthronement celebrations in Hsinking, Manchoukuo, March 1, 1934. Parade led by the Manchukuo military band winding through the streets of the capital (No. 90)
Changchun (simplified Chinese: 长春; traditional Chinese: 長春; pinyin: Chángchūn) is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, and is located in the northeast of China.[4] Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a sub-provincial city, comprising 7 districts, 1 county and 2 county-level cities.[5] According to the 2010 census of China, Changchun had a total population of 7,674,439 under its jurisdiction. The city's urbanized (or metro) area, comprising 5 districts and 4 development areas, had a population of 3,815,270 in 2010 as the Shuangyang and Jiutai districts are not urbanized yet.[2] The name of the city means "long spring" in Chinese. Between 1932 and 1945, Changchun was renamed Hsinking (Chinese: 新京; pinyin: Xīnjīng; literally: "new capital") by the Japanese as it became the capital of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo, occupying modern Northeast China. After the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Changchun was established as the provincial capital of Jilin in 1954. Known locally as China's "City of Automobiles",[6] Changchun is an important industrial base with a particular focus on the automotive sector.[7] Because of its key role in the domestic automobile industry, Changchun was sometimes referred to as the "Detroit of China."[8] Apart from this industrial aspect, Changchun is also one of four "National Garden Cities" awarded by the Ministry of Construction of P.R. China in 2001 due to its high urban greening rate.[6][not in citation given] Contents  [hide]  1 History 1.1 Early history 1.2 Railway era 1.3 City planning and development from 1906–1931 1.4 Manchukuo and World War II 1.4.1 Construction of Hsinking 1.4.2 Japanese chemical warfare agents 1.5 Siege of Changchun 1.6 People's Republic 2 Geography 2.1 Climate 3 Administrative divisions 4 Demographics 4.1 Ethnic groups 5 Economy 5.1 Development zones 5.1.1 Changchun Automotive Economic Trade and Development Zone 5.1.2 Changchun High Technology Development Zone 5.1.3 Changchun Economic and Technological Development Zone 6 Infrastructure 6.1 Railways 6.2 Road network 6.3 Air 7 Military 8 Education 8.1 Universities and colleges 8.2 Middle schools 8.3 Primary and secondary schools 9 Sports and stadiums 10 Film 11 People 12 See also 13 References 13.1 Citations 13.2 Sources 14 External links History[edit] Early history[edit] Changchun was initially established on imperial decree as a small trading post and frontier village during the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor in the Qing dynasty. Trading activities mainly involved furs and other natural products during this period. In 1800, the Jiaqing Emperor selected a small village on the east bank of the Yitong River and named it "Changchun Ting".[9] At the end of 18th century peasants from overpopulated provinces such as Shandong and Hebei began to settle in the region. In 1889, the village was promoted into a city known as "Changchun Fu".[10] Railway era[edit] In May 1898, Changchun got its first railway station, located in Kuancheng, part of the railway from Harbin to Lüshun (the southern branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway), constructed by the Russian Empire.[11] The South Manchuria Railway office of Changchun After Russia's loss of the southernmost section of this branch as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the Kuancheng station (Kuanchengtze, in contemporary spelling) became the last Russian station on this branch.[11] The next station just a short distance to the south—the new "Japanese" Changchun station—became the first station of the South Manchuria Railway,[12] which now owned all the tracks running farther south, to Lüshun, which they re-gauged to the standard gauge (after a short period of using the narrow Japanese 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge during the war).[13] A special Russo-Japanese agreement of 1907 provided that Russian gauge tracks would continue from the "Russian" Kuancheng Station to the "Japanese" Changchun Station, and vice versa, tracks on the "gauge adapted by the South Manchuria Railway" (i.e. the standard gauge) would continue from Changchun Station to Kuancheng Station.[12] An epidemic of pneumonic plague occurred in surrounding Manchuria from 1910 to 1911.[14] It was the worst-ever recorded outbreak of pneumonic plague which was spread through the Trans-Manchurian railway from the border trade port of Manzhouli.[15] This turned out to be the beginning of the large pneumonic plague pandemic of Manchuria and Mongolia which ultimately claimed 60,000 victims.[16] City planning and development from 1906–1931[edit] City planning map of Changchun The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and saw the transfer and assignment to Japan in 1906 the railway between Changchun and Port Arthur, and all the branches.[17] Having realized the strategic importance of Changchun's location with respect to Japan, China and Russia, the Japanese Government sent a group of planners and engineers to Changchun to determine the best site for a new railway station. Without the consent of Chinese Government, Japan purchased and seized land from local farmers on which the Changchun Railway Station was to be constructed as the centre of the South Manchuria Railway Affiliated Areas (SMRAA).[18] In order to turn Changchun into the centre for extracting the agricultural and mineral resources of Manchuria, Japan developed a blueprint for Changchun and invested heavily in the construction of the city. As the prelude and preparation of invasion and long-lasting occupation of China, Japan initiated at the beginning of 1907 the planning programme of the SMRAA which embodied distinctive colonial characteristics. The guiding ideology of the overall design was to build a high standard colonial city with sophisticated facilities, multiple functions and large scale. The comprehensive plan was to meet the needs of: Comfort demand of Japanese employees at Manchurian Railways Assurances of Changchun to be a base for Japanese control of the whole Manchuria Effective counterweight of Russia in this part of China. Accordingly, nearly 7 million Yen on average was allocated on a year-to-year basis for urban planning and construction during the period of 1907–31.[19] Railway nexus status was thickly underlined in the planning and construction, the main design concepts of which read as follows: under conventional grid pattern terms, two geoplagiotropic boulevards were newly carved eastward and westward from the grand square of the new railway station. The two helped forming two intersections with the gridded prototypes, which led to two circles of South and West. The two sub-civic centres served as axis on which eight radial roads were blazed that took the shape of a sectoral structure. This kind of radial circles and the design concept of urban roads were at that time quite advanced and scientific. It activated to great extend the serious urban landscapes as well as a clearly identification of the traditional gridded pattern. With the new Changchun railway station as its centre, the urban plan divided the SMRAA into such rectangles as residential quarters of 15%, commerce of 33%, grain depot of 19%, factories of 12%, public entertainment of 9% and administrative organs(including Japanese garrison) of 12%.[19] Each block provided the railway station with supporting and systematic services in the light of its own functions. In the meantime, a comprehensive system of judiciary and military police was established which was totally independent of China. This accounted for the widespread domain of military facilities within the urban construction area of 3. 967k㎡,such as railway garrison, gendarmerie, police department and its 18 local police stations.[19] Perceiving Changchun as a tabula rasa upon which to erect new and sweeping conceptions of the built environment, Japanese used the city as a practical laboratory to create two distinct and idealized urban milieus, each appropriate to a particular era. From 1906 to 1931 Changchun served as a key railway town through which the Japanese orchestrated informal empire; between 1932 and 1945 the city became home to a grandiose, new Asian capital. Yet while the façades the town and later the capital—as well as the attitudes of the state they upheld—contrasted markedly, the shifting styles of planning and architecture consistently attempted to represent Japanese rule as progressive, beneficent, and modern. Behind the development of Changchun, in addition to the railway trade driven, it suggested an important period of the Northeast modern architectural culture reflecting the urban design endeavours and revealing Japanese ambition of invading and occupying China. Japanese architecture and culture had been widely applied to Manchukuo to highlight the special status of the Japanese puppet. Once again, the urban planning will and should stem from a culture, be it aggressive or creative. Changchun’s planning and construction process can serve as a good example. Changchun expanded rapidly as the junction between of the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway and the Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railway, while remaining the break of gauge point between the Russian and standard gauges into the 1930s,[20] Manchukuo and World War II[edit] On March 10, 1932 the capital of Manchukuo, a Japan-controlled puppet state in Manchuria, was established in Changchun.[21] The city was then renamed Hsinking (Chinese: 新京; pinyin: Xīnjīng; Wade–Giles: Hsin-ching; Japanese:Shinkyō; literally "New Capital") on March 13.[22] The Emperor Puyi resided in the Imperial Palace (Chinese: 帝宮; pinyin: Dì gōng) which is now the Museum of the Manchu State Imperial Palace. During the Manchukuo period, the region experienced harsh suppression, brutal warfare on the civilian population, forced conscription and labor and other Japanese sponsored government brutalities; at the same time a rapid industrialisation and militarisation took place. Hsinking was a well-planned city with broad avenues and modern public works. The city underwent rapid expansion in both its economy and infrastructure. Many of buildings built during the Japanese colonial era still stand today, including those of the Eight Major Bureaus of Manchukuo (Chinese: 八大部; pinyin: Bādà bù) as well as the Headquarters of the Japanese Kwantung Army. Construction of Hsinking[edit] Hsinking Master Plan Map (1934) Hsinking was the only Direct-controlled municipality (特别市) in Manchukuo after Harbin was incorporated into the jurisdiction of Binjiang Province.[23] In March 1932, the Inspection Division of South Manchuria Railway started to draw up the Metropolitan Plan of Great Hsinking (simplified Chinese: 大新京都市计画; traditional Chinese: 大新京都市計畫; pinyin: Dà xīn jīngdū shì jìhuà). The Bureau of capital construction (simplified Chinese: 国都建设局; traditional Chinese: 國都建設局; pinyin: Guódū jiànshè jú) which was directly under the control of State Council of Manchukuo was established to take complete responsibility of the formulation and the implementation of the plan.[24] Kuniaki Koiso, the Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, and Yasuji Okamura, the Vice Chief-of-Staff, finalized the plan of a 200 km2 (77 sq mi) construction area. The Metropolitan Plan of Great Hsinking was influenced by the renovation plan of Paris in the 19th century, the garden city movement, and theories of American cities' planning and design in the 1920s. The city development plan included extensive tree planting. By 1934 Hsinking was known as the Forest Capital with Jingyuetan Park built, which is now China's largest Plantation and a AAAA-rated recreational area.[25] In accordance with the Metropolitan Plan of Great Hsinking, the area of publicly shared land (including the Imperial Palace, government offices, roads, parks and athletic grounds) in Hsinking was 47 km2 (18 sq mi), whilst the area of residential, commercial and industrial developments was planned to be 53 km2 (20 sq mi).[26]。 However, Hsinking's population exceeded the prediction of 500,000 by 1940. In 1941, the Capital Construction Bureau modified the original plan, which expanded the urban area to 160 km2 (62 sq mi). The new plan also focused on the construction of satellite towns around the city with a planning of 200 m2 (2,200 sq ft) land per capita.[24] Because the effects of war, the Metropolitan Plan of Great Hsinking remained unfinished. By 1944, the built up urban area of Hsinking reached 80 km2 (31 sq mi), while the area used for greening reached 70.7 km2 (27.3 sq mi). As Hsinking's city orientation was the administrative center and military commanding center, land for military use exceeded the originally planned figure of 9 percent, while only light manufacturing including packing industry, cigarette industry and paper-making had been developed during this period. Japanese force also controlled Hsinking's police system, instead of Manchukuo government.[27] Major officers of Hsinking police were all ethnic Japanese.[28] The population of Hsinking also experienced rapid growth after being established as the capital of Manchukuo. According to the census in 1934 taken by the police agency, the city's municipal area had 141,712 inhabitants.[29] By 1944 the city's population had risen to 863,607,[30] with 153,614 Japanese settlers. This population amount made Hsinking the third largest metropolitan city in Manchukuo after Mukden and Harbin, as the metropolitan mainly focused on military and politics function.[31] Special City Government office of Hsinking  Datong Avenue in Hsinking (1939)  Manchukuo ministry building (built. 1935)  Manchukuo supreme court (built 1938)  Japanese chemical warfare agents[edit] Main article: Unit 100 In 1936, the Japanese established Unit 100 to develop plague biological weapons, although the declared purpose of Unit 100 was to conduct research about diseases originating from animals.[32] During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II the headquarters of Unit 100 ("Wakamatsu Unit") was located in downtown Hsinking, under command of veterinarian Yujiro Wakamatsu.[33] This facility was involved in research of animal vaccines to protect Japanese resources, and, especially, biological-warfare. Diseases were tested for use against Soviet and Chinese horses and other livestock. In addition to these tests, Unit 100 ran a bacteria factory to produce the pathogens needed by other units. Biological sabotage testing was also handled at this facility: everything from poisons to chemical crop destruction. Siege of Changchun[edit] Chinese Red Army entering Changchun. Main article: Siege of Changchun On August 20, 1945 the city was captured by the Soviet Red Army and renamed Changchun.[34] The Russians maintained a presence in the city during the Chinese civil war until 1946. Kuomintang forces occupied the city in 1946, but were unable to hold the countryside against communist forces. The city fell to the communists in 1948 after the five-month Siege of Changchun by the People's Liberation Army. Between 10 and 30 percent[35] of the civilian population starved to death under the siege; estimates range from 150,000[36] to 330,000.[37] As of 2015 the PRC government avoids all mention of the siege.[38] People's Republic[edit] Changchun Liberation Monument Renamed Changchun by the People's Republic of China government, it became the capital of Jilin in 1954. The Changchun Film Studio is also one of the remaining film studios of the era. Changchun Film Festival has become a unique gala for film industries since 1992.[39] From the 1950s, Changchun was designated to become a center for China's automotive industry. Construction of the First Automobile Works (FAW) began in 1953[40] and production of the Jiefang CA-10 truck, based on the Soviet ZIS-150 started in 1956.[41] Soviet Russia lent assistance during these early years, providing technical support, tooling, and production machinery.[40] In 1958, FAW introduced the famous Hongqi (Red Flag) limousines[41] This series of cars are billed as "the official car for minister-level officials".[42] Changchun hosted the 2007 Winter Asian Games.[43] Geography[edit] Changchun and vicinities, NASA World Wind screenshot, 2005-05-18 Changchun lies in the middle portion of the Northeast China Plain. Its municipality area is located at latitude 43° 05′−45° 15′ N and longitude 124° 18′−127° 02' E. The total area of Changchun municipality is 20,571 km2 (7,943 sq mi), including metro areas of 2,583 square kilometres (997 sq mi), and a city proper area of 159 km2 (61 sq mi). The city is situated at a moderate elevation, ranging from 250 to 350 metres (820 to 1,150 ft) within its administrative region.[1] In the eastern portion of the city, there lies a small area of low mountains. The city is also situated at the crisscross point of the third east–westward "Europe-Asia Continental Bridge".[citation needed] Changchun prefecture is dotted with 222 rivers and lakes. The Yitong River, a small tributary of the Songhua River, runs through the city proper. Climate[edit] Changchun has a four-season, monsoon-influenced, humid continental climate (Köppen Dwa). Winters are long (lasting from November to March), cold, and windy, but dry, due to the influence of the Siberian anticyclone, with a January mean temperature of −15.1 °C (4.8 °F). Spring and fall are somewhat short transitional periods, with some precipitation, but are usually dry and windy. Summers are hot and humid, with a prevailing southeasterly wind due to the East Asian monsoon; July averages 23.1 °C (73.6 °F). Snow is usually light during the winter, and annual rainfall is heavily concentrated from June to August. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 47 percent in July to 66 percent in January and February, a typical year will see around 2,617 hours of sunshine, and a frost-free period of 140 to 150 days. Extreme temperatures have ranged from −33.0 °C (−27 °F) to 35.7 °C (96 °F).[44] [show]Climate data for Changchun Administrative divisions[edit] Changchun People's Government The sub-provincial city of Changchun has direct jurisdiction over 7 districts, 2 county-level cities and 1 County: Map NanguanKuanchengChaoyangErdaoLuyuanShuangyangJiutaiNong'an CountyYushu (city)Dehui (city) Name Simplified Chinese Hanyu Pinyin Population (2010 census) Area (km2) City proper Chaoyang District 朝阳区 Cháoyáng Qū 675,270 237 Nanguan District 南关区 Nánguān Qū 533,979 81 Kuancheng District 宽城区 Kuānchéng Qū 457,959 238 Erdao District 二道区 Èrdào Qū 402,090 452 Luyuan District 绿园区 Lùyuán Qū 602,072 216 Suburb Shuangyang District 双阳区 Shuāngyáng Qū 377,933 1,677 Jiutai District 九台区 Jiǔtái Qū 738,606 3375 Satellite cities Dehui 德惠市 Déhuì Shì 839,786 3,435 Yushu 榆树市 Yúshù Shì 1,160,969 4,712 Rural Nong'an County 农安县 Nóng'ān Xiàn 1,029,680 5,400 Demographics[edit] Historical population Year Pop. ±% 1932 104,305 —     1934 160,381 +53.8% 1939 415,473 +159.1% 1944 863,607 +107.9% 1953 855,197 −1.0% 1964 4,221,445 +393.6% 1982 5,744,769 +36.1% 1990 6,421,956 +11.8% 2000 7,135,439 +11.1% 2010 7,677,089 +7.6% Population size may be affected by changes in administrative divisions. In 1958, 5 counties were put under Changchun's jurisdiction, increasing the total population to over 4 million. According to the Sixth China Census, the total population of the City of Changchun reached 7.677 million in 2010.[46] The statistics in 2011 estimated the total population to be 7.59 million. The birth rate was 6.08 per thousand and the death rate was 5.51 per thousand. The urban area had a population of 3.53 million people. In 2010 the sex ratio of the city population was 102.10 males to 100 females.[46] Ethnic groups[edit] As in most of Northeastern China the ethnic makeup of Changchun is predominantly Han nationality (96.57 percent), with several other minority nationalities.[citation needed] Economy[edit] Changchun achieved a gross domestic product (GDP) of RMB332.9 billion in 2010, representing a rise of 15.3 percent year on year. Primary industry output increased by 3.3 percent to RMB25.27 billion. Secondary industry output experienced an increase of 19.0 percent, reaching RMB171.99 billion, while the tertiary industry output increased 12.6 percent to RMB135.64 billion. The GDP per capita of Changchun was ¥58,691 in 2012, which equates to $9338. The GDP of Changchun in 2012 was RMB445.66 billion and increased 12.0 percent compared with 2011. The primary industry grew 4.3 percent to RMB31.71 billion. Secondary industry increased by RMB229.19 billion, which is a rise of 13.1 percent year on year. Tertiary industry of Changchun in 2012 grew 11.8 percent and increased by RMB184.76 billion.[3] [47] A FAW-built Audi 100 The city's leading industries are production of automobiles, agricultural product processing, biopharmaceuticals, photo electronics, construction materials, and the energy industry.[6] Changchun is the largest automobile manufacturing, research and development center in China, producing 9 percent of the country's automobiles in 2009.[48] Changchun is home to China's biggest vehicle producer FAW (First Automotive Works) Group, which manufactured the first Chinese truck and car in 1956. The automaker's factories and associated housing and services occupies a substantial portion of the city's southwest end. Specific brands produced in Changchun includes the Red Flag luxury brand, as well as joint ventures with Audi, Volkswagen, and Toyota. In 2012, FAW sold 2.65 million units of auto. The sales revenue of FAW amounted to RMB 408.46 billion, reprensenting a rise of 10.8% on year.[6] As cradle of the auto industry, one of Changchun’s better known nicknames is "China's Detroit".[8] Manufacturing of transportation facilities and machinery is also among Changchun's main industries. 50 percent of China's passenger trains, and 10 percent of tractors are produced in Changchun. Changchun Railway Vehicles, one of the main branches of China CNR Corporation, has a joint venture established with Bombardier Transportation to build Movia metro cars for the Guangzhou Metro and Shanghai Metro,[49] and Rapid Transit Vehicle cars for the Tianjin Metro. Foreign direct investment in the city was US$3.68 billion in 2012, up 19.6% year on year.[6] In 2004 Coca-Cola set up a bottling plant in the city’s ETDZ with an investment of US$20 million.[50] Changchun hosts the yearly Changchun International Automobile Fair, Changchun Film Festival, Changchun Agricultural Fair, Education Exhibition and the Sculpture Exhibition. CRRC manufactures most of its bullet train carriages at its factory in Changchun. In November 2016, CRCC Changchun unveiled the first bullet train carriages in the world with sleeper berths, thus extending their use for overnight passages across China. They would be capable of running in ultra low temperature environments. Nicknamed Panda, the new bullet trains are capable of running at 250 kmph, operate at -40 degrees Celsius, have wifi hubs and contain sleeper berths that fold into seats during the day.[51] Other large companies in Changchun include: Yatai Group, established in 1993 and listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 1995. It has developed into a major conglomerate involved in a wide range of industries including property development, cement manufacturing, securities, coal mining, pharmaceuticals and trading.[52] Jilin Grain Group, a major processor of grains.[53] Development zones[edit] Changchun Automotive Economic Trade and Development Zone[edit] A Hongqi H7 manufactured in Changchun's FAW Company on display at the 2012 Hannover-Messe Founded in 1993, the Changchun Automotive Trade Center was re-established as the Changchun Automotive Economic Trade and Development Zone in 1996. The development zone is situated in the southwest of the city and is adjacent to the China First Automobile Works Group Corporation and the Changchun Film ThemeCity. It covers a total area of approximately 300,000 square metres (3,229,173 square feet). Within the development zone lies an exhibition center and five specially demarcated industrial centers. The Changchun Automobile Wholesale Center began operations in 1994 and is the largest auto-vehicle and spare parts wholesale center in China. The other centers include a resale center for used auto-vehicles, a specialized center for industrial/commercial vehicles, and a tire wholesale center.[50] Changchun High Technology Development Zone[edit] The zone is one of the first 27 state-level advanced technology development zones and is situated in the southern part of the city, covering a total area of 49 km2 (19 sq mi). There are 18 full-time universities and colleges, 39 state and provincial-level scientific research institutions, and 11 key national laboratories. The zone is mainly focusing on developing five main industries, namely bio-engineering, automobile engineering, new material fabrication, photo-electricity, and information technology. Changchun Economic and Technological Development Zone[edit] Established in April 1993, the zone enjoys all the preferential policies stipulated for economic and technological development zones of coastal open cities.[50] The total area of CETDZ is 112.72 square kilometres (43.52 square miles), of which 30 square kilometres (12 square miles) has been set aside for development and utilization.[54] It is located 5 kilometres (3 miles) from downtown Changchun, 2 km (1.2 mi) from the freight railway station and 15 km (9 mi) from the Changchun international airport. The zone is devoted to developing five leading industries: namely automotive parts and components, photoelectric information, bio-pharmaceutical, fine processing of foods, and new building materials. In particular, high-tech and high value added projects account for over 80 percent of total output. In 2006 the zone's total fixed assets investment rose to RMB38.4 billion. Among the total of 1656 enterprises registered are 179 that are foreign-funded. The zone also witnessed a total industrial output of RMB 277 billion in 2007.[50] Infrastructure[edit] Changchun is a very compact city, planned by the Japanese with a layout of open avenues and public squares. The city is developing its city layout in a long-term bid to alleviate pressure on limited land, aid economic development and absorb a rising population. According to a draft plan up until 2020, the downtown area will expand southwards to form a new city center around Changchun World Sculpture Park, Weixing Square and their outskirts, and the new development zone.[50] Railways[edit] Changchun Railway Station See also: Changchun Railway Vehicles Changchun has three passenger rail stations, most trains only stop at the central Changchun Railway Station (simplified Chinese: 长春站; traditional Chinese: 長春站), where there are multiple daily departures to other northeast cities such as Jilin City, Harbin, Shenyang, and Dalian, as well as other major cities throughout the country such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The Harbin–Dalian High-Speed Railway which runs through three provinces in northeastern China, has a stop in Changchun.[55] The new Changchun West Railway Station, situated in the western end of urbanized area, is the station for the high-speed trains of the Harbin–Dalian High-Speed Railway.[56] Despite once having the most complex tram system in Northern China, there is now only one remaining route open, route 54 (see Changchun Tram). However, Changchun is notable for having China's first urban light rail system, opened in 2002, which was developed from the existing tramway system. There is currently one line encompassing 14.6 km (9.1 mi) of track with plans to expand the system to an eventual 179 km (111 mi) of track.[50] Road network[edit] Changchun is linked to the national highway network through the Changchun–Harbin Expressway, the Changchun–Jilin–Hunchun Expressway and the busiest section in the province, the Changchun–Jilin North Highway. This section connects the two biggest cities in Jilin and is the trunk line for the social and economic communication of the two cities.[50] Changchun is served by a comprehensive bus system—most buses (and the tram) charge 1 Yuan (元) per ride. Private automobiles are becoming very common on the city's congested streets. Bicycles are relatively rare compared to other northeastern Chinese cities, but mopeds, as well as pedal are relatively common. Air[edit] Main article: Changchun Longjia International Airport Changchun Longjia International Airport located 31.2 kilometres (19.4 miles) north-east of Changchun urban area. The airport's construction began in 1998, and was intended to replace the operations of the older Changchun Dafangshen Airport, which was built in 1941. The airport opened for passenger service on August 27, 2005.[57] The operation of the airport is shared by both Changchun and nearby Jilin City.[58] The airport has scheduled flights to major cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. There are also scheduled international flights between Changchun and overseas cities such as Bangkok,[59] Osaka[60] and Khabarovsk.[61] Military[edit] Changchun is headquarters of the 16th Group Army of the People's Liberation Army, one of the four group armies that comprise the Northern Theater Command responsible for defending China's northeastern borders with Russia, Mongolia and North Korea. Education[edit] Universities and colleges[edit] PRC State key laboratory in Jilin University Changchun has 27 regular institutions of full-time tertiary education with a total enrollment of approximate 160,000 students. Jilin University and Northeast Normal University are two key universities in China.[39] Jilin University is also one of the largest universities in China, with more than 60,000 students. Changchun Normal University Changchun Taxation College Changchun University Changchun University of Science and Technology Changchun University of Chinese Medicine[62] Jilin College of the Arts Jilin Huaqiao Foreign Languages Institute, a private college offering bachelor study programs in foreign languages, international trade management and didactics[63] Jilin University Northeast Normal University Jilin Engineering Normal University Middle schools[edit] High School Attached to Northeast Normal University Affiliated Middle School to Jilin University No.72 Middle School of Changchun Primary and secondary schools[edit] International schools include: Changchun American International School Deutsche Internationale Schule Changchun Sports and stadiums[edit] Changchun Sports Centre As a major Chinese city, Changchun is home to many professional sports teams: Jilin Northeast Tigers (Basketball), is a competitive team which has long been one of the major clubs fighting in China top level league, CBA. Changchun Yatai Football Club, who have played home soccer matches at the Development Area Stadium since 2009.[64] In 2007 they won the Chinese Super League.[65] There are two major multi-purpose stadiums in Changchun, including Changchun City Stadium and Development Area Stadium. Changchun Wuhuan Gymnasium, the main venue of the 2007 Asian Winter Games. It has an indoor speed skating arena, Jilin Provincial Speed Skating Rink,[66] as one of five in China.[67] Jinlin Tseng Tou[68] are a professional ice hockey team based in the city and compete in the Russian based Supreme Hockey League. They are one of two Chinese based teams to enter the league during the 2017-18 season. The other being based in Harbin, China. Film[edit] Changchun Film Group Corporation Changchun Film Festival People[edit] Ei-ichi Negishi (根岸 英), 2010 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, was born in Japan Imperial-era Hsinking Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波/刘晓波), 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, was born in Changchun The Manchukuo Imperial Army was the ground force of the military of the Empire of Manchukuo, a puppet state established by Imperial Japan in Manchuria, a region of northeastern China. The force was primarily used for fighting against Communist and Nationalist guerrillas in Manchukuo but also took part in battle against the Soviet Red Army on several occasions. It initially consisted of former National Revolutionary Army troops of the "Young Marshal" Zhang Xueliang who were recruited after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria en masse, but eventually expanded to include new volunteers and conscripts. The Imperial Army increased in size from about 111,000 troops in 1933 to an estimated strength of between 170,000–220,000 soldiers at its peak in 1945, being composed of Han Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, Koreans, Japanese, and White Russians. Throughout its existence the majority of its troops were considered to be mostly unreliable by their Japanese officers and advisers, due to poor training, equipment, and morale. Contents  [hide]  1 History 1.1 Establishment 1.2 Counterinsurgency operations 1.3 Defense of the border 1.4 Final years and defeat 2 Weapons and equipment 2.1 Uniforms 2.2 Small arms 2.3 Artillery 2.4 Armored vehicles 3 Organization 3.1 Ranks 3.2 Order of battle 4 Special units 5 See also 6 Sources 6.1 Citations 6.2 References 7 External links History[edit] Establishment[edit] Military exercise of Manchukuo Imperial Army Manchukuo Imperial Army generals After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931 and the creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo on 18 February 1932, they began raising an army to help them police the local population. The Manchukuoan armed forces were officially established by the Army and Navy Act of 15 April 1932 to maintain order in the new country. Former Qing dynasty emperor Puyi, who was later known by the era name Kangde upon his ascension to the throne of Manchukuo in 1934, had supreme command of the land, naval, and air forces. The Imperial Army's initial recruits came from the former Chinese Nationalist troops in the army of Zhang Xueliang, the warlord who had ruled Manchuria prior to the Japanese invasion. Large numbers of Chinese soldiers had surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Army and were recruited en masse into the new Manchukuoan forces. About 60,000 of these troops gave themselves up and many more were later absorbed into the Imperial Army. Other recruits included local bandit groups and volunteers.[1] Many of the Nationalist troops that formerly served under the Young Marshal Zhang Xueliang had received poor training and had little loyalty to anyone, with a high proportion of them being opium addicts. As a result, the new force was regarded as mostly unreliable by the Japanese, who decided to employ the Young Marshal's former troops because they provided a numerically large and already-trained (albeit poorly) army. Their performance against bandit groups was dismal. It was reported that in May 1932 a unit of 2,000 Manchukuoan troops were "driven like sheep" by a group of outlaws they were operating against. Their lack of loyalty to the new regime was demonstrated by the significant number of mutinies that occurred in those years. In August 1932, a unit of about 2,000 men deserted their garrison at Wukimiho, taking their weapons over to the anti-Japanese guerrillas. Likewise, the entire 7th Cavalry Regiment revolted around the same time and joined the partisans as well. According to Japanese officers, there were many cases of Manchukuoan troops giving their weapons to the enemies they were sent to attack.[1] In its first form the Manchukuo Imperial Army was organized in seven Provincial Guard Armies (one for each province), with a total of about 111,000 men. An Independent Cavalry Brigade was created to provide a garrison for the capital of Hsinking, and the Manchukuo Imperial Guard was raised in February 1933 from men of Manchu ethnic backgrounds as part of the capital garrison to provide protection for Emperor Puyi and senior government officials. The Japanese intended to replace the unreliable former troops of Zhang Xueliang with those trained by them and the government of Manchukuo as soon as circumstances permitted. As part of this effort, a new law signed in 1934 stated that only those trained by the Manchukuoan government could serve as officers. It was done to remove those former Nationalist officers who had been in the Young Marshal's forces and break the tradition of warlordism.[1] In 1938, military academies were established in Mukden and Hsinking order to provide the Imperial Army with more reliable troops. A Central Training School for junior officers was opened in Mukden. The first class of 200 officer cadets graduated in November 1938, followed by 70 others in January 1939. Another class graduated in 1940, which included 97 cadets. After this, the number of native volunteers had dried up and the school accepted 174 Japanese recruits, who went on to serve in both the Manchukuoan army and the Japanese reserves. The military academy in Hsiking had its first class graduation in July 1938, which included 34 cadets. In addition, a signal school, medical school, and gendarmerie training school were established in Manchukuo. A military academy specifically for ethnic Mongols was established in 1934, taking in 100 cadets for a two-year course. The course included religious teachings and other classes to foster a patriotic Mongol spirit in the cadets. This first class graduated in the late 1930s.[2] An important factor that allowed for the expansion of the Manchukuoan army was conscription. The Military Supplies Requisition Law of 13 May 1937 allowed the Manchukuoan and Japanese armies to conscript laborers, as well as allowing them to appropriate land and materials for the purposes of keeping order.[3] The draft of soldiers did not begin until April 1940 and was not officially signed into law until 1941, which allowed every able-bodied male between the ages of eighteen and forty to be called up. All youths were required to get a physical and then 10% of them were selected for service. Education, physical fitness, and their families' loyalty to the regime were things taken into consideration for selecting conscripts. When this was not enough, the Japanese forcibly drafted males from across the country into the army, and many efforts were taken to foster a Manchukuoan patriotic spirit among the troops.[4] Counterinsurgency operations[edit] Main article: Pacification of Manchukuo Manchukuo Imperial Army officers Manchukuo Army marching band In its early years, the Empire of Manchukuo was home to many resistance groups that fought against it and the Japanese occupation forces. Many of those guerrilla fighters were civilians, but a great many were former soldiers of Zhang Xueliang's army that decided to continue to resist on their own rather than surrender or leave Manchuria. One of the more notable resistance leaders was Ma Zhanshan, whose army fought rearguard actions as the Young Marshal's main force retreated south. The Japanese were impressed with him and decided to recruit him by offering a large sum of money to the general. Ma initially accepted the offer from Colonel Kenji Doihara and briefly served as the state of Manchukuo's war minister. He used the opportunity to equip and arm his troops before deserting en masse to fight against the Japanese again.[5] The number of insurgents in Manchukuo swelled from 130,000 initially to more than 300,000. The problem became so severe that the Japanese launched a number of anti-guerrilla operations throughout the early and mid-1930s. The operations saw the usage of Imperial Army troops in support of the IJA and were largely successful, confining the remaining insurgents to the northeast of the country and greatly reducing their numbers.[6] They were complicated by the fact that many of the Manchukuoan troops had little loyalty to their new regime and frequently switched sides, or warned the bandits of the coming attacks. These operations often involved a smaller vanguard of Japanese troops doing much of the fighting with a larger Manchukuoan contingent that played a supporting role. A law enacted in September 1932 titled "Provisional Punishment of Bandits" allowed for captured insurgents to be executed. The War Ministry of Manchukuo provided monetary rewards for officers of units that killed insurgents. The Imperial Army suffered significant casualties during the period from 1932 to 1935 during these operations, losing 1,470 killed and 1,261 wounded. The first campaign conducted by Manchukuoan troops independently of the Japanese did not occur until 1936, when some 16,000 men took part in fighting the 1st Route Army, capturing or killing more than 2,000 insurgents.[7] Some of the notable early operations that Manchukuoan troops were involved in included: Subjugation of the Anti-Jilin Army (March–June 1932): A campaign undertaken by Japanese forces and several Manchukuoan units to clear out 20,000 Nationalist troops from the Jilin region. The units involved were the 7th and 8th Infantry Brigades along with the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Brigades, for a total of 7,000 men. Several ships of the River Defense Fleet also took part. The Nationalists were pushed back to the north of the province and the Sungari River was secured.[6] First Tungpientao Clearance (May–June 1932): When a Manchukuoan commander revolted and surrounded the Japanese consulate in Tungho a force of Japanese police was sent to relieve it, along with 1st and 2nd detachments of the Fengtien Guard Army as support. They totaled 4,000 men. Although the mutineers were forced to retreat, the Manchukuoan troops performed poorly and took considerable losses.[6] Ma Zhanshan Subjugation (April–July 1932): A campaign that was launched against the headquarters of Ma Zhanshan. Manchukuoan forces numbered 5,000 men and included detachments from the Heilongjiang Guard Army. They fought alongside Japanese troops during the operation. The poor performance of the Manchukuoans during the fight allowed his guerrillas to escape.[6] Li Hai-ching Subjugation (May 1932): An attack launched by a force of 6,000 troops from the 1st Infantry and 2nd Cavalry Brigades of the Heilongjiang Guard Army, the 1st Cavalry Brigade of the Jilin Guard Army, and the 1st, 4th, and 7th detachments of the Taoliao Army. It fought against a group of 10,000 insurgents in the southern Heilongjiang province. The joint Japanese-Manchukuoan force successfully drove out the insurgents.[6] First Feng Chang-hai Subjugation (June 1932): A series of skirmishes between the units of the Jilin Guard Army and local guerrillas. Manchukuoan forces included the Jilin Railway Guards, Cavalry Corps and the 1st Infantry Brigade, in total 1,600 men. The Manchukuoans lost 150 men killed while claiming to have killed 1,000 guerrillas.[6] Second Feng Chang-hai Subjugation (June–July 1932): An operation to clear out several districts from anti-Japanese fighters. The Manchukuoan contingent included units from the Taoliao and Jilin Guard Armies. The force totaled 7,000 men, and with Japanese assistance managed to drive out 15,000 insurgents.[6] Mongolian Bandit Subjugation Operation (August 1932): Mongolian bandits attacked the Ssutao railway line and captured a small town. A small force of Manchukuoans was sent to reclaim the area and forced the Mongolians to retreat.[6] Third Feng Chang-hai Subjugation (September 1932): A force of 7,000 men of the Jilin Guard Army attacked 10,000 bandits who were retreating from their earlier defeat in July. They were attempting to cross the border out of Manchukuo into the Chinese province of Jehol. Although they were surrounded, the majority of the bandits were able to escape.[6] Su Ping-wei Subjugation ("Machouli Incident") (September–December 1932): A unit that had pledged loyalty to Manchukuo under Su Bingwen revolted against the Japanese. A force of 4,500 men took part in putting down the revolt and succeeded after heavy fighting, forcing Sun Bingwen to retreat into Soviet territory.[6] Originally, the Manchu princess and soldier Yoshiko Kawashima wanted to negotiate with him, but the plans were cancelled. Japanese propaganda nonetheless published exaggerated tales of her exploits during the revolt.[8] Second Tungpientao Subjugation (October 1932): The Fengtien Guard Army cleared a district of guerrillas, killing 270 men and taking another 1,000 prisoner. About 8,000 Manchukuoan troops acted as support for a much smaller Japanese force.[6] Li Hai-ching Subjugation (October 1932): A group of 3,000 insurgents attempted to attack the south Heilongjiang province before a joint Manchukuoan-Japanese force launched a counterattack. It then retreated into the Jehol province.[6] Ki Feng-Lung District Subjugation (November 1932): An operation to clear the Ki Feng-Lung district of insurgents, involving about 5,000 Manchukuoan troops.[6] Third Tungpientao Subjugation (November–December 1932): An operation launched to eliminate the remnants of the bandit groups that remained after the second subjugation campaign. It involved about 5,000 Manchukuoan soldiers. The operation was a succes and resulted in the capture of 1,800 bandits, some of whom may have been recruited into the Imperial Army.[6] Kirin Province Subjugation (October–November 1933): A large-scale operation that occurred in the Jilin province, attempting to free the entire region from insurgents and involving 35,000 Manchukuoan troops. It involved the whole of the Jilin Guard Army as well as units from several other formations. It was successful and led to the deaths of a number of prominent anti-Japanese leaders.[6] Defense of the border[edit] Manchukuo army cavalry When the Nationalist government refused for the Great Wall of China to become the new border between Manchukuo and China, the Japanese Kwantung Army launched an invasion of the Rehe province. Supporting this force were several units of the Manchukuo Imperial Army, which totaled about 42,000 men, under the command of General Zhang Haipeng. The fighting lasted just over a month, from 23 February to 28 March 1933. Western news reports wrote that some Manchukuoan units fought fairly well, with one detachment capturing 5,000 Chinese troops.[9] When the Second Sino–Japanese War broke out in July 1937, Nationalist Army units attacked Manchukuo, and in response the Imperial Army was partially mobilized. Several units were deployed along the border. Some clashes took place with Nationalist troops throughout August, and in most cases the Manchukuoans ended up being defeated. The arrival of a Japanese Colonel Misaki who took command of the Manchukuoan units improved the situation somewhat. Their performance improved during the campaign, but they took considerable losses nonetheless. The Imperial Army lost 60 killed and 143 missing in action.[10] The Manchukuoan Imperial Army saw some action against the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts, which played out largely in the Manchuria region. When the Battle of Lake Khasan occurred in the summer of 1938, Manchukuoan units were mainly used as reserves and saw little fighting, and reportedly some regiments mutinied during the battle. In May 1939, skirmishes broke out between the Mongolian cavalry (Mongolia was an ally of the Soviet Union) and Manchukuoan troops. The battle escalated as both sides brought in reinforcements and after four months of fighting the Battle of Khalkhin Gol ended up being a defeat for the Japanese and Manchukuo. About 18,000 Manchukuoans took part in the battle, mainly cavalrymen of the 7th and 8th Cavalry Regiments. They were initially held in reserve and were sent to the front line in July shortly after being reinforced to divisional strength. These units were positioned on the left flank of the Kwantung Army as it advanced towards the Khalkhin Gol river. The 1st Cavalry Regiment was then sent into battle in the northern sector in August as the situation deteriorated for the Japanese. Although the Manchukuoan units did not perform well overall, the Kwantung Army relied on them due to its desperation for manpower. After the conflict, the Japanese believed that the Manchukuo Imperial Army performed decently and saw reason to expand it.[9] Final years and defeat[edit] Park Chung-hee as a regimental aide in the Manchukuo Imperial Army. During the period from 1940 to 1945, the Manchukuo Imperial Army mostly saw action against Chinese Communist guerrillas. Most of the fighting was undertaken by elite units while the majority of the army was still considered to be too unreliable by the Japanese. The average Manchukuoan units were used for basic security and guard duties. Some attempts were taken to improve the army, however, and it did receive heavier artillery and armor from Japan. When the Soviets renounced their non-aggression pact with Japan, preparations began for the coming invasion of Manchukuo. Although the Kangde Emperor's army was reasonably well-trained and decently-armed by 1945 it was still no match for the much larger and more experienced Red Army. Its armored corps, consisting of some elderly tankettes and armored cars, did not compare to the much larger Soviet tank forces. The main strength of the Manchukuoan army by that time was its cavalry and that branch did see much fighting during the invasion.[11] The Soviet invasion force taking part in the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation entered the state on 8 August 1945, consisting of 76 battle-hardened divisions from the European front, and including 4,500 tanks. The massive force easily swept aside both the depleted Kwantung Army and its Manchukuoan allies. In the early days of the assault small units of Manchukuoan cavalry saw action against the Red Army. When the Soviets reached Hailar they quickly forced the Japanese and Manchukuoan garrison in the city to surrender. The city of Fuchin fell on 11 August despite Manchukuoan and Japanese resistance, forcing them to abandon the city and retreat to the south and east. Other units in the region continued to fight until 13 August. The Manchukuoan 7th Infantry Brigade surrendered the city of Chiamu-ssu on 16 August. Manchukuoan cavalry on the right flank of the front engaged the Soviets and Mongolian troops in Inner Mongolia. On 14 August, this force defeated a small Manchukuoan cavalry unit on the way towards its objectives of Kalgan and Dolonnor.[11] As the Soviets advanced, mutinies broke out in the capital of Hsinking and lasted from 13–19 August. Some Manchukuoan units rose up and killed their Japanese officers in revenge for the years of brutal treatment. A few Manchukuoan regulars and auxiliaries remained loyal and continued to fight on alongside the Japanese but they were the minority. Most of the Manchukuoan units melted away into the countryside after the first week or so unless they were stopped by their Japanese advisers. During the conflict, the Soviets captured 30,700 non-Japanese soldiers and killed about 10,000. Among those were 16,100 Chinese, 3,600 Mongolians, 700 Manchus and 10,300 Koreans. It is presumed that most of the Koreans were Kwantung Army auxiliaries while the rest were soldiers of the Manchukuoan Army (although some Koreans did serve in the Manchukuoan forces, such as former Chief of General Staff of the South Korean Army Paik Sun-yup and President of South Korea Park Chung-hee).[12] Among those troops were also some White Russians. However, the majority of the former Manchukuoan Imperial Army remained in the countryside. Many of them joined the Communists since the Nationalists murdered those former Manchukuoan troops that they ran into, and as a result these former puppet troops provided an important source of manpower for the Communist Party in the region. Perhaps more importantly they also brought with them large amounts of weapons and equipment.[11] Weapons and equipment[edit] Uniforms[edit] Soldiers of the Manchukuo Imperial Army. The Manchukuo Imperial Army's first military uniforms were indistinguishable from those of the local resistance groups forces and bandits, with Zhang Xueliang's former soldiers just continuing to wear Nationalist uniforms with yellow armbands to distinguish them. The problem was that it allowed soldiers on both sides to change their armbands, adding to the confusion. This issue was rectified by 1934, with new uniforms in a style similar to that of the Imperial Japanese Army, and using a color-code system on the collar badges (black for military police, red for infantry, green for cavalry, yellow for artillery, brown for engineer and blue for transport). The replacing of their old uniforms took place in the mid-1930s, and those who were stationed in the capital and big cities received new uniforms before those in the outlying towns. During the decade the Japanese-style uniform was gradually replaced with a unique Manchukuoan one.[13] Small arms[edit] The early Manchukuo Imperial Army inherited a hodgepodge of weapons from the former Kuomintang arsenals of the Young Marshal, which created tremendous problems with maintenance and supply. For example, there were 26 kinds of rifles and over 20 kinds of pistols in use in 1932. A priority was made to unify weaponry around the Arisaka Type 38 Rifle as a standard, along with the Type 3 Heavy Machine Gun and Type 11 Light Machine Gun. Artillery units were to be equipped with the Type 38 Field Gun and Type 41 75 mm Mountain Gun. By 1935, 50,000 Type 38 cavalry rifles had been imported from Japan and the machine guns were replaced over the next two or three years. By the start of the Pacific War, the weaponry of the Manchukuo Imperial Army was the almost same as the Japanese Army. Mauser pistols were used by soldiers and Browning and Colt pistols were used by the officers. The rear-line defense units and militias were given captured Chinese and out-dated Japanese rifles. Some ZB-30 machine guns, popular among the Nationalists, found their way into Manchukuoan service, along with Japanese copies of German and French models. IN 1936 some of the ZBs were replaced by Type 11 light machine guns. By 1933, the number of guns in service was 77,268 rifles, 441 light machine guns and 329 heavy machine guns.[14] Military arsenals at Fengtien and Mukden were established to produce rifles, machine guns and artillery, as well as repair them. Ammunition and small arms were also ordered from the private factories in Manchukuo.[14] This is a list of standard infantry weapons in use in the Manchukuo Imperial Army:[14] Mauser Type 1 Pistol Mauser Type 2 or 3 Pistol Type 38 Rifle Type 99 Rifle Type 38 Cavalry Rifle Liao Type 13 Rifle Type 11 light machine gun ZB-30 Type 96 light machine gun Type 3 heavy machine gun Type 92 heavy machine gun Manchurian Mauser Rifle Artillery[edit] A Type 41 mountain gun during a training exercise, 1943 As with the small arms, the heavier equipment also initially came from Chinese sources. Due to the shortage of field artillery in the Nationalist Army the majority of the weapons confiscated from the Young Marshal's forces were light infantry and mountain guns. The most common among those were German an Austro-Hungarian mountain guns. By 1933 the number of artillery pieces being used was 281 infantry guns, 88 mountain guns and 70 field guns. The Japanese also issued their own artillery to the Manchukuoan army in an attempt to standardize its equipment. Many anti-aircraft guns were also used because of the potential threat of a Soviet invasion.[14] Type 38 75 mm Field Gun Type 41 75 mm Mountain Gun Krupp mountain guns Chinese 7 cm-caliber mortars Chinese 75 mm field guns Hand Grenade (stick type) Type 10 Grenade Discharger Armored vehicles[edit] The Manchukuoan Imperial Army possessed a small and mostly underdeveloped armored force. Their tanks included 8 Renault NC-27 light tanks, 20 Carden-Loyd Mk VI tankettes, and possibly a handful of Renault FT-17 light tanks left over from the Young Marshal's arsenals. The army received no tanks from the Japanese until the 1940s, when the IJA "loaned" a company of 10 obsolete Type 94 tankettes. They also fielded a varied of armored cars, among them some British and French models, along with 30 Japanese Type 92 Heavy Armoured Cars. The latter were mostly used by the armored branch of the military academy. Some armored cars were used mainly to transport troops during anti-bandit operations and performed well in that role.[14] Organization[edit] There were two standard structures for a mixed brigade of the Manchukuoan Army. The first consisted of a headquarters, two infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, and one artillery company for a total of 2,414 men and 817 horses. The second consisted of a headquarters, one infantry regiment, one cavalry regiment, and one artillery company, totaling 1,515 men and 700 horses. Cavalry brigades likewise had two standard structures. The first was composed of a headquarters, three cavalry regiments, and an artillery company, for a total of 1,500 men and 1,500 horses. The second had a headquarters, two cavalry regiments, and an artillery company, for a total of 1,075 men and 1,075 horses. The standard structure of an infantry regiment included a headquarters, two infantry battalions, two machine gun companies, and two artillery companies, totaling 899 men and 117 horses. A cavalry regiment had a structure that consisted of a headquarters, three cavalry companies, and one machine gun company, for a total of 458 men and 484 horses. A training unit had a headquarters, teaching section, an infantry regiment, a cavalry regiment, an artillery regiment, and a cadet regiment, totaling 1,614 men and 717 horses.[2] Those were their standard structures on paper, and given the disparity in the sizes of different units it is likely that those structures were not adhered to completely, if at all.[1] A military adviser department existed under the Manchukuo War Ministry which assigned Japanese advisers to every Imperial Army garrison and district army. Due to the large number of former Nationalist officers in the Manchukuoan forces, they frequently came into conflict with their Japanese advisers. Eventually the Japanese officers were able to gain considerable control over Manchukuoan units.[15] Ranks[edit] Manchukuoan troops wore collar tabs that showed their rank. The system they used initially was the same as that of the Imperial Japanese Army, before the color on the tabs was changed to maroon in 1937.[13] Rank Epaulette Emperor 皇帝 Supreme Commander 總司令 Supreme Commander rank insignia (Manchukuo).png General 將官 Colonel General 上將 General of the army rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Lieutenant General 中将 Lieutenant General rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Major General 少将 Major General rank insignia (Manchukuo).png High officers 校官 Colonel 上校 Colonel rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Lieutenant-colonel 中校 Lieutenant Colonel rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Major 少校 Major rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Officiers 尉官 Captain 上尉 Senior Lieutenant rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Lieutenant 中尉 Lieutenant rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Junior Lieutenant 少尉 Junior Lieutenant rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Lower officers 准士官 Warrant Officer 准尉 Warrant Officer rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Sergeants 副士官 Staff Sergeant 上士 Senior Sergeant rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Sergeant 中士 Sergeant rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Junior Sergeant 下士 Junior Sergeant rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Soldiers 兵 Lance Corporal 上等兵 Senior private rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Private first class 一等兵 Private first class rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Private second class 二等兵 Private second class rank insignia (Manchukuo).png Order of battle[edit] 1932 The early Manchukuo Imperial Army organization is listed below. Unit troop strengths are in parenthesis. The total strength of the Manchukuo Imperial Army at its foundation was 111,044 men, as many of the former Nationalist troops that had surrendered were deemed to be too unreliable by the Japanese were demobilized.[1] Fengtien Guard Army (20,541 men) Headquarters (678) Teaching unit (2,718) 1st Mixed Brigade (2,467) 2nd Mixed Brigade (2,104) 3rd Mixed Brigade (2,467) 4th Mixed Brigade (1,755) 5th Mixed Brigade (1,291) 6th Mixed Brigade (2,238) 7th Mixed Brigade (2,014) 1st Cavalry Brigade (1,098) 2nd Cavalry Brigade (1,625) Jilin Guard Army (34,287 men) Headquarters (1,447) 2nd Teaching Unit (2,718) Infantry Detachment (1,163) Cavalry Detachment (1,295) 1st Infantry Brigade (2,301) 2nd Infantry Brigade (2,343) 3rd Infantry Brigade (2,496) 4th Infantry Brigade (3,548) 5th Infantry Brigade (3,244) 7th Infantry Brigade (2,343) 8th Infantry Brigade (2,301) 1st Cavalry Brigade (1,867) 2nd Cavalry Brigade (1,598) 3rd Cavalry Brigade (1,598) 4th Cavalry Brigade (2,037) Yilan Unit (706) North Manchuria Railway Guard Force (151) Sanrin Unit (1,452) River Defense Fleet (640 men) Heilongjiang Guard Army (25,162 men) Headquarters (1,016) 3rd Teaching Unit (2,718) 1st Mixed Brigade (3,085) 2nd Mixed Brigade (3,085) 3rd Mixed Brigade (3,085) 4th Mixed Brigade (3,085) 5th Mixed Brigade (1,934) 1st Cavalry Brigade (2,244) 2nd Cavalry Brigade (2,244) 3rd Cavalry Brigade (2,666) East Daxing'anling Guard Army (1,818) North Daxing'anling Guard Army (874) South Daxing'anling Guard Army (1,682) Rehe Guard Army (17,945) Headquarters (301) Artillery Unit (854) Cavalry Unit (172) Infantry Unit (1,294) Chengde Area Forces (4,783) Chifeng Area Forces (3,414) Chaoyang Area Forces (3,977) Weichang Area forces (3,760) Seian Army (2,018) 1934 In August 1934 the Manchukuo Imperial Army was reorganized into five district armies, each divided into two or three zones. Each zone had one or two Mixed Brigades assigned to it, as well as a training unit. The total strength of the Manchukuo Imperial Army at this time was 72,329 men. The new organization was:[16] 1st District Army "Fengtien" - General Yu Chih-shan (12,321 men) 6 Mixed Brigades 2nd District Army "Kirin" - General Chi Hsing (13,185 men) 4 Mixed Brigades, 3 Cavalry Brigades 3rd District Army "Qiqihar" - General Chang Wen-tao (13,938 men) 5 Mixed Brigades, 1 Cavalry Brigade 4th District Army "Harbin" - General Yu Cheng-shen (17,827 men) 8 Mixed Brigades, 1 Cavalry Brigade 5th District Army "Chengde" - General Chang Hai-peng (9,294 men) 3 Mixed Brigades, 1 Cavalry Brigade Independent units: East Hingganling Guard Army West Hingganling Guard Army North Hingganling Guard Army South Hingganling Guard Army Seian Guard Army 1st Xingjing Cavalry Brigade River Fleet 1940s By the 1940s the manpower of the Manchukuo Imperial Army had increased to over 200,000 men according to Soviet intelligence sources. They reported the army had the following units:[17] 1st Division (3 infantry regiments, 1 artillery regiment) 1st Guards Brigade (2 infantry regiments of 2 battalions, 1 mortar company) 1st Cavalry Division (2 cavalry brigades, 1 battalion of horse artillery) 10 Infantry Brigades (2 infantry regiments of 2 battalions, 1 mortar company) 6 Cavalry Brigades (2 cavalry regiments, 1 battery of horse artillery) 21 Mixed Brigades (1 infantry regiment, 1 cavalry regiment, 1 battery mountain artillery) 2 Independent Brigades 7 Independent Cavalry Regiments 11 Artillery Units (one per District) 5 Anti Aircraft Regiments 1945 Sources differ on how many troops the Imperial Army fielded in 1945, ranging from 170,000[18] to 220,000.[17] Its organization on the eve of the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation was as follows:[18] 8 infantry divisions 7 cavalry divisions 14 infantry and cavalry brigades Special units[edit] See also: Manchukuo Imperial Guard and Gando Special Force When Puyi first became the head of state of Manchukuo in 1932 with the title of "Chief Executive", several units were formed to defend him and the capital of Hsinking. Those included the Manchukuo Imperial Guards, charged with his personal protection as well as to serve as an honor guard on ceremonial occasions. The other was the Independent Cavalry Corps, formally the 4th Cavalry Brigade, which had taken part in the invasion of Jehol in March 1933. A special guard corps was also created in the Fengtien province, and eventually every province raised one. It performed well in combat. One of the more well-known irregular forces of the Imperial Army was an anti-bandit force of about 5,000 under the command of Yoshiko Kawashima, a Manchu princess and relative of Puyi.[19] In the early 1930s the Japanese formed a "Mongolian Independence Army" out of ethnic Mongols living in Manchukuo. The source of recruits were mostly bandits and other undesirables, with Japanese advisers having total control over the new force. The early army had about 6,000 men in total divided into three armies of 2,000 men each. The army, once established, became part of the regular Manchukuoan Army as mainly a cavalry force. It later consisted of nine cavalry regiments and waged its own war against bandits independently of the Manchukuoans with some success, also taking part in the 1933 invasion of Jehol. In 1938 it was expanded to a size of twelve cavalry regiments, two artillery regiments, two independent mountain batteries and a motorized transport unit. Two years later it was completely integrated into the Manchukuoan army and dissolved, though Mongolian units continued to perform well in operations.[19] A special Korean detachment was formed in 1937 out of ethnic Koreans by a local businessman who was of Korean descent. The Japanese liked the idea as they believed Koreans had no loyalty to the Chinese and would be more dependable. All posts were filled in December 1938 and the first class of recruits arrived at a training center in 1939. It was initially small and consisted a headquarters, and infantry company and mortar battery, later being expanded with the addition of a second infantry company in 1940. The unit saw heavy action against Communist guerrillas and bandits, being regarded by the Japanese as a ruthless and effective unit. The detachment came to be known for its brutality and was one of the few puppet units that earned the respect of its Japanese superiors due to its martial spirit.[19] Following the Russian Civil War many White Russians ended up in Machuria, and the Japanese decided to use this motivated anti-Soviet force. They were initially used to guard railways and other important areas and the early success of the unit caused it to be expanded. However, the Japanese kept the White Russian troops under their direct command. They worked with the Russian Fascist Party of Konstantin Rodzaevsky to form this unit, and although there was one White Russian revolt in 1933, the Japanese considered them useful enough to keep employing them. In 1936 they were all unified into one detachment, the Asano Brigade, named after Colonel Asano Takashi, the Japanese adviser who organized it. It grew from an initial strength of 200 men to 700 men divided into five companies. The brigade fought during the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in 1938 and was almost totally destroyed. Another one was raised to replace it and it numbered some 4,000 men, including Cossacks, by 1945. During the Soviet invasion of Manchuria it took part in fighting against the Red Army and the fate of those who fell into Soviet captivity is unknown.[10][20] Manchukuo (traditional Chinese: 滿洲國; pinyin: Mǎnzhōuguó; Japanese: 満州国; literally: "State of Manchuria") was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia from 1932 until 1945. It was initially governed as a republic, but in 1934 it became a constitutional monarchy. It had limited international recognition and was de facto under the control of Japan. The area, collectively known as Manchuria by westerners and Japanese, was the homeland of the Manchus, including the emperors of the Qing Dynasty. In 1931, the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident and a pro-Japanese government was installed one year later with Puyi, the last Qing emperor, as the nominal regent and emperor.[2] Manchukuo's government was dissolved in 1945 after the surrender of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. The territories formally claimed by the puppet state were first seized in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945,[3] and then formally transferred to Chinese administration in the following year.[a] Manchus formed a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group were Han Chinese. The population of Koreans increased during the Manchukuo period, and there were also Japanese, Mongols, White Russians and other minorities. The Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgement of the Mongolian traditions there. The southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula was ruled by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory. Contents  [hide]  1 History 1.1 Terminology 1.2 Background 1.3 Origins 1.4 Diplomatic recognition 1.5 World War II and aftermath 2 Politics 2.1 Head of State 2.2 Prime Minister 3 Administrative divisions 4 Demographics 4.1 Population of main cities 4.2 Japanese population 5 Legal system 6 Economy 7 Transport 8 Military 8.1 War crimes in Manchukuo 8.2 Drug trafficking 9 Education 10 Culture 10.1 Film 10.2 Dress 11 Sport 12 National symbols 13 Stamps and postal history 14 In popular culture 15 See also 16 Notes 17 References 17.1 Citations 17.2 Works cited 17.3 Other sources 18 Further reading 19 External links History[edit] Terminology[edit] "Manchuria" is a transcription of the Japanese reading of the Chinese word "滿洲" which means Manchuria, which in Japanese is Manshū, which in turn dates from the 19th century. The name Manzhou was invented and given to the Jurchen people by Hong Taiji in 1635 as a new name for their ethnic group. However, the name "Manchuria" was never used by the Manchus or the Qing dynasty itself to refer to their homeland, the name itself holding imperialistic connotation.[4] According to the Japanese scholar Junko Miyawaki-Okada, the Japanese geographer Takahashi Kageyasu (高橋景保) was the first to use the term 满洲 (Manshū) as a place name in 1809 in the Nippon Henkai Ryakuzu (日本辺海略図), and it was from that work where Westerners adopted the name.[5][6] According to Mark C. Elliott, Katsuragawa Hoshū's 1794 work, the Hokusa bunryaku (北槎聞略), was where 满洲 (Manshū) first appeared as a place name, in two maps included in the work: "Ashia zenzu" and "Chikyū hankyū sōzu" which were also created by Katsuragawa.[7] 满洲 (Manshū) then began to appear as a place names in more maps created by Japanese like Kondi Jūzō, Takahashi Kageyasu, Baba Sadayoshi and Yamada Ren. These maps were brought to Europe by Philipp von Siebold,[8] a German in Dutch service. According to Nakami Tatsuo, Philip Franz von Siebold was the one who brought the usage of the term Manchuria to Europeans, after borrowing it from the Japanese, who were the first to use it in a geographic manner in the eighteenth century, while neither the Manchu nor Chinese languages had a term in their own language equivalent to "Manchuria" as a geographic place name.[9] According to Bill Sewell, it was Europeans who first started using Manchuria as a name to refer to the location and it is "not a genuine geographic term."[10] The historian Gavan McCormack agreed with Robert H. G. Lee's statement that "The term Manchuria or Man-chou is a modern creation used mainly by westerners and Japanese", with McCormack writing that the term Manchuria is imperialistic in nature and has no "precise meaning", since the Japanese deliberately promoted the use of "Manchuria" as a geographic name to promote its separation from China while they were setting up their puppet state of Manchukuo.[11] Ordinary Manchus largely spurned Manchukuo which claimed to be established for their cause, and few Manchus were successfully employed by the Manchukuo regime.[12] Background[edit] The Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria.[13] The historian Norman Smith wrote that "The term "Manchuria" is controversial".[14] Professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she "should use the term in quotation marks", when referring to Manchuria.[15] Herbert Giles wrote that "Manchuria" was unknown to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression.[16] In his doctoral thesis of 2012, Professor Chad D. Garcia noted that usage of the term "Manchuria" was out of favor in "current scholarly practice" and preferred the term "the northeast".[17] The Qing Dynasty, which replaced the Shun and Ming dynasties in China, was founded by Manchus from Manchuria (modern Northeastern China). The Manchu emperors separated their homeland in Jilin and Heilongjiang from the Han Liaoning province with the Willow Palisade. This ethnic division continued until the Qing dynasty encouraged massive immigration of Han in the 19th century during Chuang Guandong to prevent the Russians from seizing the area from the Qing. After conquering the Ming, the Qing identified their state as "China" (中國, Zhongguo; "Central Realm") and referred to it as "Dulimbai Gurun" in Manchu.[18][19][20] The Qing equated the lands of the Qing state (including present day Manchuria, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Tibet and other areas) as "China" in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, defining China as a multi-ethnic state, rejecting the idea that China only meant Han areas, proclaiming that both Han and non-Han peoples were part of "China", using "China" to refer to the Qing in official documents, international treaties, and foreign affairs, and the "Chinese language" (Dulimbai gurun i bithe) referred to Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol languages, and the term "Chinese people" (中國人 Zhongguo ren; Manchu: Dulimbai gurun i niyalma) referred to all Han, Manchus, and Mongol subjects of the Qing. The lands in Manchuria were explicitly stated by the Qing to belong to "China" (Zhongguo, Dulimbai gurun) in Qing edicts and in the Treaty of Nerchinsk.[21] During the Qing dynasty, the area of Manchuria was known as the "three eastern provinces" (三東省; Sān dōng shěng) since 1683 when Jilin and Heilongjiang were separated even though it was not until 1907 that they were turned into actual provinces.[22] The area of Manchuria was then converted into three provinces by the late Qing government in 1907. Since then, the "Three Northeast Provinces" (traditional Chinese: 東北三省; simplified Chinese: 东北三省; pinyin: Dōngběi Sānshěng) was officially used by the Qing government in China to refer to this region, and the post of Viceroy of Three Northeast Provinces was established to take charge of these provinces.[citation needed] As the power of the court in Beijing weakened, many outlying areas either broke free (like Kashgar) or fell under the control of Imperialist powers. In the 19th century, Imperial Russia was most interested in the northern lands of the Qing Empire. In 1858, Russia gained control over a huge tract of land called Outer Manchuria thanks to the Supplementary Treaty of Beijing that ended the Second Opium War.[23] But Russia was not satisfied and, as the Qing Dynasty continued to weaken, they made further efforts to take control of the rest of Manchuria. Inner Manchuria came under strong Russian influence in the 1890s with the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway through Harbin to Vladivostok.[24] Origins[edit] See also: Mukden Incident As a direct result of the Russo-Japanese War (1904/05), Japanese influence replaced Russia's in Inner Manchuria. During the war with Russia, Japan had mobilized one million soldiers to fight in Manchuria, meaning that one out of every eight families in Japan had a member fighting the war.[25] During the Russian-Japanese war, the losses were heavy with Japan losing half-million men dead or wounded, making Manchuria into a sacred land for the Japanese people, a place hallowed with the blood of so many Japanese soldiers.[25] From time of the Russian-Japanese war onward, many Japanese people came to have a proprietary attitude to Manchuria, taking the viewpoint that a land where so much Japanese blood had been lost in some way now belonged to them.[25] In 1906, Japan laid the South Manchurian Railway to Port Arthur (Japanese: Ryojun). Under the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth, the Kwantung Army had the right to occupy southern Manchuria while the region fell into the Japanese economic sphere of influence.[26] The Japanese owned South Manchurian Railroad company had a market capitalization of 200 million yen, making it into Asia's largest corporation, which went beyond just running the former Russian railroad network in southern Manchuria to owning the ports, mines, hotels, telephone lines, and sundry other businesses, dominating the economy of Manchuria.[26] With the growth of the South Manchuria Railroad company went growth in number of Japanese living in Manchuria from 16,612 Japanese civilians in 1906 to 233,749 in 1930.[25] The majority of the blue collar employees for the Mantetsu were Chinese, and the Japanese employees were mostly white collar, meaning the most of the Japanese living in Manchuria were middle-class people who saw themselves as an elite.[27] Between World War I and World War II Manchuria became a political and military battleground between Russia, Japan, and China. Japan moved into Outer Manchuria as a result of the chaos following the Russian Revolution of 1917. A combination of Soviet military successes and American economic pressure forced the Japanese to withdraw from the area, however, and Outer Manchuria returned to Soviet control by 1925. During the warlord period in China, the warlord Marshal Zhang Zuolin established himself in Inner Manchuria with Japanese backing.[28] Later, the Japanese Kwantung Army found him too independent, so he was assassinated in 1928. In assassinating Marshal Zhang, the "Old Marshal" the Kwantung Army generals expected Manchuria to descend into anarchy, providing the pretext for seizing the region.[26] Marshal Zhang was killed when the bridge his train was riding across was blown up while three Chinese men were murdered and explosive equipment placed on their corpses to make it appear that they were the killers, but the plot was foiled when Zhang's son Zhang Xueliang, the "Young Marshal" succeeded him without incident while the cabinet in Tokyo refused to send additional troops to Manchuria.[26] Given that the Kwantung Army had assassinated his father, the "Young Marshal"-who unlike his father was a Chinese nationalist-had strong reasons to dislike Japan's privileged position in Manchuria.[29] Marshal Zhang knew his forces were too weak to expel the Kwantung Army, but his relations with the Japanese were unfriendly right from the start.[29] Japan-Manchukuo Protocol, 15 September 1932 The throne of the emperor in Manchukuo, c. 1937 After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Japanese militarists moved forward to separate the region from Chinese control and to create a Japanese-aligned puppet state. To create an air of legitimacy, the last Emperor of China, Puyi, was invited to come with his followers and act as the head of state for Manchuria. One of his faithful companions was Zheng Xiaoxu, a Qing reformist and loyalist.[30] On 18 February 1932 the Manchu State (Manchukuo, Pinyin: Mǎnzhōuguó)[31] was proclaimed and recognized by Japan on 15 September 1932 through the Japan-Manchukuo Protocol,[32] after the assassination of Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi. The city of Changchun, renamed Hsinking (Pinyin: Xinjing) (新京, literally "New Capital"), became the capital of the new entity. Chinese in Manchuria organized volunteer armies to oppose the Japanese and the new state required a war lasting several years to pacify the country. The Japanese initially installed Puyi as Head of State in 1932, and two years later he was declared Emperor of Manchukuo with the era name of Kangde ("Tranquility and Virtue"; Wade-Giles: Kangte). Manchukuo thus became the Great Manchurian Empire, sometimes termed Manchutikuo (Pinyin: Mǎnzhōu Dìguó). Zheng Xiaoxu served as Manchukuo's first prime minister until 1935, when Zhang Jinghui succeeded him. Puyi was nothing more than a figurehead and real authority rested in the hands of the Japanese military officials. An imperial palace was specially built for the emperor. The Manchu ministers all served as front-men for their Japanese vice-ministers, who made all decisions.[33] In this manner, Japan formally detached Manchukuo from China in the course of the 1930s. With Japanese investment and rich natural resources, the area became an industrial powerhouse. Manchukuo had its own issued banknotes and postage stamps.[34][35][36] Several independent banks were founded as well. The conquest of Manchuria proved to be extremely popular with the Japanese people who saw the conquest as providing a much needed economic "lifeline" to their economy which had been badly hurt by the Great Depression.[37] The very image of a "lifeline" suggested that Manchuria-which was rich in natural resources-was essential for Japan to recover from the Great Depression, which explains why the conquest was so popular at the time and later why the Japanese people were so completely hostile towards any suggestion of letting Manchuria go.[38] At the time, censorship in Japan was nowhere near as stringent as it later become, and the American historian Louise Young noted: "Had they wished, it would have been possible in 1931 and 1932 for journalists and editors to express anti-war sentiments".[39] The popularity of the conquest meant that newspapers like the Asahi which initially opposed the war swiftly did a volte-face to supporting the war as the best way of improving sales.[39] In 1935, Manchukuo bought the Chinese Eastern Railway from the Soviet Union.[40] Diplomatic recognition[edit] Foreign recognition of Manchukuo China did not recognize Manchukuo but the two sides established official ties for trade, communications and transportation. In 1933, the League of Nations adopted the Lytton Report, declaring that Manchuria remained rightfully part of China, leading Japan to resign its membership. The Manchukuo case persuaded the United States to articulate the so-called Stimson Doctrine, under which international recognition was withheld from changes in the international system created by force of arms.[41] In spite of the League of Nations' approach, the new state was diplomatically recognised by El Salvador (3 March 1934) and the Dominican Republic (1934), Costa Rica (23 September 1934), Italy (29 November 1937), Spain (2 December 1937), Germany (12 May 1938) and Hungary (9 January 1939). The Soviet Union extended de facto recognition on 23 March 1935, but explicitly noted that this did not mean de jure recognition.[42][43] However, upon signing the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact on 13 April 1941, the Soviet Union recognized Manchukuo de jure in exchange for Japan recognizing the integrity of the neighboring Mongolian People's Republic.[44] The USSR did maintain five consulates-general in Manchukuo initially, although in 1936–37 these were reduced to just two: one in Harbin and another in Manzhouli.[45][46][47] Manchukuo opened consulates in Blagoveshchensk (September 1932) and in Chita (February 1933).[48] It is commonly believed that the Holy See established diplomatic relations with Manchukuo in 1934, but the Holy See never did so. This belief is partly due to the erroneous reference in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film The Last Emperor that the Holy See diplomatically recognised Manchukuo. Bishop Auguste Ernest Pierre Gaspais was appointed as "representative ad tempus of the Holy See and of the Catholic missions of Manchukuo to the government of Manchukuo" by the Congregation De Propaganda Fide (a purely religious body responsible for missions) and not by the Secretariat of State responsible for diplomatic relations with states.[49] In the 1940s the Vatican established full diplomatic relations with Japan, but it resisted Japanese and Italian pressure to recognize Manchukuo and the Nanjing regime.[50] After the outbreak of World War II, the state was recognised by Slovakia (1 June 1940), Vichy France (12 July 1940), Romania (1 December 1940), Bulgaria (10 May 1941), Finland (18 July 1941), Denmark (August 1941), Croatia (2 August 1941)—all controlled or influenced by Japan's ally Germany — as well as by Wang Jingwei's Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China (30 November 1940), Thailand (5 August 1941) and the Philippines (1943) — all under the control or influence of Japan. Puyi as Emperor Kangde of Manchukuo World War II and aftermath[edit] Before World War II, the Japanese colonized Manchukuo and used it as a base from which to invade China. In the summer of 1939 a border dispute between Manchukuo and the Mongolian People's Republic resulted in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. During this battle, a combined Soviet-Mongolian force defeated the Japanese Kwantung Army (Kantōgun) supported by limited Manchukuoan forces.[51] On 8 August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, in accordance with the agreement at the Yalta Conference, and invaded Manchukuo from outer Manchuria and Outer Mongolia. This was called Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. During the Soviet offensive the Army of Manchukuo, on paper a 200,000-man force, performed poorly and whole units surrendered to the Soviets without firing a single shot; there were even cases of armed riots and mutinies against the Japanese forces. Emperor Kangde (known by reign title Xuantong during the Qing Dynasty; his childhood name was Puyi) had hoped to escape to Japan to surrender to the Americans, but the Soviets captured him and eventually extradited him to the communist government in China, where the authorities had him imprisoned as a war criminal along with all other captured Manchukuo officials. From 1945 to 1948, Manchuria (Inner Manchuria) served as a base area for the People's Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War against the National Revolutionary Army.[52] The Chinese Communists used Manchuria as a staging ground until the final Nationalist retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Many Manchukuo army and Japanese Kantogun personnel served with the communist troops during the Chinese Civil War against the Nationalist forces. Most of the 1.5 million Japanese who had been left in Manchukuo at the end of World War II were sent back to their homeland in 1946-1948 by U.S. Navy ships in the operation now known as the Japanese repatriation from Huludao. Politics[edit] Propaganda poster promoting harmony between Japanese, Chinese, and Manchu. The caption says (Right to left): "With the cooperation of Japan, China, and Manchukuo, the world can be in peace." Main article: Politics of Manchukuo Historians generally consider Manchukuo a puppet state of Imperial Japan[53] because of the Japanese military's strong presence and strict control of the government administration. Chinese historians generally refer to the state as 'Wei Manzhouguo' ('false state of Manchuria'). Some historians see Manchukuo as an effort at building a glorified Japanese state in mainland Asia that deteriorated due to the pressures of war.[54] The independence of Manchuria was proclaimed on 18 February 1932, and it was renamed Manchukuo. The Japanese military commander appointed Puyi as regent (reign name Datong) for the time being, stating that he would become Emperor of Manchukuo but could not reign using the title of Emperor of the Great Qing Empire as he once held. Manchukuo was proclaimed a monarchy on 1 March 1934, with Puyi assuming the throne under the reign name of Emperor Kang-de. Puyi was assisted in his executive duties by a Privy Council (Chinese: 參議府), and a General Affairs State Council (Chinese: 國務院). This State Council was the center of political power, and consisted of several cabinet ministers, each assisted by a Japanese vice-minister. The commanding officer of the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo was also the Japanese ambassador to Manchukuo. He functioned in a manner similar to that of a British resident officer in British overseas protectorates, with the power to veto decisions by the emperor. The Kwangtung Army leadership placed Japanese vice ministers in his cabinet, while all Chinese advisors gradually resigned or were dismissed. The Legislative Council (Chinese: 立法院) was largely a ceremonial body, existing to rubber-stamp decisions issued by the State Council. The only authorized political party was the government-sponsored Concordia Association, although various émigré groups were permitted their own political associations. The American historian Louise Young noted that one of the most striking aspects of Manchukuo was that many of the young Japanese civil servants who went to work in Manchukuo were on the left, or at least had once been.[55] In the 1920s, much of the younger intelligentsia in Japan had rejected their parents' values, and had become active in various left-wing movements. Starting with the Peace Preservation Law of 1925, which made the very act of thinking about "altering the kokutai" a crime, the government had embarked on a sustained campaign to stomp out all left-wing thought in Japan. However, many of the bright young university graduates active in left-wing movements in Japan were needed to serve as civil servants in Manchukuo, which Young noted led the Japanese state to embark upon a contradictory policy of recruiting the same people active in the movements that it was seeking to crush.[56] To rule Manchukuo, which right from the start had a very etatist economy, the Japanese state needed university graduates who were fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and the 1920s-30s, many of the university graduates in Japan who knew Mandarin were "progressives" involved in left-wing causes.[57] The fact that young Japanese civil servants in Manchukuo with their degrees in economics, sociology, etc., who had once been active in left-wing movements helps explains the decidedly leftist thrust of social and economic policies in Manchukuo with the state playing an increasingly large role in society.[58] Likewise, much of the debate between Japanese civil servants about the sort of social-economic policies Japan should follow in Manchukuo in the 1930s was framed in Marxist terms, with the civil servants arguing over whatever Manchuria prior to September 1931 had a "feudal" or a "capitalist" economy.[59] The American historian Joshua Fogel wrote about the young servants of Manchuko: "Tremendous debates transpired on such things as the nature of the Chinese economy, and the lingua franca of these debates was always Marxism".[60] To resolve this debate, various research teams of five or six young civil servants, guarded by detachments from the Kwantung Army of about 20 or 30 men, went out to do field research in Manchukuo, gathering material about the life of ordinary people, to determine Manchukuo was in the "feudal" or "capitalist" stage of development.[61] Starting in 1936, the Manchukuo state launched Five Year Plans for economic development, which were closely modeled after the Five Year Plans in the Soviet Union.[62] In Manchukuo, the Japanese were creating a brand new state that was in theory independent, which meant that there were no limits upon the sort of polices that the new state could carry out, and many university graduates in Japan, who despite being opposed to the social system that existed in Japan itself, went to work in Manchukuo, believing that they could carry out reforms there that might inspire similar reforms in Japan.[63] This was especially the case since it was impossible to effect any reforms in Japan itself as the very act of thinking about "altering the kokutai" was a crime, which led many leftist Japanese university graduates to go work in Manchukuo, where they believed they could achieve the sort of social revolution that was impossible in Japan.[64] By 1933, the Japanese state had essentially destroyed both the Japanese Socialist Party and the Japanese Communist Party via mass arrests and Tenkō with both parties reduced down to mere rumps, which caused many Japanese student leftists to draw the conclusion that change was impossible in Japan, but still possible in Manchukuo, where paradoxically the Kwantung Army was sponsoring the sort of policies that were unacceptable in Japan.[65] Moreover, the Great Depression had made it very difficult for university graduates in Japan to find work, which made the prospect of a well-paying job in Manchukuo very attractive to otherwise underemployed Japanese university graduates.[66] In Manchukuo, the Japanese state was creating an entire state anew, which meant that Manchukuo had a desperate need for university graduates to work in its newly founded civil service.[67] In addition, the Pan-Asian rhetoric of Manchukuo and the prospect of Japan helping ordinary people in Manchuria greatly appealed to the idealistic youth of Japan.[68] Young wrote about the young Japanese people who went to work in Manchukuo: "The men, and in some cases, the women, who answered the call of this land of opportunity, brought with them tremendous drive and ambition. In their efforts to remake their own lives, they remade an empire. They invested it with their preoccupations of modernity and their dreams of an Utopian future. They pushed it to embrace an idealist rhetoric of social reform and justified itself in terms of Chinese nationalist aspiration. They turned it to architectural ostentation and the heady luxury of colonial consumption. They made it into a project of radical change, experimentation and possibility".[69] The Kwantung Army for its part tolerated the talk of social revolution in Manchukuo as the best way of gaining support from the Han majority of Manchukuo, who did not want Manchuria to be severed from China.[70] Even more active in going to Manchukuo were the products of Tenkō ("Changing directions"), a process of brainwashing by the police of left-wing activists to make them accept that the Emperor was a god after all, whom they were best to serve.[71] Tenkō was a very successful process that turned young Japanese who once been ardent liberals or leftists who rejected the idea that the Emperor was a god into fanatical rightists, who made up for their previous doubts about the divinity of the Emperor with militant enthusiasm.[72] One tenkōsha was Tachibana Shiraki, who once been a Marxist Sinologist who after his arrest and undergoing Tenkō become a fanatical right-winger.[73] Tachibana went to Manchukuo in 1932, proclaiming that the theory of the "five races" working together was the best solution to Asia's problems and argued in his writings that only Japan could save China from itself, which was a complete change from his previous policies, where he criticized Japan for exploiting China.[74] Other left-wing activists like Ōgami Suehiro did not undergo Tenkō, but still went to work in Manchukuo, believing it was possible to effect social reforms that would end the "semi-feudal" condition of the Chinese peasants of Manchuko, and that he could use the Kwantung Army to effect left-wing reforms in Manchukuo.[75] Ōgami went to work in the "agricultural economy" desk of the Social Research Unit of the South Manchurian Railroad company, writing up reports about the rural economy of Manchukuo that were used by the Kwantung Army and the Manchukuo state.[76] Ōgami believed that his studies helped ordinary people, citing one study he did about water use in rural Manchukuo, where he noted a correlation between villages that were deprived of water and "banditry" (the codeword for anti-Japanese guerillas), believing that the policy of improving water supply in villages was due to his study.[77] The outbreak of the war with China in 1937 caused the state in Manchukuo to grow even bigger as a policy of "total war" came in, which meant there was a pressing demand for people with university degrees trained to think "scientifically".[78] Fogel wrote that almost all of the university graduates from Japan who arrived in Manchukuo in the late 1930s were "...largely left-wing Socialists and Communists. This was precisely at the time when Marxism had been all but banned in Japan, when (as Yamada Gōichi put) if the expression shakai (social) appeared in the title of a book, it was usually confiscated".[79] Young also noted – with reference to Lord Acton's dictum that "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" – that for many of the idealistic young Japanese civil servants, who believed that they could effect a "revolution from above" that would make the lives of ordinary people better, that the absolute power that they enjoyed over millions of people "went to their heads", causing them to behave with abusive arrogance towards the very people that they had gone to Manchukuo to help.[80] Young wrote that it was a "monumental conceit" of the part of the young idealists to believe that they could use the Kwantung Army to achieve a "revolution from above", when it was the Kwantung Army that was using them.[81] The ambitious plans for land reform in Manchukuo were vetoed by the Kwantung Army for precisely the reason that it might inspire similar reforms in Japan.[82] The landlords in Japan tended to come from families who once belonged to the samurai caste, and almost all of the officers in the Imperial Japanese Army came from samurai families, which made the Kwantung Army very hostile towards any sort of land reform which might serve as an example for Japanese peasants. In October 1941, the Soviet spy ring headed by Richard Sorge was uncovered in Tokyo, which caused the authorities to become paranoid about Soviet espionage, and led to new crackdown on the left. In November 1941, the Social Research Unit of the South Manchurian Railroad Company, which was well known as a hotbed of Marxism since the early 1930s, was raided by the Kempeitai, who arrested 50 of those working in the Social Research Unit.[83] At least 44 of those working in the Social Research Unit were convicted of violating the Peace Preservation Law, which made thinking about "altering the kokutai" a crime in 1942-43 and were given long prison sentences, of whom four died due to the harsh conditions of prisons in Manchukuo.[84] As the men working in the Social Research Unit had played important roles in Manchukuo's economic policy and were university graduates from good families, the Japanese historian Hotta Eri wrote that the Kempeitai were ordered to "handle them with care", meaning no torture of the sort that the Kempeitai normally employed in its investigations.[85] When the Japanese surrender was announced on 15 August 1945, Puyi agreed to abdicate. Head of State[edit] Emperor of Manchukuo IMPERIAL Flag of the Emperor of Manchukuo.svg Imperial Standard Puyi-Manchukuo.jpg Kāngdé Details Style His Imperial Majesty First monarch Kāngdé Last monarch Kāngdé Formation 1 March 1934 Abolition 15 August 1945 Residence Imperial Palace Pretender(s) Jin Yuzhang Manchukuo 1932–1945 Personal Names Period of Reigns Era names (年號) and their corresponding range of years All given names in bold. Aisin-Gioro Puyi 愛新覺羅溥儀 Àixīnjuéluó Pǔyì 9 March 1932 – 15 August 1945 Datong (大同 Dàtóng) 1932–1934 Kangde (康德 Kāngdé) 1934–1945 Prime Minister[edit] № Portrait Name (Birth–Death) Term of Office Party 1 Zheng Xiaoxu.jpg Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938) 9 March 1932 21 May 1935 Concordia Association 2 Zhang Jinghui2.JPG Zhang Jinghui (1871–1959) 21 May 1935 15 August 1945 Concordia Association Administrative divisions[edit] See List of administrative divisions of Manchukuo for a complete list of prefecture-level divisions. During its short-lived existence, Manchukuo was divided into between five (in 1932) and 19 (in 1941) provinces, one special ward of Beiman (Chinese: 北滿特別區) and two Special cities which were Xinjing (Chinese: 新京特別市) and Harbin (Chinese: 哈爾濱特別市). Each province was divided into between four (Xing'an dong) and 24 (Fengtian) prefectures. Beiman lasted less than 3 years (1 July 1933 – 1 January 1936) and Harbin was later incorporated into Binjiang province. Longjiang also existed as a province in the 1932 before being divided into Heihe, Longjiang and Sanjiang in 1934. Andong and Jinzhou provinces separated themselves from Fengtian while Binjiang and Jiandao from Jilin separated themselves in the same year. Demographics[edit] Map of Manchukuo Administrative divisions of Manchukuo in 1938 In 1908, the number of residents was 15,834,000, which rose to 30,000,000 in 1931 and 43,000,000 for the Manchukuo state. The population balance remained 123 men to 100 women and the total number in 1941 was 50,000,000. Other statistics indicate that in Manchukuo the population rose by 18,000,000. In early 1934, the total population of Manchukuo was estimated as 30,880,000, with 6.1 persons the average family, and 122 men for each 100 women. These numbers included 29,510,000 Chinese (96%, which should have included the Manchurian population), 590,760 Japanese (2%), 680,000 Koreans (2%), and 98,431 (<1%) of other nationality: White Russians, Mongols, etc.[citation needed] Around 80% of the population was rural. During the existence of Manchukuo, the ethnic balance did not change significantly, except that Japan increased the Korean population in China. From Japanese sources come these numbers: in 1940 the total population in Manchukuo of Lungkiang, Jehol, Kirin, Liaoning (Fengtian) and Xing'an provinces at 43,233,954; or an Interior Ministry figure of 31,008,600. Another figure of the period estimated the total population as 36,933,000 residents. The majority of Han Chinese in Manchukuo believed that Manchuria was rightfully part of China, who both passively and violently resisted Japan's propaganda that Manchukuo was a "multinational state".[86] After the Russian civil war, thousands of Russians fled to Manchuria to join the Russian community already there. The Russians living in Manchuria were stateless and as whites had an ambiguous status in Manchukuo, which was meant to be a Pan-Asian state, whose official "five races" were the Chinese, Mongols, Manchus, Koreans and Japanese.[87] At various times, the Japanese suggested that the Russians might be a "sixth race" of Manchukuo, but this was never officially declared.[88] In 1936, the Manchukuo Almanac reported that were 33, 592 Russians living in the city of Harbin-the "Moscow of the Orient"-and of whom only 5, 580 had been granted Manchukuo citizenship.[89] Japanese imperialism was to a certain extent based on racism with the Japanese as the "great Yamato race", but there was always a certain dichotomy in Japanese thinking between an ideology based on racial differences based on bloodlines vs. the idea of Pan-Asianism with Japan as the natural leader of all the Asian peoples.[90] Regardless, the Russians tended not to fit very well into Japan's project in Manchukuo. The British writer Peter Fleming visited Manchukuo in 1935, and while riding a train through the countryside of Manchukuo, a group of Japanese colonists mistook his Swiss girlfriend Kini for a Russian refugee, and began to beat her up.[91] It was only after Fleming was able to prove to the Japanese that his girlfriend was Swiss, not Russian, that the Japanese stopped and apologized, saying that they would never had beaten her up if they had known she was Swiss, saying that they sincerely believed she was a Russian when they assaulted her.[92] Fleming observed that in Manchukuo: "you can beat White Russians up till you are blue in the face, because they are people without status in the world, citizens of nowhere".[93] Fleming further noted that the Japanese in Manchukuo had a strong dislike of all white people, and because the Russians in Manchukuo were stateless without an embassy to issue protests if they were victimized, the Japanese liked to victimize them.[94] Until World War II, the Japanese tended to leave alone those travelling to Manchukuo with a passport as they did not like to deal with protests from embassies in Tokyo about the mistreatment of their citizens.[95] The Kwantung Army operated a secret biological-chemical warfare unit based in Pinfang, Unit 731, that performed gruesome experiments on people involving much visceration of the subjects to see the effects of chemicals and germs on the human body. In the late 1930s, the doctors of Unit 731 demanded more white subjects to experiment upon in order to test the efficiency the strains of anthrax and plague that they were developing leading to a great many of the Russians living in Manchukuo becoming the unwilling human guinea pigs of Unit 731.[96] The Russian Fascist Party, which worked with the Japanese was used to kidnap various "unreliable" Russians living in Manchukuo for Unit 731 to experiment upon.[97] The children of the Russian exiles often married Han Chinese, and the resulting children were always known in Manchukuo as "mixed water" people, who were shunned by both the Russian and Chinese communities.[98] Chinese accounts, both at the time and later, tended to portray the Russians living in Manchuria as all prostitutes and thieves, and almost always ignored the contributions made by middle-class Russians to community life.[99] Mindful of the way that Americans and most Europeans enjoyed extraterritorial rights in China at the time, accounts in Chinese literature about the Russians living in Manchukuo and their "mixed water" children often display a certain schadenfreude recounting how the Russians in Manchukuo usually lived in poverty on the margins of Manchukuo society with the local Chinese more economically successful.[100] The South Korean historian Bong Inyoung noted when it came to writing about the "mixed water" people, Chinese writers tended to treat them as not entirely Chinese, but on the other hand were willing to accept these people as Chinese provided that would totally embrace Chinese culture by renouncing their Russian heritage, thus making Chineseness as much a matter of culture as of race.[101] Around the same time the Soviet Union was advocating the Siberian Jewish Autonomous Oblast across the Manchukuo-Soviet border, some Japanese officials investigated a plan (known as the Fugu Plan) to attract Jewish refugees to Manchukuo as part of their colonisation efforts which was never adopted as official policy. The Japanese Ueda Kyōsuke labelled all 30 million people in Manchuria as "Manchus", including Han Chinese, despite the fact that most of them were not ethnic Manchu, and the Japanese written "Great Manchukuo" built upon Ueda's argument to claim that all 30 million "Manchus" in Manchukuo had the right to independence to justify splitting Manchukuo from China.[102] In 1942 the Japanese written "Ten Year History of the Construction of Manchukuo" attempted to emphasize the right of ethnic Japanese to the land of Manchukuo while attempting to delegitimize the Manchu's claim to Manchukuo as their native land, noting that most Manchus moved out during the Qing period and only returned later.[103] Population of main cities[edit] Niuzhuang (119,000 or 180,871 in 1940)[citation needed] Mukden (339,000 or 1,135,801 in 1940)[citation needed] Xinjing (126,000 or 544,202 in 1940)[citation needed] Harbin (405,000 or 661,948 in 1940)[citation needed] Dairen (400,000 or 555,562 in 1939)[citation needed] Andong (92,000 or 315,242 in 1940)[citation needed] Kirin (119,000 or 173,624 in 1940)[citation needed] Tsitsihar (75,000 in 1940)[citation needed] Japanese population[edit] In 1931–2, there were 100,000 Japanese farmers; other sources mention 590,760 Japanese inhabitants. Other figures for Manchukuo speak of a Japanese population 240,000 strong, later growing to 837,000. In Xinjing, they made up 25% of the population. Accordingly, to the census of 1936, of the Japanese population of Manchuko, 22% were civil servants and their families; 18% were working for the South Manchurian Railroad company; 25% had come to Manchukuo to establish a business; and 21% had come to work in industry.[104] The Japanese working in the fields of transportation, the government, and in business tended to be middle class, white collar people such as executives, engineers, and managers, and those Japanese who working in Manchukuo as blue collar employees tended to be skilled workers.[105] In 1934, it was reported that a Japanese carpenter working in Manchukuo with its growing economy could earn twice as much as he could in Japan.[106] With its gleaming modernist office buildings, state of the art transport networks like the famous Asia Express railroad line, and modern infrastructure that was going up all over Manchukuo, Japan's newest colony become a popular tourist destination for middle-class Japanese, who wanted to see the "Brave New Empire" that was going up in the mainland of Asia.[107] The Japanese government had official plans projecting the emigration of 5 million Japanese to Manchukuo between 1936 and 1956. Between 1938 and 1942 a batch of young farmers of 200,000 arrived in Manchukuo; joining this group after 1936 were 20,000 complete families. Of the Japanese settlers in Manchukuo, almost half came from the rural areas of Kyushu.[108] When Japan lost sea and air control of the Yellow Sea in 1943-44, this migration stopped. When the Red Army invaded Manchukuo, they captured 850,000 Japanese settlers. With the exception of some civil servants and soldiers, these were repatriated to Japan in 1946–7. Many Japanese orphans in China were left behind in the confusion by the Japanese government and were adopted by Chinese families. Many, however, integrated well into Chinese society. In the 1980s Japan began to organise a repatriation programme for them but not all chose to go back to Japan. The majority of Japanese left behind in China were women, and these Japanese women mostly married Chinese men and became known as "stranded war wives" (zanryu fujin).[109][110] Because they had children fathered by Chinese men, the Japanese women were not allowed to bring their Chinese families back with them to Japan so most of them stayed. Japanese law only allowed children fathered by Japanese fathers to become Japanese citizens. Legal system[edit] Through Manchukuo itself was a product of illegality with the League of Nations ruling that Japan had broken international law by seizing Manchuria, the Japanese invested much effort into giving Manchukuo a legal system, believing that this was the fastest way for international recognition of Manchukuo.[111] A particular problem for the Japanese was that Manchukuo was always presented as a new type of state: a multi-ethnic Pan-Asian state comprising Japanese, Koreans, Manchus, Mongols and Chinese to mark the birth of the "New Order in Asia".[112] Typical of the rhetoric surrounding Manchkuo was always portrayed as the birth of a glorious new civilization was the press release issued by the Japanese Information Service on 1 March 1932 announcing the "glorious advent" of Manchukuo with the "eyes of the world turned on it" proclaimed that the birth of Manchukuo was an "epochal event of far-reaching consequences in world history, marking the birth of a new era in government, racial relations, and other affairs of general interest. Never in the chronicles of the human race was any State born with such high ideals, and never has any State accomplished so much in such a brief space of its existence as Manchukuo".[113] The Japanese went out of their way to try to ensure that Manchukuo was the embodiment of modernity in all of its aspects as Manchukuo was intended to prove to the world what the Asian peoples could accomplish if they worked together.[112] Manchukuo's legal system was based upon the Organic Law of 1932, which featured a 12 article Human Rights Protection Law and a supposedly independent judiciary to enforce the law.[112] The official ideology of Manchukuo was the wangdao ("Kingly Way") devised by a former mandarin under the Qing turned Prime Minister of Manchukuo Zheng Xiaoxu calling for an ordered Confucian society that would promote justice and harmony that was billed at the time as the beginning of a new era in world history.[114] The purpose of the law in Manchukuo was not the protection of the rights of the individual as the wangdao ideology was expressly hostile towards individualism, which was seen as a decadent Western concept inimical to Asia, but rather the interests of the state by ensuring that subjects fulfilled their duties to the emperor.[115] The wangdao favored the collective over the individual, as the wangdao called for all people to put the needs of society ahead of their own needs.[115] Zheng together with the Japanese legal scholar Ishiwara Kanji in a joint statement attacked the Western legal tradition for promoting individualism, which they claimed led to selfishness, greed and materialism, and argued that the wangdao with its disregard for the individual was a morally superior system.[116] The seemingly idealistic Human Rights Protection Law counterbalanced the "rights" of the subjects with their "responsibilities" to the state with a greater emphasis on the latter, just as was the case in Japan. The wangdao promoted Confucian morality and spirituality, which was seen as coming down from the Emperor Puyi, and as such the legal system existed to serve the needs of the state headed by Emperor Puyi, who could change the laws as he saw fit.[117] In this regard it is noteworthy that Legislative Yuan had only the power of assisting the Emperor with making laws, being endowed with far less powers than even the Imperial Diet in Japan had, which had the power to reject or approve laws.[118] It was often suggested at the time that the Legislative Yuan of Manchukuo was a model for the Imperial Diet in Japan, an idea the Showā Emperor was sympathetic to, but never took up.[118] The Showa Emperor in the end preferred the Meiji constitution passed by his grandfather in 1889 as it gave the Emperor of Japan ultimate power while at the same time the fiction of the Imperial Diet together with a Prime Minister and his cabinet governing Japan gave the Emperor a scapegoat when things went wrong. Initially, the judges who had served the Zhangs were retained, but in 1934, the Judicial Law College headed by the Japanese judge Furuta Masatake was opened in Changchun, to be replaced by a larger Law University in 1937.[119] Right from the start, the new applicants vastly exceeded the number of openings as the first class of the Law College numbered only 100, but 1, 210 students had applied.[119] The legal system that the students were trained was closely modeled after the Japanese legal system, which in its turn was modeled after the French legal system, but there were a number of particularities unique to Manchukuo.[120] Law students were trained to write essays on such topics as the "theory of the harmony of the five races [of Manchukuo]", the "political theory of the Kingly Way", "practical differences between consular jurisdiction and extraterritoriality", and how best to "realize the governance of the Kingly Way".[121] The Japanese professors were "astonished" by the "enthusiasm" which the students wrote their essays on these subjects as the students expressed the hope that the wangdao was a uniquely Asian solution to the problems of the modern world, and that Manchukuo represented nothing less than the beginning of a new civilization that would lead to a utopian society in the near-future.[122] The Japanese professors were greatly impressed with the Confucian idealism of their students, but noted that their students all used stock phrases to the extent it was hard to tell their essays apart, cited examples of wise judges from ancient China while ignoring more recent legal developments, and were long on expressing idealistic statements about how the wangdao would lead to a perfect society, but were short on how explaining just how this was to be done in practice.[123] A telling example of the extent of Japanese influence on the legal system of Manchukuo was that every issue of the Manchukuo Legal Advisory Journal always contained a summary of the most recent rulings by the Supreme Court of Japan, and the reasons why the Japanese Supreme Court had ruled in these cases.[124] However, there were some differences between the Manchukuo and Japanese legal systems. In Japan itself, corporal punishment had been abolished as part of the successful effort to end the extraterritorial rights enjoyed by citizens of the Western powers, but retained for the Japanese colonies of Korea and Taiwan.[125] However, corporal punishment, especially flogging, was a major part of the Manchukuo legal system with judges being very much inclined to impose floggings on low-income Chinese men convicted of minor offenses that would normally merit only a fine or a short prison sentence in Japan.[126] Writing in a legal journal in 1936, Ono Jitsuo, a Japanese judge serving in Manchukuo, regretted having to impose floggings as a punishment for relatively minor crimes, but argued that it was necessary of Manchukuo's 30 million people "...more than half are ignorant and completely illiterate barbarians" who were poor to pay fines and too numerous to imprison.[127] In Taiwan and Korea, Japanese law was supreme, but judges in both colonies had to respect "local customs" in regards to family law.[128] In case of Manchukuo, a place with a Han majority, but those ideology proclaimed the "five races" of Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Manchus and Mongols as all equal, this led in effect to several family laws for each of the "five races" respecting their "local customs" plus the Russian and Hui Muslim minorities.[129] The Manchukuo police had the power to arrest without charge anyone who was engaged in the vaguely defined crime of "undermining the state".[130] Mancukuo had an extensive system of courts at four levels staffed by a mixture of Chinese and Japanese judges.[131] All of the courts had both 2 Japanese and 2 Chinese judges with the Chinese serving as the nominal superior judges and the Japanese the junior judges, but in practice the Japanese judges were the masters and the Chinese judges puppets.[131] Despite the claims that the legal system of Manchukuo was a great improvement over the legal system presided over by Marshal Zhang Xueliang the "Young Marshal", the courts in Manchukuo were inefficient and slow, and ignored by the authorities whenever it suited them.[132] In Asia, the rule of law and an advanced legal system are commonly seen as one of the marks of "civilization", which is why the chaotic and corrupt legal system run by Marshal Zhang was denigrated so much by the Japanese and Manchukuo media.[133] In the early 1930s, Manchukuo attracted much legal talent from Japan as Japanese Pan-Asian idealists went to Manchuria with the goal of establishing a world-class legal system.[134] As the Kwangtung Army had the ultimate power in Manchukuo, the best Japanese judges by the late 1930s preferred not go to Manchukuo where their decisions could be constantly second-guessed, and instead only the second-rate judges went to Manchukuo.[135] By 1937 the Japanese judges and lawyers in Manchukuo were either disillusioned Pan-Asian idealists or more commonly cynical opportunists and mediocre hacks who lacked the talent to get ahead in Japan.[136] By contrast, the best of the ethnic Chinese law schools graduates in Manchukuo chose to work as part of Manchukuo's judicial system, suggesting many middle-class Chinese families were prepared to accept Manchukuo.[137] Starting with the Religions Law of May 1938, a cult of Emperor-worship closely modeled after the Imperial cult in Japan where the Showa Emperor was worshiped as a living god, began in Manchukuo.[138] Just as in Japan, schoolchildren began their classes by praying to a portrait of the emperor while imperial rescripts and the imperial regalia become sacred relics imbued with magical powers by being associated with the god-emperor.[139] As the Emperor Puyi was considered to be a living god, his will could not be limited by any law, and the purpose of the law was starkly reduced down to serving the will of the emperor rather than upholding values and rules.[140] As in Japan, the idea governing the legal philosophy in Manchukuo was the Emperor was a living god who was responsible to no-one and who delegated some of his powers down to mere human beings who had the duty of obeying the will of the god-emperors.[141] In Japan and Manchukuo, the actions of the god-emperors were always just and moral because gods could never do wrong, rather than because the god-emperors were acting to uphold moral values that existed a prior.[142] And again following the Japanese system, in 1937 a new category of "thought crime" was introduced declaring that certain thoughts were now illegal and those thinking these forbidden thoughts were "thought criminals".[143] People were thus convicted not for their actions, but merely for their thoughts.[144] After the war with China began in July 1937, an "emergency law" was declared in Manchukuo, placing it under a type of martial law that suspended the theoretical civil liberties that existed up to that point, ordered the mobilization of society for total war, and increased the tempo of repression with the law on "thought crimes" being merely the most dramatic example.[145] In April 1938, a new type of Special Security Courts were created for those charged with the five types of "thought crime".[146] On 26 August 1941, a new security law ruled that those tried before the Special Security Courts had no right of appeal or to a defense lawyer.[147] One Special Security Court in Jinzhou between 1942-45 sentenced about 1, 700 people to death and another 2, 600 for life imprisonment for "thought crimes", a figure that appears to be typical of the special courts.[148] Torture was frequently employed by the police to obtain confessions and those tried in the Special Security Courts had no right to examine the evidence against them.[149] Starting in 1943 the number of those tried and convicted by the courts rose drastically, through the number of death sentences remained stable.[150] The rise in the number of convictions was due to the need for slave labor for the factories and mines of Manchukuo as the traditional supplies of slave labor from northern China were disturbed by World War II as most of those convicted were sentenced to work in the factories and mines.[151] The American historian Thomas David Dubois wrote the legal system of Manchukuo went through two phrases: the first lasting from 1931 to 1937, when the Japanese wanted to show the world a state with an ultra-modern legal system that was meant to be a shining tribute to Asians working together in brotherhood; and the second from 1937 to 1945 when the legal system become more of a tool for the totalitarian mobilization of society for total war.[152] Economy[edit] Main article: Economy of Manchukuo See also: Central Bank of Manchou, Manchukuo yuan, Manshukoku Hikoki Seizo KK, Manshukoku Koku KK, Showa Steel Works, Manchurian Industrial Development Company, and Manchukuo Film Association Shōwa Steel Works in the early 1940s Manchukuo experienced rapid economic growth and progress in its social systems. During the 1920s, the Japanese Army under the influence of the Wehrstaat (Defense State) theories popular with the Reichswehr had started to advocate their own version of the Wehrstaat, the totalitarian "national defense state" which would mobilize an entire society for war in peacetime.[153] An additional influence on the Japanese "total war" school who tended to be very anti-capitalist was the First Five Year Plan in the Soviet Union, which provided an example of rapid industrial growth achieved without capitalism.[153] At least part of the reason why the Kwangtung Army seized Manchuria in 1931 was to use it as an laboratory for creating an economic system geared towards the "national defense state"; colonial Manchuria offered up possibilities for the army carrying out drastic economic changes that were not possible in Japan.[153] From the beginning, the Army intended to turn Manchukuo into the industrial heartland of the empire, and starting in 1932, the Army sponsored a policy of forced industrialization that was closely modeled after the Five Year Plan in the Soviet Union.[154] Reflecting a dislike of capitalism, the Zaibatsu were excluded from Manchukuo and all of the heavy industrial factories were built and owned by Army-owned corporations.[154] In 1935, there was a change when the "reform bureaucrat" Nobusuke Kishi was appointed Deputy Minister of Industrial Development.[154] Kishi persuaded the Army to allow the zaibatsu to invest in Manchukuo, arguing that having the state carry out the entire industrialization of Manchukuo was costing too much money.[154] Kishi pioneered an etatist system where bureaucrats such as himself developed economic plans, which the zaibatsu had to then carry out.[154] Kishi succeeded in marshaling private capital in a very strongly state-directed economy to achieve his goal of vastly increased industrial production while at the same time displaying utter indifference to the exploited Chinese workers toiling in Manchukuo's factories; the American historian Mark Driscoll described Kishi's system as a “necropolitical” system where the Chinese workers were literally treated as dehumanized cogs within a vast industrial machine.[155] The system that Kishi pioneered in Manchuria of a state-guided economy where corporations made their investments on government orders later served as the model for Japan's post-1945 development, albeit not with same level of brutal exploitation as in Manchukuo.[155] By the 1930s, Manchukuo's industrial system was among the most advanced making it one of the industrial powerhouses in the region.[156] Manchukuo's steel production exceeded Japan's in the late 1930s. Many Manchurian cities were modernised during the Manchukuo era. However, much of the country's economy was often subordinated to Japanese interests and, during the war, raw material flowed into Japan to support the war effort. Traditional lands were taken and redistributed to Japanese farmers with local farmers relocated and forced into collective farming units over smaller areas of land. Transport[edit] Main article: South Manchurian Railway Company The Japanese built an efficient and impressive railway system that still functions well today. Known as the South Manchuria Railway Company or Mantetsu, this large corporation came to own large stakes in many industrial projects throughout the region. Mantetsu personnel were active in the pacification of occupied China during World War II. Military[edit] See also: Kwantung Army Cavalry of the Manchukuo Imperial Army A Type 41 75 mm mountain gun during an Imperial Army exercise The Manchukuo Imperial Army was the ground component of the Empire of Manchukuo's armed forces and consisted of as many as 170,000[157] to 220,000[158] troops at its peak in 1945 by some estimates, having formally been established by the Army and Navy Act of 15 April 1932.[159] The force included members of all the major ethnic groups of Manchukuo, which were trained and led by Japanese instructors and advisors. Despite the numerous attempts by the Japanese to improve the combat capability of the Imperial Army and instill a Manchukuoan patriotic spirit among its troops, the majority of its units were regarded as unreliable by Japanese officers. Their main role was to fight Nationalist and Communist insurgents that continued to resist the Japanese occupation of northeastern China,[160] and occasionally the Manchukuo Imperial Army took part in operations against the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and the Soviet Red Army (usually in support of the Imperial Japanese Army). Initially its members were former soldiers of Marshal Zhang Xueliang's warlord army who had surrendered to Japan during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.[159] But since the Young Marshal's former troops were largely not loyal to the new regime and performed poorly against partisans, the new government of Manchukuo took efforts to recruit—and later draft—new soldiers.[161] In 1934 a law was passed stating that only those that had been trained by the government of Manchukuo could serve as officers.[159] The Military Supplies Requisition Law of 13 May 1937 allowed Japanese and Manchukuo authorities to draft forced laborers.[162] The actual calling up of conscripts for the army did not begin until 1940, at which point all youths received a physical and 10% were to be selected for service.[161] Between 1938 and 1940, several military academies were established to provide a new officer corps for the Imperial Army, including a specific school for ethnic Mongols.[163] After fighting against insurgents during the early to mid-1930s, the Manchukuo Imperial Army played mainly a supporting role during the actions in Inner Mongolia against Chinese forces, with news reports stating that some Manchukuoan units performed fairly well. Later it fought against the Soviet Red Army during the Soviet-Japanese border conflicts. A skirmish between Manchukuoan and Mongolian cavalry in May 1939 escalated as both sides brought in reinforcements and began the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. Although they did not perform well in the battle overall, the Japanese considered their actions decent enough to warrant expansion of the Manchukuo Army.[164] Throughout the 1940s the only action it saw was against Communist guerrilla fighters and other insurgents, although the Japanese chose to rely only on the more elite units while the majority were used for garrison and security duty.[165] Although Japan took the effort of equipping the Manchukuoan forces with some artillery (in addition to the wide variety it had inherited from Zhang Xueliang's army) along with some elderly tankettes and armored cars,[166] the cavalry was the Imperial Army's most effective and developed branch. This was the force that was confronted by 76 battle-hardened Red Army divisions transferred from the European front in August 1945 during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. The cavalry branch saw the most action against the Red Army, but the Manchukuo Army and their depleted Japanese Kwantung Army allies were quickly swept aside by the Soviet offensive. While some units remained loyal to their Japanese allies and put up a resistance, many mutinied against their Japanese advisors while others simply melted away into the countryside. Many of these Manchukuo Army troops would later join the Communists since the Chinese Nationalists would execute former collaborators with Japan, which became an important source of manpower and equipment for the Communists in the region.[165] Manchukuo Imperial Air Force pilots, 1942 The other two branches, the Manchukuo Imperial Air Force and the Manchukuo Imperial Navy, were small and underdeveloped, largely existing as token forces to give legitimacy to the Manchukuo regime. An Air Force was established in February 1937 with 30 men selected from the Manchukuo Imperial Army who were trained at the Japanese Kwantung Army aircraft arsenal in Harbin (initially the Kwantung Army did not trust the Manchukuoans enough to train a native air force for them). The Imperial Air Force's predecessor was the Manchukuo Air Transport Company (later renamed the Manchukuo National Airways), a paramilitary airline formed in 1931, which undertook transport and reconnaissance missions for the Japanese military. The first air unit was based in Hsinking (Changchun) and equipped with just one Nieuport-Delage NiD 29 and was later expanded with Nakajima Army Type 91 Fighters and Kawasaki Type 88 light bombers. Two more air units were established, but they suffered a setback when one hundred pilots took their aircraft and defected to insurgents after murdering their Japanese instructors. Nonetheless three fighter squadrons were formed in 1942 from the first batch of cadets, being equipped with Nakajima Ki-27 fighters in addition to Tachikawa Ki-9s and Tachikawa Ki-55 trainers, along with some Mitsubishi Ki-57 transports. In 1945, because of American bombing raids, they were issued with Nakajima Ki-43 fighters to have a better chance of intercepting B-29 Superfortresses. Some pilots saw action against the American bombers and at least one Ki-27 pilot downed a B-29 by ramming his plane into it in a kamikaze attack. The air force practically ceased to exist by the Soviet invasion but there were isolated instances of Manchukuoan planes attacking Soviet forces.[167] The Imperial Navy of Manchukuo existed mainly as a small river flotilla and consisted mainly of small gunboats and patrol boats, both captured Chinese ships and some Japanese additions. The elderly Japanese destroyer Kashi was lent to the Manchukuoan fleet from 1937 to 1942 as the Hai Wei before returning to the Imperial Japanese Navy. These ships were mostly crewed by Japanese.[168] In addition to those, several special units that functioned outside of the main command structure of the military also existed. The Manchukuo Imperial Guard was formed out of soldiers of ethnic Manchu descent, charged with the protection of the Kangde Emperor (Puyi) and senior officials, as well as to function as an honor guard. Despite this it took part in combat and was considered to be an effective unit. Throughout the 1930s a "Mongolian Independence Army" was established out of about 6,000 ethnic Mongolian recruits and fought its own war against bandits with some success. It was expanded in 1938 but merged with the regular Imperial Army in 1940, although Mongol units continued to perform well. A special Korean detachment was formed in 1937 on the personal initiative of a businessman of Korean descent. The unit was small but distinguished itself in combat against Communist guerrillas and was noted by the Japanese for its martial spirit, becoming one of the few puppet units to earn the respect of its Japanese superiors.[169] War crimes in Manchukuo[edit] Main article: War crimes in Manchukuo According to a joint study by historians Zhifen Ju, Mitsuyochi Himeta, Toru Kubo and Mark Peattie, more than 10 million Chinese civilians were mobilized by the Kwangtung Army for slave labor in Manchukuo under the supervision of the Kōa-in.[170] The Chinese slave laborers often suffered illness due to high-intensity manual labor. Some badly ill workers were directly pushed into mass graves in order to avoid the medical expenditure[171] and the world's most serious mine disaster, at Benxihu Colliery, happened in Manchukuo. Bacteriological weapons were experimented on humans by the infamous Unit 731 located near Harbin in Beinyinhe from 1932 to 1936 and to Pingfan until 1945. Victims, mostly Chinese, Russians and Koreans, were subjected to vivisection, sometimes without anesthesia. Drug trafficking[edit] Poppy harvest in Manchukuo In 2007, an article by Reiji Yoshida in the Japan Times argued that Japanese investments in Manchukuo were partly financed by selling drugs. According to the article, a document found by Yoshida shows that the Kōa-in was directly implicated in providing funds to drug dealers in China for the benefit of the puppet government of Manchukuo, Nanjing and Mongolia.[172] This document corroborates evidence analyzed earlier by the Tokyo tribunal which stated that Japan's real purpose in engaging in drug traffic was far more sinister than even the debauchery of Chinese people. Japan, having signed and ratified the opium conventions, was bound not to engage in drug traffic, but she found in the alleged but false independence of Manchukuo a convenient opportunity to carry on a worldwide drug traffic and cast the guilt upon that puppet state.... In 1937, it was pointed out in the League of Nations that 90% of all illicit white drugs in the world were of Japanese origin...[173] Education[edit] Manchukuo developed an efficient public education system. The government established many schools and technical colleges, 12,000 primary schools in Manchukuo, 200 middle schools, 140 normal schools (for preparing teachers), and 50 technical and professional schools. In total the system had 600,000 children and young pupils and 25,000 teachers. Local Chinese children and Japanese children usually attended different schools, and the ones who did attend the same school were segregated by ethnicity, with the Japanese students assigned to better-equipped classes. Confucius's teachings also played an important role in Manchukuo's public school education. In rural areas, students were trained to practice modern agricultural techniques to improve production. Education focused on practical work training for boys and domestic work for girls, all based on obedience to the "Kingly Way" and stressing loyalty to the Emperor. The regime used numerous festivals, sport events, and ceremonies to foster loyalty of citizens.[174] Eventually, Japanese became the official language in addition to the Chinese taught in Manchukuo schools. Culture[edit] Film[edit] The Photographic Division, part of the public relations section of the South Manchurian Railway was created in 1928 to produce short documentary films about Manchuria to Japanese audiences. In 1937, the Manchukuo Film Association was established by the government and the South Manchurian Railway in a studio in Jilin province. It was founded by Masahiko Amakasu, who also helped the career of Yoshiko Otaka, also known as Ri Koran. He also tried to ensure that Manchukuo would have its own industry and would be catering mainly to Manchurian audiences. The films for the most part usually promote pro-Manchukuo and pro-Japanese views. Appropriately enough for the sham state of Manchukuo, General Amakasu shot various "documentaries" showing carefully choreographed scenes worthy of Hollywood of the Emperor Puyi in his capital of Hsinking (modern Changchun) being cheered by thousands of his loving subjects and reviewing his troops marching in parades that were intended to prove to the world that Manchukuo was real. After World War II, the archives and the equipment of the association were used by the Changchun Film Studio of the People's Republic of China. Dress[edit] The Changshan and the Qipao, both derived from traditional Manchu dress, were considered national dresses in Manchukuo. In a meeting with the Concordia Association, the organizers devised what was termed Concordia Costume, or the kyowafuku, in 1936. Even Japanese like Masahiko Amakasu and Kanji Ishiwara adopted it. It was gray and a civilianized version of Imperial Japanese Army uniform. It was similar to the National Clothes (kokumin-fuku) worn by Japanese civilians in World War II as well as the Zhongshan suit. A pin of either a Manchukuo flag or a five-pointed, five colored star with the Manchukuo national colors were worn on the collars.[175] Court dress resembled those of Meiji-era Japan at that time. Sport[edit] The Manchukuo National Physical Education Association was established in 1932 to promote sport. Manchukuo also had a national football team, and football was considered the country's de facto national sport; the Football Association of Manchukuo was formed around it.[176] Manchukuo hosted and participated in baseball matches with Japanese teams. Some of the games of the Intercity Baseball Tournament were held in the country, and played with local teams. Manchukuo was to compete in the 1932 Summer Olympic Games, but one of the athletes who intended to represent Manchukuo, Liu Changchun, refused to join the team and instead joined as the first Chinese representative in the Olympics. There were attempts by Japanese authorities to let Manchukuo join the 1936 games, but the Olympic Committee persisted in the policy of not allowing an unrecognized state to join the Olympics. Manchukuo had a chance to participate in the planned 1940 Helsinki Olympics, but the onset of World War II prevented the games from taking place. National symbols[edit] Aside from the national flag, the orchid, reportedly Puyi's favorite flower, became the royal flower of the country, similar to the chrysanthemum in Japan.[177] The sorghum flower also became a national flower by decree in April 1933.[178] "Five Races Under One Union" was used as a national motto. Stamps and postal history[edit] Main article: Postage stamps and postal history of Manchukuo Manchukuo issued postage stamps from 28 July 1932 until its dissolution following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in August 1945. The last issue of Manchukuo was on 2 May 1945. In popular culture[edit] In Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition (1959), Kaji, the main protagonist, is a labor supervisor assigned to a workforce consisting of Chinese prisoners in a large mining operation in Japanese-colonized Manchuria. Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film The Last Emperor presented a portrait of Manchukuo through the memories of Emperor Puyi, during his days as a political prisoner in the People's Republic of China. Haruki Murakami's 1995 novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle deals greatly with Manchukuo through the character of Lieutenant Mamiya. Mamiya recalls, in person and in correspondence, his time as an officer in the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo. While the period covered in these recollections extends over many years, the focus is on the final year of the war and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Also, in his 2011 magical realist novel 1Q84, Murakami references the Manchukuo puppet state, Manchuria and the Trans-Siberian Railway in various character backstories. The 2008 South Korean western The Good, the Bad, the Weird is set in the desert wilderness of 1930s Manchuria.
  • Condition: Used
  • Type: Photograph
  • Year of Production: 1934

PicClick Insights - Chinese Emperor Pu Yi Enthronement Photo 新京 Manchoukuo Vintage 1934 PicClick Exclusive

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