Chinese Government Leaders in

Manchukuo, 1931–1937

Drawing on the historiography of the Japanese occupation in the Chinese,

Japanese, and English languages, this book examines the politics of the Manchukuo
puppet state from the angle of notable Chinese who cooperated with the Japanese
military and headed its government institutions.
The war in Asia between 1931 and 1945, and particularly the early years of the
conflict from 1931 to 1937, is a topic of world history that is often glossed over or
misinterpreted. Much of the research and public opinion on this period in China,
Japan, and the West deem these Chinese figures to be traitors, particles of Japanese
colonialism, and collaborators under occupation. In contrast, this book highlights
the importance of analyzing the national ideas of Manchukuo’s Chinese govern-
ment leaders as a method of understanding Manchukuo’s operating mechanisms,
Sino-Japanese interactions, and China’s turbulent history in the early twentieth
century.
Chinese Government Leaders in Manchukuo, 1931–1937 fills a gap in this research
and is an ideal resource for scholars studying wartime Asia and Europe, as well as
non-specialist readers who are interested in collaboration in general.

Jianda Yuan is a visiting research scholar at the National Institute of Japanese

Literature. His research interests pertain to modern China and Japan, with a par-
ticular emphasis on Manchuria in the 1930s and the 1940s. His recent work is
“The Manchukuo Young Girl Envoys and Their Visit to Japan” (2022).
Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Japan
Series Editor: Miriam Kingsberg Kadia (University of Colorado
Boulder, USA)

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Writing Manchuria: The Lives and Literature of Zhu Ti and

Li Zhengzhong
Norman Smith

Chinese Government Leaders in Manchukuo, 1931–1937

Intertwined National Ideals
Jianda Yuan
Key Chinese and Japanese leaders of Manchukuo. Photo taken inside the Kantō
Army’s headquarters in Fengtian (present-day Shenyang), February 16, 1932. The
persons in the front row from left to right are, respectively, Ma Zhanshan, Zhang
Jinghui, Honjō Shigeru, Aixin-Jueluo Xixia, and Zang Shiyi.
Itagaki Seishirō (back row; third from left), Komai Tokuzō (back row; fourth
from left), Ishiwara Kanji (back row; sixth from right), Katakura Tadashi (back
row; first from right), and Miyake Mitsuharu (back row; fifth from right) are also
present in this photo. From Da Manzhoudiguo jian’guo shi zhounian ji’nian xiezhentie
[大滿洲國建國十周年紀念寫真帖 Memorializing photo collection of the tenth
anniversary of the empire of Manchuria’s foundation]. Xinjing: Jian’guo shi
zhounian zhudian shuwuju 建國十周年祝典事務局, 1942.
Chinese Government Leaders
in Manchukuo, 1931–1937
Intertwined National Ideals

Jianda Yuan
First published 2023
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Names: Yuan, Jianda, author.
Title: Chinese government leaders in Manchukuo, 1931-1937 : intertwined
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Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Routledge studies in the modern history of Japan | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022054706 (print) | LCCN 2022054707 (ebook) |
Subjects: LCSH: Manchuria (China)--History--1931-1945. | Manchuria
(China)--Politics and government. |
Statesmen--China--Manchuria--Biography. | Manchuria
(China)--Colonization. | Japan--Colonies--Asia--Administration. |
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Chinese. | National characteristics, Japanese.
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ISBN: 978-1-032-41370-9 (hbk)
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ISBN: 978-1-003-35777-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003357773
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Contents

Acknowledgments xiii
Note on Language xv

Introduction: Deconstructing the Intertwined Chinese

National Ideals of Manchukuo 1
External and Internal Forces of Manchukuo’s Creation: Thesis and
Focus 3
Protecting Japan’s Continental Lifeline: Manchuria and the Japanese 5
Cultivating the Manchu Ancestral Land with Han Power: Manchuria
and the Han Chinese 7
Creating Manchukuo with Dissidents from China: Manchuria’s
Problems after 1928 9
Overlooking the Significance of Manchukuo’s Chinese Officials:
Historiography 11
Ten Figures and Five Categories: Structures, Sources, and Notes on
“Collaboration” 13
Outline of Chapters 15
Notes 18

1 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo:

The National Policies of Itagaki Seishirō, Komai Tokuzō,
Ishiwara Kanji, and Kasagi Yoshiaki 22
Cultivating New Japanese Territories: The Ideal of Itagaki Seishirō 23
Helping the Chinese Govern Their Lands: The Ideal of Komai
Tokuzō 25
Creating an East Asian Block against the West: The Ideal of Ishiwara
Kanji 28
Promoting Autonomy in Manchukuo and Revitalizing Asia: Kasagi
Yoshiaki’s Ideal 31
viii Contents
Ideological Contest Rather than Military Coercion: Chapter
Conclusion 34
Notes 35

2 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in

China: The Imperial Ambitions of Puyi and Xixia in
Manchukuo 39
Siding with the Japanese Emperor: Aixin-Jueluo Puyi in
Manchukuo 40
Miserable Life in Exile: The Early Life of Puyi 42
A Tough Way to Manchuria: Puyi’s Departure from Tianjin to
Xinjing 44
The Advent of Hayashide Kenjirō and Top Secret Meeting
Records 46
Anxious Pride: Puyi’s Ambition for Power and Imperial
Restoration 48
Greeting the Shōwa Emperor and His Family Members: Puyi’s
Official Visit to Japan 50
Carrying Forward East Asia’s Moralities with Japan: Puyi’s
Increasing National Ambition 52
Sharing the Fate with Japan: Puyi’s National Ideal after 1937 55
A Desperate Call for Restoration: Aixin-Jueluo Xixia’s Ironic Career
in Manchukuo 57
Unable to Forget the Qing Dynasty: Xixia’s Early Life 58
Confronting Domestic Enemies with Foreign Force: Xixia and the
Creation of Manchukuo 60
Confronting Non-Manchu Forces: Xixia’s Frictions with Zheng
Xiaoxu and the Japanese 61
A Failed Dream of Revival: Xixia’s Later Life 64
Unconsciously Making the Japanese Decide the Future of the Manchus:
Chapter Conclusion 66
Notes 67

3 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural

Order: Zheng Xiaoxu and Luo Zhenyu in the State of
Manchukuo 74
Utopian Idea, Tragic Result: Zheng Xiaoxu’s Dream of the Open
Door and the Kingly Way 75
For the Sake of Zhongguo: Zheng Xiaoxu’s Early Life and View of
China 76
 Contents ix
To “Win the Lasting Gratitude of the Countless Blameless
Chinese”: The Origin of the Open Door 79
Relying on the Financial Assistance of Foreign Powers: Zheng’s
View of the Open Door 80
Demanding Foreign Economic Assistance and Guidance: The
Component of International Supervision in Zheng’s Open Door
Policy 82
A Path to the Realm of Benevolence: Explaining the Kingly
Way 83
Recovering China and Pacifying the World: Practicing the Kingly
Way 84
“Is Heaven the Only One Who Understands Me”: The Failure of
Zheng’s National Ideals 86
Becoming a Religious Totem of Manchukuo: The of Death Zheng
and Beyond 89
A Scholar Who Is Loyal to China’s Imperial Order: The National
Ideals of Luo Zhenyu 91
The Beginning of a “Life-Long Bitterness”: Luo’s Early Life 93
Foreign Friend and Domestic Foe: Luo’s Attitude toward Japan and
Republicanism 94
Time to Revive the Monarchy: Luo and the Creation of
Manchukuo 97
Rectifying “the Mistakes of the Past”: Luo’s Later Life 98
Chapter Conclusion: “Different Dreams in the Same Bed” 101
Notes 103

4 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism Surrounding

Manchukuo’s Two Military Leaders: The Ideals of Zhang
Jinghui and Ma Zhanshan 109
A Pawn of the ROC and the Japanese: Manchukuo’s Second Prime
Minister Zhang Jinghui 110
Peace as Priority: Zhang’s Early Life 112
Facing Japanese: Zhang and the Manchurian Incident 113
Endorsing Japanese Decisions: Zhang as the Manchukuo Prime
Minister 115
From Prisoner to Traitor: Zhang Jinghui during the Collapse of
Manchukuo and Beyond 117
Formation of an Anti-Japan Hero: Ma Zhanshan in the Era of
Manchukuo 120
An Ordinary Past: Ma’s Early Life 121
A Hopeless Struggle: Ma and the Battle of Nenjiang Bridge 121
x Contents
Antagonist Suppressed Protagonist: Ma’s Calculation and
Plight 124
Better Cooperate than Fight: Ma’s Negotiation and Cooperation
with the Japanese 126
Better Fight than Cooperate: Complicated Reasons behind Ma’s
Defection 128
Redeeming the Dignity of a Constructed Hero: Ma’s Helpless
Second Resistance against the Japanese and Beyond 130
A Concealed Power Contest between the ROC and the Japanese:
Chapter Conclusion 133
Notes 134

5 Preserving Warlord Manchuria: Yu Chonghan’s and Zang

Shiyi’s Service in Manchukuo 140
Empowering the Powerless Masses of Manchuria: Yu Chonghan and
His Dream of Regional Autonomy 141
Road to a Prominent Civil Official of the Fengtian Faction: Yu’s
Early Life 143
Protecting the Territory and the People of Manchuria: Yu’s Civil
Reforms 144
Kingly Way Requires No Army: Yu’s Doctrine of
Nonmilitarization 145
Empty-Handed Masses Need Protection: Yu’s Justification for
Autonomy 146
Clothing and Food Matters to One’s Daily Life: Yu’s Financial
Observations 147
Rectifying the Existing Official Faults of Fengtian: Yu’s
Government Reforms 148
A Respected Exit from Politics: Yu’s Ephemeral Career in
Manchukuo and Death 149
Unspeakable Bitterness: Zang Shiyi and His Cooperation with the
Japanese in Manchukuo 151
A Path to the Aide of Zhang Xueliang: Zang’s Early Life 153
Tormented Decisions Facing Japanese Threats: Zang during the
Manchurian Incident 153
Fourteen Years of Silence: Zang’s Career in the State of
Manchukuo 155
From Celebrity to Prisoner: Zang’s Later Life 158
Traitorous on the Surface; Helpless at the Core: Chapter
Conclusion 159
Notes 161
 Contents xi
6 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems Based
on Shōwa Japan’s Experiences: Zhao Xinbo and Feng
Hanqing as Manchukuo’s Government Leaders 167
Raised in China and Educated in Japan: Zhao Xinbo and His
Struggles for Sino-Japan Cooperation 168
“A Dissertation of Tears and Vengeance”: Zhao’s Early Life 170
Strengthening the Ties between the ROC and Japan: Zhao’s
Attitude toward Japan 172
Refusing to become “an Egg in a Falling Nest”: Zhao’s Break with
Zhang Xueliang 174
Protecting the Chinese Residents of Fengtian under Chinese
Condemnation: Zhao’s Service as the Mayor of Fengtian, October
1931–March 1932 175
Identifying the New State: Zhao’s View of Manchukuo and Its
Officialdom’s Principles 177
Liberating the East with Japan: Zhao’s View of a Japanese-
Supervised Asian Solidarity 179
An Unsuccessful Struggle for Power: Zhao’s Dismissal and Removal
from Office 180
A Lingering Influence on Sino-Japanese Relations: Highly
Publicized Disputes over Zhao’s Properties in Japan,
1951–1984 182
Passionate Scholar of Law: Manchukuo’s First Minister of Justice, Feng
Hanqing 184
Modern Scholar in a Tumultuous Era: Feng’s Early Life 185
Shaping Manchukuo’s Judicial Order: Feng’s Attitude toward
Judicial Integrity 186
Not Another Korea: Feng’s View of Manchukuo and the Japanese
Presence 189
A Quiet and Bitter Exit from History: Feng’s Mysterious Later
Life 191
A One-Sided Wish for Sino-Japanese Cooperation: Chapter
Conclusion 194
Notes 196

Conclusion: Overcoming the National, Ethnic, and Emotional

Boundaries in the Study of Manchukuo 202
Betraying the National Interests of China: PRC studies on Manchu
Aristocrats 203
Treating the Year 1931 as a Watershed: Chinese-Language Studies on
Qing Loyalists 204
xii Contents
Shameless Betrayal versus National Salvation: PRC Studies on
Military Leaders 205
Fading into Obscurity: PRC Studies on Civil Elites and Modern
Intellectuals 206
Unable to Problematize the Notion of Betrayal: Section Summary 206
Constructing Japanese Manchukuo: The May 1937 Reform and Its
Significance 207
Either Becoming Abandoned Pawns or Silent Followers of the Japanese:
The Dilemma of Manchukuo’s Chinese Government Leaders 209
Epilogue: The Way of Approaching Manchuria and Manchukuo 211
Notes 212

Appendix 1: Manchukuo’s Top-Level Government Structure in

March 1932 216
Appendix 2: Manchukuo’s Major Government Institutions after May 1937 218
Appendix 3: Time Line of Relevant Events in This Book 220
Bibliography 229
Index 242
Acknowledgments

This monograph developed from my master’s thesis at St. Mary’s University

(Halifax, Canada) in 2015 and doctoral dissertation at the University of Guelph
(Guelph, Canada) in 2019. My postdoctoral research in Japan introduced me to
sources that I desired to collect for years and materials in both Chinese and Japanese
that I had not previously heard of. Incorporating those sources with Japan’s
detail-oriented writing style generated this revisionist study of Manchukuo poli-
tics. Many individuals provided me with advice, help, and support during this
monograph’s writing process in the past few years, and I would like to express my
sincere gratitude to them.
I would first like to thank my parents for their prolonged and generous financial
aid. They covered the costs of my university studies in Canada and postgraduate
research in Japan. Without their support, the completion of this monograph would
remain an illusion.
I would like to thank my doctoral supervisor, Norman Smith (Department of
History, University of Guelph), and the former vice dean of the International
Research Center for Japanese Studies (Kyoto, Japan; hereafter, Nichibunken), Liu
Jianhui, for their indispensable advice for my research. Professor Smith intently
read the manuscript of my dissertation and this monograph sentence by sentence
and provided me with suggestions on issues like structure, clarity, argument, and
grammar. Without his guidance and help, I could not possibly have received my
doctorate of arts in history and expanded my dissertation into a monograph.
Professor Liu was my adviser during my stay at Nichibunken as a visiting research
scholar between October 2019 and January 2022. His constructive and insightful
suggestions greatly helped me formulate this study’s thesis, conclusion, and certain
body chapters.
I am equally grateful to Bill Sewell (Department of History, Saint Mary’s
University), Kathryn Meyer (professor emeritus, Department of History, Wright
State University), Miriam Kingsberg Kadia (Department of History, University of
Colorado), Blaine Chiasson (Department of History, Wilfrid Laurier University),
Inaga Shigemi (professor emeritus, Nichibunken), Takii Kazuhiro (Nichibunken),
Katō Kiyofumi (National Institute of Japanese Literature), Christina Han
(Department of History, Wilfrid Laurier University), Kimie Hara (Department of
History, University of Waterloo), Geoffrey Hayes (Department of History,
University of Waterloo), Sun Xiaoping (Department of History, Saint Mary’s
xiv Acknowledgments
University), Robert Perrins (vice president of academic affairs, American
University of Iraq), and James Sedgwick (Department of History, Acadia
University). These individuals helped me enrich and sharpen the analysis of this
monograph through oral and written comments. I would like to particularly thank
my M.A. supervisor, Bill Sewell, and this monograph’s reviewer, Kathryn Meyer,
for their detailed suggestions on revision for my first draft; their inspiring com-
ments were essential to the eventual publication of this study. I would also like to
thank Dr. Ueda Kaoru (Kay Ueda) from the Hoover Institution Library & Archives
of Stanford University for providing me with high-resolution Manchukuo-era
photos from the Institution without charge.
Finally, I want to thank several of my friends. Chen Yun, Ye Xiaoyao, and Ichiba
Sōta kindly answered my frequent Japanese-language-related questions and helped
me check the accuracy of my translation of a few Japanese texts upon my bother-
some request. Su Wenbo, a doctoral candidate at Nichibunken, helped me collect
several photos in this book using his access to Nichibunken’s internal database.
Their selfless support not only enriched this monograph’s content but also helped
me redress several mistakes in the translation of Japanese documents.
Note on Language

This book uses Pinyin for Chinese names and terms, including Taiwan, with three
exceptions: Sun Yat-sen (instead of Sun Zhongshan), Chiang Kai-shek (instead of
Jiang Jieshi), and Manchukuo (instead of Manzhouguo), for a broader audience.
For consistency, it uses “Fengtian” rather than “Liaoning” when describing the
territory of today’s Liaoning province and its capital of Shenyang, although the
Republic of China government changed the province’s name from Fengtian to
Liaoning and its capital’s name from Fengtian to Shenyang between 1929 and
1932. Based on the same reason, this book uses “Beijing” instead of “Beiping” to
address the city between 1928 and 1949. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cultural
customs always place the last/family name ahead of the first/given name (Zheng
Xiaoxu, not Xiaoxu Zheng; Tōjō Hideki, not Hideki Tōjō; Choi Kyu-hah, not
Kyu-hah Choi); the book follows this rule unless when addressing scholars who
write in English. This study adopts the pronunciation of “Xixia,” instead of
“Xiqia,” for Manchu figure Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (愛新覺羅・熙洽), as contempo-
rary publications marked his first name as “Hsi-hsia” instead of “Hsi-chia.”
Introduction
Deconstructing the Intertwined Chinese
National Ideals of Manchukuo

Manchukuo treated ethnic harmony as the nation’s central ideology and strove to
cultivate the national characters of Japanese, Han Chinese, and other ethnicities
together. In the field of politics, economy, and society, it aimed at realizing full-
scale coordination and ethnic affinity, thereby leaving a mark of each ethnicity’s
struggles for harmony. It is thus not possible to overlook the history of Manchukuo
when discussing the nations that treat coordination and fusion as the basis of their
ethnic policies today.
Furumi Tadayuki, Wasure enu Manshū [Unforgettable Manchuria] (Tokyo: Keizai
ōraisha, 1978), 1.
Manchukuo, literally the country of Manchuria, was a short-lived state that
existed between 1932 and 1945 in the Three Eastern Provinces, the northeast part
of Inner Mongolia, and part of Hebei province of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) today. Furumi Tadayuki (1900–1983) was a Japanese official who served as
the vice director of Manchukuo’s guiding department, the General Affairs Board
(Ch: Zongwu ting; Jp: Sōmu chō), between 1941 and 1945. The sentences at the
beginning of this chapter are the opening part of his 1978 memoir. Although
arguments like this are largely dismissed by historians, especially in the PRC today,
as an apology for invasion, Furumi’s view implies that Manchukuo had different
political forces and that political conflicts and negotiations between the officials of
different ethnicities were, for this central Japanese decision-maker, underlying fea-
tures of the country’s 14-year development.
Politics is important for one to understand the history of Manchukuo. Observing
Japan’s path from expanding into south Manchuria during the Sino-Japanese War
of 1894–1895 to treating Manchuria as a “lifeline” that could decide the fate of the
Japanese Empire by 1932, when it created Manchukuo, historian Liu Jianhui
argues that “contemporary Japanese history unfolded itself around Manchuria, if
this description is not overly exaggerating.”1 Indeed, based on the November 1945
demographics that the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs conducted, the Japanese
population in the former territory of Manchukuo was 1.23 million (excluding
soldiers)—2.5 times those who resided in China proper: 466,000.2 Today,
Manchuria, especially the bitter history of Japanese repatriation from Manchuria
between 1946 and 1948, occupies a great portion of the publications on the
Japanese Empire in Japan.3 Manchuria-related Japanese civil organizations, such as
the International Friendly Neighbor Association (Kokusai zenrin kyōkai) and the
DOI: 10.4324/9781003357773-1
2 Introduction
alumni associations of Manchukuo’s Great Unity Academy (Ch: Datong xueyuan;
Jp: Daidō gakuin) and National Foundation University (Ch: Jian’guo daxue; Jp:
Kenkoku daigaku), remained active in Japan for more than a half century after the
end of the Second World War. Members of these organizations hosted regular
reunion activities each year, and they published volumes of reviews and recollec-
tions on Manchukuo and Manchuria more broadly between the 1960s and the
2000s.4 One may argue that without understanding the operating mechanism of
the country’s highest government level, especially in the early years of its creation
between 1932 and 1937, one will neither be possible to grasp a comprehensive
image of Manchukuo’s national ideals nor to understand the reasons behind the
lingering influence of Manchukuo in Japanese society after 1945. One may also
argue that Manchukuo-related research that generates from such misunderstand-
ings hardly helps one better comprehend Japan’s and China’s interactions in the
early twentieth century.
For those Japanese who used to live in Manchukuo, nostalgia might be a shared
feeling of the majority, regardless of social status. Furumi’s contention is a voice
from the country’s high-level officials. Ordinary Japanese people likewise often
positively recall their life in Manchukuo. Andō Kazuko, the daughter of a lower-level
Japanese official of Manchukuo, for example, wrote in 2004, “No matter what
history says…to reject Manchuria means to reject our identity and to make our
parents’ struggles disregarding their lives in vain.”5 Commenting on many Chinese
people’s use of the adjective “bogus” (Ch: wei; Jp: gi) to describe Manchukuo,
Andō contended, “[T]he days that we spent [in Manchukuo] in our childhood
were neither fake nor illusionary.”6 Challenging a specious opinion that the Japanese
were reluctant to introspect and apologize for their wartime actions against their
Asian neighbors after the Second World War, unlike the Germans, Liu Jianhui
observes that the Japanese in reality often mixed their introspection of Japan’s
military expansions, especially in Manchuria, with a sense of nostalgia given their
prolonged interactions in the land. As the ratio of introspection and nostalgia
varied from person to person depending on elements like occupation, education,
age, ideal, ambition, and personality, regarding Japan’s contemporary history, “dif-
ferent people might reach [different and sometimes] opposite conclusions.”7 Liu’s
insightful note on Japanese nostalgia motivates one to reconsider the limits of
terms like “apology” and “apologist” when examining the postwar writings of the
Japanese Empire’s participants.
This book approaches Manchukuo’s top-level politics in the early 1930s from
the question of why many Japanese who experienced the Manchukuo era felt
nostalgic for, in the eyes of many observers today, such a failed state and ideology
of “ethnic harmony” (Ch: minzu xiehe; Jp: minzoku kyōwa) from a perspective that
few researchers have intently examined: Sino-Japanese cooperation. Due to polit-
ical reasons in the PRC, former Manchukuo officials on the Chinese side, includ-
ing ethnic minorities like the Manchus and the Mongols, were hardly able to
express their views of Manchukuo other than criticizing Manchukuo’s false and
puppet nature after 1949. Focusing on Japanese accomplishments, the Japanese in
their postwar recollections often overlooked the significance of Chinese coopera-
tion to the formation of Manchukuo and their nostalgic feeling toward the
 Introduction 3
country partly because sources on the Chinese perspectives were “impossible to
trace considering China’s current political situation.”8 This is likely a major reason
why existing studies of Manchukuo in English and Japanese often tend to empha-
size the Japanese and downplay or omit the Chinese. Nonetheless, because ethnic
harmony served as an identifying national ideal of Manchukuo for the Japanese,
the contributing force of Manchukuo’s creation is unlikely limited to the Japanese,
be it military officials, politicians, intellectuals, continental activists, and idealists.
Indeed, historian Yamamuro Shin’ichi argues that Manchukuo’s creation was “the
first time in history that the Japanese tried to coexist with those who had different
language, customs, and values on a large scale.”9 Historian Rana Mitter agrees that
“the Japanese occupiers” of Manchuria required local Chinese cooperation, to
justify their “imperialistic opportunism and pan-Asian idealism.”10 Historian
Thomas DuBois argues that Japan, a country with almost exclusively one ethnicity,
borrowed the “multi-ethnic portrayal of the Chinese ethnicities” from the
Republic of China (ROC) in 1912—namely, “harmony of the five ethnicities”
(wuzu gonghe)—to shape the legitimacy of Japanese participation in the govern-
ment of Manchukuo.11 Apparently, the Japanese were not the sole characters in the
ruling institution of Manchukuo in the early 1930s. To address and rectify this
academic oversight on the study of Manchukuo politics, this book focuses on the
Chinese instead of the Japanese government leaders, as the latter has received con-
siderable attention from scholars in both Japan and the West in the past 40 years.

External and Internal Forces of Manchukuo’s Creation: Thesis

and Focus
Given Manchukuo’s proclaimed national entity as a multiethnic country, its birth
originated from external and internal forces; those two forces shaped the political
landscape of Manchukuo through cooperation and competition before the war
between Japan and the ROC broke out in July 1937. That external force, a Japanese
force, mainly consisted of senior officials in the Japanese Kantō Army and Japanese
civil servants—many of whom had working experiences in the South Manchuria
Railway Company (SMR). The internal force, on the other hand, was a Chinese
force that mainly consisted of those who became the head of Manchukuo’s
supreme departments in March 1932. Chinese-, Japanese-, and English-language
studies of Manchukuo in the past four decades have emphasized the roles that
lower-level government officials, institutions, intellectuals, and revolutionaries
played in stabilizing or shaking the country’s foundations. Although the ideals of
Manchukuo’s top-level Japanese officials have received considerable academic
attention, few have directly analyzed those Chinese at the top. As the co-founders
of Manchukuo, Chinese government leaders were equally important figures in the
making of the country’s national policies and the planning of the country’s future
development. This book focuses on the internal contributing forces to the creation
of Manchukuo.
As a group, Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders had different national
ideals and personal interests, but collectively, they chose to cooperate with the
Japanese in the making of a new state independent of the ROC’s administration.
4 Introduction
Previous PRC studies on Sino-Japanese relations in the government and institu-
tions of Manchukuo often portray an image of Japanese repression and Chinese
subservience. While repression and subservience might be a phenomenon in the
lower and county levels of Manchukuo’s government, especially after 1937, they
were by no means the whole story of the country’s politics. At the top, coopera-
tion, mutual benefit exchange, or struggles between Japanese decision-makers and
Chinese government leaders better summarize the political ecology of Manchukuo’s
inner circle in the early 1930s. A unified voice or policy regarding the develop-
ment of Manchukuo did not exist when the country was created in 1932. In fact,
as Chapter 1 suggests, those Japanese who directly participated in the making of
Manchukuo had at least four different construction plans, and each of them would
lead Manchukuo in a distinctive direction. Given the absence of consensus among
the Japanese and the Chinese, let alone between the two groups, the future of
Manchukuo was filled with uncertainties in the early 1930s.
This book argues that Manchukuo was a product of intertwined Chinese and
Japanese national ideals rather than a mere project of Japanese imperialism. Like
the existence of multiple Japanese construction plans for the new state,
Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders also had different expectations, rang-
ing from the rebuilding of the Manchus’ dominant positions in China proper to
the revival of China’s monarchical system, and from the preservation of Manchuria’s
self-governance to the construction of Manchuria as a republic governed by a
modern legal system. Those Chinese and Japanese ideals not only often mutually
competed but also competed within their own circles, thereby preventing the
triumph of one ideal over the others at least before the reorganization of
Manchukuo’s cabinet in May 1935. This explains why Manchukuo’s status as a
republic was altered to an empire two years after its creation, and why the Kantō
Army adopted the Mencian notion of the Kingly Way or Way of Benevolence
(Ch: wangdao; Jp: ōdō) as the new state’s moral precept in the early 1930s. It was
those intertwined national ideals, instead of a unilateral Japanese ambition, that
contributed to the creation of Manchukuo and the construction of the country’s
political systems between 1932 and 1937.
The use of the term “Chinese government leaders” contains no intention of
simplifying the ethnic diversity and complexity of the population of China, espe-
cially the remarkable Han-Manchu conflicts in the early twentieth century. It uses
“Chinese” both because ethnic identities inside the Chinese-speaking officials of
Manchukuo is not a major element of this book—although the chapters do not
disregard them—given historians Mark Elliott’s and Dan Shao’s research findings
on relevant subjects, and because a concise term that could encompass the ethnic
issues of China in English, Chinese, and Japanese is absent.12 The term
“Manchurian” has limits compared with “Chinese,” as many of Manchukuo’s gov-
ernment leaders, even the former Qing emperor Aixin-Jueluo Puyi (1906–1967),
originated in China proper and had little connection with Manchuria before
1932. Moreover, because the senior officials of Manchukuo in the early 1930s,
especially the research targets of this book, were overwhelmingly Han Chinese,
and the Manchu figures that this book analyzes spoke and wrote in the Han lan-
guage, this study thus opts to use “Chinese government leaders” to refer to this
 Introduction 5
internal force, for concise purpose. Adopting the term Chinese does not necessar-
ily place the question of what it meant to be Chinese for all the research targets of
this book at the center partially because of the aforementioned reasons. It gives up
detailed explorations of that question mainly due to the inadequacy of sources; to
emphasize such a perspective based on the limited declassified Manchukuo-era
materials in China today, one has to rely more on conjecture than empirical
examination. The possible declassification and discovery of more sources on
Manchukuo’s different ministries and Chinese leaders in the future might gradu-
ally make that approach a feasible task, motivating this study to emphasize the
ways in which Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders justified their coopera-
tion with Japan.

Protecting Japan’s Continental Lifeline: Manchuria and the

Japanese
Manchuria was a term that Japanese, Europeans, and Americans commonly used,
especially in the first half of the twentieth century, to address a vast region that
consisted of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang provinces and the northeast part of
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the PRC today. Known in Chinese as
Manzhou and in Japanese as Manshū, Manchuria was initially a tribal name rather
than a regional term. Pronounced as Manzhu in Mandarin and Manju in Manchu,
the founder of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), Huang Taiji (1592–1643), unified
all the tribes in the Qing territory and named them Manju, or Manchu in English,
but Han Chinese gradually misinterpreted Manzhu as a place name and replaced
zhu (pearl) with zhou (island) given the two terms’ similarity of pronunciation.13
The Netherlands was one of the first European countries to adopt Manchuria as a
regional term for the northeast territories of the Qing Dynasty in the early eight-
eenth century, including the lands that Russia took away from the Qing Dynasty
in 1858 and 1860, as the Dutch copied the term “Mantcheou” on a Qing map of
the Kangxi period (1662–1722) in the 1730s and reproduced it in their own maps
of East Asia afterward.14 Because Japan kept a limited trading relationship with the
Netherlands in the Edo period (1603–1868), Dutch geographical terms likely
influenced Japanese people’s worldview; Manshū was arguably a transliteration of
Mantcheou.15 By the mid-nineteenth century, Manchuria had become a com-
monly used geographical term among Japanese intellectuals; famous Edo thinkers
like Satō Nobuhiro (1769–1850) and Yoshida Shōin (1830–1859) frequently used
it in their written works.16
At the dawn of the twentieth century, especially after the Russo-Japanese War
of 1904–1905, systematic studies of Manchuria began to emerge in Japan.
Combining Manchuria and Mongolia with the term Man Mō (Ch: Man Meng) and
using Shi’na (Ch: Zhi’na), a term that today’s Chinese people commonly regard as
a derogatory address of China, to describe China proper, the Japanese intended to
theoretically disaggregate the home territory of the Qing Dynasty in order to
justify their intrusions and investments in Manchuria and Mongolia.17 Researchers
of the regions often relied on personal travel to gather local sources and historical
documentation for analysis, and their research outputs on the association of Japan
6 Introduction
and Manchuria were praised as “culturally decorated armed forces” (bunsō teki bubi)
by Gotō Shinpei (1857–1929), the SMR’s first director.18 In official Japanese rhet-
oric after the Russo-Japanese War, Manchuria was a “national heritage” that Japan
acquired through “the expenditure of two billion national currency and the sacri-
fice of 100,000 people”; no interlopers would be tolerated.19 Even Sun Yat-sen
(1866–1925), the founder of the ROC and a key figure who ended China’s
2,000-year-long monarchical system, reportedly agreed to let Japan absorb
Manchuria if the country could provide him with weapons and money against his
political rival, Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), during his visit to Japan in spring 1913.
Speaking with former Japanese prime minister Katsura Tarō (1848–1913) in
Tokyo, Sun suggested, “It does not hurt to give territories like Manchuria to
Japan, if that could foster Japan’s understanding of China and make [the Japanese]
help [the Chinese] construct the new China.”20
To defend Japan’s interests in Manchuria, the country relied on military means
through the creation of the Kantō Army in 1906. Literally meaning “east of the
Pass,” Kantō or Guandong in Chinese refers to a vast region to the east of the
Shanhai Pass—namely, the Liaodong Peninsula (also known as south Manchuria).
Initially named Manchuria Railway Defense Troop (Manshū tetsudō shubitai), the
army used to be a defense organization for Japan’s newly acquired Kantō conces-
sions: Dalian (Dairen), Lüshun (Port Arthur), and the SMR, a 1,116.64-kilometer
railway that the Russians laid in 1898 and opened in 1903, between Lüshun and
Changchun.21 According to an official agreement between Japan and the Qing
Dynasty after the Russo-Japanese War, the army could not station more than 15
soldiers per mile along the SMR, and the total number of the army thus could not
exceed 10,410 people based on the railway’s length (Figure 0.1).22
Over time, however, the army gained more privileges, and its roles became
more complicated. After becoming an independent garrison and receiving the title
of “Kantō Army” in 1919, the army managed to acquire privileges relating to
railway transportation, communication, shipping, finance, mining, and heavy
industry in south Manchuria. Establishing multiple departments relating to mili-
tary operations and intelligence, the army gathered local intelligence ranging from
Manchurian political activities like the attitudes of important officials in the war-
lord regime of Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928) toward Japan, to military intelligence
like the equipment of Zhang’s warlord soldiers, to Manchuria’s industrial and agri-
cultural outputs.23 Historian Huang Zijin observes that the Japanese tried to legit-
imize their military activities in Manchuria by rejecting Chinese sovereignty over
the region; they consider the 1900 Russian occupation the moment of Manchuria’s
transformation into Russian territory. In that sense, Japan’s rights and interests in
the region were legally acquired from their previous owner, Russia, not the Qing
Dynasty, after the Russo-Japanese War.24 Even if just for the safety of the local
Japanese residents, Japan could not step back in front of Chinese protests for sov-
ereignty.25 Departing from the Japanese portrayal of Manchuria as a wilderness that
Japan acquired from Russia with the sacrifice of countless soldiers, the Han eth-
nicity of China had cultivated the land for more than two centuries before the
Russians and the Japanese arrived, and they played an important role in the region’s
development in the early twentieth century.
 Introduction 7

Figure 0.1 Map of Manchuria’s railway system in 1932. The SMR is marked on this map
with a number (905). Changchun is in the middle of this map, while Lüshun is
at the bottom.
Source: Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, ed., Shin Manshūkoku haya wakari [Simple explanation of the new
Manchukuo], Appendix of Jitsugyō no Nihon [Business of Japan] 35:7 (March 1932): no page number.

Cultivating the Manchu Ancestral Land with Han Power:

Manchuria and the Han Chinese
Han Chinese commonly described Manchuria as guanwai, literally “outside the
Pass,” in the Qing Dynasty. The Manchu Qing authorities formally closed
Manchuria to Han Chinese migration between 1740 and 1907 due to political,
ethnic, and economic reasons. Besides criminal deportations and infiltrations, the
Han Chinese population virtually had no way to enter Manchuria throughout
most of the Qing Dynasty.26 Obviously, the vague term “outside the Pass” suggests
that Han Chinese in China proper had little knowledge about the vast northeast.
This began to change in the late nineteenth century when Russia and Japan grad-
ually penetrated the region, and “when Manchuria came to be seen by many
Chinese as a region with fertile land for farming and abundant natural resources
which benefit the nation.”27 Since migration restriction in Manchuria was offi-
cially abolished in 1907 when the Qing Dynasty established the Three Eastern
Provinces (Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang from south to north), immigrants,
especially from Zhili and Shandong provinces in north China, flooded into the
region for a better life or bare survival in the following three decades.
Besides fertile farmlands, wages were notably higher compared to northern
Chinese provinces. For example, an agricultural worker in Fengtian province
could earn 42 fen (Chinese cents) and 36 fen in Jilin province every day in the early
8 Introduction
1920s, whereas the daily wage of their counterparts in Shandong was 13 fen and 14
fen in Shanxi.28 While Chinese provinces suffered warlord skirmishes and periodic
famine in the early 1920s, relatively stable life in Manchuria attracted at least
200,000 immigrants annually from north China and elsewhere. Although many
returned to their hometowns after gaining enough money for living each year,
Manchuria’s population continued to increase in the 1920s.29
Unlike the increasingly immigrant nature of Manchuria’s local population, gov-
ernors of Manchuria in the 1910s and the 1920s were predominantly native Han
Chinese, and many were military leaders. Known in Chinese as junfa and warlords
in English, they were a group of military men “who took power through the force
of arms and who usually lost it in the same manner.”30 Zhang Zuolin was the most
powerful and prominent warlord governor of early Republican Manchuria. Born
into a Haicheng family of shop owners in southern Manchuria in 1875, Zhang was
a merchant and a veterinarian who often engaged in gambling activities in his early
years. He served as a cavalry sentinel head of a local Qing army during the Sino-
Japanese War of 1894–1895, and the army’s commander greatly appreciated Zhang’s
ability to cure horse-related injuries and diseases.31 In 1902, Zhang joined the
Fengtian Army with a group of local ruffians that he organized for self-defense
during the Russian invasion of Manchuria in 1900 and commanded several suc-
cessful attacks against local bandits. During the Russo-Japanese War, Zhang helped
the Japanese explore local Russian activities, and the Fengtian government named
him the commander of five newly established defense battalions in 1906; native
Manchurian men like Zhang Jinghui (1872–1959) and Zhang Zuoxiang (1881–
1949)—prominent followers of Zhang Zuolin—served as the battalions’ leaders.32
Based on further military merits, Zhang Zuolin’s status in the Fengtian Army con-
tinued to rise, and by 1911, he became the second-most powerful military leader
besides the governor of the Three Eastern Provinces (Dong sansheng zongdu).33
From 1912 to 1916, Zhang became the top military commander of Manchuria.34
Between the 1910s and the early 1920s, Zhang’s warlord regime turned
Manchuria from a frontier into one of the most economically prosperous regions
of China. Although many believe that Zhang’s dominant power in the region was
the result of military force, historian Ronald Suleski argues that the civil and eco-
nomic reforms that Zhang’s Manchurian officials carried out in the decade were
equally important factors that legitimized Zhang’s control in Manchuria.35 Among
the few civil officials around Zhang, Wang Yongjiang (1872–1927) and Yu
Chonghan (1871–1932) were major figures who helped Zhang stabilize
Manchuria’s order and relations with Japan. Wang’s currency reform between 1917
and 1920 stabilized the Fengtian currency (Fengpiao), increasing the ability of
Fengtian to secure larger loans from Japanese and Western consortia for infrastruc-
ture and ordnance.36 Thanks to Wang’s policies, Manchuria not only built more
telegraph and telephone lines each year but also laid more than 7,000 miles of
commercial highways for motor vehicles and mule carts by the end of the 1920s,
enabling people and goods to reach the regions that had no railways.37 Due to Yu’s
proficiency in Japanese and personal relations with Japanese military leaders, he
became Zhang’s foreign affairs negotiator handling financial and military issues
that involved the Japanese. He frequently occupied top posts in Sino-Japanese joint
 Introduction 9
ventures and was crucial for gaining Japanese military aid for Zhang’s warlord
regime in the early 1920s.38 Manchuria’s economic success and relative stability
compared with China proper was likely the main reason why Qing loyalist and
scholar Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940) described the region as a place that had “yet to
fall into decadence” in 1931.39
Regardless of his achievements, Zhang Zuolin’s governance had obvious faults,
something that official Manchukuo narratives often highlighted, to shape
Manchukuo’s legitimacy. The 1932 Declaration of National Foundation of Manchukuo
[Manzhouguo jian’guo xuanyan] started with criticism of Zhang’s luxurious and dec-
adent life, contending that he “only strove for his personal interests.”40 According
to Suleski, Zhang “built an imposing home in the French chateau style” in Fengtian
with provincial funds after the ROC government in Beijing appointed him the
General of the Three Eastern Provinces in 1918, and he added at least five concu-
bines “who produced many children for him.”41 The Declaration then denounced
Zhang’s military ambitions in China proper for “interrupting the stability of
[Manchurian] currency and various industries” besides “harming the livelihoods of
the people” of China proper.42 This is likewise not a groundless contention.
Officials like Wang Yongjiang and Yu Chonghan were not interested in the affairs
of China proper and thus left little space for Zhang to increase his military expendi-
tures. But when Zhang needed more money to supply his Fengtian Army after
entering Beijing in 1924, he began to abandon both Wang’s and Yu’s policies and
forcibly collected more taxes from local Manchurian business owners.43 The econ-
omy of Fengtian thus collapsed in January 1928 when the Fengtian currency tum-
bled, which led to a radical increase in prices because desperate merchants wanted
compensation for their losses.44 Intending to free his Fengtian clique from Soviet-
Japanese encirclement by expanding into China proper, Zhang’s military cam-
paigns between 1925 and 1928 suffered frequent setbacks, and the Kantō Army
assassinated him on his way back to Fengtian in June 1928 by blowing up his
train.45 Zhang’s tragic ending was, for historian Kwong Chi Man, not merely a result
of personal oversight but also a sign of Japan’s intention to preserve “Manchuria’s
position as part of a Japanese-centered economy.”46

Creating Manchukuo with Dissidents from China: Manchuria’s

Problems after 1928
Zhang Zuolin’s death exacerbated the confrontation between Fengtian and the
Japanese. By assassinating Zhang, the Kantō Army initially planned to install a
leader who may protect Japan’s national interests in Manchuria, but Zhang
Xueliang (1901–2001; Figure 0.2)—the first son of Zhang Zuolin—quickly
claimed the leadership of Fengtian and allied with Fengtian’s erstwhile opponent,
the Nanjing Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975).47
Inheriting his father’s ambition to unify Manchuria and north China, Zhang
Xueliang moved his base to Beijing in September 1930 in the name of assisting
Chiang’s military efforts against hostile forces.48 By referencing the articles in sup-
port of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the 1922 Nine Power Treaty,
Zhang refuted the legitimacy of Japan’s possession of Dalian, Lüshun, and affiliated
10 Introduction

Figure 0.2 Zhang Xueliang (circled photo on the left) and Chiang Kai-shek (circled photo
on the right) in 1932. The person in the left rectangular photo is ROC diplomat
Gu Weijun (1888–1985; Willington Koo), and the person next to Gu is Fengtian
general He Zhuguo (1897–1985).
Source: Asahi shinbunsha, ed., Asahi gurafu rinjigō [Temporary issue of Asahi graph] (February 1932): 25.

lands of the SMR on the one hand and connived at anti-Japan activities in
Manchuria and north China on the other.49 Since Manchuria’s Japanese residents
were dependent on the SMR for a living, the army and government of Japan had
to face Zhang’s challenges.
The military occupation of Manchuria was a solution that senior-level officials in
the Kantō Army planned to solve Japan’s plight. By the late 1920s, issues like eco-
nomic crises, overpopulation, labor disputes, and party monopoly of political
resources convinced many Japanese people of the necessity of total reform to the
current government system—a perceived culprit of the existing social problems.
Supporting the army became an option, as radical Japanese military officials shared
similar goals.50 For Kantō Army officials, overpopulation and food shortages were
pressing concerns of the Japanese Empire, whether or not Japan could “clear a path
in Manchuria was a matter of the survival or death of the Empire.”51 Ishiwara Kanji
(1889–1949), staff officer of the Kantō Army who planned to occupy Manchuria
with force, for instance, considered Manchuria and Mongolia bases for Japan to
“realize ethnic co-prosperity and coexistence of the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, and
Mongolians” and to “defeat the repressive white forces that hindered Japan to carry
out its heavenly duty of saving China.”52 Itagaki Seishirō (1885–1948), Ishiwara’s
colleague who participated in the creation of Manchukuo, wanted to turn Manchuria
and Mongolia into “a major battleground for the war against the Soviet Union and
a supply base for the war against the United States.”53 To realize the military occu-
pation of Manchuria, the Kantō Army conducted a series of investigations and mil-
itary drills in places like Harbin, Qiqihar, Hailaer, Manzhouli, Changchun, Fengtian,
and Jinzhou from 1929 to 1930, spreading across Manchuria. The army invaded the
region on the evening of September 18, 1931, by occupying the city of Fengtian,
known today as the Manchurian Incident or September 18 Incident.54
One of the major mysteries surrounding the Manchurian Incident of 1931 is
how the Kantō Army managed to conquer Manchuria and defeat the local 179,505
soldiers with its 10,400 men and 4,000 reinforcements from Korea—within four
 Introduction 11
months.55 Previous speculation, especially in the PRC, blames the absence of
Manchuria’s provincial leaders and the nonresistant policy of Chiang Kai-shek and
Zhang Xueliang for the region’s downfall. Historian Huang Zijin further explores
the complicated relationship between Zhang and his Manchurian officials and
argues for the significance of local cooperation for the success of the Japanese
occupation, as 49.5 percent of the Manchurian army (88,900 men in total) surren-
dered to the Kantō Army less than 20 days after September 18 due to the opera-
tions of local military leaders. They not only helped the army fight those who
dared to resist but also supported Inner Mongolia’s independent movements with
financial aid; most of the rest of the Manchurian troops retreated to China proper
without fighting, with a few battalions surrendering to the Japanese after defeat.56
In the government of Fengtian, many erstwhile subordinates of Zhang Zuolin
who were alienated in the era of Zhang Xueliang came out to stabilize provincial
order after the Manchurian Incident; together these men played a key role in
helping the Japanese manage a post-warlord society before Manchukuo’s crea-
tion.57 Indeed, as Rana Mitter observes, many local Chinese officials who were
unsatisfied with the Zhang family’s warlord regime wanted to cooperate with the
Japanese for changes after 1931.58 For Huang, local cooperation not only reflected
the Kantō Army’s grasp of Manchuria’s affairs but also suggested Zhang Xueliang’s
inability to control the provincial government of Fengtian.59 Besides Mitter’s and
Huang’s points, this book considers Chinese government leaders a decisive force
in the birth of Manchukuo, given their deep negotiations with the Japanese for
state construction. What kind of national ideals did they have? Why did the
Japanese require their assistance? How did they coordinate ideological differences
with the Japanese and their compatriots, and why did they choose to work with
the Japanese for state building? These questions are at the center of this book.

Overlooking the Significance of Manchukuo’s Chinese Officials:

Historiography
The study of Manchukuo’s national ideals in China, Japan, and the West is scarce
compared with other Manchukuo-related fields like popular culture, society,
economy, and Japanese Empire construction. Historian Tanaka Ryūichi considers
most of the PRC studies of Manchukuo to date a “history of struggle” (Tōsō shi)
given their emphasis on Japanese brutality and Chinese resistance.60 Japanese his-
toriography of Manchukuo evolved from macroanalysis of Japanese control and
the significance of Manchukuo in the colonial system of the Japanese Empire
between the 1970s and the 1990s to detailed research of the regime’s social, eco-
nomic, and cultural history after the 2000s.61 English-language monographs of
Manchukuo in the past three decades vary from explorations of Japan’s empire
building, like Japan’s Total Empire by Louise Young, to propaganda studies like
Glorify the Empire by Annika A. Culver, and from studies of Manchukuo’s literature
like Resisting Manchukuo by Norman Smith to architectural studies like Constructing
Empire by Bill Sewell.62
Representative studies of Manchukuo’s Japanese ideals and Chinese involve-
ment are Kimera by Yamamuro Shin’ichi, The Manchurian Myth by Rana Mitter,
12 Introduction
Sovereignty and Authenticity by Prasenjit Duara, and Planning for Empire by Janis
Mimura. Overcoming the impression of Manchukuo as a mere Japanese colony,
Yamamuro considers the Japanese ideal of ethnic harmony an attempt to “exclude
the influence of European and American imperialism and a utopian intention to
create an ideal Asian country.”63 Valuing Manchukuo’s contribution to the “mod-
ernization of Northeast China,” Yamamuro believes that Japan can reference
Manchukuo’s ethnic policies in the future when the country cooperates with a
different ethnicity again.64 To “demonstrate the importance of the events of the
early 1930s in the formation of modern Chinese nationalism,” Mitter primarily
emphasizes the antithetical stance of resistance and collaboration in Manchuria
between 1931 and 1933 by asking “who collaborated, who resisted, and why.” He
argues that the equation of Japan with “imperialism” by “the Manchurian propa-
gandists… from 1931 onward” standardized the meanings of loyalty and betrayal
during Japan’s invasion of China between 1931 and 1945 for today’s Chinese peo-
ple.65 Duara studies the ways in which Japanese policymakers in the military like
Ishiwara Kanji and Itagaki Seishirō presented Manchukuo’s “modern” and “sover-
eign” nature to the outside world, reminding historians that Manchukuo was
something more than a colony of Japan.66 Although the Chinese perspective is of
minor concern, Mimura examines the significance of Manchukuo in the eyes of
the country’s Japanese technocrat leaders who “embraced Western science and
technology” but “rejected the liberal capitalist system of free enterprise based on
the principles of private property, private profit, and business autonomy” in the
late 1930s and the early 1940s. She argues that people like Kishi Nobusuke (1896–
1987) and Hoshino Naoki (1892–1978) “promoted a vision of an ultramodern
Japan” that strove to achieve “Japanese hegemony in Asia,” treating Manchukuo as
a laboratory to realize that ambition.67
The preceding review suggests a lack of multifaceted analysis of Manchukuo’s
Chinese-speaking government leaders, although scholars in both Japan and the
West have paid more attention to the national ideals of Manchukuo’s Japanese
officials in recent years. Mitter’s analysis of Chinese collaboration in Manchukuo
mainly highlights the significance of resistance to the shaping of postwar Chinese
nationalism, so people like Puyi and Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938) are beyond his
concern. Both Yamamuro and Duara examine Manchukuo’s sovereignty and
modernity mainly from a Japanese perspective, and Mimura analyzes how Japanese
bureaucrats governed the regime with their ideals. Ishiwara Kanji in 1940 sug-
gested that because Manchuria was “a shared colony of the Japanese and the
Chinese,” it is better for Japan and the ROC to make Manchukuo “an independ-
ent country” so that Japan, China, and Manchukuo could “protect the stability of
East Asia and confront the white people.”68 Ishiwara’s words remind one that the
Japanese were not the only operators of Manchukuo, and unilateral studies of
Japanese ideals thus cannot reflect an accurate logic behind the country’s opera-
tions in the early 1930s. Historian Annika Culver encourages people not to down-
play the internal forces of Manchuria by reminding people that unlike China
proper, Manchuria’s unique geographical location “prompted a long history of
cooperation with outside political forces.”69 Historians Jonathan Henshaw, Craig
Smith, and Norman Smith likewise note a dearth of relevant studies on local lives
 Introduction 13
under Japanese occupation in East Asia between 1931 and 1945 from a perspective
that tries to restore an “unequivocally heterogeneous cacophony of voices”; they
particularly suggest that “such a work fully incorporating Manchukuo has yet to
be written.”70 This study on the Chinese leadership of Manchukuo in the early
1930s would fill some of the gaps of such a significant academic oversight on the
study of Sino-Japanese interactions in the twentieth century.

Ten Figures and Five Categories: Structures, Sources, and Notes

on “Collaboration”
This book treats Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders between 1932 and
1937 as a group for analysis. For that purpose, it studies ten figures who occupied
top positions in the new state and categorizes them according to their backgrounds:
Manchu aristocrats, Qing loyalists, military leaders, Fengtian elites, and modern
intellectuals. The figures in this book share two features. First, they masterminded
the new state’s creation and headed the new state’s supreme departments, and
second, they are persons on whom relevant materials are available. They are,
respectively, Aixin-Jueluo Puyi—chief executive and, subsequently, emperor of
Manchukuo; Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (1884–1952)—provincial leader of Jilin and head
of the Ministry of Finance (Ch: Caizheng bu; Jp: Zaisei bu); Zheng Xiaoxu—first
prime minister; Luo Zhenyu—counselor and second head of the Supervisory
Council (Ch: Jiancha yuan; Jp: Kansatsu in); Zhang Jinghui—second prime minis-
ter; Ma Zhanshan (1885–1950)—provincial leader of Heilongjiang and head of
the Ministry of Military Affairs (Ch: Junzheng bu; Jp: Gunsei bu); Yu Chonghan—
first head of the Supervisory Council; Zang Shiyi (1884–1956)—provincial leader
of Fengtian and head of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (Ch: Minzheng bu; Jp: Minsei
bu); Zhao Xinbo (1887–1951)—head of the Legislative Council (Ch: Lifa yuan; Jp:
Rippō in); and Feng Hanqing (1892–?)—head of the Ministry of Justice (Ch: Sifa
bu; Jp: Shihō bu). All of them were well-known Manchurian figures in the early
1930s whose interests were inextricably connected with the Japanese.
A comparative study of Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders in the early
1930s helps illustrate the reasons behind the changing of the country’s various
national policies and problematizes the view of Manchukuo as a Japanese product
from its creation. Without considering the regime’s Taiwanese minister of foreign
ministry Xie Jieshi (1878–1954) and a few Mongolian senior officials, these five
categories generally reflect the personal backgrounds of Manchukuo’s Chinese-
speaking inner circle before 1937. Coming from a similar background did not
guarantee a similar national view; to implement their ideals, they sometimes
worked with each other, but more often, they struggled with each other for a
bigger voice in the state. Exploiting their struggles, Japanese officials in Manchukuo
spent years breaking down this hard core by frequently switching alliances among
those Chinese government leaders against specific targets. Cases like the alliance of
Zheng Xiaoxu against Xixia who planned to reestablish Manchus’ dominant posi-
tions between 1932 and 1935, the alliance of Luo Zhenyu to expel Zhao Xinbo
in 1934, and the alliance of Puyi to overthrow the cabinet of Zheng Xiaoxu in
1935 reflected the ways in which the Japanese slowly cultivated their control in the
14 Introduction
state. This book categorizes Puyi and Xixia as Manchu aristocrats, Zheng Xiaoxu
and Luo Zhenyu as Qing loyalists, Zhang Jinghui and Ma Zhanshan as military
leaders, Yu Chonghan and Zang Shiyi as Fengtian elites, and Zhao Xinbo and
Feng Hanqing as modern intellectuals.
To study the national ideals of these ten figures, this book references Chinese-
and Japanese-language contemporary publications. Major sources include diaries,
newspapers, conversation records, official Manchukuo periodicals, personal mono-
graphs, memoirs, and various reprinted sources of the Manchukuo era in China and
Japan. The increasing release of relevant primary materials in the past two decades
in China and Japan has made the study of their goals a feasible task. An analysis of
these ten figures’ national ideals helps identify their consensus and disagreements,
enabling one to trace some of the possible reasons behind their cooperation and
conflicts. It also suggests that the Japanese excluded local influence from those who
manifested a greater threat to the Japanese position first and were willing to keep
those who rarely challenged the Japanese in power. That is probably why people like
Zhao Xinbo, Zheng Xiaoxu, and Feng Hanqing were left out, whereas people like
Zhang Jinghui and Zang Shiyi survived until the regime’s collapse in August 1945.
Although all of the figures that this book analyzes were well-known individuals in
the early 1930s, the quality of relevant sources relating to each figure varies consid-
erably: people like Zheng and Zhao left abundant written materials, but people like
Zhang and Ma virtually left nothing other than the texts of their speeches and the
recollections of others. Similar to historian Yamamuro Shin’ichi’s complaint about
the inadequacy of sources in some of his chapters, the disparity of qualified sources
is a problem that this book cannot avoid.71 Besides, a study of Manchukuo’s high-
level Chinese-speaking strata means the exclusion of gender and subaltern studies,
as female leaders did not exist in the government of Manchukuo, and important
social organizations like the Concordia Association (Ch: Xiehehui; Jp: Kyōwakai)
were operated by lower ranking Manchurian, Korean and Japanese officials.72
Departing from many existing studies of wartime Japanese-occupied China, this
book refrains from highlighting the concept of “collaboration” given the term’s
limits. Collaboration is a word that Philippe Petain (1856–1951) used to describe
the “cooperative” relationship between Nazi Germany and his Vichy France in
October 1940.73 Because of that, it evolved from a neutral synonym of cooperation
to a derogatory and sarcastic description of “political cooperation with an occupy-
ing force” for the English-speaking masses since then.74 In English-language aca-
demia, people often reference this term when analyzing the politics of regimes like
Manchukuo, the Nanjing Government of Wang Jingwei (1883–1944), and Vichy
France. The conciseness of “collaboration” requires little doubt, especially because
an exact term that could reflect “political cooperation with an occupying force” in
both Chinese and Japanese is absent, yet it is also undeniable that the term has
limits. For the most part, it oversimplifies the nature of “occupation” and oblite-
rates the ideals of individuals under “occupation.” As a form of military action in a
foreign territory, occupation had different implications in history, ranging from
annexation, like the Soviet invasion of its Baltic neighbors in 1939 and 1940; to
reform, like the American occupation of Japan between 1945 and 1952; from
separating a country’s territory, like the Manchurian Incident of 1931; to
 Introduction 15
overthrowing a country’s government, like the Siberian Intervention of 1918–1922.
The element of “occupation” in “collaboration” is hardly able to flexibly reflect
such a diversity of causes and situations, given the term’s historical background.
Interpreting occupation overly from an angle of invasion based on the example
of Vichy France, “collaboration” not only implies a sense of obedience and betrayal
but also often precludes spaces for negotiating individuals’ justifications for coop-
erating with foreign penetrating powers.75 Different from the Japanese invasion of
China proper in 1937, the Manchurian Incident was a regional conflict that the
Kantō Army launched without the approval of the Japanese emperor and cabinet;
the home government of Japan tried to prevent the army from invading the rest of
Manchuria after it occupied Fengtian, and Manchukuo was created years before
1937.76 To examine the nature of Sino-Japanese interactions in the state of
Manchukuo between 1932 and 1937 and the ideals of Manchukuo’s Chinese gov-
ernment leaders, the ideological framework of collaboration is obviously not ade-
quate and somewhat misleading. Refraining from overly interpreting Manchukuo’s
creation from a perspective of Japanese conspiracy, one perhaps should also study
those Chinese-speaking officials who worked with the Japanese in Manchukuo
without overly emphasizing their collaborative and passive nature.77

Outline of Chapters
To demonstrate the complexity of Chinese national ideals in the state of Manchukuo
and their significance to Manchukuo’s development between 1932 and 1937, this
book is divided into six chapters, in addition to an introduction and conclusion.
Chapter 1 examines four distinctive policies regarding the development of
Manchukuo on the Japanese side, respectively, the policies of Itagaki Seishirō,
Komai Tokuzō (1885–1961), Ishiwara Kanji, and Kasagi Yoshiaki (1892–1955).
Itagaki wanted to turn Manchuria and Mongolia into the territory of Japan by
imposing greater military control. By restraining the development of regional
autonomy and the Kantō Army’s interference in administration, Komai wanted to
create a centralized Manchukuo government under the operation of Japanese civil
elites. Trusting the ability of the Chinese for self-governance, Ishiwara wanted to
entrust all of Manchukuo’s affairs other than military and national defense to local
officials, to create a Japan-China-Manchukuo block and confront the threat of the
West. Supporting the decentralization of power and the mutual reliance of the
Japanese and local Manchurian populations, Kasagi wanted to promote regional
autonomy in Manchukuo under the guidance of Japanese consultants. Because of
Kasagi’s opposition to military authoritarianism and the centralization of power,
his ideal was left out first. Due to Ishiwara’s intention to cooperate with the
Manchurians, his ideal also failed to become the guiding policy of the Kantō
Army. The eventual winner of this ideological contest was a mixture of Itagaki’s
and Komai’s ideals, as the army gradually managed to manipulate Manchukuo’s
development from the inside while installing more Japanese officials in the govern-
ment from the outside. The failure of Ishiwara’s and Kasagi’s ideals determined the
dim future of Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders because neither Itagaki’s
nor Komai’s ideals valued their cooperation.
16 Introduction
Chapter 2 examines the national ideals of Puyi and Xixia—both were the
descendants of the Qing Dynasty’s Aixin-Jueluo imperial clan. Existing studies of
Puyi that refrain from deeming him a mere puppet of the Japanese tend to high-
light his desire to revive the Qing Dynasty and associate his activities in the
Manchukuo era with that desire. Although the Qing Dynasty’s revival was indeed
a motivating factor for his movement to Manchuria in November 1931, Chapter 1
argues that Puyi’s national ideal in the early 1930s was not static. After his official
visit to Japan in April 1935, Puyi began to deem himself the founder of a new
empire that valued the alliance with the Japanese imperial clan. Identifying his own
status with the deified position of the Japanese Shōwa emperor Hirohito (1901–
1989), Puyi ambitiously planned to shape his authority in Manchukuo using the
image of Hirohito. After Japan invaded China proper in July 1937, he switched his
standpoint to a sharer of Japan’s national interests by confirming his determination
to side with Japan against the ROC. Compared with Puyi, Xixia’s ideal was more
direct, as he wanted to recreate the dominant positions of the Manchus in China
by reviving the Qing Dynasty. He tried to realize it by serving Puyi. Opposing
both Han Chinese and Japanese officials for their occupation of important govern-
ment positions in Manchukuo, Xixia lacked allies and thus failed to achieve any
major accomplishments throughout his 14 years of service in the state.
Chapter 3 analyzes the ideals of Zheng Xiaoxu and Luo Zhenyu—two impor-
tant late Qing officials who built their fame and status in the old monarchical
society and who had close personal contact with Japanese political figures.
Adopting the Kingly Way ideology of Mencius and the precept of benevolence,
righteousness, and morality of Confucius on a modern government, Zheng
wanted to develop Manchukuo as a country that could represent the orthodox
culture of the Middle Kingdom—China—and challenge the legitimacy of the
ROC. To develop this newly established orthodox state of China, Zheng incorpo-
rated the American policy of the Open Door and the Mencian notion of the
Kingly Way, intending to attract international investment on the one hand and
spread the moralities of Confucius and Mencius to the whole world on the other.
Although the Japanese initially relied heavily on Zheng’s ideals for state building
given their ambition to dichotomize Asian morality and Western force, they even-
tually abandoned Zheng in 1935 given the latter’s frequent complaints about
Japanese manipulation of Manchukuo’s affairs. Luo Zhenyu chose to participate in
the state of Manchukuo because he wanted to reestablish the monarchical system
of China with the assistance of Japan. Regardless of his efforts in persuading Puyi
to move to Manchuria in 1931, his eagerness to develop Manchukuo as an empire
made the Japanese side with his political rival Zheng Xiaoxu instead. Like Xixia,
Luo’s isolation in the state made him contribute little to the politics of Manchukuo
before his death in 1940.
Chapter 4 studies two former military figures of warlord Manchuria, Zhang
Jinghui and Ma Zhanshan. Unlike most of the figures that this book examines,
Zhang and Ma were not particularly interested in developing Manchuria as an
independent state; rather, they wanted to maintain the region’s status quo through
their cooperation with the Japanese. Serving as a proxy for Chiang Kai-shek and
Zhang Xueliang in Manchuria, Zhang Jinghui preserved his leading position in
 Introduction 17
the state of Manchukuo by avoiding confrontations with the Japanese and follow-
ing their policies. Exploiting his casual attitude and erstwhile prestige in the era of
Zhang Zuolin, the Kantō Army installed him as the prime minister of Manchukuo
in 1935, hoping to minimize Manchurian obstructions of Japanese abuse of power.
Silence and compromise with Japanese demands helped Zhang keep his prime
ministership until Japan’s surrender in August 1945. Ma Zhanshan was one of the
few military leaders who resisted the Kantō Army’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931
and who surrendered to the army given the lack of reinforcements from the out-
side world. He nevertheless defected from Manchukuo in April 1932 and resisted
the Japanese again due to pressures from China proper and personal calculations of
benefits and losses. Ma’s defection not only humiliated the vigorous image of the
new state but likely also motivated the Japanese to speed up their exclusion of
dissidents from the inner circle of Manchukuo.
Chapter 5 explores the ideals of Yu Chonghan and Zang Shiyi—two represent-
atives of the Fengtian elites. As a native Manchurian civil official who acquired
fame and prestige through his knowledge of Japan and service in Zhang Zuolin’s
warlord regime, Yu cared more about the prosperity and decline of Fengtian prov-
ince instead of the stability and unrest of China proper. Considering the Zhang
family’s military expansions in north China a cause of Manchuria’s civil unrest, Yu
wanted the new state of Manchuria to sever relations with the ROC government
and promote regional autonomy to improve local livelihoods. The eradication of
army and official corruption were guidelines that Yu designed for Manchukuo; the
former aimed to dismiss Manchuria’s army, to make the region rely on the Kantō
Army for national defense, and the latter aimed to restore people’s confidence in
the integrity of the government of Manchuria by rationalizing officials’ monthly
salaries at different levels. Refraining from associating Yu’s regionalism and coop-
eration with Japan with treason, this chapter deems those policies a reflection of
his emotional ties to his homeland of Fengtian rather than a yet clearly defined
concept of “China” as a unified nation-state. Zang Shiyi was a younger generation
of Fengtian’s civil elites who established his fame in the era of Zhang Xueliang.
Unlike Yu Chonghan, Zang did not have a clear blueprint for the new Manchukuo
state, as his participation in the government of Manchukuo was rather an expecta-
tion to maintain the relationship of Manchuria with Japan before 1931. Sharing a
similar strategy with Zhang Jinghui, Zang’s relative silence to Japanese demands
helped him maintain his status as a high-level official until the collapse of
Manchukuo in August 1945.
Chapter 6 explores the national blueprints of Zhao Xinbo and Feng Hanqing—
two scholars of law who had education experiences at a university level. As the
first Chinese who received a Japanese doctorate of law in 1925, Zhao’s ten years of
study in Japan between 1915 and 1925 not only made him a specialist in Japanese
laws but also a follower of Japanese political systems. Encouraging Manchukuo to
imitate Japan’s legal construction, Zhao supported Japan to ally with the ROC and
Manchukuo based on the moralities of East Asia against Western threats. Such a
supporter of Japan nevertheless became one of the first men among the ten figures
that this study examines whom the Kantō Army abandoned, for corruption.
Zhao’s dismissal was nevertheless more complicated than economic misconduct; a
18 Introduction
more important reason behind his loss of power in October 1934 was his attempt
to exclude Japanese officials in the Legislative Council in favor of Chinese-speaking
officials, something that threatened the positions of the Japanese. Feng Hanqing
wanted the new state of Manchuria to enjoy judicial independence, and by work-
ing in the new government, Feng strove to abolish extraterritoriality in Manchuria
with the support of Japanese specialists of law. He managed to keep his position as
the head of the Ministry of Justice until a major departmental reform in May 1937
and left few sources to trace his later life.
The concluding chapter analyzes the evaluations of these ten figures in the works
of PRC historians after the 1980s and tries to answer the question of why the Japanese
in the state of Manchukuo abandoned most of the country’s Chinese founders by
1937. After the study of Manchukuo gradually became a permitted—despite tacit—
subject in the PRC after the 1980s, historiographies of people like Puyi and Zheng
Xiaoxu evolved from mere criticism from the 1980s to the 2000s to sympathy and
recognition of their determination to revive China’s monarchy mainly after the
2010s. Due to increasing academic attention to oracle bone scripts in the PRC, more
scholars tend to excavate the contributions of Luo Zhenyu to the study of the scripts
at different periods of his life and refrain from mentioning his “dark history” of serv-
ing in Manchukuo. Ma Zhanshan has been an icon of anti-Japan heroism for the past
70 years, regardless of his ephemeral service in Manchukuo. Xixia and Zhang Jinghui
have served as examples of national traitors and faced denunciation in PRC academia
to this day. Names like Yu Chonghan, Zang Shiyi, Zhao Xinbo, and Feng Hanqing
have almost been forgotten in the archives and county records, and have served as
icons of traitors when occasionally mentioned in PRC studies, regardless of their
erstwhile reputations in Manchuria. To only consider the Chinese government lead-
ers of Manchukuo a treasonous group or morally corrupt individuals who gave in to
Japanese demands blurs the ideological diversity of the regime’s high-level strata in
the early 1930s and erases an important clue as to why many Japanese insisted that
Manchukuo was a modern multiethnic sovereign state.

Notes
1 Liu Jianhui, “Manshū gensō no seiritsu to sono shatei” [The creation of (Japan’s)
Manchuria fantasy and its influence], Ajia yūgaku [Intriguing Asia] 44 (Oct. 2002): 3.
2 Katō Kiyofumi, Tabata Mitsunaga, and Matsushige Mitsuhiro, ed., Chōsen suru Manshū
kenkyū: chiiki, minzoku, jikan [The challenging study of Manchuria: space, ethnicity,
and time] (Tokyo: Tōhō shoten, 2015), i.
3 Liu, “Manshū gensō,” 3.
4 For example, see Man Mō dōhō engokai, ed., Man Mō shūsen shi [The end of the war
in Manchuria and Mongolia] (Tokyo: Kawade shobō shinsha, 1962); Daidō gakuin shi
hensan iinkai, ed., Hekikū ryokuya sanzen ri [Three thousand miles of blue sky and green
plain] (Tokyo: Daidō gakuin dōsōkai, 1972); Daidō gakuin dōsōkai, ed., Monogatari
Daidō gakuin [Stories of great unity academy] (Tokyo: Sōrin sha, 2002). Man Mō dōhō
engokai (Supportive Association of Manchuria’s and Mongolia’s Compatriots) was pre-
decessor to the International Friendly Neighbor Association.
5 Andō Kazuko, “Kyōto no tabi” [Kyoto Trip], in Ryūjo: Daidō gakuin niseikai no kaihō
[Willow seeds: bulletin of the second generation alumni association of great unity acad-
emy], ed. Kanazawa Takeshi, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Daidō gakuin nisei no kai, 2004), 53.
6 Ibid., 54.
 Introduction 19
7 Liu, “Manshū gensō,” 4.
8 Fujikawa Yūji, “Manshūkoku shi yo; kimi shi ni tamau koto nakare” [The history of
Manchukuo; do not die no matter what], in Tōten kō o tsugu: Daidō gakuin kaihō tokushū
[The sky of the east turns red: special issue of great unity academy’s bulletin], ed. Daidō
gakuin dōsōkai (Tokyo: Daidō gakuin dōsōkai, 1973), 118.
9 Yamamuro Shin’ichi, Kimera—Manshūkoku no shōzō zōhoban [Chimera—portrait of
Manchukuo; expanded edition] (Tokyo: Chūō kōron shinsha, 2004), 283. This book
was translated into English with the title Manchuria under Japanese Domination by histo-
rian Joshua Fogel in 2006.
10 Rana Mitter, The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in Modern
China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 101.
11 Thomas David DuBois, Empire and the Meaning of Religion in Northeast Asia: Manchuria
1900–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 9.
12 Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial
China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); Dan Shao, Remote Homeland,
Recovered Borderland: Manchus, Manchukuo, and Manchuria, 1907–1985 (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2011).
13 Meng Sen, Manzhou kaiguo shi [The history of Manchuria’s opening], ed. Shang
Hongkui (1930s; repr. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1992), 2, 10.
14 Zheng Yi and Li Shaopeng, Jindai Riben shehui Man Meng guan yanjiu [A study of con-
temporary Japanese society’s view of Manchuria and Mongolia] (Changchun: Jilin
wenshi chubanshe, 2018), 17.
15 Ibid; Mark C. Elliott, “The Limits of Tartary: Manchuria in Imperial and National
Geographies,” The Journal of Asian Studies 59:3 (Aug. 2000): 628.
16 Zheng and Li, Jindai Riben, 1–2.
17 Ibid., 3.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., 92.
20 Due to Sun’s words, Japanese politician and entrepreneur Mori Kaku (1883–1932)
planned to make Japan purchase Manchuria from Sun with 20 million Japanese yen in
cash and two army divisions’ equipment, yet his plan failed to win the support of the
Japanese Army and terminated in the end. This seems to be the source of a widely
spread rumor on Sun’s plan to sell Manchuria to Japan. Satō Shinichirō, “Son Bun to
Manshū o meguru kakumei hishi” [Sun Wen’s secret revolutionary history surrounding
Manchuria], in Ryūjo, vol. 1, 7. Yuan Shikai is a controversial figure whom many
mainland Chinese today deem a cunning and repulsive bureaucrat who ambitiously
planned to revive China’s monarchy and who sold out China’s national interests and
dignity to the Japanese. Still, many in China acknowledge his contribution to the
peaceful disintegration of the Qing Dynasty and the modernization of China’s military
and education. For a study of Yuan in the late Qing era, see Stephen R. MacKinnon,
Power and Politics in Late Imperial China: Yuan Shi-Kai in Beijing and Tianjin, 1901–1908
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
21 Huang Zijin, Zhuli yu zuli zhijian: Sun Zhongshan, Jiang Jieshi qin Ri kang Ri wushi nian
[Between external assistance and obstruction: a fifty-year history of pro-Japan and
anti-Japan of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek] (Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe, 2015), 136.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., 137; Fu Dazhong, Guandong xianbingdui [The Kantō gendarmerie] (Changchun:
Jilin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1990), 5.
24 Huang Zijin, Jiang Jieshi yu Riben: yibu jindai Zhong Ri guanxi shi de suoying [Chiang
Kai-shek and Japan: a miniature of contemporary Sino-Japanese relations] (Taibei:
Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2012), 132.
25 Ibid.
26 Elliott, “The Limits of Tartary,” 618. Lu Yu, Qingdai he Minguo Shandong yimin Dongbei
shilüe [A brief history of Shandong people’s migration to the Northeast in the Qing and
the Republican eras] (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1987), 4.
20 Introduction
27 Ronald Suleski, Civil Government in Warlord China: Tradition, Modernization and
Manchuria (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 82.
28 Ibid., 91.
29 Ibid., 92. For a study on Chinese migration to Manchuria in the early twentieth cen-
tury, see Thomas R. Gottschang and Diana Lary, Swallows and Settlers: the Great Migration
from North China to Manchuria (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of
Michigan, 2000).
30 Suleski, Civil Government in Warlord China, 186.
31 Sugiyama Hiroyuki, Chō Sakurin: Bakusatsu e no kiseki, 1875–1928 [Tracing Zhang
Zuolin’s life to his bombing assassination, 1875–1928] (Tokyo: Hakusui sha, 2017),
28–29.
32 Ibid., 61–65.
33 Ibid., 91–93.
34 Suleski, Civil Government in Warlord China, 7.
35 Ibid., 33.
36 Ibid., 38–47.
37 Ibid., 61, 85.
38 Ibid., 19–20.
39 Luo Zhenyu, Jiliao bian [Recollection of my bitter experiences], in Zhongguo xueren
zishu congshu: Xuetang zishu [Chinese scholars’ autobiography series: the autobiography
of Snow Court], ed. Huang Aimei (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1999), 58.
Xuetang (Snow Court) was Luo’s self-styled name.
40 “Manzhouguo jian’guo xuanyan” [Declaration of national foundation of Manchukuo],
Taidong ribao [Eastern Daily] (March 3, 1932): 2.
41 Suleski, Civil Government in Warlord China, 10.
42 “Jian’guo xuanyan”: 2.
43 Suleski, Civil Government in Warlord China, 166–173.
44 Ibid., 174.
45 Kwong Chi Man, War and Geopolitics in Interwar Manchuria: Zhang Zuolin and the
Fengtian Clique during the Northern Expedition (Leiden: Boston Brill, 2017), 19.
46 Ibid., 20.
47 Huang, Zuli yu zhuli, 136–137. Chinese people today commonly regard Chiang Kai-
shek as China’s supreme leader between 1925, when his predecessor Sun Yat-sen died,
and 1949, when he retreated to Taiwan with his Nationalist Republican government
due to the attack of the Chinese Communist Party under the leadership of Mao Zedong
(1893–1976).
48 Huang, Jiang Jieshi yu Riben, 126.
49 Ibid., 126–132.
50 Huang, Jiang Jieshi yu Riben, 136–139.
51 Anonymous, “Tai Man seisaku shiron” [Private opinion on Japan’s policy towards
Manchuria], November 29, 1927, in Gendai shi shiryō [Documents of modern history],
vol. 7, ed. Kobayashi Tatsuo and Shimada Toshihiko (Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1964), 103.
52 Ishiwara Kanji, “Shiken” [Personal opinion], July 10, 1930, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 7,
133.
53 Itagaki Seishiō, “Gunjijō yori Man Mō ni tsuite” [About Manchuria and Mongolia
from a military point of view], March 1931, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 7, 144.
54 Huang, Zuli yu zhuli, 138, 152.
55 Huang, Jiang Jieshi yu Riben, 162.
56 Ibid., 161–164.
57 Ibid., 166.
58 Mitter, The Manchurian Myth, 116.
59 Huang, Jiang Jieshi yu Riben, 166.
60 Tanaka Ryūichi, Manshūkoku to Nihon no teikoku shihai [Manchukuo and Japan’s impe-
rial domination] (Tokyo: Yūshisha, 2007), 45–46.
61 Ibid., 9–10.
 Introduction 21
62 Louise Young, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Annika A. Culver, Glorify the Empire:
Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo (Vancouver: University of British
Columbia Press, 2013); Norman Smith, Resisting Manchukuo: Chinese Women Writers
and the Japanese Occupation (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007);
Bill Sewell, Constructing Empire: The Japanese in Changchun (Vancouver: University of
British Columbia Press, 2019).
63 Yamamuro, Kimera, 9.
64 Ibid., 13.
65 Mitter, The Manchurian Myth, 2–3.
66 Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (New
York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 2–3, 245.
67 Janis Mimura, Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State
(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), 1–2.
68 Ishiwara Kanji, “Manshūkoku to Shi’na jihen” [Manchukuo and the China Incident],
March 1, 1940, in Ishiwara Kanji zenshū bekkan: Tō A renmei undō [Collected works of
Ishiwara Kanji additional volume: East Asian alliance movement], ed. Ishiwara Kanji
zenshū kankō kai (Funabashi: Ishiwara Kanji zenshū kankō kai, 1976), 48–49.
69 Annika A. Culver, “Introduction: ‘Manchukuo Perspectives,’ or ‘Collaboration’ as a
Transcendence of Literary, National, and Chronological Boundaries,” in Manchukuo
Perspectives: Transnational Approaches to Literary Production, ed. Annika A. Culver, and
Norman Smith (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2019), 3.
70 Johnathan Henshaw, Craig A. Smith, and Norman Smith, “Introduction: Discarding
Binaries and Embracing Heteroglossia,” in Translating the Occupation: The Japanese
Invasion of China, 1931–1945, ed. Johnathan Henshaw, Craig A. Smith, and Norman
Smith (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2021), 4.
71 Yamamuro, Kimera, 16.
72 For example, see Tanaka Hideo, Ishiwara kanji to Ozawa Kaisaku: minzoku kyōwa o
motomete [Ishiwara Kanji and Ozawa Kaisaku: pursing ethnic harmony] (Tokyo: Fuyō
shobō, 2008).
73 Timothy Brook, Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China
(Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press, 2005), 1.
74 Ibid.
75 For a relevant discussion on this issue, see Lu Jiu-jung, “Survival as Justification for
Collaboration, 1937–1945,” in Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932–1945: The Limits
of Accommodation, ed. David P. Barrett and Larry N. Shyu (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2001), 116–131.
76 For details, see Kitaoka Shinichi, From Party Politics to Militarism in Japan, 1924–1941
(Colorado and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2021), 122–140.
77 This book does not intend to replace “collaboration” with another term or theory, like
“accommodation,” as it exceeds the book’s subject and may risk oversimplifying the
relations of Manchukuo’s Chinese-speaking and Japanese officials.
1 Contested Japanese Ideals in the
State of Manchukuo
The National Policies of Itagaki Seishirō,
Komai Tokuzō, Ishiwara Kanji, and Kasagi
Yoshiaki

Although Manchukuo was established on the ideal of Kingly Way paradise, it was
nevertheless not a genuine nation-state. It did not provide parties with autonomous
power, to realize political democracy, nor did it have a constitution and a parlia-
ment. In short, Japanese dissatisfaction with Japan’s political system was a driving
force behind Manchukuo’s creation, and the policy of internal guidance under the
manipulation of the Kantō Army served as the core of the country’s ruling logic.
Hatano Masaru, Shōwa Tenno to rasuto enpera: Fugi to Manshūkoku no shinjitsu
[The Shōwa Emperor and the Last Emperor: Puyi and the Truth of Manchukuo] (Tokyo:
Sōshisha, 2007), 238.
The importance of the Japanese to the creation of Manchukuo in 1932 does not
require further demonstration. Although the state tried to manifest its independ-
ence and modernity to the outside world, historian Hatano Masaru argues that
Manchukuo was an inauthentic modern country given its absence of an aggre-
gated legal basis and a legislative government body, and the Kantō Army manipu-
lated the country’s development from behind until its collapse in 1945. Known in
Japanese as naimen shidō, internal guidance was a policy that the army adopted in
1932, to maintain the independence of Manchukuo on the surface while supervis-
ing its political affairs in practice.1
Hindsight has suggested the Kantō Army’s dominant status in Manchukuo, but
military control of the new state was not the only ambition on the Japanese side
when the country was created in March 1932. While Japanese bureaucrats in
Manchukuo almost all desired to turn the country into a base for Japan to unite
and lead Asia against Western imperialism, known in English as the ideal of
pan-Asianism and dai Ajia shugi in Japanese, they had no consensus on how Japan
should utilize Manchukuo for that objective in the early 1930s. This chapter
examines the national policies of four Japanese officials who orchestrated
Manchukuo’s creation and who advocated Japan’s confrontation with the West;
they are, respectively, Itagaki Seishirō (1885–1948), Komai Tokuzō (1885–1961),
Ishiwara Kanji (1889–1949), and Kasagi Yoshiaki (1892–1955). Examining their
policies certainly helps demonstrate the existence of different voices on the
Japanese side of Manchukuo’s creators, but it also shows that those who tended to
cooperate with the Manchurians, like Ishiwara and Kasagi, gradually lost out,
while those who tended to make the Japanese control or supervise the Manchurians,
like Itagaki and Komai, gradually dominated Manchukuo’s Japanese ruling strata.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003357773-2
 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo 23
Cultivating New Japanese Territories: The Ideal of Itagaki
Seishirō
Itagaki Seishirō, staff officer of the Kantō Army whom the International Military
Tribunal for the Far East executed as a class A war criminal in December 1948,
treated the new Manchukuo state as a transitional ruling institution for the conver-
sion of Manchuria and Mongolia into formal Japanese territories. Graduating from
the Imperial Japanese Military Academy (Rikugun shikan gakkō) and serving in the
Kantō Army in May 1929 as senior staff, Itagaki’s close relations with the Ministry
of the Army (Rikugun shō) helped the Kantō Army gain resources and assistance
from the home islands.2 Dubiously observing Chinese people’s attitude toward the
Japanese rhetoric of “Japan-China friendship” (Ni Shi shinzen) and “coexistence
and co-prosperity” (kyōzon kyōei), Itagaki contended in March 1931 that the
Chinese merely considered them “diplomatic rhetoric” because they “in essence”
treated Sino-Japanese relations as a “comprehensive political and economic con-
frontation.” Manchuria and Mongolia, Itagaki stated, were “largely significant for
Japan’s war against the United States, the Soviet Union and China” because they
would become “a major battleground for the war against the Soviet Union and a
supply base for the war against the United States,” encouraging Japanese occupa-
tion of the regions.3
For Itagaki, Manchuria and Mongolia were “subordinate economic regions of
the [Japanese] Empire”; all policies relating to Manchukuo should favor Japanese
supervision.4 During a secret meeting with Kantō Army staff officers at 9 pm on
September 18, 1931, in the Fengtian Yamato Hotel, Itagaki and his colleague
Ishiwara Kanji opposed the idea of substituting the regime of warlord Zhang
Xueliang (1901–2001) with a pro-Japan state and instead planned to occupy the
whole of Manchuria following the conquest of Fengtian.5 According to the records
of Kantō Army staff officer Katakura Tadashi (1898–1991), Itagaki and Ishiwara
realized the difficulty of controlling Manchuria and Mongolia with Japanese forces
and began to support the creation of a new Manchurian state during another
meeting on September 22.6 Six days later, on September 28, Itagaki stated that
because “military occupation of Manchuria is not feasible at present,” it was nec-
essary to “separate Manchuria and Mongolia from China” first by “creating a new
local regime headed by a Chinese leader.” Japanese “on the surface follow Chinese
policies in the name of realizing Manchuria’s and Mongolia’s unification,” but the
new regime was “in fact controlled in our hands.”7
The “Outline of the Creation Plan of a Manchurian and Mongolian Free
Country” [Man Mō jiyūkoku setsuritsu an taikō] and “Manchukuo’s Fundamental
Principles and the Essence of the Concordia Association” [Manshūkoku no konpon
rinen to Kyōwakai no honshitsu] reflected Itagaki’s ambition of gradually annexing
Manchuria and Mongolia for Japan’s sake. Drafted by the Kantō Army’s consultant
for international laws, Matsuki Tamotsu (1898–1962), in November 1931, the
former document suggested that although “the conversion of Manchuria and
Mongolia into our territories is the best strategy to realize peace in East Asia, it
would only cause unnecessary international condemnation if we hastily practice
it.” Therefore, it continued, “we should adopt the second best strategy—the
24 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo
creation of an independent Manchurian and Mongolian country and completely
separate its administration from China.”8 Maintaining the independence of the
new state on the surface, Itagaki wished to convert the state into Japanese territory
through long-term Japanese manipulation.
The document titled “Manchukuo’s Fundamental Principles and the Essence of
the Concordia Association” was distributed by Itagaki to Manchukuo’s high-level
Japanese military and government officials on September 18, 1936, defining the
relationship between Manchukuo and Japan and between the Manchukuo
Emperor Aixin-Jueluo Puyi (1906–1967) and the Japanese Shōwa Emperor
Hirohito (1901–1989).9 It stated that Manchukuo was an “independent country
that belongs to the [Shōwa] Emperor-centered Imperial Commonwealth” of East
Asia, and Puyi “is subordinate to the [Japanese] Emperor” who governed
Manchukuo “based on the great honorable heart of the [Japanese] Emperor.”10 If
Puyi “violates the ideals of [Manchukuo’s] foundation or betrays the great honor-
able heart of the [Japanese] Emperor,” the document suggested, he would “instantly
lose his position due to heaven’s will.” Besides, Manchukuo’s “popular will” would
allow its government to “urge [Puyi] to abdicate in favor of another candidate,”
and “deportation and military assault [of Puyi] would also become feasible options”
when the aforementioned situation happened.11 To make Puyi Japan’s disciple and
cultivate his morality as a monarch, the Kantō Army commander should serve as
Puyi’s “tutor and guardian in favor of the [Japanese] Emperor,” concluded the
document.12 Having become the Kantō Army’s chief of staff in 1936 and having
held considerable power in the Manchukuo government, Itagaki slowly practiced
his plan of turning Manchukuo into Japanese territory.
Itagaki’s plan resonated with the military ambitions of the Kantō Army’s com-
manders in the early 1930s, something that helps explain why his ideal could tri-
umph over the ideals that proposed Japanese-Manchurian cooperation. Hishikari
Takashi (1871–1952), the army’s commander and the second Japanese ambassador
plenipotentiary to Manchukuo (July 1933–December 1934), contended in August
1933 that “the most imperative mission of the Kantō Army at present” was to
strengthen its arms against the Soviet Union. For that purpose, the army should
“make relevant military plans by gathering intelligence on expected battlegrounds
and train the [Japanese] troops in Manchukuo.” Based on the provisions of the 1932
Japan-Manchukuo Military Protocol [Ch: Ri Man junshi xieding; Jp: Nichi Man gunji
kyōtei], Hishikari suggested that the Kantō Army should “supervise the national army
of Manchukuo,” and “the generals of the [Japanese] Imperial Army should frequently
hold the power of leadership [in the Manchukuo Army], to prevent the defections
of Manchurian soldiers and support the [Japanese] Empire’s national defense.”13
To stress Manchukuo’s supportive position for Japan’s military actions, the 1933
Guiding Outline of the Manchukuo Army [Manzhouguo lujun zhidao yaogang] recon-
firmed Japanese management of Manchukuo’s border defense and military infra-
structures, as well as stating that the Manchukuo Army could not possess gas
resources and heavy arms like tanks, artilleries, and airplanes because its duty was
to maintain Manchukuo’s domestic security.14 Because Japanese control of
Manchukuo better suited the army’s military plans, Itagaki Seishirō thus served as
an ideal advisor given his desire to manipulate the country for Japan’s sake.
 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo 25
Helping the Chinese Govern Their Lands: The Ideal of Komai
Tokuzō
Komai Tokuzō (Figure 1.1), the first director of Manchukuo’s General Affairs
Board (Ch: Zongwu ting; Jp: Sōmu chō) (March–October 1932), wanted to develop
Manchukuo as a Japanese-managed republic where power was centralized in the
supreme government to prevent the rebirth of warlord forces. Komai began to
cultivate his interest in China in junior high school when reading the autobiogra-
phy of Miyazaki Tōten (1871–1922), a close friend and supporter of the founder
of the Republic of China (ROC), Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925). Deeming the fre-
quent setbacks of Miyazaki and Sun during their struggles against monarchical
authoritarianism in China a “lack of scientific investigation of mainland China and
a theoretical basis,” Komai as a college student dreamed to become the formers’
successor in promoting liberty for the Chinese.15 He decided to approach the
problems of China from an analysis of Manchuria because the region was “relevant
to the affairs of both China and Japan.”16 In June 1910, Komai sailed to Dalian
using his own savings and spent one year there to complete his bachelor thesis, On
Manchuria’s Soy Beans [Manshū daizu ron; published as a two-volume monograph in
April 1912], under the guidance of the famous Japanese scholar Nitobe Inazō
(1862–1933) and a German consultant at the East Asia Economic Investigation
Bureau (Tō A keizai chōsa kyoku).17 Appreciating Komai’s academic contribution to
a field that “no one had studied” in the early 1910s, the South Manchuria Railway
Company (SMR) hired Komai as an employee in August 1912.18 Relying on the
financial support of the SMR, Komai toured China proper between 1918 and
1920; on the trip, he met many important Chinese political figures, including
Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938; Manchukuo’s first prime minister) and Luo Zhenyu
(1866–1940; the second head of Manchukuo’s Supervisory Council).19
Komai’s decade-long observation of China convinced him of the “Chinese peo-
ple’s lack of national consciousness and governing ability, just like the Russians and
the Japanese in the past,” he wrote in 1933.20 For Komai, “Japanese participation

Figure 1.1 Komai Tokuzō as the head of Manchukuo’s General Affairs Board in 1932.
Source: Ōsaka Asahi shinbunsha, ed., Manshūkoku shōnin kinen shashinchō [Memorializing photo collec-
tion of Manchukuo’s recognition] (Ōsaka: Ōsaka Asahi shinbunsha, 1932), no page number.
26 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo
and assistance was essential” to the political stability of China.21 Helping China was
crucial to the fate of Japan because “Japan could not survive if China perished,” and
vice versa.22 This idea motivated Komai to devote the rest of his life to Manchuria’s
development after the Manchurian Incident broke out in September 1931, and he
departed from Tokyo for Fengtian one month later in the evening of October 18,
1931, after a dignified farewell with his family members.23 Due to his working
experiences in the SMR and personal relations with senior Kantō Army officials
like Itagaki Seishirō, Komai managed to become the army’s economic consultant
after reaching Fengtian and soon headed a new army department that “aimed to
analyze strategies for Manchuria’s future political and economic development under
Japanese guidance”—the Control Department (Tōchi bu).24 Soon changing its name
to the Special Affairs Department (Tokumu bu) due to “the antipathy of local
Chinese to the term ‘control,’” this department contained multiple divisions rang-
ing from general affairs to administration and from finance and industry to commu-
nications. Komai expected members of the Special Affairs Department, those from
the SMR or the Kantō government “who understood Manchuria’s affairs and who
had passions to operate Manchuria,” to head the new state of Manchukuo’s govern-
ment institutions because “the Chinese were not competent to govern their own
country.”25 Komai’s value of Japanese supervision of Manchukuo appreciated the
Kantō Army, which helped him become the first director of Manchukuo’s General
Affairs Board (Ch: Zongwu zhangguan; Jp: Sōmu chōkan) in March 1932.
As the head of the General Affairs Board (hereafter Board), Komai wanted to
create a powerful central government that controlled all the affairs of the new coun-
try under Japanese supervision. Although the Board was in theory a subordinate
department of Manchukuo’s State Council under Prime Minister Zheng Xiaoxu’s
leadership, it handled the regime’s confidential, human, statistical, and accounting
affairs besides managing “affairs beyond the duties of other departments,” leaving a
gray zone for the Japanese to construct Manchukuo according to their own will.26
Controlling the Board, Komai held real power. For example, he could read State
Council documents and deliver them to the prime minister for a signature. When
Prime Minister Zheng read the documents, Komai often repeatedly hit Zheng’s
desk with a pencil, to fasten his speed, making Zheng hastily pass the documents to
his secretary for a stamp without reading them.27 The priority for Komai as the
Board’s director was to centralize state entities by concentrating ruling power for the
State Council; he considered “China’s separation of regional powers the cause of its
unrest and corruption.”28 Because “the new country [of Manchukuo] had not yet
been able to hold presidential elections,” given the education level of local popula-
tions, it should adopt a “system that encompassed both republicanism and a monar-
chy” before becoming a republic within which people could elect a president.29
To unify Manchukuo’s governing system, Komai made a series of reform plans. In
the political sphere, he wanted civil officials rather than military leaders to serve as
provincial leaders of each province and planned to make the Ministry of Civil Affairs
(Ch: Minzheng bu; Jp: Minsei bu) host and supervise the work of provincial leaders.
In the military sphere, he planned to create a new position, police garrison com-
mander (Ch: jingbei siling; Jp: keibi shirei), for each province and make them preserve
local order under the leadership of the Ministry of Military Affairs (Ch: Junzheng bu;
 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo 27
Jp: Gunsei bu), preventing the army from intervening in maintaining domestic secu-
rity. For communications, local railways and other communications agencies must
be subordinate to the Ministry of Communications (Ch: Jiaotong bu; Jp: Kōtsū bu)
and accept its management.30 Emphasizing the importance of the national economy
to the stability of Manchukuo, Komai not only planned to establish tax supervision
agencies at each county under the “strict management of ” the Ministry of Finance
(Ch: Caizheng bu; Jp: Zaisei bu) but also planned to unify Manchuria’s currency.
Criticizing the “casual release” of a total amount of five billion yuan of paper cur-
rency during the eras of Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928; r: 1916–1928) and Zhang
Xueliang (r: 1928–1931) for “disrupting the economic life of the thirty million
[Manchurian] people,” Komai released a new currency backed by the silver holdings
of the Manchukuo Central Bank. Having associated China’s political fragmentation
with the country’s disorder in currency in the 1920s, Komai made the Manchukuo
Central Bank absorb the provincial banks of the warlord era while retrieving the
previous Zhang Xueliang era currency from the hands of local people with a price
several cents higher than the market price.31 Writing in 1944, Komai claimed that
Manchukuo managed to unify its currency in a half year due to his policy.32 Insisting
that “the prosperity of Manchukuo was dependent on Japanese officials,” Komai
eventually enabled the Japanese to occupy around 20 percent of the regime’s govern-
ment official positions in 1932 and strove to provide them with supervising power.33
Komai’s ideal to turn Manchukuo into a republic ruled by Japanese civil officials
failed to become a guiding policy of the Kantō Army because of his negative atti-
tude toward military control and tense personal relations with both Japanese and
Manchurian officials. According to the records of Kantō Army staff member
Katakura Tadashi, Komai was opposed to the Japanese military domination of
Manchuria, resulting in several unsatisfied officials in the Kantō Army criticizing
him in a letter to Itagaki Seishirō on December 14, 1931.34 When lower-level Kantō
Army officials came to question Komai’s frequent rejections of military proposals for
governing Manchuria in late 1931 and early 1932, Komai often ended the conver-
sation with the sentence “go and ask your commander and chief of staff about how
much power I have,” exacerbating the conflict.35 He also harshly suppressed
Manchurian dissidence. For instance, he prevented Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (1884–1952),
the head of the Ministry of Finance, from questioning the involvement of Japanese
officials in the Manchukuo government in March 1932, threatening, “I know
exactly how much money you have; where it comes from; and how many soldiers
you have, so watch your tone in the future.”36 Komai’s stubbornness angered both
Japanese and Manchurian officials. Knowing the tensions surrounding him, Komai
turned his office into his residence “to avoid assassination,” recalled Hoshino Naoki
(1892–1978), the director of Manchukuo’s General Affairs Board between 1936 and
1940.37 Considering his dilemma, Koiso Kuniaki (1880–1950, Kantō Army staff and
Komai’s friend, encouraged Komai to resign in the summer of 1932, saying, “You
cannot confront the Japanese Army with your own power.”38 In the end, Komai
resigned from the Board and became a member of the Privy Council (Ch: Canyi fu;
Jp: Sangi fu) in October 1932; he returned to Japan one year later in July 1933.39
Historian Katō Michiya deems Komai an “exceptional and pragmatic intellec-
tual official among the Japanese colonial bureaucrats” of the 1920s and the 1930s
28 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo
who managed to “exert his huge influence” on the changing political environment
of contemporary China based on his long interactions with the Chinese and per-
sonal relations in the Kantō Army.40 The core of Komai’s policy toward China,
Katō summarizes, was to “realize a Japan-directed Sino-Japanese cooperation
while making the Chinese enjoy a certain degree of autonomy” under Japanese
supervision.41 Departing from the ambitions of Itagaki Seishirō and others who
sought Japanese annexation of Manchukuo, Komai supported the Japanese to
supervise Manchukuo and the rest of China due to disappointment with the
Chinese for their governing ability. Desiring to make Japanese bureaucrats culti-
vate and inspire the Chinese people’s so-called governing ability and national
awareness, Komai had no sincere allies in Manchukuo on both the Chinese and
the Japanese sides who valued his political blueprint. Worse, Komai’s harsh attitude
toward those who challenged his policies generated many political rivals for him,
which resulted in his downfall in October 1932. Although Komai eventually left
Manchukuo, the Kantō Army continued his practice of hiring more Japanese offi-
cials to manipulate the regime, something that arguably served as the most lasting
legacy of Komai as the first director of the General Affairs Board.

Creating an East Asian Block against the West: The Ideal of

Ishiwara Kanji
Ishiwara Kanji (Figure 1.2) was a famous contemporary Japanese military strategist
who specialized in the study of the tactics of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)
and who masterminded the 1931 Manchurian Incident with Itagaki Seishirō and
several other Kantō Army staff officials.42 Unlike those who intended to turn
Manchuria and Mongolia into Japanese territories and those who wanted to gov-
ern the newly created Manchukuo with Japanese officials, Ishiwara supported
Manchukuo’s autonomy and wanted to create an alliance of Japan, China, and
Manchukuo against Euro-American imperialism. Historian Hamaguchi Yūko
notes that Ishiwara’s pan-Asian thoughts had many contemporary supporters in
China and Korea due to his emphasis on “national equality in the sphere of poli-
tics.”43 His opposition toward the exacerbation of the Sino-Japanese confrontation
after July 1937, Hamaguchi suggests, was precisely a reflection of his aspiration to
realize the East Asian alliance.44 Historian Usui Katsumi argues that many local
Manchurians in the early 1930s agreed with Ishiwara’s proposal to use Japanese
soldiers to maintain order, and Ishiwara often considered the benefits and losses of
Manchuria’s Chinese residents when formulating policies.45 Different from Itagaki
Seishirō and Komai Tokuzō, Ishiwara valued Manchurian cooperation and opposed
Japanese hegemony in the new state of Manchukuo.
Ishiwara’s attitude toward the Chinese changed from disappointment in the
1910s and 1920s to respect after 1932. Insisting that “China’s rebirth and Japan-
China friendship” were his dreams, Ishiwara as a young soldier “had a high
expectation for China’s Nationalist Revolution” of 1911.46 After witnessing Sun
Yat-sen’s withdrawal from political leadership of the ROC in 1912, to satisfy his
political rival Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), and China’s decade of warlord unrest
after the death of Yuan in 1916, Ishiwara doubted the “political ability of the
 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo 29

Figure 1.2 Ishiwara Kanji in 1945.

Source: Ishiwara Kanji zenshū [Collected works of Ishiwara Kanji], ed., Ishiwara Kanji zenshū kankō kai,
vol. 2 (Funabashi: Ishiwara Kanji zenshū kankō kai, 1976), no page number.

Han Chinese.” He believed that “the Han Chinese could not build a modern
country regardless of their superior culture.”47 For him, the occupation of
Manchuria in 1931 was “not only a necessary means for Japan to survive but also
a way to bring the Chinese fortune,” encouraging the Japanese to help the
Chinese govern their country.48 Unlike Komai Tokuzō, Ishiwara’s pessimistic
position began to change after witnessing the success of regional autonomy in
Manchuria after September 1931 and the national unification movements in
China proper that the ROC government hosted in the early 1930s, convincing
him that “the Chinese have political abilities.”49 This ideological change
explained why Ishiwara embraced “ethnic harmony and coexistence and
co-prosperity of the Japanese, Korean, Manchu, Han, and Mongolian ethnici-
ties” after the creation of Manchukuo in 1932. For him, “each ethnicity should
fully carry out their characteristics” in mundane government operations, and
because the military significance of Manchuria and Mongolia were too impor-
tant for Japan to relinquish, the Japanese should only “handle [the new state’s]
supreme political affairs.”50
Regardless of Ishiwara’s support for ethnic cooperation in Manchukuo, he did
not advocate democracy and instead embraced party dictatorship to integrate East
30 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo
Asia’s resources for a total war against the Soviet Union and the United States. In
his 1942 Declaration of the Shōwa Restoration [Shōwa ishin sengen], Ishiwara claimed,
“East Asian ethnicities should fully use their power to fight a victorious war”
against Western powers.51 He perceived regional conflicts and the “doctrine of
control” (tōchi shugi; authoritarianism) as two foundational features of the world
after the First World War of 1914–1918, so the world could not avoid a final battle,
“just like sailors could not avoid discovering the shore of land at the end of their
voyages.”52 Observing the dilemma of Britain, France, and the United States—
“those proponents of liberalism”—after the outbreak of the “Second European
War” in 1939, Ishiwara concluded that “liberalism could not triumph over the
doctrine of control.”53 Trusting the ability of authoritarianism to mobilize citizens
for a total war, he wanted Japan and the rest of East Asia to embrace authoritarian-
ism and to win the struggle with the West. An effective East Asian alliance required
a “unification of [East Asia’s] national defense and economy” besides realizing the
“political independence [of East Asian nations] and mutual cultural communica-
tion.”54 Most importantly, it required a “stable center”—the Japanese Shōwa
Emperor Hirohito (1901–1989), to guide East Asia’s confrontation with the West.55
The Soviet Union and the United States were Ishiwara’s primary targets.56
Manchukuo was for Ishiwara a major step toward realizing East Asian solidarity,
something that exemplified his advocacy for the creation of the Concordia
Association (Ch: Xiehehui; Jp: Kyōwakai) in 1932. In order to “rely on empirical
means to explore the possibility of Japan’s and China’s co-prosperity and coexistence
in a true sense,” he supported the formation of a “liberal legislative assembly that
could represent the people” in June 1932 and named the organization the Concordia
Association.57 Opposing the Kantō Army’s interference in Manchukuo’s affairs, he
encouraged army commanders to “slowly transfer Manchukuo’s sovereignty to the
Concordia Association and let it formulate national policies and possess the power
of government,” deeming the use of local support a “low price politics” (anka naru
seiji; literally a “profitable policy”).58 He already hoped that the Kantō Army would
abolish Japan’s extraterritorial rights in Manchukuo in April 1932 and further advo-
cated Japan’s relinquishment of the SMR and the Kantō Leased Territories of Dalian
and Lüshun for Manchukuo in 1944.59 Urging the Japanese settlers in Manchukuo
to respect the Manchurians, Ishiwara also desired that those Manchukuo students
who were in Japan would learn more about “the true face of Japanese culture” rather
than overly treating Japan as a “shortcut to Western culture” and as a child of Chinese
culture.60 Ishiwara’s authoritarian ideal for East Asia aimed to let Japan create a pow-
erful governing institution for each country and then unite them against Western
threats, not to let Japan enslave the populations of East Asia.
Regardless of Ishiwara’s desire to turn Manchukuo into a base for Sino-Japanese
cooperation and East Asian solidarity, it remained an unfulfilled dream until the
regime’s collapse in 1945 due to his relatively insignificant status in the senior level
of the Kantō Army and his critical attitude toward Japanese interference in
Manchukuo’s sovereignty. Although serving in the army since October 1928,
Ishiwara was only one of the army’s many staff officers in September 1931. Actual
decision-makers were people such as Honjō Shigeru (1876–1945)—the army’s
commander in chief, Miyake Mitsuharu (1881–1945)—the army’s chief of staff,
and Itagaki Seishirō—the army’s staff officer.61 Failing to become an influential
 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo 31
official in Manchukuo and having few opportunities to contact Manchurian offi-
cials, Ishiwara was transferred backed to Japan in August 1932, by which time other
planners of the Manchurian Incident, except for Itagaki, had returned to Japan.62
Deeming the Kantō Army’s takeover of Manchukuo’s governance a betrayal of the
country’s initial ideals during his revisit to Manchukuo in October 1937, Ishiwara
wrote a letter in 1938 to the Kantō Army’s chief of staff, Tōjō Hideki (1884–1948),
encouraging the army to abolish the manipulating policy of internal guidance and
promote Manchukuo’s independence.63 Reiterating this point in a letter to a friend
in November 1940, Ishiwara contended that “Japanese officials’ domination of
Manchukuo’s government and their ravaging of the country’s founding spirit of
ethnic harmony” caused “Manchukuo’s unrest today.”64 Reluctant to hide his con-
tempt toward Tōjō for his arrogant leadership in Manchukuo, Ishiwara once belit-
tled him with the term “Corporal Tōjō” (Tōjō gochō) during Tōjō’s service as the
Kantō Army’s chief of staff between 1937 and 1938.65
Historian Hamaguchi Yūko considers Ishiwara’s ideal “uniquely attractive com-
paring with other contemporary pan-Asian thoughts” in Japan and elsewhere.66
Indeed, Ishiwara’s thoughts “attracted not only many of his contemporaries, but
also later generations of scholars” due to a mixture of “insight and bullheadedness,
science and dogma, historical analysis and subjective prophecy” in his political
blueprints, summarized historian Kitaoka Shin’ichi.67 Luckily, Ishiwara’s opposi-
tion toward the Sino-Japanese confrontation and his personal distance after July
1937 from those who were convicted as class A war criminals at the International
Military Tribunal for the Far East of 1946–1948 helped him avoid prosecution after
the Second World War. However, the same reasons also made him more of a dissi-
dent in the military than an accomplished consultant for nation building in the
1930s and the 1940s. His exit from Manchukuo’s decision-making circle in August
1932 was undoubtedly a loss for the country’s Chinese government leaders in hind-
sight, considering the presence of people like Itagaki Seishirō and Komai Tokuzō.

Promoting Autonomy in Manchukuo and Revitalizing Asia:

Kasagi Yoshiaki’s Ideal
Kasagi Yoshiaki (Figure 1.3) is a lesser-known figure in modern Japanese history, yet
he played an important role in Manchukuo’s creation and headed a short-lived high-
level institution, the Governance Support Bureau (Ch: Zizheng ju; Jp: Shisei kyoku)
(hereafter GSB) between March and July 1932. As a graduate of Tokyo Imperial
University who had ten years of working experience in the Tokyo branch of the SMR
between 1919 and 1929, Kasagi treated Manchukuo as the “base to revitalize Asia”
and tied Japan’s and Manchukuo’s fates together, suggesting that Japan should “prosper
and wither together with Manchukuo.”68 He respected the Mencian ideal of the
Kingly Way—the exercise of virtuous rule by respecting the will of people—and sup-
ported the use of Japanese civil officials to promote Manchuria’s regional autonomy after
September 1931. For him, East Asia traditionally relied on autonomy to “integrate
and nurture the dispersed population” and never used spies or police to govern its
people because they often “made the heart of the people more unstable.”69 Hence,
Japanese civil officials must treat the “establishment of mutual trust and the spreading
of morality” as their dogma and “respect local custom” with “a heart of passion.”70
32 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo

Figure 1.3 Kasagi Yoshiaki (front row; fourth from right) in 1933.
Source: Kasagi Yoshiaki ihō roku kankōkai, ed., Kasagi Yoshiaki ihō roku [Works of the deceased Kasagi
Yoshiaki] (Tokyo: Kasagi Yoshiaki ihō roku kankō kai, 1960), no page number.

The creation of county counselor officials after September 1931 and the Japanese-
controlled government institution of the GSB, which was established in March
1932, were the means for Kasagi to promote Sino-Japanese cooperation in
Manchuria. Known in Japanese as sanji kan and in Chinese as canshi guan, counselor
officials were a group of civil servants under the nominal leadership of Manchurian
county magistrates responsible for “guiding and supervising local officials and peo-
ple” for self-governance and should “become their ideological, emotional, and men-
tal tutors.”71 In other words, they theoretically served as advisors and secretaries for
Manchurian county magistrates and protectors for local residents. Originally titled
“tutors for autonomy” (Ch: zizhi zhidaoyuan; Jp: jichi shidōin) before March 1932,
counselor officials were predominantly members from Kasagi’s Japanese youth
organization in Manchuria, the Greater Magnificent Peak Society (Dai yūhōkai),
who graduated from Japanese homeland universities and who worked for the SMR,
with several Manchurian members who used to “study in Japanese college” and who
had “county governing experiences.”72 Historian Lin Zhihong argues that the Kantō
Army manipulated the slogan of regional autonomy to sever Manchuria from the
administration of the ROC “before it had a clear schedule for the new [Manchurian]
regime’s creation” in late 1931.73 This view helps explain why the army tolerated,
reluctantly, Kasagi’s ideal of promoting regional autonomy in late 1931.
Sending counselor officials across Manchuria’s counties, Kasagi had two expecta-
tions for those vigorous and ambitious young Manchurian and Japanese college
graduates: assisting local regional maintenance associations to promote autonomous
rules and the county magistrates to process local affairs. Counselor officials needed
to “encourage the [Japanese] Imperial Army to revive its initial modest standpoint”
and to “cooperate with local soldiers, officials, and people for the creation of a
benevolent country with the heart of Bodhi compassion and selflessness.”74
 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo 33
Conceptualizing counselor officials as the “living sacrifice” (hitobashira) of the new
country of Manchuria, Kasagi expected them to work in the places where they
were dispatched throughout their whole life without leaving, to cultivate their emo-
tional ties with the local population.75 Convincing himself that India’s ongoing
struggle for independence under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948)
was a “mental movement that aim to purify mankind,” Kasagi associated Manchukuo’s
creation with India’s independent movement and considered them heralds in the
“great wave of Asia’s revitalization.”76 Hence, Kasagi wanted counselor officials to
“treat the revival of Asia as their mission by uniting those ordinary youth who had
similar goals in China and India.”77 To realize his utopian blueprint for Manchukuo,
Kasagi became a Japanese government leader by heading the country’s GSB.
Like the General Affairs Board, the GSB was a top-level national department
under Japanese control. Created in March 1932, it was an affiliated institution of the
State Council and followed the prime minister’s leadership.78 It was responsible for
“promoting the spirit of national foundation and the thoughts of self-governance”
besides “kindly cultivating the people’s power and [cooperative] heart.”79 Simultaneously
serving as a training institution for future counselor officials, Kasagi aspired to have
the GSB replace the State Council and the General Affairs Board in formulating
“strategies for Manchukuo’s national construction.”80 He also expected it to direct the
new state’s cultural, religious, and educational development, to reduce the gaps between
officials and the people.81 Kasagi’s ambitions alarmed Komai Tokuzō, the director of
the General Affairs Board, for his attempt to redirect political power in Manchukuo.
Worrying that Kasagi might disrupt his plan on centralizing state power for
Manchukuo, Komai persuaded the Kantō Army’s commander, Honjō Shigeru, to
abolish the GSB and dismiss Kasagi from office on June 20, 1932.82 Declassified
Manchukuo documents reveal few details on how the Kantō Army abolished the
GSB, yet the GSB stopped operating on July 5, 1932, based on the country’s govern-
ment bulletin, which marks the end of Kasagi’s short-lived career in Manchukuo.83
Although the GSB disappeared, the Kantō Army continued to use Japanese
counselor officials to strengthen Japanese control at the county level by authorizing
them to handle “confidential county affairs” alone and by preventing Manchurian
county magistrates from handling “important and difficult county affairs” without
the participation of counselor officials, as mandated by law on September 12,
1932.84 Observing the shift of the title “counselor official” to “vice county magis-
trate” (fuku kenchō) in December 1937, Kasagi considered that shift a “signal of
[counselor officials’] fall into the decadent category of bureaucracy” because he did
not expect counselor officials to hold real power other than assisting Manchurian
county magistrates in their daily governance.85 Without justifying Japanese vice
county magistrates’ abuse of power after December 1937, Kasagi portrayed
Manchurian county magistrates as puppets who suffered Japanese vice county
magistrates’ manipulation.86 He commented with grief that “the imitation of
Europe’s and America’s colonial domination” was “the worst of the worst strategies
for governance,” something that betrayed his ideal of Asian solidarity.87 As one of
the first high-level officials of Manchukuo that the Kantō Army cashiered, the
failure of Kasagi and his GSB revealed the army’s reluctance to create a genuine
cooperative relationship with the Manchurians. His downfall marked the
34 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo
beginning of many dissident Manchurian and Japanese officials’ exit from the inner
circle in the latter years of Manchukuo, although such a phenomenon had yet to
become apparent in 1932 and 1933.
Kasagi’s political setbacks in the state of Manchukuo were mainly a result of his
desire to balance power between the Manchurians and the Japanese. The Kantō
Army initially used Kasagi to promote regional autonomy and installed him as one
of the leading officials of Manchukuo arguably because of his ability to mobilize
those young Japanese employees in the SMR who were unsatisfied with the
Japanese home government. His utopian ideals nevertheless contradicted the
army’s goals and its supporters. Kasagi opposed people like Itagaki Seishirō, whose
ambition was to annex Manchuria, and his support for sharing local power chal-
lenged Ishiwara Kanji’s ideal of centralizing power to one party. Komai Tokuzō
was particularly vigilant against Kasagi and his counselor officials for their inten-
tion to disrupt his authoritarian blueprint for Manchukuo. Komai described
Kasagi’s men as a group of power-hungry officials who “wanted to fulfill their
private interests,” contending that “one could not expect the new country to
develop in a healthy way” without “taking tough measures” on them.88 Kasagi’s
failure to convince these powerful individuals ensured his loss of power.
After his dismissal in July 1932, Kasagi stayed in his private residence in Dalian
without serving in any government or public positions before returning to Japan
in January 1933 to publish his pan-Asianist periodical Greater Asia [Dai Ajia] in
Tokyo until May 1945.89 He attended the International Military Tribunal for the
Far East as a witness from July 30 to 31, 1946, and then assisted Japanese repatria-
tion until September 1955, when he was seriously injured in a car accident in
Tokyo and soon died from it.90 As for his painstaking institution of the GSB, it
evolved into Great Unity Academy (Ch: Datong xueyuan; Jp: Daidō gakuin)—a
national training institution for Manchukuo officials—from July 1932. During its
operation between July 1932 and August 1945, the Academy cultivated 3,971
graduates, many of whom contributed to the postwar recovery and development
of countries like Japan and South Korea, such as Choi Kyu-hah (1919–2006), the
president of South Korea between 1979 and 1980, and Mihara Asao (1909–2001),
Japanese Minister of Defense from 1976 to 1977.91 This is perhaps the most signif-
icant legacy that Kasagi left for Manchukuo in the early 1930s.

Ideological Contest Rather than Military Coercion: Chapter

Conclusion
In 1932, the Japanese had no consensus on the direction of Manchukuo’s develop-
ment. Interpreting pan-Asianism based on their personal and occupational experi-
ences in the Meiji (1868–1912) and Taishō eras (1912–1926), those who directly
participated in the new state’s creation had at least four different construction
plans. Military figures like Itagaki Seishirō wanted to make Manchuria and
Mongolia Japanese territories through military control, which resonated with the
Kantō Army’s objective of fighting the Soviet Union in Manchuria. Komai
Tokuzō, a senior civil official in the SMR who became the first director of the
General Affairs Board in March 1932, made a series of reforms to increase the
power of the central government and Japanese civil officials. He opposed regional
 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo 35
autonomy and the use of the Japanese Imperial and Kantō Armies and former
Manchurian warlords to govern the new country. Kantō Army strategist Ishiwara
Kanji expected the Concordia Association to become the only governing institu-
tion of Manchukuo and to advance ethnic harmony, deeming one-party dictator-
ship a powerful weapon for East Asia to confront the West. Civil idealist Kasagi
Yoshiaki valued Manchurian-Japanese cooperation at the local level and treated
virtuous autonomy as the national dogma of the new country. Although all of
them agreed that Japanese guidance of Manchukuo was crucial to Japan’s pan-
Asian ideals, the ways in which the Japanese should develop this country varied
significantly. Within a half year, the more romantic and utopian visions of Ishiwara’s
and Kasagi’s pan-Asian blueprints left the inner circle, and the more pragmatic
policies of Komai failed to appreciate the Kantō Army. Incorporating Komai’s
desire of strengthening Japanese power in the Manchukuo state, the Kantō Army’s
guiding policy toward Manchukuo after 1932 gradually evolved into Japanese mil-
itary control with the cooperation of Japanese civil officials.
An exploration of Japanese national ideals has two implications. First, it reveals
that Japanese dissidents fell victim to the Kantō Army’s suppression before their
Manchurian counterparts suffered a similar fate. Second, Ishiwara’s and Kasagi’s
isolation put Manchurian government officials in an unfavorable position since
both figures opposed Japanese dictatorship. Before facing ideological challenges
from Manchurian officials, Kantō Army decision-makers like Itagaki Seishirō
tended to unify Japanese voices by isolating or dismissing those who questioned
the army’s interference in Manchukuo’s affairs. Without the support of those
Japanese officials who genuinely sought Sino-Japanese cooperation, Chinese lead-
ers were hardly able to pursue their own distinct national ideals in opposition to
the army in the later years of Manchukuo. In retrospect, the Kantō Army’s formal
empire in Manchuria was created through an intense ideological contest rather
than a mere outcome of coercive military intimidation, as depicted in many
accounts of the founding of Manchukuo.

Notes
1 Janis Mimura, Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State
(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), 57.
2 Huang Zijin, Zuli yu zhuli zhijian: Sun Zhongshan, Jiang Jieshi qin Ri kang Ri wushi nian
[Between obstruction and external support: a fifty-year history of pro-Japan and
anti-Japan under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek] (Beijing: Jiuzhou
chubanshe, 2015), 138.
3 Itagaki Seishiō, “Gunji jō yori Man Mō ni tsuite” [About Manchuria and Mongolia from
a military point of view], March 1931, in Gendai shi shiryō [Documents of modern history],
vol. 7, ed. Kobayashi Tatsuo and Shimada Toshihiko (Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1964), 144.
4 Itagaki Seishiō, “Itagaki kōkyū sanbō no jōsei handan” [Judgement regarding the present
situation by senior staff Itagaki], April and May 1932, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 7, 173.
5 Anonymous, “Shōwa rokunen shigatsu sakutei no sanbō honbu jōsei handan” [Judgment
regarding the present situation from the General Staff Office, April of the sixth year of
Shōwa], in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 7, 161.
6 Katakura Tadashi, Manshū jihen kimitsu seiryaku nisshi [Confidential record of political
strategies following the Manchurian Incident], September 22, 1931, in Gendai shi
shiryō, vol. 7, 189.
7 Katakura, Nisshi, September 28, 1931, 195.
36 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo
8 Matsuki Tamotsu, “Man Mō jiyūkoku setsuritsu an taikō” [Outline of the creation plan of a
Manchurian and Mongolian free country], November 1931, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 7, 251.
9 Anonymous, “Manshūkoku no konpon rinen to Kyōwakai no honshitsu” [Manchukuo’s
fundamental principles and the essence of the Concordia Association], September 18,
1936, cited in Iida Tadao, “Kyōwakai towa nan datta ka” [What was the Concordia
Association], in Ryūjo: Daidō gakuin niseikai no kaihō [Willow seeds: bulletin of the
second generation alumni association of great unity academy], ed. Kanazawa Takeshi,
vol. 2 (Tokyo: Daidō gakuin nisei no kai, 2002), 10.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Anonymous, “Sanbō jichō sakusen ni kanshi shin Kantōgun shireikan to kondan jikō”
[Points of the conversation between the deputy staff officer and the Kantō Army’s new
commander in chief], August 2, 1933, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 7, 587–588.
14 Anonymous, “Manzhouguo lujun zhidao yaogang” [Guideline of the Manchukuo
army], September 1933, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 7, 591.
15 Komai Tokuzō, Tairiku e no higan [Longing for the continent] (Tokyo: Dai Nihon
yūbenkai kōdansha, 1952), 41.
16 Ibid., 60.
17 Katō Michiya, “Manshūkoku to Komai Tokuzō: tōchi ninshiki o chūshin ni”
[Manchukuo and Komai Tokuzō: centering on his ideology of governance], Ōsaka
sangyō daigaku keizai ronshū [Osaka Sangyo University journal of economics] 23:2
(March 2022): 89.
18 Komai, Tairiku e no higan, 61, 69–73.
19 Komai Tokuzō, Tairiku shōshi [Insignificant aspirations for the continent] (Tokyo: Dai
Nihon yūbenkai kōdansha, 1944), 128.
20 Komai Tokuzō, Dai Manshūkoku kensetsu roku [Record of the construction of greater
Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1933), vii.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., 2–3.
23 Ibid., 21, 27.
24 Ibid., 104.
25 Ibid., 122, 255.
26 Zhou Guangpei, ed., Wei Manzhouguo zhengfu gongbao yingyin ben [Photocopied edition
of bogus Manchukuo’s government bulletins], vol. 1, April 1, 1932 (Shenyang: Liaoshen
shushe, 1990), 27–28.
27 Wang Hongbin, Puyi he wei Manzhouguo [Puyi and bogus Manchukuo] (Zhengzhou:
Henan renmin chubanshe, 1994), 129.
28 Komai, Tairiku shōshi, 205–206.
29 Komai, Kensetsu roku, 113.
30 Komai, Tairiku shōshi, 206.
31 Ibid., 207; Katō, “Manshūkoku to Komai Tokuzō,” 94–95.
32 Komai, Tairiku shōshi, 206–209.
33 Ibid., 215–216.
34 Katakura, Manshū jihen kimitsu seiryaku nisshi, December 14, 1931, in Gendai shi shiryō,
vol. 7, 302.
35 Yamaguchi Jūji, Kieta teikoku Manshū [The disappeared empire of Manchuria] (Tokyo:
Mainichi shinbunsha, 1967), 153.
36 Komai, Kensetsu roku, 141. Komai did not mention the name of that official, but
according to the memoir Wo de qianbansheng [My earlier life; Eng.: From Emperor to
Citizen] of Emperor Aixin-Jueluo Puyi (1906–1967) and the diary of Zheng Xiaoxu,
that official was Xixia because both persons recorded that dispute.
37 Hoshino Naoki, Mi hatenu yume: Manshūkoku gaishi [Unachievable dreams: unofficial
history of Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Daiyamondo sha, 1963), 40.
38 Komai, Tairiku e no higan, 258, 284.
 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo 37
39 Komai, Tairiku shōshi, 216–217.
40 Katō, “Manshūkoku to Komai Tokuzō,” 108.
41 Ibid.
42 Komai, Kensetsu roku, 35.
43 Hamaguchi Yūko, “Ishiwara Kanji no tai Chūgoku kan o ou: Manshū jihen kara Tō A
renmei e no kiseki” [Tracing Ishiwara Kanji’s view of China: from the Manchurian
Incident to East Asian alliance], Seiji keizai hōritsu kenkyū [Studies of politics, economy,
and law] 21:1 (September 2018): 21.
44 Ibid.
45 Nihon NHK, ed., Huangdi de miyue: Manzhouguo zuigao de yinmi [The emperor’s secret
deals: Manchukuo’s supreme hidden story], trans. Li Hongjie and Ma Jinsen; ed. Xiang
Linrong (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1989), 132.
46 Ishiwara Kanji, “Manshū kenkoku zenya no shinkyō” [My thoughts before the creation
of Manchukuo], 1942, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 11, 630.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid., 631.
50 Ibid., 630.
51 Ishiwara, Shōwa ishin sengen [Declaration of the Shōwa restoration], in Ishiwara Kanji
zenshū [Collected works of Ishiwara Kanji], ed. Ishiwara Kanji zenshū kankō kai, vol. 3
(Funabashi: Ishiwara Kanji zenshū kankō kai, 1976), 1.
52 Ibid., 12–13, 16.
53 Ibid., 20.
54 Ibid., 38.
55 Ibid., 63.
56 Ishiwara Kanji, “Taieki aisatsu” [Retirement greeting], March 1941, in Ishiwara Kanji
senshū [Selected works of Ishiwara Kanji], ed. Tamai Reiichirō, vol. 9 (Tokyo:
Tamairabo, 1986), 76.
57 Ishiwara, “I Isogai taisa” [For Colonel Isogai], June 25, 1932, in Ishiwara Kanji senshū,
vol. 9, 49, 51.
58 Ibid.
59 Ishiwara, “I Obata shōshō” [For Major Obata], April 22, 1932, in Ishiwara Kanji senshū,
vol. 9, 47; Ishiwara, “Tō A renmei kensetsu yōkō” [Outline of the construction of East
Asian alliance], November 25, 1944, in Ishiwara Kanji zenshū, vol. 3, 69.
60 Ishiwara, “Manshū teikoku Kyōwakai Tōkyō jimusho no ninmu ni tsuite” [About the
missions of the Manchukuo Concordia Association’s Tokyo office], August 14, 1939, in
Ishiwara Kanji zenshū bekkan, 26, 29–30.
61 Komai, Kensetsu roku, 33.
62 Hamaguchi, “Ishiwara Kanji no tai Chūgoku kan o ou,” 14.
63 Nakata Seiichi, Manshūkoku kōtei no hiroku: rasuto enpera to Genpi kaiken roku no nazo [A
secret record of the emperor of Manchukuo: the last emperor and the mysteries sur-
rounding top secret meeting records] (Tokyo: Genki shobō, 2005), 301–302.
64 Ishiwara, “I Kimura Chūjō” [For Lieutenant Kimura], November 5, 1940, in Ishiwara
Kanji senshū, vol. 9, 70.
65 Furumi Tadayuki, Wasure enu Manshū [Unforgettable Manchuria] (Tokyo: Keizai ōrai-
sha, 1978), 154.
66 Hamaguchi, “Ishiwara Kanji no tai Chūgoku kan o ou,” 21.
67 Kitaoka Shin’ichi, From Party Politics to Militarism in Japan, 1924–1941 (Colorado and
London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2021), 119.
68 Kasagi Yoshiaki, “Manshūkoku ken ki sanji kan no dai shimei” [Grand missions of
Manchukuo’s county and banner counselor officials], October 1933, in Kasagi Yoshiaki
ihō roku [Works of the deceased Kasagi Yoshiaki], ed. Kasagi Yoshiaki ihō roku kankōkai
(Tokyo: Kasagi Yoshiaki ihō roku kankōkai, 1960), 46.
69 Ibid., 46–47, 50.
70 Ibid., 48, 50.
38 Contested Japanese Ideals in the State of Manchukuo
71 Daidō gakuin shi hensan iinkai, ed., Hekikū ryokuya sanzen ri [Three thousand miles of
blue sky and green plain] (Tokyo: Daidō gakuin dōsōkai, 1972), 9.
72 Ibid., 13.
73 Lin Zhihong, “Difang fenquan yu zizhi: Manzhouguo de jianshe jiqi zhipei” [Regional
distribution of power and autonomy: Manchukuo’s creation and domination], in Jindai
Zhong Ri guanxi shi xinlun [A new view on the history of modern Sino-Japanese rela-
tions], ed. Huang Zijin and Pan Guangzhe (Xinbei: Daoxiang chubanshe, 2017),
647–649.
74 Kasagi Yoshiaki, “Manshūkoku kenkoku ni tsuite” [About Manchukuo’s creation], May
12, 1954, in Kasagi Yoshiaki ihō roku, 177.
75 Kasagi Yoshiaki, Manshūkoku dokuritsu no seishin [The spirit of Manchukuo’s independ-
ence] (Tokyo: Hakuhō shuppanbu, 1932), 1.
76 Ibid., 9.
77 Kasagi “Manshūkoku kenkoku ni tsuite,” 178.
78 Kasagi, “Sensei sho” [Affidavit], July 16, 1946, July 16, 1946, GHQ/SCAP Records,
International Prosecution Section, Entry No. 327, National Diet Library of Japan,
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/10273685.
79 Fujikawa Yūji, Jitsuroku Manshūkoku ken sanji kan: Dai Ajia shugi no shito [Veritable
record of Manchukuo’s county counselor officials: the messengers of greater Asianism]
(Osaka: Ōminato shobō, 1981), 48–49.
80 Kasagi, “Manshūkoku kenkoku ni tsuite,” 173.
81 Kasagi, “Sensei sho,” 6.
82 Fujikawa, Jitsuroku Manshūkoku ken sanji kan, 52–53.
83 Zhou, ed., Wei Manzhouguo zhengfu gongbao, vol. 2, July 5, 1932, 10.
84 Lin, “Difang fenquan yu zizhi,” 659.
85 Kasagi, “Manshūkoku kenkoku ni tsuite,” 178.
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid.
88 Komai, Tairiku shōshi, 215.
89 Kasagi, “Sensei sho,” 6.
90 Fujikawa, Jitsuroku Manshūkoku ken sanji kan, 207.
91 In the 1970s, the South Korean government still had 43 officials who had studied at
Great Unity Academy. Lin, “Difang fenquan yu zizhi,” 666.
2 Inviting the Japanese to Help
Revive the Manchu Order in China
The Imperial Ambitions of Puyi and Xixia
in Manchukuo

Aixin-Jueluo Puyi and those Chinese who were born at the beginning of the
twentieth century witnessed the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the political
unrest of the early Republican era in their childhood, and they lived through the
Manchurian Incident, Japan-China War, the Chinese Civil War, and the creation
of the People’s Republic of China in their adulthood. In their old age, they fell
victim to the Cultural Revolution [and various other political movements in the
era of Mao Zedong]. Indeed, Puyi [and many of his Manchu followers] were
pawns of political struggles throughout their lives.
Tsukase Susumu, Fugi: Henten suru seiji ni honrō sareta shōgai [Puyi: A Life Under
the Manipulation of the Changing Political Environment] (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppan-
sha, 2015), 86.
Former Manchu aristocrats were a disoriented group in the early Republican
era between the 1910s and the 1930s. Enjoying various powers and privileges
before 1912, given their ethnic ties with the Aixin-Jueluo clan—the royal Manchu
family of the Qing Dynasty, after the creation of the Republic of China (ROC) in
1912, Manchu aristocrats and Qing loyalists became a group of “reactionaries who
obstructed the development of society.”1 Historian Wuyun Gaowa in her study of
Inner Mongolian nationalism in the 1930s argues that Inner Mongolians had little
sense of belonging in the newly created ROC because the country practiced
“greater Hanism” in the name of “harmony of the five ethnicities” (wuzu gonghe).2
Similar to the dilemma of the Inner Mongolians, the Manchus particularly suffered
Han Chinese people’s ethnic rhetoric. The famous Chinese scholar Zhang Taiyan
(1869–1936), for example, cursed Manchu as an “inferior race that everyone
despises in their marrow” after the fall of Beijing to international armies in 1900.3
Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) depicted Manchu as a “barbaric tribe and an inferior
race in the Northeast” in 1903; he insisted that “Manchurian government and
Chinese government are different concepts.”4 Although official narratives of the
ROC tried to prevent Han-Manchu confrontation, historian Dan Shao argues that
the Manchus had learned to use “their ethnicity as a social resource in a changing
political environment” after 1912 because they redefined “their relationship with
whichever polity claimed sovereignty over their homeland in varying ways.”5 This
is arguably why historian Tsukase Susumu considers the last Qing emperor, Aixin-
Jueluo Puyi (1906–1967), and his Manchu followers in Manchukuo “pawns of
political struggles.”
DOI: 10.4324/9781003357773-3
40 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
Existing research on Puyi and Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (1884–1952)—two represent-
ative former Manchu aristocrats in the early Republican era—in Chinese-,
Japanese- and English-speaking academia, has paid inadequate attention to their
national ideals as the government leaders of Manchukuo. English historiography
often assumes Puyi’s subjugation in front of the Japanese without further explora-
tion. Supporting the evaluation of Puyi as a “re-educateable old class” by Mao
Zedong (1893–1976) in 1962, existing mainland Chinese monographs on Puyi in
Manchukuo to date generally portray him as a traitorous figurehead under Japanese
control or an unfortunate monarch who intended to utilize the Japanese yet suf-
fered the latter’s manipulation. “Puppet” (Ch: kuilei; Jp: kairai), a term that Japanese
news reports often used between 1946 and 1948 to characterize Puyi’s testimony
on his role in Manchukuo at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East,
became the standard description for People’s Republic of China (PRC) historians
when writing about Puyi’s status between 1931 and 1945.6 Without sharing the
national sentiments of mainland Chinese scholars, Japanese historians focus more
on exploring Puyi’s interactions with Japanese officials in Manchukuo.7
Monographs on Xixia in any language to date do not exist, except for occasional
mentions in the studies of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931.8
An exploration of Puyi’s and Xixia’s national ideals in the state of Manchukuo
helps explain the logic behind the regime’s quick transformation from a republic
to an empire. It also enables historians to observe the ways in which the Japanese
utilized those highly Sinicized Manchu political figures who refused to admit the
legitimacy of the ROC and justified Japanese participation in Manchukuo in the
early 1930s.

Siding with the Japanese Emperor: Aixin-Jueluo Puyi in

Manchukuo
Aixin-Jueluo Puyi (Figure 2.1) is a controversial figure in contemporary China. He
was the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty (r. 1908–1912) and the emperor of
Manchukuo between 1934 and 1945. PRC historians to date often condemn his
cooperation with Japan in the 1930s and the 1940s and describe him as a war crim-
inal or puppet emperor. Regardless of Puyi’s worldwide fame and the translation of
his 1964 memoir Wo de qianbansheng [My earlier life; Eng.: From Emperor to Citizen;
hereafter Life] into multiple languages, Puyi-related studies are scarce except in
China and Japan. The scarcity of sources arguably prevents many from analyzing
Puyi, as he made his two nephews burn the diaries that he kept in the Manchukuo
era and destroy all the documentary film footage on him in the 14 years before his
abdication in August 1945.9 Many archives and records of Manchukuo’s govern-
ment institutions in the PRC are yet to be declassified, increasing the difficulty of
relevant research.
The integrity of Life is also questionable because its genuine author is PRC
writer Li Wenda (1918–1994). Li revised the manuscript of Puyi’s 1957 oral mate-
rial, which the latter’s younger brother Aixin-Jueluo Pujie (1907–1994) recorded
in prison and expanded its content with more sources and published it in March
1964.10 In Life, Puyi tried to whitewash his activities in the Manchukuo years and
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 41

Figure 2.1 Aixin-Jueluo Puyi in the uniform of Manchukuo’s supreme army and navy
commander in 1934.
Source: Anonymous, ed., Da Manzhoudiguo jian’guo shi zhounian ji’nian xiezhentie [Memorializing
photo collection of the tenth anniversary of the empire of Manchuria’s foundation] (Xinjing: Jian’guo
shi zhounian zhudian shuwuju, 1942), 7.

minimize exposure of his interactions with the Japanese by elaborating his imme-
diate regret after moving to Manchuria in November 1931 and his daily intensify-
ing “nervous feeling after 1937.”11 Because Puyi was very sensitive toward the
confidentiality of his words to Manchukuo’s Japanese officials, especially the Kantō
Army’s commander, scattered records of Puyi in the Manchukuo era by institu-
tions like the Imperial Household Mansion (Ch: Gongnei fu; Jp: Ku’nai fu) and
individuals like Puyi’s Japanese aide-de-camp, Kudō Chū (1882–1965), left little
helpful information for historians to examine his thoughts. This is arguably why
few to date challenge the helpless image that Puyi created for himself in his
memoir.
Top Secret Meeting Records [Genpi kaiken roku; hereafter Records] by Puyi’s Japanese
interpreter Hayashide Kenjirō (1882–1970) nevertheless made the study of Puyi’s
national ideals in the early 1930s a feasible task. Starting on November 21, 1932,
and ending on April 1, 1938, Records is the title of a series of textual records of the
conversations between Puyi and the Kantō Army’s commander and other Japanese
political and military figures, recording 496 conversations of Puyi and covering
42 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
more than 210 Japanese figures.12 During Puyi’s greetings with Japanese officials,
Hayashide was always present and served as Puyi’s interpreter, translating his words
into Japanese and Japanese officials’ words into Mandarin. He would then tran-
scribe the content of that day’s conversation into a formal report and send it to the
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ East Asian Bureau (Tō A kyoku) in a file
holder at night without Puyi’s awareness.13 Although the Japanese home govern-
ment destroyed Records and numerous other China- and Asia-related documents in
August 1945, Hayashide nevertheless kept all the drafts and additional copies and
secretly took them back to Japan in 1938.14 In 1987, seventeen years after
Hayashide’s death, his son Kenzō donated them to the Diplomatic Archives of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimushō gaikō shiryōkan) due to the persuasion of
Japanese scholar Nakata Seiichi, uncovering a lesser-known aspect of Puyi’s ambi-
tions in the early 1930s.15
Relying on Hayashide Kenjirō’s Records, this section traces Puyi’s national ideals
between 1932 and 1937. Without dismissing his determination to revive the Qing
Dynasty, this section emphasizes Puyi’s increasing ideological identification with
the Japanese imperial family after his official visit to Japan in April 1935. Seeking
the revival of the Manchu monarchy before becoming the emperor of Manchukuo
in March 1934, Puyi appreciated the Japanese for their transformation of
Manchukuo from a republic to an empire with Manchurian officials and wanted
to strengthen Manchurian-Japanese cooperation after his coronation. The Japanese
home government’s and imperial family’s warm welcome to his visit in April 1935
motivated Puyi to exploit his close interaction with the Shōwa Emperor Hirohito
(1901–1989) for power in Manchukuo.
In his conversations with Japanese officials after 1935, Puyi intentionally por-
trayed himself as the founder of a new empire that valued cooperation with Japan
for the revival of East Asia’s inherent moralities. His intention to seek a wife from
the Japanese imperial family for his younger brother Pujie in 1936 revealed his
ambition to stress Manchukuo’s equal relationship with Japan. After Japan invaded
China proper in July 1937, Puyi in his conversations with the Kantō Army’s com-
mander Ueda Kenkichi (1875–1962) confirmed Manchukuo’s pro-Japan stand-
point and expressed his desire to support Japan’s war effort, associating the
ambitions of the Japanese Empire with his own interests. Unlike other high-level
Manchurian officials, Puyi’s national ideals in the early 1930s often shifted based
on his limited interactions with the Japanese. His ideological identification with
Japanese pan-Asianist rhetoric became a tool for the Kantō Army to manipulate
Manchukuo’s development in the name of Japan-Manchukuo cooperation.

Miserable Life in Exile: The Early Life of Puyi

Puyi was born into a family of the Manchu imperial clan in February 1906 as the
first son of Aixin-Jueluo Zaifeng (1883–1951)—the younger brother of the Qing
Dynasty’s second last emperor Guangxu (r. 1875–1908). Puyi’s grandfather Yixuan
(1840–1891) was the seventh son of the Daoguang emperor (r. 1820–1850; the
Qing emperor during the First Opium War) and the younger brother of the
Xianfeng emperor (r. 1850–1861; the Qing emperor during the Second Opium
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 43
War).16 Because the Guangxu emperor had no offspring when he died in November
1908, Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) appointed Puyi the new emperor
(reign name, Xuantong). Puyi’s father Zaifeng was responsible for assisting Puyi
before he became an adult, due to Zaifeng’s kinship with the deceased Guangxu
emperor.17 In his memoir, Puyi contended that he had no vivid memories about
his experiences as the last Qing emperor between 1908 and 1912 because he was
too young to remember things, lamenting, “I abdicated confusedly during the
third year of my unconscious emperorship.”18 When he grew older and learned
about his family background from the surrounding eunuchs and Qing loyalists by
1915, Puyi recalled that he then began to treat the restoration of the Manchu
monarchy as both a personal responsibility and a lifelong task.19
Puyi was hardly able to trust the newly established ROC after abdication; the
ejection of him from the Forbidden City in November 1924 by Republican gen-
eral Feng Yuxiang (1882–1948) was a major reason. Based on the 1912 Provision of
Preferential Treatments of the Qing Imperial Clan [Qingshi youdai tiaojian, hereafter
Provision], a formal agreement that the ROC and the Qing court signed three days
before Puyi’s abdication on February 12, 1912, the ROC was supposed to guaran-
tee the Forbidden City as the residence of the Qing monarch and treat him in the
same manner of foreign royal families.20 However, more ROC officials began to
criticize Puyi for his “abuse of monarchical power” in the early 1920s and encour-
aged the ROC to abolish the Provision because Puyi’s “frequent support of imperial
restoration contradicts the Provision’s thesis.”21 Exploiting these voices, Feng
Yuxiang drove Puyi out of the Forbidden City on November 7, 1924, with armed
force in the name of the ROC’s acting prime minister Huang Fu (1880–1936) and
abolished the Provision.22 After three months of temporary stay in the Japanese
legation in Beijing, Puyi made his way to the Japanese legation in Tianjin in
February 1925 with the assistance of people like his subordinate Zheng Xiaoxu
(1860–1938) and Scottish tutor Reginald Johnston (1874–1938).23 Associating the
legitimacy of the ROC with the Provision, Puyi contended ten years later in
September 1935 that “the power of governance should remain in the hands of the
Qing court” because the ROC “completely ignored its specified responsibilities”
in the Provision, justifying the creation of Manchukuo.24
The Eastern Tomb Incident of 1928 is likewise a major cause of Puyi’s antipathy
toward the ROC government. Located in Zhili province (present-day Hebei prov-
ince), the Qing Eastern Tombs is the burial place of the famed Qianlong emperor
(r. 1735–1796), Empress Dowager Cixi, and various other members of the Qing
imperial clan. In June 1928, Republican general Sun Dianying (1889–1947)
ordered his troops to loot the tomb of Qianlong and Cixi, but the ROC govern-
ment chose to downplay Sun’s crime, arguably because Sun bribed many ROC
officials with the treasures that his soldiers snatched from the tombs.25 In his mem-
oir Life, Puyi wrote that “this incident hurt me more than the moment when I was
forced to leave the imperial palace [because] it was a disrespect to my clan and my
own familial emotion.” With tears in his eyes, Puyi swore in front of his clan’s
temple that he would not be “a member of the Aixin-Jueluo clan if [he] did not
take revenge” and that “the Great Qing would not perish as long as [he] was still
alive.”26 Contrasting the ROC’s casual attitude toward the Qing imperial clan with
44 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
the attentive daily service that he received from the Japanese in the Tianjin lega-
tion, Puyi began to cultivate his pro-Japan sentiment, stating in April 1936 that he
“always relied on the help of Japanese imperial subjects to stay safe in the past
decade when encountering unfortunate disasters.”27 To wait for an opportunity for
re-coronation, Puyi changed the name of his residence in the legation from the
Garden of Heaven (Qianyuan) to the Garden of Silence (Jingyuan) in July 1929,
explaining in Life that he would silently observe China’s situation in the Garden of
Silence until he was restored.28

A Tough Way to Manchuria: Puyi’s Departure from Tianjin to Xinjing

Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in late 1931 and early 1932 influenced Puyi’s later
life. Initially planning to study in Japan, Europe, and North America in the years
of his stay in Tianjin, Puyi began to consider using the Japanese to revive the
Manchu monarchy after September 1931 due to the persuasions of visiting Japanese
officials and certain Han Chinese loyalists around him. On November 2, 1931,
Doihara Kenji (1883–1948)—the head of the Kantō Army’s espionage agency in
Fengtian—visited Zheng Xiaoxu in Tianjin, promising him that “Japan will cer-
tainly assist with its national power” if Puyi desired re-enthronement. Zheng’s
second son Zheng Yu (1889–1954) agreed, persuading his father and Puyi to use
the Japanese to confront the ROC because Puyi could still “imitate the monarch
of Korea’s former Yi Dynasty [1392–1910] by enjoying his later life in Tokyo”
even if the restoration failed.29 One month previously, on September 30, Puyi’s
subordinate Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940) excitedly went to visit Puyi in Tianjin from
Lüshun on behalf of the Kantō Army’s staff officer Itagaki Seishirō (1885–1948)
and encouraged Puyi to reestablish the Qing Dynasty in Manchuria with Japanese
support, which increased Puyi’s confidence in the Japanese.30
In the end, Puyi refused the request of Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) to move
to Shanghai and fled from the Tianjin legation on November 10, 1931, by hiding
in the trunk of a car and made his way to the Manchurian port city of Yingkou
three days later, boarding the Japanese steamboat Awaji maru.31 To commemorate
Puyi’s return to his ancestral land of Manchuria, the Japanese filmed Puyi’s activi-
ties on Awaji maru in the afternoon of November 12, made a documentary (which
Puyi made his nephews destroy in August 1945) and photographed Puyi and his
Chinese and Japanese followers.32 In the photo, Zheng Xiaoxu is dressed in a
Western suit and wears a top hat and a scarf, smiling in the back row of the crowd.
This is the first—and arguably only—time that Zheng appeared in a photograph
with Western clothing, suggesting at least that Zheng highly valued this opportu-
nity for Puyi to reestablish China’s monarchy with the support of Japan.33 After
landing at Yingkou, Puyi headed south to the Japanese Kantō Leased Territory and
lived in Lüshun until March 1932, when he arrived at Manchukuo’s capital of
Xinjing (Changchun) and became the country’s chief executive (zhizheng) on
March 10, 1932.
The signing of the secret Puyi-Honjō Agreement of 1932 (hereafter Agreement)
is arguably the most remarkable political activity of Puyi before becoming the
chief executive of Manchukuo. Signed between Puyi and the Kantō Army’s
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 45

Figure 2.2 Honjō Shigeru (right) and Mutō Nobuyoshi (left) in 1932.
Source: Ōsaka Asahi shinbunsha, ed., Manshūkoku teisei kinen shashinchō [Memorializing photo collec-
tion on the transformation of Manchukuo to an empire] (Ōsaka: Ōsaka Asahi shinbunsha, 1934), no
page number

commander in chief Honjō Shigeru (1876–1945; Figure 2.2) in the south

Manchurian hot spring town of Tanggangzi on March 6, 1932, the five-article
Agreement confirmed Puyi’s approval for Japanese “assistance and supervision of
Manchukuo’s national defense and development.”34 Article One assured Japanese
control of Manchukuo’s national defense and policing with the funds of
Manchukuo. Article Two secured Japanese management of the railways, harbors,
waterways, and airways that “the Japanese Army deems essential to maintain
Manchukuo’s national defense.” Article Three stated Manchukuo’s supportive
position toward the maintenance of those infrastructures. Article Four empowered
the Kantō Army’s commander to “recommend knowledgeable and reputable
Japanese officials to serve in the Privy Council of Manchukuo and other central
and local government institutions,” and the Manchukuo government “should ask
for the army commander’s agreement when dismissing those appointed Japanese
officials.” Article Five made the Agreement “the [legal] basis of future formal trea-
ties between Japan and Manchukuo.”35
Given the Agreement’s nature as a secret treaty, it did not have a title, nor did
contemporary news reports, Puyi’s memoir, or Zheng Xiaoxu’s diary mention it.
The signing date on the Agreement was March 10, 1932—the day when Puyi
became Manchukuo’s chief executive—rather than the actual date of March 6.
According to scholar Nakata Seiichi, the Agreement became a legal justification
for the Kantō Army to promote its manipulative policy of internal guidance (nai-
men shidō) in the later years of Manchukuo, and the army formally legalized its
supervising position in Manchukuo through the Japan-Manchukuo Protocol [Ch:
46 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
Ri Man yidingshu; Jp: Nichi Man giteisho] a half year later in September 1932.36
Zheng Xiaoxu, who became Manchukuo’s prime minister in March 1932, felt
betrayed by what he viewed as Puyi’s reckless decision and disappointedly returned
home before signing the Japan-Manchukuo Protocol on September 15, claiming
that he “could not agree with the Protocol’s provisions.”37 Considering Puyi’s
eagerness to reestablish the Manchu monarchy in 1932 and 1933 and his unaware-
ness of the Kantō Army’s arbitrary attitude in front of the Japanese home govern-
ment and army, he wanted to make Japan a protector of the newly established
country of Manchukuo against the threat of countries like the ROC and the
Soviet Union.

The Advent of Hayashide Kenjirō and Top Secret Meeting Records

Hayashide Kenjirō (Figure 2.3) was a specialist in the Chinese language who had
more than twenty years of working experience in China as a Japanese consul in
Beijing, Fengtian, Hankou, Nanjing, and Shanghai between 1907 and 1932. Born
in the seaside town Gobō of Wakayama prefecture in August 1882, he studied
linguistics and field investigations in Shanghai between 1902 and 1905, using a
prefectural scholarship that he received at home after graduation from high school.
In 1905, he served as a field investigator for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in Xinjiang province for five months.38 In August 1932, Hayahside became
an assistant to the Kantō Army’s new commander in chief, Mutō Nobuyoshi
(1868–1933), and moved from Shanghai to Xinjing. There he became Puyi’s
interpreter in September 1932 and obtained the tile “temporary official of the
Chief Executive Mansion” (Zhizheng fu xingzou) between 1932 and 1934 and
“temporary official of the Imperial Household Mansion” (Gongnei fu xingzou)
between 1934 and 1938 and had free access to Puyi’s workplace.39 Arguably due to
pressures from Kantō Army officials, the Imperial Household Mansion dismissed
Hayashide from his position as Puyi’s interpreter in January 1938. After unofficially
helping Puyi translate his words during his conversations with the Kantō Army’s
commander for another three months, Hayashide returned to Japan in April
1938.40
Hayashide managed to approach Puyi due to the latter’s invitation, not Japanese
arrangement. His fluent translation of the Japan-Manchukuo Protocol on
September 15, 1932, with the spoken language of the Qing imperial court, which
he learned from Wang Shu’nan (1851–1936), the governor of Xinjiang, in 1905
caught Puyi’s immediate attention. During their private conversation after the
signing of the Protocol, Puyi was impressed with Hayashide’s deep understanding
of Chinese religions and was delighted from learning that he and Hayashide shared
similar religious beliefs.41 These reasons motivated Puyi to appoint Hayashide as his
Japanese interpreter and to treat Hayashide as his confidant. Being the only remain-
ing outsider when Puyi talked with the Kantō Army’s commander and other vis-
iting Japanese officials, Hayashide comprehended Puyi’s thoughts more than most
of the Japanese and Manchurian officials of his time. This is arguably why Puyi
ignored Hayashide in his memoir but spent pages discussing his tense personal
relation with his Japanese advisor, Yoshioka Yasunao (1890–1947).42
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 47

Figure 2.3 Hayashide Kenjirō in 1932.

Source: Nitta Mitsuo, ed., Maikuro firumu ban Hayashi Kenjirō kankei bunsho daiichi bunsatsu: meisaisho
[Microfilmed version of Hayashide Kenjirō related documents volume one: a detailed list] (Tokyo:
Yūshōdō, 2000), 1.

Top Secret Meeting Records is the title that Hayashide made for the texts of Puyi’s
conversations with the Kantō Army’s two commanders, Minami Jirō (1874–1955)
and Ueda Kenkichi, between May 1935 and April 1938, while the title for Puyi’s
conversations with Mutō Nobuyoshi in 1932 and 1933 is Former Meeting Records
[Moto kairoku]. The texts of Puyi’s conversations with Hishikari Takashi (1871–
1952) in 1933 and 1934 had no title.43 For concise purposes, this book uses Top
Secret Meeting Records to address these reports. Over one meter in height, they were
confidential documents that only a few contemporary officials in the Japanese
Foreign Ministry’s East Asian Bureau could access; no one in the Kantō Army was
eligible to read them.44 Trusting Hayashide’s honesty, Puyi rarely felt hesitation to
elaborate his thoughts in front of Japanese officials. Speaking to Ishiwara Kanji
(1889–1949) on October 13, 1937, for instance, Puyi praised Hayashide as

an honest figure who will never add his personal thoughts when translating
[Puyi’s] words and who never leaks the content of [Puyi’s] conversations to
outsiders, at least I have never heard of [his disclosure of my words to someone
else] even once,
48 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
said Puyi.45 Puyi further stated that he preferred to communicate with Ishiwara on
paper rather than utilizing other interpreters if, in the future, Hayashide could not
be present.46 Arguably feeling guilty for betraying Puyi’s trust by regularly tran-
scribing Puyi’s words into secret reports without his awareness, Hayashide hid
them in the warehouse of his hometown house after returning to Japan in the
spring of 1938 and never told anyone about their existence in his lifetime, includ-
ing his son Hayashide Kenzō.47 Records is therefore a rather reliable source for one
to examine Puyi’s contemporary insights and challenge his image as a helpless
puppet in the years of Manchukuo.

Anxious Pride: Puyi’s Ambition for Power and Imperial Restoration

Before visiting Japan in April 1935, Puyi desired to strengthen Manchukuo’s
cooperative relations with Japan against the threat of the ROC and revive his status
as a monarch. The former is evident in his conversation with Mutō Nobuyoshi on
the conquest of Rehe province on January 2, 1933. Mutō suggested that because
“Manchukuo has included the province as part of the country’s territory in its
Declaration of National Foundation [Jian’guo xuanyan],” and because “Japan has
acknowledged Manchukuo’s sovereignty,” Japan must help Manchukuo liberate
Rehe from the ROC’s control.48 Puyi agreed and portrayed Zhang Xueliang
(1901–2001) and Chiang Kai-shek as “obstacles to the restoration of peace in
China and East Asia,” contending that “it will be difficult [for Japan and Manchukuo]
to eradicate [China’s] xenophobic thoughts and communist [threats]” if Japan and
Manchukuo “do not successively defeat them.”49 Supporting the Kantō Army’s
occupation of Rehe, Puyi in another talk with Mutō on January 11 suggested that
it would be “good to have a division of the Japanese Army join” the Manchukuo
expedition force and support its actions because the Manchukuo Army “lacks
discipline and would be difficult to prevail when confronting [Zhang] Xueliang’s
army.”50
Inviting the Kantō Army to invade China proper, Puyi treated the ROC as the
culprit of China’s two-decade military unrest after 1912 and Japan as the hope to
revive China’s order. Insisting on destroying those who resisted Japan and
Manchukuo, Puyi in his conversation with the Kantō Army’s chief of staff, Koiso
Kuniaki (1880–1950), on January 23, 1933, encouraged the Kantō Army to
“kindly treat anyone who surrenders to Manchukuo, so that more people would
be inclined to join” the new country without hesitation.51 Confronting the ROC
required the support of capable persons from the ROC and elsewhere, and the
destruction of the ROC with Japanese support would allow Puyi to reestablish the
monarchy in China proper. This is arguably why Puyi supported the Kantō Army’s
invasion of Rehe in 1933.
Records also recorded Puyi’s desire for coronation. In the January 11 conversa-
tion with Mutō Nobuyoshi, Hayashide noted that the “Chief Executive and
Ambassador [Mutō] looked at each other with a sincere smile on their faces” after
Mutō promised Puyi to restart those formerly suspended “discussions over
[Manchukuo’s] national entity and various other issues” when “Rehe joins
Manchukuo.”52 Claiming in a letter to his Manchurian supporters on March 7,
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 49
1932, that he “will resign and leave the position to those who are more capable of
governing the country” one year later if Manchukuo remained a republic, Puyi
was delighted when learning that Mutō supported his coronation.53 Exploiting this
chance, Puyi implicitly encouraged Mutō to treat him as a monarch:

Before the Meiji Restoration [of 1868], it was the Tokugawa bakufu rather
than the Kyoto imperial house that held real power. Because of that, it was
difficult for the emperor to thoroughly spread his morality to the whole coun-
try. Regardless of my position as the leader of Manchukuo, I still lack relevant
ability [and experience] for governance. Because the Ambassador [represents
the Japanese home government in Manchukuo and] controls a strong army
based on the honorable order of the Japanese emperor [Hirohito], there is no
need for us to hide each other’s thoughts. As I consult you on everything in
person, the Ambassador’s opinion represents my opinion, and vice versa.
Without gaps in our communication, the government of Manchukuo will
manage to implement its policies without obstacles. I wish the Ambassador to
understand my points and fully support my [governance].54

Comparing himself to Japanese monarchs in the Edo period (1603–1868) who

were hardly able to “thoroughly spread his morality to the whole country” due
to a temporary lack of ability and experience, Puyi hinted to Mutō his desire to
develop Manchukuo as a powerful empire like Japan and requested Japan’s assis-
tance. Besides, Puyi urged Mutō to consult with him on the making of
Manchukuo’s future national policies because he considered the country his
property, not a Japanese colony. Endorsing Puyi’s persuasion, Mutō formally
decided to revive Puyi’s monarchical status in 1934 during a conversation with
Prime Minister Zheng Xiaoxu on July 17, 1933, ten days before his sudden death
from jaundice.55
Eventually, Puyi reclaimed the throne on March 1, 1934 (Figure 2.4), and par-
ticipated in an ancestor worship ceremony on the outskirts of Xinjing that day
dressing in the imperial robe of the deceased Guangxu emperor, which he ordered
people to take from Beijing earlier that year.56 High-level Manchurian and Japanese
officials, 200 journalists from Manchukuo and Japan, and tens of thousands of
Manchukuo citizens witnessed the ceremony.57 Proudly producing a work of cal-
ligraphy on the same day, Puyi depicted his restoration as the result of “respecting
heaven’s will” (gushi tian zhi mingming).58
Hayashide’s Records reflect Puyi’s satisfaction toward the Japanese for their sup-
port of his coronation and his intention to bolster Japan-Manchukuo cooperation.
Criticizing the existing “unnecessary struggles between certain Japanese and
Manchurian officials inside the government,” Puyi in his conversation with the
Kantō Army’s new commander Hishikari Takashi on July 2, 1934, asserted that
Japanese and Manchurian officials “should relinquish their personal interests for
the sake of the nation” because “Japanese-Manchurian solidarity is the true spirit
of Manchukuo’s national foundation.”59 Appreciating the Japanese people’s loyalty
to their emperor, Puyi praised Japan for its preservation of “inherent national
spirits while adapting Western civilization” and criticized China proper for its “loss
50 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China

Figure 2.4 Puyi (second from left) during the worship ceremony on March 1, 1934.
Source: Ōsaka Asahi shinbunsha, ed., Manshūkoku teisei kinen shashinjō.

of traditional spirits” under the leadership of the ROC in front of Prince Yasuhito
(1902–1953), the younger brother of Emperor Hirohito, in Xinjing on June 12,
1934, when the latter visited Manchukuo on behalf of Hirohito to congratulate
Puyi’s coronation.60 Puyi gratefully insisted that “Japan and Manchukuo must cul-
tivate an intimate and cooperative relationship with each other” after Yasuhito
described Japan as an assistant to Manchukuo four days earlier on June 8.61 It is
arguable that Puyi cultivated his heartfelt desire to communicate with the Japanese
imperial family around this time.

Greeting the Shōwa Emperor and His Family Members: Puyi’s Official Visit to
Japan
Puyi’s official visit to Japan in April 1935 motivated him to equate his status with
the deified status of Emperor Hirohito. In Life, Puyi skipped details of his 1935
visit to Japan and tried to portray himself as a victim of Japanese propaganda,
contending that the Kantō Army orchestrated his visit in response to Prince
Yasuhito’s visit to Manchukuo in June 1934.62 In fact, Hishikari Takashi already
noted in the conversation with Puyi on March 12, 1934, that Japan was “currently
preparing from government to society for [Puyi’s] advent” and invited Puyi to visit
Japan in the autumn of 1934, and Puyi in response “nodded with a smile.”63 One
month later, on April 13, Puyi decided to visit Japan in the spring of 1935 because
he believed that “people should restrain their behaviors in the season of harvest.”
Hishikari agreed and responded that he would “make others prepare for the
emperor’s stay in Japan.”64 Hayashide Kenjirō’s reports not only reveal Puyi’s con-
sent to visit Japan but also challenge the arbitrary image that Puyi depicted for the
Kantō Army on this event. Having high expectations for this visit, Puyi proudly
wrote a poem on his way to Japan on April 5, 1935:
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 51
On a splendid ten-thousand-mile sail by breaking through the billowy waves;
The sky and ocean share the same blue color, [making me suspect that] the
sky and earth become one in tune.
How could this visit merely be travel to observe mountains and waters;
The alliance between the two nations are as bright as the sun and the moon.65

Often praising Japan’s scenery with the phrase “mountains purple, waters bright”
(shanzi shuiming) in his talks in Japan, Puyi underlined his intention to improve
Japan-Manchukuo relations as destined by heaven.66
The 1935 visit happened between April 2, when Puyi departed from Xinjing
for Tokyo via the South Manchuria Railway and the Japanese battleship Hiei, and
April 27, when Puyi returned to Xinjing. Serving as Puyi’s interpreter in Japan,
Hayashide recorded Puyi’s daily activities in Japan and published a commemorative
monograph in 1936 titled Respectful Record of the Emperor’s Visit to Japan by an
Imperial Companion [Kojū hō Nichi kyōki]. According to Hayashide, Hiei was greeted
at the port of Yokohama on the morning of April 6 with the discharge of welcome
artilleries and the lineups of “one hundred elite fighter planes” in the air and “fifty
five guard vessels” in the Tokyo Bay (Figure 2.5).67 Prince Yasuhito boarded Hiei
and greeted Puyi; they then boarded a train to Tokyo to the “joyful cheers of many
local primary school students who waived the national flags of Manchukuo and
Japan.”68 At the Tokyo station, Emperor Hirohito, dressed in the uniform of Japan’s
supreme army commander, waited on the platform and shook hands with Puyi
after his arrival, and the surrounding cameras captured this historic moment.69
After introducing Puyi to members of the Japanese imperial clan, Hirohito invited
Puyi to walk down the red-carpeted stairs of the station’s front entrance side by
side and watched Puyi and Yasuhito enter a specifically prepared carriage riding to
the Akasaka Palace—the residence of Puyi in Tokyo.70 Historian Hatano Masaru
notes that the dignity of the reception that Puyi received at Yokohama and Tokyo
“exceeded the 1922 visit of the British prince Edward VIII [1894–1972].”71
Recalling his receptions in Japan, Puyi wrote in Life that “at that moment I
thought I misjudged the Japanese in the previous few years,” given their increasing
occupation of important Manchukuo government positions.72 Considering his
reception in Yokohama and Tokyo, this is likely a reliable impression of Puyi after
arriving in Japan.
Puyi’s interactions with the Japanese imperial family in Tokyo likely fulfilled his
desire to “bolster the alliance between the two nations.” Sitting beside Emperor
Hirohito in a decorated carriage riding to the training ground of Yoyogi on the
morning of April 9, Puyi inspected a military drill of 10,000 soldiers from the
Konoe Division with Hirohito (Figure 2.6).73 When Puyi left the Imperial Palace
after a farewell visit on April 14, Hirohito stood on the balcony of the entrance
building and watched the car that Puyi took leave until it “disappeared from [his]
vision.”74 Besides Hirohito, Puyi built a close relationship with Hirohito’s mother,
Empress Dowager Teimei (1884–1951). During his second visit with Teimei on
April 13, Teimei invited Puyi to walk in the garden of her residence and said,
“After Your Majesty returns to Manchuria, I will think about you every day when
the sun disappears over the horizon of the west.” Puyi was grateful, responding,
52 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China

Figure 2.5 Puyi (second from left) watching Japan’s fighter planes on battleship Hiei under
Hayashide Kenjirō’s explanation, April 6, 1935.
Source: Teikoku gunbi kenkyūkai, ed., Manshūkoku kōtei heika go raihō kinen shashinchō [Memorializing
photo collection for the emperor of Manchukuo’s honorable visit to Japan] (Tokyo: Teikoku gunbi
kenkyūkai, 1935), no page number.

“When I see the sunrise of every morning, I will gaze at the sky of the east and
recall my interactions with the Emperor, the Empress, and the Empress Dowager.”75
In the second day of his return to Xinjing on April 28, Puyi invited the Kantō
Army’s new commander Minami Jirō to a private talk, saying, “Japan and
Manchukuo are a shared family and clan.”76 These pleasant memories in Japan
convinced Puyi of his status as the leader of an independent country and strength-
ened his determination to equate himself with Hirohito for greater monarchical
power.

Carrying Forward East Asia’s Moralities with Japan: Puyi’s Increasing National
Ambition
Puyi’s 1935 visit to Japan made him believe that he shared the same power as
Emperor Hirohito; he thus became more inclined to side with Japan after return-
ing to Manchukuo. While associating his Manchu clan with the imperial clan of
Japan in the April 28 talk with Minami, Puyi ambitiously stated that “those among
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 53

Figure 2.6 Puyi (right in the carriage) and Hirohito (left in the carriage) heading to the
training ground of Yoyogi, April 9, 1935.
Source: Teikoku gunbi kenkyūkai, ed., Manshūkoku kōtei heika o raihō kinen shashinjō, no page number.

the Manchurians who intend to harm [the interests of] Japan are traitors to me,
and those among the Japanese who intend to harm [the interests of] Manchukuo
are absolutely not loyal subjects of the [Japanese] Emperor.”77 Although it is undis-
putable that Puyi intended to use the image of Hirohito to intimidate the Kantō
Army and make it follow his orders, his Manchu identity had largely faded by this
time. No longer manifesting a desire for the revival of Manchu leadership in China
proper, he instead cultivated a sense of closeness toward the emperor of Japan and
endorsed Japan’s pan-Asianist ambitions. This is evident in a lengthy speech to
senior Manchukuo officials on April 30:

One may summarize the spirit of Eastern civilization in one word: honesty
[cheng]. Honesty is an inclusive term that assimilates everything into a realm of
unity—concepts like “self ” and “other” cease to exist. … In such a restless era,
egoism and xenophobia dominate the heart of the people of each country and
generate restless emotions…[and] Japan and Manchukuo often strive to break
this deadlock. An ordinary person may not be easily convinced of its feasibil-
ity, but both the [Japanese] Emperor and I consider it a guaranteed success. If
Japan and Manchukuo are determined to move forward and realize this great
ideal, I will not doubt the eventual arrival of fortune for humankind. … After
my return from Japan, I am confident that the Japanese Emperor’s honorable
heart represents my heart, and my heart represents the honorable heart of the
Emperor. … Japan-Manchukuo friendship is the prelude of universal friend-
ship; we must treat it as a basis and carry forward the new spirit of the East.
Under the guidance of sincerity and selflessness, human beings should culti-
vate a shared mentality and morality.78
54 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
Becoming a “realistic option for Japanese foreign policy-making” after the First
World War of 1914–1918, pan-Asianist discourse in the 1920s and the 1930s
“emphasized Japanese commonalities with Asia and aimed at uniting Asian peoples
and countries against Western encroachment,” something exemplified in this
speech.79 In Life, Puyi noted that he made the speech without prior notice to the
Kantō Army and other Japanese civil officials.80 His words not only reflected an
endorsement of Japan’s Asian rhetoric but also an attempt to host this ideological
movement with Japan. Thus, Puyi made the idea of Japan-Manchukuo friendship
and monarchical solidarity the thesis of the famed Admonitory Rescript to the People
on the Emperor’s Return [Huiluan xunmin zhaoshu] of May 1935—a compulsory text
for Manchurian school children to recite in the following ten years.81 Exploiting
Puyi’s pro-Japan sentiment, the Japanese in the mid-1930s also tried to associate
the Manchus with Japan by depicting Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159–1189)—a
legendary warrior in the twelfth century who helped his older brother Minamoto
no Yoritomo (1147–1199) lay the foundation of Japan’s shōgunate—as the genuine
ancestor of the Aixin-Jueluo clan.82
To strengthen ties between Manchukuo and Japan, Puyi tried to establish a
kinship relation between his siblings and Japanese aristocrats through marriage; his
younger brother Pujie became a candidate. In his conversation with Minami Jirō
on January 13, 1936, Puyi revealed his desire to secure a Japanese noble wife for
Pujie, contending that marrying a Japanese would “serve as a model of the two
countries’ friendship for the population of Japan and Manchukuo.” Criticizing
“Manchurian women’s lack of education and courtesy” and the ROC’s school
education in Beijing and Tianjin for westernizing the thoughts of local women,
Puyi believed that only Japanese women were “sufficiently educated and properly
trained for family matters.” He thus wished Pujie to secure a Japanese partner
during his forthcoming study at the Japanese Infantry School of the Army (Rikugun
hohei gakkō).83 Admiration for Japanese courtesy and ambition to bolster the
Manchu imperial clan motivated Puyi to make his brother marry a Japanese
woman, ideally from the Japanese imperial family. Eventually, Saga Hiro (1914–
1987), a member of a renowned Japanese aristocratic clan, became Pujie’s wife in
April 1937 and gave birth to two daughters in 1938 and 1940.84 Pujie’s case
reflected Puyi’s intention to make his Manchu relatives play a diplomatic role with
Japan; this arguably suggests why several of his nephews then studied in Japanese
home island military academies. Deeming himself the founder of a new empire
that gained Japan’s assistance after returning from Japan in 1935, Puyi valued any
chance to establish equal relations between the imperial family of Manchukuo and
Japan, to confront those Japanese who rarely followed his orders.
Regardless of Puyi’s ambition to equate himself with the Japanese emperor, few
Japanese officials in Manchukuo seemed willing to accept Puyi’s narratives and
treat him in the same manner as the Japanese emperor. Takebe Rokuzō (1893–
1958), the director of the General Affairs Board (Ch: Zongwu ting; Jp: Sōmu chō)
between 1940 and 1945, revealed in his diary on April 27, 1935, his anxiety about
Puyi’s intention to imitate Emperor Hirohito. He wrote that Puyi’s visit to Japan
made him “have the impression that [Puyi] enjoys the same status with our
emperor; this is exactly what we need to worry about” because Takebe believed
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 55
that Puyi over-interpreted the message behind the treatments that he received in
Japan.85 On May 4, 1935, two Japanese officials in the Manchukuo Imperial
Household Mansion (Ch: Gongnei fu; Jp: Ku’nai fu) complained about Puyi’s “lack
of morality in many aspects as a monarch.” They considered Puyi’s equation with
Hirohito a “severe improper speech” that made others “feel annoying” particularly
because Puyi “holds many ideas of a Chinese autocratic monarch, which are
greatly hazardous to our” Japanese imperial clan and nation, recorded Takebe.86
Furumi Tadayuki (1900–1983), the vice director of Manchukuo’s General Affairs
Board between 1941 and 1945, considered Puyi’s ambitions “an autocratic mon-
arch’s way of thinking,” which explains, for Furumi, why Puyi “could not under-
stand [and tolerate] the structure and the operating mechanisms of a modern
government.”87 Takebe’s and Furumi’s words reflect a huge gap between Puyi and
many of Manchukuo’s Japanese bureaucrats. Ironically, Puyi perhaps never heard
these dissident voices in the Manchukuo era due to a lack of personal contact with
the country’s Japanese officials. Assuming that he secured Hirohito’s support, Puyi’s
pro-Japan sentiment was growing on the eve of the outbreak of the Chinese Anti-
Japan War of Resistance of 1937–1945.

Sharing the Fate with Japan: Puyi’s National Ideal after 1937
Puyi’s ambition reached a peak after Japan invaded China proper in July 1937, as
he tied Japan’s fate with the fate of Manchukuo—against the ROC. In Life, Puyi
contended that he “felt more and more nervous in 1937” given the Japanese
increasing suppression of “the Northeast people’s patriotic anti-Japan movements”
and the outbreak of the eight-year Chinese Anti-Japan War of Resistance.88
According to Records, however, the Kantō Army’s commander Ueda Kenkichi
rarely discussed military affairs with Puyi in the first half of 1937 and instead
focused more on topics like rural and government reforms, Pujie’s marriage, the
selection of concubines for Puyi, the making of Manchukuo’s imperial succession
law, and the threat of the Soviet Union.89 Puyi in those conversations hardly
revealed any nervous feelings. In contrast, he often responded to Ueda with his
own thoughts. For example, on April 15, he criticized the Japanese officials in
Manchukuo for their “interference in affairs that reached beyond their duties” in
the name of “the [Kantō] Army commander’s and chief of staff’s decisions” and
wanted Ueda to “make Manchukuo’s Japanese officials fully comprehend [Puyi’s]
thoughts.”90 Contrary to being a passive figurehead, Puyi was an ambitious leader
who often articulated his own ideals with the Kantō Army’s commander when
opportunities were available. It was an ambition to use Japan to confront the ROC,
besides a cordial feeling toward the imperial family of Japan, that motivated Puyi
to support Japan’s invasion of China proper after July 1937.
Ueda Kenkichi’s first mention to Puyi of Japan’s and the ROC’s July 7, 1937,
conflict at Beijing’s Marco Polo Bridge was on July 12, when he blamed the local
garrisons of the ROC for their aggressions against Japan. Puyi thanked Ueda for
his “efforts on the maintenance of Japan’s and Manchukuo’s national defense” and
asked Ueda about the attitude of the Soviet Union toward this incident.91 During
their next meeting on July 21, Ueda stated Japan’s decision to fight the ROC and
56 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
introduced Puyi to the strategy of the Japanese Army and the places that the army
was planning to conquer. Puyi said,

To prevent the population of Manchukuo from hesitation at this moment, it

is important to demonstrate the undividable relationship between Japan and
Manchukuo and the two countries’ shared heart and morality. Hence, in case
of necessity, I shall issue a rescript to stabilize the heart of the people besides
clarifying the national unification of Japan and Manchukuo. Please do not
hesitate to inform me when the Ambassador thinks it is the right time to do
so. If necessary, I shall also send a telegram to the Japanese emperor confirm-
ing the above words; please let me know your thoughts.92

Ueda in response thanked Puyi’s goodwill and promised to analyze his suggestions.
When they met again on August 2, Puyi requested to subsidize Japan’s soldiers
with his own money:

I am sincerely sympathetic toward the [Japanese] imperial soldiers in northern

China and their suffering. To express my consolation, I plan to provide them
with financial support using my own savings. If the Ambassador agrees with
me, feel free to decide an issue date, and I shall order the Attendant Department
[Jinshi chu] to prepare the amount that you wish to receive.93

Ueda encouraged Puyi to hold that decision “for a while” because the Japanese
“imperial clan has yet to send any consolatory aides-de-camp to northern China,”
and Puyi in response accepted Ueda’s suggestion.94 Valuing any opportunity to express
his supportive standpoint for the war against the ROC, Puyi on the sixth anniversary
of the Manchurian Incident on September 18 issued a rescript. In it, he urged “the
thirty million population of Manchukuo” to strive for “the stability of East Asia with
the Greater Empire of Japan” and destroy those who “disrupt the order of East Asia,”
considering Japan’s war “justifiable in name and successful in progress.”95
Regardless of Puyi’s intention to eradicate his growing pro-Japan ambitions in
his written confessions and memoir in the 1950s, Hayashide Kenjirō nevertheless
honestly recorded a hidden story that Puyi never confessed in the years of his
imprisonment in the Soviet Union and the PRC between 1945 and 1959. Indeed,
in Life, Puyi stated that he confessed selectively to his political actions in Manchukuo
during his imprisonment in Fushun in the 1950s because “it does not hurt to omit
one [or more] bad stor[ies].”96 In February 1965, two years before his death from
kidney cancer, Puyi contented in front of a Japanese reporter group in Beijing that
he did not miss any Japanese figures around him in the Manchukuo years because
“all of them were the followers of Japanese imperialism.”97 Having read his newly
published memoir and watched that interview on television in Japan, Hayashide
likely sensed Puyi’s intention to hide his ambitious ideals in the 1930s, and friend-
ship, loyalty, and a sense of guilt motivated Hayashide to help Puyi keep his
secrets.98 For Puyi, the portrayal of himself as a helpless figurehead who fell victim
to Japanese control served more as a means for survival and avoiding political
persecution in the PRC than of an honest self-recognition of his status in
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 57
Manchukuo. Considering this, Puyi was lucky to have a loyal and honest individ-
ual, Hayashide, who never disclosed Puyi’s ambitions in both persons’ lifetimes,
serve as his interpreter between November 1932 and April 1938.

A Desperate Call for Restoration: Aixin-Jueluo Xixia’s Ironic

Career in Manchukuo
Compared to Emperor Puyi, Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (Figure 2.7) is a lesser-known
figure in China today. However, his role was prominent in the declaration of Jilin
province’s independence in October 1931; his Jilin soldiers occupied 78 percent of
the total 88,900 Manchurian soldiers who surrendered to the Kantō Army less
than 20 days after the Manchurian Incident.99 He also discussed the potential polit-
ical system of the new Manchurian state on February 16, 1932, with four Chinese
political and military figures: Zang Shiyi (1884–1956), Zhao Xinbo (1887–1951),
Zhang Jinghui (1872–1959), and Ma Zhanshan (1885–1950), conceptualized by
local newspapers as the “Big Five” (wu jutou).100 Hence, Xixia was a central figure
in the early years of Manchukuo.

Figure 2.7 Aixin-Jueluo Xixia in the early 1930s.

Source: M70.002, Dennis M. Ogawa Photograph Collection, Hoover Archives, https://hojishinbun.
hoover.org/en/newspapers/A-M70-002.1.1.
58 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
Like Puyi, PRC historians today often condemn Xixia’s activities in the early
1930s given his voluntary surrender to the Japanese in September 1931 and his
participation in the creation of Manchukuo in March 1932. Although it is not
possible to sense Xixia’s attitude toward the term “China,” or the Middle Kingdom
(Zhongguo) in Chinese, based on available sources, it is at least clear that he viewed
it differently than contemporary Han Chinese, as he often lamented to his Manchu
relative Jin Mingshi (1886–1964) in the 1920s that “my country perished long
ago!”101 Examining Manchu-language documents housed in the First Historical
Archives of China in Beijing, historian Mark Elliott tries to prove the existence of
a distinct Manchu Qing identity—one that was immune from Han Chinese
influence—in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.102 He argues that Manchus
“were never as a group assimilated into Chinese society in the Qing” in spite of
their acculturation to Han culture.103 Although born into a family of late Qing
Manchu aristocrats, Xixia’s activities in the early 1930s exemplify Elliott’s observa-
tion, as he blamed primarily Han Chinese republicans for their destruction of the
Manchu order in China proper in 1912. Treating the revival of the Qing Dynasty
as his incumbent and lifelong duty, he utilized the Japanese against Han Chinese
because he believed the latter to be hostile to the Manchus.
Using scattered available sources by and on Xixia at present, such as his poems
in 1927 and 1928 and others’ recollections in the Manchukuo and the postwar
eras, this section argues that Xixia treated Manchukuo as a preliminary step toward
the rebirth of Manchu order in China proper. He believed that Japan should not
interfere with Manchukuo’s domestic affairs regardless of its contribution to the
regime’s foundation. To confront such a Manchu force, the Japanese chose to
minimize Xixia’s authority in the government by cooperating with Prime Minister
Zheng Xiaoxu, who did not advocate a Manchu-dominated cabinet. Kantō Army
chief of staff, Koiso Kuniaki, was especially vigilant against Xixia’s ambition for
imperial restoration. Due to Japanese hindrance, Xixia hardly made any major
political achievements after Manchukuo’s creation in 1932.

Unable to Forget the Qing Dynasty: Xixia’s Early Life

Born into a family of Manchu aristocrats in 1884 in the provincial capital of
Fengtian, Xixia was the descendant of Muerhaqi (1561–1620), the younger brother
of Nurhaci (1559–1626), the one who laid the foundation of the Qing Dynasty.104
As one of the many Manchu aristocrats in the last decade of the Qing Dynasty
who sailed to Japan for military training, Xixia graduated from the cavalry depart-
ment of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy (Rikugun shikan gakkō) in 1911.105
He became a staff officer in Heilongjiang province in 1914 and the principal of the
Military Academy of the Three Eastern Provinces (Dong sansheng jiangwu xuetang)
in Fengtian in 1918.106 In 1924, Xixia became the chief of staff of the Jilin Military
District after Zhang Zuoxiang (1881–1949), the sworn brother of warlord Zhang
Zuolin (1875–1928), became the provincial leader.107
Serving as a military figure in the warlord regime of Zhang Zuolin, Xixia was a
key member of the National Party (Zongshe dang), a Manchu organization that
aimed to “analyze strategies for the preservation of the [Manchu] imperial clan”
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 59
and “spend the remaining properties [of the Manchus] to fight a final battle with
Han” Chinese.108 Created by Manchu aristocrat Aixin-Jueluo Liangbi (1877–1912)
around December 1911, the party and various other Manchu and Mongolian
forces planned two major independent movements for Manchuria and Mongolia
in 1912 and 1915–1916. Japan was involved in both movements by subsidizing the
rebellion forces with arms and money. Utsunomiya Tarō (1861–1922), director of
the Second Department of the Japanese Army General Staff Office (Sanbō honbu),
for example, supported the 1912 movement with 100,000 Japanese yen that he
received from the Mitsubishi Company.109 Besides money, Utsunomiya recorded
in his diary on February 1, 1912, that he sent “five hundred type-1897 rifles and
200,000 bullets to [the Manchurian town of] Kaiyuan, to assist the uprisings in
Mongolia.”110 Although the ROC eventually crushed both movements, Japanese
assistance likely made major Manchu and Mongol planners of the movements
more inclined to cooperate with Japan for separating Manchuria and Mongolia
from the administration of the ROC after 1916.111 Aixin-Jueluo Shanqi (1866–
1922), Prince Su of the Qing Dynasty, for example, sent all his daughters—
including the famed Manchu-Japanese spy Kawashima Yoshiko (1907–1948?)—to
Japan for education after the 1912 movement failed. Before his death in Lüshun in
1922, Shanqi claimed that “Manchuria belongs to the Manchus; we must realize
the revival of the Great Qing.”112
Declassified sources reveal little regarding the roles that Xixia played in the 1912
and the 1915–1916 movements, but his desire to reestablish a Manchu order in
China proper is evident in his own poems in 1927 and 1928. Organizing a poetry
club with influential political and military officials of Jilin in the winter of 1927
and naming it “Cold Club” (Leng she), with the hope to “eradicate the cold of
winter nights,” Xixia and the club’s 40 members produced 498 poems during their
regular meetings in late 1927 and early 1928.113 In 1935, Qing loyalist Luo Zhenyu
published those poems into a four-volume poetry collection titled Poetry Collection
of the Cold Club [Leng she shiji] to stress Xixia’s contribution to Manchukuo’s crea-
tion.114 In the note of the poem “My Feeling on the Last Day of the Year of
Dingmao [1927]” (Dingmao chuxi yougan), Xixia lamented his inability to “fight for
the [Qing] nation with weapon until death,” so “my heart has died although my
body still exists.”115 Feeling distressed about China’s warlord unrest after the Qing
Dynasty’s collapse, Xixia in his poem “Qinhuangdao” revealed his reluctance to
stay in China proper and witness the region’s warlord clashes, although the former
Qing capital Beijing is also located in China proper. He wrote, “The capital is not
my wish/hastily pulling the head of the horse [that I ride] back towards the east.”116
Visiting Qinhuangdao, a city southwest of Manchuria near the Gulf of Bohai, in
early 1928, Xixia refrained from going to nearby Beijing and instead firmly
returned to his ancestral land of Manchuria with a sense of grief, reflected in this
poem. As a member of the former Qing imperial clan who desperately wished to
reestablish the Qing Dynasty, Xixia claimed in an untitled poem that only he
grasped the right path for China’s future development: “I am a military man who
is accustomed to hangover/yet [this time] I am the only awakening one among the
drunk people of the world.”117 To stress the unpredictable nature of life and to
express his desire for imperial revival, Xixia wrote, “Yet daily affairs are not
60 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
shapeless objectives/[one] should diligently protect his feathers and patiently wait
for future opportunities.”118

Confronting Domestic Enemies with Foreign Force: Xixia and the Creation of
Manchukuo
The Japanese invasion of Jilin province following the Manchurian Incident in
September 1931 convinced Xixia of the necessity to exploit such a chance and
claim Jilin’s independence from the Nanjing ROC government. Given Xixia’s
position as Jilin’s chief of staff, provincial leader Zhang Zuoxiang entrusted to
Xixia the province’s military and political affairs before going to attend his father’s
funeral in Xingjing (present-day Fushun) on the eve of the Manchurian Incident.119
Without resisting the Kantō Army’s invasion of Jilin, Xixia cooperated with the
army, to restore provincial order, and he declared the province’s independence on
September 28, 1931.120
Historian Huang Zijin deems Xixia’s cooperation with the Japanese in
September 1931 a result of his long-term communication with the Kantō Army.121
The extent to which he interacted with the Kantō Army in the 1910s and the
1920s is arguable given a lack of clues in declassified sources, although the com-
mander of the army’s expedition force to Jilin, Tamon Jirō (1878–1934), used to
teach Xixia at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy two decades ago.122 However,
it is clear that Xixia strove to establish personal contact with Qing loyalists before
September 1931. Luo Zhenyu, for example, wrote in his 1931 memoir that he
treated Xixia as a comrade when he visited Jilin in the spring of 1931 because of
Xixia’s support of the monarchy:

My desire of re-establishing order becomes stronger as I get older. I believe

that the situation of guanwai [China proper] is beyond our control and difficult
to govern at present. Only the Three Eastern Provinces have yet to fall into
decadence, so it is wise to let our emperor [Puyi] save the thirty million pop-
ulation of Manchuria and Mongolia [from the hands of local warlords] first
and recapture Guannei later. This grand project would not succeed without
the assistance of powerful individuals in the Three Eastern Provinces who
understand the significance of monarch-subordinate relations [to China’s tra-
dition]. I went to Jilin in the spring of Xinwei [1931] and discussed the above
plans with Xixia. Xixia had the determination of revival and treated me as a
close friend in our first contact. We both encouraged each other to stay safe
and wait for an opportunity [to revive the Qing Dynasty].123

For Luo and Xixia, Manchuria was the base for the Qing Dynasty’s revival and
recapture of China proper not only because of the region’s historical significance
to the Manchus but also because of the region’s strong economic and industrial
power. Eventually, an ideal opportunity for revival in their eyes came in September
1931 when the Kantō Army invaded Manchuria; both men believed that it was the
right time to “restore the old system” of the monarchy.124 Cooperating with the
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 61
Kantō Army signified Xixia’s intention to utilize the Japanese to advance his ambi-
tious revival project for the Qing Dynasty.
After Xixia declared Jilin’s independence from the ROC in September 1931, he
and Luo Zhenyu planned to invite Puyi to settle in Manchuria. Declassified sources
of the Manchukuo era contain no personal writings and literature of Xixia—if they
still exist—which greatly constrains the depth of analysis on his view of Manchukuo
and Manchu-Japanese cooperation. Nonetheless, one could sense that Xixia deemed
Manchukuo a stepping-stone for the last Qing emperor Puyi to revive a Manchu
imperial order in China proper. In a formal declaration of Manchuria’s independ-
ence that Xixia, Luo, and others drafted in January 1932, Xixia deemed Puyi’s res-
toration the only way to stop China’s domestic instability. He noted “the death of
countless innocent civilians” during China’s decade-long warlord clashes after the
country’s “status changed from a monarchy to a republic twenty years ago,” to make
readers positively recall Chinese people’s livelihood in the late Qing era.125 With this
opening, Xixia equated Puyi’s re-enthronement to the restoration of China’s peace
and security, claiming that Puyi and the monarchical system would “be able to revive
our inherent culture for the past three thousand years and promote the livelihood of
our 400 million population.”126 In the end, Xixia justified the use of Japanese assis-
tance for this project and suggested that the Japanese would “greatly benefit our
people.”127 Historians Susan Townsend and Prasenjit Duara note that minority
groups like Manchus and Mongols who had suffered oppression from the warlord
regime of Manchuria were a few bases of genuine support for the independence of
Manchuria.128 Indeed, Xixia attempted to exploit this force and the Japanese for his
own ambitions. Serving as a major power behind Manchukuo’s creation, Xixia
became the minister of finance and the provincial leader of Jilin in March 1932.

Confronting Non-Manchu Forces: Xixia’s Frictions with Zheng Xiaoxu and the
Japanese
The desire for imperial restoration was a motivating factor for the participation of
many top-level Chinese-speaking officials in Manchukuo, but the reasons behind
their support of the revival of the monarchy varied; similar political ambitions did
not guarantee pleasant cooperation between Manchukuo’s individual Chinese-
speaking government leaders. Xixia primarily aimed to recreate a home country of
the Manchus that “perished long ago” and restore the Manchus’ dominant status in
China proper. Sharing the same goal of imperial restoration, Zheng Xiaoxu, how-
ever, was not interested in helping the Manchus reshape their condescending posi-
tion toward Han Chinese. In his diary on December 15, 1931, Zheng wrote that
he deemed the idea of appointing Xixia as the prime minister of the new
Manchurian regime, which certain Chinese-speaking officials around Puyi pro-
posed, an “absurd decision.”129 On December 26, 1931, a friend of Zheng com-
mented that Xixia had “many bad habits and is thus not a reliable person”; Zheng
recorded these words and added Xixia’s troops’ addiction to opium.130 Xixia’s mili-
tary background likely generated Zheng’s suspicions toward his political ability, but
his ambition to restore the Manchus’ unchallenged power also contradicted Zheng’s
62 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
ideal to construct Manchukuo as an orthodox government of the Middle Kingdom
“China,” which will be analyzed in the next chapter. Aware of Zheng’s distrust,
Xixia “often ridiculed” Zheng and recorded the former in his diary.131 Worse, Xixia
even threatened to assassinate Zheng if Zheng did not give up his prime minister-
ship in favor of Manchus in early 1935, suggested Zheng’s grandson in 1988.132
Considering the state promotion of Zheng’s Kingly Way policy before his downfall
in 1935 and Xixia’s lack of exposure in Manchukuo’s news media, the Kantō Army
initially sided with Zheng to confront Xixia and his Manchu revival ambitions.
Vigilant against Xixia’s ambition to recreate the Manchu monarchy, Kantō
Army decision-makers in Manchukuo opted to marginalize his influence as Jilin’s
provincial leader and head of the Ministry of Finance through direct and indirect
means. A direct confrontation occurred on March 12, 1932, when Xixia chal-
lenged Japanese authoritarianism during the third cabinet meeting in the State
Council.133 Unsatisfied with the decision to install 150 Japanese officials in the
Manchukuo government when the country only had 550 Manchurian officials,
Xixia contended, “For such an important question, we cannot put it on a cabinet
discussion without knowing the honorable thoughts of the Chief Executive”
Puyi.134 Reluctant to hide his antipathy toward Xixia’s imperial ambitions and
flinch in front of Xixia’s pressure, Komai Tokuzō (1885–1961)—director of the
General Affairs Board—harshly responded:

[The hiring of Japanese officials is] An important question? Why? Isn’t the
hiring of competent individuals regardless of their race the spirit of the new
country’s foundation…especially when Manchukuo claimed that it would
rely on the cooperation of the Japanese and the Manchurians for healthy and
comprehensive development? Without struggling on that point, our Japanese
people only desire to occupy twenty percent of [Manchukuo’s] government
officials; is this not an expression of the morality of humility? …Who paid
the most sacrifice during the Manchurian Incident? It was Japan that [laid the
foundation of Manchukuo] through the sacrifice of countless soldiers and the
spending of a huge amount of national currency. You are likely the only per-
son who believes that Manchukuo could become a prosperous country with-
out Japanese support.135

Referencing the provisions of the Puyi-Honjō Agreement of March 6, 1932,

Komai considered the appointment of Japanese officials in Manchukuo an indis-
putably legitimate right for the Kantō Army’s commander. Unable to refute
Komai’s statements and knowing the Kantō Army to be Komai’s backer, Xixia
opted to remain silent and visited the former after the meeting to ask for his for-
giveness. Accepting Xixia’s apology, Komai reminded the former, saying, “I know
exactly how much money you have; where it comes from; and how many soldiers
you have, so watch your tone in the future.”136 As the host of the March 12 cabinet
meeting, Zheng Xiaoxu in his diary briefly recorded that “Komai forcibly made
[Xixia] remain silent.”137 He likely did not intervene in Xixia’s and Komai’s dis-
putes because neither person’s ideals attracted him; one may also argue that Zheng
wanted to witness Xixia’s embarrassment in front of the Japanese.
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 63
A case of Japanese decision-makers’ indirect restraint of Xixia’s influence in
the state happened in June 1933 when the Manchukuo government sent a com-
mission to Japan to examine the country’s constitutional system for the making
of Manchukuo’s own constitution. Given Puyi’s intention to formulate
Manchukuo’s constitution within a year of his inauguration as the country’s chief
executive in 1932, the Manchukuo government formed a commission on the
anniversary of its creation on March 1, 1933.138 Zhao Xinbo (1887–1951), head
of the Legislative Council (Ch: Lifa yuan; Jp: Rippō in), became its leader and
sailed to Tokyo in July 1933 to gather relevant sources on Japan’s constitutional
system.139 Koiso Kuniaki, chief of staff to the Kantō Army’s commander Mutō
Nobuyoshi, revealed his concern about the making of Manchukuo’s constitution
in a letter to the Japanese Ministry of Army (Rikugun shō) on June 3, 1933. He
worried that Manchukuo would utilize a constitution to “escape from the
[supervision of the Japanese] Empire” and thus encouraged the Army Ministry to
carefully examine—and revise if necessary—relevant provisions in the forthcom-
ing Manchukuo Constitution on the power of the monarch and the national
assembly.140 Likely having received more information on Xixia and his Manchu
revival force from Koiso, Prince Kotohito (1865–1945), a member of the Japanese
imperial clan and chief of staff of the Japanese General Staff Office between 1931
and 1940, was vigilant against the Manchukuo Constitution. He suggested on
June 19, 1933, that the making of Manchukuo’s constitution was “not the urgent
request of Manchukuo’s population but a movement under the leadership of
imperial revivalists like Jilin’s provincial leader Xixia and other Qing loyalists
around Chief Executive” Puyi.141 “With the cover of a constitution,” Kotohito
concluded, Xixia would “want to make Puyi the emperor” of Manchukuo and
“prevent Japan from interfering with Manchukuo’s politics.”142 Hence, Japan
should “completely prevent the likelihood of Manchukuo’s transformation to a
monarchical dictatorial regime”; otherwise, “the Japanese Empire will always
face obstacles when executing future national policies,” insisted Kotohito on June
28, 1933.143
Compared to the major planners of the Manchurian Incident, such as Itagaki
Seishirō and Ishiwara Kanji, Koiso Kuniaki had a longer history of working in
Manchuria. To formulate relevant plans for advancing Japanese interests in
Manchuria for the Japanese Army between August 1915 and March 1916, Koiso,
who was then a lieutenant of the Japanese Army, engaged in espionage activities
across Manchuria and assisted the Manchu National Party in triggering the second
independent movement of Manchuria and Mongolia.144 Virtually having no rela-
tionship with the Manchurian Incident given his presence in Japan when the
incident broke out, Koiso nevertheless shared Itagaki’s ambitions based on the
earlier analysis. In the end, in October 1934, the Manchukuo government dis-
missed Zhao Xinbo from all his government positions after his yearlong stay in
Tokyo for corruption, and Manchukuo never did develop its own constitution
largely due to the operation of Koiso in 1933 and 1934.145 Arguably deeming
Zhao a member of the Xixia faction, Koiso, who sought Japanese control over
Manchukuo, exploited this opportunity to purge Zhao—a less powerful and influ-
ential opponent than Xixia.
64 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
Historian Tanaka Ryūichi argues that Koiso only wanted Manchukuo to have
separate laws instead of an aggregated legal foundation to better suit Japan’s super-
vising powers in the country. Thus, Tanaka considers Zhao Xinbo a pawn in the
struggle between Koiso and Xixia.146 Xixia did not leave any records clarifying the
degree of his involvement in the 1933–1934 struggle for a constitution, or clues
are hidden in the classified Manchukuo-era documents in mainland China, but
one can sense the existing frictions between him and the Japanese in Manchukuo
news reports. A Japanese military official in Harbin, for example, encouraged
Xixia not to be “misled by unfounded rumors or provocations and consider Japan
an enemy” when Xixia visited the city on June 6, 1933.147 Even Puyi rarely men-
tioned Xixia in his conversations with Japanese officials, although the two were
distant relatives. Briefly noted in a conversation with Mutō Nobuyoshi on July 6,
1933, for example, Puyi depicted Xixia as an “upright person who deserves con-
siderable use” because Xixia was a “proponent of the monarchy.”148 Notifying the
Japanese of Xixia’s values makes one realize that although Puyi considered both the
Japanese and Xixia his assistants for re-enthronement, Puyi prioritized Japanese
support due to Japan’s military strength and national power. To make the Japanese
better serve his cause, Puyi encouraged the Kantō Army to use Xixia given his
loyalty to Puyi and ideological commitment to reviving a Manchu order in China.
Having few sincere allies among the Chinese government leaders of Manchukuo
and sharing few objectives with the Japanese, Puyi’s cooperation with the Kantō
Army further increased the difficulty for Xixia to confront the army with his own
power in the state.

A Failed Dream of Revival: Xixia’s Later Life

Xixia rarely appeared in public after 1933. He visited Japan between March and
April 1934 with Zheng Xiaoxu to express Puyi’s satisfaction with Japanese support
for his enthronement and “the [grateful] feeling of Manchukuo’s thirty million
citizens to Japan’s ninety million people.”149 Exploiting this opportunity to com-
municate with the Japanese home government, Xixia in a public talk at the port
city of Moji on March 25, 1934, said, “Our government wants to reconfirm its
relations with Japan…[because] we can sense that there are different voices inside
the Japanese state on the ways in which Japan should treat Manchukuo.”150 Treating
the 1934 visit to Japan as an opportunity to reach the Japanese home government
without the Kantō Army’s interference, Xixia planned to make Manchukuo estab-
lish direct communication with the Japanese cabinet. According to a PRC study,
Xixia reportedly invited Saitō Makoto (1858–1936), the Japanese prime minister,
to provide the Manchukuo Army with weapons and ammunition to foster the
expansion of Manchukuo—the newly revived Qing Dynasty for Xixia—in China
proper.151 Saitō nevertheless downplayed Xixia’s request and suggested that
Manchukuo should “win the people’s heart and secure its domestic stability first”
before confronting the ROC.152
Achieving little in Japan, Xixia lost his positions as the minister of finance and
the governor of Jilin in May 1935 when Zhang Jinghui became Manchukuo’s
next prime minister. He then served as the minister of the Imperial Household
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 65
(Ch: Gongnei fu dachen; Jp: Ku’nai fu daijin) until the regime’s collapse in August
1945.153 His dissatisfaction with the Japanese eventually erupted after Japan’s sur-
render, as he openly mocked Zhang Jinghui as a “shameless old man who cried
for Japan’s defeat” in the presence of Japanese officials during the abdication of
Puyi in the frontier province of Tonghua on the midnight of August 18, 1945.154
On August 30, Soviet forces captured Xixia and sent him to Siberia as a war cap-
tive for five years until 1950, when the Soviet Union repatriated him and 1,026
other Manchurian and Japanese war captives that the country captured in
Manchukuo in 1945.155 Initially detained in the south Manchurian city of Fushun
with other repatriated war captives, the PRC relocated Xixia and his colleagues to
Harbin in October 1950, shortly before the country participated in the Korean
War of 1950–1953. Because his lower body had been paralyzed before reaching
Harbin, the PRC eventually transferred Xixia to the Hospital of Harbin Medical
University (Haerbin yike daxue fushu yiyuan) in the autumn of 1951.156 According
to the appendix of the 2007 edition of Puyi’s memoir, Xixia died a year later in
October 1952.157 Because the PRC sent Manchukuo captives back to Fushun in
1953 after the Korean War stopped, Xixia likely died in the Hospital of Harbin
Medical University.158
Manchukuo’s collapse in 1945 forever destroyed Xixia’s dream of reviving the
Qing Dynasty. As a revivalist, Xixia had excitedly told Puyi that the local Manchus
“have waited for your highness’s return for twenty years” when Puyi arrived at
Manchukuo’s capital city of Xinjing on March 8, 1932.159 Witnessing the Manchu
monarchy’s collapse for another time in 1945 must have made Xixia give up hope
of reclaiming the glory of his Manchu ancestors. One can sense such a feeling in a
pessimistic 1928 poem titled “My Impression of Visiting the [Qing] Zhao
Mausoleum in the Summer of the Year of Wuchen” (Wuchen xiari fang Zhao ling
yougan) by Xixia. He wrote,

The changing world affairs have prevented one from witnessing the erstwhile
mountains and rivers [of the Qing] again/[The Qing Dynasty’s] fortune has
gone, making it difficult [for one] to wave the dragger exe of sunset.
My passionate heart [of serving the Qing Dynasty] has become an empty
promise/making me cry for the [Beijing] imperial palace with lines of blood
tears.
The imperial fortune of Liaodong has ended here [in Fengtian]/how could
our ancestors underneath think of a proper solution [to the current plight]?
I could become a herdsman [if that could help revive the Qing Dynasty]/
and entrust my life and death to the gracious wave [of the Manchu imperial
clan].160

Although written in the summer of 1928, this poem could summarize Xixia’s
mentality in the final seven years of life imprisoned. Ambitiously planning to
reshape the Manchus’ dominant status in China and to serve the Qing monarch
Puyi, he was nevertheless more of a worthwhile personal assistant than of an indis-
pensable strategist for Puyi, given the latter’s reliance on the Kantō Army and
Zheng Xiaoxu to govern Manchukuo in the early 1930s. Confronting powerful
66 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
rivals on both the Han Chinese and the Japanese sides, Xixia’s desperate national
ideal failed to fully account for Manchukuo’s Japanese decision-makers, Puyi, and
the majority of his Manchurian colleagues.

Unconsciously Making the Japanese Decide the Future of the

Manchus: Chapter Conclusion
This chapter examines Manchu aristocrat leaders in the state of Manchukuo,
focusing on the ambitions of Aixin-Jueluo Puyi and Aixin-Jueluo Xixia—two
descendants of the Qing imperial clan. Serving as the politically dominant eth-
nicity of China proper between 1644 and 1912, the Manchus were forced to
walk down the throne at the dawn of the twentieth century. Unsatisfied with
their treatment in the new republic, both Puyi and Xixia deemed the revival of
the Qing Dynasty their inherent responsibility, and they justified their use of
Japanese assistance as a lack of power. Because of their ethnic background and
personal experiences, the concept of “Chinese people” hardly managed to
become a mental obstacle for both persons when they decided to cooperate with
the Japanese in 1931. Intending to utilize the Japanese to reestablish Manchu
order in China proper, former Manchu aristocrats in Manchukuo ironically
became a part of Japan’s pan-Asian project. While Puyi’s interpreter Hayashide
Kenjirō left abundant firsthand materials for historians to challenge the former’s
passive image in the Manchukuo years, the possible declassification of more rel-
evant documents in the near future might gradually allow one to conduct a more
comprehensive examination of Xixia’s national ideals and Manchu identity in the
1930s and the 1940s.
Having a vague understanding of Manchu culture, Puyi’s and Xixia’s excessive
reliance on the Japanese to some extent determined the failure of their imperial
revival projects. Historian Mark Elliott notes that the Manchus in the Qing
Dynasty maintained “lines of difference between the majority of Han Chinese and
the Manchu conquest group,” although Qing rule partially relied on “the Manchu
acceptance of Chinese political norms.”161 Nonetheless, those “lines of difference”
did not help the Manchus preserve their culture in the twentieth century, as histo-
rian Dan Shao notes that the Manchus often “redefined their relationship with
whichever polity claimed sovereignty over their homeland [of Manchuria] in var-
ying ways” after Han Chinese reclaimed ruling power and the Japanese infiltrated
Manchuria.162 Puyi in his memoir Life confessed that he did not understand
Manchu; the extent to which Xixia understood Manchu is unknown because
available sources do not comment on it.163 Examining the problems of Inner
Mongolian nationalism in the Manchukuo years, historian Wuyun Gaowa com-
ments that the Mongols “entrusted their ethnic future to” the Japanese rather than
grasping it in their own hands, which explains why “Inner Mongolians frequently
suffered setbacks on the path of ethnic independence and national foundation.”164
A similar conclusion also applies to Puyi and Xixia because they too expected
Japanese officials, militarists, and idealists to help them realize their respective ide-
als. To revive an unfamiliar concept of Manchu order with Han language and
cultural concepts while confronting Japanese authoritarianism in Manchukuo at
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 67
the same time, Puyi opted to use the power of the Japanese imperial clan and
eventually voluntarily became part of Japan’s imperial machine. Xixia placed his
bets on Puyi and the Japanese for the recreation of Manchu power in China proper
and suffered political isolation in the later years of Manchukuo because neither
Puyi nor Japanese decision-makers in Manchukuo practiced his thoughts. The
former continued to side with the Japanese in the later years of Manchukuo, the
latter reluctantly remained silent in front of the Japanese given Puyi’s cooperation
with the Kantō Army.
Different from the background of Puyi and Xixia, Manchukuo’s Han loyalist
officials, particularly Zheng Xiaoxu and Luo Zhenyu, engaged in years of arduous
education in traditional Chinese academies before the abolition of the examina-
tion system in 1905 and had different worldviews from the formers. This is the
topic of the next chapter.

Notes
1 Lin Zhihong, Minguo nai diguo ye: zhengzhi wenhua zhuanxing xia de Qing yimin [The
Republic of China is a hostile state: Qing loyalists during China’s political and cultural
transformation] (Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gufen youxian gongsi, 2009), 310.
2 Wuyun Gaowa, 1930 nendai no Mongoru nashonarizumu no shosō: Manshūkoku no Uchi
Mongoru chishikijin no minzoku ishiki to shisō [Different aspects of Mongolian national-
ism in the 1930s: the national consciousness and thoughts of Manchukuo’s Inner
Mongolian intellectuals] (Kyoto: Kōyō shobō, 2018), 8.
3 Zhang Taiyan, Qiushu [Forced words], 1900, cited in Watanabe Yoshihiro, “Ka i ni
tsuite” [About Huaxia and barbarians], in Chiran no hisutoria: Ka i, seitō, zei [A history
of order and disorder: Huaxia and barbarians, orthodoxy, and trend], ed. Itō Takayuki
(Tokyo: Hōsei daigaku shuppansha, 2017), 66–67.
4 Huang Yan, ed., Sun Zhongshan quanji [Collected works of Sun Yat-sen], vol. 1
(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 232, 244.
5 Dan Shao, Remote Homeland, Recovered Borderland: Manchus, Manchukuo, and Manchuria,
1907–1985 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2011), 2.
6 “Jihitsu shibushibu mitomu” [(Puyi) Reluctantly admits his own signatures], Yomiuri
shinbun [Yomiuri news] (August 28, 1946): 2. For two examples of the use of the term
“puppet” in Chinese monographs, see Yang Zhaoyuan, and Liu Xiaohui, Puyi waiji
[Unofficial history of Puyi] (Changchun: Jilin wenshi chubanshe, 1987); Jia Yinghua,
Kuilei huangdi Puyi [Puppet emperor Puyi] (Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 2013).
7 For example, see Irie Yōko, Fugi: Shinchō saigo no kōtei [Puyi: the last Qing Emperor]
(Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2006); Hatano Masaru, Shōwa Tenno to rasuto enpera: Fugi to
Manshūkoku no shinjitsu [The Shōwa Emperor and the last emperor: Puyi and the truth
of Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Sōshisha, 2007).
8 For example, see Rana Mitter, The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance, and
Collaboration in Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Huang
Zijin, Jiang Jieshi yu Riben: yibu jindai Zhong Ri guanxi shi de suoying [Chiang Kai-shek
and Japan: a miniature of contemporary Sino-Japanese relations] (Taibei: Institute of
Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2012).
9 Wang Qingxiang, Wei digong neimu [Inside stories of the bogus imperial palace]
(Changchun: Changchun shi zhengxie wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1984),
172–173.
10 The PRC government never published the 1957 manuscript of Pujie. Jia, Kuilei
huangdi, 368.
11 Aixin-Jueluo Puyi, Wo de qianbansheng [My earlier life] (1964; repr. Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1977), 303, 349–350.
68 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
12 Nakata Seiichi, Manshūkoku kōtei no hiroku: rasuto enpera to Genpi kaiken roku no nazo
[A secret record of the emperor of Manchukuo: the last emperor and the mysteries
surrounding top secret meeting records] (Tokyo: Genki shobō, 2005), 18–19.
13 Nihon NHK, ed., Huangdi de miyue: Manzhouguo zuigao de yinmi [The emperor’s
secret deals: Manchukuo’s supreme hidden story], trans. Li Hongjie and Ma Jinsen;
ed. Xiang Linrong (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1989), 15, 17–18, 20.
14 Nakata, Hiroku, 30.
15 Ibid., 321.
16 Aixin-Jueluo Puyi, Wo de qianbansheng quanben [My earlier life; full edition] (Beijing:
Qunzhong chubanshe, 2007), 1. Yixuan was also the younger brother of Prince Gong
Yixin (1833–1898), who initiated the Self-Strengthening Movement between the
1860s and the 1890s.
17 Ibid., 15. Empress Dowager Cixi was the wife of the Xianfeng emperor whom most
Chinese today treat as the actual leader of the Qing Dynasty between the 1880s and
1908. Zaifeng received the title of “regent” (shezheng) after Puyi became the Qing
emperor in 1908 and served as the Qing Dynasty’s supreme decision-maker in the
following three years.
18 Ibid., 29.
19 Ibid., 64–65.
20 Ibid., 34.
21 “Li Xieyang zaiti quxiao youdai tiaojian” [Li Xieyang discusses the cancellation of the
Provision again], Shen bao [Shanghai News] (March 1, 1924): 10.
22 “Qingshi tuichu huanggong ji” [On the exit of the Qing imperial clan from the
imperial palace], Shen bao (November 7, 1924): 4.
23 For more, see Reginald F. Johnston, Twilight in the Forbidden City (1934; repr. New
York: Amereon House, 1995), 397–411.
24 Hayashide Kenjirō, “Gokuhi jūgo: Kōtei heika to Minami taishi to no kaidan yōryō”
[Top secret No. 15: main points of the conversation between the Emperor and
Ambassador Minami], September 13, 1935, unpublished typescript, in Hayashide
Kenjirō kankei bunsho [Hayashide Kenjirō related documents], microfilm vol. 1 (Tokyo:
Yūshōdō, 1999).
25 For more, see Puyi, Qianbansheng quanben, 176–179.
26 Ibid., 177–178.
27 Hayashide, “Gokuhi sanjū san: Kōtei heika to Minami taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Top
secret No. 33: main points of the conversation between the Emperor and Ambassador
Minami], April 11, 1936, unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
28 Puyi, Qianbansheng quanben, 207.
29 “Ri ren xie Puyi li Jin jingguo” [Detailed story on how the Japanese took Puyi away
from Tianjin], Shen bao (November 19, 1931): 11.
30 Puyi, Qianbansheng quanben, 209.
31 For more, see Puyi, Qianbansheng (1977), 284–294.
32 Nakata, Hiroku, 64.
33 Photo can be located at https://photobank.mainichi.co.jp/kiji_detail.php?id=P2000
0826dd1dd5phj783000.
34 Katakura Tadashi, Manshū jihen kimitsu seiryaku nisshi [Confidential record of political
strategies following the Manchurian Incident], March 6, 1932, in Gendai shi shiryō
[Documents of modern history], vol. 7, ed. Kobayashi Tatsuo and Shimada Toshihiko
(Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1964), 407.
35 Ibid., 408–409.
36 Nakata, Hiroku, 82.
37 He nevertheless still reluctantly signed it in the end. Hoshino Naoki, Mi hatenu yume:
Manshūkoku gaishi [Unachievable dreams: unofficial history of Manchukuo] (Tokyo:
Daiyamondosha, 1963), 156. Hoshino Naoki was the director of Manchukuo’s
General Affairs Board between 1936 and 1940 and a convicted class A war criminal at
the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 69
38 Hatano Sumio, “Chūgoku to tomoni: Hayashide Kenjirō kankei bunsho ni yosete”
[Together with China: collecting Hayashide Kenjirō related documents], in Maikuro firumu
ban Hayashi Kenjirō kankei bunsho daiichi bunsatsu: meisaisho [Microfilmed version of
Hayashide Kenjirō related documents additional volume: a detailed list], ed. Nitta
Mitsuo (Tokyo: Yūshōdō, 2000), i.
39 Ibid.
40 For an analysis of the reasons behind Hayashide’s dismissal, see Nakata, Hiroku,
304–311.
41 Ibid., 24–25.
42 Puyi, Qianbansheng (1977), 353–358.
43 Hatano, “Chūgoku to tomoni,” ii.
44 NHK, ed., Huangdi de miyue, 17–20.
45 Hayashide Kenjirō, “Kōtei heika to Ishiwara sanbō fukuchō to no kaidan yōryō”
[Main points of the conversation between the Emperor and Deputy Chief of Staff
Ishiwara], October 13, 1937, unpublished handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, micro-
film vol. 6.
46 Ibid.
47 Kenzō discovered them when organizing his father’s items after 1970. Nakata, Hiroku,
17–18.
48 Hayashide, “Shissei fu gosankai no shokugo besshitsu ni oite Shissei to Mutō taishi to
no danwa” [Conversation between the Chief Executive and Ambassador Mutō in a
separate room of the Chief Executive Mansion after today’s lunch meeting], January 2,
1933, unpublished handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
49 Ibid.
50 Hayashide, “Shissei to Mutō taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Main points of the conversa-
tion between the Chief Executive and Ambassador Mutō], January 11, 1933, unpub-
lished handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
51 Hayashide, “Koiso sanbōchō to Shissei to no kaidan yōryō” [Main points of the con-
versation between Chief of Staff Koiso and the Chief Executive], January 23, 1933,
unpublished handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
52 Hayashide, January 11, 1933.
53 Puyi, “Puyi dierci dashu” [Puyi’s second letter of response], March 7, 1932, in Puyi
sicang wei Man midang [Puyi’s private collections of bogus Manchukuo’s confidential
documents], ed. Li Ke (Beijing: Dang’an chubanshe, 1990), 3.
54 Hayashide, January 11, 1933. Because Japan formally recognized Manchukuo through
the 1932 Japan-Manchukuo Protocol, and because the Japanese home government
appointed the Kantō Army’s commander in chief as Japan’s ambassador plenipotenti-
ary in Manchukuo, Puyi always addressed the army’s commander with the title ambas-
sador rather than general or commander.
55 Hayashide, “Mutō gensui to Tei kokumu sōri to no kaidan yōryō” [Main points of the
conversation between Marshal Mutō and Prime Minister Zheng], July 17, 1933,
unpublished handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
56 Chen Hong and Wang Wenli, “Bunbutsu Fugi: kairai kōtei hen I” [Puyi’s cultural
relics: the chapter of a puppet emperor; part one], in Kokusai teki no shiya no naka no
Fugi to sono jidai [Puyi and his era from an international point of view], ed. Husel
Borjigin (Tokyo: Fūkyōsha, 2021), 136.
57 “Huang lipao zhi longlongsheng zhong jiaoji yishi jingsu gaozhong” [The outskirt
worship ceremony ended in solemn silence with the large sound of imperial salvos],
Taidong ribao [Eastern Daily] (March 2, 1934): 1.
58 “Yubi” [The calligraphy of his highness], Taidong ribao (March 1, 1934): 1.
59 Hayashide, “Kōtei to Hishikari taishi kaidan yōryō” [Main points of the conversation
between the Emperor and Ambassador Hishikari], July 2, 1934, unpublished hand-
written manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
60 Hayashide, “Kyūchū ni okeru go wakare no gosan” [Farewell lunch in the palace],
June 12, 1934, unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
70 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
61 Hayashide, “Taishi no gossan kai” [The ambassador’s lunch meeting], June 8, 1934,
unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
62 Puyi, Qianbansheng (1977), 341–344.
63 Hayashide, “Kōtei to Hishikari taishi kaidan yōryō” [Main points of the conversation
between the emperor and Ambassador Hishikari], March 12, 1934, unpublished
handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
64 Hayashide, “Kōtei to Hishikari taishi to kaidan yōryō” [Main points of the conversa-
tion between the emperor and Ambassador Hishikari], April 13, 1934, unpublished
handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
65 Hayashide Kenjirō, Kojū hō Nichi kyōki [Respectful record of the emperor’s visit to
Japan by an imperial companion] (Xinjing: Guowuyuan zongwuting qingbaochu,
1936), 24.
66 For an example, see Ibid., 175.
67 Ibid., 27.
68 Ibid., 29–30.
69 Ibid., 31.
70 Ibid.
71 Hatano, Shōwa Tenno to rasuto enpera, 100.
72 Puyi, Qianbansheng (1977), 341.
73 Hayashide, Kyōki, 75.
74 Ibid., 120.
75 Ibid., 113.
76 Hayashide, “Manshūkoku kōtei heika go hō Nichi kansō” [The impressions of the
emperor of Manchukuo to his visit to Japan], April 28, 1935, unpublished typescript,
in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
77 Ibid.
78 Hayashide, “Manshūkoku kōtei heika yori zaikyō kannin ijō no bunbu shokan ni
taisuru yushi gaiyō” [Main points of the speech of the emperor of Manchukuo to
senior officials in the capital], April 30, 1935, unpublished handwritten manuscript, in
Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
79 Sven Saaler, “Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History: Overcoming the Nation,
Creating a Region, Forging an Empire,” in Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History:
Colonialism, Regionalism and Borders, ed. Sven Saaler and J. Victor Koschmann (Oxon:
Routledge, 2007), 3.
80 Puyi, Qianbansheng (1977), 343–344.
81 For the whole text of this rescript, see Zhaoshu [Rescript], in Wei Manzhouguo zhengfu
gongbao yingyin ben [Photocopied edition of bogus Manchukuo’s government bulle-
tins], ed. Zhou Guangpei, vol. 17, May 2, 1935 (Shenyang: Liaoshen shushe, 1990), 7.
82 Anonymous, “Manshū Kōtoku kōtei wa waga Genji no matsuryū setsu” [A saying that
Manchukuo’s Kangde Emperor is the descendant of our Minamoto clan], in Gunmin
[Military and civilian], vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gunminsha, 1934), 18–31.
83 Hayashide, “Gokuhi mihatsu: Kōtei heika to Minami taishi to no kaidan yōryō”
[Undelivered top secret: main points of the conversation between the emperor and
Ambassador Minami], January 13, 1936, unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm
vol. 1.
84 Aixin-Jueluo Pujie, Pujie zizhuan [Pujie’s autobiography] (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi
chubanshe, 1994), 42, 54, 57.
85 Takebe Rokuzō, “April 27, 1935,” in Takebe Rokuzō nikki [Takebe Rokuzō’s diary],
ed. Taura Masanori, Furukawa Takahisa, and Takebe Kenichi (Tokyo: Fuyō shobō,
1999), 2.
86 Takebe, “May 4, 1935,” in Takebe Rokuzō nikki, 9.
87 Furumi Tadayuki, Wasure enu Manshū [Unforgettable Manchuria] (Tokyo: Keizai ōrai-
sha, 1978), 72.
88 Puyi, Qianbansheng (1977), 349.
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 71
89 Hayashide’s manuscripts on January 11, January 25, January 30, February 17, March 4,
April 15, May 3, June 21, and July 1 are prominent examples.
90 Hayashide, “Gokuhi gojūkyū: Kōtei heika to Ueda taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Top
secret No. 59: main points of the conversation between the Emperor and Ambassador
Ueda], April 15, 1937, unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
91 Hayashide, “Gokuhi nanajūichi: Kōtei heika to Ueda taishi kaidan yōryō” [Top secret
No. 71: main points of the conversation between the Emperor and Ambassador
Ueda], July 12 1937, unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
92 Hayashide, “Gokuhi nanajūni: Kōtei heika to Ueda taishi kaidan yōryō” [Top secret
No. 72: main points of the conversation between the emperor and Ambassador Ueda],
21 July 1937, unpublished manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
93 Hayashide, “Gokuhi nanajūsan: Kōtei heika to Ueda taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Top
secret No. 73: main points of the conversation between the emperor and Ambassador
Ueda], August 2, 1937, unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
94 Ibid.
95 Puyi, “Zhaoshu” [Rescript], Shengjing shibao [Shengjing times] (September 19, 1937): 2.
96 Puyi, Qianbansheng (1977), 451.
97 Nakata, Hiroku, 318–319.
98 Ibid., 318.
99 Huang, Jiang Jieshi yu Riben, 162.
100 “Wu jutou jingshi miyi xin guojia jianshe wenti” [The big five discussed issues relating
to the establishment of the new state in a quiet room], Taidong ribao (February 18,
1932): 2.
101 Jin Mingshi, “Jilin sheng wei zhengquan xuangao duli” [The bogus regime of Jilin
declared its Independence], in Wei Man shiliao congshu: Jiuyiba shibian [Bogus
Manchukuo historical material series: the September Eighteen Incident], ed. Sun
Bang (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 515.
102 Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial
China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), xiii, xviii.
103 Ibid., xiv.
104 Wang Hongbin et al., eds., Dongbei renwu da cidian [Grand dictionary of Northeast
figures], vol. 2 (Liaoyang: Liaoning guji chubanshe, 1996), 1710.
105 Komai Tokuzō, Dai Manshūkoku kensetsu roku [Record of the construction of greater
Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1933), 331.
106 Asahi shinbunsha, ed., Shōwa hachinen Asahi nenkan furoku: Manshūkoku taikan
[Affiliated brochure of the eighth year of Shōwa’s Asahi Yearbook: an overview of
Manchukuo] (Ōsaka: Asahi shinbunsha, 1932), 12.
107 Guan Zhongxiang, “Xixia qiren” [About Xixia], in Wei Man shiliao congshu: Wei Man
renwu [Bogus Manchukuo historical material series: bogus Manchukuo figures], ed.
Sun Bang (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 364.
108 “Liangbi zhi jianjie” [Liangbi’s opinion], Shengjing shibao (December 29, 1911): 2.
109 Yamada Katsuyoshi, Fugi no chūshin Kudō Chū: wasure rareta Nihonjin no Manshūkoku
[Puyi’s loyal subordinate Kudō Chū: a forgotten history of Japanese people in
Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Asahi shinbun shuppansha, 2010), 57.
110 Utsunomiya Tarō, “February 1, 1912,” in Nihon rikugun to Ajia seisaku: rikugun taishō
Utsunomiya Tarō nikki [Japanese army and Asian policy: the diary of army general
Utsunomiya Tarō], ed. Utsunomiya Tarō kankei shiryō kenkyūkai, vol. 2 (Tokyo:
Iwanami shoten, 2007), 81.
111 For more analysis on these two independent movements, see Hatano Masaru, Man Mō
dokuritsu undō [The independent Movements of Manchuria and Mongolia] (Tokyo:
PHP kenkyūjo, 2001); Shibutani Yuri, Bazoku de miru Manshū: Chō Sakurin no ayunda
michi [Manchuria in the eyes of horse bandits: the path of Zhang Zuolin] (Tokyo:
Kōdansha, 2004), 168–174.
112 Wang, Wei digong neimu, 34.
72 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China
113 Nan Jiangtao, “Leng she shiji zhaji” [Notes on the poetry collection of the cold club], Taishan
xueyuan xuebao [Journal of Taishan College] 38:1 (January 2016): 52–53.
114 Luo Zhenyu, “Xu” [Preface], in Luo Zhenyu ed., Leng she shiji [Poetry collection of
the Cold Club], unknown publisher, 1935, reprinted in Qing mo Minguo jiuti shici
jieshe wenxian huibian [Collection of classic style poems and publications of poetry
societies in the late Qing and the early Republican eras], ed. Nan Jiangtao, vol. 3
(Beijing: Guojia tushuguan chubanshe, 2013), 459.
115 Xixia, “Dingmao chuxi you’gan ba” [Endnote of my feeling on the last day of the year
of Dingmao]. Wenxian huibian, vol. 3, 492–493.
116 Xixia, “Qinhuangdao,” in Wenxian huibian, vol. 3, 555.
117 Xixia, “Wuti” [No title], in Wenxian huibian, vol. 3, 497.
118 Ibid.
119 Guan, “Xixia qiren,” in Wei Man renwu, 364.
120 Ibid.
121 Huang, Jiang Jieshi yu Riben, 164.
122 Guan, “Xixia qiren,” in Wei Man renwu, 364.
123 Luo Zhenyu, Jiliao bian [Recollection of my bitter experiences], in Zhongguo xueren
zishu congshu: Xuetang zishu [Chinese scholars’ autobiography series: the autobiography
of Snow Court], ed. Huang Aimei (Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1999), 58.
124 Ibid., 59.
125 Ibid.
126 Ibid., 60.
127 Ibid.
128 Susan C. Townsend, Yanaihara Tadao and Japanese Colonial Policy: Redeeming Empire
(Richmond: Curzon Press, 2000), 170; Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity:
Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
2003), 198.
129 Zheng Xiaoxu, “December 15, 1931,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji [Zheng Xiaoxu’s diary],
ed. Lao Zude vol. 5 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), 2355.
130 Zheng, “December 26, 1931,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 5, 2357.
131 Zheng, “May 22, 1935,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 5, 2583.
132 Xu Chunfan, ed., Jianzheng wei Man huanggong: Wei Man huanggong jianzhengren caifan-
glu [Witnessing the imperial palace of bogus Manchukuo: interviews of the witnesses
of the imperial palace of bogus Manchukuo] (Changchun: Changchun shi zhengxie
wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui, 2006), 13.
133 Zheng, “March 12, 1932,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, 2370.
134 Komai, Dai Manshūkoku kensetsu roku, 140.
135 Ibid.
136 Ibid., 141.
137 Zheng, “March 12, 1932,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, 2370.
138 Himeno Norikazu, Chō Kinhaku shi o kataru [Talking with Zhao Xinbo] (Tokyo: Ni
Shi mondai kenkyūkai, 1935), 2.
139 Zhao Xinbo, “Xianfa zhidu diaocha jilüe” [A brief record of my examination of
Japan’s constitutional system], in Chō Kinhaku shi o kataru, 6.
140 Koiso Kuniaki, “Kan San Man dai hachikyūni gō: Chō ikkō no chū Nichi kan ni
okeru shidō ni kansuru ken” [(Document) No. 892 from the Kantō Army chief of staff
of Manchukuo: about the supervision of Zhao (Xinbo) and his followers during their
stay in Japan], June 3, 1933, Reference No. A15060459200, Japan Center for Asian
Historical Records, 20.
141 “Kanamori shi ni tai suru sanbōchō kōjutsu yōshi [Main points of the chief of staff’s
oral message to Minister Kanamori], June 19, 1933, Reference No. A15060460200,
Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, 25.
142 Ibid., 25–26.
 Inviting the Japanese to Help Revive the Manchu Order in China 73
143 “Gun sanchō yori Kanamori shi ni tai suru kojutsu yōshi” [Main points of the army
chief of staff’s oral message to Minister Kanamori], June 28, 1933, Reference No.
A15060460200, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, 29.
144 Hatano, Man Mō dokuritsu undo, 166–167.
145 Tanaka Ryūichi, Manshūkoku to Nihon no teikoku shihai [Manchukuo and Japan’s
imperial domination] (Tokyo: Yūshisha, 2007), 77.
146 Ibid., 78.
147 “Xi Jilin shengzhang di Ha” [Provincial leader Xixia has reached Harbin], Taidong
ribao (June 10, 1933): 4.
148 Hayashide Kenjirō, “Shissei to Mutō taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Main points of the
conversation between the chief executive and Ambassador Mutō], July 6, 1933,
unpublished handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 5.
149 “Zheng zongli du Ri richeng jueding” [Prime Minister Zheng’s schedule in Japan has
been decided], Taidong ribao (March 18, 1934): 1.
150 “Man Ri liangguo zhuzhong guanxi ji xiwang zaiyu queren” [We desperately wish
Japan could reconfirm its relations with Manchukuo], Taidong ribao (March 25, 1934): 1.
151 Wang Guoyu, “Xixia yanyi” [Romance of Xixia], in Changchun wenshi ziliao disan ji
[Changchun municipal documents on culture and history volume 3], ed. Changchun
shi zhengxie wenshiziliao weiyuanhui (Changchun: Changchun shi zhengxie wenshi-
ziliao weiyuanhui, 1988), 75.
152 Ibid.
153 Guan Zhongxiang, “Xixia qiren,” in Wei Man renwu, 370.
154 Anonymous, “Puyi tuiwei, zai chutao zhong beifu” [Puyi’s abdication and capture
during his escape], in Wei Manzhouguo shiliao congshu: wei Man mori [Bogus Manchukuo
historical material series: bogus Manchukuo’s final days], ed. Sun Bang (Changchun:
Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 148.
155 Wang, “Xixia yanyi,” in Changchun wenshi ziliao, 98; Ji Min, ed., Wei Man huangdi
qunchen gaizao jishi [Records on the re-education of bogus Manchukuo’s emperor and
ministers] (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1992), 3.
156 Liu Jiayi, “Kan’guan wei Man zhanfan shi de jianwen” [My experiences and the sto-
ries that I heard when guarding Bogus Manchukuo’s war criminals], in Gaizao jishi,
131, 135.
157 Puyi, Qianbansheng quanben, 482.
158 Liu, “Kan’guan wei Man zhanfan shi de jianwen,” in Gaizao jishi, 139.
159 Puyi, Qianbansheng (1977), 312.
160 Xixia, “Wuchen xiari fang Zhao ling you’gan” [My feeling for visiting the Zhao
Mausoleum in the summer of the year of Wuchen], in Wenxian huibian, vol. 3, 615.
“Wave the dragger exe of sunset” in this poem literally means to save a declining
dynasty, and Liaodong signifies the Qing because its initial capital of Shengjing
(Fengtian) was located in the Liaodong region.
161 Elliott, The Manchu Way, xiv.
162 Shao, Remote Homeland, 2.
163 Puyi, Qianbansheng quanben, 46.
164 Wuyun Gaowa, Mongoru nashonarizumu, 26–27.
3 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s
Imperial and Cultural Order
Zheng Xiaoxu and Luo Zhenyu in the
State of Manchukuo

In the ideological trends of twentieth century China, steady and rational attitudes
usually had a little influence [among the ordinary people of China], as [contempo-
rary Chinese] people’s nationalist sentiment was overly high. Given the frequent
approach of [newly generated] national crises, it seems that only the voices that
excitedly shouted the slogans of national salvation could move [Chinese] people’s
heart, and more radical voices were more attractive to ordinary people. Under the
intertwined dreams of anti-communism and imperial revival, certain Qing loyalists
were devoted to the creation of Kingly Way paradise [in the early 1930s]… From
an angle of resisting the Republic of China, Manchukuo’s creation to some extent
reflected Qing loyalists’ political identity.
Lin Zhihong, Minguo nai diguo ye: zhengzhi wenhua zhuanxing xia de Qing yimin
[The Republic of China is a Hostile State: Qing Loyalists during China’s Political and
Cultural Transformation] (Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gufen youxian gongsi,
2009), 356.
Former officials of the Qing Dynasty who remained loyal to the dynasty after its
collapse in 1912 and refused to serve in the newly created Republic of China
(ROC) are addressed in today’s Chinese-speaking academia as “Qing loyalists”
(Qing yilao). Some of them, like the famed thinker Kang Youwei (1858–1927),
received relatively positive evaluations in mainland Chinese high school history
textbooks today due to his contribution to the 1898 Hundred Days Reform.
Some of them, like Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938), were virtually uncovered or
largely downplayed in mainstream historical narratives of the People’s Republic of
China (PRC), arguably due to their cooperation with Japan in the 1930s and the
early 1940s. Historian Lin Zhihong traces the history of Qing loyalists’ isolation
from Chinese society in the early Republican era; he argues that radical national-
ism was a dominating voice of those who wanted to save the ROC from political
unrest. To break their political isolation in a post-monarchical society, some Qing
loyalists decided to return to politics through the creation of Manchukuo and the
embrace of the Mencian notion of the Kingly Way (wangdao), which Lin deems a
unique political identity of Qing loyalists in Manchukuo.
As a group, the activities of Qing loyalists in Manchukuo have to date received
relatively inadequate attention in Chinese, Japanese, and English historiography.
Existing English-language studies of late Qing officials rarely extend their scope of
analysis to the early Republican era, with one exception, Lost Generation, an edited
DOI: 10.4324/9781003357773-4
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 75
collection on the cultural identity of Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940).1 Studies on
Manchukuo officials in Japan focus primarily on the activities of Japanese figures
and treat Chinese officials as side agents.2 Existing studies of Qing loyalists in both
the PRC and the ROC focus more on the decades of the 1910s and the 1920s,
ending with the experiences of Zheng Xiaoxu in Manchukuo, given the rich writ-
ten materials that Zheng left.3 A study that analyzes the significance of the objec-
tives of representative Qing loyalists in Manchukuo, such as Zheng Xiaoxu and Luo
Zhenyu, from a perspective of the intertwined national ideals of Manchukuo’s
Chinese and Japanese government leaders has yet to exist. Placing the thoughts of
Zheng and Luo into the ideological struggles of Chinese and Japanese government
leaders between 1932 and 1937 helps one better understand the reasons behind
Qing loyalists’ gradual loss of influence in the government of Manchukuo.

Utopian Idea, Tragic Result: Zheng Xiaoxu’s Dream of the

Open Door and the Kingly Way
Zheng Xiaoxu (Figure 3.1) was an accomplished Confucian scholar in the late
Qing and the early Republican periods and the prime minister of Manchukuo
between 1932 and 1935. The historical trauma of Japan’s invasion of China
between 1931 and 1945 and a postwar dichotomy of collaboration and resistance
by the government of the ROC and the PRC have made Zheng in the era of
Manchukuo an unpopular topic in today’s mainland China.4 In English academia,
studies on Zheng as the prime minister of Manchukuo to date hardly exist, except
for a brief discussion in Manchuria Under Japanese Domination, the English transla-
tion of the influential Japanese study, Kimera [Chimera], by historian Yamamuro
Shin’ichi; an article on Zheng’s diary, “The Fugitive Self,” by historian Marjorie
Dryburgh; and an article that problematizes Zheng’s traitorous image, “Neither
Traitor nor Nationalist,” by scholar Aymeric Xu.5 Japanese historians focus primar-
ily on the cultural interactions of Zheng with contemporary Japanese figures and
rarely analyze his thoughts.6 Scattered research on Zheng in the early 1930s in
Chinese historiography focuses primarily on identifying the gaps between Zheng’s
national outlook and the political reality of the early twentieth century, to negate
Zheng’s ideals in the Manchukuo era. They render him a stubborn idealist whose
immature view of statecraft and international relationships plagued the residents of
Manchuria between 1932 and 1945.
This section suggests that to understand Zheng’s national ideal, one must explore
the definition of “China” for Zheng and the ways in which he tried to construct
and protect that China as the prime minister of Manchukuo. Based on sources like
Zheng’s diary and speech manuscripts, China was, for Zheng, more of a culturally
shaped idea that included the core values of Confucius (551–479 BCE), such as
benevolence, righteousness, and filial piety, than a particular politically constructed
entity like the ROC or the Qing Dynasty. A comprehensive understanding of
Zheng’s attempted restoration of “China” requires an exploration of his very dis-
tinctive attitude toward the American Open Door policy and the Kingly Way
ideology of Mencius (372–289 BCE) and the way in which he considered them
integrated rather than separate topics.
76 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order

Figure 3.1 Zheng Xiaoxu as Manchukuo’s prime minister; year not known.
Source: M7.010, Dennis M. Ogawa Photograph Collection, Hoover Archives, https://hojishinbun.
hoover.org/en/newspapers/A-M7-002.1.1.

For Zheng, an ideal state of China should simultaneously function as an admin-

istrative agency capable of attracting foreign assistance and an educational institu-
tion capable of cultivating its people’s morality; any state capable of accomplishing
those tasks could serve as the legitimate governing institution of China, including
Manchukuo. Siding with the Japanese due to his long-term contact with their
country and Sino-Japanese cultural proximity, Zheng saw Manchukuo as a labora-
tory in which to test the feasibility of his project because such an opportunity was
not available in the ROC. Analyzing the formation of Zheng’s national ideals is
more meaningful than discrediting his so-called immature views of statecraft and
international relationships with Japan’s domination of Manchuria in the early
1930s. To enhance Zheng’s views, this section uses the Chinese term Zhongguo—
the Middle Kingdom—to address the meaning of China for Zheng and retains the
use of China in other cases.

For the Sake of Zhongguo: Zheng Xiaoxu’s Early Life and View of China
Zheng was born in 1860 into a Fujian family of bureaucrats in Suzhou. In 1796,
Zheng’s great-grandfather managed to become a Qing official after passing the
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 77
civil examinations.7 Zheng’s father and grandfather were also government officials,
suggesting why Zheng was determined to serve the Qing government as well.8 At
the age of 3, in 1863, Zheng began to study the Confucian classics, and at the age
of 22, in 1882, Zheng passed the provincial level (xiangshi) of the civil examina-
tions with the highest grade of his home province and became a government
official of Nanjing in 1889.9 While serving as a consular official in Japan between
May 1891 and August 1894, Zheng strove to familiarize himself with the Meiji
Restoration of 1868 by interacting with Japanese government officials and reading
influential Japanese works of the time, like the 1890 memoir of the famed politi-
cian and naval official Katsu Kaishū (1823–1899).10 After returning from Japan, in
1894, Zheng served as a consultant of the famed late Qing official Zhang Zhidong
(1837–1909) until 1903 and then minister of border defense (bianfang dachen;
Figure 3.2) of the southern frontier province of Guangxi between 1903 and 1905.11
After resigning from that post in 1905, Zheng lived in Shanghai and Nanjing for
four years until February 1910, when he moved to Fengtian and became a consult-
ant of the governor-general of the Three Eastern Provinces (Manchuria) due to
the latter’s invitation.12
Zheng was in Shanghai when the Nationalist Revolution of 1911 broke out; he
remained loyal to the defunct Qing Dynasty by refusing to serve in the ROC
government.13 In 1923, the abdicated Qing emperor, Aixin-Jueluo Puyi (1906–
1967), learned of Zheng from his advisors in the Forbidden City and hired Zheng
as the general minister of the Imperial Household Mansion (zongguan Neiwu fu
dachen) a year later in February 1924.14 After Puyi’s exile from the Forbidden City
in November 1924, Zheng followed Puyi to Tianjin in 1925 and Manchuria in
1931, becoming the prime minister of Manchukuo in 1932 due to Japanese sup-
port. Unlike most of Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders who cultivated
their political status mainly in a post-monarchical society after 1912, Zheng was an
older generation who had intermittently served in the Qing government for three
decades by 1912.

Figure 3.2 Zheng Xiaoxu as the minister of border defense of Guangxi province in 1904.
Source: Meng Sen, Guangxi bianshi pangji [Side notes on Guangxi’s border defense] (Shanghai: Shangwu
yinshuguan, 1905), no page number.
78 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
As an imperial bureaucrat who entered Qing officialdom through the passing of
the civil examinations, Zhongguo was a term that frequently appeared in the writ-
ings of Zheng throughout his life. Speaking to the German diplomat Gustav
Detring (1842–1913) on September 17, 1885, Zheng linked European nations
together under the term “Western countries” (Xiguo) and treated the Middle
Kingdom Zhongguo as their counterpart. He believed that “Western countries
value intelligence and are willing to appreciate the nations that have triumphant
talent.” Zhongguo, in contrast, valued righteousness instead of intelligence, and was
“willing to follow the lead of righteous individuals.”15
For Zheng, the Manchus could be a part of Zhongguo, but Zhongguo was not the
private property of the Manchus or the Qing Dynasty. Criticizing the Qing
Dynasty for its intention to yield to Japan during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–
1995, Zheng wrote in his diary on December 25, 1894, that “the Manchus’ loss of
Zhongguo might become a predicable future” if they continued to “provide this
hostile neighbor with compensation through the extraction of the fat and the
blood of tianxia.”16 Literally translated as “all under the heaven” in English, tianxia
is an English-equivalent term for “world,” which appeared no later than the Zhou
Dynasty (ca. 1046–256 BCE). Initially, a term that depicted the capital cities
(Haojing and Luoyang) of the Zhou Dynasty as the world’s center, and the degree
of civilization of the surrounding regions varied according to their distance from
the capitals, tianxia gradually evolved into a synonym of the territory of a ruling
dynasty of China for the following 3,000 years.17 Zheng’s use of Zhongguo and
tianxia revealed his intention to interpret modern international relations from a
perspective of traditional Han Chinese classics, negating the legitimacy of a dynasty
that tried to extract the riches of its territory and people to compensate a foreign
invading force. Considering tianxia the property of Zhongguo instead of an expend-
able possession of a dynasty, Zheng associated a dynasty’s collapse with its loss of
benevolent governance.
Regardless of Zheng’s insightful prediction of the Qing Dynasty’s collapse, he
remained loyal to the Qing after the creation of the ROC in 1912 due to his dis-
tinctive view of the Chinese nation. Examining his writings, the significance of
Zhongguo transcended the sovereignty of any historical dynasties of China, and
Zheng considered righteousness and benevolence two indispensable moral ele-
ments of Zhongguo. In his diary on November 28, 1891, Zheng wrote that mon-
arch-subject relations could serve as a model of righteousness:

[M]onarch is superior and subordinate is inferior; this is a ritual that has lasted
for several thousand years. In Zhongguo, millions and billions of people
embrace [the leadership of] one person, so why is it not appropriate to
acknowledge the honorable status of an emperor?18

In speaking of “emperor,” Zheng not only referred to the Manchu monarchs but
also the benevolent rulers of former dynasties and that all those who acknowl-
edged the hierarchical relationship of monarch and subject were righteous
individuals.
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 79
Benevolence for Zheng implies a “reluctance of hurting others” and an “absence
of selfishness.”19 Given his understanding of these terms, Zheng believed that it
was still possible to preserve Zhongguo’s righteousness and benevolence under the
banner of the Qing Dynasty, whereas Han Chinese revolutionaries in the ROC
intended to destroy them:

Since the year of Xinhai [1911], those who propose civil rights discredit mon-
arch-subject relationships and value equality, so a son feels ashamed to serve
his father; a younger brother feels ashamed to follow the words of his older
brother; and a wife feels ashamed to support her husband. [The liberalists]
destroy their own hats and the imperial crown and refuse to obey the rituals
[of Zhongguo in the name of liberty], thereby resulting in the chaotic situation
today.20

Zheng was convinced that the ROC would lead to a disintegration of Zhongguo
given its contempt for Zhongguo’s essence, whereas the Qing Dynasty compara-
tively valued the moral precepts of Zhongguo regardless of its diplomatic setbacks in
1895 and 1901 and limited reforms between 1898 and 1911. To save his ideal
nation of Zhongguo from political disorder, Zheng devoted the rest of his life to the
resurrection of Zhongguo with the Open Door policy and Kingly Way politics.

To “Win the Lasting Gratitude of the Countless Blameless Chinese”: The

Origin of the Open Door
Enunciated by U.S. Secretary of State John Hay (1838–1905) in September 1899,
the Open Door was an American policy that aimed at providing “equal opportu-
nity for citizens of all nations to trade in China or similar undeveloped territo-
ries.”21 It was reiterated in the Nine Power Treaty at the Washington Conference
of 1922, to guarantee the independence of the ROC. Observers in Europe and the
United States in the early 1910s considered the Open Door and the Monroe
Doctrine “great political doctrines of the world” because Hay reportedly said that
China was key to “the world’s politics of the next five centuries.”22 Equal trading
opportunities in China also meant respect for China’s sovereignty. During the
Boxer Rebellion of 1900, Hay promised the Qing minister to the United States,
Wu Tingfang (1842–1922), on June 22, 1900, that the United States would not
send an army into the provinces “where the [Qing] government showed ability
and determination to preserve order and protect the lives and rights of foreign-
ers.”23 In a lengthy note to the French chargé d’affaires on July 3, 1900, Hay
encouraged the Qing government to “protect foreign life and property against the
attacks of subversive anarchy,” in order to “bring about permanent peace and safety
to” China, associating the safety of foreign residents and properties with China’s
territorial integrity.24
Contemporary American politicians and scholars often considered the Open
Door a means for the United States to acquire more “material opportunities of
Asia” and protect China from division.25 Former U.S. Minister to Siam, John
80 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
Barrett (1866–1938), for example, described the protection of the Open Door in
1900 as an “allotted work” of the Americans “because our moral strength is admit-
ted, and our moral and material interests demand it.”26 He deemed the United
States “the logical arbiter of China’s future” and encouraged the Americans to
render the infamous Yellow Peril theory “colorless and innocuous” in “the White
World,” as the United States had “nothing to gain by a divided China.”27 Similarly,
former Columbia University professor Ellery Stowell suggested in 1914 that the
chief purposes of the Open Door were “to develop our trade with the countries
bordering on the Pacific” and to help “in the industrial development of China.”28
Besides economic profits for the United States, the Open Door also had important
political meanings for Stowell because China would eventually realize “the funda-
mental importance of our policy of the open door in helping her to preserve her
political integrity and autonomy,” and Sino-American friendship was “almost a
controlling factor in the actual diplomacy of the Far East” for the United States.29
The territorial integrity of China was a central topic of the Open Door. Both
Barrett and Stowell stated that the United States had no territorial ambitions in
China and encouraged the United States to protect China’s independence. Barrett
in 1900 proposed a McKinley Doctrine in Asia based on inspirations from the
Monroe Doctrine, asking the U.S. government to prevent any power from
“acquiring sovereignty over any extended part of the present unpartitioned area”
of China and “stand with all its strength for the permanent maintenance of the
Open Door in China.”30 Only a justified solution to the Boxer Rebellion “fol-
lowed by liberty, justice and freedom under the guiding direction of Christian
civilization,” Barrett argued, could “win the lasting gratitude of the countless
blameless Chinese and make them forever our disciples in moral and material
progress.”31 Due to confidence in the United States’ determination to protect
China’s sovereignty, Barrett believed that the United States had “the most amicable
relations with” China among the major powers of the world in 1900.32 Stowell
stated in 1914 that the United States did not want to “acquire the political control
of one foot of Chinese soil” because “our traditions and our economic situation
have opposed such an attempt.” Instead, the Americans “demand a field of free for
all” and wanted to help the Chinese “maintain their political integrity” through
the Open Door.33 Although Zheng rarely communicated with American politi-
cians in his lifetime, the Open Door greatly influenced his worldview and became
a central element of his revival project for Zhongguo in the years of Manchukuo.

Relying on the Financial Assistance of Foreign Powers: Zheng’s View of the

Open Door
As the prime minister of Manchukuo, Zheng Xiaoxu envisioned an Open Door
policy that would actively seek out foreign operation of the country’s industry and
business. On the first anniversary of Manchukuo’s creation on March 1, 1933,
Zheng stated that given Manchukuo’s “recent recovery from military unrest,” it
was “absolutely not realistic for the local population to develop the region based
on their own power.”34 To overcome this plight, it was necessary for the govern-
ment to “entrust its various industries to foreign capital and manpower.” Deeming
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 81
Manchukuo a “dried river that could not float any boats” and foreign investment
the “water that could save that river from drought,” Zheng concluded that “more
ways to earn a living will generate broader ways for one to pursue profits.”35
In a conversation on October 5, 1932, with Narita Tsutomu (unknown d.), the
secretary of the former vice president of the Japanese Privy Council, Zheng
revealed his intention to entrust all of Manchukuo’s resources to a joint Japan-
Manchukuo investor:

Narita says that if Japan-Manchukuo joint ventures could handle all the
important [commercial and industrial affairs] in the country, and the
Manchukuo government could just serve as a mediator, then half of the initial
officials in charge could devote their energy to somewhere else. Besides, this
will further help the state simplify its government affairs and hasten the coun-
try’s development. [Zheng said,] This is exactly the opening policy that I have
designed for Zhongguo, and you have interpreted its [essence]; very good. If
Manchukuo’s industries could absorb the world’s capital, Asia will become a
manipulator of this world one day. I want to carry out your plan within the
next six months by entrusting the country’s profit-related rights to [Manchurian
and Japanese] capitalists through official contracts; I am confident that this
country will become a paradise within the next several years.36

Zheng, in this conversation, portrayed an economic blueprint that resonates with

the suggestions of Ellery Stowell, as Stowell’s notion of a “field of free for all”
reflects Zheng’s ambition of making Manchukuo’s industries “absorb the world’s
capital.” He wanted to reduce state intervention in Manchukuo’s economy and
industry and instead entrust them to foreign investors based on free competition,
considering Japan-Manchukuo cooperation an important step toward attracting
international investment because in October 1932, other countries, except for
Japan, had yet to formally acknowledge the legitimacy of Manchukuo. Even the
Qing Dynasty required foreign assistance to develop its economy and communica-
tions; it was thus more than necessary for its successor Manchukuo to accept
international investment. By doing so, “it would not be difficult to turn desolate
regions into prosperous lands,” argued Zheng in 1933.37
Associating foreign assistance with a prosperous Zhongguo, Zheng considered the
Open Door key to the modernization of Manchuria for two decades before 1932.
On January 3, 1910—three years after the provincialization of Manchuria in 1907—
Zheng recorded a dispute among members of the Fengtian Consultative Bureau
(Fengtian ziyi ju) regarding the construction of the Qiqihar-Jinzhou railway with
American loans. Although opponents described the action as “inviting an armed
outsider to enter your room,” Zheng insisted that “closing your door is not a good
strategy. … If [the government of Fengtian] could appoint a competent individual
to deal with [foreign investors],” Zheng continued, “there is no need [for local res-
idents] to fear the outsiders.”38 One day later, Zheng wrote that if “the Three
Eastern Provinces want to open their door to the outside world, their officials must
open the provincial doors to the people [of China proper] first.” Volunteering to
become “the chief representative of the people of the Three Eastern Provinces,”
82 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
Zheng wanted to “carry out [Manchuria’s] opening project.”39 Arguably due to
Zheng’s efforts, the government of Fengtian eventually decided to construct the
Qiqihar-Jinzhou railway with the financial support of the United States because the
country “supported the Open Door and wished to develop Manchuria’s industry
and business.”40 Zheng’s engagement with the knowledge of the West was sincere,
as he sent his first son Zheng Chui (1887–1933) to study English at Shanghai’s St.
Francis Xavier’s College in 1902 before sending him to Waseda University in Japan
in 1904.41 His second son Zheng Yu (1889–1954) studied engineering at Seijō
University in Japan and the University of Liverpool in Britain.42 Zheng was also one
of the few Chinese figures around Puyi in the 1920s who kept a close relationship
with Puyi’s Scottish tutor Reginald Johnston (1874–1938), something that became
an excuse for conservative Qing loyalists who disliked Zheng to criticize him.43

Demanding Foreign Economic Assistance and Guidance: The Component of

International Supervision in Zheng’s Open Door Policy
Witnessing China’s post-Qing civil unrest between 1911 and 1931, Zheng’s view
of the Open Door gradually evolved from international investment into interna-
tional supervision—a means for Zheng to end China’s endless civil wars and polit-
ical disorder. Zheng developed a theory around 1925, known as the “discourse of
the three gongs” (san gong lun); they refer to republicanism (gonghe), communism
(gongchan), and joint international supervision (gongguan). Based on this theory, a
communist regime would soon subvert the current Republican government given
the growing popularity of the Soviet revolution among the officials of the
Nationalist Party of Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), but provisional international super-
vision would then expel communism. Eventually, the Qing Dynasty, an orthodox
governing institution of Zhongguo, would revive after an ephemeral international
supervision of China.44
Since Zheng did not clarify the meaning of “supervision” (guan) in his writings,
and modern Chinese speakers often habitually interpret guan as “management,”
which often implies an obedient relation between subordinates and superiors,
many PRC scholars to date consider Zheng’s three-gong discourse an absurd the-
ory that tends to whitewash the foreign, especially Japanese, invasion of China.45
Indeed, Zheng considered the international military occupation of China an
acceptable way to realize his ideal of international supervision, as he proudly wrote
on January 26, 1927, in his diary that international supervision “will become a
reality soon” after noting the arrival of British and American defense troops in
Shanghai because of the Nationalist’s Northern Expedition.46 However, the resto-
ration of Zhongguo’s domestic order and international economic status in the Qing
Dynasty were the central concerns of Zheng, and he wanted foreign powers to
help Zhongguo realize these goals given the Chinese inability of governing them-
selves, contending that the majority of the Chinese of his time had “no morality
or personality.”47 Writing on December 23, 1911, Zheng suggested that the
Westerners “made Zhongguo an international market” since the 1860s, and “rich
[Chinese] merchants all relied on foreign firms to operate their business”—not
necessarily due to foreign military coercion. Shifting the discussion to the Nationalist
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 83
Revolution of 1911, Zheng considered the revolutionaries a group of anarchists
who caused “the present turmoil,” and to overcome such a crisis, Zheng con-
cluded that the present situation was “hardly able to calm without the opening of
the whole country” to foreign assistance again.48 Guidance is thus a more reliable
interpretation of Zheng’s meaning of “supervision,” as it better suggests why
Zheng wanted foreign investors to fully exploit Manchukuo’s resources.
Zheng did not expect the population of his time to fully comprehend his ideals,
as evident in a conversation with a Hunanese official in Beijing on July 7, 1911:
“Striving for the understanding of the few who know the significance of our
policy, or expecting the confused majority to accept our persuasion—which one
do you think is more important”?49 Only expecting a talented few to comprehend
his ambitions, Zheng sought to eradicate Chinese people’s vigilance against for-
eigners through moral education and promote the Kingly Way ideal in Manchukuo;
this became his imperative mission.

A Path to the Realm of Benevolence: Explaining the Kingly Way

The Kingly Way, or the way of benevolence, was a “fundamental [guiding princi-
ple] of the foundation” of Manchukuo, and Prime Minister Zheng Xiaoxu was the
policy’s “first proponent,” stated the intelligence department of Manchukuo’s
General Affairs Board (Ch: Zongwuting; Jp: Sōmuchō) in 1934.50 In the words of
Zheng, the Kingly Way is an ultimate path that “guides people to the heaven” of
benevolent governance.51 As a theory that Mencius promoted to encourage mon-
archs to “exercise virtuous rule by respecting the people’s will” over 2,000 years
ago, Zheng distilled the essence of the Kingly Way into several sentences:

The Kingly Way is the means for benevolent monarchs in ancient times to
govern Zhongguo and educate the people, gradually making everyone follow
their rules voluntarily. This theory was meant to protect the people besides
teaching them the significance of mutual respect and politeness [to national
stability]. Benevolent monarchs themselves always acted and behaved based on
the principles of the Kingly Way, to serve as a model in front of everyone else,
and the above reasons explain why humans managed to distinguish themselves
from animals.52

For Zheng, morality was the dominant governing policy of traditional Zhongguo
society, and the personality of monarchs could determine a dynasty’s fate. He
viewed Puyi as the best individual to promote the Kingly Way in China because
“a powerless individual like him does not necessarily hold racial and national prej-
udices, let alone the ambition of using force to bully weaker powers.”53
Extending the scope of Mencius’s Kingly Way by associating the principle with
ordinary people, Zheng wrote,

Although the greatness and broadness of the Kingly Way is limitless, one
cannot expect it to be ubiquitous and universal [in everyday life], so where
exactly does the Kingly Way lie? Simply put, it lies in interpersonal
84 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
relationships. For those who have the compassion of a saint in their hearts, the
Kingly Way would become their personal moral precept and only benefit
themselves. For those who care about the livelihood of others, the Kingly
Way would benefit everyone else.54

“The compassion of a saint” for Zheng referred primarily to a person’s politeness

and ability to self-control. Although politeness and self-control help restrain one’s
behaviors, Zheng considered those who always help others closer to the definition
of “gentleman” (junzi) in a Confucian worldview because only those who care
about others could help spread the Kingly Way in a society. Besides the opening of
Zhongguo to foreign assistance, Zheng considered the Chinese people’s restoration
of the moral precepts that people like Confucius and Mencius promoted key to the
revival of Zhongguo’s civil order.
Due to its emphasis on the benefits of benevolent governance, the Kingly Way
attracted a broad audience among the political, cultural, and military figures of
China and Japan in the early twentieth century. Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the
ROC, interpreted the Kingly Way as “the use of peaceful means to appease others”
and considered the ideology “a force of nature.”55 In November 1924, Sun encour-
aged the Japanese to choose “carefully and wisely” between becoming “an accom-
plice of Western force” and “the guardian of Eastern benevolence,” stressing the
importance of the Kingly Way to the maintenance of Sino-Japanese friendship.56
Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), Sun’s successor, contended during the Chinese
Anti-Japan War of Resistance of 1937–1945 that the ROC’s Three Principles of
the People was “a completely peaceful [ideology that derived from] the Kingly
Way” because both ideologies emphasized benevolence. Insisting that “benevolent
individuals are invincible,” Chiang used the Kingly Way to stress the legitimate
governing position of the ROC.57 Ishiwara Kanji (1889–1949) conceptualized
Kingly Way politics as a “collective ideal of the ethnicities of East Asia” because it
urged “national leaders to become the practitioners of supreme morality.”58 Kasagi
Yoshiaki (1892–1955) interpreted the Kingly Way as a thought that “conforms to
the rule of nature” and that the promotion of regional autonomy in East Asia based
on the principle of virtuous rule reflected the essence of the Kingly Way.59 These
figures, including Zheng, interpreted the Kingly Way based on their own needs
and objectives, trying to renew Confucian ideals and adapt them to a multi-na-
tional and cultural world order that Confucius and other representative thinkers of
the Confucian school never contemplated.

Recovering China and Pacifying the World: Practicing the Kingly Way
Different from people like Sun and Ishiwara who approached the Kingly Way
mainly through an abstract theoretical level, Zheng went further by casting the
ideology as a fundamental national policy along with his envisioned Open Door for
the new state of Manchukuo, trying to establish a causal relationship between the
two. In his speech at a celebration of Japan’s recognition of Manchukuo on October
8, 1932, Zheng referenced the traditional Han male maturity ceremony, the
hat-wearing ritual (guanli), to describe the relationship between the newly
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 85
established Manchukuo and the world. In traditional Han society, boys symbolized
their passage to adulthood at the age of 20 through the hat-wearing ritual. Under
the witness of numerous guests, parents at this ceremony put a hat on the head of
their son, signifying the “relinquishment of [the son’s] childhood immaturity and
the beginning of the cultivation of his adulthood morality,” underscoring the point
that only virtuous adults were eligible to handle their family matters, including
receiving the visits of guests.60 Zheng described Manchukuo as a 20-year-old man
who recently became an adult and “opening up” as his greeting of guests, suggest-
ing, “Thus a country’s foundation resembles a young man who recently becomes
an adult, as it will be capable of communicating with foreign countries after the
restoration of its domestic order and the creation of its various governing institu-
tions.”61 Continuing the metaphor to the new state, Zheng believed that to realize
the goal of governance adulthood and to “spread Manchukuo’s reputation to the
world,” the re-cultivation of civilians’ morality was an important subject for the state
because “Zhongguo’s erstwhile morality had been totally destroyed by the Nationalist
and Communist parties in the past twenty years.”62 To prevent the people of
Zhongguo from hesitating to interact with foreigners and from suspicion when
interacting with their compatriots, the restoration of the Kingly Way morality of
mutual respect and politeness was therefore essential.
In terms of diplomacy, Zheng wanted to use his refined Kingly Way ideology to
cease all the armed conflicts in the world. Considering patriotism the cause of
militarism and xenophobia the basis of patriotism, Zheng argued that the policy-
makers of each country of his time often “confuse compromise with fear and
cowardice” and were thus reluctant to step down during conflicts.63 Because the
Kingly Way prioritized “universal love, politeness, and righteousness” and deval-
ued patriotism, it could serve as a “medicine to save [the world] from destruction,”
especially when all the world’s major powers could witness these moralities through
their participation in the development of Manchukuo’s resources.64 He wrote,

If there is a new state established with the principles of the Kingly Way in Asia
today, it would benefit all the major powers in the world. Even if this new
state does not possess any weapons and soldiers, all the powers in the world
would serve as its protective forces because it would not be possible for any
country to justify its invasion of this state.65

Since Zheng did not oppose the use of an international military occupation of
China to advance the country’s opening, he would not overly associate the aboli-
tion of military force in China with the potential loss of the country’s sovereignty.
Using Switzerland as an example, Zheng argued that nonmilitarized countries
were more likely to generate peace because strong powers often tend to “preserve
the independence of their adjacent smaller countries, to prevent direct confronta-
tions with their rivals.”66
The world’s growing anti-war sentiment in the 1920s is arguably the logic
behind Zheng’s idea, as important treaties like the 1922 Nine Power Treaty, the
1925 Geneva Protocol, and the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact all aimed for a gradual
eradication of war in the world. Manchukuo’s Kingly Way politics from this
86 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
perspective served as a catalyst for universal peace, something that he believed must
rely on an Open Door policy to amplify its influence in the world. Instead of
dichotomizing the East and the West with abstract concepts like ethics and force,
any country for Zheng that valued peace and cooperation deserved to coexist with
Zhongguo—mental and cultural superiority or inferiority was beyond his concern.
It is necessary to consider Zheng’s Kingly Way politics a customized moral
rulebook for an internationalized new state instead of a rigid law that aimed to
revive a monarchical dictatorship. As the prime minister of Manchukuo, Zheng
primarily aimed to formulate a guiding moral framework for his ideal Zhongguo
and left detailed government affairs to individual departments. In the opening
speech that he delivered at a meeting of Manchukuo’s Ministry of Culture and
Education (Ch: Wenjiao bu; Jp: Bunkyō bu) in 1933, for example, Zheng encour-
aged the participants to “carefully analyze the ways of teaching the Kingly Way” in
schools. He wanted relevant textbooks to possess “elements of excitation and
inspiration,” making students and ordinary people understand the significance of
“benevolence and righteousness” in a “pleasant and impressive learning environ-
ment.”67 In the end, Zheng let the participants “freely express [their] own opin-
ions” and promised to value “any doable suggestions that [complied with] this
goodwill.”68 Becoming the prime minister at the age of 72, Zheng revealed in his
poem “Kingly Way” (Wangdao) his intention to entrust the promotion of the
Kingly Way to younger generations: “How am I different from an old horse that
knows the correct way/yet I willingly point to the flat road in front and await for
the arrival of heroes.”69 Knowing the limit of his knowledge about government
affairs, Zheng during his prime ministership between 1932 and 1935 mostly played
his role as a mediator rather than a manipulator. The Kantō Army initially coop-
erated with Zheng for the promotion of the Kingly Way and the Open Door to
consolidate Japanese power in Manchukuo and confront Manchu revival forces,
but ideological friction between the two accumulated over the years and contrib-
uted to Zheng’s eventual loss of power in 1935.

“Is Heaven the Only One Who Understands Me”: The Failure of Zheng’s
National Ideals
On May 22, 1935, Manchukuo’s newspapers reported Zheng’s resignation from
the prime ministership on the previous day and introduced readers to his successor,
Zhang Jinghui (1872–1959), the head of the Privy Council (Ch: Canyi fu; Jp:
Sangi fu) and the minister of military affairs (Ch: Junzheng dachen; Jp: Gunsei dai-
jin).70 In fact, Zheng left office due to the pressures from both the Manchurian and
Japanese sides. Ambitiously trying to rejuvenate Zhongguo, Zheng nevertheless had
no sincere allies in the state who valued his thoughts. Komai Tokuzō (1885–1961)
suggested in 1933 that Zheng was “unable to control those who originated in
Manchuria and who headed each government department” because Zheng came
from south China and had “no relation with Manchuria’s affairs at all.”71 The
General Affairs Board’s last director, Takebe Rokuzō (1893–1958), belittled Zheng
in his 1935 diary as a “mediocre and incompetent person” whose “personality
resembles a woman” and who “never truly understands Japan,” considering Zheng’s
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 87
removal from the prime ministership a “delightful story.”72 For the majority of the
Qing loyalists around Puyi, Zheng was a person who “boasted too much” and who
“rarely made achievements.”73 The famed scholar Wang Guowei (1877–1927)
commented in 1924 that Zheng’s “observation of world affairs is too simple; he
must fail in the end.”74
Tragically, even Puyi considered Zheng an obstacle to strengthening his dictato-
rial power and planned to remove Zheng from office after returning from Japan in
April 1935. This is evident in his conversation with the Kantō Army’s commander,
Minami Jirō (1874–1955), and the director of the General Affairs Board, Nagaoka
Ryūichirō (1884–1963), on May 18, 1935:

Prime Minister Zheng is my subordinate for more than a decade, so I under-

stand his personality. … Last year when he expressed his impression of my
coronation, he said Japan should not always treat Manchukuo as a child, which
is very improper because that is merely an expression of dissatisfaction. If he is
not satisfied with the Kantō Army’s or the Japanese [home government’s]
policies towards Manchukuo, he should directly approach the two and state
his own opinions. He tends to remain silent on the occasions that require his
suggestions and yet chooses to vent his dissatisfaction in newspapers; for a
Prime Minister he indeed lacks caution. … Thus, we should let him resign
and recuperate at home.75

For Puyi, the consolidation of his power with the support from Japan’s imperial
family and the Kantō Army was more attractive than following the seemingly rigid
moral precepts of Zheng’s refined Kingly Way after 1935. Equating his status with
the position of the Japanese Shōwa Emperor Hirohito (1901–1989) after visiting
Japan in April 1935, Puyi ruthlessly abandoned Zheng, one of his most trusted
supporters who laid the ideological foundation of Manchukuo. Perhaps Minami
confirmed with Puyi his consent to eradicate Zheng’s influence earlier so Minami
could directly reject Zheng’s suggestion to have the governor of Jiandao province,
Cai Yunsheng (1881–1959), succeed his position as the prime minister in their
conversation on May 14, 1935.76 Both Puyi and the Kantō Army no longer
required Zheng’s assistance by May 1935, and Zheng’s loss of power appears to
have been the result of a joint decision by Puyi and the army.
Zheng’s ideals of the Open Door and international supervision contradicted the
national ideals of many Japanese decision-makers in the Kantō Army and the
General Affairs Board, especially Itagaki Seishirō (1885–1948) and Komai Tokuzō.
In the spring of 1932, Itagaki deemed the policies of the Open Door subversive to
the position of Manchukuo as an “economic zone of the [Japanese] Empire’s vassal
state.”77 Speaking of the United States, if Japan did not “restrain direct American
investment” in Manchukuo’s industries, Itagaki continued, it must make “the
Empire’s industries suffer American repression and sow the seeds of future Japan-
U.S. conflicts.”78 For Itagaki, “to handle the outrageous repression of the League
of Nations,” Japan should prepare to quit the League and withdraw its representa-
tives.79 Contemporary Japanese observers held similar ideas. In a 1933 article, Roy
Akagi contends that Japan had a “more favorably situated [position] than other
88 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
powers” in Manchukuo and “should have a relatively larger trade [there]…for
obvious economic reasons.”80 Historian Yamamuro Shin’ichi argues that the Kantō
Army’s invasion of Rehe province and Japan’s withdrawal from the League of
Nations in 1933 “made Zheng’s dream of international supervision an unachieva-
ble goal,” and to protest the army and Japanese officials, Zheng could only “rely on
silence when making political decisions” after 1933.81 Zheng’s apparently casual
attitude annoyed both Puyi and the army officials, which contributed to his forced
resignation in 1935.
Ideological frictions between Zheng and the Japanese already became apparent
in March 1932, when Komai Tokuzō confronted Zheng’s national ideals. Recalling
20 years later in 1952, Komai noted his displeasure when cooperating with Zheng
in the State Council between March and October 1932 (Figure 3.3) because
Zheng “often considered too much about the feeling of the Chinese people [and
rarely considered Japanese feeling] when making critical decisions.”82 To realize
Japanese supervision of Manchukuo, Komai encouraged the Kantō Army to make
Zhang Jinghui succeed Zheng’s position as the prime minister in September 1932
because the former “was a figure who did not particularly care about things.”83
Zheng likewise disliked Komai and described Komai in his diary as “an ignorant
and arrogant individual who abused the Kingly Way by organizing his own

Figure 3.3 The last cabinet meeting that Zheng held before Komai’s resignation in October
1932. One could sense the tense personal relationship between the two based on their facial
expressions. The third person from the right in the last row is Sakatani Kiichi.
Source: Komai Tokuzō, Dai Manshūkoku kensetsu roku [Record of the construction of greater
Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1933), 320.
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 89
factions.”84 He even refused to serve as the prime minister if Komai did not resign.
Unable to lose Zheng’s support in September 1932, the Kantō Army eventually
transferred Komai to the Privy Council and made Sakatani Kiichi (1889–1957),
the son of the former Japanese minister of finance, Sakatani Yoshirō (1863–1941),
Komai’s successor. However, according to Puyi, Zheng, and Sakatani Kiichi “also
had irreconcilable conflicts; this fully revealed the ugliness” of Zheng’s cabinet.85
Existing sources reveal few reasons behind Zheng’s and Sakatani’s friction, but
Sakatani likely inherited Komai’s policies, which resulted in Zheng’s distrust. To
appease Zheng, the army removed Sakatani as director of the Board in July 1933,
ten months after his appointment.86
If the Army relied on Zheng’s policies of the Open Door to consolidate the
Japanese position in Manchukuo and the Kingly Way to confront the Manchu
revival forces of Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (1884–1952) in 1932 and 1933, Puyi’s coro-
nation as the emperor of Manchukuo in 1934 and visit to Japan in 1935 enabled
the army to end its cooperation with Zheng. Worse, central Japanese figures in the
early Manchukuo era, like Ishiwara Kanji and Kasagi Yoshiaki who supported the
Kingly Way and Sino-Japanese cooperation, were unable to maintain a prolonged
influence in the Manchukuo state, thereby increasing the difficulty for Zheng to
practice his ambitious ideals.
To express his disappointment toward his forced resignation, Zheng in the poem
“Get Approval for My Resignation from the Prime Minister on [the Lunar
Calendar of] April 19” (Siyue shijiu ri ci guowu Zongli deyun) wrote, “Is heaven the
only one who understands me? Asked [I in front of] the willow tree in [my] court-
yard.”87 Whether or not Zheng came up with an answer in the end, he was likely
unsatisfied with what he had accomplished since the 1880s, especially during his
tenure as the prime minister of Manchukuo because his thoughts had no sincere
followers. After his resignation, Zheng spent the rest of his life practicing calligra-
phy, writing poems, and occasionally meeting Manchurian and Japanese officials.

Becoming a Religious Totem of Manchukuo: The of Death Zheng and Beyond

Zheng died in the late morning of March 28, 1938, in the Manchukuo capital city
of Xinjing due to a duodenal ulcer and arteriosclerosis.88 Four days later, on April
1, Puyi and Kantō Army commander Ueda Kenkichi (1875–1962) met and dis-
cussed Zheng’s death and funeral; this is the last recorded conversation in the
report, Top Secret Meeting Records [Genpi kaiken roku], by Hayashide Kenjirō (1882–
1970), Puyi’s Japanese interpreter. In this conversation, Ueda encouraged Puyi to
hold a state funeral for Zheng and praise Zheng’s erstwhile efforts in the creation
of Manchukuo through a rescript, so “the subjects of the whole country will be
grateful” to the goodwill of Puyi. More important, such an action “will have an
extremely huge positive influence on the heart of people.”89 Puyi accepted Ueda’s
suggestions, and the two then discussed Buddhist rituals throughout the rest of
their conversation. In the words of scholar Nakata Seiichi, “one cannot sense even
a tiny piece of sorrowfulness between Puyi and Ueda on the death of Zheng” in
this conversation.90 Indeed, both Puyi and Ueda wanted to maximize the use of
Zheng’s funeral to enhance people’s loyalty to Manchukuo.
90 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
Zheng’s funeral was held on April 20, 1938, in Xinjing, attended by over 3,000
Manchukuo officials and 10,000 civilians. An editorial of the influential
Manchukuo newspaper Datong bao [Great Unity Herald] conceptualized the
funeral as Manchukuo’s most serious ceremony.91 Japanese foreign minister Hirota
Kōki (1878–1948) praised Zheng as a respected man with both “moral prestige
and an accomplished academic career.”92 Former commander of the Kantō Army
Hishikari Takashi (1871–1952) deemed Zheng the “model of [Manchukuo’s
founding] spirit.”93 Regardless of Puyi’s and Ueda’s casual attitude toward Zheng,
it is still arguable that many Japanese officials genuinely felt the need to express
their gratitude to Zheng through these ceremonies. Eventually, the Manchukuo
government buried Zheng in Fengtian alongside his wife, who died ten years
earlier in Shanghai.94
Although Zheng died, the government of Manchukuo continued to exploit his
image by casting Zheng as a cultural and religious totem of Manchukuo through
the establishment of the Taiyi Shrine (Ch: Taiyi gong; Jp: Taii gū). Following the
suggestion of Zheng’s Japanese secretary Ōta Toyoo (1886–?), the Manchukuo
government enshrined Zheng and the god Sukunahikona in the newly created
Fengtian Taiyi Shrine in July 1940. According to the introduction of Ōta, Taiyi
was the self-styled name of Zheng, and Sukunahikona was a god of Japan who
came from the ocean and who introduced the Japanese to overseas cultures.95 The
Japanese promotion of Kingly Way politics in Manchukuo, for Ōta, “brought
Japan an opportunity to spread its [inherent religion of] imperial Shintōism.” It is
thus necessary for Japan and Manchukuo to “associate the Kingly Way with the
spirit of Japan’s national foundation” by equating Zheng with Sukunahikona.96
Based on this rhetoric, Zheng was the Sukunahikona of Manchukuo because he
came from China proper and introduced the country to the moral precepts of
“another” culture. Some contemporary Japanese observers described the Kingly
Way in the early 1940s as “a governing principle that derives from the Shintō
religion of Japan” and justified the worship of Zheng as a god of Japan. They
claimed that Japan “often had such a history of worshiping those foreigners who
contributed to the development of Japanese culture in the shrines of Japan” after
their deaths.97
By 1940, Japanese interpretations of the Kingly Way had replaced the original
ideas of Zheng. Moreover, Zheng became a tool for the supporters of Japanese
imperialism to abuse the invented concept of East Asian morality and advance
their ambitions in Asia. Japanese folklore scholar Komatsu Kazuhiko notes that in
Japan, everyone could become god and enjoys others’ worship in a shrine after
death because the country’s tradition of establishing shrines for heroic and virtuous
figures since the fourteenth century has gradually made the Japanese associate
ordinary people’s posthumous soul with divinity.98 From this perspective, the
enshrinement of Zheng had no deeper meaning. However, if one places the Taiyi
Shrine into the historical background of wartime Japan, it generates intriguing
messages. Komatsu argues that between 1868 and 1945, the Japanese government
manipulated the activities and thoughts of ordinary Japanese people with the image
of human gods more than any other periods in Japanese history, and the chief
purpose was to create a “powerful and monolithic [state] religion” against
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 91
Christianity.99 Individuals could not decide if they wished to become god after
death; it was the state and the living people who decided one’s posthumous sta-
tus.100 While the Taiyi Shrine reveals a difference between the Chinese and the
Japanese view of death, as one could hardly find examples of human gods in
China, it makes one realize that many Japanese by 1940 had no longer hesitated to
equate Manchukuo with Japan and promote Japanese state religion in Manchukuo.
Having planned to reestablish Zhongguo in Manchukuo and protect the country
with his interpretation of the Open Door and the Kingly Way, Zheng’s failure
revealed the incompatibility between his aspirations and the objectives of Japanese
imperialists in the early 1930s. In siding with an inappropriate partner for an
unprecedented national project, Zheng up to his death failed to understand the
significance of Manchukuo to Japanese military expansionism in Asia, and he iron-
ically became a god of Japan after his death.

A Scholar Who Is Loyal to China’s Imperial Order: The National

Ideals of Luo Zhenyu
Luo Zhenyu (Figure 3.4), self-styled as “Snow Court” (Xuetang) and “Old Man of
Virtuous Pine” (Zhensong laoren), was one of the twentieth century’s most influen-
tial scholars of ancient oracle bone inscriptions, compiling volumes of valuable
academic monographs on the topic.101 He was also famed for his analyses and
preservation of surviving historical records ranging from the third century BCE to
the thirteenth century CE, in addition to many manuscripts from the Dunhuang
grotto in Gansu province.102 Luo’s close friend Wang Guowei suggested that Luo
was the one who discovered the ancient capital of the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1600–
1046 BCE) in Henan province, based on his study of the oracle bones. Interpreting
the inscriptions, Luo also managed to discover both the personal and temple names
of the Shang Dynasty’s monarchs. Therefore, Wang insisted, Luo is the most sig-
nificant scholar of the study of ancient Chinese scripts.103 Luo had four sons, and
all of them were influential philologists and historians of twentieth-century China.
His grandson Luo Jizu (1913–2002) was likewise a famed scholar who had teach-
ing experiences in both Chinese and Japanese universities and who contributed to
the publication of the collection Luo Zhenyu Wang Guowei wanglai shuxin [Letters
between Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei].
Such an accomplished individual like Luo Zhenyu should occupy a remarkable
position in the Chinese people’s collective memory. However, like Zheng Xiaoxu,
mainland Chinese high school history textbooks rarely mention Luo and his role
as a scholar and Manchukuo official. Many PRC scholars tend to criticize Luo’s
loyalty to the imperial order and avoid analyzing his political activities, especially
after 1911. Scholars in the West likewise have paid inadequate attention to him,
arguably due to two major reasons. First, some would think that the study of Luo
does not necessarily help historians understand the political and military transfor-
mation of contemporary China because his academic career was not associated
with modern and international issues. Second, and a more realistic obstacle, sources
by or on him that are able to reflect his thoughts, especially in the Manchukuo
years, are scarce. Unlike Zheng Xiaoxu who kept a lengthy diary in addition to the
92 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order

Figure 3.4 Luo Zhenyu in the Manchukuo era.

Source: IP148.004, Dennis M. Ogawa Photograph Collection, Hoover Archives, https://hojishinbun.
hoover.org/en/newspapers/A-IP148-004.1.1.

writing of books, poems, and government announcements, Luo left fewer materi-
als for historians to examine his thinking. His voluminous studies of ancient
Chinese scripts and literature are not helpful materials for those who explore Luo’s
life and political choices. Unlike other figures that this book examines, Luo opted
to remain silent on politics after 1932. The narratives of his personal experiences
in his autobiography Jiliao bian [Recollection of My Bitter Experiences] ended in
the winter of 1931, which was the time when he started to write it. Other per-
sonal narratives, like his short 1915 diary Wushi ri menghen lu [Trace of My Fifty
Days Dreams], were published long before 1932. Thus, the study of Luo in
Manchukuo from a political perspective remains in its infancy today.
Examining Luo’s political thoughts in the early Manchukuo years is a challeng-
ing task at present given the scarcity of relevant sources, but it is possible to provide
an exploration based on the materials that Luo wrote before 1932. Using Luo’s
autobiography, his letters to Wang Guowei between 1909 and 1926, and
Manchukuo news reports, this section analyzes the reasons that led to Luo’s coop-
eration with the Japanese in Manchukuo. Unlike Zheng, who laid the ideological
foundation of Manchukuo, Luo’s contributions to the new state were limited to
his efforts in persuading the last Qing emperor Aixin-Jueluo Puyi to go to
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 93
Manchuria after the Japanese occupation in September 1931. Moreover, his stub-
born insistence on the revival of the Qing Dynasty did not impress people like
Itagaki Seishirō (1885–1948) and Komai Tokuzō, who wanted to develop the
regime as a republic in the early 1930s, whereas Zheng was willing to make con-
cessions in front of the Japanese, even though his ultimate objectives somewhat
resembled Luo’s. Hence, the Japanese tended to downplay Luo’s influence after
Manchukuo’s foundation in March 1932.104
Perhaps understanding his situation after 1932, Luo tried to remain silent on
political matters in Manchukuo and continued his research on traditional Chinese
literature throughout the rest of his life. Rather than considering himself a com-
ponent of Japan’s pan-Asianist community, Luo viewed himself as a Han Chinese
official who was responsible for preserving the traditions of Han culture through
education. Moreover, Luo refused to admit the ROC’s legitimacy and wanted to
use the Japanese to restore China’s monarchical system after the Manchurian
Incident of 1931. His reluctance to compromise with the intertwined ideals of
Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders and Japanese decision-makers contrib-
uted to his isolation in the state.

The Beginning of a “Life-Long Bitterness”: Luo’s Early Life

Luo Zhenyu was born as the third son of a Jiangsu scholarly family in 1866. He
attended a private academy to study Confucian classics at the age of 4 and experi-
enced rigid family and academic regulations since his childhood.105 At the age of
15, Luo achieved ninth place in the admission test of the County School (xianxue)
in Shangyu county (Zhejiang province), but the examiner did not accept him due
to his young age.106 When he reached 16 in 1882, financial debt bankrupted Luo’s
family. The family’s financial situation worsened when Luo’s father, Luo Shuxun
(1842–1905), borrowed money for the weddings of Luo Zhenyu’s two older
brothers.107 Moreover, Luo Shuxun left home in the same year for his new job as
a magistrate assistant (xiancheng) in Jiangning county, leaving his wife Fan Shuren
(1841–1903) the responsibility to support the family. Since then, Luo Zhenyu
assisted his mother to repay the family’s debts.108 In the following year, Luo han-
dled family matters in the daytime and studied at night until dawn. He began to
work again after a roughly one-hour nap; the lack of sleep greatly weakened his
health.109 In 1931, Luo suggested that financial hardship tortured his life. The time
when he took responsibility for his family in 1882 marked the beginning of his
“life-long bitterness.”110 Luo’s bitter experiences in early life shaped his sense of
responsibility, something that could explain why he chose to remain loyal to the
Qing Dynasty throughout his life. Although Luo did not suggest this in his writ-
ings, supporting the state was, for him, arguably as important as supporting his
own family, as the term “nation” in Chinese is the combination of “country” and
“family” in English (guojia).
Luo’s career as a scholar began when he published his first monograph on the
study of ancient Chinese inscriptions in 1884.111 Academic accomplishment did
not enable Luo to enter officialdom, however, as he failed the civil examinations
twice in 1882 and 1888, which eventually motivated him to serve as a private
94 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
teacher in his hometown instead.112 After witnessing Japan’s victory in the Sino-
Japanese War of 1894–1895, Luo was convinced that Western and Japanese knowl-
edge, especially agricultural science, could fill the gaps in Chinese learning and
rejuvenate the Qing Dynasty. Thus, in 1896, in Shanghai, Luo formed the
Agricultural Association (Nongxue hui), hiring intellectuals to translate Western
and Japanese studies on agriculture besides publishing the Journal of Agricultural
Studies [Nongxue bao; suspended in 1906]—China’s first agricultural periodical.113
The essays in the journal caught the attention of the governor-general of Huguang
(Hubei and Hunan provinces), Zhang Zhidong, in 1898. Appreciating Luo’s con-
tributions to the study of agriculture, Zhang appointed him Director of the
Agricultural Bureau of Huguang (Nongwu ju zongli) in 1900. This marked the
beginning of Luo’s career as a government official.114

Foreign Friend and Domestic Foe: Luo’s Attitude toward Japan

and Republicanism
The Qing Dynasty kept a close relationship with Japan in the final decade of its
reign between 1901 and 1911. In addition to more than 25,000 Chinese students
going to Japan for modern schooling between 1898 and 1911, the Qing govern-
ment also sent many officials to the country for inspection purposes, hoping to
reform the dynasty based on the model of Japan.115 Luo was one of the many
officials sent to Japan at this time; his visit to the country in 1901–1902 helped
develop his admirable attitude toward Japan. Under the authorization of Zhang
Zhidong and Liu Kunyi (1830–1902)—the governor-general of Liangjiang
(Anhui, Jiangsu, and Jiangxi provinces)—Luo stayed in Japan between December
14, 1901, and February 19, 1902, to inspect the country’s education and financial
systems.116
Japan gave Luo a positive impression. He was amazed by the cleanliness of
Japanese hotels, suggesting that Japan had the cleanest residences in the world:

the hotel [that I live in] is also very clean, and the blue flowers [in the court-
yard] are beautiful and dustless. If one asks me which country has the cleanest
residences in the world, I have to say Japan has.117

Over the next several days of his stay, Luo was convinced that railway, telephone,
and postal services were essential elements of a modern civilization, for they solved
the problem of regionalism and isolation. In the end, he encouraged the Qing
government to develop its communication service:

The most prominent institutions of modern Japanese civilization are railways,

postal services, and telephones. … If our country had railways thirty years ago,
how could it still suffer the consequence of regional isolation like today’s sit-
uation? In these several days of my stay in the hotel, I have never stopped
seeing the passing of postal carts. Besides, telephones are ubiquitous, making
people in faraway distances feel as if they meet each other face to face.
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 95
Everyone could imagine the convenience that [postal services and] telephones
bring to people. The price of telegram service is very low, and this is another
example of how modern civilization creates a strong nation. Our country has
to imitate the abovementioned observations in the future.118

Appreciating Japan’s modern infrastructure, Luo in the preceding quote also felt
ashamed of the Qing Dynasty’s backwardness and isolation, especially when the
memory of the Boxer Rebellion and the subsequent occupation of Beijing by the
Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900 and 1901 were fresh for every Qing official.
Observing the secret of Japan’s national strength from a material perspective, Luo
encouraged the Qing imperial court to learn from this close neighbor.
As for his observation of Japanese education, Luo argued that besides modern
infrastructure, the key to Japan’s national strength lay in its establishment of mod-
ern schools. The country hired Western instructors to train a group of qualified
Japanese teachers, and those teachers further managed to spread their knowledge
across the country by educating more students. Some of their students became
teachers later and repeated the same process, something that served as a virtuous
circle for Luo.119 Recording his inspection of several Japanese elementary and high
schools, Luo carefully listed the detailed regulations of each school and all the
mandatory courses for students, such as math, national and foreign languages,
geography, music, and art, expecting those records to become indispensable refer-
ences for China’s future educational reforms.120 He was excited to discover that
many Japanese educators were interested in helping China to compile the coun-
try’s school textbooks.121 During his short stay in Japan, Luo praised the country’s
progress in modernization and convinced himself that foreign, especially Japanese,
support was essential for achieving both national and educational successes. Luo’s
experience in Japan likely influenced his political choices after the 1911 Revolution
and the Manchurian Incident in 1931.
Departing from his support of China’s imperial order and appreciation of Japan’s
national development, Luo firmly opposed the ROC and republicanism. In 1931,
Luo argued that republicanism was essentially a profit-oriented doctrine, one that
made people disparage traditional Chinese moral precepts by “emphasizing profits
and ignoring righteousness.”122 For him, China’s “transfer from a monarchy to a
republic” caused the country’s chaotic situation in the previous 20 years. “To pac-
ify such a blowy wave,” Luo stated, China “must revive its inherent system” of
monarchy.123 In a personal letter to Wang Guowei on August 12, 1916 (Figure
3.5), Luo revealed his reluctance to adopt both the Gregorian calendar and the
ROC chronology because he refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the new
regime, stating,

Please note specifically that all the dates that I choose are based on the lunar
calendar because I do not know what the Gregorian calendar is. For the letter
about my son’s congratulatory ceremony next year, please simply write “next
year” rather than the sixth year of Minguo [1917] because I also do not want
to see this term.124
96 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order

Figure 3.5 Luo Zhenyu (right) and Wang Guowei (left) in Kyoto, 1916.
Source: Chen Bangzhi, Luo Zhenyu zhuan [Luo Zhenyu’s biography] (Xinjing: Man Ri wenhua xiehui,
1943), 34.

In another letter in July 1922, Luo criticized the ROC for ignoring those who
died because of poverty and starvation: “Those who never worried about food
shortage [in the Qing Dynasty] now starve to death one after another, and the
ROC is reluctant to care about their livelihoods.”125 His antipathy toward the
republic and his despair toward the Qing Dynasty motivated him to leave China
and settle in the former Japanese capital of Kyoto after the 1911 Revolution, argu-
ably planning to spend the rest of his life in Japan as a scholar.126 Luo’s decade-long
stay in Kyoto enabled him to interact with renowned Japanese political and cul-
tural figures, such as the former Japanese prime minister Inukai Tsuyoshi (1855–
1932) and sinologist Naitō Konan (1866–1934).127
Luo occasionally revisited China over the next several years after 1911, and he
returned to China in the spring of 1919.128 Luo officially moved to the Forbidden
City in the summer of 1924 due to Puyi’s invitation and followed the latter to
settle in Japan’s Tianjin consulate in 1925 along with Zheng Xiaoxu and other
Qing loyalists.129 In his autobiography, Luo expressed his deep gratitude for admis-
sion to Puyi’s court, suggesting that he could not possibly repay the emperor’s favor
throughout his life, and this led him to “sweating out of embarrassment whenever
recalling [his own] incompetence.”130 In a letter to Wang Guowei on August 18,
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 97
1925, Luo excitedly recorded Puyi’s greetings to him during an informal meeting;
for Luo, this suggested that the ex-Qing emperor still considered him a valuable
person in this Manchu court in exile.131 Although the Nationalist Revolution
urged Luo to move to Japan in 1911, Puyi reignited Luo’s enthusiasm toward
political reforms and the revival of China’s imperial system.

Time to Revive the Monarchy: Luo and the Creation of Manchukuo

In the winter of 1928, Luo Zhenyu left the Manchu court in Tianjin and moved
to Lüshun in Manchuria.132 In his autobiography, Luo revealed that he already
planned to retire in 1926 because the Nationalist’s Northern Expedition made him
realize that he was too weak to stop China’s internal conflicts.133 Wang Guowei’s
suicide in June 1927 was also a major contributing factor to Luo’s departure.134 In
Lüshun, Luo continued his research on ancient Chinese inscriptions and published
14 monographs between 1928 and 1931, and considered just educating his sons
and grandsons in the city until his death.135 However, the Japanese invasion of
Manchuria in 1931 greatly influenced Luo’s political choices in the final years of
his life. Due to his earlier contacts with the Japanese, especially those garrison
commanders in Tianjin in the 1920s, Luo considered Japan a reliable partner to
revive the monarchy, although he contended in a 1918 letter to Wang that “Japan’s
illegitimate military actions in Shandong province” had greatly “lost the hearts of
the Chinese people.”136
Luo’s role in creating Manchukuo in 1931 and early 1932 was more important
than Zheng Xiaoxu and any other Qing loyalists due to his efforts in convincing
the Japanese of the significance of Puyi to Manchuria on the one hand and in
persuading Puyi to settle in the region on the other. He was convinced during his
stay in Lüshun that the “Three Eastern Provinces had yet to fall into decadence,”
so Manchuria would become an ideal base for Puyi to reclaim China proper.137 To
realize this ambitious plan, Luo visited local Manchu military officials in the spring
of 1931 to persuade them of the necessity of creating a Manchuria independent
from the ROC. Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (1884–1952), chief of staff of Jilin, appreciated
Luo’s determination for revival and cooperated with him (see Chapter 2).138 Luo
also visited Japanese Kantō Army officials and encouraged them to expel local
warlords from Manchuria for the sake of preserving peace in East Asia. To retain
Manchu and Japanese positions in the region, Luo continued, it was imperative for
Japan to help Puyi reestablish the Qing Dynasty, for he regarded the significance
of Japan to China as the significance of lips to teeth.139 Assuming that “the friendly
nation [Japan] valued” his suggestions, Luo boasted that the Manchurian Incident
took place because of his efforts.140 Due to this belief, Luo revisited Tianjin in late
September 1931 on behalf of Xixia and Kantō Army staff Itagaki Seishirō and
invited Puyi to move to Manchuria. Puyi in his 1964 memoir recalled that Luo
reported the situation in Manchuria “with excitement,” as his “face turned red”
and his “whole body was trembling.”141 Luo’s behavior arguably relieved Puyi’s
anxiety toward the Japanese intentions because Luo was his loyal subject. Thus,
Puyi wrote that he began to consider the Japanese a potential ally after Luo’s
visit.142
98 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
To carry out the next step of his revival project, Luo visited Fengtian after leav-
ing Tianjin in October 1931. In a conversation with a Japanese interpreter
Nakajima Hitaki (1876–1947) from the Japanese Kantō government (Kantō chō),
Luo insisted that many local Manchu and Han officials, such as Xixia, Zhang
Jinghui, Zhang Haipeng (1868–1951), and Tang Yulin (1871–1949), “lack suffi-
cient power and relevant qualifications to unify the various provinces of the
Northeast.”143 A possible way to reunite a fragmented Manchuria was to invite the
former Qing emperor, Puyi, “to settle in Manchuria and to organize a new state”
in his name, as Puyi’s return to Manchuria would integrate the newly independent
regions under the leadership of Xixia, Zhang Haipeng, and others.144 Eventually,
Luo became a member of the Manchukuo Privy Council (Ch: Canyi fu; Jp: Sangi
fu) in March 1932—an advisory institution of the chief executive Puyi responsible
for providing him with suggestions on affairs relating to law, education, finance
and the appointment and dismissal of officials.145 He became the head of the
Supervisory Council (Ch: Jiancha yuan; Jp: Kansatsu in) in July 1933 and founded
the Manchukuo-Japan Cultural Society (Ch: Man Ri wenhua xiehui; Jp: Man Nichi
bunka kyōkai) in the spring of 1934.

Rectifying “the Mistakes of the Past”: Luo’s Later Life

Regardless of Luo’s efforts in Manchukuo’s establishment, he did not play a major
role in the new state’s political affairs after 1932. Even the author of his official 1943
biography could not provide any example of Luo’s political contributions to the new
regime after 1932.146 A major reason for Luo’s isolation from the state was his stub-
born insistence on the revival of China’s imperial order, as historian Dan Shao notes
that such an ideal, for Japanese officials, betrayed “Manchukuo’s statehood.”147
Indeed, Luo revealed his passion for revival in many of his poems after 1931. For
example, Luo expressed his hope for the collapse of the ROC government in a 1936
poem titled “A Casual Piece on New Year’s Day” (Yuandan kouzhan), writing, “How
would I mind to die as an old man on the coast [of Lüshun] /only hoping that [the
imperial order] will soon strangle the stones in the Xiang River.”148 “The stones in
the Xiang River” of Hunan province arguably refer to the nationalist and commu-
nist revolutionaries in the ROC, and Luo desperately wished to witness the restora-
tion of China’s imperial order before his death. This made him cry out of gratitude
when Puyi went to visit him in Lüshun when he was ill in the winter of 1931.149
Another major reason that contributed to Luo’s isolation in the state was his
antipathy toward Zheng Xiaoxu. Puyi in his memoir revealed that Luo and Zheng
disliked each other for years, and they “devoted their lifetime efforts” to isolate the
other in the state of Manchukuo because they knew that this would be, given their
age, their “last lifetime struggle.”150 Although neither person in their writings clar-
ified the reasons for their hostility, ideological differences likely generated their
mutual distrust. The two had known each other since 1897 and initially had a close
relationship, as Zheng inscribed the title of Luo’s 1902 diary, Fusang liangyue ji
[Journal of a Two-Month Visit to Japan].151 Zheng’s ideals of the Open Door and
international supervision nevertheless disappointed Luo, who stated in a letter to
Wang Guowei in August 1923 that “this old man’s thoughts greatly differ from
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 99
us.”152 According to Luo’s grandson Luo Jizu, the conflicts between Zheng and
Luo extended to their family members, as the Zheng and the Luo families in the
era of Manchukuo never interacted with each other.153 Disappointed with Luo’s
insistence on the revival of the monarchy, the Kantō Army abandoned cooperation
with Luo and prioritized Zheng and his son Zheng Chui (1887–1933) in 1932
because the two Zhengs agreed to temporarily develop Manchukuo as a republic,
whereas Luo refused to step back before seeing Manchukuo become an empire.154
Zheng’s promotion to the position of prime minister motivated Luo to quit
politics and shift emphasis to education, hoping to promote his national ideals
from this new perspective. In a newspaper article he published on August 5, 1932,
Luo argued for the necessity of recovering the Chinese education system that
existed before the abolition of the civil examinations in 1905—without necessarily
recovering the examination itself—for the restoration of the country’s traditional
social structures. Openly opposing universal education in China, Luo insisted that
China’s huge population was a major financial obstacle to universal education: “If
a country with a vast territory and population like China expects everyone to
receive an education, following the examples Europe and America, the whole
country’s finance will collapse.”155 Problematizing the association of universal edu-
cation with modernity, Luo argued,

I hear that other countries in the world are establishing more universities
today, but many who receive a bachelor or a doctoral degree cannot support
their lives [after graduation]; their thoughts thus gradually become hazardous
[to their society]. People assume that universal education would help promote
the fascinating concept of civilization, but they actually suffer its consequence
in practice. Supply and demand need to reach a balance in a society. When
one side overwhelms the other, problems will occur.156

Luo blamed universal education for creating social unrest, especially in reference
to the rise of communism in China and the world. He described universal educa-
tion as “supply” and students as “demand” and posited that educational supply had
overwhelmed the demands of the public, given society’s inability to settle all school
graduates.
To avoid the aforementioned problems, Luo formulated a new education system
for Manchukuo. He encouraged the Manchukuo government to substitute elemen-
tary schools with “Family Academies” (Jiashu) under the management of village
elites to reduce the state’s financial burden. Luo expected children between the ages
of 8 and 12 to systematically learn Chinese characters and Confucian classics at
“Family Academies.” He considered it important for everyone to expose themselves
to traditional Chinese culture and morality in their childhood, and then they could
decide if they wanted to proceed to higher education after graduating from the
“Family Academies.”157 Students who continued to study would attend national
institutions named “Public Schools” (Gongxue) for five years and choose a major,
such as science, engineering, medicine, finance, or navigation. Graduates from
“Public Schools” would be able to study at the “Institute of National Learning”
(Guoxue guan)—a higher educational institution under direct state management—for
100 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
another six years. Luo encouraged students there to focus primarily on the study of
Chinese history and classics rather than the aforementioned majors, in addition to
majors like law, military, and foreign language because he considered them practical
skills, not the cultural foundation of China.158 Those who wanted to engage in
academic research after graduation would attend “Grand Academies” (Da xueyuan)—
the supreme national academic institution in Luo’s blueprint.159
Compared to his attitude toward modern education in the late Qing era, Luo
became more conservative after 1932. His writing in Japan between 1901 and
1902 reflected his embracing of modern education and government structures, but
China’s chaotic situation in the 1910s and the 1920s motivated him to reconsider
the significance of Chinese traditions to the prosperity of China as an ancient
kingdom. In that 1932 article, Luo particularly mentioned that women did not
have a place in his ideal education system:

Today’s education values both genders, but men and women actually have
different duties according to our history. Simply put, men’s responsibilities are
rendered in external spheres, while women are responsible for handling
domestic affairs. Women should handle housework, host worship rituals,
learn female moral precepts, and serve their husbands and children. …
However, women today study with men in schools and socialize according to
men’s manners [due to the influence of the West], which tarnished ethics and
customs. From now on, women should stay at home and learn writing, cal-
culation, and etiquette. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past.160

For Luo, “mistakes of the past” were the so-called post-Qing masculinization of
women. He considered women’s participation in “external” spheres broke China’s
gender balance and insisted that China’s stability was heavily dependent on those
that he viewed as social and occupational balances. However, based on his writings
in Japan in 1901 and 1902, Luo then encouraged women to receive education,
stating, “China’s [modern] education system begins to develop today, but people
often overlook the importance of female education. To me, it is absolutely neces-
sary to speed up the pace of female education.”161 If Luo’s commitment to Han
Chinese traditions did not overwhelm his determination for reform before the
collapse of the monarchy, his nostalgic passion for the monarchical system in the
early 1930s motivated him to believe that Han Chinese traditions were flawless and
that the past could always serve as a model for the present.
Luo’s attitude toward modern disciplines after 1932 coincidentally matched his
erstwhile superior Zhang Zhidong’s observation of Western knowledge during the
Hundred Days Reform of 1898, for Zhang deemed Chinese learning to be the
cultural foundation of China, whereas Western knowledge could serve practical
purposes:

To strengthen the Middle Kingdom and preserve Chinese learning today, we

must learn Western knowledge. However, if we do not treat Chinese learning
as the foundation and understand its key principles [before accepting Western
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 101
knowledge], powerful individuals would become the culprits of chaos, and
weak individuals would become the slaves of others. The consequence [of
relinquishing Chinese learning] is more devastating than neglecting Western
learning.162

Zhang associated Western culture with force and Eastern culture with benevo-
lence. From this, one can sense that Luo’s thoughts in the early years of Manchukuo
were a continuation of late Qing ideals in many respects. Seeking a proper place
for traditional Han Chinese social structures in a modern society, Luo wanted to
revive an ideal monarchical order during his service in Manchukuo. However, that
order contradicted the ambitions of people like Itagaki Seishirō and Komai Tokuzō;
it is also pale compared to the ideals of people like Puyi and Zheng Xiaoxu. In a
tablet of calligraphy that Puyi gave to Luo as a gift on his nominal 70th birthday
on June 28, 1935, of the lunar calendar, Puyi praised him with four characters,
“honest scholar, loyal servant” (puxue zhongmo).163 Yet Luo’s desire was not to
merely serve as a loyal servant of the Qing emperor, but his ideological conflicts
with Zheng and Japanese officials undermined what he did want to achieve after
1932.
Dying from heart palsy on June 19, 1940, in Lüshun, three days before Puyi’s
visit to Japan for congratulating the country’s 2,600th anniversary of the national
foundation, Manchukuo’s media briefly reported Luo’s death and described him as
the “only calligrapher of the present era who is particularly good at drawing
orchids.”164 While discussions of his political contributions to Manchukuo in news
reports were absent, the Manchukuo government did not hold a state funeral for
Luo like it did for Zheng Xiaoxu in 1938. As the country’s news coverage focused
on reporting Puyi’s interactions in Japan over the next three weeks, Luo faded
from Manchukuo media’s attention. Expecting to reestablish China’s imperial
order by serving Puyi in Manchukuo, Luo’s decision, like Zheng, to utilize the
Japanese in the final years of life between 1931 and 1940 did not bring him fortune
but ironically became evidence of his supposedly treasonous activities for certain
observers today.

Chapter Conclusion: “Different Dreams in the Same Bed”

This chapter has explored the ideals of Qing loyalists Zheng Xiaoxu and Luo
Zhenyu. Historical records in China usually render loyalists of former dynasties
during dynastic transitions in a positive light, but post-Qing nationalist and
anti-monarchical sentiments preclude respect for loyalists of the last dynasty.
Analyzing the activities and ideals of Qing loyalists in the early 1930s nevertheless
helps historians overcome the “simplified and polarized discourses” of resistance
and collaboration in the study of China under Japanese occupation.165 Both the
ideals of Zheng and Luo complicate Manchukuo’s image as a mere Japanese pro-
tectorate and reveal that many loyalists to China’s imperial order inherited late
Qing ideals like the opening of China to foreign assistance and the preservation of
traditional Chinese learning.
102 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
If the majority of Manchu aristocrats in Manchukuo, especially Xixia, consid-
ered the regime a preliminary step toward the rebirth of Manchu domination in
China proper, Han Chinese loyalists tended to treat Manchukuo more as a labora-
tory for the revival of China’s traditional social and moral orders without ignoring
Zheng Xiaoxu’s more ambitious project of universal concord. Similar to the use of
Japanese idealists for popular support in the early years of Manchukuo, most of the
Kantō Army’s decision-makers used Qing loyalists as window dressing. One pur-
pose was to prevent contemporary observers from considering Manchukuo a pup-
pet of Japan. Another major purpose was to fill the gaps in the Japanese control of
Manchukuo, as the army lacked allies at the country’s local level in the early 1930s.
Observing the interactions of Qing loyalists and Japanese bureaucrats in
Manchukuo, the Chinese idiom, tongchuang yimeng, literally “different dreams in
the same bed,” perhaps best summarizes their subtle relationships. Although the
Japanese constructed Manchukuo in their own ways for the most part between
1932 and 1945, historians should also examine Manchukuo from the perspective
of a larger political and cultural history of China due to the presence of former
Qing loyalists.
Both Zheng and Luo were idealists who devoted their lifetime efforts to the
restoration of their ideal China using Japanese assistance. Sharing a similar path in
their official duties, loyalty and monarchy were important concepts to both men.
They admired Japan’s national accomplishments, calculating that the country
would be a reliable assistant to the Qing Dynasty’s revival in the early 1930s. The
term Zhongguo (Middle Kingdom; China) for Zheng transcended any dynastic
titles and signified a sense of ruling orthodoxy; only the regimes that embraced the
Confucian morality of benevolence and righteousness could address themselves as
Zhongguo. Treating the newly established Manchukuo as the orthodox govern-
ment of Zhongguo, Zheng relied on his reinterpreted Open Door policy and
Kingly Way politics to help construct such a government, expecting the Japanese
to understand this goodwill and help him modernize this ideal Zhongguo. Luo’s
ideal was simpler; he wanted to revive China’s monarchical social order, but
Japanese oversight and his antipathy toward Zheng resulted in his relevant silence
on politics after Manchukuo’s creation.
Zheng’s dissidence led to his dismissal in 1935, whereas Luo managed to stay in
office until he voluntarily retired in 1937, after years of relative silence on politics.
Although sharing the same bed with the Japanese and the Manchus in the early
1930s, Han Chinese loyalists, especially Zheng and Luo, had different dreams. They
did not want to help Japan establish a new imperial order in East Asia, nor were they
interested in striving for the prosperity of the Manchu ethnicity at the cost of Han
Chinese interests. Instead, they wanted to recover China’s mighty status from
ancient times, an objective that many contemporary anti-Japanese nationalists in
China proper desperately sought to achieve as well. Ironically, post-Qing Han
nationalist and anti-monarchical sentiments devalued their passion for China’s future
because the majority of scholars in both the PRC and the ROC to date emphasize
the importance of resistance to China’s survival in the face of Japanese imperialism
between 1931 and 1945 and marginalize analysis of those who actively sought
cooperation with Japan for China’s national development. Although Qing loyalist
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 103
officials in Manchukuo remind one of the complexities of Chinese nationalism in
the early 1930s, Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders also consisted of mili-
tary agents of the Nanjing Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, the oppo-
nent of Manchu aristocrats and Han loyalists; this is the topic of the next chapter.

Notes
1 Yang Chia-Ling, and Roderick Whitfield, eds., Lost Generation: Luo Zhenyu, Qing
Loyalists and the Formation of Modern Chinese Culture (London: Saffron Books, 2012).
2 For example, see Yamamuro Shin’ichi, Kimera—Manshūkoku no shōzō zōhoban
[Chimera—portrait of Manchukuo; expanded edition] (Tokyo: Chūō kōron shinsha,
2004); Suzuki Sadami, Manshūkoku: kōsaku suru nashonarizumu [Manchukuo: inter-
twined nationalism] (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2021).
3 For example, see Zhou Mingzhi, Jindai Zhongguo de wenhua weiji: Qing yilao de jingshen
shijie [Cultural crisis in modern China: Qing loyalists and their mental world] (Jinan:
Shandong daxue chubanshe, 2009); Lin Zhihong, Minguo nai diguo ye: zhengzhi wen-
hua zhuanxing xia de Qing yimin [The Republic of China is a hostile state: Qing loyal-
ists during China’s political and cultural transformation] (Taibei: Lianjing chuban
shiye gufen youxian gongsi, 2009); Li Jun, 1931 nian qian Zheng Xiaoxu [Zheng
Xiaoxu before 1931] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2018).
4 Xin Ping, “Xu” [Preface], in Xu Linjiang, Zheng Xiaoxu qian bansheng pingzhuan
[Commentary biography of Zheng Xiaoxu’s early life] (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe,
2003), 1.
5 Marjorie Dryburgh, “The Fugitive Self: Writing Zheng Xiaoxu, 1882–1938,” in
Writing Lives in China, 1600–2010: Histories of the Elusive Self, ed. Marjorie Dryburgh
and Sarah Dauncey (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 110–132; Aymeric Xu,
“Neither Traitor nor Nationalist: Zheng Xiaoxu’s Intellectual Trajectory,” Global
Intellectual History (2021): 1–20; Yamamuro Shin’ichi, Manchuria Under Japanese
Domination, trans. Joshua Fogel (Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2006). An English translation of Zheng’s King Way ideal by historian Hua Rui is
available in Johnathan Henshaw, Craig A. Smith, and Norman Smith, eds., Translating
the Occupation: The Japanese Invasion of China, 1931–45 (Vancouver: University of
British Columbia Press, 2021).
6 For an example, see Matsumiya Takayuki, “Taitō shodōin no Manshū gaikō: Tei Kōsho
to Kiyoura Keigo no yaritori o chūshin toshite” [Manchukuo’s diplomacy in the Taitō
calligraphy institute: centering on the cultural exchange between Zheng Xiaoxu and
Kiyoura Keigo], Kyōto gobun [Language text of Kyoto] 20 (Nov 2013): 249–277.
7 Ye Shen, Dang Xiangzhou, and Chen Bangzhi, Zheng Xiaoxu zhuan [Zheng Xiaoxu’s
biography] (Xinjing: Man Ri wenhua xiehui, 1938), 1.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., 15, 18.
10 Zheng Xiaoxu, “June 20, 1891,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji [Zheng Xiaoxu’s diary], vol. 1,
ed., Lao Zude (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), 210.
11 Ye, Dang, and Chen, Zheng Xiaoxu zhuan, 19–26. Many Chinese people today regard
Zhang Zhidong as a pioneer of China’s industrialization.
12 Ibid., 26.
13 Ibid., 28.
14 Suzuki, Manshūkoku, 97.
15 Zheng, “September 17, 1885,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, 71.
16 Zheng, “December 25, 1894,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, 455.
17 Itō Takayuki, “Dentō Chūgoku ni okeru rekishi to wa” [What is history for tradi-
tional China], in Chiran no hisutoria: Ka i, seitō, zei [A history of order and disorder:
Huaxia and barbarians, orthodoxy, and trends], ed., Itō Takayuki (Tokyo: Hōsei daig-
aku shuppansha, 2017), 11–13.
104 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
18 Zheng, “November 28, 1891,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, 252.
19 Zheng Xiaoxu, Zheng zongli dachen wangdao yanjiangji [Collection of Prime Minister
Zheng Xiaoxu’s speeches on the Kingly Way], ed., Peng Shuxian (Xinjing: Fu wen-
sheng yinshuju, 1934), 68.
20 Zheng Xiaoxu, Wangdao guankui [A glimpse of the Kingly Way] (Xinjing: Guowuyuan
zongwuting qingbaochu, 1934), 5.
21 John Gunther, Inside Asia (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1939), 193.
22 Frederick McCormick, “The Open Door,” The Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science 39 (1912): 58.
23 Anonymous, “The Integrity of China and the ‘Open Door’,” The American Journal of
International Law 1:4 (1907): 959.
24 Ibid., 960.
25 John Barrett, “America’s Duty in China,” The North American Review 171: 525 (August
1900): 154.
26 Ibid., 151.
27 Ibid., 146, 148.
28 Ellery C. Stowell, “The Policy of the United States in the Pacific,” The Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science 54 (July 1914): 245.
29 Ibid., 246.
30 Barrett, “America’s Duty in China,” 153–154.
31 Ibid., 147–148.
32 Ibid., 148.
33 Stowell, “The Policy of the United States in the Pacific,” 246, 250.
34 Zheng, Wangdao yanjiangji, 99–100.
35 Ibid., 100.
36 Zheng, “October 5, 1932,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 5, 2413.
37 Zheng, Wangdao yanjiangji, 100.
38 Zheng, “January 3, 1910,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 3, 1221.
39 Zheng, “January 4, 1910,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 3, 1221.
40 Zheng, “March 16, 1910,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 3, 1244.
41 Zheng, “May 21, 1902,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 2, 832.
42 Suzuki, Manshūkoku, 215.
43 Wang Qingxiang, Xiao Wenli, and Luo Jizu, eds., Luo Zhenyu Wang Guowei wanglai
shuxin [Letters between Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei] (Beijing: Dongfang chuban-
she, 2000), 651.
44 Zheng, “November 16, 1925,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 4, 2072.
45 For an example, see Cheng Taihong, “Zheng Xiaoxu wangdao sixiang bianyi tanjiu”
[An exploration of the mutation of Zheng Xiaoxu’s Kingly Way thoughts], Qiqihaer
daxue xuebao [Journal of Qiqihar University] (May 2020): 127–130.
46 Zheng, “January 26, 1927,” in Riji, Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 4, 2131.
47 Zheng, “February 18, 1912,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 3, 1400.
48 Zheng, “December 23, 1911,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 3, 1373.
49 Zheng, “July 7, 1911,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 3, 1320.
50 Zheng, Wangdao guankui, 1.
51 Zheng, Wangdao yanjiangji, 211.
52 Zheng, Wangdao guankui, 9; Janis Mimura, Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and
the Japanese Wartime State (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), 53.
53 Zheng, “October 7, 1931,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 5, 2344.
54 Zheng, Wangdao guankui, 1.
55 Huang Yan, ed., Sun Zhongshan quanji [Collected works of Sun Yat-sen], vol. 9
(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 186, 215.
56 Sun Zhongshan quanji, vol. 11, 409.
57 Qin Xiaoyi, ed., Zongtong Jiang gong sixiang yanlun zongji [Collection of President
Chiang’s thoughts and words], vol. 7 (Taipei: Zhongyang dangshi weiyuanhui,
1984), 148.
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 105
58 Ishiwara Kanji, “Tō A renmei kensetsu yōkō” [Outline of the construction of East
Asian alliance], November 25, 1944, in Ishiwara Kanji zenshū [Collected works of
Ishiwara Kanji], ed., Ishiwara Kanji zenshū kankōkai, vol. 3 (Funabashi: Ishiwara
Kanji zenshū kankōkai, 1976), 9.
59 Kasagi Yoshiaki, “Manshūkoku ken ki sanji kan no dai shimei” [Grand missions of
Manchukuo’s county and banner counselor officials], October 1933, in Kasagi Yoshiaki
ihō roku [Works of the deceased Kasagi Yoshiaki], ed., Kasagi Yoshiaki ihō roku shup-
pan iin (Tokyo: Kasagi Yoshiaki ihō roku kankō kai, 1960), 46–47.
60 Zheng, Wangdao yanjiangji, 83.
61 Ibid., 83–84.
62 Ibid., 47–8, 85.
63 Ibid., 11.
64 Ibid., 1, 4.
65 Ibid., 4.
66 Ibid.
67 Zheng, Wangdao yanjiangji, 95.
68 Ibid., 96.
69 Zheng Xiaoxu, Haicanglou shiji [Haicanglou poetry collection], ed., Yang Xiaobo and
Huang Shen (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2003), 409.
70 “Zheng Zongli dachen cizhi pizhun” [Prime Minister Zheng Xiaoxu’s resignation has
been approved], Datong bao [Great Unity Herald] (May 22, 1935): 2.
71 Komai Tokuzō, Dai Manshūkoku kensetsu roku [Record of the construction of greater
Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1933), 124.
72 Takebe Rokuzō, “May 6, 1935”; “May 20, 1935”; “June 15, 1935,” in Takebe Rokuzō
nikki [Takebe Rokuzō’s diary], ed. Taura Masanori, Furukawa Takahisa, and Takebe
Kenichi (Tokyo: Fuyō shobō, 1999), 12, 20, 34.
73 Luo Jizu, Wo de zufu Luo Zhenyu [My grandfather Luo Zhenyu] (Tianjin: Baihua
wenyi chubanshe, 2007), 121.
74 Wang, Xiao, and Luo, eds., Luo Zhenyu Wang Guowei wanglai shuxin, 606.
75 Hayashide Kenjirō, “Gokuhi ni: Kōtei heika to Minami taishi oyobi Nagaoka sōchō
to no kaidan yōryō” [Top secret No. 2: main points of the conversation between the
emperor and Ambassador Minami and Director Nagaoka], May 18, 1935, unpub-
lished handwritten manuscript, in Hayashide Kenjirō kankei bunsho [Hayashide Kenjirō
related documents], microfilm vol. 2 (Tokyo: Yūshōdō, 1999).
76 Hayashide, “Tei sōri to Minami taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Main points of the con-
versation between Prime Minister Zheng and Ambassador Minami], May 14, 1935,
unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1. Jiandao province was located in
the North Korean border; it became part of Jilin province today. A contemporary
Japanese publication suggested that Cai was born in 1881. Imamura Shunzō,
Manshūkoku jinketsu shōkai gō [Introduction of Manchukuo’s great men] (Tokyo: Ni
Shi mondai kenkyūkai, 1936), 44.
77 Itagaki Seishirō, “Itagaki kōkyū sanbō teki jōsei handan” [The situation judgment of
senior staff Itagaki], April and May 1932, in Gendai shi shiryō [Documents of modern
history], vol. 7, ed., Kobayashi Tatsuo and Shimada Toshihiko (Tokyo: Misuzu shobō,
1964), 173.
78 Ibid., 178.
79 Ibid., 179.
80 Roy H. Akagi, “Japan and the Open Door in Manchukuo,” The Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 168: American Policy in the Pacific (July 1933): 61.
81 Yamamuro, Kimera, 214.
82 Komai Tokuzō, Tairiku e no higan [Longing for the continent] (Tokyo: Dai Nihon
yūben kai kōdansha, 1952), 275.
83 Ibid.
84 Zheng, “September 4, 1932,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji, vol. 5, 2405.
85 Hayashide, “Kōtei heika to Minami taishi oyobi Nagaoka sōchō,” May 18, 1935.
106 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
86 “Manshūkoku Sōmuchō chō kōnin Endō Ryūsaku shi” [Endō (Ryūsaku) will be the
next director of Manchukuo’s General Affairs Board], Asahi shinbun yūkan [Evening
edition of Asahi News] (July 13, 1933): 1.
87 Zheng, Haicanglou shiji, 428.
88 “Yuanxun Zheng Xiaoxu hongqu” [Funding father Zheng Xiaoxu has passed away],
Datong bao [Great unity herald] (March 29, 1938): 2.
89 Hayashide, “Kōtei heika to Ueda gun shireikan to no kaidan yōryō” [The conversa-
tion between the Emperor and Army Commander Ueda], April 1, 1938, unpublished
handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm, vol. 4.
90 Nakata Seiichi, Manshūkoku kōtei no hiroku: Rasuto enpera to Genpi kaiken roku no nazo
[A secret record of the emperor of Manchukuo: the last emperor and the mysteries
surrounding top secret meeting records] (Tokyo: Genki shobō, 2005), 314.
91 “Chaoting chuochao, quanguo xia banqi; diaoli shi yansu juxing” [The imperial court
was closed, all the flags in the country flied at half-mast; the funeral was held in a
serious mood], Datong bao (April 21, 1938): 1.
92 “Man Ri liangguo sunshi: Guangtian waixiang busheng tongxi” [Manchukuo’s and
Japan’s loss: foreign Minister Hirota suggests sorrowfully], Datong bao (March 30, 1938): 2.
93 Ibid.
94 Qin Hancai, Mangong canzhao ji [Twilight in the Manchukuo imperial palace] (1946;
repr. Shanghai: Shanghai shudian chubanshe, 1998), 126.
95 Ōta Toyoo, “Taii gū sōkenki” [Record on the construction of Taiyi shrine], Dai Ajia
[Greater Asia] 8:6 (July 1940): 34, 48.
96 Ibid., 47.
97 Kanasaki Masaru, “Taii gū chinza sai sanpai ki” [Record of my participation in the first
worship ceremony of Taiyi shrine], Dai Ajia 8:6 (July 1940): 48, 53.
98 Komatsu Kazuhiko, Kami ni natta hitobito: Nihonjin ni totte Yasukuni jinja to wa nani ka
[Ordinary people who became god: what is Yasukuni shrine for the Japanese] (Tokyo:
Kōbunsha, 2006), 245.
99 Ibid., 240–241.
100 Ibid., 245.
101 Yang Chia-Ling, “Deciphering Antiquity into Modernity: The Cultural Identity of
Luo Zhenyu and the Qing Loyalists in Manzhouguo,” in Lost Generation, 172.
102 Tan Fei, “Luo Zhenyu wenxue zhi yanjiu” [A study of Luo Zhenyu’s literature] (PhD.
diss., Huazhong keji daxue, 2010), 5–6.
103 Wang Guowei, “Zuijin er sanshi nian zhong Zhongguo xin faxian zhi xuewen” [The
newly discovered knowledge in China during the past twenty and thirty Years], in
Wang Guowei wenji [Collected works of Wang Guowei], vol. 4, ed. Yao Ganming and
Wang Yan (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1997), 34.
104 Dan Shao, “Dilemma of Loyalty: Qing Loyalists and State Succession in the Early 20th
Century,” in Lost Generation, 220.
105 Huang Aimei, “Luo Zhenyu nianpu” [Luo Zhenyu’s chronology], in Xuetang zishu, 188.
106 Chen Bangzhi, Luo Zhenyu zhuan [Luo Zhenyu’s biography] (Xinjing: Man Ri wen-
hua xiehui, 1943), 3.
107 Yang, “Chronology of Luo Zhenyu,” in Lost Generation, 240.
108 Ibid.
109 Zhang Lianke, Luo Zhenyu yu Wang Guowei [Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei]
(Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2002), 17.
110 Luo, Jiliao bian, in Xuetang zishu, 2.
111 Huang, “Luo Zhenyu nianpu,” in Xuetang zishu, 189.
112 Zhang, Luo Zhenyu yu Wang Guowei, 16, 20.
113 Ibid., 26, 30, 37.
114 Ibid., 40, 50.
115 Douglas Reynolds, China, 1898–1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan (Harvard:
Harvard University Press, 1993), 42.
 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order 107
116 Luo Zhenyu, Fusang liangyue ji [Journal of a two-month visit to Japan], in Xuetang
zishu, 61; Yang Chia-Ling, “Chronology of Luo Zhenyu,” in Lost Generation, 247.
117 Luo, Fusang liangyue ji, in Xuetang zishu, 62.
118 Ibid., 63.
119 Ibid., 67.
120 Ibid., 70–76.
121 Ibid., 67.
122 Ibid., 59.
123 Ibid.
124 Wang, Xiao, and Luo, eds., Wanglai shuxin, 135.
125 Ibid., 543. Luo arguably referred to the 1922 famine in Hunan province.
126 Luo, Jiliao bian, in Xuetang zishu, 39–40.
127 Luo Jizu, Wo de zufu Luo Zhenyu, 95.
128 Luo Zhenyu, Jiliao bian, in Xuetang zishu, 47.
129 Ibid., 50–54.
130 Ibid., 50.
131 Wang, Xiao, and Luo, eds., Wanglai shuxin, 645.
132 Yang, “Chronology of Luo Zhenyu,” in Lost Generation, 268.
133 Luo, Jiliao bian, in Xuetang zishu, 56.
134 Ibid., 56. Wang drowned himself in the Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace in
Beijing on June 2, 1927; no one knows the exact reason for Wang’s suicide.
135 Ibid., 57–58.
136 Wang, Xiao, and Luo, eds., Wanglai shuxin, 388.
137 Luo, Jiliao bian, in Xuetang zishu, 58.
138 Ibid.
139 Ibid., 58–59. Luo referenced an idiom from the Chinese classic Zuo zhuan [Commentary
of Zuo]—chunwang chihan, literally meaning “the teeth will be cold if the lips are gone.”
Chinese often use this idiom today when stressing the significance of one thing to
another. Li Mengsheng, ed., Zuo zhuan yizhu [Commentary of Zuo: with modern
annotations and translations] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1998), 202.
140 Ibid., 59.
141 Aixin-Jueluo Puyi, Wo de qian bansheng quanben [My earlier life; full edition] (Beijing:
Qunzhong chubanshe, 2007), 209.
142 Ibid., 210.
143 Tsukamoto Seiji, “Zai Kantō chō Tsukamoto chōkan yori Shidehara gaimu daijin
ate” [From the director of the Kantō Government Tsukamoto to Foreign Minister
Shidehara], October 22, 1931, Reference No. B02032036300, Japan Center for Asian
Historical Records, 433.
144 Ibid., 434.
145 Zhao Xinbo, Shin kokka dai Manshū [The greater new Manchurian state] (Tokyo:
Tokyo shobō, 1932), 169–170.
146 Chen, Luo Zhenyu zhuan, 59–60.
147 Shao, “Dilemma of Loyalty,” in Lost Generation, 220.
148 Luo, “Yuandan kouzhan” [A casual piece on the new year’s day], in Zhensong laoren
yigao jiaji [Manuscripts of the deceased old man of virtuous pine; part one], in Xuetang
zishu, 164.
149 Nakajima Hitaki, “Zhizheng richang fangsong ci” [Introduction of the chief execu-
tive’s daily life], Wei Manzhouguo shiliao [Bogus Manchukuo historical materials], ed.
Shi Lizhen and Wang Zhimin, vol. 1 (Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei
fuzhi zhongxin, 2002), 362.
150 Puyi, Qian bansheng, 232.
151 Luo Jizu, Wo de zufu Luo Zhenyu, 290, 292.
152 Wang, Xiao, and Luo, eds., Wanglai shuxin, 588.
153 Luo, Wo de zufu Luo Zhenyu, 302.
108 “Reviled” Loyalists to China’s Imperial and Cultural Order
154 Puyi, Qian bansheng, 232–233.
155 Luo Zhenyu, “Xin guojia wenhua sheshi zhi guanjian” [Some gentle suggestions for
the new state’s cultural facilities], Taidong ribao (August 5, 1932): 2.
156 Ibid.
157 Ibid.
158 Ibid.
159 Ibid.
160 Ibid.
161 Luo, Fusang liangyue ji, in Xuetang zishu, 86.
162 Zhang Zhidong, Quanxue pian [Exhortation to study], ed. Li Zhongxing (1898; repr.
Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1998), 90.
163 Chen, Luo Zhenyu zhuan, 61.
164 “Luo Zhenyu shi shishi” [Luo Zhenyu had passed away], Shengjing shibao (June 20,
1940): 1.
165 Johnathan Henshaw, Craig A. Smith, and Norman Smith, eds., Translating the
Occupation: The Japanese Invasion of China, 1931–45 (Vancouver: University of British
Columbia Press, 2021), 4.
4 Ambivalent Images of Treason and
Heroism Surrounding Manchukuo’s
Two Military Leaders
The Ideals of Zhang Jinghui and Ma Zhanshan

The Japanese occupiers were fueled by a curious and self-deluding mixture of

imperialistic opportunism and pan-Asian idealism. This meant that they were
wedded emotionally, as well as pragmatically, to the idea that their new conquest
should appear to include widespread cooperation from the local Chinese. Thus,
although the Japanese aimed to create a whole new structure at the “national” level
in their newly created state of Manchukuo, at the local level they relied heavily on
the agencies they had inherited from the Zhang Xueliang period.
Rana Mitter, The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in
Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 101.
Local Chinese cooperation contributed to the Japanese Kantō Army’s relatively
smooth occupation of Manchuria in 1931 and 1932. Historian Rana Mitter notes
that the army used Manchuria’s local agencies “from the Zhang Xueliang period”
of 1928–1931, to consolidate the new Manchukuo state while, at least by 1933,
designing a new national system at the top. The presence of former officials of
warlord Manchuria greatly helped local agencies resume operation shortly after
the Manchurian Incident of 1931; the Japanese could hardly utilize those agencies
without the cooperation of those Chinese officials at the top. Among the warlord
officials who cooperated with the Japanese, military leaders Zhang Jinghui (1872–
1959) and Ma Zhanshan (1885–1950) were central figures in the restoration of
order in Heilongjiang province in the winter of 1931. The two respectively headed
the new Manchukuo departments of the Privy Council (Ch: Canyi fu; Jp: Sangi fu)
and Military Affairs (Ch: Junzheng bu; Jp: Gunsei bu).
Existing Chinese-, Japanese-, and English-language studies of Manchukuo have
explored the significance of Chinese military cooperation in the fall of Manchuria
to Japanese hands in 1931 and 1932, but they rarely extend the analysis to the
national ideals of those military figures who served in the state of Manchukuo.
Relevant studies on Zhang Jinghui and Ma Zhanshan as Manchukuo officials in
Japanese and English historiography are scarce, and Chinese studies to date tend to
criticize the former’s surrender to the Japanese and consider the latter an icon of
anti-Japan heroes, regardless of Ma’s cooperation with the Japanese between
December 1931 and April 1932.
Analyzing the ideals of Zhang and Ma, two representative military figures of
warlord Manchuria, helps reveal that Manchukuo’s top-level Chinese-speaking

DOI: 10.4324/9781003357773-5
110 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
officialdom in the early 1930s was not a mere carnival of those who missed the
monarchy and who were unsatisfied with the Republic of China (ROC) govern-
ment or the warlord regime of Zhang Xueliang (1901–2001). Both figures had
inextricable connections with Zhang Xueliang and frequently interacted with
the Nationalist Nanjing government of Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975).
Examining the Chinese officialdom of Japanese-occupied south China between
1937 and 1945, Historian Lu Jiu-jung notes that “a number of leading collabo-
rationists” justified their cooperation with the Japanese by highlighting their
intention “to safeguard the interests of the abandoned people” after the retreat of
the Nationalist government to Chongqing in November 1937 in the postwar
era, to avoid legal judgment.1 The dilemma facing Zhang and Ma in 1931 was
similar to those of the Nationalist officials in south China under Japanese occu-
pation after 1937, but their lingering interactions with Zhang Xueliang and
Chiang Kai-shek after the Manchurian Incident perhaps made their cases excep-
tionally conspicuous compared to the majority of Chinese wartime “collabora-
tors.” Centering the ideals of Zhang Jinghui and Ma Zhanshan in the Manchukuo
state, this chapter on military leaders places both figures’ calculations in the larger
ideological pool of Manchukuo’s foundation to complicate the often-overlooked
interactions between the country’s Chinese leaders and Japanese decision-makers
in the early 1930s.

A Pawn of the ROC and the Japanese: Manchukuo’s Second

Prime Minister Zhang Jinghui
Serving as the second prime minister of Manchukuo between 1935 and 1945,
Zhang Jinghui (Figure 4.1) is typically remembered as a repulsive figure in China
today. As a trusted aide under the former warlord Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928),
Zhang Jinghui was an influential military and political figure in Manchuria
between the 1910s and the 1920s. He became the president of the Military Senate
(Junshi canyi yuan) of the ROC and a member of the Central Political Council
(Zhongyang zhengzhi huiyi) in May 1931, gaining the trust of Chiang Kai-shek.2
Following the Manchurian Incident, Zhang cooperated with the Japanese Kantō
Army and became the head of Manchukuo’s Privy Council in March 1932.3 In
May 1935, Zhang inherited the position of Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938) and served
as Manchukuo’s prime minister until the regime’s collapse in August 1945. His
wife Xu Zhiqing (unknown d.) was the honorary president of the Manchukuo
Female National Defense League (Manzhou guofang furen hui; est. 1938), an organ-
ization that aimed to “promote the thoughts of national defense” among the
female populations of Manchukuo.4 His son Zhang Mengshi (1922–2014) was an
underground communist member who helped the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) gather Japanese military intelligence in Manchukuo in the early 1940s.5
After Manchukuo’s collapse, the Soviets captured Jinghui and Mengshi and
detained them in Siberia until 1950, when the Soviets repatriated them to the
People’s Republic of China (PRC). There, Zhang escaped the death penalty argu-
ably because he was, in the eyes of CCP cadres, too important to execute like
Emperor Aixin-Jueluo Puyi (1906–1967) and because his son was a CCP member.
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 111

Figure 4.1 Zhang Jinghui as Manchukuo’s prime minister, November 1937.

Source: Manshūkoku Sōmuchō, ed., Kokumu sōri hō Nichi kinen shashinjō [Memorializing photo collec-
tion of the prime minister’s visit to Japan], unpublished photo collection, 1937, National Diet Library
of Japan, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/3451539.

Spending the rest of his life in the Fushun War Criminal Prison (Fushun zhanfan
guanlisuo), Zhang died on January 11, 1959, from arteriosclerosis, cardiopulmo-
nary disease, and heart failure.6
PRC historians in the 1980s and the 1990s often portray Zhang as a
power-hungry individual who tried to flatter the Japanese occupiers in Manchukuo
to fulfill his own political ambition; relevant studies on him after the 2000s are
scarce. During his imprisonment in Fushun, Zhang produced a written confes-
sion. This is one of the few existing sources by him arguably because his reading
and writing abilities were poor before becoming the prime minister in May 1935
or because the PRC state has yet to declassify Zhang’s writings—if they exist.7
Some PRC historians consider Zhang’s confession a self-serving denial of any
responsibility for his past actions.8 The reasons for this are twofold. First, unlike
Puyi who pretentiously repented his “sinful” past in his lengthy confessions and
memoir, Zhang’s account was more like a resume that briefly summarized his
experiences between 1931 and 1945. Second, Zhang refrained from detailed dis-
cussion of his tenure as the Manchukuo prime minister by claiming that he was
not able to recollect details.9 Although Zhang left few materials, his reputation in
the warlord regime of Zhang Xueliang and prime ministership in Manchukuo
guaranteed him a broad social circle among the Chinese and Japanese officials of
Manchukuo. Many who interacted with Zhang recollected their stories on paper
in the postwar era; this makes the exploration of Zhang’s ideals in the early years
of Manchukuo a feasible task.
112 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
Using sources in both Chinese and Japanese, such as news reports, personal
monographs, and memoirs, this section complicates the tense situation surround-
ing Zhang when he decided to side with the Japanese in the winter of 1931,
arguing that the key to interpreting Zhang’s passiveness in Manchukuo lies in his
initial surrender. Instead of voluntarily assisting the Japanese due to personal ambi-
tions, existing clues reveal that the ROC government played a key role in urging
Zhang to stay in Manchuria. As a proxy of Zhang Xueliang and Chiang Kai-shek
in Manchuria after the Japanese occupation, Zhang Jinghui’s entrusted mission was
to preserve the region’s stability with his personal authority until the ROC gov-
ernment reclaimed it from Japan; this contradicted his own decision of leaving
Manchuria. Exploiting his influence and lack of education, Japanese decision-
makers in the Kantō Army and the General Affairs Board used Zhang to advance
Japanese supervision of Manchukuo after they abandoned the former prime min-
ister Zheng Xiaoxu in May 1935. As a nominal leader who could not act based on
his own decisions, Zhang’s traitorous image still haunts the studies of Manchukuo
in the PRC today.

Peace as Priority: Zhang’s Early Life

Zhang Jinghui was born in June 1872 in a small town of Taian county named
Bajiaotai in Fengtian province; he experienced only one year of formal education
in a private academy in his lifetime.10 Recent studies of warlord Manchuria suggest
that Zhang owned a tofu store in his hometown at an early age.11 Due to the
absence of Manchurian police forces in the late Qing era, especially after the Sino-
Japanese War of 1894–1895 and the fall of Beijing to international forces in 1900,
bandit uprisings were ubiquitous across southern Manchuria. Following the end of
the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Zhang organized a mounted order maintenance
group (baoxian dui) in Bajiaotai with 180 militias, to protect his hometown and
surrounding villages from bandit assault.12 Around 1901, Zhang met his future
superior and sworn brother Zhang Zuolin, and they joined the Qing government
with their men in 1902.13 In 1913, Zhang Jinghui became a regimental com-
mander of the ROC 27th Army Division under the leadership of Fengtian’s pro-
vincial leader Zhao Erxun (1844–1927), and in 1920, Zhang became the provincial
leader of Chahaer province (part of the present-day Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region) and the commander in chief of Zhang Zuolin’s Fengtian Army.14 Together
with Zhang Zuoxiang (1881–1949), these three unrelated Zhangs greatly influ-
enced Manchuria’s political and military terrains throughout the 1910s and 1920s.
Zhang Jinghui supported the maintenance of Manchuria’s status quo. He pre-
vented Zhang Zuolin from expanding into northern China in 1922, which made
the latter dismiss him from the Fengtian clique for two years until 1924, when
Zhang Zuolin, who took control of the central government of the ROC in
Beijing, hired him again and made him the chief of the army (Lujun zongzhang) in
1927.15 After Zhang Zuolin’s assassination in 1928, Zhang Jinghui became admin-
istrator of the Harbin Eastern Provincial Special District (Haerbin dongsheng
tebiequ)—the surrounding territories of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER)—
responsible for maintaining Chinese administration of the territories.16 During
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 113
Zhang’s tenure in Harbin, the Soviet Union invaded Heilongjiang province in
1929 due to sovereign disputes over the CER. Zhang assisted the Chinese manager
of the CER in negotiating peace with the Soviets by sending delegate Cai
Yunsheng (1881–1959), whom Zheng Xiaoxu recommended should become the
next prime minister of Manchukuo in May 1935 to settle the conflict.17 When
local anti-Japan sentiment evolved due to Sino-Korean farmland disputes during
the Wanbaoshan Incident in July 1931, Zhang Jinghui followed the order of Zhang
Xueliang and outlawed anti-Japan activities in Harbin, encouraging Chinese peo-
ple to wait for the ROC government to negotiate with Japan.18 Zhang’s ephemeral
dismissal between 1922 and 1924 perhaps convinced him of the powerless nature
of a deputy leader in front of a genuine leader; it might also have made Zhang
believe that obedience would help him survive politically. Observing Zhang’s early
careers also illuminates the ways in which Zhang solved problems. He did not like
to generate new problems; rather, he strove to quell problems after their occur-
rence without caring about troublesome details. This is arguably why Komai
Tokuzō (1885–1961) commented in his 1952 memoir that Zhang “was a figure
who did not particularly care about things.”19

Facing Japanese: Zhang and the Manchurian Incident

Zhang stayed in Fengtian when the Kantō Army attacked the city on the evening
of September 18, 1931. According to his confession, the Japanese monitored his
residence after entering the city the next day, and Kantō Army staff Itagaki Seishirō
(1885–1948) wished him to restore Heilongjiang’s order and protect local Japanese
residents in Harbin.20 Accepting Itagaki’s request, Zhang managed to return to
Harbin on September 21. There Zhang “organized an extra police corps to main-
tain [Harbin’s] order with the assistance of local police forces, to prevent the Kantō
Army from invading northern Manchuria,” according to his own account.21 The
next day, on September 22, key decision-makers from the Kantō Army, like Itagaki
Seishirō and Ishiwara Kanji (1889–1949), in a meeting at the Fengtian Yamato
Hotel decided to create a new state of Manchuria and Mongolia and put Zhang’s
name on the list of the country’s potential officials.22 Although Zhang rarely dealt
with Japanese issues in the 1910s and the 1920s, Japanese intelligence agencies
must have long been monitoring his activities due to an understanding of his sig-
nificance to warlord Manchuria, so the Kantō Army could surround him during
his temporary stay in Fengtian. Given Zhang Xueliang’s non-resistant attitude to
the Japanese attack on Fengtian and his urging of local cities and counties to “pre-
serve regional order with all efforts and stay calm” in a telegram to Zhang Jinghui
on September 20, the latter had few options besides cooperating with the Japanese.23
Different from people like Zheng Xiaoxu and Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (1884–1952)
who wanted to create a new state of Manchuria, Zhang opposed Manchuria’s
independence. Moreover, his service in Manchukuo was more linked with the
arrangements of Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang Xueliang than his own. Zhang stated
in his written confession that he made two informants report the situation of
Harbin to Zhang Xueliang on September 21 and “invited him to provide a solu-
tion quickly.” Zhang Xueliang in reply told the informants to let Zhang Jinghui
114 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
“maintain [northern Manchuria’s] present status and wait for the central govern-
ment [of the ROC] to solve” Manchuria’s problem.24 In his telegram to Zhang
Jinghui on October 2, Zhang Xueliang further urged the former to protect the
Japanese residents in Harbin because he recently heard that the League of Nations
already agreed to urge the Kantō Army to retreat from Manchuria within two
weeks. Hence, he did not want to “generate new problems and provide [the
League] with an excuse to withdraw that decision.”25 Zhang Xueliang’s order con-
tradicted the dilemma facing Zhang Jinghui, as the Japanese in October already
openly consulted with him on the creation of a new Manchurian state. To down-
play the imperativeness of Manchuria’s independence, Zhang often responded that
“the creation of a state in Manchuria is a huge goal that will not be easily achieved.”
Refuting Komai Tokuzō’s suggestion of severing Manchuria from the ROC, for
instance, Zhang said, “Your words always resemble a daydream.”26
Feeling tired of following Zhang Xueliang’s order while dealing with the
Japanese at the same time, Zhang Jinghui planned to leave Manchuria, but both
Zhang Xueliang and Chiang Kai-shek sent informants to prevent his departure. Yu
Jingtao (1899–1986), a Manchukuo official and Zhang Jinghui’s sworn son,
recalled that Zhang planned to settle in Tianjin after the Manchurian Incident
because he had investments in the city, but both Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang
Xueliang sent an informant to Harbin and told him to stay, writing,

Chiang Kai-shek’s deputy officer Sun [first name not known] snuck into the
building of Harbin’s Special District official and met Zhang Jinghui, telling
him to stay there because the [ROC] government would think of a solution.
After Chiang’s deputy officer left, Zhang Xueliang’s informant met Zhang
Jinghui and encouraged him to support Chiang’s plan and maintain local
order because [Xueliang’s] Northeastern troops had retreated [from
Manchuria]. … That informant carried a letter from Zhang Xueliang, and
one sentence read, “It is no good to let others take your position.” Zhang
Jinghui accepted this order. He never hid his thoughts in front of me; that is
why he told me this story later.27

Although the recollection lacks a date because Yu did not witness it personally, its
content is credible, as the two Zhangs often had telegram communications in late
1931. In his telegram to Zhang Jinghui on November 18, 1931, for example, Zhang
Xueliang depicted the Heilongjiang troops of Ma Zhanshan as “our army” and the
Kantō Army as “Japanese army,” which signifies his treatment of Zhang Jinghui as
an ally, not a traitor.28 Nonetheless, Zhang Jinghui likely had no clear objectives
because neither Zhang Xueliang nor Chiang Kai-shek clarified his mission other
than telling him to stay in Manchuria and wait for the ROC to reclaim the region.
Frustrated after noting Zheng Xiaoxu’s rise to the prime minister of Manchukuo
in March 1932, Zhang planned again to leave Manchuria. Yu Jingtao wrote,

Zheng Xiaoxu became the Prime Minister of bogus Manchukuo because his
son Zheng Chui [1887–1933] had close relations with the Japanese. The
Japanese could only rely on the two Zhengs [in 1932], otherwise they would
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 115
not have any bases [of support] at the local level. … Zhang [Jinghui] wanted
to leave [Manchuria] again because he did not become the prime minister,
but Chiang Kai-shek sent him another informant. This time, the informant
was a tall man, and he told Zhang to stay on behalf of Chiang. He also prom-
ised Zhang that the [ROC] government would have a solution [for Manchuria’s
problem] soon.29

Zhang must have notified Chiang two times of his decision to leave through tele-
gram or other means; otherwise, it is difficult to fill the logical gap in Yu’s recol-
lections. Although Chiang prevented Zhang from leaving Manchuria twice after
noting his intention, Zhang nevertheless realized his ambition of becoming
Manchukuo’s prime minister after the Japanese abandonment of Zheng Xiaoxu in
1935. In the cabinet of Zheng Xiaoxu between March 1932 and May 1935, Zhang
remained silent and hardly made conspicuous contributions to the new state of
Manchukuo.

Endorsing Japanese Decisions: Zhang as the Manchukuo Prime Minister

Succeeding Zheng Xiaoxu as the prime minister of Manchukuo on May 21, 1935,
Zhang Jinghui remained in the position until the country’s collapse in August
1945. Zhang was an ideal candidate for the Japanese regarding the new prime
minister, yet both Puyi and Zheng Xiaoxu had their own preferences. Puyi at the
end of his conversation with the Kantō Army’s commander Minami Jirō (1874–
1955) on May 18, 1935, hinted his desire to appoint Zang Shiyi (1884–1956), the
head of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (Ch: Minzheng bu; Jp: Minsei bu), to become
the next prime minister.30 Zheng in his conversation with Minami on May 14,
1935, recommended the provincial leader of Jiandao, Cai Yunsheng, to succeed his
position because Cai “possesses the ability and the morality of a Prime Minister,”
and Puyi reportedly had “no dissidence” on Zheng’s proposal.31 Minami, however,
rejected Zheng’s suggestion and stated that Cai would not be able to “eradicate the
existing factions in the government of Manchukuo.”32 On May 20, 1935, Minami
proposed three candidates for prime minister in front of Puyi, respectively, Zhang
Jinghui, Zang Shiyi, and Xixia. He reminded Puyi that neither Zang nor Xixia
were appropriate choices because each figure had “their own faction,” and their
qualifications were similar because “both persons have [unique] advantages and
shortcomings.” Thus, Zhang became “the remaining choice among the three fig-
ures.”33 Minami’s rhetoric arguably convinced Puyi, as he agreed to appoint Zhang
the new prime minister of Manchukuo in the end. In other words, Zhang’s rise to
prime ministership owed much to Japanese support.
The exact reasons behind the Japanese promotion of Zhang Jinghui are vague in
government documents, but the writings of central Japanese officials of Manchukuo
reveal many details. Komai Tokuzō described Zhang as a figure who had “vague
principles” and who managed to “keep a normal relationship with both honest and
corrupt officials.” Besides, he had a “deep understanding of Japan-Manchuria rela-
tions and hated communist infiltration” of Manchuria; these reasons made him an
ideal national leader.34 Hoshino Naoki (1892–1978), the director of Manchukuo’s
116 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
General Affairs Board between 1936 and 1940, praised Zhang in his memoir as a
“talented man” with courage who “never felt ashamed of asking others about the
things that he did not know”; for a politician, Zhang “indeed had talents.”35
Furumi Tadayuki (1900–1983), the vice director of the General Affairs Board
between 1941 and 1945, believed that Zhang “did not possess the [rude] person-
ality of a warlord regardless of his erstwhile position as an important figure in the
warlord regime” of Zhang Zuolin and Zhang Xueliang. Regardless of the occa-
sion, Zhang “always maintained a leisurely attitude and never revealed any confu-
sion or anxiety” on his face.36 Indeed, unlike Zheng Xiaoxu who had many
political rivals in Manchukuo, existing sources reveal little about any apparent rival
of Zhang Jinghui. As a renowned figure who originated in Manchuria and who
never openly challenged Japanese decisions, the Kantō Army could not secure a
better target to advance Japanese supervision of Manchukuo after its abandonment
of former prime minister Zheng in 1935.
Zhang Jinghui arguably comprehended the hidden messages behind the Kantō
Army’s support for his prime ministership. He was convinced that dissidence
would quickly end one’s political career in Manchukuo after witnessing the down-
fall of Zheng Xiaoxu, while arguably recalling his own dismissal in 1922, thus
preventing Yu Jingtao from challenging the Japanese:

Forget about this so-called prime minister position. They [Japanese] just want
to do whatever they want in the name of us. You do not need to waste your
time by striving for your rightful power because they do not trust us by any
means. Do not turn your passion against you in the end. Let them do what
they want to do.37

Due to this pessimistic view of Japanese presence, in addition to obeying Chiang

Kai-shek’s order of maintaining the situation of Manchuria, Zhang opted to care-
fully maintain his nominal leadership in Manchukuo for ten years. On the day of
his inauguration on May 21, 1935, for instance, Zhang stated his loyalty to
Manchukuo and Japan to Minami Jirō, saying, “I serve the emperor of Manchukuo,
but I simultaneously serve the emperor of Japan too.”38 Zhang maintained the
image of his cooperative attitude with the Japanese by endorsing virtually all
Japanese-made national policies. The recollection of Furumi Tadayuki supports
this point:

In November of the sixteenth year of Shōwa [1941], I became the vice direc-
tor of the General Affairs Board. Since then, I was responsible for explaining
to the Prime Minister the content of the laws and other government-related
outlines or proposals that required his approval. When I brought my docu-
ments to the office of the Prime Minister and started my explanation under
the translation of [Zhang’s] secretary Matsumoto Masuo, the Prime Minister
always listened with a sleepy and leisurely posture. … After I finished my
explanation, the Prime Minister would then open his eyes and face towards
my direction with the word alright [hao’a], to approve my proposals.39
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 117
Because Zhang almost never rejected Japanese decisions, he received a nickname,
“Mr. Alright” (haohao xiansheng), among the officials of Manchukuo.40 Such a
careless attitude nevertheless made many contemporary Japanese who worked
with Zhang in the era of Manchukuo, including Hoshino and Furumi, positively
evaluate Zhang in their postwar memoirs. Furumi considered Zhang and Zang
Shiyi “great men” of contemporary China who might “direct Sino-Japanese rela-
tions in a different direction” if Manchukuo “could maintain its republican polity”
under both figures’ guidance rather than becoming an empire.41
Perhaps those civil officials who equated Japanese assistance with Manchukuo’s
modernization indeed required a leader on the Chinese side like Zhang who could
execute Japanese policies without modification or resistance. Ironically, key deci-
sion-makers in the Kantō Army who wanted to convert Manchuria into the ter-
ritory of Japan, like Itagaki Seishirō, did not necessarily hold similar ideas, and
following Japanese policies for Zhang was more of a calculated means to survive in
a regime that he did not support than a comprehension of Japanese prospects.
Scholar Nakata Seiichi also agrees that Zhang’s seemingly obedient attitude in
Manchukuo was a survival strategy that he grasped during his “decades’ struggle in
the world of power and tricks.”42 The above analysis could explain why Zhang
only remembered ten events during his tenure as the prime minister of Manchukuo
when he wrote his confession in the prison of Fushun in 1954.43 Dawdling his
time in the position of prime minister for ten years, Zhang’s awaited moment
finally arrived in the summer of 1945. At that moment, Zhang must have not
predicted experiencing a miserable later life as a war captive who would face end-
less moral criticisms from the Chinese to this day.

From Prisoner to Traitor: Zhang Jinghui during the Collapse of Manchukuo

and Beyond
On August 10, 1945, Zhang left Xinjing and went to the border province of
Tonghua due to the Soviet invasion. Three days later, Puyi and many remaining
senior officials of Manchukuo in Xinjing also retreated to the province. The
Japanese chose Tonghua as their last stronghold of resistance because they had
reportedly built an underground fortress there, and they even planned to relocate
Emperor Hirohito there if American troops invaded the home islands of Japan.44
However, Hirohito declared Japan’s surrender on August 15 before the American
invasion.
In the evening of August 17, in Tonghua, the Manchukuo Privy Council held
its last meeting at a “poorly constructed cafeteria” of a local mining company and
approved the disintegration of Manchukuo and the abdication of Puyi at one
o’clock on August 18.45 After the abdication, Puyi intended to head south to
Fengtian and then to Japan via airplane, while Zhang and Zang Shiyi chose to
leave Puyi and return to Xinjing.46 On August 20, in Xinjing, the two men organ-
ized a provisional order maintenance committee to maintain Chinese governance
of the city under Soviet occupation. According to the 1954 confession of Yu
Jingtao, the first thing that Zhang did afterward was to “request the Chongqing
118 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
government to reclaim [Manchuria] in broadcast.”47 Assisting Zhang in governing
Xinjing, Yu Jingtao, who then served as the city’s mayor, planned to visit Chiang
Kai-shek in Chongqing and report to him Manchuria’s situation to assist the ROC
in governing the region.48 At that moment, Zhang arguably had little sense of guilt
at heart, as he did not try to betray the leadership of Chiang in the past eight years
of the Japanese invasion of China proper. In September 1937, for example, Zhang
implicitly prevented the Japanese army from occupying south China. He warned
the Kantō Army commander Ueda Kenkichi (1875–1962) that “the heart of the
people south of the Yangzi River is extremely cunning,” which differed from the
“native submissive peasants of Manchuria,” hinting to Ueda the difficulty of gov-
erning south China with Japanese forces.49 Thus, in August 1945, Zhang optimis-
tically invited ROC troops to reenter Manchuria and expected to revive ROC
administration of the region.
Zhang nevertheless miscalculated the situation of Manchuria and his own safety
under Soviet occupation. Soviet atrocities in Manchuria between 1945 and 1946
is a topic that many English and Japanese studies have explored in detail. Zhang’s
fate was merely slightly better than the majority of those Chinese and Japanese in
Manchuria who fell victim to Soviet persecution, as the Soviets snatched the
power of governance in Xinjing from his hands on August 22, 1945, and arrested
him a week later on August 31, while Yu Jingtao also suffered Soviet imprison-
ment on August 27.50 Unable to stay in Manchuria until the arrival of ROC
troops, Zhang and Yu became war captives of the Soviet Union and suffered
imprisonment in Siberia for five years with many former Chinese and Japanese
officials of Manchukuo, such as Puyi, Zang Shiyi, and Furumi Tadayuki.
Regardless of Japan’s decade-long promotion of the so-called Japanese and East
Asian moralities in Manchukuo, the country hardly secured the hearts of war-
lord-era Chinese officials. Disappointedly observing their handling of Manchuria’s
political affairs in the name of the Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek “since the
next day after the war ended” in August 1945, a former Japanese bureaucrat of
Manchukuo commented in 1950 that the country’s Chinese leaders finally “took
off the mask that they wore” since 1932.51 Indeed, Zhang Jinghui’s son Zhang
Mengshi recalled that “except for Puyi, the question that Manchukuo’s [Chinese]
war captives in the Soviet Union cared about the most was [when] they could
return to China, as the majority of them had connections with high-ranking
Nationalist officials.” Thus, they believed that they would not only “escape the
death penalty” but also “become [ROC] officials” if they could return to China.52
Puyi in his 1964 memoir told a similar story:

Several days after my arrival at Chita [in Siberia], bogus officials like Zhang
Jinghui, Zang Shiyi, and Xixia also arrived. In the next day, Zhang, Zang, and
Xixia visited me in my living place. I initially thought they were here to greet
me, but they were here to ask me a favor. Zhang Jinghui said, “We hear that
you want to stay in the Soviet Union, but our family members are all in the
Northeast and require our support. Moreover, we still have some unfinished
works to handle there, so could you please let the Soviets send us back to the
Northeast quickly.”
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 119
These men sorrowfully begged me after I refused their request, pleading, “This is
the decision of everyone else; they sent us here to convince your highness. Who
else could help us other than your highness”?53
The “unfinished works” in Zhang’s words likely referred to the ROC’s reclaim-
ing of Manchuria. The reason behind Puyi’s reluctance to return to China is
obvious based on the analysis of Chapter 2, as the ROC might execute him if it
grasped enough evidence of his deals with the Japanese in the era of Manchukuo.
For Zhang, however, his primary goal was to report to Chiang Kai-shek about
Manchuria’s situation in the past 14 years while reviving ROC governance there.
The political situation of Northeast Asia in the late 1940s nevertheless disrupted
Zhang’s plans, as CCP forces flooded into Manchuria from China proper after
Japan’s surrender and quickly controlled many urban regions with the support of
the Soviet Union and Manchukuo-era underground communist organizations,
thereby expelling the laggard ROC forces from the region in the following three
years after 1945.54 When Zhang returned to China in 1950, the ROC government
had already retreated to Taiwan.
Answering the question of why Zhang Jinghui did not elaborate on his obedience
to the orders of Chiang and Zhang Xueliang in 1931 during his imprisonment in
Fushun between 1950 and 1959 could complete the puzzle of his close relationship
with the ROC. PRC leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976) during his visit to the Soviet
Union in 1949 and 1950 requested the country’s foreign minister to extend the date
of the repatriation of Manchukuo’s captives because “the Nationalist war captives
during the [Chinese] Civil War [of 1945–1949] are the primary target of hatred for
the Chinese at present.” For Mao, the CCP should prosecute “the war criminals of
the Civil War” first, to “pacify the anger of the [Chinese] people” and then “deal
with Manchurian and Japanese war criminals.”55 Mao’s words reveal that China’s
political environment in the early 1950s made the followers of Chiang Kai-shek
more unforgivable than those who used to serve in Manchukuo. Zhang Jinghui’s
decades-long survival as a nominal leader under the governance of different individ-
uals owed much to his trained ability in sensing and adapting to the often-shifting
political environment of his time. It is therefore not difficult to understand his silence
on the orders of Chiang and Zhang Xueliang. Nonetheless, Zhang Jinghui was still
hardly able to hide his dissatisfaction toward both figures in front of Yu Jingtao
before death in prison, lamenting, “They told me to hold on and promised me that
they had a solution [to Manchuria’s problem]. Now I have become a national traitor
without even knowing its content. Who could tell me what their solution is”?56
Perhaps Zhang’s emotions were on the verge of collapse when making that
complaint. Associating his status as a reviled traitor with his obedience to the
orders of Chiang and Zhang Xueliang, he must have died with endless disappoint-
ment in 1959. Following ROC orders, Zhang Jinghui perhaps does not deserve
such an ironic ending, yet the tensions in mainland China in the late 1940s and the
early 1950s shaped his later life. Although Zhang died as an icon of traitors, China’s
military clashes in the 1930s and the 1940s, which involved the ROC, the CCP,
Japan, and the Soviet Union, did not always generate tragic fates for Chinese
officials. As the next section will suggest, they also shaped the reputation of Ma
Zhanshan as an icon of anti-Japan heroism to this day.
120 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
Formation of an Anti-Japan Hero: Ma Zhanshan in the Era
of Manchukuo
Ma Zhanshan (Figure 4.2) is a relatively famous Chinese figure among the popula-
tion of the PRC today. He gained his reputation through intermittent resistance
against the Japanese invasion of China between 1931 and 1945. Unlike other gov-
ernment leaders of Manchukuo, Ma’s transient surrender to the Kantō Army
between December 1931 and April 1932 did not erase his anti-Japan image in
popular Chinese memory. Many PRC historians recognize Ma as a patriotic gen-
eral who “boosted Chinese people’s morale and frustrated the Japanese invaders” in
the winter of 1931 and conduct research on Ma’s five-month surrender based on
the premise of his unwavering anti-Japan determination.57 Expediency indeed par-
tially explains Ma’s cooperation with the Japanese, but it hardly answers many of the
questions behind his defection from Manchukuo. For example, it cannot reasona-
bly answer why Ma defected at a time when Japanese military power in the country
became stronger. Ma’s escape from Manchuria to the Soviet Union and detour to
Shanghai from Europe, India, and Southeast Asia between December 1932 and
June 1933 also hardly convinces one that his defection was a premeditated plan.
Although his ideological identification with the ROC and antipathy toward the

Figure 4.2 Ma Zhanshan in 1932.

Source: June 11, 1932, Taidong ribao [Eastern Daily]: 1.
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 121
Japanese invasion of Manchuria requires little doubt, exploring the thoughts of Ma
as a Manchukuo official helps one further realize the significance of intertwined
Sino-Japanese national ideals to the formation of Manchukuo’s early politics.
This section reexamines Ma’s resistance against the Japanese invasion, his service
in the Manchukuo government, and his later defection from Manchukuo in 1931
and 1932, using contemporary news reports, others’ diaries, and recollections in
both Chinese and Japanese. It suggests that Ma deemed both national dignity and
personal power important during his service in Manchukuo and that he might
have remained in Manchukuo if he did not face simultaneous pressures from inside
the Manchukuo government and from public opinion in the ROC. Ma’s surrender
to the Japanese in the winter of 1931 was not overly expedient, and many have
exaggerated his anti-Japan determination. Demystifying Ma’s heroic image helps
one better understand the context within which Ma made his calculated choices
in front of the powerful rival Japan in the early 1930s.

An Ordinary Past: Ma’s Early Life

Ma Zhanshan was born into a peasant family in 1885 in Huaide prefecture,
Fengtian province (present-day Jilin province).58 According to his daughter, Ma
served as a herdsman for a local landlord at the age of 7 due to his family’s financial
burdens, and he became a bandit at 18 reportedly due to landlord repression.59
Available sources reveal no evidence of Ma’s education before 1932, and his col-
leagues in Manchukuo, like Zheng Xiaoxu and Komai Tokuzō, claimed that Ma
was illiterate.60 Hoshino Naoki revealed that Ma could not even write his own
name, and he always drew a horse-shaped graffito when signing documents in the
era of Manchukuo because “Ma” means horse; this became a joke among his
Chinese-speaking colleagues.61 It is therefore not surprising that Ma produced no
written materials in Manchukuo.
Such a figure received little attention from official records in China before his
resistance to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the winter of 1931, making the
tracing of Ma’s early life and thoughts a difficult task. Local news coverage in
Manchuria highlighted this point in December 1931: “General Ma Zhanshan
quickly becomes a hero of northern Manchuria and a famed individual in the
globe, but few people know his birthplace and past experiences.”62 Ma’s nephew
recalled that Ma joined the Qing government with his clique after the Russo-
Japanese War in 1905 and began to serve as a military officer in 1908 under the
leadership of warlord Wu Junsheng (1863–1928), a trusted aide of Zhang Zuolin.63
Rana Mitter suggests that Ma went to Heilongjiang province in 1927 and served
as the garrison commander of Heihe—a city on the Soviet border—when the
Manchurian Incident broke out.64 The Japanese unexpectedly provided Ma with
an opportunity to spread his fame across China and the globe in 1931.

A Hopeless Struggle: Ma and the Battle of Nenjiang Bridge

Ma’s popularity in China today is owed to his resistance against the Kantō Army
in Heilongjiang province in the winter of 1931. On October 12, 1931, Wan Fulin
122 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
(1880–1951), the governor of Heilongjiang, appointed Ma, whose position then
was the commander of the province’s third defense brigade, acting provincial
leader of Heilongjiang in Beijing.65 Zhang Xueliang’s use of the term “acting
provincial chairman of Heilongjiang” (Heilongjiang sheng daili zhuxi) in his telegram
to Zhang Jinghui and Ma on October 20, 1931, signified his official endorsement
of Ma’s inauguration.66
As the provisional leader of Heilongjiang and the deputy commander of the
Frontier Defense Army of the Three Eastern Provinces (Dong sansheng bianfang jun),
Ma defeated the invading troops of Zhang Haipeng (1868–1951), a warlord at the
Inner Mongolian border town of Taonan who surrendered to the Kantō Army in
late September 1931, within three days between October 13 and 16 near the city
of Qiqihar.67 Knowing the Kantō Army to be Zhang Haipeng’s backer, Ma blocked
Qiqihar’s southern entrance, Nenjiang (Nonni River), by ordering his men to
destroy three of the five railway bridges on the river after expelling Zhang’s troops
on October 16.68 According to Komai Tokuzō, the Nenjiang Bridge was part of a
Japanese-operated Taoang Railway that “occasionally transported the products of
northern Manchuria” to the south, which required Japanese maintenance.69
However, five Japanese railway engineers faced the resistance of Ma’s soldiers on
October 20 when they came to investigate the destroyed bridges, as Ma’s soldiers
“opened fire from 150 meters away, to obstruct” those engineers.70 Historian
Huang Zijin notes that the Kantō Army initially intended to use the influence of
Zhang Jinghui to pacify the warlords of Heilongjiang after the Manchurian Incident
and expected Fengtian to become a major battleground.71 Ma’s resistance neverthe-
less generated new problems for the army and motivated its decision-makers to
alter their plan in Heilongjiang from pacification to repression.
The clash between Ma’s Heilongjiang Army and the Japanese Kantō Army near
the destroyed Nenjiang Bridge started on November 4, 1931. As for the reasons
for the war’s breakout, Chinese and Japanese sources have different explanations.
Ma’s deputy commander Xie Ke (1891–1974), a graduate of Hitotsubashi
University in Japan who served as Ma’s interpreter during the former’s negotiation
with the Japanese in December 1931, claimed that the Japanese caused the conflict
by bombarding Ma’s strongholds near the bridge and injuring 16 Chinese soldiers
on November 3, and Ma decided to fight back on the next day due to further
Japanese assault, stating,

The Japanese army attacked our defense zone [on November 4] and captured
three soldiers. … Obviously, their action was an outright provocation. At
noon, the Japanese army crossed the Nenjiang and attacked the left wing of
our troops. Their five bombers killed and injured dozens of our soldiers
besides destroying the Daxing railway station. By this point, our troops were
no longer able to tolerate Japanese aggression and struck back under the lead-
ership of Ma Zhanshan, thereby forcing the Japanese to retreat.72

Making a time line of Japanese aggression, Xie, in the quoted recollection, hints
that Ma tried to stay rational facing the Japanese assault, but continued Japanese
advances forced Ma to fight back. Kantō Army staff, Katakura Tadashi
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 123
(1898–1991), in his diary recorded the outbreak of the war from another angle.
His notes on November 5, 1931, reveal that Ma’s troops fired at the Kantō Army’s
investigation unit in the evening of November 2 near the Nenjiang Bridge and
that Ma’s troops assaulted the army’s seventh squadron, whose mission was to
escort the Japanese repair team, on the evening of the next day.73 Itagaki Seishirō
considered Ma’s actions “extremely despicable and hostile activities that betrayed
the provisions of international law” and convinced the army’s chief of staff, Miyake
Mitsuharu (1881–1945), to crash the Heilongjiang regime with this opportunity.74
Kantō Army commander Honjō Shigeru (1876–1945) in his diary on November
4 wrote that the army began to attack Ma’s troops in the afternoon of that day, to
protect the repair team from potential Chinese assault, as he refused to believe that
“the Chinese side had no intention of resistance.”75 Based on the narratives of the
two sides, fear of Japanese invasion of Heilongjiang province motivated Ma to
prevent the Japanese from repairing the Nenjiang Bridge through violent means,
yet this decision ironically speeded up the fall of Heilongjiang into the hands of the
Kantō Army.
Fighting the Japanese was not an easy task for Ma, as the Kantō Army was supe-
rior to Ma’s troops in terms of training and equipment. Ma suffered setbacks since
the Battle of Nenjiang Bridge started on November 4, and the Japanese increased
their frequency of attack with the support of artillery barrage and air strikes two
days later. They eventually conquered Ma’s base at 10 pm on November 6, killing
and injuring over 600 Chinese soldiers with a casualty of nearly 200 soldiers by
noon of that day.76 Evaluating the situation, Ma withdrew his troops and retreated
toward the direction of Qiqihar by November 8, and the Kantō Army did not
pursue because it intended to “totally destroy the surrounding enemy troops south
of the CER” first.77 Honjō in his diary wrote that the Kantō Army continued to
attack Ma’s troops near Ang’angxi (a town between the Nenjiang and Qiqihar) in
the next few days and greatly weakened Ma’s army.78
The army then planned to end Ma’s resistance through negotiation. On
November 11, Kantō Army staff, Hayashi Yoshihide (1891–1978), urged Ma
through a letter to resign from provincial leadership and withdraw his troops from
Qiqihar.79 Ma ignored Hayashi, which made Honjō on November 14 send Ma a
three-article ultimatum, stating,

The Heilongjiang Army should retreat to the north of Qiqihar; the troops in
Ang’angxi must return to their original base.
Ma should promise not to send troops to the regions south of the CER in
the future.
The Heilongjiang Army must not obstruct the operation of the Taoang
Railway and its bureau in any ways, otherwise the Imperial Army of Japan will
resort to direct and effective means, to cope with the situation.
In the following ten days of November 15 if Ma could follow these articles,
the Japanese army will retreat [from Heilongjiang].80

The Kantō Army received no response from Ma by the deadline of noon on November
16 and thus decided on the same day to attack Qiqihar from November 18.81
124 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
Nonetheless, Ma regretted his silence and told the army that he “fully accepts the
articles of Japan’s ultimatum” through Zhang Jinghui on the evening of November
16. Ishiwara Kanji valued Ma’s promise and encouraged the army to stop its attack,
but people like Itagaki Seishirō and Katakura Tadashi insisted on attacking Ma
because, for them, “negotiation cannot guarantee a predictable and beneficial end”
for Japan.82 Honjō agreed with the latter and ordered the army to continue its
attack because he deemed Ma’s sudden change of decision a “top-class strategy of
Chinese people’s procrastination,” which might gradually weaken Japanese soldiers’
will to fight.83 In the end, the Battle of Nenjiang Bridge ended with the fall of
Qiqihar on November 19, and Zhang Jinghui proclaimed Heilongjiang’s inde-
pendence on November 20.84 Ma fled to Hailun, a city northeast of Qiqihar and
Harbin, with his remaining soldiers after defeat, unable to organize another
resistance.

Antagonist Suppressed Protagonist: Ma’s Calculation and Plight

Many PRC studies associate the Battle of Nenjiang Bridge with the rise of anti-
Japan struggles in Heilongjiang and the anti-Japan will of the Chinese people, yet
to understand Ma’s surrender to the Japanese, it is still necessary to explore the
intention behind Ma’s resistance against the Kantō Army when it occupied both
Fengtian and Jilin provinces. Rana Mitter argues that rather than trying to con-
front the Japanese with his own power, Ma wanted to attract outside support
through his resistance.85 Indeed, Ma stated this in a telegram to the outside world
on November 10, 1931, with the help of a literate official:

The Japanese army’s invasion of northern Manchuria greatly contradicts its

initial proclamation. As a result, I am obligated to tell both China and the
world about what is happening here, expecting that everyone will realize who
is right and who is wrong. … Although I have noticed the impossibility of
resisting the strong Japanese force some time ago due to the lack of reinforce-
ments…how could people just sit and wait for their own destruction? My
troops will follow the example of the five-hundred warriors of Tian Heng
[?–202 BCE], dying for the sake of our nation before everyone else.86

Tian Heng was the king of Qi who refused to surrender to the Han Dynasty (202
BCE–220 CE) by retreating to a tiny island in the Gulf of Bohai with his remain-
ing 500 soldiers; all of them then committed suicide to demonstrate their determi-
nation to resist the Han. Ma in these lines hinted that his resistance might attract
international attention despite the fact that such a decision might cause his own
destruction.
Ma’s resistance gained the sympathy of the outside world. Domestic news cov-
erage, except those under Japanese censorship in southern Manchuria, supported
Ma. For instance, Harbin’s influential newspaper, Binjiang shibao [Harbin Daily],
published an article extolling Ma’s struggle on November 17, 1931: “To the sol-
diers of China: Ma Zhanshan had rung the bell [of anti-Japan resistance]. Please
stand up and protect China as you all have promised before. Finally, we want to
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 125
shout, long live China’s soldier Ma Zhanshan.”87 Many institutions and individuals
in both China proper and overseas sponsored Ma. For example, the ROC
Department of Communications gave Ma 1,000 yuan for food supply through the
Bank of China on December 10, 1931.88 The Shanghai Conservatory of Music
(Shanghai guoli yinyue zhuanke xuexiao) on December 29 sent Ma 1,089 yuan, and
Chinese diasporas in Southeast Asia sent Ma 1,500 taels of silver through HSBC
Holdings on December 31.89
The secret behind Ma’s reputation among the population of China, in the words
of Archibald Steele, a contemporary Western observer, was his resistance against
the Japanese, as Ma “gave more trouble to the Japanese throughout their campaign
of pacification than all other leaders of the opposition combined.”90 Mitter also
observes that Ma’s fighting in Heilongjiang was the first to “have a significant
impact on Chinese and world public opinion.”91 Contrasting the growing anti-­
Japan sentiment among the population of mainland China in the late 1920s and
the early 1930s with Chiang Kai-shek’s and Zhang Xueliang’s non-resistant policy
to Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, Ma’s lonely and desperate resistance helped him
attract a broad audience in both China and the world.
Regardless of sympathy, the outside world simply watched the fall of Heilongjiang
to Japanese hands, leaving Ma little means to negotiate with the Japanese on an
advantaged basis. Ma was not an individual who firmly opposed the Japanese.
Komai Tokuzō suggested in 1933 that he talked with Ma several times in the past
and believed that Ma “did not totally hold the idea of resisting Japan.”92 Ma was
more hesitant about whether or not he should continue to resist the Japanese after
suffering setbacks at the Nenjiang Bridge. In Hailun, for example, Ma was indeci-
sive between the choice of negotiation and resistance, which angered his deputy
officials like Xie Ke and Yuan Chonggu (1898–?), who insisted on resisting the
Japanese and made them establish various checkpoints on the way between Hailun
and Qiqihar to prevent Ma from approaching the Japanese.93 Zhang Jinghui pro-
vided Ma with another solution to his plight, as he encouraged Ma not to contact
the Kantō Army, saying that “the Japanese could bribe you today and suddenly
send troops to attack you tomorrow.” Volunteering to prevent the Kantō Army
from attacking Ma, Zhang wanted Ma to hold his troops because “there is always
going to be a solution in the future.”94 Here, Zhang expected Ma to postpone the
Kantō Army’s occupation of the whole of Heilongjiang with the deterrence of his
remaining troops in Hailun without fighting; this might help both figures survive
until the League of Nations forced Japan to withdraw its army from Manchuria.
To fulfill his role as Ma’s collaborator, Zhang in front of the Japanese volunteered
to persuade Ma to surrender, saying, “no one else other than Ma could govern
Heilongjiang.”95 Describing the persuasion as a tough and fragile job, Zhang
encouraged the Japanese to refrain from contacting Ma at least before February
1932 to prevent the generation of unexpected consequences.96
Endorsing Zhang’s strategy, Ma initially rejected the request of Komai Tokuzō
and Itagaki Seishirō for a face-to-face negotiation in early December 1931 and
threatened them that “we absolutely cannot guarantee your safety because Hailun
is under martial law” through a telegram.97 However, Komai and Itagaki came to
visit Ma in Hailun with several Japanese and British journalists who volunteered to
126 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism

Figure 4.3 Ma Zhanshan (middle), Itagaki Seishirō (right), and Komai Tokuzō (left) in
Hailun, December 8, 1931.
Source: December 11, 1931, Manzhou bao [Manchurian newspaper]: 1.

follow them on the evening of December 8, 1931; that disrupted Zhang’s and Ma’s
plan (Figure 4.3).98 Using the words of Mitter, Ma at this point had to “consider
what other options lay open to him” besides continuing to postpone Japanese
demands.99

Better Cooperate than Fight: Ma’s Negotiation and Cooperation with the
Japanese
Komai’s and Itagaki’s visit made Ma willing to cooperate with the Japanese in
governing Heilongjiang. Besides stating the Kantō Army’s decision to restore
peace in northern Manchuria, this three-hour meeting generated an agreement
between Ma and the Japanese, which outlined the time and form of Ma’s return to
Qiqihar and clarified “the ways in which [the Heilongjiang regime] should apol-
ogize to the Japanese army” for its earlier offense.100 Komai wrote that “Ma raised
no objections to our compelled requests and totally endorsed them,” but he
declined to sign the official document based on the excuse of his illiteracy, which
convinced Komai and Itagaki.101 After the meeting, Ma suggested in front of jour-
nalists, “To solve Manchuria’s problems, there is no better means other than
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 127
cooperating with Japan; I have now understood that previous military conflicts
with the Japanese are pointless.”102 Ma on February 24, 1932, stated a similar point
by depicting the Battle of Nenjiang Bridge as a mistake and blamed his deputy
officials for causing the war: “The earlier conflict with our neighbor and friendly
army was the result of disunity in terms of opinion among my men, absolutely not
my own will.”103
Ma’s acceptance of Japanese demands and words in front of journalists contained
both expedient deception and genuine thoughts. Rather than feeling ashamed of
his illiteracy, Ma’s refusal to sign the surrender-like agreement with Komai and
Itagaki on December 8, 1931, suggests that he did not want to leave others any
evidence of his deals with the Japanese on paper because he still expected the
ROC to reclaim Manchuria in the future. This made him proudly claim in his
telegram to Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang Xueliang on April 28, 1932, that he
“never signed any treaties” with the Japanese and thus had “no sense of guilt to the
country and its people.”104 Regardless of his calculation, Ma by December 1931
likely began to doubt the significance of his resistance against the Kantō Army,
as it brought him nothing other than military losses and moot moral support
from the outside world. Without international military assistance, Ma’s defeat at
the Nenjiang Bridge ironically brought the situation of Heilongjiang back to the
moment of Zhang Haipeng’s retreat in late October 1931; negotiation with the
Japanese without fighting might guarantee a similar—even better—result for Ma.
This is likely why Ma considered his war with Japan pointless. By participating in
the creation of Manchukuo and serving in the regime, Ma had given up hope for
resistance at least in early 1932.
As one of the “Big Four” (Si jutou) of Manchukuo along with Zhang Jinghui,
Zang Shiyi, and Xixia, Ma initially tasted the fruits of power as the head of the
regime’s Ministry of Military Affairs and the provincial leader of Heilongjiang.
Archibald Steele observed that Ma “immediately lined his pockets with Japanese
gold” after going to the Manchukuo capital of Xinjing in March 1932.105 Between
his retreat to Hailun in November 1931 and February 23, 1932, when he returned
to Qiqihar, Ma reportedly withdrew a total amount of eight million yuan of
Heilongjiang currency from the Bank of the Three Eastern Provinces (Dong san-
sheng guanyinhao). Moreover, by the end of February 1932, Ma had received around
980,000 yuan of financial support from institutions and individuals like the ROC
government, financial groups of Zhejiang province, and Chinese residents in
China proper and Southeast Asia, but Ma did not share the money with his offi-
cials and soldiers.106 Ma in his clarification to his soldiers on March 26, 1932,
suggested that he had received around one million yuan of financial support from
China proper, and on April 7, 1932, he vaguely suggested that he spent around 7.5
million yuan to subsidize the provincial army of Heilongjiang, which suggests the
reliability of the aforementioned information.107 Ma’s influence in Heilongjiang
and personal connection with Zhang Xueliang could have made him another
Zhang Jinghui or Zang Shiyi, but unlike Zhang and Zang, Ma’s lack of education
and quickly established reputation in China proper soon generated troublesome
internal and external problems for him and made him unable to enjoy his position
as a government leader of Manchukuo.
128 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
Better Fight than Cooperate: Complicated Reasons behind Ma’s Defection
Inside the government of Manchukuo, Ma’s illiteracy generated contempt from his
Chinese and Japanese colleagues. Most of Manchukuo’s Chinese government
leaders in the early 1930s either used to serve in the Qing Dynasty, such as Zheng
Xiaoxu and Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940), or studied in Japanese home island acade-
mies, such as Xixia, Zang Shiyi, and Zhao Xinbo (1887–1951); even Zhang
Jinghui studied one year in a private academy and possessed basic reading and
writing skills. Japanese civil officials in the General Affairs Board of Komai Tokuzō
and the Governance Support Bureau (Ch: Zizheng ju; Jp: Shisei kyoku) of Kasagi
Yoshiaki (1892–1955) were mostly college graduates who used to serve in the
South Manchuria Railway Company. Thus, for Komai, “such an illiterate man
[like Ma] must had felt the pain of trying to enter an intellectually-based national
circle,” as Ma was “unable to read documents, let alone issue his men text-based
orders.”108 He also revealed that some “important officials in the government” of
Manchukuo despised Ma for his illiteracy and jealously complained, “[W]hat a
violation of common sense for letting such an illiterate man like [Ma] to serve as
the head of the important Ministry of Military Affairs.”109
Ma likely had no close friends in the government because local news coverage
rarely mentioned his interactions with other Chinese-speaking and Japanese offi-
cials, and Komai’s writing partially explains the reasons behind Ma’s lack of support
from other Manchukuo officials. Feeling insulted by his treatment in Manchukuo,
Ma’s dissatisfaction erupted during the dinner party after the first Manchukuo
cabinet meeting on March 10, 1932, when a Japanese journalist invited everyone
to produce a piece of calligraphy for memorial purposes. Komai wrote that even
Ma’s “ear root turned red” during his turn of inscription, and someone recklessly
mocked Ma, saying, “Maybe you can draw a horse instead.”110 In the end, Ma
“inscribed several character-like scribbles with his shaking hand and then quickly
stood up and disappeared” from everyone’s vision.111 On the next day, he left
Xinjing for the Soviet border city of Heihe and resisted Manchukuo there less than
a month later, suggested Komai.112
Besides suffering ridicule from his colleagues, Ma was also tired of handling the
rebellions of his soldiers and military officials. On March 10, 1932, Ma’s deputy
officials, Yuan Chonggu, Su Bingwen (1892–1975), and Cheng Zhiyuan (1878–?),
organized an army independent of Ma’s command and named it “National
Salvation Army” (jiuguo jun). In Su Bingwen-controlled towns like Hailaer and
Boketu, celebrations for Manchukuo’s creation were illegal, and his soldiers even
paraded along the streets of those towns on March 13 with the slogans like “down
with the false country” and “down with Ma Zhanshan and other treasonous
slaves.”113 Anti-Ma rebellions spread across Heilongjiang in March 1932. On the
morning of March 11, the third brigade of Ma’s Heihe defense army occupied six
counties of Heihe along the Heilongjiang (Amur River), to resist Ma.114 In the
next few days, military rebellions also broke out in towns like Manzhouli and
Bayan; the influential Chinese newspaper Shen Bao [Shanghai News] anticipated
that “the scope of rebellions might expand if Ma does not resign.”115 Some of Ma’s
soldiers even stormed his residence in Heihe around the same time.116 Worse,
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 129
rumors about Ma’s misappropriation of the money that he received from China
proper and overseas also spread among his soldiers; this forced Ma to make a clar-
ification on Manchukuo’s newspapers on March 26, and one part reads,

You should absolutely not trust the rumors from outside because some who
have ulterior motives want to cause civil unrest. Those single-minded fellows
of us were mobilized; they disrupt local order in the name of patriotism and
national salvation without considering what they heard was reliable or not.
Everyone knows that empty slogans and patriotism are different things, and a
riot with the power of dozens or hundreds of men is nowhere related to
national salvation. Please look at Shanghai: [the ROC] even could not tri-
umph [over Japan] with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, so what makes you
believe that a regional rebellion [with limited manpower in Manchuria] would
succeed? No doubt, it would only destroy local regions and force people to
flee. … If my fellows are still going to engage in intolerable activities in the
future, I will feel ashamed by my incompetence and will resign from office
and never return.117

Apparently, Heilongjiang’s situation by the end of March 1932 was beyond Ma’s
control. Stating the weakness of his troops by referencing the Japanese invasion of
Shanghai between January and March 1932, Ma had yet to decide to resist the
Japanese again by March 26, 1932—less than two weeks before he broke with
Manchukuo. Nonetheless, these internal pressures overwhelmed Ma and urged
him to think of a proper solution to his plight.
External pressures from China proper probably hurt Ma more than the distrust
of his soldiers and colleagues in Manchukuo. Kantō Army chief of staff Hashimoto
Tora’nosuke (1883–1952; successor of Miyake Mitsuharu) deemed the critical
voices from the population of China proper an important reason behind Ma’s
defection from Manchukuo, as the people of “the whole territory of China asked
Ma to return all the money” that he received from China proper since November
1931 after he joined Manchukuo.118 Besides, Ma’s son fled from Manchukuo to
the Soviet Union in early 1932 and moved to Shanghai from Vladivostok. There
he sent Ma a letter that threatened to end their kinship if his father continued to
work with the Japanese.119 Even Shanghai News relinquished its supportive stand-
point for Ma between November 1931 and February 1932 and portrayed him as a
traitor in March 1932. On March 19, 1932, for example, it proudly reported Su
Bingwen’s refusal of “obeying the false order of Ma Zhanshan.”120 By March 1932,
Ma had lost the support of both his erstwhile men and those who used to support
his resistance against Japan in China proper. The more expectation that people
placed on Ma, the more disappointment they would feel after noting Ma’s surren-
der to the Japanese.
Popular opinion in China proper in late 1931 and early 1932 indeed greatly
shaped Ma’s heroic image. Commercial activities in big Chinese cities could reflect
his popularity, as Ma Zhanshan-related commodities even became the symbols of
patriotism in the metropolis of Shanghai in early 1932. Without mentioning the
sale of Ma’s colored wall portraiture in bookstores, local merchants who had
130 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
personal connections with Ma even established business cooperation with him.121
The General Ma Zhanshan cigarettes (Ma Zhanshan jiangjun xiangyan) is a promi-
nent example. Released on December 28, 1931, its advertisement in Shanghai
News claimed that the sales company of the cigarettes would donate ten yuan to
Ma for every box of the cigarettes it sold, and this brand had acquired Ma’s author-
ization.122 In another advertisement on January 1, 1932, the sales company wrote,
“Wish everyone confronts foreign [threats] and imitate General Ma Zhanshan in
the twenty-first year” of the ROC.123 Gaining the support of influential figures in
Shanghai, the company put the calligraphy of Green Gang leader Huang Jinrong
(1868–1953), “Wish everyone studies General Ma,” on its January 7 advertisement
on Shanghai News (Figure 4.4).124 Although it is not possible to count the sales of
the cigarettes given a lack of relevant information, it became an ephemeral popular
commodity among the people of big Chinese cities. The cigarettes’ January 19
advertisement suggested that “letters [from society] pile up like a mountain” to
request the sale of carton-packed General Ma Zhanshan cigarettes because its cur-
rent package was an iron can.125 Dealers’ enthusiasm also reflected the popularity
of General Ma Zhanshan cigarettes. To acquire them, dealers in other cities went
to Shanghai and requested the shipment of the cigarettes to their sales place, result-
ing in the cigarettes being out of stock three days after December 28, 1931.126
Such a popular idol’s participation in Manchukuo especially embarrassed those
who exploited Ma’s fame for commercial profits and those who encouraged every-
one to imitate Ma, and for the majority of the population in China proper, Ma’s
surrender shattered their dream of resisting Japanese invasion. Due to a complex
mixture of embarrassment and anger among the population of China proper, Ma’s
image in March 1932 changed from a national hero to a reviled traitor, something
that the ROC government was hardly able to mediate. Unlike Zhang Jinghui and
Zang Shiyi who did not possess an army, Ma accidentally made himself become a
heartthrob in China proper with the image of his lonely resistance against the
Kantō Army in the winter of 1931, yet the price of that position was huge. By late
March 1932, continued service in Manchukuo was no longer a viable option for
Ma; he had to clear a surviving path in China proper before his treasonous image
became an embedded impression for every Chinese in the ROC.

Redeeming the Dignity of a Constructed Hero: Ma’s Helpless Second Resistance

against the Japanese and Beyond
In the middle of the night on April 3, 1932, Ma Zhanshan left his base in Qiqihar
for Hailun, to inspect his troops. However, he appeared in Heihe four days later on
April 7. After another five days, on April 12, Ma announced to the outside world
that he had broken with Manchukuo.127 It is no longer meaningful to struggle with
the questions of whether or not Ma genuinely intended to surrender to the
Japanese in late 1931 and if his defection in April 1932 was part of a meticulous
plan of resisting Japan or not, based on the analysis of this chapter. He was trying
to confront the pressing situations facing him by making urgent decisions, yet he
accidentally made a series of favorable—at least lesser disruptive—choices in 1931
and 1932. Timothy Brook in his study of Chinese collaboration in Japanese-occupied
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 131

Figure 4.4 Advertisement of the General Ma Zhanshan cigarettes on Shanghai News.

Source: January 7, 1932, Shen Bao [Shanghai News]: 1.

south China between 1937 and 1945 argues that in many cases, local Chinese elites
had no time to consider the standpoint of their choices because “each choice had
to be made” before their life was in danger.128 Having no interest in the creation of
a new Manchurian state independent of the ROC’s administration, Ma, a military
figure who had little political connections with China proper, had to make urgent
132 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
choices to protect himself from foreign abuse when the Japanese came in 1931.
Similarly, regaining the support of the Chinese population seemed to be the only
viable way for Ma to continue to live in China when his career in Manchukuo
proved to be a dead end in 1932. Hence, resisting the Japanese again became the
wisest, despite a dangerous, option for Ma.
Ma’s decision to defect from Manchukuo on the eve of the Lytton Commission’s
arrival embarrassed the vigorous images that other Chinese and Japanese idealist
government leaders portrayed for the new country. Challenging the asserted status
of Manchukuo as a multiethnic country that complied with the notion of national
self-determination, Ma in his telegram to the outside world on April 12 claimed
that “no one in the Three Eastern Provinces wants to separate themself from
China proper.” Describing Manchukuo as a “false regime” and its Chinese-
speaking officials as puppets who “have lost their freedom,” Ma encouraged the
Lytton Commission to “produce an honest report to the world” after inspecting
the situation of Manchukuo because “the world’s peace and order heavily depend
on” the outcome of such a report.129
This telegram alarmed the authorities of Manchukuo. While the country’s min-
ister of foreign affairs, Xie Jieshi (1878–1954), described it as a false document that
someone fabricated in the name of Ma, the Kantō Army speeded up its repression
of Ma’s resistance.130 Because the army gradually occupied more of Ma’s strong-
holds in northern Manchuria, Manchukuo media proudly claimed on June 11,
1932, that “death is an unavoidable fate awaiting Ma,” as Manchukuo would
“absolutely destroy [Ma’s forces] this time even if he wants to surrender again.”131
Japanese home island newspapers, like Asahi shinbun [Asahi News], closely reported
Ma’s military actions in 1932 and mistakenly claimed Ma’s death on July 31, 1932,
based on information that the Kantō Army provided.132 This reveals Ma’s signifi-
cance in the eyes of the Japanese. Suffering continuous setbacks, Ma and his
remaining soldiers hastily fled to the Soviet city of Tomsk in Siberia from
Manzhouli in December 1932 without carrying any legal documents with them.133
After moving to Moscow from Tomsk via train, Ma repatriated his soldiers to
Xinjiang province with the assistance of the local ROC embassy. To avoid Japanese
assassination, Ma chose to return to China proper from Europe and South Asia,
not from Vladivostok. Visiting Poland, Germany, Italy, India, and Singapore, Ma
eventually reached Shanghai from Hong Kong in June 1933, signifying the end of
his lonely and helpless two-year resistance against the Japanese.134
Ma spent the rest of his life resisting Japanese invasion and assisting the CCP to
confront the ROC during the Chinese Civil War of 1945–1949. He commanded
a ROC troop and fought the army of Prince Demchugdongrub (1902–1966) in
Inner Mongolia between September 1937 and May 1938 and met Mao Zedong
during his stay in Yan’an in August 1938.135 Together with his friend Cai Yunsheng,
who went to China proper and joined Ma after Manchukuo’s collapse due to
Soviet support, Ma played a key role in helping the CCP occupy Beijing without
fighting in January 1949.136 Refusing to retreat to Taiwan with the ROC govern-
ment and witnessing the creation of the PRC in October 1949, Ma died a year
later from lung cancer on November 29, 1950, in Beijing, and the CCP buried
him in a local cemetery on December 7.137
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 133
Compared to the tragic later life of people like Zhang Jinghui and Zang Shiyi,
and many who used to fight the Japanese in the 1930s and the early 1940s yet suf-
fered political persecution during the Anti-Rightest Campaign of 1957 and the
Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976, Ma was undoubtedly lucky. On the one hand,
he managed to receive the forgiveness of most ROC populations through another
desperate resistance against the Japanese in Manchukuo in 1932. Dying before most
of the political campaigns in the era of Mao started, Ma’s ephemeral service in the
state of Manchukuo did not shake his posthumous reputation as an icon of patriot-
ism in official PRC narratives on the other. Facing continuous tensions since
October 1931, Ma unexpectedly made a series of appropriate choices, which helped
him survive the turbulent 1930s and 1940s. His death during the infancy of the
PRC put an ideal end to his extraordinary life under the governance of the Qing,
the Russians, the warlords, the Japanese, the nationalists, and the communists.

A Concealed Power Contest between the ROC and the Japanese:

Chapter Conclusion
This chapter on Manchurian military figures examines the political calculations of
Zhang Jinghui and Ma Zhanshan in the state of Manchukuo and places them into
the intertwined national ideals of the country’s Chinese and Japanese government
leaders. A shared ideal of the two figures was to maintain Manchuria’s republi-
can-era administration under Japanese presence before the ROC could reclaim the
region’s sovereignty, which was antithetical to the prospects of the majority of the
Chinese and Japanese figures that this book examines. The Kantō Army cooper-
ated with Zhang and Ma because its decision-makers wanted to ensure smooth
Japanese control of Manchuria by temporarily entrusting the pacification of the
region’s local level to the two figures and other Chinese-speaking officials before
the Japanese managed to secure their supervising position in the new Manchukuo
state. Expecting to reclaim Manchuria with the support of the League of Nations,
the ROC in contrast required Zhang and Ma to become its informants in
Manchukuo, to slow down the takeover of Japanese officials, and to assist in the
process of re-establishing the ROC administration. In that sense, both Zhang and
Ma were pawns that the Kantō Army and the ROC utilized during their power
contest in Manchuria between 1931 and 1945, yet neither side prevailed in the
end. For one thing, Manchukuo collapsed following the surrender of Japan in
August 1945. For another, the CCP expelled the ROC from Manchuria within
three years after 1945 with Soviet support. As the former prime minister of
Manchukuo, Zhang suffered Soviet and PRC imprisonment throughout the rest
of his life, while Ma realized the decline of the ROC and quickly stood on the
victorious side of the CCP in the late 1940s, thereby living to a later life without
legal prosecution and political persecution.
Although both Zhang and Ma used to govern in Manchukuo, they had utterly
different endings, mainly due to a discrepancy in personal status in the former
warlord regime of Zhang Zuolin and Zhang Xueliang. The former was an aide of
Zhang Zuolin who learned how to survive as a figurehead leader during his dec-
ades-long struggle in the political circle of warlord Manchuria, while as an
134 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
ordinary and illiterate military figure at least before 1932, the latter abruptly
became the provincial leader of Heilongjiang when the Japanese invaded the prov-
ince in the winter of 1931. Zhang’s reputation made him unable to escape from
the utilization of both the Japanese Kantō Army and the ROC government, espe-
cially when most of the government leaders of warlord Manchuria stayed with
Zhang Xueliang in Beijing. Accepting Japanese demands was, for Zhang, a means
to maintain his position as the prime minister of Manchukuo on the one hand and
nominal Chinese control of northeast China on the other. Ma, in contrast, was
likely not on the list of the initial cooperators that the Kantō Army sought in
warlord Manchuria when it occupied Fengtian in September 1931, yet Ma’s resist-
ance against the army and lack of allies in Manchukuo guaranteed him an outlet in
the ROC government. His plights in Manchukuo nevertheless saved him from
living a misfortunate later life as a war captive who suffered continuous moral
criticisms from the people of China after 1945.
The ideals of Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders with a military back-
ground like Zhang and Ma deserve academic attention because they served as a
disruptive force to the development of Manchukuo, for one thing, yet also as an
important component of the intertwined ideals of the country’s Chinese and
Japanese leaders in the early 1930s for another. Not necessarily all those who
cooperated with the Japanese at the top of Manchukuo’s government were oppo-
nents of the ROC and warlord Manchuria who wanted to form a political entity
that could reflect their own aspirations and ambitions. Rather, Manchukuo’s
supreme Chinese leadership also concealed unilateral espionage and an attempt to
preserve Chinese sovereignty under the manipulation of the ROC; how successful
this project was exceeds the theme of this book. To secure Japanese supervision of
the new state, civil Japanese government leaders of Manchukuo and decision-mak-
ers in the Kantō Army also required the support of people like Zhang and Ma—
local military figures of Manchuria—rather than totally relying on those outsiders
who shared similar goals of severing Manchuria from the ROC, such as Puyi and
Zheng Xiaoxu. In fact, the top government level of Manchukuo in the early 1930s
was an arena where different ideals like fostering Japanese leadership, reviving
Manchu domination, promoting international supervision of China, and helping
the ROC manage Manchuria competed. Besides military figures, the presence of
civil elites—especially from Fengtian province—further complicated the relation-
ship between the often-assumed Japanese dominators and Chinese puppets, some-
thing that the next chapter discusses in more detail.

Notes
1 Lu Jiu-jung, “Survival as Justification for Collaboration, 1937–1945,” in Chinese
Collaboration with Japan, 1932–1945: The Limits of Accommodation, ed. David P. Barrett
and Larry N. Shyu (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 118.
2 Liu Xiaohui, Wang Wenfeng, and Wang Jiurong, Wei Man guowu zongli dachen Zhang
Jinghui [Bogus Manchukuo Prime Minister Zhang Jinghui] (Changchun: Jilin wenshi
chubanshe, 1991), 74.
3 Ibid., 41.
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 135
4 Wang Baofeng, “Manzhou guofang furenhui tanjiu” [An exploration of the
Manchukuo Female National Defense League], Xibu xuekan [Journal of Western
China] 4 (2014): 64–67.
5 For a study on Zhang Mengshi, see Ronald Suleski, “Manchukuo and Beyond: The
Life and Times of Zhang Mengshi,” International Journal of Asian Studies 14:1 (2017):
77–97.
6 Yang Yude, “Guanyu baoguan wei Man zhanfan wupin shi de jianwen” [About the
information that I acquired and heard while preserving the personal items of bogus
Manchukuo’s war criminals], in Wei Man huangdi qunchen gaizao jishi [Records on the
re-education of bogus Manchukuo’s emperor and officials], ed. Ji Min (Shenyang:
Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1992), 153.
7 Zhang practiced reading and writing a lot after 1935 and possessed a “considerable
degree of reading and writing abilities” by 1941, recalled Furumi Tadayuki in 1978.
Furumi Tadayuki, Wasure enu Manshū [Unforgettable Manchuria] (Tokyo: Keizai ōrai-
sha, 1978), 180.
8 Liu, Wang Wenfeng, and Wang Jiurong, Zhang Jinghui, 273–274.
9 Zhang Jinghui, “Zhang Jinghui bigong” [Zhang Jinghui’s written confession], June
11, 1954, in Wei Manzhouguo de tongzhi yu neimu: wei Man guanyuan gongshu [Bogus
Manchukuo’s domination and inside stories: confessions of bogus Manchukuo offi-
cials], ed. Zhongyang dang’anguan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), 41–43.
10 Ibid., 41.
11 Shibutani Yuri, Bazoku de miru Manshū: Chō Sakurin no ayunda michi [Manchuria in
the eyes of horse bandits: the path of Zhang Zuolin] (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2004), 67.
12 Shibutani, Bazoku de miru Manshū, 67; Suzuki Sadami, Manshūkoku: Kōsaku suru nasho-
narizumu [Manchukuo: intertwined nationalism] (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2021), 127.
13 Zhang, “Bigong,” in Neimu, 22; Sugiyama Hiroyuki, Chō Sakurin: Bakusatsu e no
kiseki, 1875–1928 [Tracing Zhang Zuolin’s life to his bombing assassination, 1875–
1928] (Tokyo: Hakusui sha, 2017), 56–58.
14 Zhang, “Bigong,” in Neimu, 23.
15 Zhao Xinbo, Shin kokka dai Manshū [The greater new Manchurian state] (Tokyo:
Tokyo shobō, 1932), 27.
16 For a study the Harbin Special District in the 1920s, see Blaine Chiasson, Administering
the Colonizer: Manchuria’s Russians under Chinese Rule, 1918–29 (Vancouver: UBC
Press, 2010).
17 Zhang, “Bigong,” in Neimu, 23.
18 Guomindang zhongyang weiyuan hui, “Tongzhi gedi zuzhi minzhong youxing jihui”
[Notifying each province on the prohibition of gatherings and organizing parades],
July 17, 1931, in Wanbaoshan shijian [The Wanbaoshan Incident], ed. Wang Lin and
Gao Shuying (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1990), 136. The Wanbaoshan
Incident aroused severe anti-Chinese demonstrations across the Korean Peninsula and
triggered a number of Korean attacks of local Chinese property and murder of local
Chinese residents.
19 Komai Tokuzō, Tairiku e no higan [Longing for the continent] (Tokyo: Dai Nihon
yūben kai kōdansha, 1952), 275.
20 Zhang, “Bigong,” in Neimu, 43.
21 Ibid.
22 Katakura Tadashi, Manshū jihen kimitsu seiryaku nisshi [Confidential record of political
strategies following the Manchurian Incident], September 22, 1931, in Gendai shi
shiryō [Documents of modern history], vol. 7, ed., Kobayashi Tatsuo and Shimada
Toshihiko (Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1964), 189.
23 Zhang Xueliang, “Fu Zhang Jinghui dian” [Replying the telegram of Zhang Jinghui],
September 20, 1931, in Zhang Xueliang wenji [Collected works of Zhang Xueliang],
ed. Bi Wanwen, vol. 1 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1992), 486.
24 Zhang, “Bigong,” in Neimu, 23.
136 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
25 Zhang Xueliang, “Zhi Dong tequ zhangguan gongshu dian” [Telegram to the office
of the administrator of the Eastern Provincial Special District], October 2, 1931, in
Wenji, 499.
26 Komai, Higan, 225.
27 Yu Jingtao, “Yu Jingtao huiyi lishi” [Yu Jingtao’s recollection of history], in Gao
Pikun, Gao Pikun huiyilu [Gao Pikun’s memoir], ed. Xu Chunfan (Changchun:
Changchun shi zhengxie wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui, 2004), 150. According to a 1956
PRC document on the personal information of imprisoned former Manchukuo offi-
cials in Fushun, Yu Jingtao was then 57 years old, suggesting that he was born in 1899.
Wang Zhanping, ed., Zuigao renmin fayuan tebie junshi fating shenpan Riben zhanfan jishi
[Records on the trials of Japanese War criminals by the Special Military Court of the
Supreme People’s Court] (Beijing: Renmin fayuan chubanshe; Falü chubanshe,
2005), 79.
28 Zhang Xueliang, “Zhi Zhang Jinghui dian” [Telegram to Zhang Jinghui], November
18, 1931, in Wenji, 525.
29 Yu, “Huiyi lishi,” in Gao Pikun huiyilu, 150.
30 Hayashide Kenjirō, “Genpi ni: Kōtei heika to Minami taishi oyobi Nagaoka sōchō to
no kaidan yōryō” [Top secret No. 2: main points of the conversation between the
emperor and Ambassador Minami and Director Nagaoka], May 18, 1935, unpub-
lished handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 2.
31 Hayashide, “Tei sōri to Minami taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Main points of the con-
versation between Prime Minister Zheng and Ambassador Minami], May 14, 1935,
unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
32 Ibid.
33 Hayashide, “Genpi san: Kōtei heika to Taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Top secret No. 3:
main points of the conversation between the emperor and the ambassador], May 20,
1935, unpublished handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 2.
34 Komai Tokuzō, Dai Manshūkoku kensetsu roku [Record of the construction of Greater
Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1933), 329.
35 Hoshino Naoki, Mi hatenu yume: Manshūkoku gaishi [Unachievable dreams: unofficial
history of Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Daiyamondo sha, 1963), 191.
36 Furumi, Wasure enu Manshū, 180–181.
37 Yu, “Huiyi lishi,” in Gao Pikun huiyilu, 154.
38 Hayashide, “Gokuhi nana: Chō shin sōri to Minami taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Top
secret No. 7: main points of the conversation between the new Prime Minister Zhang
and Ambassador Minami], May 21, 1935, unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, micro-
film vol. 1.
39 Furumi, Wasure enu Manshū, 181–182.
40 Suzuki, Manshūkoku, 194.
41 Furumi, Wasure enu Manshū, 75–76.
42 Nakata Seiichi, Manshūkoku kōtei no hiroku: Rasuto enpera to Genpi kaiken-roku no nazo
[A secret record of the emperor of Manchukuo: the last emperor and the mysteries
surrounding top secret meeting records] (Tokyo: Genki shobō, 2005), 196.
43 Zhang, “Bigong,” in Neimu, 24.
44 Irie Yōko, Fugi: Shinchō saigo no kōtei [Puyi: the last Qing emperor] (Tokyo: Iwanami
shoten, 2006), 132.
45 Furumi, Wasure enu Manshū, 207.
46 Ibid., 208–209.
47 Yu, “Yu Jingtao bigong” [Yu Jingtao’s written confession], August 30, 1954, in Neimu,
246.
48 Handa Toshiharu, Yume yabureta ri [Dream shattered] (Tokyo: Shīpusha, 1950), 179.
49 Hayashide, “Gokuhi dai hachijū gō: Ueda taishi to Chō sōri daijin to no kaidan
yōryō” [Top secret No. 80: main points of the conversation between Ambassador
Minami and Prime Minister Zhang], September 8, 1937, in Bunsho, microfilm
vol. 1.
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 137
50 Furumi, Wasure enu Manshū, 209; Handa, Yume yabureta ri, 180; Takasaki Tatsu’nosuke,
Manshū no shūen [The demise of Manchuria] (Tokyo: Jitsugyō no Nihon sha, 1953),
246.
51 Handa, Yume yabureta ri, 182.
52 Zhang Mengshi, “Sui wei Man guanli qiu Su wunian suoji” [Trivial record of my
five-year imprisonment in the Soviet Union with bogus Manchukuo officials], in Wei
Man huangdi qunchen gaizao jishi, 25.
53 Because Puyi received a better treatment in Siberia compared with other Manchurian
and Japanese captives, Zhang conjectured that the Soviets might value Puyi’s sugges-
tions. Aixin-Jueluo Puyi, Wo de qianbansheng [My earlier life] (1964; repr. Beijing:
Zhonghua shuju, 1977), 389–390.
54 Steven I. Levine, Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria, 1945–1948
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 10–13, 239–240.
55 Wang Hao, “Zhong Su liangguo shangtan jiejiao Ri Man zhanfu jingguo” [Stories
behind the negotiation on the repatriation of Japanese and Manchurian war captives
between China and the Soviet Union], in Wei Man huangdi qunchen gaizao jishi, 1.
56 Yu, “Huiyi lishi,” in Gao Pikun huiyilu, 156.
57 Liu Banghou, “Bianzhe de hua” [Editor’s note], in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun [General Ma
Zhanshan], ed. Liu Banghou (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1987), 1.
58 “Manzhouguo zhi yuanxun: ge yuan bu zhangguan lüeli” [Brief biography of
Manchukuo’s founding fathers and department heads], Manzhou bao [Manchurian
newspaper] (March 14, 1932): 1.
59 Ma Yuwen, “Wode fuqin” [My father], in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 4–5.
60 Zheng Xiaoxu, “April 22, 1932,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji [Zheng Xiaoxu’s diary], ed. Lao
Zude, vol. 5 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), 2379; Komai, Higan, 234.
61 Hoshino, Mi hatenu yume, 53.
62 “Ma Zhanshan jiangjun” [General Ma Zhanshan], Manzhou bao (December 11, 1931): 7.
63 Du Haishan, “Zai luanshi zhong qijia” [Rose up in chaos], in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 7.
64 Mitter, The Manchurian Myth, 204.
65 Huang Zijin, Zhuli yu zuli zhijian: Sun Zhongshan, Jiang Jieshi qin Ri kang Ri wushi nian
[Between external assistance and obstruction: a fifty-year history of pro-Japan and anti-Ja-
pan of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek] (Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe, 2015), 165.
66 Zhang Xueliang, “Zhi Zhang Jinghui deng dian” [Telegram to Zhang Jinghui and
others], October 20, 1931, in Wenji, 503.
67 Xie Ke, “Kangzhan shi shang guanghui de yiye” [A glorious page in the anti-Japan
Struggle], in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 26.
68 Ibid., 27; Hayashi Yoshihide, Kenkoku tōsho ni okeru Kokuryūkō shō no kaiko
[Recollection of Heilongjiang province during the foundation of Manchukuo], part I,
in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 11, 644.
69 Komai, Kensetsu roku, 69.
70 Hayashi, Kokuryūkō shō no kaiko, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 11, 645.
71 Huang, Zhuli yu zuli zhijian, 183.
72 Xie, “Guanghui de yiye,” in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 30–31.
73 Katakura, Nisshi, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 7, 244.
74 Ibid.
75 Honjō Shigeru, “November 4, 1931,” Honjō nikki [Honjō (Shigeru)’s diary] (Tokyo:
Hara shobō, 2005), 38.
76 Honjō, “November 6, 1931,” in Nikki, 38–39; Xie, “Guanghui de yiye,” in Ma
Zhanshan jiangjun, 31; Katakura, Nisshi, Gendai shi shiryō, 246.
77 Honjō Shigeru, “Kan sakumei dai goroku gō: Kantōgun meirei” [Kantō Army order
No. 56], November 8, 1931, Reference No. C16120522800, Japan Center for Asian
Historical Record, 0858.
78 Honjō, Nikki, 40–42.
79 Katakura, Nisshi, in Gendai shi shiryō, 260.
80 Ibid., 266.
138 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism
81 Ibid., 267.
82 Ibid., 271.
83 Ibid.
84 “Zhang Jinghui qianri fu Hei yuan, ni xuanyan Heilongjiang sheng duli” [Zhang
Jinghui went to the provincial capital of Heilongjiang yesterday and planned to pro-
claim Heilongjiang’s independence], Taidong ribao [Eastern Daily] (November 21,
1931): 1.
85 Mitter, The Manchurian Myth, 209.
86 Cited in Xie, “Guanghui de yiye,” in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 34.
87 “Ma Zhanshan wansui” [Long live Ma Zhanshan], Binjiang shibao [Harbin daily]
(November 17, 1931), cited in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 65–66.
88 “You you yuan Ma jukuan hui Ha” [Another huge amount of relief funds for Ma has
been transferred to Harbin], Shen Bao [Shanghai News] (December 10, 1931): 10.
89 “Ma Zhanshan dianxie yinzhuan kang Ri hui juankuan” [Ma Zhanshan thanks
through telegram the Shanghai Conservatory of Music’s Anti-Japan Association for its
anti-Japan donation], Shen Bao (December 29, 1931): 9; “Xu you Huaqiao huikuan
yuan Ma” [More Chinese diasporas sponsor Ma through wire transfer], Shen Bao
(December 31, 1931): 13.
90 Archibald T. Steele, Shanghai and Manchuria, 1932: Recollections of a War Correspondent
(Tempe: Arizona State University, 1977), 17.
91 Mitter, The Manchurian Myth, 203.
92 Komai, Kensetsu roku, 68.
93 Xing Jiexing, “Jiangqiao zhi yi he Ma Zhanshan kangzhan” [The battle of Nenjiang
Bridge and Ma Zhanshan’s resistance], in Shenyang wenshi ziliao diqi ji [Shenyang
municipal documents on culture and history vol. 7], ed. Zhengxie Shenyang shi wei-
yuanhui wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui (Shenyang: Zhengxie Shenyang shi weiyu-
anhui wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, 1984), 117.
94 Yu Jingtao, “Huiyi lishi,” in Gao Pikun huiyilu, 153.
95 Komai Tokuzō, Tairiku shōshi [Insignificant aspirations for the continent] (Tokyo: Dai
Nihon yūben kai kōdansha, 1944), 175.
96 Ibid.
97 Komai, Kensetsu roku, 83.
98 Komai, Higan, 233.
99 Mitter, The Manchurian Myth, 215.
100 Komai, Kensetsu roku, 97.
101 Ibid.
102 Komai, Higan, 237.
103 “Ma Zhanshan yishen xuguo” [Ma Zhanshan devotes his energy to serve the nation],
Taidong ribao (February 24, 1932): 1.
104 Ma Zhanshan, “1932 nian siyue ershiba ri jiandian” [Short telegram of April 28,
1932], in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 154.
105 Steele, Shanghai and Manchuria, 1932, 18.
106 Hayashi, Kokuryūkō shō no kaiko, in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 11, 676, 680.
107 “Ma zhangguan gaojie guanbing shu” [Commander Ma’s letter of exhortation to offi-
cials and soldiers], Taidong ribao (March 26, 1932): 5; “Heilongjiang Ma zhangguan
tongdian” [Telegram from the Heilongjiang provincial leader Ma], Taidong ribao (April 7,
1932): 5.
108 Komai, Tairiku shōshi, 192.
109 Ibid.
110 Ibid.
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid., 193.
113 “Hei jun fenqi fan Ma” [To resist Ma, Heilongjiang soldiers rise one after another],
Shen Bao (March 23, 1932): 8.
114 “Shisi ri zhuandian” [Telegram on March 14], Shen Bao (March 15, 1932): 2.
 Ambivalent Images of Treason and Heroism 139
115 “Dongbei pantu neibu qingya shen” [Internal conflicts among Northeast traitors are
tense], Shen Bao (March 18, 1932): 7.
116 Xie Jieshi, “Ma Zhanshan fu Heihe yuanyin; suopai tongdian shu yiwen” [The rea-
sons of Ma’s movement to Heihe: the authenticity of his telegram is open to doubt],
Taidong ribao (April 24, 1932): 1.
117 “Ma zhangguan gaojie guanbing shu,” Taidong ribao (March 26, 1932): 5.
118 Hashimoto Tora’nosuke, “Kanden dai goshichikyū gō” [Kantō Army telegram No.
579], in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 7, 484.
119 Gu Zhenhuan, “Cong hetan dao fange” [From negotiation to counter attack], in Ma
Zhanshan jiangjun, 91.
120 “Ji ziwei jun fen sanlu xiang Ha jin” [The self-defence army of Jilin divides into three
groups and advances towards Harbin], Shen Bao (March 19, 1932): 8.
121 “Wucai jingyin Ma Zhanshan jiangjun guaxiang” [Beautifully printed colorful wall
portraiture of General Ma Zhanshan], Shen Bao (December 7, 1931): 12.
122 “Guohuo mingyan Ma Zhanshan jiangjun jinri faxing” [National product; the popu-
lar General Ma Zhanshan cigarettes are available at stores today], Shen Bao (December
28, 1931): 3.
123 No title, Shen Bao (January 1, 1932): 7.
124 “Aiguo minzhong yi yizhi gaixi Ma Zhanshan jiangjun xiangyan” [Patriotic people
are all smoking General Ma Zhanshan cigarettes], Shen Bao (January 7, 1932): 1.
125 “Ma Zhanshan jiangjun xiangyan” [General Ma Zhanshan cigarettes], Shen Bao
(January 19, 1932): 1.
126 “Ma Zhanshan jiangjun xiangyan,” Shen Bao (December 30, 1931): 1.
127 Available first-hand sources reveal few details of Ma’s activities between April 3 and
12, 1932. Kojima Noboru, “Riben de youxiang yu Dongbei bianfang jun Ma
Zhanshan jiangjun” [Japan’s persuasion of surrender and the commander of the
Northeast Border Defense Army, General Ma Zhanshan], trans. Zhao Liantai, in Ma
Zhanshan jiangjun, 143.
128 Timothy Brook, Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China
(Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press, 2005), 245.
129 Ma Zhanshan, “Minguo ershiyi nian siyue shier ri zhi Guolian diaochatuan dian”
[Telegram to the Lytton Commission on April 12, 1932], in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 152.
130 Xie, “Ma Zhanshan fu Heihe yuanyin,” 1.
131 “Rijun yitong kaishi zonggong: Ma Zhanshan mingzai danxi” [The Japanese forces
begin their final assault: Ma Zhanshan’s life is going to end soon], Taidong ribao (June 11,
1932): 1.
132 “Aware! Hanshō no matsuro: Ba Senzan tsuini senshi” [Pathetic! Traitorous general
Ma Zhanshan has finally been killed in battle], Asahi shinbun [Asahi News] (July 31,
1932): 2.
133 Zhang Hechuan, “Tuiru Sulian, zhuandao huiguo” [Retreated to the Soviet Union
and detoured to China], in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 197.
134 Ibid., 198–200.
135 “Ma Zhanshan shengping nianbiao,” [Chronology of Ma Zhanshan], in Ma Zhanshan
jiangjun, 260–261. Known as Prince De, Demchugdongrub was a representative
leader of Inner Mongolia’s independent movement in the early twentieth century
who cooperated with Japan. He suffered imprisonment after the PRC’s creation until
1963, when the PRC released him and made him a researcher of the Mongolian
language and history. He died in Hohhot in May 1966.
136 Wang Zhixiang, “Cujin Beiping heping jiefang” [Promoting the peaceful liberation of
Beiping], in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 238–242.
137 “Ma Zhanshan shengping nianbiao,” in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun, 263.
5 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
Yu Chonghan’s and Zang Shiyi’s Service
in Manchukuo

Regional maintenance committees for the autonomy of the major cities of

Liaoning [Fengtian] province were massively created in early and mid-October
[1931]. … All the members of the Liaoning Provincial Maintenance Committee
were former influential figures or newly promoted individuals who were active in
the political sphere of the Northeast, such as Yu Chonghan, Yuan Jinkai, Zang
Shiyi, Zhao Xinbo, Feng Hanqing, Ding Jianxiu, Jin Bidong, and Kan Chaoxi.
These influential figures’ host of [Liaoning’s] government affairs due to the invita-
tion of the Kantō Army greatly helped the army pacify the heart of people and
restore local order. Their due appearance not only reflected the Kantō Army’s
grasp of local affairs but also reflected the inability of Zhang Xueliang in terms of
controlling the government affairs of Liaoning province.
Huang Zijin, Jiang Jieshi yu Riben: Yibu jindai Zhong Ri guanxi shi de suoying
[Chiang Kai-shek and Japan: a miniature of contemporary Sino-Japanese relations]
(Taibei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 2012), 166.
When analyzing the creation of Manchukuo, one cannot overlook the roles that
civil elites of Fengtian province played in late 1931 and early 1932. Historian
Huang Zijin demystifies the Kantō Army’s ability to control Manchuria in 1931
by listing some major Chinese figures in Fengtian province alone that the army
sought to cooperate with and highlight the importance of Chinese official coop-
eration to stabilize the army’s rear when it moved north to Jilin and Heilongjiang.
Although the Republic of China (ROC) nominally controlled Manchuria after
Zhang Xueliang (1901–2001) sided with the Nationalist Nanjing government in
1928, “for the majority of the lower-ranking officials [of Manchuria], their supe-
rior was still the warlord regime of Zhang and had a vague understanding of
concepts like ‘center’ and a ‘unified country,’” argued scholar Hamaguchi Yūko.1
Regional ties were not the mere possessions of grassroots officials; those warlord-era
civil elites at the top, particularly Yu Chonghan (1871–1932) and Zang Shiyi
(1884–1956), also prioritized their homeland of Fengtian province when making
calculated decisions of cooperating with the Japanese after the Manchurian
Incident in September 1931, given their lack of personal and political connections
with China proper.
To date, an integrated study of both Yu’s and Zang’s ideals as civil elites of
Fengtian has yet to exist. Studies on early Shōwa Japanese idealists and Manchukuo
in the early 1930s in English and Japanese have partially explored the thoughts of
DOI: 10.4324/9781003357773-6
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 141
Yu, yet relevant studies on Zang are still lacking. In the study of Yu, some scholars,
like Lincoln Li, emphasize his policy of “territorial defense and civil pacification”
(baojing anmin) and stress the influence of local interests on the formation of
Japanese policies on the governance of Manchuria between September 1931 and
March 1932.2 Some scholars, like Rana Mitter, note Yu’s desire to reform a per-
ceived “corrupt official system in Manchuria” and recognize his will to protect the
territory and the population of Fengtian province.3 Still, some scholars, like
Yamamuro Shin’ichi, center Yu’s decision to abolish the army of Manchuria and
entrust the region’s defense to Japan.4 Scholars who have explored Zang, like
Zhang Fulin and Wang Wenfeng, tend to trace his path from a renowned official
in warlord Manchuria in the 1920s to a national traitor after 1931.5
Yu Chonghan and Zang Shiyi represent two groups of people among the civil
officials of Fengtian who held contradictory ideas on the future of the province
under Japanese occupation. The former group wanted to reform the existing gov-
ernment structures of Fengtian by replacing the military-centered government of
warlord Manchuria with a civil-oriented polity under the leadership of local offi-
cials, while the latter group expected to maintain Fengtian’s warlord-era polity and
accepted limited reforms that were not subversive to the province’s contemporary
governmental structures. Regardless of ideological differences, both persons had
few political connections with the Nationalist government of Nanjing and the
other two provinces of Manchuria, Jilin and Heilongjiang. However, both Yu and
Zang studied in Japan and spoke fluent Japanese. Once politically active in the era
of Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928), Yu suffered isolation in the era of Zhang Xueliang.
He exploited the Japanese occupation of Fengtian to return to politics and sought
to cooperate with the Japanese to preserve local order after September 1931. Given
the nonresistant order of Zhang Xueliang to the Japanese invasion of Fengtian,
Zang and his supporters had to cooperate with the Japanese to preserve their
influence in the province. Being two virtually unrelated persons on the surface, a
comparison of the regional and autonomous ideals of Yu with Zang’s support for
warlord Manchuria will enable one to understand more comprehensively the
thoughts of different members of Fengtian’s high-level civil officials in the early
years of Manchukuo.

Empowering the Powerless Masses of Manchuria: Yu Chonghan

and His Dream of Regional Autonomy
For many People’s Republic of China (PRC) historians today, Yu Chonghan
(Figure 5.1) is an icon of a Chinese traitor (Hanjian) who voluntarily worked for
the Japanese Kantō Army after the Manchurian Incident of 1931. As one of the
most prominent elite civil officials of Fengtian who hosted warlord Manchuria’s
diplomacy with the Japanese home government and the Kantō Army in the 1910s
and the early 1920s, Yu strove to restore southern Manchuria’s order in October
1931 by organizing the Regional Maintenance Committee (Difang weichi weiyuan-
hui) with some former civil officials of Fengtian.6 Therefore, his name appeared in
third place after Aixin-Jueluo Puyi (1906–1967) and Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938)
in the section of central Manchukuo figures of a 1932 Japanese introductory
142 Preserving Warlord Manchuria

Figure 5.1 Yu Chonghan in 1932.

Source: Fujiyama Kazuo, ed., Yu jiancha yuan zhang aisi lu [Memorializing record for the head of the
Supervisory Council, Yu Chonghan] (Xinjing: Manzhouguo jiancha yuan zongwu chu, 1933), 1.

monograph of Manchukuo.7 After Manchukuo’s creation in March 1932, Yu

headed the regime’s Supervisory Council (Ch: Jiancha yuan; Jp: Kansatsu in) until
his death on November 12, 1932.8 Although Yu was proficient in both the Chinese
and Japanese languages, it is difficult to collect his own writings—if they exist.
Available documentation reveals that it was the Japanese who intently transcribed
Yu’s words on his ideal nation after September 1931 into formal reports, with
some scattered discussions in local Chinese newspapers. Together, they make the
study of Yu’s national ideals as a government leader of Manchukuo a feasible task.
Referencing Japanese military and government reports, Chinese-language news
coverage, and others’ recollections, this chapter argues for the necessity to distin-
guish Yu’s concept of a Manchurian state apart from the views of the Japanese and
Chinese figures that previous chapters have examined. Manchukuo was, for Yu,
not a transitional regime that prepared to turn Manchuria into the territory of
Japan, nor was it a means to revive the Qing monarchy, defeat the ROC, or main-
tain a ROC administration. For him, Manchukuo was an enlarged Fengtian prov-
ince, a view that he cultivated during his two-decade service in the Fengtian clique
of Zhang Zuolin. Unlike Zheng Xiaoxu who supported the opening of Manchuria
and who strove to create a government that could revive the orthodox moralities
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 143
of monarchical China, Yu primarily aimed to protect his homeland of Fengtian
province from military abuses—be they warlords or Japanese, and he also opposed
Manchuria’s opening to the outside world. His interest in creating civil-oriented
provincial governments and autonomous local ruling institutions across Manchuria
based on the principle of regional autonomy exceeded his desire for a new
Manchurian state, yet he did not oppose the idea of a national foundation if that
could help promote Manchuria’s autonomy.
Manchukuo was also for Yu a major revision of Zhang Zuolin’s military govern-
ment on the one hand and a continuation of the Zhang era’s policy of ruling
Manchuria with the guiding power of Fengtian province on the other. Assuming the
governing policies of Fengtian would naturally fit the other two provinces of Jilin and
Heilongjiang without barriers, Yu intended to apply his ideal of regional autonomy
in Fengtian to the rest of Manchuria. The lingering associations of Yu’s ideals with
warlord Manchuria and his opposition to a centralization of power in Manchukuo
guaranteed a fleeting influence of his ideals. Following his death in November 1932,
the term “regional autonomy” gradually faded into obscurity in the official narratives
of Manchukuo.

Road to a Prominent Civil Official of the Fengtian Faction: Yu’s Early Life
Yu Chonghan was born into a Liaoyang bureaucratic family in Fengtian province
in 1871.9 His family held the Qing hereditary position of Yunqi wei (Magistrate of
Numerous Cavalries) and enjoyed the treatment of a third-rank official.10 In his
childhood, Yu moved to Baoding in Zhili province and studied Confucian classics
at a private academy because his father served as a local magistrate.11 Yu’s family
suffered financial plight after his father died while suppressing a peasant rebellion
in Rehe in 1879; this made Yu return to his hometown of Liaoyang.12 Available
sources reveal little about Yu’s experiences in the 1880s, but he became a secretary
to the governor-general of Zhili and a candidate for a Zhili county magistrate in
the early 1890s, relying on his contributions to the suppression of a Rehe bandit
uprising in 1891.13
Yu’s prolonged interactions with Japan started in 1897. In that year, he sailed to
Japan and there taught Mandarin while studying the Japanese language and current
affairs at Tokyo Foreign Language School (Tōkyō gaikoku go gakkō) due to the rec-
ommendation of a Japanese friend that he knew since his childhood in Baoding.14
Komai Tokuzō (1885–1961), the first director of Manchukuo’s General Affairs
Board (Ch: Zongwu ting; Jp: Sōmu chō) who often asked Yu for his advice on the
affairs of Manchuria and the Chinese in the 1910s and the 1920s, was one of Yu’s
many Japanese students at Tokyo Foreign Language School.15 During the Russo-
Japanese War of 1904–1905, Yu served as a senior interpreter in Manchuria on the
Japanese side and received the sixth-class medal of Zuihōshō (Orders of the Sacred
Treasure) from the Japanese government in 1905.16 In his study of warlord
Manchuria, historian Ronald Suleski analyzes Yu’s activities in helping Zhang
Zuolin and his troops resist Russian units in Manchuria in 1904 and 1905, and he
notes Yu’s significance to the securing of Zhang’s dominant position in the region
for the following two decades, based on Yu’s personal connections with the
144 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
Japanese.17 Because the majority of Zhang’s aides were military figures who could
not speak foreign languages and who possessed little knowledge about diplomacy,
Yu’s family background, proficiency in Japanese, and personal connections with
Japanese political and military figures made him an exceptionally significant figure
in the Fengtian clique of Zhang. Together with Wang Yongjiang (1872–1927), the
manager of Fengtian’s civil affairs, contemporary Chinese and Japanese observers
conceptualized them as the “double jades” (shuangbi) of Fengtian in the era of
Zhang Zuolin between 1916 and 1928.18
Although serving in numerous civil and commercial positions in the 1910s and
the 1920s, Yu was the host of Fengtian’s diplomacy with Japan in the Zhang
Zuolin era. In 1907, the Qing government appointed Yu director of the Liaoyang
Bureau for Negotiation (Liaoyang jiaosheju), responsible for handling issues involv-
ing the Japanese and the extension of the South Manchuria Railway (SMR).19 In
1912, Yu became a diplomatic consultant of the Fengtian provincial government
while simultaneously serving as a secretary to Zhang Zuolin, whose position then
was the commander of the 27th Army Division of Fengtian.20 Yu became Zhang’s
diplomatic representative for Japanese affairs when the latter’s influence in Fengtian
continued to grow in the early 1910s. Serving as a bridge between Zhang and the
Japanese, Yu handled a variety of issues ranging from criminal cases like the
Chinese murder of a Japanese railway guard in Haicheng in 1914, to economic
affairs like tax collections from Japanese alcohol industries.21 In 1919, the Japanese
home government rewarded Yu with the second class Zuihōshō to express Japan’s
appreciation for his efforts in the promotion of Japan-Manchuria cooperation.22
From 1920 to 1926, Yu successively became the president of the Bank of the
Three Eastern Provinces (Dong sansheng guanyinhao), the head of the Harbin
Special District of the Eastern Provinces (Haerbin dongsheng tebie qu), and the pres-
ident of the Chinese Eastern Railway (Zhong Dong tielu duban), signifying his
importance for Zhang Zuolin.23 Following Zhang’s death in June 1928, Yu
became an advisor to the new Fengtian leader Zhang Xueliang in July 1928, yet
he soon retired from the Fengtian government and recuperated in Dalian due to
health issues and dissatisfaction with Zhang Xueliang’s anti-Japan standpoint.24
Regardless of Yu’s exit from the Fengtian clique after 1928, the Japanese appreci-
ated Yu’s negotiating and mediating abilities during their decades-long interactions;
such an impression greatly influenced his career after the Japanese invasion of
Manchuria in September 1931.

Protecting the Territory and the People of Manchuria: Yu’s Civil Reforms
The core of Yu’s ideals after the Japanese occupation of Fengtian was the creation
of a civil-oriented and corruption-free provincial order for Fengtian and the rest
of Manchuria. For that purpose, Yu proposed to the Japanese an outline of
Manchuria’s independence and stated seven imperative reform policies that he
wished the new state to execute. To analyze these policies, one may place them
into three categories: people’s livelihoods, government affairs, and social infra-
structures. The category of livelihoods occupied a central position, which included
the promotion of the autonomous policy of “territorial defense and civil
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 145
pacification,” the abolition of the army in Manchuria, and the relief of people’s
financial burdens. The category of government affairs followed, which included
the creation of an audit system in Fengtian, a reshuffle of Fengtian’s police organ-
izations, and the betterment of Fengtian’s household registration system. Social
infrastructures complemented the former two categories, which emphasized the
construction of more railways and highways for the development of Manchuria’s
industries.25
Yu’s policy of baojing anmin, literally “territorial defense and civil pacification,”
captures more academic attention than the rest of his policies, and it was indeed an
identifying ideal of Yu. The term contains two parts: baojing (territorial defense)
and anmin (civil pacification). Jing in Chinese implies a piece of territory within a
closed border, and min in Yu’s policy includes civil and internal affairs besides
people. Baojing anmin, which is associated with regional autonomy, thus contained
a strong sense of isolationism. Yu was not the inventor of the concept of regional
autonomy, as it was a common governing method below the county level in
dynastic China. Discussions of treating regional autonomy as a national policy
thrived during the last decade of the Qing Dynasty between 1901 and 1911, espe-
cially after the famed Chinese scholar Zhang Taiyan (1869–1936) proposed the
policy of “joint provincial autonomy” (liansheng zizhi) in 1912.26 Maintaining the
alliance of China’s provinces at the government level, each province would control
its own territory and govern its own people at the local level.
In Manchuria, Wang Yongjiang was likely the first official who openly sup-
ported baojing anmin. He encouraged Zhang Zuolin in 1926 to stabilize the finan-
cial power of Fengtian before confronting the Northern Expedition troops of
Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), as the Nationalist government was trying to claim
its legitimacy in China proper and was “hardly able to expand its influence beyond
the Shanhai Pass”—a renowned border between China proper and Manchuria.27
As a leading official of Fengtian, Yu endorsed Wang’s defensive idea. Claiming to
have “travelled across each province” of China in the past and having a “deep
understanding of [China’s] regional affairs,” Yu supported the promotion of auton-
omy in Manchuria for the region’s stability.28 Stating his ideals in front of the
Japanese, Yu claimed in late 1931 that Manchuria should “absolutely embrace the
doctrine of baojing anmin, sever its relationship with the former warlord regime
and the Nanjing government, and treat the creation of a new nation as its first
priority.”29

Kingly Way Requires No Army: Yu’s Doctrine of Nonmilitarization

The eradication of the army was a major means for Yu to realize his dream of
territorial defense in Manchuria. Similar to Zheng Xiaoxu, Yu supported
Manchuria’s demilitarization and argued that an “army is not essential in front of
the Kingly Way.”30 Emphasizing Manchuria’s social problems, Yu interpreted the
Kingly Way from a more materialistic and humanistic perspective compared with
Zheng’s explanation. It encompassed the eradication of privileged classes, ample
supply of food, clothing, and residence for the people, and the realization of free-
dom of speech and social justice.31 Yu considered an army unconducive to the
146 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
realization of Kingly Way politics because it “might bring [Manchuria] back to the
old path of a military regime.”32 Deeming the ROC and the Soviet Union the two
greatest threats to Manchuria, Yu wanted to promote “the new state [of
Manchuria]’s economic cooperation with Japan” and entrust the state’s national
defense to Japan because “Japan will undoubtedly respond to China proper’s and
the Soviet’s invasion of Manchuria based on concerns over” military strategy.33
Considering warlord Manchuria’s army “the strongest force of China,” Yu noted
such an army’s defeat in front of the Soviet Red Army in 1929 and the Japanese
Kantō Army in 1931, thereby pessimistically concluding that Manchuria could
not protect itself from foreign invasion with armed forces and that any military
cost in Manchuria was thus a waste of money.34 For him, Manchuria should rely
on foreign armies to maintain its stability and make local police forces maintain
the region’s domestic security.35 Referencing the neutral country of Switzerland,
Yu argued for the possibility of creating a nonmilitarized Manchuria by cooperat-
ing with Japan, and he cast this view as the “doctrine of nonmilitarization” (bu
yangbing zhuyi).36
Different from Zheng Xiaoxu’s ambitious plan of pioneering worldwide demil-
itarization, Yu’s support for the eradication of the army primarily aimed to protect
his homeland of Manchuria from foreign military abuses. This made him weep
from excitement in front of Ishiwara Kanji (1889–1949) when hearing that the
latter encouraged the Kantō Army to abolish Japan’s extraterritoriality in
Manchukuo and transfer Japan’s sovereignty in the “affiliated territories along the
SMR” (Ch: Mantie fushu di; Jp: Mantetsu fuzoku chi) to Manchukuo in 1932.37

Empty-Handed Masses Need Protection: Yu’s Justification for Autonomy

Civil pacification—namely, the protection of the people of Manchuria—was like-
wise Yu’s central concern. On September 24, 1931, he organized the Fengtian
Maintenance Committee for Autonomy (Fengtian zizhi weichihui) with Yuan
Jinkai (1870–1947), a local elite of Liaoyang whom contemporary observers
ranked as one of the “three patriarchs of Fengtian” (Fengtian san yuanlao) along
with Yu and Wang Yongjiang, in the provincial capital of Fengtian.38 Substituting
the defunct Fengtian provincial government, the Committee was a temporary
organization that aimed to handle Fengtian’s civil affairs and promote the prov-
ince’s regional autonomy. Yu detailed the reasons for his decision to create this
organization during a conversation with Yuan in late September 1931, insisting
that the Manchurians were “empty-handed masses who lack talent and courage”
and who could not resist Japanese occupation.39 Besides leaving Manchuria “and
ignoring the distress of the Northeastern population like Chiang Kai-shek and
Zhang Xueliang are doing right now,” cooperating with the Japanese and restoring
civil order was the only choice for the two men, suggested Yu. He depicted this
decision as a way to “prevent the Japanese army from abusing local residents and
to gain more time to think about future strategies.” By doing so and expecting
“international forces to urge the Japanese to retreat in the near future,” Yu con-
cluded that he and Yuan would eventually become the persons who “defend our
territory and people after Zhang Xueliang’s return.”40 Understanding the Kantō
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 147
Army’s intention, Yu noticed the inability of the Manchurians to resist the Japanese
invasion. When resistance failed to become a viable option, autonomy thus
became a means for Yu and other Chinese civil officials to protect themselves and
local populations from the harassment of the Kantō Army and bandits. The press-
ing concern for Yu and Yuan was therefore to promote the ideal of autonomous
rule among Fengtian’s residents.
To cultivate the people of Fengtian’s autonomous awareness, Yu organized the
Guidance Department for Autonomy (Ch: Zizhi zhidaobu; Jp: Jichi shidōbu) on
November 10, 1931, with those Japanese who supported Manchuria’s autonomy,
like Kasagi Yoshiaki (1892–1955).41 Serving as a training institution of Chinese
and Japanese tutors for autonomy, Yu wished the political form of self-governance
to become the basis of a post-warlord Manchuria, stating that “no matter how tall
a building it, it would not collapse as long as its basis is stable.”42 Exercising gov-
erning powers, the Fengtian Maintenance Committee for Autonomy assimilated
itself into the Fengtian government when Zang Shiyi became the provincial leader
on December 16, 1931, while the Guidance Department for Autonomy reorgan-
ized itself and became the Governance Support Bureau (Ch: Zizheng ju; Jp: Shisei
kyoku) of Manchukuo on March 15, 1932.43

Clothing and Food Matters to One’s Daily Life: Yu’s Financial Observations
Other than creating autonomous institutions for the people, financial reforms
occupied a major portion of Yu’s policy of civil pacification. Associating Zhang
Zuolin’s military expansions in China proper in the mid-1920s with the increase
of Fengtian’s military expenditures and the collapse of Fengtian’s economy in
1928, Yu wished the new government of Fengtian to use the erstwhile funds for
army expansion to develop the province’s industries and promote religion and
education among the people.44 For Yu, cultivating individual morality alone was
not enough to pacify the society because he believed that people “understand
honor and shame after possessing enough clothing and food” (yishi zu er zhi
rongru), a famous statement of the renowned bureaucrat Guan Zhong (725–645
BCE).45
Increasing the salaries of lower-level officials served as a way for Yu to enrich the
clothing and food of the people and relieve their financial burdens. He revealed
that the monthly wage of police officers in warlord Manchuria was eight dayang (a
name for silver coins), something that was “not even enough to cover their tobacco
costs, let alone family matters.”46 Civil government officials suffered similar plights.
According to Yu, the monthly wage of a magistrate of a first-class county, like
Liaoyang, was 360 dayang, something that was “not even enough for them to
interact” with other officials through banquets and made them “difficult to main-
tain their dignity” in front of other officials.47 Worse, to support army expendi-
tures, the Fengtian government intentionally “cut the payments of [civil and lower
officials] by thirty percent to fifty percent,” forcing them to “rely on grey incomes
for survival.”48 Moral education was unable to eradicate such a systematic fault for
Yu; it required a thorough reform from the top down to change the ruling struc-
tures of warlord Manchuria.
148 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
Rectifying the Existing Official Faults of Fengtian: Yu’s Government Reforms
Inside the government of Fengtian, Yu Chonghan proposed the creation of an
Audit Council (Shenji yuan) and the enactment of a Household Registration Law
(Huji fa), to supervise provincial expenditures. Considering the rectification of
official principles and the transparency of financial systems two indispensable ele-
ments of political integrity, Yu urged the new Fengtian government to publicize
all its incomes and expenditures under the supervision of the Audit Council. He
noted that the former warlord cliques of Fengtian often misappropriated provincial
incomes for firearms and estimated that “the total amount that [the warlords]
illegitimately took away [from Fengtian in the past twenty years] was probably
around dozens of million yuan.”49 Considering official corruption a universal prob-
lem in Manchuria, Yu described the Audit Council as an institution that “strictly
regulates the tax system of each province” of Manchuria.50 As long as each prov-
ince had strict financial regulations, their “incomes will grow exponentially,” antic-
ipated Yu.51 Bandit uprisings were a lasting problem that haunted Manchuria for
decades, and Yu primarily blamed the region’s careless household registration sys-
tem for the provision of numerous hideouts for criminals. Considering this, the
new Manchurian state should enact a Household Registration Law and “immedi-
ately conduct strict household surveys at cities, towns, and villages” to “make the
search for criminals easier.”52 Covering the fields of finance and public security, Yu
stressed the importance of government reforms to securing the livelihoods of
Manchuria’s population.
Other than reforming the household registration system of warlord Manchuria,
reshuffling the existing local police organizations helped promote the region’s
public security. Carefully choosing those who possessed “outstanding qualities” to
serve as police officers, Yu particularly noted the significance of policemen to the
stability of a society not only because they more “often interact with the people”
compared to other official positions but also because the nature of their job was to
protect the people’s lives and properties.53 By dismissing all those who were “pol-
luted by the corrupt customs of big cities” and replacing them with “strong and
honest individuals from the countryside who pass the strict training” programs of
the new police organizations, Yu wanted to eradicate the existing corruption
inside Fengtian’s police forces.54 He observed that members of the province’s
police forces contained many former bandits who were “impossible to redress their
bad habits through education.” Worse, many of them were police officers during
their working hours and became bandits after their work for the day was over, and
they wore their uniforms again the next morning. Some lucky individuals even
managed to become warlord soldiers after surrender.55 Such a defect would greatly
weaken the efficiency of anti-bandit operations because police and criminals might
often be accomplices who exploited local and provincial funds for their own profit.
To correct this fault and raise the status of police officers, Yu wanted to raise the
monthly wage of a police officer from 8 dayang in the warlord era to a minimum
of 40 dayang and a maximum of 60 dayang. He also planned to promote capable
individuals from police officers to the head of a provincial department of Fengtian
or a county magistrate or mayor of the province.56 Having clear objectives on the
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 149
ways in which a competent government should promote honest governance, Yu
valued a cooperative relationship between the people and the state.
A betterment of Manchuria’s railway and highway systems was the seventh and
the last section of the national blueprint that Yu proposed for Manchuria in late
1931.57 Deeming the advancement of Manchuria’s communications conducive to
the development of the region’s industries and the eradication of bandit uprisings,
Yu noted that the construction of more railways and highways would also provide
unemployed people with work opportunities.58 Praising Wang Yongjiang for his
20 million yuan project of expanding the railway and highway systems of Manchuria
to the economic development of Zhang Zuolin’s Fengtian regime in the early
1920s, Yu primarily blamed a blind embrace of militarism inside the Fengtian
clique for the abolition of Wang’s policy in the late 1920s.59 For the economic
recovery of Manchuria, Yu urged the new state to “immediately make plans for
[developing the region’s] road administrations.”60
Sharing the civil-oriented policies of Wang, Yu considered communications
essential to the vitalization of the economy and industry of Manchuria for years.
Speaking to the Japanese minister of the army (Rikugun daijin) during his visit to
Japan as the representative of Zhang Zuolin on December 11, 1920, for example,
Yu encouraged the Japanese home government to assist the Fengtian regime with
extending the Chinese Eastern Railway to the north of Harbin and constructing
more railways in Jilin province. To attract investment from China proper, Yu also
encouraged Japan to unify the rail width of the SMR and the Beijing-Fengtian
Railway (Jing Feng tielu).61 Different from most of the other figures that this book
analyzes who elaborated their thoughts in their own writings or through media,
the Japanese systematically recorded Yu’s words in late 1931; this reveals his signif-
icance in the eyes of the Japanese. Therefore, Yu could not escape from Japanese
exploitation on the eve of Manchukuo’s creation.

A Respected Exit from Politics: Yu’s Ephemeral Career in Manchukuo and Death
As one of the most influential civil officials of warlord Manchuria, Yu became the
head of the Supervisory Council of Manchukuo in March 1932. Inheriting “a
unique supervisory system that only existed in [monarchical] China,” the
Manchukuo Supervisory Council was the successor to the Qing Dynasty’s
Supervisory Council of Ducha yuan—an institution overseen by the emperor and
responsible to him for “inspecting all government-related affairs.”62 As one of the
three independent councils of Manchukuo, along with the State Council and the
Legislative Council (Ch: Lifa yuan; Jp: Rippō in), the Supervisory Council was
responsible for maintaining official integrity and supervising government expendi-
tures.63 To monitor local government institutions, the Council sent officials to
“designated regions” across Manchukuo; inspectors of the Council were exempt
from dismissal, suspension, transfer, and payment reduction unless they committed
crimes.64 Heading the Council, Yu could “approach the chief executive [Puyi]
directly through memorials anytime when he feels the need to reform [the coun-
try’s] laws and administration, based on the evidence that individual officials [in the
Council] collect.”65 Having dreamed about eradicating warlord Manchuria’s
150 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
institutional corruption without interference from the authorities for years, Yu
seemed to have realized that ideal by directing the Supervisory Council.
In practice, however, Yu’s prolonged health issues and the Japanese-dominated
nature of the Supervisory Council prevented him from influencing Manchukuo’s
national policies. Yu suffered pulmonary sickness for decades, and the smoking of
opium worsened his health. According to the record of his doctor, Yu died from a
complication of cholecystitis, gallstones, tuberculosis, kidney atrophy, and opium
poison.66 Before his death on November 12, 1932, Yu “coughed blood dozens of
times every day.”67 Understanding his feeble physical condition, Yu in 1932 spent
more time reading Buddhist sutras than handling political affairs, hoping that
“mental cultivation might cure his illness.”68 Yu’s health issues enabled the Japanese
to manipulate the Supervisory Council. In July 1932, for example, the Council
hired 18 Japanese officials and only 6 new Chinese officials.69 All the heads of the
Council’s affiliated departments were Japanese.70 Some Japanese officials from the
Council in May 1932 even publicly “urge the Kantō Army to operate the Council,
given Yu Chonghan’s prolonged sickness,” wrote Zheng Xiaoxu in his diary.71
Rarely appearing in public in 1932, Yu entrusted the majority of the Council’s
affairs to Japanese officials and his first son Yu Jingyuan (1898–1969), and his life
ended in November 1932 after years of suffering.
Yu died in the early afternoon of November 12, 1932, in Dalian’s SMR
Hospital.72 Officials across Manchukuo, including Puyi and Zheng Xiaoxu,
expressed their sadness over Yu’s death in the media.73 On December 20, the
Manchukuo government held a commemorative ceremony in the auditorium of
Xinjing Higher Female School (Xinjing gaodeng nüxiao) and exhibited during the
ceremony the first-class medal of Kyokujitsu daijushō (Grand Cordon of the Order
of the Rising Sun) that the Shōwa Emperor (1901–1989) of Japan awarded Yu after
the latter’s death.74 The opening words of this ceremony read as follows:

From the perspective of this world, one hundred years merely resemble an
ephemeral moment in the consciousness of a human being; no one enjoys an
eternal life. Yet the death of a person does not necessarily suggest the death of
his careers. If one fulfills the responsibilities of his careers in his lifetime, his
careers will still be present even after his physical death, and such a person will
thus be immortal.75

Encouraging everyone to refrain from discussing the deserved life span of a person,
this narrative portrayed Yu as a dedicated official who devoted his life to the crea-
tion of Manchukuo. Hinting that Yu’s contributions and ideals would be “immor-
tal,” these sentences likely served as an official evaluation of Yu. Ironically, Yu’s
dream of promoting regional autonomy in Manchukuo already began to shatter in
his lifetime when the state abolished the Governance Support Bureau of Kasagi
Yoshiaki, the institution that would most likely have helped Yu realize his ideals, in
July 1932. The gradual expansions of Japanese dictatorial power in the state of
Manchukuo and an increased association of Emperor Puyi with the Japanese
imperial family in the late 1930s enabled the ideals of Komai Tokuzō, Itagaki
Seishirō (1885–1948), and other supporters of Japanese imperialism to triumph
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 151
over the dissident voices of other Chinese and Japanese officials. Following a major
reform of Manchukuo’s government institutions, in May 1937, the state abolished
the Supervisory Council and made the State Council, the Ministry of Justice (Ch:
Sifa bu; Jp: Shihō bu), and a newly created Audit Office (Ch: Shenji chu; Jp: Shinkei
sho) divide and succeed its powers.76 Yu’s political legacy merely lasted less than five
years after his death because, like Zheng Xiaoxu, his governing policies were
overly China-oriented and threatening to the Japanese dictatorship. Although he
did not live long enough to witness Japan’s hegemonic control of Manchukuo,
most of the country’s civil elites had to survive under Japanese domination and
suffered the denunciations of their Chinese compatriots after 1945, as the next
section on Zang Shiyi demonstrates.

Unspeakable Bitterness: Zang Shiyi and His Cooperation with

the Japanese in Manchukuo
Zang Shiyi was a central figure in Zhang Xueliang’s Fengtian regime in the late
1920s and the state of Manchukuo in the 1930s and the early 1940s. A Japanese
record in late February 1932 revealed that he was initially a candidate for the vice
prime minister of Manchukuo, although the country did not install such a position
eventually.77 A 1936 Japanese introduction of Manchukuo’s government leaders
regarded the rise of Zang as the next prime minister of Manchukuo as “common
sense” for those who observed the country’s situation.78 As one of the few remain-
ing officials in the provincial capital of Fengtian on the evening of September 18,
1931, Zang did not resist the Japanese invasion due to Zhang Xueliang’s order and
then suffered a three-month detainment between September and December
1931.79 Yielding to Japanese demands in December 1931, Zang participated in the
creation of Manchukuo and became a top-level official.
In the era of Zheng Xiaoxu between March 1932 and May 1935, Zang was
the provincial leader of Fengtian and the head of Manchukuo’s Ministry of Civil
Affairs (Ch: Minzheng bu; Jp: Minsei bu)—an institution that managed “local
administration, policing, construction, sanitation and education.”80 In the era of
Zhang Jinghui (1872–1959) between May 1935 and August 1945, Zang headed
the Privy Council (Ch: Canyi fu; Jp: Sangi fu)—an institution responsible for
reviewing and approving Manchukuo’s national policies prior to their imple-
mentation.81 After Manchukuo’s collapse in August 1945, the Soviet Union
captured Zang and imprisoned him in Siberia for five years until August 1950,
when the country repatriated him to the newly established PRC with other war
captives from Manchukuo. Zang spent the rest of his life in Fushun War Criminal
Prison (Fushun zhanfan guanlisuo) as a war criminal and died on November 13,
1956.82
Unlike Yu Chonghan who wanted to systematically reform warlord Manchuria’s
government structures, Zang represented an opposing group in the Fengtian clique
who wanted to maintain the region’s situation before 1931. As a prominent gov-
ernment leader of Manchukuo, Zang arguably left no written materials other than
two confessions that he wrote due to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) demands
in 1951 and 1954.83 In the state of Manchukuo, Zang maintained a silent and
152 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
dignified image in front of his colleagues. Nostalgically writing in 1980, a former
Japanese official in the Privy Council supported this point: “Within the rigorous
look [of Zang], one could sense an indescribable kindness in his eyes. … Even
more than thirty years have passed, I am still hardly able to forget that impres-
sion.”84 Takebe Rokuzō (1893–1958), the last director of the General Affairs Board
of Manchukuo, described Zang as a “calculated person who has insight and the
ability of endurance.” Because “his body is as thin as a wolf,” Takebe continued,
“his sharp gaze [further helped strengthen his] prestigious image.”85 Likely feeling
intimidated by Zang’s appearance and personality, the Japanese unconsciously kept
a distance from him and thus left few helpful materials for others to explore his
ideals.
Examining his two written confessions, it is reasonable to acknowledge Zang’s
intention to preserve the authority of warlord Manchuria with his own influence
in the era of Manchukuo. Repenting their cooperation with the Japanese in the
1930s and the early 1940s by producing confessions was a possible way for former
Manchukuo officials in Fushun War Criminal Prison to reduce their sentence, as
one common warning from the CCP at that time was “leniency to those who
confess and punishment to those who resist” (tanbai congkuan kangju congyan).86
Zang in his confessions even condemned his clichés like “promoting Japan-
Manchukuo friendship” for “betraying the ethnic consciousness” of China, yet the
overall content of his confessions was a detailed description of Manchukuo’s gov-
ernment organizations and policies, not an introspective testimony of his activities
in Manchukuo. In his memoir, Furumi Tadayuki (1900–1983) notes that Puyi
eloquently elaborated and criticized Manchukuo-related “affairs that he knew lit-
tle about” during the Shenyang Trials of 1956, such as Furumi’s experiences as the
vice director of Manchukuo’s General Affairs Board between 1941 and 1945 and
Manchukuo’s opium, immigration, and economic policies.87 This suggests that the
CCP more or less purposefully provided many Manchukuo captives with relevant
sources when they drafted their written confessions, despite the extent to which
the Party directed the contents of Manchukuo war captives’ written confessions is
unknown given a lack of sources. It is thus possible for Zang to elaborate on
Manchukuo’s national policies even if he participated little in the making of them.
In contrast, available and scattered materials in both Chinese and Japanese make it
possible for one to sense Zang’s personal identification with Zhang Xueliang’s
Fengtian regime.
Using sources like contemporary news coverage, Manchukuo’s government
bulletins, and the written confessions of Zang and others, this section suggests that
Zang’s national ideal was to help Zhang Xueliang govern the Japanese-occupied
Fengtian province until the ROC could reclaim Manchuria with international
assistance. Similar to the plight of Zhang Jinghui, Zang’s influence in Fengtian
made him unable to escape from being used by both the ROC government and
the Kantō Army during their power struggles in Manchuria in the early 1930s.
Feeling grateful for his promotion to the provincial leader of Fengtian in 1930 due
to Zhang Xueliang’s consent, Zang’s career in Manchukuo involved a complex
power operation that involved the Japanese, the ROC government, and his own
calculated decisions under pressing situations.
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 153
A Path to the Aide of Zhang Xueliang: Zang’s Early Life
Zang Shiyi was born into a peasant family in the provincial capital of Fengtian in
1884. He began to attend a private academy in 1892 and passed the admission test
to the Baoding Military Academy (Baoding lujun junguan xuexiao)—China’s first
military academy—in the autumn of 1905.88 He went to study in Japan in 1907 and
graduated from the infantry department of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy
(Rikugun shikan gakkō) in 1911.89 From 1912, Zang served as an instructor at
Baoding Military Academy for seven years and became a staff officer of the
Heilongjiang Military Department (Heilongjiang dujun shu) in 1919.90 He returned
to his home province of Fengtian in June 1924 and became the chief of staff of the
province’s military department.91 After Zhang Zuolin moved his base to Beijing in
1924, Zang headed the defending forces of Fengtian and maintained local secu-
rity.92 In the era of Zhang Zuolin, Zang mainly played his role as a military official
who was rarely involved in the making of warlord Manchuria’s governing policies.
Zang’s promotion to a prominent leader of Fengtian happened in the era of
Zhang Xueliang. After the Kantō Army exploded Zhang Zuolin’s train and greatly
injured him on his way back to Fengtian in June 1928, Zang Shiyi covered up
Zhang’s subsequent death and supported Zhang Xueliang to succeed his father to
prevent the disintegration of the Fengtian faction.93 In Zang’s own words, “[E]
veryone in the provincial capital of Fengtian was astonished” at this unexpected
incident and believed that “a great disaster was approaching” when Zhang Zuolin
returned to Fengtian, dying. Some “even went into hiding, and some stores also
closed—the situation was chaotic.”94 Hence, Zang and his men remained ambigu-
ous when the Japanese “used different ways to inquire regarding the situation of
Zhang [Zuolin] several times every day” on the one hand and assisted Zhang
Xueliang to become the new leader of Manchuria on the other.95 Since then,
Zang became a trusted aide of Zhang Xueliang due to his loyalty and ability to
pacify political crises. As a reward from Zhang, Zang Shiyi was given control of the
Fengtian Arsenal in 1928 and became the provincial leader of Fengtian in January
1930.96 By 1930, Zhang Xueliang had either isolated or eliminated most of the
surviving aides of his father and substituted them with a group of younger officials
that he trusted. The change in Manchuria’s political climate brought Zang fortune
in the short term, yet his exalted position directly influenced his later life after the
Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931.

Tormented Decisions Facing Japanese Threats: Zang during the Manchurian

Incident
As the provincial leader of Fengtian, Zang was one of the few remaining officials
in Fengtian when the Kantō Army attacked the city on the evening of September
18, 1931. According to Zang’s confession, most of the Fengtian faction’s leading
officials were absent during the Incident. For example, Zhang Xueliang and Wan
Fulin (1880–1951)—the provincial leader of Heilongjiang—were in Beijing, and
Zhang Zuoxiang (1881–1949)—the provincial leader of Jilin—left Jilin to attend
his father’s funeral.97 After a failed attempt to stop the Kantō Army’s aggression
154 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
with help from the local Japanese consulate, Zang reported to Zhang Xueliang the
city’s urgent situation through a telegram and asked for his advice. Zhang, in his
reply, urged Zang to avoid confrontation with the Japanese.98 Contemporary
sources support Zang’s words, as Zhang Xueliang claimed in front of a Chinese
journalist on September 19, 1931, that he ordered the “officials and people” of
Fengtian “not to resist” the Japanese invasion.99 To prevent Zang’s men from resist-
ing the Japanese, Zhang revealed during another interview with a foreign journal-
ist on September 20 that he ordered Zang to confiscate all the firearms of the local
military police and to lock them in warehouses “when hearing of the Japanese
military attack” of Fengtian on September 18.100 Due to Zhang Xueliang’s nonre-
sistant policy, the Kantō Army managed to control Fengtian within one night.
Zhang’s decision left Zang Shiyi no alternative other than cooperating with the
Japanese for the temporary maintenance of Fengtian’s order. On the morning of
September 20, Zhang Xueliang’s informant met Zang in his private residence in
Fengtian and told him on behalf of Zhang that “it is necessary to embrace an
absolute non-resistant policy” by “tolerating Japan’s actions” because Zhang
Xueliang “already has a plan for the future…and is going to discuss this with
Chiang Kai-shek first.”101 In a conversation with Wang Ziheng (1894–?), a con-
sultant of the Fengtian provincial government and a former official of Manchukuo,
after the Manchurian Incident, Zang Shiyi revealed his intention to cooperate
with the Japanese, saying,

The Northeast is the property of China and its population. I believe that the
central government [of the ROC] must have a solution to the current crisis.
… The Japanese are insatiable. They now force us to admit the provisions in
the former 21 Demands [of 1915], something that we cannot—and do not
have the right to—admit. Given the tense situation at present, we have to
follow the Japanese, but I promise you I will not engage in any treasonous
activities.102

Neither Zhang Jinghui nor Yu Chonghan overly trusted the ROC’s ability to solve
Manchuria’s problems, given their grasp of Japanese ambitions and Chinese mili-
tary weakness, but Zang, of a younger generation who felt grateful to Zhang
Xueliang for his trust, believed that it was still possible for the ROC to reclaim
Manchuria through peaceful means. For Zhang Xueliang’s sake, Zang encouraged
the Kantō Army to “fully utilize the assistance from local Chinese police forces” to
restore Fengtian’s order in the afternoon of September 20, when a Japanese agent
visited Zang in his residence and told him that the Kantō Army was going to dis-
arm local Chinese troops and appoint army official Doihara Kenji (1883–1948) as
the city’s new mayor for safety concerns.103 What happened afterward is vague
given a lack of relevant sources, but the Japanese detained Zang for three months
and released him on the evening of December 13, 1931, based on the record of
Kantō Army staff Katakura Tadashi (1898–1991).104
Neither the Japanese nor Zang clarified the reasons for this detainment, but
initially, the two sides arguably failed to reach a consensus on affairs relating to
power and duty, which resulted in Zang’s loss of freedom.105 When Zang was
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 155
under detainment, people like Yu Chonghan and Yuan Jinkai created multiple
regional maintenance committees across Fengtian province in late September and
early October 1931, and pro-Japanese officials like Zhao Xinbo (1887–1951) con-
trolled the municipal affairs of Fengtian in late October 1931. When Zang became
the provincial leader of Fengtian again on December 16, 1931, it was already dif-
ficult for him to change the personnel layout in the provincial government based
on his own will.
Japanese intimidation was certainly an important reason behind Zang’s inaugu-
ration as the provincial leader of a Japanese-occupied Fengtian in December 1931,
but Zhang Xueliang’s secret order also motivated Zang to cooperate with the
Japanese. According to the recollection of an important cofounder of the
Manchukuo Concordia Association (Ch: Xiehehui; Jp: Kyōwakai), Yamaguchi Jūji
(1892–1979), the Japanese inadvertently discovered a secret channel between
Tianjin and Harbin during their repair of Fengtian’s radio station in early 1932.
They realized it to be a contact passage between Zhang Xueliang and Manchuria’s
high-level officials after cracking its code, thereby intercepting an inquiry telegram
that Zang Shiyi sent to Zhang after his release in mid-December 1931 on whether
or not he should head the province of Fengtian under Japanese presence. Zhang in
his reply simply wrote, “[T]ake that position.”106 Zang’s collusion with the ROC
government angered many military officials in the Kantō Army; some even encour-
aged the army to execute Zang. Itagaki Seishirō, however, pacified their anger and
continued to cooperate with Zang, smiling and saying, “Isn’t [the cooperation
with someone who had secret connections with the ROC] interesting?”107
Itagaki’s words complicate the often-overlooked power struggles of the ROC
and the Japanese in Manchuria in the early 1930s. The previous chapter on Zhang
Jinghui and Ma Zhanshan (1885–1950) shows that the ROC planned to make
local officials obstruct Japanese domination in Manchuria. The Kantō Army’s tol-
erance of Zang reveals that the Japanese also wanted to sense the ROC’s possible
measures against the new state of Manchukuo by utilizing those who worked for
the ROC. Available sources reveal no subsequent communications between Zang
and Zhang Xueliang, which suggests Zang’s awareness of Japanese vigilance.
Praising his rigorous personality, Komai Tokuzō commented in 1933 that Zang
not only “understands the Japanese well” but also “possesses the ability and talent
of handling affairs,” deeming Zang “the most talented man among the top-level
[Chinese] officials of Manchukuo.”108 Yet such a “talented man” could only rely on
silence to survive Japanese surveillance, given the exposure of his lingering rela-
tionship with Zhang Xueliang. With anxiety, Zang attended the Meeting of
National Foundation (Jian’guo huiyi) of Manchukuo on February 16, 1932, in
Fengtian as one of the “Big Four” (Si jutou) on the Manchurian side along with
Zhang Jinghui, Ma Zhanshan, and Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (1884–1952) and headed
Manchukuo’s Ministry of Civil Affairs in March 1932.

Fourteen Years of Silence: Zang’s Career in the State of Manchukuo

Between 1932 and 1945, Zang rarely stated his political opinions in public other
than supporting the Japan-Manchukuo friendship, and current declassified
156 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
documents of the Manchukuo era contain no written materials of Zang either.
Although whether or not Zang kept a diary or similar records in those years is
uncertain, he was indeed more reluctant to express his thoughts in front of others
compared to all the other figures that this book examines. In his inaugural speech
as the provincial leader of Fengtian on the afternoon of December 16, 1931, for
instance, Zang promised to “reduce people’s hardship by improving their profits”
and argued for the necessity for China to “co-exist and co-prosper with Japan.”109
He reiterated these points during an interview with Fengtian’s local journalists on
December 18: “My goal is to strive for the people’s welfare…and normalize Sino-
Japanese relations.”110 It is more difficult to find words even like this in Manchukuo’s
news coverage after 1933, which suggests that Zang’s caution toward the Japanese
was growing.
Regardless of Japanese vigilance, silence helped Zang maintain a prestigious
image among the Chinese-speaking officials of Manchukuo. In February 1932,
local news coverage highlighted Zang’s significance to Manchuria’s political ter-
rain, suggesting that he was the “central figure behind the movement of the new
nation’s foundation.”111 Local Chinese-language media by January 1932 still
believed that Zang or Zhang Jinghui would head the new state given their erst-
while reputations in warlord Manchuria.112 Puyi planned to appoint Zang the
prime minister of Manchukuo twice in September 1932, when Zheng Xiaoxu
protested Komai Tokuzō through resignation, and in May 1935, when Zheng
resigned again due to pressures from Puyi and the Kantō Army. Claiming that “the
existing members of [his] cabinet contain no great individuals,” Puyi in his conver-
sation with the Kantō Army’s commander Minami Jirō (1874–1955) on May 18,
1935, hinted to Minami his desire to have Zang succeed the prime ministership,
saying, “Zang is the only clever-headed exception.”113 In his 1964 memoir, Puyi
elaborated on his appreciation of Zang’s honesty and obedience, writing that Zang
“would absolutely follow my command due to gratitude if I appoint him the
prime minister.”114 Apparently, Puyi was unaware of Zang’s loyalty to Zhang
Xueliang and his tricky relationship with the Japanese. Chapter 4 has mentioned
that Minami declined Puyi’s request and made Zhang Jinghui the prime minister
of Manchukuo, and one of the major reasons behind this arrangement, Minami
claimed, was the existence of a Fengtian faction behind Zang.115 Although source
issues again prevent one from exploring this so-called Fengtian faction, its mem-
bers were likely those who originated in Fengtian and who wanted to preserve the
warlord government structures of the Zhang Xueliang era. Given Zang’s reputa-
tion and statement of “having the responsibility of defending the territory” of
Fengtian, it is reasonable for the supporters of Zhang Xueliang to treat Zang as
their leader regardless of Zang’s own will.116
To preserve his official position in Manchukuo, Zang acted as an executor
who followed orders from the State Council in the era of Zheng Xiaoxu between
1932 and 1935 and a silent follower of Japanese-made national policies in the era
of Zhang Jinghui between 1935 and 1945. Abolished in May 1937, Manchukuo’s
Ministry of Civil Affairs was an affiliated institution of the State Council respon-
sible for handling “local administrative, policing, engineering, sanitation, and
education systems.”117 Besides implementing national-level policies, the Ministry
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 157
also handled mundane issues like local government expenditures and tax collec-
tion.118 Heading the Ministry, Zang was responsible for carrying out Manchukuo
state decisions. While promoting the Kingly Way ideology in Manchukuo’s pri-
mary and secondary schools, for example, Zang’s allotted mission was to pro-
mote textbooks that introduced Confucian classics at local schools on behalf of
the prime minister.119 To practice the Kingly Way concept of benevolence, Zang
was willing to forgive those “who were forced to engage in banditry activities
because of familial financial plights” if they “proactively surrender to the police
and are willing to repent their deeds.”120 To prevent ROC spies from entering
Manchukuo under the guise of immigrant labor, Zang also urged the regime’s
immigration bureaus to repatriate those from China proper who did not carry a
valid passport or letter of guarantee.121 To celebrate Manchukuo’s foundation,
the Ministry under Zang’s leadership hosted the regime’s United Sports
Competition for National Foundation (Jian’guo lianhe yundong dahui) between
late April and early May of 1932, to “promote ethnic harmony, carry out
[Manchukuo’s] spirit of national foundation and emphasize [the importance of]
physical education.”122
Succeeding Zhang Jinghui as the head of the consultative institution of Privy
Council in May 1935, Zang became more like a figurehead in the following ten
years. As an independent institution that belonged to the emperor of Manchukuo,
the Privy Council was in theory responsible for reviewing all kinds of newly made
government laws and decrees that the State Council had approved. During the
review process, members of the Privy Council would listen to the explanations of
the prime minister, the director of the General Affairs Board, and relevant individ-
uals through a conference and then decide whether or not they should approve or
reject the proposal through a discussion.123 In practice, however, the Japanese tried
to prevent members of the Privy Council from questioning proposals from the
State Council beforehand by describing them as “established guidelines,” “national
policies,” or “Kantō Army designated measures.” In Zang’s words, “the so-called
Privy Council was merely a nominal institution,” as he “never rejected a single
proposal” after handling “more than several thousand cases” during his “ten-year
service in the Privy Council.”124
Regardless of his silence to Japanese demands after 1935, Zang at least tried to
encourage the Japanese to share their governing power with Chinese officials in
public. During his official visit to Japan in January 1935, Zang accepted an inter-
view with Japanese historian Tokutomi Sohō (1863–1957) in Tokyo and stated the
following points:

Many Japanese are often suspicious towards the Manchurians, and many
Manchurians are afraid of the Japanese. This has become a great obstacle on
the path of Japan-Manchukuo friendship. Japanese officials want to deal with
everything with their own hands in Manchukuo. Such an action resembles
those rickshaw drivers who drive on an unfamiliar and bumpy road at
night—their rickshaws will be overturned if they pull them hard. Why not
let the Manchurians do their own work and suit yourself on the supervisory
position?125
158 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
Moderately requesting the Japanese to become advisors instead of dominators of
Manchukuo, Zang in the preceding sentences portrayed an acceptable form of
Japanese occupation in his eyes. He expected to fulfill the desire of restoring the
government structures of the warlord era for Fengtian province besides defending
the territory of Fengtian for Zhang Xueliang. He thus encouraged the Japanese to
entrust mundane affairs to local Chinese officials. Unsurprisingly, major Japanese
newspapers, such as Asahi, Yomiuri, and Tōkyō nichinichi, did not report Zang’s
speech given its subversive nature to the slogan of Japan-Manchukuo friendship
and the Kantō Army’s policy of governing Manchukuo with Japanese officials.
Sharing Zhang Jinghui’s goal of waiting for the ROC to reclaim Manchuria,
Zang’s service in Manchukuo made him suffer Soviet and PRC imprisonment and
moral criticisms from mainland Chinese citizens after 1945.

From Celebrity to Prisoner: Zang’s Later Life

On the evening of August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union unilaterally broke the 1941
Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact and invaded Manchukuo from Siberia and Outer
Mongolia. To survive the Soviet invasion, the Japanese planned to relocate Puyi
and the members of his private institutions of the Imperial Household Mansion
(Ch: Gongnei fu; Jp: Ku’nai fu) and the Privy Council in the Korean border prov-
ince of Tonghua. They expected other government organizations to defend the
capital city of Xinjing under the leadership of Takebe Rokuzō and his General
Affairs Board. Several high-level Chinese officials, particularly Cai Yunsheng
(1881–1959), opposed the relocation of Puyi and insisted on defending Xinjing
“until the death of the last man” on the Manchukuo side during the discussion of
the aforementioned plan, intensifying the meeting’s existing tension.126 Remaining
silent throughout the discussion, Zang eventually stated his supportive standpoint
for the Japanese decision, which “instantly pacified the quarrel and made the
whole room quiet.”127
Anticipating the retreat to be a prolonged strategic relocation, Manchukuo offi-
cials who went to Tonghua with Puyi, including Zang, all carried their belongings
with them. Although Zang’s “status and salary were hardly comparable” in
Manchukuo, his belongings only filled a small truck, whereas “even lower Kantō
Army officials and their family members fully loaded their properties with several
trucks” on their way to Tonghua. This “reflected the incorruptible character” of
Zang praised the Japanese, who recalled the aforementioned story in 1980.128 The
previous chapter elaborated on the stories that happened afterward, as Zang
returned to Xinjing with Zhang Jinghui on August 20, 1945, after Puyi’s abdica-
tion; they then organized an order maintenance committee under the Soviet occu-
pation. On August 31, the Soviets arrested both men and detained them in Siberia
with Puyi and other war captives from Manchukuo for five years. The Soviets
eventually repatriated Zang to the PRC along with 1,026 surviving Manchukuo
captives in July and August 1950, and the CCP detained them in the Fushun War
Criminal Prison.129
Sorrowful is the word that could summarize Zang’s mood during the final six
years of his life in prison between 1950 and 1956. Based on the recollections of
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 159
relevant individuals in the Fushun War Criminal Prison, Zang “rarely exposed his
thoughts other than frequently being depressed.”130 While in prison, he often
silently and sorrowfully looked at a photo that he took with his wife, son, and
granddaughter; the date of that photo is not clear.131 Sadness worsened his symp-
tom of emphysema and tracheitis: after June 1953, he could hardly walk without
others’ support.132 On the night before his death on November 13, 1956, Zang
wrote a poem on a piece of paper with a pencil: “Seven-string zither/Unable to
play the bitterness and depression in [my] heart; Eight-line letter/Unable to cover
all the emotions of farewell.” He added a sentence at the bottom of that poem: “A
timid person is always afraid of hearing the crowing of roosters.”133 Spending his
remaining strength writing the poem and sentence, Zang fainted and died in the
afternoon of the next day.134
“A timid person” apparently referred to Zang, and “the crowing of roosters”
likely referred not only to the “dawning of a new day” but also to the frequent
orders from the CCP that urged Zang to recollect and repent his experiences
between 1931 and 1945. He hinted at the reason behind that fear in the poem: he
was unable to explain clearly with words how he felt regret for his decision to
follow Zhang Xueliang’s nonresistant order. Zang’s feeble physical condition pre-
vented him from leaving longer and more explicit notes, which explains why he
was “unable to cover all the emotions of farewell” with that poem. Having no
opportunity to justify his reluctant cooperation with the Japanese under the pres-
sure of the CCP’s political reeducation in prison, Zang in that poem perhaps
implied a message of expecting others to help him speak out his bitterness one day
by exploring his activities after the Manchurian Incident of 1931. Unfortunately,
such a dream remains unfulfilled after more than 60 years have passed since his
death, especially given the still-antipathetic impression of Manchukuo among
most of mainland China’s population and a lack of firsthand sources on the inter-
actions between the ROC government and Manchuria’s high-level officials after
September 1931. Unable to report his experiences in the state of Manchukuo to
Zhang Xueliang after Japan’s surrender in 1945, Zang became an iconic figure of
Chinese traitors after the study of Manchukuo became a prominent topic in main-
land China in the mid-1980s.

Traitorous on the Surface; Helpless at the Core:

Chapter Conclusion
This chapter on Fengtian province’s civil elites explores the ideals of Yu Chonghan
and Zang Shiyi in the early 1930s. The former may represent an older generation
in the Fengtian clique of Zhang Zuolin who were unsatisfied with the mili-
tary-oriented governing policies of the Zhang family and who highlighted the
importance of civil order to the stability of Manchuria. The latter may represent a
younger generation whom Zhang Xueliang promoted to the core of the Fengtian
clique after 1928 and who supported the Zhang regime. Having few connections
with Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, Yu’s frequent equation of Fengtian with the
whole of Manchuria reflected the dominant status of Fengtian province and the
subordinate position of Jilin and Heilongjiang in the warlord regime of the Zhang
160 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
family. Contrasting Yu’s detailed reform proposal in late 1931 with the relative
silence of Zang in the era of Manchukuo, the civil elites of the important Fengtian
province had no consensus on the governance of a post-warlord Manchuria under
Japanese occupation, yet their participation in the making of Manchukuo further
complicates the entwined ideals of the country’s Chinese government leaders and
Japanese decision-makers in the early 1930s. Realizing their value for maintaining
the order of local society, Kantō Army officials like Itagaki Seishirō primarily
desired the support and cooperation of people like Yu and Zang during their
invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and idealists like Kasagi Yoshiaki actively sought to
cooperate with people like Yu to promote regional autonomy. To survive the
Japanese occupation and govern a disordered Fengtian after the collapse of the
local authority, Yu and Zang had to work with the Japanese no matter if they
supported Zhang’s warlord regime and the Kantō Army or not.
Analyzing the ideals of Yu and Zang helps uncover the thoughts of Fengtian’s
high-level civil officials and challenges an often-assumed puppet and submissive
image of Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders. An integrated observation of
Yu’s seven reform suggestions reveals his ideological identification with Fengtian
province and the rest of Manchuria. Treating militarism as a threat to the stability
of Fengtian, and Japan as an assistant to the development of a nonmilitarized
Manchuria, Yu tried to reconcile his ideals with the Japanese ambition of con-
quering Manchuria. He insisted that “empty-handed masses who lack talent and
courage” had to clear a surviving path under Japanese occupation if resistance was
not a viable option. This could explain why Yu openly embraced the creation of a
new Manchurian state that severed relationships with the former warlord regime
and the ROC government, even though his political stances did not contain a
strong will of negating the accomplishments of Zhang Zuolin and differentiating
Manchuria from the cultural concept of China. Given its autonomous inclination,
Yu’s ideal of decentralizing the ruling power of Manchuria gradually crumbled in
front of the dictatorial projects of Komai Tokuzō and Itagaki Seishirō after his
death in November 1932. Zang Shiyi, in contrast, had no interest in coordinating
his ideal of preserving the ruling structures of warlord Fengtian with the Japanese
ambition of creating an ideal Asian state in Manchuria. His initial reluctance to
cooperate with the Japanese made him suffer a three-month detainment between
September and December 1931, and the exposure of his collusion with Zhang
Xueliang in early 1932 motivated him to remain silent most of the time in the era
of Manchukuo.
Although Yu and Zang represented two antithetical voices on the future of
Manchuria inside the Fengtian warlord clique, the eventual failure of both persons’
ideals in Manchukuo reveals an incompatibility of warlordism and a rising senti-
ment of Asian utopianism among the Japanese military radicals and idealists in the
early Shōwa era. Having different ideals regarding the development of a new state
of Manchuria, however, the Japanese could not even tolerate the restoration of a
refined warlord government that Yu proposed, let alone support Zang’s effort to
protect Zhang Xueliang’s government. The experiences of Yu and Zang represent
an important part of the Fengtian-originated government leaders of Manchukuo,
yet they are not enough to summarize the thoughts of the province’s central
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 161
officials. As a major force of Manchukuo’s creation, many intellectual officials of
the province who experienced modern higher education cooperated with the
Japanese out of their own will. Some of them, like Zhao Xinbo and Feng Hanqing
(1892–?), even headed Manchukuo’s top-level government institutions, something
that the next chapter on intellectual officials explores in detail.

Notes
1 Hamaguchi Yūko, “Manshū jihen to Chūgokujin: Manshūkoku ni hairu Chūgokujin
kanri to Nihon no seisaku” [The Manchurian Incident and the Chinese: Chinese
officials who joined Manchukuo and the policies of Japan], Hōgaku kenkyū: hōritsu,
seiji, shakai [Study of laws: laws, politics and society] 64:11 (November 1991): 75.
2 Lincoln Li, The China Factor in Modern Japanese Thought: The Case of Tachibana Shiraki,
1881–1945 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 57.
3 Rana Mitter, The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in Modern
China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 116.
4 Yamamuro Shin’ichi, Kimera—Manshūkoku no shōzō zōhoban [Chimera—portrait of
Manchukuo; expanded edition] (Tokyo: Chūō kōron shinsha, 2004), 85.
5 Zhang Fulin, “Jiuyiba shibian hou de Zang Shiyi” [Zang Shiyi after the September 18
Incident], Shehui kexue zhanxian [Front of social science] 2 (1989): 249–253; Wang
Wenfeng, “Zang Shiyi de yisheng” [The life of Zang Shiyi], in Wei Man shiliao cong-
shu: wei Man renwu [Bogus Manchukuo historical Material series: bogus Manchukuo
figures], ed. Sun Bang (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 373–383.
6 “Shenyuan weichihui chengli hou zhixu jianqu huifu” [Shenyang’s order has been
gradually restored after the establishment of the Maintenance Committee], Manzhou
bao [Manchurian newspaper] (September 27, 1931): 1.
7 Zhao Xinbo, Shin kokka dai Manshū [The greater new Manchurian state] (Tokyo:
Tokyo shobō, 1932), 25.
8 “Yu Chonghan shi zuori yinbing shishi” [Yu Chonghan passed away yesterday from
illness], Taidong ribao [Eastern daily] (November 13, 1932): 3.
9 Liao Yuan, “Hanjian Yu Chonghan de maiguo huodong” [Traitor Yu Chonghan’s
treasonous activities], in Wei Man renwu, 463.
10 Asahi shinbunsha, Shōwa hachinen Asahi nenkan furoku: Manshūkoku taikan [Appendix
of the eighth year of Shōwa’s Asahi yearbook: an overview of Manchukuo] (Osaka:
Asahi shinbunsha, 1932), 13.
11 Liao, “Hanjian Yu Chonghan,” in Wei Man renwu, 463.
12 Zhang Xueji, Zhang Zuolin mufu yu muliao [Zhang Zuolin’s government and subordi-
nates] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang wenyi chubanshe, 2011), 143.
13 Gaimushō jōhō bu, ed., Gendai Shinajin meikan [Dictionary of modern Chinese fig-
ures] (Tokyo: Gaimushō jōhō bu, 1928), 591–592.
14 Ibid., 592; Miyajima Daihachi, “U Chūkan shi o tsuikai shite” [Recalling Yu
Chonghan], in Yu jiancha yuan zhang aisi lu [Memorializing record for the head of the
Supervisory Council Yu Chonghan], ed. Fujiyama Kazuo (Xinjing: Manzhouguo
jiancha yuan zongwuchu, 1933), 50–51.
15 Komai Tokuzō, Tairiku e no higan [Longing for the continent] (Tokyo: Dai Nihon
yūben kai kōdansha, 1952), 128.
16 Gaimushō jōhō bu, ed., Gendai Shinajin meikan, 592.
17 Ronald Suleski, Civil Government in Warlord China: Tradition, Modernization and
Manchuria (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 18.
18 Gaimushō jōhō bu, ed., Gendai Shinajin meikan, 592. “Double jades” is an adjective
that the Chinese often use to describe two closely related virtuous or talented men.
19 Suleski, Civil Government in Warlord China, 18.
20 Gaimushō jōhō bu, ed., Gendai Shinajin meikan, 592.
162 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
21 “Tetsudō shubihei Kaijō ni oite dōken yobi junkei e shasatsu ni kansuru ken” [On the
shooting of a (Japanese) railway guard in Haicheng by a local (Chinese) preparatory
patrol], February 24, 1914, Reference No. B07090231500, Japan Center for Asian
Historical Records; “Tetsudō fuzokuchi nai jōzō shōshu kazei no ken” [Case on the
tax collection of alcohol industry in the affiliated territories along the SMR], February 5,
1914, Reference No. B12083209200, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records.
22 Gaimushō jōhō bu, ed., Gendai Shinajin meikan, 592.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid; Asahi Shinbunsha, Taikan, 13; Wang Ziheng, “Jiuyiba shibian hou Riben qin-
lüezhe he Hanjian zai Dongbei de yinmou huodong” [The evil activities of Japanese
invaders and Chinese traitors in the Northeast after the September Eighteen Incident],
in Wei Man shiliao congshu: Jiuyiba shibian [Bogus Manchukuo historical material series:
the September Eighteen Incident], ed. Sun Bang (Changchun: Jilin renmin chuban-
she, 1993), 503.
25 Anonymous, “U Chūkan shi no seiken” [The political opinions of Yu Chonghan],
unknown date, Reference No. C14030573000, Japan Center for Asian Historical
Records, 1586–1610.
26 Lin Zhihong, “Difang fenquan yu zizhi: Manzhouguo de jianshe jiqi zhipei” [Regional
distribution of power and autonomy: Manchukuo’s creation and domination], in Jindai
Zhong Ri guanxi shi xinlun [A new view on the history of modern Sino-Japanese rela-
tions], ed. Huang Zijin and Pan Guangzhe (Xinbei: Daoxiang chubanshe, 2017), 645.
27 Minami Manshū tetsudō kabushiki gaisha shomu bu chōsa ka, Nyūkan go ni okeru
Hōten ha [About the Fengtian faction after its expansion into China proper] (Dalian:
Minami Manshū tetsudō, 1928), 16.
28 Yu Chonghan, “Xunci” [Exhortation], December 21, 1931, Reference No.
C12120170300, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, 0025.
29 Anonymous, “U Chūkan shi no seiken,” 1586.
30 Ibid., 1601.
31 Yu, “Xunci,” 26–27.
32 Morita Fukumatsu, “U Chūkan no shutsuro to sono seiken” [Yu Chonghan’s return
to politics and his political opinion], November 22, 1931, in Gendai shi shiryō
[Documents of modern history], vol. 11, ed. Kobayashi Tatsuo and Shimada Toshihiko
(Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1964), 568.
33 Ibid., 1603.
34 Morita, “U Chūkan no shutsuro to sono seiken,” in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 11, 569.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid., 568–569.
37 Ishiwara Kanji, “Manshūkoku to Shina jihen” [Manchukuo and the China Incident],
March 1, 1940, in Ishiwara Kanji zenshū bekkan: Tō A renmei undō [Collected works of
Ishiwara Kanji additional volume: East Asian alliance movement], ed. Ishiwara Kanji
zenshū kankō kai (Funabashi: Ishiwara Kanji zenshū kankō kai, 1976), 72.
38 Morita, “U Chūkan no shutsuro to sono Seiken,” in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 11, 564;
Komai, Higan, 169.
39 Wang, “Yinmou huodong,” in Jiuyiba shibian, 504.
40 Ibid.
41 Kasagi Yoshiaki, “Zizhi zhidaobu tiaoli” [Regulations of the Guidance Department
for Autonomy], November 10, 1931, Reference No. C12120170300, Japan Center
for Asian Historical Records, 0020.
42 Yu, “Xunci,” 0026.
43 “Xin shengzhang Zang Shiyi jiuren dianli zhi longzhong” [The dignified inauguration
ceremony of the new provincial leader Zang Shiyi], Taidong ribao (December 18,
1931): 4; Fujikawa Yūji, Jitsuroku Manshūkoku ken sanji kan: Dai Ajia shugi no shito
[Veritable record of Manchukuo’s county counselor officials: the messengers of greater
Asianism] (Osaka: Ōminato shobō, 1981), 48.
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 163
44 Anonymous, “U Chūkan shi no seiken,” 1590, 1592.
45 Ibid., 1592.
46 Ibid., 1593–1594.
47 Ibid., 1594.
48 Ibid.
49 Morita, “U Chūkan no shutsuro to sono Seiken,” in Gendai shi shiryō, vol. 11, 567.
50 Ibid.
51 Anonymous, “U Chūkan shi no seiken,” 1596.
52 Ibid., 1600.
53 Ibid., 1597.
54 Ibid., 1597, 1599.
55 Ibid., 1597.
56 Ibid., 1599.
57 Ibid., 1605.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., 1606.
60 Ibid.
61 “Gunjika dai yon nana ichi gō: U Chūkan to no kaidan ni kan suru ken” [Document
No. 471 of the Department of Military: text of the conversation with Yu Chonghan],
December 13, 1920, Reference No. C03022573100, Japan Center for Asian Historical
Records, 0351–0352.
62 Yoshii Yukio, “Kankō ni sai shite” [On Publication], in Kansatsu seido kōsatsu [An
exploration of Manchukuo’s supervisory system], ed. Manshūkoku Kansatsu in
(Xinjing: Kansatsu in, 1935), 1, 115–122.
63 Zheng Xiaoxu, “Zhengfu zuzhi fa” [Government Organization Law], April 1, 1932,
in Wei Manzhouguo zhengfu gongbao yingyin ben [Photocopied edition of bogus
Manchukuo’s government bulletins], ed. Zhou Guangpei, vol. 1 (Shenyang: Liaoshen
shushe, 1990), 8.
64 Ibid., April 1, 1932, 8; May 10, 1932, 12.
65 Ibid., April 1, 1932, 22.
66 Nishigishi Shingen, “Byōshō kiroku yohaku” [Some untouched records of (Yu’s final
days on) sickbed], in Yu jianchayuan zhang aisi lu, 49.
67 Ibid., 48.
68 Kasagi Yoshiaki, “Gu Yu Chonghan xiansheng zhi dayuan” [The grand wish of the
deceased Yu Chonghan], in Yu jianchayuan zhang aisi lu, 35.
69 Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 2 (July 19, 1932): 9–11.
70 Oka Ichirō, ed., Manshūkoku shokuin roku: Daidō ninen nigatsu matsu genzai [Manchukuo
staff record: as of the end of February of the second year of Datong] (Dalian: Saitō
insatsujo shuppanbu, 1933), 159.
71 Zheng Xiaoxu, “May 21, 1932,” in Zheng Xiaoxu riji [Zheng Xiaoxu’s diary], vol. 5,
ed. Lao Zude (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), 2385.
72 “Yu Chonghan shi zuori yinbing shishi,” 3.
73 “Yu Chonghan shi zhi zangyi ji kai geyi jueding” [The Manchukuo government will
hold a cabinet meeting, to decide the exact date of Yu Chonghan’s funeral], Taidong
ribao (November 14, 1932): 3.
74 Anonymous, “Yu yuanzhang zhuidao hui ji” [Record of the memorial ceremony of
council head Yu], in Yu jianchayuan zhang aisi lu, 22.
75 Ibid., 23.
76 Hayashide Kenjirō, “Gokuhi dai rokujūichi: Kōtei heika to Ueda taishi to no kaidan
yōryō” [Top secret No. 61: main points of the conversation between the emperor and
Ambassador Ueda], May 3, 1937, unpublished typescript, in Hayashide Kenjirō kankei
bunsho [Hayashide Kenjirō related documents], microfilm vol. 1 (Tokyo: Yūshōdō, 1999).
77 Katakura Tadashi, Manshū jihen kimitsu seiryaku nisshi [Confidential record of political
strategies following the Manchurian Incident], February 29, 1932, in Gendai shi shiryō
164 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
[Documents of modern history], vol. 7, ed. Kobayashi Tatsuo and Shimada Toshihiko
(Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1964), 395.
78 Imamura Shunzō, Manshūkoku jinketsu shōkai gō [Introduction of Manchukuo’s great
men] (Tokyo: Ni Shi mondai kenkyūkai, 1936), 3.
79 Zang Shiyi, “Zang Shiyi bigong” [Zang Shiyi’s written confession], July 1954, in Wei
Manzhouguo de tongzhi yu neimu: wei Man guanyuan gongshu [Bogus Manchukuo’s
domination and inside stories: confessions of bogus Manchukuo officials], ed.
Zhongyang dang’anguan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), 70.
80 Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 1 (April 1, 1932): 14.
81 Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 1 (April 15, 1932): 3.
82 Wang Wenfeng, “Zang Shiyi de yisheng” [The life of Zang Shiyi], in Wei Man renwu,
383.
83 Zang, “Zang Shiyi bigong,” July 1951 and August 9, 1954, in Neimu, 67–105.
84 Uchida Toshio, “Zō Shikiki no omoi dasu” [Recalling Zang Shiyi], Hōsō [Legal pro-
fessionals] 355 (May 1980): 34.
85 Takebe Rokuzō, “May 16, 1935,” in Takebe Rokuzō nikki [Takebe Rokuzō’s diary],
ed. Taura Masanori, Furukawa Takahisa, and Takebe Kenichi (Tokyo: Fuyō shobō,
1999), 16.
86 Liu Xiaohui, Wang Wenfeng, and Wang Jiurong, Wei Man guowu Zongli dachen Zhang
Jinghui [Bogus Manchukuo Prime Minister Zhang Jinghui] (Changchun: Jilin wenshi
chubanshe, 1991), 269.
87 Furumi Tadayuki, Wasure enu Manshū [Unforgettable Manchuria] (Tokyo: Keizai ōrai-
sha, 1978), 77.
88 Wang, “Zang Shiyi de yisheng,” in Wei Man renwu, 374.
89 Gaimushō seimu kyoku, ed., Gendai Shinajin meikan, 548.
90 Zang, “Zang Shiyi bigong,” July 1951, in Neimu, 68.
91 Ibid.
92 Gaimushō seimu kyoku, ed., Gendai Shinajin meikan, 548.
93 Zang, “Zang Shiyi bigong,” July 1951, in Neimu, 68.
94 Ibid., 68.
95 Ibid., 68–69.
96 Ibid., 69.
97 Ibid., 70.
98 Ibid.
99 Zhang Xueliang, “Dui Tianjin Dagong bao jizhe tan Shenyang shibian” [Discussing the
Shenyang Incident with a journalist from the Tianjin Dagong News], September 19,
1931, in Zhang Xueliang wenji [Collected works of Zhang Xueliang], ed. Bi Wanwen,
vol. 1 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1992), 483.
100 Zhang, “Yuxian yijiang junxie zidan cunru kufang” [Storing firearms and bullets in
warehouse beforehand], September 20, 1931, in Zhang Xueliang wenji, vol. 1, 484.
101 “Jiang, Zhang xieyi jueding tichu guoji gongpan, de ge guo tongqing, jueding wu
beiguan biyao” [Chiang (Kai-shek) and Zhang (Xueliang) decide to resort to interna-
tional arbitration (to solve Manchuria’s problem), which gains sympathy from foreign
countries; no need to feel pessimistic], Taidong ribao (September 22, 1931): 1.
102 Wang Ziheng, “Jiuyiba shibian qian Riben qinlüezhe he Hanjian zai Dongbei de
yinmou huodong” [Japanese invaders’ and Chinese traitors’ evil activities in the
Northeast before the September Eighteen Incident], in Jiuyiba shibian, 127.
103 “Riben xianbing duizhang Ergong shaojiang fang sheng zhengfu Zang zhuxi, chuanda
shixing shizheng zhi yixiang” [General Ninomiya—the head of the Japanese gen-
darme—meets the provincial chairman Zang Shiyi and notifies him the ways in which
Japan wishes to govern the city], Guandong bao [Guandong news] (September 22,
1931): 2.
104 Katakura, Nisshi, in Gendai shi shiryō, 316.
105 The Lytton Report of 1932 revealed that the Kantō Army urged Zang to declare
Fengtian’s independence from the central government of the ROC in late September
 Preserving Warlord Manchuria 165
1931, which Zang refused to obey. The League of Nations, The Report of the
Commission of Inquiry into the Sino-Japanese Dispute (October 6, 1932): 81.
106 Yamaguchi Jūji, Kieta teikoku Manshū [The disappeared empire of Manchuria] (Tokyo:
Mainichi shinbunsha, 1967), 121.
107 Ibid., 122.
108 Komai Tokuzō, Dai Manshūkoku kensetsu roku [Record of the construction of greater
Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1933), 330.
109 “Xin shengzhang Zang Shiyi jiuren dianli zhi longzhong,” 4.
110 “Zang shengzhang jiuren hou dui jizhe tuan fabiao zhengjian” [Provincial leader Zang
expresses his political views in front of press groups after his inauguration], Taidong
ribao (December 20, 1931): 4.
111 “Xin guo jianshe yi zai jijin zhong” [The new state’s creation is on its way], Taidong
ribao (February 16, 1932): 2.
112 “Jilin fan Xi chilie, zhiai xinguo jianshe” [Furious anti-Xixia movements in Jilin
obstruct the new state’s creation], Taidong ribao (January 16, 1932): 1.
113 Hayashide Kenjirō, “Genpi ni: Kōtei heika to Minami taishi oyobi Nagaoka sōchō to
no kaidan yōryō” [Top secret No. 2: main points of the conversation between the
emperor, Ambassador Minami, and Director Nagaoka], May 18, 1935, unpublished
handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 2.
114 Aixin-Jueluo Puyi, Wo de qianbansheng [My earlier life] (1964; repr. Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1977), 323.
115 Hayashide, “Genpi san: Kōtei heika to taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Top secret No. 3:
main points of the conversation between the emperor and the Ambassador], May 20,
1935, unpublished handwritten manuscript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 2.
116 Zang, “Xinnian zhi gan” [My impressions for the New Year], Taidong ribao (January 1,
1934), 9.
117 “Minzheng bu” [Ministry of Civil Affairs], in Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 1 (April 1,
1932): 14.
118 Zang, “Minzheng bu zhiling di yi liu er qi hao” [Order No. 1627 from the Ministry
of Civil Affairs], in Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 9 (September 2, 1933): 4; Zang, “Minzheng
bu zhiling di yi liu san yi hao” [Order Number 1631 from the Ministry of Civil
Affairs], Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 1 (April 1, 1932): 5.
119 Zheng Xiaoxu, “Yuanling di’er hao” [Order No. 2 from the State Council], in Zhengfu
gongbao, vol. 1 (April 1, 1932): 33.
120 Zang, “Minzheng bu xunling diwu hao” [Order No. 5 from the Ministry of Civil
Affairs], in Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 1 (April 15, 1932): 12.
121 Zang, “Minzheng bu xunling disan hao” [Order No. 3 from the Ministry of Civil
Affairs], in Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 1 (April 15, 1932): 11.
122 Anonymous, “Minzheng bu daidian” [Telegram on Behalf of the Ministry of Civil
Affairs], in Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 1 (May 2, 1932): 4.
123 Zang, “Zang Shiyi bigong,” July 1951, in Neimu, 78.
124 Ibid., 79.
125 Zang Shiyi, “Zang Shiyi bigong,” August 9, 1954, in Neimu, 94.
126 Uchida, “Zō Shikiki no omoi dasu,” 35.
127 Ibid.
128 Ibid., 35–36.
129 Wang Hao, “Zhong Su liangguo shangtan jiejiao Ri Man zhanfu jingguo” [Stories
behind the negotiation on the repatriation of Japanese and Manchurian war captives
between China and the Soviet Union], in Wei Man huangdi qunchen gaizao jishi
[Records on the re-education of bogus Manchukuo’s emperor and officials], ed. Ji
Min (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1992), 3.
130 Yang Yude, “Guanyu baoguan wei Man zhanfan wupin shi de jianwen” [About the
information that I acquired and heard during my preservation of the personal items of
bogus Manchukuo’s war criminals], in Wei Man huangdi qunchen gaizao jishi, 154.
131 Ibid.
166 Preserving Warlord Manchuria
132 Jiang Yucheng, “Kanguan Wei Man qunchen shi er san shi” [Several stories of my
surveillance of bogus Manchukuo’s officials], in Wei Man huangdi qunchen gaizao jishi,
116–117.
133 Guobuluo Runqi, “Wei Man qunchen gaizao shengya jianwenlu” [Recording the
reeducation of bogus Manchukuo’s officials], in Wei Man huangdi qunchen gaizao jishi,
276.
134 Ibid.
6 Reforming China’s Political and
Legal Systems Based on Shōwa
Japan’s Experiences
Zhao Xinbo and Feng Hanqing as
Manchukuo’s Government Leaders

Since the waning days of the Qing Dynasty, Chinese jurists had looked to Japan for
guidance and inspiration, specifically in the re-examination of foundational legal
principles. As a result, the codes developed during the late Qing reforms, as well
as those eventually adopted by the Republic of China during the mid-1920s, were
advised by Japanese jurists, and hewed closely to a Japanese model, including even
some reforms that Japanese advisors had been unable to implement at home.
Thomas David DuBois, “Inauthentic Sovereignty: Law and Legal Institutions in
Manchukuo.” The Journal of Asian Studies 69:3 (August 2010): 756.
Japanese influence on the modernization of contemporary China has become a
topic that more scholars in the West and Japan examine from different angles in the
past three decades.1 Historian Thomas David DuBois notes the significance of the
Japanese judiciary to the development of China’s legal system in the late Qing and
the early Republican eras. He notes the attraction of Japan’s “legal principles” to
many contemporary Chinese jurists and highlights their will to reform China’s
laws based on “a Japanese model.” Deeming Japan a shortcut to “Western-style
wealth and power,” “a minimum of 25,000 Chinese students crossed the East
China Sea to Japan for some form of modern schooling” between 1898 and
1911—the last 13 years of the Qing Dynasty.2 The rise of the Nationalist Party of
Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) owed to Japan’s support too, as Sun managed to unify
different secret societies in south China and become their leader after the Sino-
Japanese War of 1894–1895 precisely due to financial and material supports from
the Japanese home government, without mentioning the fact that Sun created the
Party’s predecessor, the United Allegiance Society (Tongmenghui), in Tokyo in
1905.3
Japan had an indelible influence on the political and military figures of contem-
porary China, be they royalists, revolutionaries, anarchists, modernists, isolation-
ists, or warlords. Zhao Xinbo (1887–1951) and Feng Hanqing (1892–?), two early
Republican scholars of law, wanted to reform Manchuria’s laws with Japanese
assistance and actively cooperated with the Kantō Army for the creation of
Manchukuo in 1932. The former became the head of Manchukuo’s Legislative
Council (Ch: Lifa yuan; Jp: Rippō in) between March 1932 and October 1934, and
the latter headed the country’s Ministry of Justice (Ch: Sifa bu; Jp: Shihō bu)
between March 1932 and May 1937.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003357773-7
168 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
Regardless of their leading positions in Manchukuo and significance to the
foundation of Manchukuo’s judicial system in the early 1930s, Zhao and Feng
have to date received little academic attention in Chinese, Japanese, and English
historiographies. Existing book- and article-length studies of Manchukuo in Japan
and the West occasionally mention the former with a few paragraphs or sentences,
rendering Zhao an insignificant figure for analysis. Two groundbreaking—and to
date still the most detailed—studies of Zhao in mainland China in the late 1980s
and the early 1990s cast him as an infamous traitor who deserves no further anal-
ysis from scholars.4 Compared to Zhao, Feng receives even less attention from
historians today, making him the least-known individual among the ten figures
that this book examines. Given a lack of relevant studies on Zhao and Feng, schol-
ars have yet to associate the two and study their national ideals as Manchukuo’s
intellectual officials.
Zhao and Feng were prominent individuals in the legal circle of Fengtian who
had different educational backgrounds, yet they both supported cooperation with
Japan for a revision of the legal codes of Manchuria. Being born in the “waning
days of the Qing Dynasty” provided both men with more opportunities to expe-
rience modern higher education after the abolition of the civil examinations in
1905. Both men voluntarily sided with the Japanese because they considered Japan
an essential component for the modernization of China’s judicial system and
Japanese support necessary for the abolition of extraterritoriality in China.
Although popular anti-Japan sentiment was growing in both Manchuria and China
proper in the late 1920s and the early 1930s under the leadership of Zhang
Xueliang (1901–2001) and Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), Zhao and Feng contin-
ued to “look to Japan for guidance and inspiration” in legal affairs.5

Raised in China and Educated in Japan: Zhao Xinbo and His

Struggles for Sino-Japan Cooperation
When discussing Manchukuo’s Chinese-speaking government leaders, many
would think of the last Qing emperor, Aixin-Jueluo Puyi (1906–1967), and the
regime’s two prime ministers, Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938) and Zhang Jinghui
(1872–1959). Some in Taiwan might recall Foreign Minister Xie Jieshi (1878–
1954) because his exalted position in the state of Manchukuo inspired a wave of
Taiwanese migration to Manchukuo for government positions in the 1930s and
the early 1940s.6 However, few today would instantly recall Zhao Xinbo (Figure
6.1). As a reputable legal scholar who received a Japanese doctorate of laws in
1925, Zhao laid the foundation of Manchukuo’s legal system with his colleague
Feng Hanqing—the Manchukuo minister of justice. Rumors in China suggest
that Zhao created the terms “Manchukuo” and “Xinjing” despite a lack of con-
crete evidence, based on existing sources.7 In addition, disputes over Zhao’s assets
in Japan lasted for 33 years after his death in 1951, one that became the largest case
over transnational heritage inheritance in the history of the People’s Republic of
China (PRC).8 Such an important scholarly and political figure requires academic
attention to foster an understanding of the thoughts of Manchukuo’s Chinese
government leaders.
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 169

Figure 6.1 Zhao Xinbo in Tokyo, October 9, 1934.

Source: M57.001, Dennis M. Ogawa Photograph Collection, Hoover Archives, https://hojishinbun.
hoover.org/en/newspapers/A-M57-001.1.2.

Relying on available Chinese- and Japanese-language sources by and on Zhao,

such as Zhao’s monographs, articles, speeches, and news coverage in Japan and
Manchukuo, this section focuses on Zhao’s experience and ideals before the state of
Manchukuo dismissed him of all his positions in October 1934. Associating Zhao’s
pro-Japan sentiment with his educational background suggests that besides accept-
ing Japanese support for the abolition of extraterritoriality in China and refinement
of Manchuria’s legal codes, Zhao embraced Japan’s goal of establishing Asian soli-
darity. While supporting Japan to lead and supervise a “post-colonial” Asia, Zhao
made a series of moral regulations that centered on the concept of benevolence for
the Chinese government leaders of Manchukuo to make the new state coexist with
Japan and facilitate the livelihoods of its people. His decade-long study in Japan
between 1915 and 1925 might have convinced Zhao that his proficiency in Japanese
language and culture, besides his contacts in the Kantō Army, would gain him trust
from Japanese military officials and enable him to exercise greater autonomous
powers in the state. However, the Japanese abandoned him with the assistance of
Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940) two years after Manchukuo’s creation for a vaguely clar-
ified reason of corruption. Imagining himself able to exploit the Japanese, Zhao’s
participation in the state of Manchukuo and continued cooperation with Japan
until 1945 eradicated his academic accomplishments in the study of law and made
him an icon of a national traitor for many PRC historians today.
170 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
“A Dissertation of Tears and Vengeance”: Zhao’s Early Life
Zhao Xinbo was born into a “renowned family of the former Qing Dynasty” in
Wanping, Zhili province (present-day Beijing) in 1887.9 A contemporary Japanese
observer described Zhao as a person who “speaks and writes Japanese almost with-
out a fault.”10 Taking preparatory courses at Beiyang University in Tianjin, Zhao
went to Dalian in 1912 and worked for Kaneko Sessai (1864–1925), the founder
of Dalian’s first Chinese-language newspaper, Taidong ribao [Eastern Daily; founded
in 1908 and suspended in 1945].11 In 1915, Zhao sailed to Japan and studied law
at Meiji University as an undergraduate student while teaching Mandarin at Army
War College (Rikugun dai gakkō). On October 9, 1925, Zhao became the first
Chinese receiver of a Japanese doctor of laws “upon the strength of a voluminous
and profound” dissertation, On the Negligence of Criminal Laws [Keihō kashitsu ron],
a study that criticizes a lack of provisions in the criminal codes of Japan against
negligent crimes.12 Valuing Zhao’s talent and acknowledging his desire to help the
Republic of China (ROC) abolish foreign extraterritorial rights in China, Japanese
legal scholar Okada Asatarō (1868–1936) commented in the preface of Zhao’s
dissertation that “it is more than possible [for Zhao] to reclaim [China’s] sovereign
rights based on [his] knowledge and [academic] reputation.”13
The death of Zhao’s first wife, Wang Biyan (1891–1921), in Tokyo, motivated
Zhao to produce a dissertation on the negligence of Japan’s criminal law. Born into
a “rich family in the outskirts of Shanghai,” Wang was a graduate of Tokyo Female
Art School (Joshi bijutsu gakkō) and a lecturer at Tokyo’s Higher Female Normal
College of Ochanomizu (Ochanomizu joshi kōtō shihan gakkō).14 Zhao and Wang
met and married in Tokyo. In the spring of 1921, Wang was diagnosed with a
cervical tumor at Keiō University Hospital and was then hospitalized at the Tokyo
Imperial University Hospital on March 24, 1921. Wang’s surgeon was an authori-
tative medical professor at the Tokyo Imperial University, Iwase Yūichi (1875–
1946). He deemed Wang’s symptoms endometritis after a brief diagnosis and then
conducted surgery on endometritis for her. Tragically, Iwase realized his fault after
discovering Wang’s cervical tumor during the surgery on March 26. To prepare for
the upcoming cervical surgery, Iwase disregarded Wang’s feeble physical condition
and urged her to stop eating for two days until March 28, when Iwase started the
surgery.15 Due to a careless preparation for sterilization, Wang suffered peritonitis
after Iwase cut her abdomen and died on April 3, 1921, at the age of 30.16
Zhao started to draft his dissertation with grief and anger after the Tokyo District
Court (Tōkyō chihō saibansho) and the Supreme Court of Judicature (Dai shin’in)
rejected his lawsuit against Iwase. In the beginning, Zhao merely encouraged
Iwase to apologize and repent in public for his surgical negligence, yet Iwase
“stubbornly ignored” Zhao’s request and quibbled in front of journalists that
“Wang died from heart failure, not from [his] negligence.”17 Out of anger, Zhao
sued Iwase in the Tokyo District Court, yet the Court eventually decided not to
prosecute the latter due to a lack of relevant provisions in Japan’s criminal codes on
negligent cases and concerns over the reputation of Japan’s top medical institution.
Although Zhao received a similar response after suing Iwase in the Supreme Court
of Judicature, this case “shocked [Japan’s] legal and medical circles” of 1921,
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 171
arguably because they rarely suffered allegations from outsiders, let alone from a
Chinese student.18 Realizing the limitations of lawsuits, Zhao decided to “use
academic ways to [help Japan] make relevant regulations on the punishment of
negligent criminals,” something that Zhao described as “righteous vengeance on
the defendant” Iwase Yūichi.19 Since his lawsuits failed, Zhao went to his student
office every day and completed a 380-page doctoral dissertation in four years. His
work received the praise of Yokota Hideo (1862–1938), the head of the Japanese
Supreme Court of Judicature and the principal of Meiji University.20
The thesis of Zhao’s dissertation, On the Negligence of Criminal Laws, is that
negligent misconduct could constitute crimes that belong to the jurisdiction of a
country’s criminal law.21 Zhao emphasized the importance of integrity to the
maintenance of the law’s authoritative position, writing, “[P]eople will speak out
their voices when encountering unfairness, so the realization of fairness should
become the priority in the making of laws.”22 Challenging the opinion of those
who supported “distinguishing negligent misconduct from intentional activities,”
Zhao argued that law must judge one’s activity rather than intention: “we should
not struggle on the question of whether or not a person realizes beforehand his
activities to be criminal or not; it is necessary to impose corresponding penalties
based on the crimes that he commits.”23 Expanding this point with cases in Japan,
China, and Europe, Zhao noted that people almost never “discuss the subjective
awareness of intentional criminals,” but they often “investigate the thoughts of
negligent criminals” and argue for their innocence based on the excuse of una-
wareness.24 From the perspective of law, “a bare difference between negligent
crimes and intentional crimes is the absence or presence of criminal awareness,”
and Zhao argued throughout the dissertation the inappropriateness of treating the
tricky element of intention as a justification to forgive a person’s criminal con-
duct.25 Hence, Zhao concluded that a lack of “provisions that deal with negligent
crimes in the legal provisions” of both Japan and the ROC constitutes “a huge
flaw.”26
Zhao’s study received positive comments from Japan’s legal scholars and media,
which helped him gain a reputation in Japan’s academia. Okada Asatarō noted that
“few have studied the flaws of criminal laws before” and praised Zhao’s dissertation
as a study that “uncovers a field that others have long overlooked.”27 Yokota Hideo
deemed Zhao a “forerunner of the ROC’s academia of law” who may contribute
to the reclaiming of the ROC’s sovereign rights.28 The Tokyo edition of the news-
paper Asahi shinbun [Asahi News] on November 12, 1925, reported the acrimony
behind Zhao’s dissertation. It commented that although Japan’s existing laws could
not prosecute Iwase Yūichi, Zhao’s study nevertheless made Iwase “socially guilty.”
By completing his dissertation, Zhao put an end to his “beautiful and peaceful
vengeance.”29 The newspaper Yomiuri shinbun [Yomiuri News] invited Zhao to
comment on the nature of negligent crimes during the publication of Zhao’s dis-
sertation as a monograph in February 1926, revealing his growing popularity in
the media of Japan.30 Out of excitement for receiving his doctorate, and gratitude
for receiving the support of Japan’s media and legal scholars, Zhao stated in
November 1925 that he “will devote [his] efforts to promote Japan-China friend-
ship” and “teach [the Chinese] the knowledge that [he] learns in Japan” after
172 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
working in China as a university lecturer.31 By early 1926, Zhao had raised his
status in Japan from a little-known Chinese student to a relatively reputable scholar
of law who managed to demonstrate academically the guilt of a prestigious Japanese
medical professor.

Strengthening the Ties between the ROC and Japan: Zhao’s Attitude toward
Japan
Zhao Xinbo’s interactions with Manchuria started in 1926 when he returned to
China and served as a legal advisor of Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928), who had
become the actual leader of the Beijing ROC government two years ago. Striving
to create a mutually reliant relationship between the ROC and Japan, Zhao’s polit-
ical blueprint was to use the support of Japan to abolish foreign extraterritoriality
in mainland China. In a 1926 article, Zhao encouraged Japan to give up on imita-
tion of Europe’s and America’s “invasive and repressive diplomacy” toward the
ROC and become an assistant to the country:

Japan is the only country among the great powers of the world that has not
done anything harmful to the ROC, but it has yet to understand the essence
and the true meaning of coexistence and co-prosperity between the two
nations. … Almost everyone in Japan cultivates their morality through the
learning of ancient Chinese classics in high schools, and I can sense their deep
respect for China’s ancient saints. This convinces me that the Japanese love
China and the Chinese. … For international affairs, therefore, Japan has to
treat the harm of the ROC’s national interests as a harm of Japan’s own inter-
ests. If the legal system of the ROC has flaws, Japan and the Japanese should
regard them as their own problems and not merely point out the reasons
behind those flaws [for the Chinese] like other great powers are doing. I hope
that Japan could become a backer of [the ROC] and provide [the country]
with sincere assistance.32

Zhao made these claims to refute a Japanese friend’s assertion that Japan should not
help the ROC abolish extraterritoriality due to the ROC’s existing judicial defi-
ciencies. Portraying Japan as a friend of the ROC with Sino-Japanese cultural
proximity, Zhao argued that Japan and China had to cooperate with each other in
order to confront an approaching Western threat, and the reclamation of the
ROC’s sovereignty was a preliminary step toward creating a Sino-Japanese alliance.
For that purpose, Zhao frequently visited Japan from Beijing as Zhang Zuolin’s
legal advisor between 1926 and 1927 and interacted with high-level officials in the
Japanese home government.33
On June 5, 1927, Zhao attended the 20th publishing anniversary of the peri-
odical [World of Resource Development] in Tokyo as a guest speaker and argued
in his congratulatory speech for the necessity for Japan to abolish its unequal
treaties with the ROC. From a Japanese perspective, Zhao stated that it was
“imperative for Japan to consider Sino-Japanese friendship as a solution to the
country’s existing problems” ranging from overpopulation to a shortage of food
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 173
and resources.34 He hinted to the audience that it was the Japanese rather than the
Chinese who dominated Sino-Japanese friendship:

It is not difficult to improve [Japan’s] relations with the ROC because people
in the ROC will likely treat Japan as a close ally if Japan proactively expresses
this will (applause). To achieve this end, I suggest that Japan should absolutely
not interfere with the ROC’s domestic affairs. I also consider it necessary [for
the Japanese] to analyze what people in the ROC desperately want to achieve
and try hard to help them realize their dreams (applause).35

Refraining from arguing for the significance of China’s independence from a

Chinese perspective, Zhao’s speech attracted many audiences’ attention given their
frequent applause following Zhao’s statements. Although the abolishment of extra-
territoriality was meant to benefit China, Zhao also conceptualized it as a favora-
ble action for Japan, stating, “[T]here is no need to doubt that the Chinese will
thank Japan in tears.”36
The decisive means that Zhao utilized in convincing the Japanese of the neces-
sity to assist China, however, was related to a rising pan-Asianist ideology in Japan
after the First World War of 1914–1918, as he conceptualized the West as the rival
of Eastern civilization:

Why is it necessary for people in the ROC to confront the White race along
with Japan? Some may suggest that White people treat the ROC as an inferior
nation, and the people in the ROC feel repressed in front of the Western
world due to the signing of unequal treaties. In fact, Japan’s status in the eyes
of White people is the same. [Hence, from the standpoint of Japan,] how
could one believe that people in the ROC would connive at their present
status (applause)? Both the ROC and Japan suffer repression from the White
race, so it is not difficult to anticipate that the people in the ROC will feel
gratitude to Japan if the country is willing to establish friendly relations with
the ROC at present.37

Motivating the Japanese to consider the ROC a friendly nation that desperately
sought to liberate itself from Western influences, Zhao’s speech not only reflected
his concern over China’s future relations with Japan but also his grasp of Japanese
thoughts. Serving in a Zhang Zuolin–controlled ROC government legitimized
Zhao’s intention, given Zhang’s reliance on the support of Japan for military
equipment and the presence of an influential and pro-Japan elite civilian in the
Fengtian faction—Yu Chonghan (1871–1932).
Zhao’s view of Japan nevertheless contradicted a growing anti-Japan sentiment
among the revolutionaries of China proper, especially after the 1919 May Fourth
Movement and the 1925 May Thirtieth Movement, and Zhao fell victim to such
an outrage. On August 27, 1926, for example, “seven Chinese students from the
Jidong branch of the Nationalist Party” of Chiang Kai-shek assaulted Zhao in
Tokyo when he was getting a haircut.38 In September 1927, two handout sheets
titled “Bury National Thief Zhao Xinbo” and “Down with Zhang Zuolin” spread
174 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
in the provincial capital of Fengtian to protest Zhao’s intention of hiring Yokota
Hideo and another 15 Japanese legal experts as Fengtian’s advisors.39 Although one
cannot trace the creator of those sheets based on available sources, the Nationalist
Party likely manipulated this protest from behind the scenes, considering Zhao’s
misfortune in 1926 and the Party’s military operations against Zhang Zuolin’s
ROC government. The Nationalist Party’s hostility toward Zhao made him side
with the Fengtian clique and the Japanese after the Party unified China proper in
1928; it also influenced Zhao’s later life after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria
in September 1931.

Refusing to become “an Egg in a Falling Nest”: Zhao’s Break with Zhang
Xueliang
Residing in Fengtian when the Kantō Army attacked the city on the evening of
September 18, 1931, Zhao Xinbo cooperated with the Japanese to maintain local
order and created Fengtian’s Reginal Maintenance Committee (difang weichi weiyu-
anhui) with people like Yu Chonghan and Yuan Jinkai (1870–1947) on September
24, and he became the mayor of Fengtian on October 20.40 An accumulating
dissatisfaction with the anti-Japan standpoint of Zhang Zuolin’s successor, Zhang
Xueliang (1901–2001), motivated Zhao to give up cooperation with the Fengtian
clique after September 1931 and participate in the making of a new Manchurian
government with the Japanese. Worrying about a foreign annexation of Manchuria
after Zhang Xueliang manifested an intention of resisting Japan with the assistance
of the Western world, including the Soviet Union, Zhao wrote the former a letter
on November 21, 1928, to stress the importance of a power balance in Northeast
Asia to the survival of warlord Manchuria:

The former Marshal managed to dominate the Northeast [Dongbei] for twenty
years by seizing opportunities and coordinating the international relations [of
the Northeast]. His achievements indeed make others weep from nostalgia.
Nowadays, [the Northeast is suffering both] a visible foreign threat and an
invisible—yet growing—domestic threat. Ambitious individuals inside China
have long been planning to conquer the Northeast; their forces are approach-
ing. Regarding the strong neighbor [of Japan], however, you choose to let
confrontation overwhelm a tactful attitude of dealing with [Japan]. People like
Zhu Guangmu [1897–?] advocate for an alliance with Britain and the United
States, and people like Wang Jiazhen [1899–1984] want to side with the
Soviet Union and resist Japan. Both theories will in fact result in a slaughter
of [the population of] the Northeast.41

Zhao used the image of Zhang Zuolin to criticize Zhang Xueliang’s hostile atti-
tude toward Japan, hinting to Zhang that a military clash with Japan would cause
the demise of warlord Manchuria because siding with the West and resisting Japan
would break a power balance in Northeast Asia. Besides, Zhao believed that the
ROC under Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership would occupy Manchuria when an
opportunity occurred, as the Nationalist ROC government had unified China
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 175
proper by November 1928. To encourage Zhang Xueliang to create a cooperative
relationship with Japan, Zhao wrote,

Those so-called politicians [in the ROC] today try to provoke our futile patri-
otic sentiment, to cause foreign invasion and exploit the chance to occupy our
[territory]. We suffer their tricks without awareness—anyone’s foolishness
surpasses us? The condition of the Northeast is utterly different from the
south…we actually resemble an egg in a falling nest. I would rather honestly
give you advice and suffer your punishment…than falling to the ground [with
other eggs].42

This letter received no response from Zhang Xueliang, which greatly disappointed
Zhao: “I silently observed his policies afterwards and realized that nothing had
changed,” wrote Zhao in 1933.43 Feeling isolated by Zhang’s indifference, Zhao
decided to explore a path that would simultaneously realize Sino-Japanese cooper-
ation and the abolition of extraterritoriality in China after the Manchurian
Incident, for a reluctance to become “an egg in a falling nest.”

Protecting the Chinese Residents of Fengtian under Chinese Condemnation:

Zhao’s Service as the Mayor of Fengtian, October 1931–March 1932
Voluntarily working with Japan after the fall of Fengtian guaranteed a reviled
reputation for Zhao among the Chinese populations of Manchuria and China
proper, despite the fact that the Kantō Army did not fully trust him. Someone
in Manchuria sent the ROC government a telegram on October 13, 1931, in
the name of the “people of the Northeast” to ask for an eradication of Zhao’s
Chinese nationality and described Zhao with terms like “selling out national
interests for personal profits” (maiguo qiurong) and “despised by humans” (renlei
buchi).44 The famed Chinese newspaper Shen Bao [Shanghai News] went fur-
ther by publishing a commentary article that criticized Zhao’s personality on
April 2, 1932:

In terms of nationality, he is a citizen of the ROC. In terms of official posi-

tion, he is a member of the bogus organization [of Manchukuo]. In terms of
soul, his backer is Japanese imperialism. Are Zhao and his followers going to
speak for the Chinese, the bogus government, or Japanese imperialism? …
Organizing a bogus government as a citizen of the ROC means treason, and
becoming a puppet of Japanese imperialism as a member of the bogus govern-
ment means shamelessness. … If Zhao and his followers still possess the heart
and conscience of a human being, they would absolutely not conduct such a
frenzied action [of working for Manchukuo].45

Associating identity with nationality, Shanghai News overlooked the reasons behind
Zhao’s affection toward Japan and depicted his cooperation with the Japanese and
service in Manchukuo as a treasonous and shameless action that deserved Chinese
denunciation.
176 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
Working with the Kantō Army was nevertheless not a relaxing job for Zhao.
Recalling in 1935, Ding Jianxiu (1887–1943), the Manchukuo minister of com-
munications, suggested that he and Zhao worked until midnight every day on the
outskirts of Fengtian after the Manchurian Incident to maintain local security. On
their way back home in a car, they faced frequent inspections from the Kantō
military police, and they always lifted their hands and official passes beforehand and
waited for permission to leave because “our lives would have ended if [Japanese
police] suspected that we were taking out pistol guns from our pockets,” lamented
Ding.46 When interacting with those Chinese who had a lesser influence like Zhao
Xinbo and Ding Jianxiu, the Kantō Army seemed more inclined to rely on intim-
idation to make them follow the army’s objectives. In November 1931, feeling the
pressure of Chinese criticism and Japanese control, Zhao said in front of local
media that he wanted to protect the population of Fengtian: “It is necessary to
judge whether or not [my actions are] treasonous based on result; I will bear and
accept all the blame from everyone else” at present.47
Zhao strove to redeem his reputation among the Chinese residents of Fengtian
during his five-month service as mayor between October 1931 and March 1932
by restoring and improving the livelihoods of Fengtian’s residents. Inheriting the
mayorship from Kantō Army official Doihara Kenji (1883–1948), whom Japanese
news coverage described as an “expert on China” and a person whose “Chinese is
even better than the Chinese people,” on October 20, 1931, Zhao tried to resume
Chinese administration of Fengtian’s municipal affairs and provide relief for impov-
erished local residents.48 While keeping power over Manchuria’s jurisdiction in the
hands of the Chinese by serving as the president of the Supreme Court of the
Northeast (Dongbei zuigao fayuan), Zhao assisted Fengtian’s “tens of thousands of
people who could not support their daily lives” by granting them 4,000 boxes of
biscuits and over 1,500 boxes of canned beef through local police stations without
charge.49 By December 30, 1931, Zhao had distributed 6,000 boxes of biscuits and
supported 109,810 impoverished people, based on statistics from the administra-
tive department of Fengtian.50 When realizing that more people needed food sup-
port, Zhao set up several tents at the city’s eastern, southern, and western gates to
provide homeless people with porridge every day.51
In terms of the economy, Zhao encouraged local enterprises to resume their oper-
ations and promised to provide them with appropriate financial support.52 In terms
of education, the new education department that Zhao set up reopened all the local
junior high schools, preventing schoolchildren from giving up their studies.53 He
ordered the department to “carefully review and edit those radical contents” in the
existing school textbooks—namely, contents that praised warlord governance and
incited anti-Japan sentiments—to place school education “on the right track.”54 In
terms of security, the local police station closed all opium smokehouses in the city
within two months between October and December 1931; the police then stored the
opium that they confiscated from the businesses and planned to “successively destroy
them by fire.”55 Feeling confident that his governance of Fengtian would leave a
remarkable page in history, Zhao selected multiple municipal documents between
October 1931 and March 1932 and compiled them into a voluminous two-volume
source collection titled Records of Governing Shenyang [Zhi Shen ji] in 1934.
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 177
Identifying the New State: Zhao’s View of Manchukuo and Its Officialdom’s
Principles
Heading the municipal government of Fengtian, Zhao Xinbo participated in the
establishment of Manchukuo. Some contemporary observers placed Zhao along
with Zhang Jinghui, Zang Shiyi (1884–1956), Ma Zhanshan (1885–1950), and
Aixin-Jueluo Xixia (1884–1952) and conceptualized them as the “Big Five” (Wu
jutou) of Manchukuo.56 News reports in Manchuria suggested that Zhao played a
decisive role in developing Manchukuo initially as a republic rather than an empire,
as he and other proponents of republicanism insisted that restoration of the emperor
would betray China’s historical trend and the people’s will.57 Zhao arguably hosted
the discussion on the possibility to appoint Zheng Xiaoxu, who also agreed to
temporarily develop Manchukuo as a republic, as the prime minister on February
22, 1932, as this discussion was conducted in a law society that Zhao founded in
the late 1920s.58 Due to his academic background and personal connections with
the Japanese, Zhao eventually became the head of Manchukuo’s Legislative
Council on March 1, 1932, a top-level institution that “assists in the making of all
law- and budget-related proposals” and “handles the petitions of the people.”59
Zhao treated Manchukuo as a legitimate branch of the Chinese nation capable
of resolving the country’s prolonged political instability and fragmentation. This
was reflected in his 1932 Japanese-language book The Greater New Manchurian
State [Shin kokka dai Manshū]. In it, Zhao depicted Manchukuo’s establishment as
a “civilization movement” that was closely related to “the great trend of Asia’s
revival.”60 Introducing Japanese to the national flag of Manchukuo (Figure 6.2),
Zhao noted that red signified passion, blue signified vivacity, white signified purity
and fairness, and black signified fortitude. The background color of yellow for
Zhao simultaneously represented Chinese people in general and the territory of

Figure 6.2 Manchukuo’s national flag. The colors in the four grids from top to bottom are,
respectively, red, blue, white, and black. The color of the remaining area is yel-
low. The size of the flag is 6:4, and the length unit is arguably feet, given a lack
of clarification in official Manchukuo documents.
Source: Komai Tokuzō, Dai Manshūkoku kensetsu roku [Record of the construction of greater
Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha, 1933), 7.
178 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
Manchuria.61 Depicting Manchukuo as a “model for world politics,” Zhao confi-
dently predicted that the country would play a key role in “maintaining the pro-
longed honor of East Asia.”62 Considering Manchukuo instead of the ROC the
candidate that would revive China’s mighty status from ancient times, Zhao
described Manchukuo’s creation as “a great turning opportunity in the history of
East Asia.”63 Feeling disappointed by Zhang Xueliang’s anti-Japan stance and the
Nationalist ROC’s hostile attitude toward himself, Manchukuo seemed to become
the remaining option for Zhao in 1932 something that motivated him to beautify
the prospect of Manchukuo and disregard the Japanese military presence.
An ideal new nation required the making of a new set of moral precepts for the
officials of Manchukuo based on ancient Chinese classics. For that purpose, Zhao
published a Chinese-language monograph in 1933 titled Mirror of Wise and
Benevolence [Ming ren jian]—a guideline for the cultivation of virtuous national lead-
ers. The term ming refers to “an understanding of matters and an ability to think
critically” (ji ming qie zhe), a phrase from the famed Classic of Poetry [Shijing], and ren
means benevolence and “universal love.”64 Jian is a classic expression of mirror that
often implies a meaning of self-reflection: “Mr. [Zhao] Xinbo, head of the Legislative
Council, wishes everyone to observe their internal mirror” with this book, sug-
gested the preface.65 To interpret this philosophical title, a competent leader must
simultaneously possess the ability of cleverness and critical thinking and the passion
of benevolence and universal love. Zhao wished his readers to reflect upon their
own behaviors and identify their distance from being a competent leader.
Focused on Manchuria, Zhao portrayed the alliance with Japan as a manifesta-
tion of ming and the protection of Manchuria’s population as an expression of ren,
treating Zhang Zuolin and Zhang Xueliang as two counterexamples of ming and
ren. Depicting the necessity of promoting a cooperative relationship with the
“friendly neighbor” of Japan as common sense for those who even “slightly under-
stand the trend of the present world,” Zhao criticized Zhang Xueliang for trusting
the words of those who advocated for resisting Japan.66 He wrote that Zhang “treats
those who harm [China] as patriots and those who harm himself as loyalists…thus
resulting in the irretrievable disaster” of September 1931.67 Zhao associated Zhang
Zuolin’s and Zhang Xueliang’s lack of insight with the collapse of the Fengtian
regime, stating, “If the Zhang family could modestly hire competent individuals
and value their advice, while taking care of [Manchuria’s] population and cooper-
ating with [Japan]…how could it not be possible for the family to unify [China’s]
south and north?”68 Based on the lessons of the Zhang family, Zhao wished the
governors of Manchukuo to cultivate the ability of ming by carefully distinguishing
treacherous individuals from talented and honest individuals, as “big evils are good
at disguising their behaviors in a loyal manner, and big scammers often manage to
leave others with a reliable impression.”69 For the morality of ren, Zhao noted the
significance of pacifism instead of force for winning people’s support. Those who
relied on force to govern would never manage to establish prolonged peace because
the inevitable outbreaks of people’s outrage “must resemble a release of furious
floods when changes happen.”70 A post-warlord state of Manchuria, for Zhao,
required a resurrection of ming and ren, to realize domestic stability, without over-
looking the importance of restoring friendly relations with Japan.
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 179
Liberating the East with Japan: Zhao’s View of a Japanese-Supervised Asian
Solidarity
As a recipient of Japan’s prewar education, Zhao supported Japanese goals in estab-
lishing national solidarity across Asia and considered Sino-Japanese cooperation a
way for China to escape Western abuses, although he was not necessarily interested
in governing Manchukuo for Japan’s sake. Zhao reflected this view in his 1934
Japanese-language monograph Japanese Spirits and the Solidarity of Asian Ethnicities
[Nihon seishin to Ajia minzoku no danketsu]. Deeming Japanese loyalty to the
emperor the core of Japan’s “national structure of state” (kokutai) and the “essence
of East Asian morality,” Zhao treated “the unification of the [loyal and patriotic]
thoughts of [the population of] Japan and Manchukuo” as “the basis of Asian sol-
idarity.”71 By encouraging the Japanese to cherish the people of Manchukuo “with
the passion of [cherishing their own] hands and feet,” Zhao believed that such a
passion would not only benefit the two countries in their national development
but also attract other East Asian nations, including China proper, to participate in
the realization of Asian co-prosperity.72 Zhao believed that the first step toward this
end was to recover traditional East Asian moralities, stating,

Our traditional East Asian spirits always focused on the worship of heaven,
earth, monarch, relative, and master. Loyalty, filial piety, chastity, and right-
eousness laid the foundation of our ethics. To fully adopt Western ideology is
to forget our own virtues, and those who adore the West and despise the East
reveal their lack of cognition to both their own traditions and the outside
world. The tumultuous history of the ROC in the past twenty years has proved
that imitation of the West cannot solve the current problems of East Asia. To
demonstrate that the national spirit of East Asia can help us overcome our
plight, it is necessary for the Empire of Manchuria to bolster its close alliance
with the Empire of Japan. To improve the livelihood of our Asian companions,
we should abolish non-Eastern ideologies in our communities.73

Zhao deemed the ROC’s governance of China between 1912 and 1931 a failure,
and the primary causes of that failure were closely related to the regime’s abolition
of traditional Asian moralities and increased alienation from Japan, which betrayed
the principles of ming and ren.
For him, the influence of Europe was declining in the world, having passed its
heyday in the nineteenth century and the First World War of 1914–1918. The
“yellow people,” especially the Japanese, in contrast, rose up from “the corner of
Asia due to their self-strengthening determination” and prevented the infiltration
of Russia in East Asia during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.74 Interpreting
the West’s vigilance against Japan’s growing strength, Zhao explained that the West
considered Japan a threat to “the White people’s superior status,” and they would
be “more than glad to see” yellow people “destroy themselves through mutual
clashes.”75 The West instigated Asians to resist Japan because it considered such a
strategy “the best way to constrain the rise of the yellow people,” yet for Zhao,
Japan’s defeat would make East Asia yield to Western imperialism again.76 To prove
180 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
the mental, material, and spiritual superiority of Asia in history, Zhao noted that
Asia was the birthplace of people like Laozi, Confucius, Gautama Buddha, Jesus,
and Muhammad, and Asians built the Great Wall and the Pyramids.77 To demon-
strate Asia to be historically a dominator rather than a slave of European nations,
Zhao listed several events, such as the Huns’ expedition to Europe in the fifth
century, the Islam conquest of Spain between the eighth and the fifteenth century,
and the Mongol conquest of Eastern Europe in the thirteenth century.78 He con-
sidered the British conquest of India in 1757 the beginning of Asia’s decadence,
and Japan would end this shameful history and “bring Asian nations a bright
future.”79 Thus, Zhao concluded, it was a mistake for Asian nations to treat Japan
as their enemy. Rather, they needed to side with Japan for the sake of Asia’s revival.80
Treating overseas Japanese as a more important force than those who resided in
the home islands of Japan for “promoting the spirits of Japan,” Zhao wanted over-
seas Japanese to act as “national envoys” and interact with local residents with an
“amiable attitude” so that “foreign admiration of Japan will not be an unachievable
task.”81 Being a firm supporter of Japan’s pan-Asianist beliefs, Zhao deemed Japan
an assistant, not a rival, to China, and he considered Sino-Japanese friendship a
primary step toward realizing Asian solidarity—an essential weapon against the
West. Such a proponent of Japan and pan-Asianism supposed he would enjoy
Japanese trust. Ironically, Zhao became one of the first Chinese high-ranking offi-
cials that the Japanese abandoned in Manchukuo.

An Unsuccessful Struggle for Power: Zhao’s Dismissal and Removal from Office
On October 10, 1934, the Manchukuo government internally announced the
dismissal of Zhao as head of the Legislative Council.82 The exact reasons behind
Zhao’s dismissal are not clear until this day, given a lack of clues in declassified
documents of the Manchukuo era. When the state of Manchukuo dismissed Zhao,
he had already resided in Tokyo for one year to inspect Japan’s legal system and
draft Manchukuo’s constitution with Japanese advice, as examined in Chapter 2.
To make the dismissal appear more authoritative and justified, the Japanese coop-
erated with Luo Zhenyu, who was then the head of the Supervisory Council (Ch:
Jiancha yuan; Jp: Kansatsu in). They first made Shinagawa Kazue (1887–1986) a
transitional leader of the Supervisory Council between Yu Chonghan and Luo to
impeach Zhao in a memorandum, listing his faults, such as “unauthorized appoint-
ment and dismissal of officials” in the Legislative Council and “exploitation of the
salaries of officials.”83 They then approached Luo and asked for his assistance to
remove Zhao from office, which Luo provided:

The honesty of higher-ranking officials will result in the integrity of

lower-ranking officials; it is not possible to expect a clean water current when
its source is polluted. The rectification of official principles should start from
those at the top. Zhao Xinbo, head of the Legislative Council, used to con-
tribute to the creation of this country, yet obvious evidence reveals his malfea-
sance [after October 1931]. … Zhao misappropriates confiscated properties
based on his status as a top legislative official, and he dares to challenge the law
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 181
because he thinks that his study experience in Japan and erstwhile position as
a representative of those from the Three Provinces who petitioned [for
Manchukuo’s creation] might protect him from punishment. Shinagawa can-
not help Zhao beautify his faults, even though the former is a Japanese.84

The misappropriation of “confiscated properties” partly referred to Zhao’s sale of

the opium that he confiscated from Fengtian’s smokehouses in 1931, which helped
him gain a “great profit.”85 Yamaguchi Jūji (1892–1979), the Manchukuo
Concordia Association’s cofounder, recalled that Zhao also sold “the private lands
and houses of [Zhang Xueliang-era] warlords and politicians” and received an
income of 600,000 yuan, one that equated to “several hundred millions of
[Japanese] yen” in 1967, during his four-months service as Fengtian’s mayor.86 His
recollection is likely factual, as Zhao purchased about 30,000 square meters of land
“in the downtown living areas” of Tokyo and Hakone in 1934.87 Bereft of public
and official attention for two years, Luo seemed desperately eager to demonstrate
a worthwhile political ability in front of Puyi, exploiting the Japanese impeach-
ment of Zhao. In hindsight, Luo ironically became a pawn of the Japanese in the
removal of Zhao, yet Luo would consider his decision a justified action that
guarded the dignity of the new country’s laws.
Zhao’s antipathy toward hiring Japanese officials to govern Manchukuo likely
contributed to his loss of power. When Zhao headed the Legislative Council, he
reportedly said that he was “familiar with the Japanese language and affairs,
including its geography and customs, so the Legislative Council could still pro-
cess everything without Japanese presence.”88 Zhao reflected a similar idea in his
writing:

Manchukuo’s Japanese officials construct this country based solely on the

political system of Japan. They formulate regulations without understanding
the situations of this country’s people, thereby constraining the lives of
Manchukuo’s population and making them become more impoverished
than before. … Without making them feel gratitude for the new country,
[Japanese officials] in contrast make [the people of Manchukuo] feel resent-
ful toward Japan, which is logical. When managing a society that has a dif-
ferent situation and custom, sometimes we cannot realize benevolent
governance even by implementing the policies that we deem beneficial to
the local population. Therefore, if we only rely on Japanese officials to man-
age Manchukuo’s civil affairs, we will not necessarily receive a good result,
no matter how hard we try.89

National autonomy and a pan-Asian order under Japan’s leadership were two dif-
ferent concepts for Zhao, as evident in his words. He argued to his Japanese readers
that outsiders should not overly interfere with Manchukuo’s domestic affairs, oth-
erwise their policies might backfire and cause people’s resentment. Zhao’s persua-
sion alarmed officials like Koiso Kuniaki (1880–1950), the Kantō Army’s chief of
staff between 1932 and 1934, and made Koiso constrain Zhao’s activities in Tokyo,
something that Chapter 2 has explored. That chapter also notes Koiso’s role in
182 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
disrupting Zhao’s drafting of Manchukuo’s constitution, as Koiso insisted that “the
core of [Manchukuo’s] national affairs should be held in the hands of Japanese
officials even if we strengthen the power of the monarch [Puyi] on the surface.”90
According to historian Tanaka Ryūichi, Zhao completed a draft of Manchukuo’s
constitution on September 25, 1934, titled Draft of the Manchukuo Constitution
[Manzhouguo xianfa caoan], yet its content will perhaps forever remain unknown
because the draft has been lost since Zhao’s dismissal.91
Zhao’s forced exit from the inner circle of Manchukuo governance shows that
officials like Koiso Kuniaki and Itagaki Seishirō (1885–1948) did not prioritize
Chinese who supported Japan’s rhetoric about realizing a pan-Asian alliance.
Rather, they were more interested in cooperating with those who could execute
Japanese policies without modification and resistance; the fall of Zhao Xinbo and
Zheng Xiaoxu and the survival of Zhang Jinghui and Zang Shiyi support this
point. Zhao’s exit reveals that Itagaki’s ideological faction possessed enough power
to remove dissident Chinese officials from office since the autumn of 1934; Zhao’s
successful removal arguably provided Kantō Army decision-makers with confi-
dence and motivated them to target Zheng Xiaoxu in 1935 by siding with Puyi.
Following Zhao’s dismissal, the Manchukuo state turned the Legislative Council
into a nominal institution under Puyi’s management and sealed off discussions on
the making of a constitution until the regime’s collapse in 1945, and available
sources reveal few details about Zhao’s life after 1934. Expressing his intention to
reside in Japan in early 1935, Zhao returned to Manchukuo in October 1937 and
served as a consultant of Puyi’s Imperial Household Mansion (Ch: Gongnei fu; Jp:
Ku’nai fu).92 In January 1939, Zhao became a consultant of the Temporary
Government of the ROC (Zhonghua minguo linshi zhengfu) in Beijing and cooper-
ated with Japan until its surrender in August 1945.93 Scattered clues reveal that the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) arrested Zhao in 1949, and he died on July 20,
1951, in Beijing while imprisoned.94

A Lingering Influence on Sino-Japanese Relations: Highly Publicized Disputes

over Zhao’s Properties in Japan, 1951–1984
Although Zhao died in 1951, his assets in Japan imposed a lasting influence on
Sino-Japanese relations in the postwar era. By 1984, the total value of Zhao’s prop-
erties in Japan, including “precious metals collected in an iron box” in Zhao’s pri-
vate residence in the Setagaya ward of Tokyo and the land that Zhao purchased in
Tokyo and Hakone, exceeded 4 billion yen (approximately 36 million U.S. dol-
lars).95 Their owner on paper was Zhao’s second wife, Zhao Biyan (1900–1989),
whose maiden name was Geng and who received the first name of Biyan from
Zhao Xinbo, given the latter’s yearning for his deceased first wife. Given mainland
China’s diplomatic isolation from Japan between 1949 and 1972, the Japanese gov-
ernment had lost contact with the Zhao family for decades; this made the former
Ministry of Finance (Ōkura shō) temporarily keep Zhao Xinbo’s treasures.96
The owner’s absence motivated multiple individuals to exploit Zhao’s real estate
in Japan from the 1950s to the 1980s. In 1961, for example, a Chinese employee
in Tokyo sold Zhao’s 400 square meter residence at Setagaya “with fabricated
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 183
stamps and documents” and received ten million yen of illicit income.97 Many from
China and Southeast Asia in the 1960s and the 1970s impersonated Zhao’s family
members, to occupy his lands. By 1984, even those who claimed to be Zhao’s son
through legal means had reached seven people, including Zhao Zongyang (1925–?),
the actual son of Zhao Xinbo and Zhao Biyan, and six impersonators of Zongyang
from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.98 Zongyang nevertheless had a powerful
supporter—the CCP. Under its arrangement, Zongyang went to Tokyo in July
1984 on behalf of his aging mother Biyan, to attend the lawsuit over his familial
properties and carried with him over 100 confidential documents that the CCP
provided, like Zhao Xinbo’s death certificate, household registration, and impris-
onment record.99 To verify Zongyang’s identity, the Tokyo Family Court (Tōkyō
katei saibansho) summoned his erstwhile teachers and classmates in Tokyo in the
1930s and the early 1940s and announced in September 1984 that Zongyang was
the inheritor of that four billion yen property (Figure 6.3).100
Available sources provide few details on how the Zhao family dealt with that
money and how the Tokyo Family Court transferred Zhao Xinbo’s lands in Japan
to a foreign family, as news coverage in Japan revealed that local residents had
largely populated Zhao’s lands.101 According to a 2013 article, Zhao Biyan entrusted
the PRC consulate general in Japan to handle 80 percent of that money and only
kept 20 percent for her family because, the article claims, Biyan believed that she
would “absolutely [be] unable to reclaim this money without the help of the [PRC]
government, the office of overseas Chinese affairs in Japan, and jurists.”102 Spending

Figure 6.3 Zhao Xinbo (front row; third from left), Zhao Biyan (front row; fourth from left),
and Zhao Zongyang (front row; first from right) in Tokyo, July 28, 1933.
Source: M30.009, Dennis M. Ogawa Photograph Collection, Hoover Archives, https://hojishinbun.
hoover.org/en/newspapers/A-M57-009.1.1.
184 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
the rest of her life “enjoying the nursing service of high-level officials” in the inten-
sive care ward of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital (Zhong Ri youhao yiyuan) in
Beijing based on CCP sponsorship, she died in June 1989 at the age of 89.103
Zhao Xinbo was the first man among the ten figures that this book examines
who suffered Japanese abandonment (without counting Ma Zhanshan’s proactive
exit in 1932), yet his influence on Sino-Japanese relations lasted for decades after
1945—one that even motivated the CCP to use national power to secure his assets
in Japan. For the CCP, the peaceful settlement of the 1984 lawsuit contributed to
the maintenance of friendly relations between the PRC and Japan, observing the
privileged treatment of Zhao Biyan at China-Japan Friendship Hospital, a medical
institution that received gratuitous financial aid from the Japanese government,
after 1984. Perhaps even Zhao Xinbo did not imagine that his assets in Japan would
have such a huge and lasting impact on Sino-Japanese relations beyond his lifetime.
Having established his political successes after 1926, based on an academic reputa-
tion that he accumulated in Japan, Zhao’s service in Manchukuo nevertheless made
him a traitorous figure among many contemporary observers and mainland Chinese
historians today, yet he ironically contributed to the promotion of Sino-Japanese
friendship with his properties in Japan 30 years after his death. Such an important
individual deserves further academic exploration for those who study Sino-Japanese
relations in the twentieth century; the possible declassification of more relevant
documents in the future will gradually decrease the difficulty of such a task.

Passionate Scholar of Law: Manchukuo’s First Minister of

Justice, Feng Hanqing
Feng Hanqing (Figure 6.4) is a lesser-known figure compared to the other people
this book examines. It is not possible to trace the year of his death based on available
sources at present, and relevant materials on Feng’s experiences after 1934 are scarce,
blurring the situation of his tenure in the later years of Manchukuo. Although he
served as the head of the important Manchukuo Ministry of Justice between 1932
and 1937, publications in mainland China today rarely mention Feng. For instance,
his name does not appear in the Grand Dictionary of Northeastern Figures [Dongbei renwu
da cidian; 1996], a two-volume encyclopedia of Chinese elite figures in Manchuria in
the Qing and the Republican eras, even though it is over 3,300 pages in length.104
Historian Kwong Chi Man acknowledges the difficulty of tracing the backgrounds
of many figures in early twentieth-century Manchuria because “little could be found
about their lives.”105 Indeed, specific research on Feng in China and the West to date
arguably does not exist, except for an article-length Japanese study on his contribu-
tion to the construction of Manchukuo’s legal system, given the scarcity of relevant
sources, and access to them.106 Contemporary records provide historians with little
helpful information on Feng’s experiences in the later Manchukuo years.
Although the study of Feng is challenging, it is possible to examine his national
ideals based on contemporary news coverage and publications in both Manchukuo
and Japan, as they often published the texts of Feng’s public talks between 1932
and 1933. He often reflected in these talks on his view toward the new state of
Manchukuo and the Japanese presence. Similar to his colleague Zhao Xinbo, Feng
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 185

Figure 6.4 Feng Hanqing in Tokyo, December 8, 1932.

Source: M30.009, Dennis M. Ogawa Photograph Collection, Hoover Archives, https://hojishinbun.
hoover.org/?a=d&d=A-M30-009.

was an admirer of Japan’s legal system and moral precepts. He refrained from asso-
ciating the ROC government with China as a nation and considered the newly
established Manchukuo a legitimate branch of Chinese tradition capable of main-
taining peace and order among the local populations in Manchuria. For him, Japan
served as an assistant of, instead of a rival to, Manchukuo. Examining the image of
Manchukuo and Japan according to Feng helps one better understand the thoughts
of intellectual officials and further problematizes the notion of treason in the early
Manchukuo years.

Modern Scholar in a Tumultuous Era: Feng’s Early Life

Feng Hanqing was born on September 30, 1892, in Gaiping county of Fengtian
province.107 Official Manchukuo news coverage reveals that Feng studied law, pol-
itics, and economics and served as a lawyer in many law courts across Jilin, Fengtian,
Shanxi, and Henan provinces in his early career.108 Graduating from the Academy
of Laws and Politics of Fengtian (Fengtian fazheng xuetang) in May 1910, Feng
served as a judge at the law court of Acheng county, Heilongjiang province, in
June 1911, and he became president of the criminal court of the Shanxi High
186 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
Court (Shanxi gaodeng shenpanting) in 1919.109 In 1924, the Zhang Zuolin govern-
ment appointed him the magistrate of Changling county of Jilin province and soon
promoted him to the position of general affairs director of the Railway Bureau of
Beijing and Fengtian (Jing Feng tieluju) and secretary-general of the General Army
Law Enforcement Division (Lujun zong zhifachu).110 While holding government
positions, Feng also accumulated university teaching experiences between 1925
and 1928, when Shanxi and Tangshan Jiaotong universities hired him as a lecturer
of law.111 Between 1928 and 1931, Feng successively became the director of the
Hulan Tax Bureau (Hulan zhengshouju) and the Machuankou Tax Bureau
(Machuankou zhengshouju) in Heilongjiang province. He moved to Fengtian and
served as a lawyer before the Japanese invaded Manchuria in September 1931.112
After Zhao Xinbo became the mayor of Fengtian on October 20, 1931, Feng
became the secretary-general of the city’s municipal government and the chief
director of the Fengtian Resource Development Department (Fengtian shiyeting).113
After Manchukuo’s creation in March 1932, Feng officially headed the country’s
Ministry of Justice for five years until May 1937, when Zhang Huanxiang (1880–
1962) succeeded his position.114
As a jurist “who never occupied important political positions [before the
Manchurian Incident of 1931] and who did not understand the Japanese lan-
guage,” Hoshino Naoki (1892–1978) observed that Feng’s political successes in
Manchukuo owed much to the “recommendation of those on the Manchurian
side,” particularly Zhao Xinbo.115 Feng acknowledged this in his writing: “I
became the secretary general of the municipal government [in October 1931],
namely the leader of [Zhao’s] followers…hoping to realize my grand wish of gov-
erning Shenyang [Fengtian] under Zhao’s leadership.”116 Feng’s specialty in law
certainly attracted Zhao’s attention given the latter’s academic background, but
Zhao’s lack of power in Manchuria was a more important reason behind his deci-
sion to treat Feng as his primary assistant. Unlike Zheng Xiaoxu and Luo Zhenyu,
who had Puyi as a backer, and Zhang Jinghui and Zang Shiyi, who had stable bases
of support in Manchuria, Zhao “had no stable forces in both the Northeast and
China proper.”117 This urged Zhao to establish his own faction based on the sup-
port of local intellectual Manchurians, a group that Zhao could commend due to
his educational background. Feng, a renowned local jurist who had working expe-
rience in government and who desired a higher official position, thus managed to
become Zhao’s trusted aide; this paved the way for his rise to be a government
leader of the newly created Manchukuo.

Shaping Manchukuo’s Judicial Order: Feng’s Attitude toward Judicial Integrity

Although Feng lived through the late Qing Dynasty in his youth, he did not nec-
essarily support the restoration of the monarchy due to his exposure to modern
ideologies, despite having never studied abroad. In his petition to Puyi’s inaugura-
tion as the chief executive of Manchukuo on March 5, 1932, Feng refrained from
associating Puyi’s return to Manchuria with the revival of the Manchu monarchy.
In contrast, Feng deemed Puyi an ideal figure who could “maintain the general
situation” of Manchuria under the presence of the Japanese Kantō Army because
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 187
he was the former Qing emperor.118 He believed that people in Manchuria would
like to treat Puyi as their leader after the fall of Zhang Xueliang’s warlord regime,
stating,

I know the former emperor always values his people’s opinions. Right now
because local people enthusiastically support the former emperor [to serve as
the chief executive of Manchukuo], I believe it is not wise for him to decline
this offer again, as such an action betrays the people’s will.119

Restoring Manchuria’s stability rather than supporting the monarchy was Feng’s
primary objective. Due to Feng’s contributions to the restoration of local judicial
order in Fengtian with Zhao Xinbo after September 1931, Manchukuo news
coverage stated, “Dean Zhao and Minister Feng reorganized Fengtian’s fragmented
judicial system and made it operate again after the [Manchurian] Incident with
their fearless spirits,” justifying two men’s abilities to head Manchukuo’s supreme
departments.120
While heading the Ministry of Justice, Feng desired to improve the quality of
the new regime’s judiciary. Feng considered the exclusion of incompetent judges
from law courts an essential step toward judicial integrity, noting in a government
announcement on April 21, 1932, that being a jurist “is an extremely important
job” because “people’s livelihood and property heavily depend on verdicts from
individual magistrates.”121 Thus, Feng concluded, people without “appropriate
academic training and moral behavior absolutely do not deserve to serve in the
Ministry of Justice.”122 In a speech to Harbin’s jurists on August 5, 1932, Feng tried
to convince his audiences of the urgency to conduct legal reforms in Manchukuo
by identifying the existing problems of the local judiciary:

Public opinion generally agrees that the condition of the Eastern Provinces’
judiciary before the [Manchurian] Incident was chaotic, and even I cannot
deem it perfect. There are two major reasons for this problem. First, local
warlords often misappropriated the funds that initially belonged to the judicial
system to supply their troops, as they did not consider the judicial system an
important institution that deserved heavy governmental subsidies. Second,
individual judges under warlord domination had few means to protect them-
selves other than obedience to the authority. It is thus not realistic to expect a
healthy legal environment under the leadership of local warlords.123

Feng considered warlord domination the fundamental reason that disrupted

Manchuria’s judicial system, and jurists could not carry out their duties without
interference from the local authorities. As a scholar of law, Feng was reluctant to
ignore the legal situation of his hometown and wanted to reform the region’s
judiciary after Zhang Xueliang’s warlord regime had collapsed:

I have made the judicial system completely independent [from the state] since
I became the Minister of Justice. … I have also improved the salaries and
treatment of individual judges, in order to protect them [from the abuses of
188 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
authority]. As the head of the Ministry of Justice, I am confident to contend
that I have devoted all my attention and efforts to the planning of the above-
mentioned points. … I would sincerely appreciate cooperation from you all,
and I believe that Manchukuo will become a vibrant state governed by laws
[instead of power holders] within several years. As an actual participant in
[Manchukuo’s] foundation, I am responsible for implementing the policies
that I made, regardless of obstacles.124

Desiring to shape the new country’s judicial order, Feng requested the assistance
of his men. Historian Annika A. Culver has argued that Manchuria served as “an
experimental space for the realization of modernity” for Japanese policymakers in
the 1920s and the 1930s.125 Considering the subjects of this book, many Chinese-
speaking officials in Manchukuo also sought such change in the early 1930s. Feng’s
quest for judicial justice reveals his desire to improve and empower Manchukuo’s
judiciary from his position, something that he was not able to achieve under the
Zhang family’s warlord regime.
To standardize Manchukuo’s judicial environment, Feng prioritized the compo-
sition of a statute book while carefully selecting competent individuals to serve in
the Ministry of Justice. In his writing, Feng lamented that “Manchuria did not
have any written laws, nor did it have a so-called legal system” before the establish-
ment of the ROC in 1912, and the new Manchukuo lacked a comprehensive
judicial system “due to individuals’ negligence” even after practicing modern legal
concepts for 20 years.126 To fill the gap of judicial negligence, Feng and his men in
the Ministry of Justice compiled a statute book titled Manchukuo’s Judicial Sources
[Manzhouguo sifa ziliao] in 1933, integrating the written laws of Manchuria,
Mongolia, and China proper between 1911 and 1931 for people to reference
when formulating the laws of Manchukuo.127
To prevent opportunists from making their way into the Ministry of Justice,
Feng made a series of strict selection processes for the hiring of jurists. He made
those who passed the first round of selection serve in the Ministry as temporary
judges for one year, to exclude more candidates that the Ministry deemed
inappropriate. Those who passed this round based on “solid achievement”
would then serve as assistant judges for another six months to demonstrate their
judicial abilities. After all these inspections, the remaining candidates needed to
work as formal judges for a year, and those who “had accomplishments” would
become formal judges in the Ministry.128 Although source issues prevent histo-
rians from examining whether or not the Ministry of Justice eventually carried
out Feng’s will throughout the Manchukuo years, it is at least legitimate to
consider Feng an idealistic official who emphasized judicial justice instead of an
opportunist who exploited both Zhao Xinbo and the Japanese for political
power. To develop Manchukuo as “a nation capable of negotiating with the
world’s major powers on an equal basis,” Feng in his New Year speech on
January 1, 1933, claimed that his next objective was to abolish Japanese extra-
territorial rights in Manchukuo—a crucial step toward Manchukuo’s total
independence.129
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 189
Not Another Korea: Feng’s View of Manchukuo and the Japanese Presence
Like Zhao Xinbo, Feng Hanqing did not deem Japan a threat to Manchukuo. By
considering Manchukuo an independent nation-state capable of representing the
goodwill of local people, Feng believed that Japan was willing to assist Manchukuo
through its national development. In the talk that he gave on August 5, 1932, in
Harbin, Feng acknowledged that many Chinese residents in Manchukuo were
anxious about the new regime’s status under the Japanese presence because they
believed that Manchukuo was “a second Korea” for the Japanese.130 Feng treated
this view as an unfounded rumor that required his serious dismissal before the new
regime could operate and develop in a normal way, stating,

Our thirty million population have yet to understand the new state [of
Manchukuo] deeply enough, thus considering Manchukuo another Korea or
Japan’s protectorate instead of a sovereign state. I would say that this kind of
speculation is wrong based on my interactions with the Japanese during my
stays in Fengtian, Xinjing, and Jilin. I have to frequently meet Japanese army
leaders, politicians, and diplomats [due to my official position], and all of them
repeatedly declare that they absolutely have no territorial ambitions in
Manchuria, let alone treat Manchukuo as Korea. … In terms of sense, the
Japanese would not gain any profits even if they treat us as Koreans because
Japan loses tens of millions of yen to Korea each year, and do not forget the
fact that the country is also tired of handling continuous Korean uprisings.
Hence, the Japanese should have learnt the lesson [of colonization] and will
not repeat the same mistakes again. … Talking in front of you all as the head
of the Ministry of Justice, you should deem my words trustworthy.131

In this talk, Feng portrayed Japan as an assistant to Manchukuo based on his own
experiences of interacting with the Japanese, promising his audience that the bitter
financial and political “lessons” that Japan had learned from colonizing Korea
would prevent it from colonizing Manchukuo. His observation of Japanese inten-
tion was not totally a wishful conjecture, as contemporary news reports in
Manchuria also stated that the Manchurian Incident was an “unfortunate dispute
between China and Japan that the supreme authority [of both nations] would work
together to resolve.”132 Even some contemporary Western observers used the term
“military intervention” to describe Japan’s invasion of Manchuria.133 Since many in
the early 1930s failed to insightfully interpret the changing situation in Manchuria,
to criticize Feng solely for his misinterpretation of Japanese ambitions in 1932 is
not appropriate. Based on the belief of cooperating with Japan, Feng wrote in
March 1934 that he wished “Japan, Manchukuo, and the ROC could take the
opportunity [of Puyi’s coronation] to form an alliance for the sake of mutual assis-
tance” because “hostility between these three Far Eastern states will be enough to
bring misfortune to East Asia’s several hundred millions of population.”134 From
this statement, one can sense Feng’s support for the coexistence of Manchukuo and
the ROC, given their Chinese origins, warlord-era Manchuria’s long separation
190 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
from the actual control of the ROC government, and the long-held notion that
Manchuria was not part of China proper. Similar to Zhao Xinbo’s pan-Asianist
ideology, Feng treated both a multigovernmental China and Japan as part of the
larger Asian community, insisting that the two nations had responsibilities to
“maintain East Asia’s prolonged stability and order.”135 Working with the Japanese
in Manchukuo thus for him did not betray the notion of Chinese nationhood.
As a jurist, Feng primarily desired to reference Japan’s legal system for a stand-
ardization of Manchukuo’s judiciary. Serving as the leader of Manchukuo’s legal
inspection team, Feng conducted a short, yet highly publicized, visit to Japan
between November 23 and December 22, 1932 to “inspect the exact situations of
multiple places’ judicial systems and exchange opinions over judicial administra-
tion” with Japanese legal experts.136 Feng visited local law courts and prisons across
Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, Moji, Nagasaki, and Keijō
(Seoul), experiencing “warm guidance and welcomes” from Japanese politicians,
especially the Japanese minister of justice, Koyama Matsukichi (1869–1948).137 A
civil organization, the Japanese Lawyer Association (Nippon bengoshi kyōkai), lauded
Feng’s visit in the January 1933 editorial of its periodical, stating,

Japan and Manchukuo are two nations that have a blood relationship. For the
one year-old Manchukuo, Japan, a mature country that has 2,592 years of
history, should more or less have many experiences for Manchukuo to refer-
ence… especially in the field of judicial system.138

Treating 660 BCE as the year of Japan’s foundation, based on the country’s mythol-
ogy, the Japanese Lawyer Association depicted Japan as an elder and Manchukuo as a
junior in a family, considering the assistance of Manchukuo a moral mission for Japan.
Such an opinionated—though not necessarily malicious—rhetoric nevertheless
resonated with Feng’s depiction of Japan as an ally, rather than an invader, of
Manchukuo and his decision to imitate Japan’s legal construction and moral edu-
cation. In Tokyo, Feng stressed the significance of lawyers to the maintenance of
social justice because “their jobs are to protect people’s lives and properties.”139 For
that purpose, Feng suggested that Manchukuo’s “judiciary will definitely treat
Japan as its tutor” not only given Manchuria’s negligence regarding legal construc-
tion under warlord domination but also given Japan’s successful experience in
abolishing extraterritoriality in the Meiji era.140 He planned to “improve
Manchukuo’s judicial system by hiring the first-class Japanese jurists and law-
yers.”141 Feng stated that he wanted to “form an East Asian alliance by treating
Japan as its leader, to lay the foundation for permanent Japan-Manchukuo coexist-
ence and co-prosperity.”142
Returning to Dalian on December 25, 1932, with “two boxes of sources” that
he collected from Japan, Feng conveyed in front of journalists the significance of
Japan to Manchukuo’s development by articulating Japanese moral precepts:

Every prison that I visited has affiliated monks responsible for spreading
Buddhist ideologies among individual prisoners, to make them realize and
repent their crimes. This reminds me that Buddhism has close connections
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 191
with modern laws. Thus, Manchukuo should follow Japan’s example, in order
to make its domestic judiciary more humane and effective… Another thing
that impressed me the most is Japan’s national religion, as shrines and the
mausoleums of former emperors spread across the country. This factor makes
it possible for Japan to assimilate its people’s spirits into a unity and motivate
them to serve the nation’s cause when crises come. Manchukuo should also
add the cultivation of a unified national spirit to its national agenda.143

Explaining the detailed operational principles of the Ministry of Justice to outsid-

ers would be a tough and redundant job, and this was likely why Feng refrained
from detailed discussions of his reform plans and interactions with Japanese legal
experts in this talk. What he mentioned instead was the benefit of moral inculca-
tion to social stability, hinting to his audience that the state should not solely rely
on laws to govern a society, considering Japan’s example. Admiring Japanese higher
education, Feng sent his first daughter to Tokyo to attend a local women’s college
and made her reside with a Japanese lawyer’s family.144 His decision to imitate the
Japanese judicial system and hire Japanese jurists assisted in Japanese officials dom-
inating most of the departments of the Ministry of Justice since 1932; one can
sense this from the 1933 Manchukuo Staff Record [Manshūkoku shokuin roku].145
While Japanese influence in the state of Manchukuo was growing, however, Feng
gradually faded from public attention in the later 1930s, and his career as the min-
ister of justice eventually ended in May 1937.

A Quiet and Bitter Exit from History: Feng’s Mysterious Later Life
Although Feng Hanqing was an influential government leader in the early years of
Manchukuo, his later life remains a mystery. Kantō Army commander Minami Jirō
(1874–1955) suggested during a conversation with Puyi on May 20, 1935, when
Zhang Jinghui replaced Zheng Xiaoxu as the prime minister of Manchukuo, that
the army still felt it “inconvenient” to dismiss Feng of his position as the minister
of justice because Feng was “analyzing the issue of abolishing extraterritoriality” in
Manchukuo.146 The army had likely yet to secure a satisfactory candidate for the
new minister of justice in May 1935 when its decision-makers and Puyi aban-
doned Zheng Xiaoxu. This could explain why Zhang Huanxiang, a military figure
who had no relevant training in the judiciary, abruptly replaced Feng on May 1,
1937—six months before Manchukuo formally abolished extraterritoriality.147
Feng’s lack of connections with Japan before 1931 and close interaction with Zhao
Xinbo prevented him from becoming an ideal partner for most Kantō Army high-
level officials, an important reason that contributed to his loss of power in 1937
beside his determination to strive for Manchukuo’s independence.
After leaving the Ministry of Justice, Feng became vice director of the
Manchurian Heavy Industrial Development Corporation (Manshū jūkōgyō kai-
hatsu kabushiki gaisha; the name of the famed Nissan Motor Corporation
between 1937 and 1945; hereafter Mangyō), and a committee member of the
Concordia Association in May 1937, enjoying the government subsidies of a
former Manchukuo official.148
192 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
Serving as the vice director of Mangyō brought Feng isolation and anxiety rather
than fame and profit. The Japanese government had decided through a cabinet
meeting to move the company to Manchukuo in September 1937 and changed its
name from the Japanese Industrial Corporation (Nihon sangrō kaisha, namely
Nissan) to Mangyō in December 1937.149 Under the operation of Japanese entre-
preneur Ayukawa Yoshisuke (1880–1967), Mangyō, a joint venture of Japan and
Manchukuo, “invested, operated, and guided Manchukuo’s steel, light metal,
automotive and aircraft manufacturing, and mining industries.”150 Although the
state of Manchukuo held half of the shares of Mangyō, “almost all of its five-hundred
employees were Japanese; Manchurians only served as divers or guards.”151 In the
words of Takasaki Tatsu’nosuke (1885–1964), director of Mangyō between 1942
and 1945, the fragile Manchurian-Japanese cooperation in Mangyō resembled “a
giant building on sand” because “communications between Manchurian and
Japanese executives almost did not exist.”152 He considered Feng a figurehead and
suggested that “all the powers were held in the hands of the Japanese.”153 Recalling
Feng’s career at Mangyō in his 1953 memoir, Takasaki wrote,

This Vice Director took an inkstone to the company every day and locked
himself in his office practicing calligraphy. The other two Manchurian
executives did nothing every day other than commuting between their
houses and the company by car. None of them could speak Japanese, and
those who could speak the Manchurian language on the Japanese side
almost did not exist. The two sides were completely unable to convey each
other’s thoughts.154

“Manchurian language” in Takasaki’s words refers to Mandarin, as the Japanese in

Manchukuo conceptualized Han Chinese text as “Manchurian text” (Man bun)
and Mandarin as “Manchurian language” (Man go), to distinguish Manchukuo
from China proper. To overcome the problem of Manchurian-Japanese isolation,
Takasaki made Feng and the two Manchurian executives inspect the working con-
ditions of Chinese workers at Mangyō’s subsidiaries across Manchukuo. In his
report, Feng excluded any negative aspects of Chinese working conditions and
helplessly told Takasaki the reason: “If we produce a report based on our own
inspecting result, we will never be able to enter the door of this company again.
We have no alternatives other than following the rhetoric of Japanese labor man-
agers.”155 Takasaki admitted in his memoir that the poor living and dining condi-
tions of Chinese workers “exceeded my imagination” after personally inspecting
the conditions of Chinese workers at Mangyō.156
If Feng recalled his words in front of Harbin’s jurists in August 1932 that
Manchukuo was not a second Korea and his determination to make Manchukuo
“become a vibrant state governed by laws” when complaining about his nominal
status at Mangyō in front of Takasaki, he would no doubt have felt ashamed of his
miscalculation of Japanese ambitions. Recalling an invitation of Feng and Feng’s
wife, who according to Takasaki could speak fluent Japanese, to his house for a
talk, Takasaki recorded the crying words of Feng’s wife:
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 193
Since the Japanese have arrived [in Manchuria], what we have to consider
every day is how to please them. If we carelessly complain about the Japanese,
dismissal from one’s workplace will be a guaranteed result—we have lost our
direction of survival. How could one find another similar political environ-
ment in this world?157

These sentences reveal that Feng and his wife had lost faith in the future of
Manchukuo in the early 1940s; this contradicts his optimistic view toward
Manchukuo under Japanese supervision a decade earlier. Initially trusting the
Japanese due to his desire to refresh the judiciary of Fengtian with Japanese assis-
tance after the Manchurian Incident, Feng supported a coalition of Manchukuo,
Japan, and the ROC for the sake of East Asia’s populations. Without expecting the
Japanese to break their promise for treating Manchukuo as an independent state
within five years after the regime’s establishment, Feng no longer considered his
initial ideals realistic when his wife painfully made the aforementioned points.
Regardless of Feng’s disappointment toward Manchukuo, the state exploited
Feng’s remaining values by frequently making him visit Japan after 1938 with other
Manchukuo officials. Based on Japanese news coverage, Feng visited Japan at least
four times between 1938 and 1942.158 While attending the yearly held East Asian
Economic Roundtable (Tō A keizai kondankai) in Tokyo as a Manchukuo delegate
three times in November 1938, November 1940, and November 1942, Feng vis-
ited Tokyo in March 1942 with Prime Minister Zhang Jinghui and 24 Chinese
and Japanese officials of Manchukuo to “thank the allied nation of Japan and the
Japanese for their [contribution to] the past bright and prosperous decade” of
Manchukuo.159 Receiving little attention from domestic Japanese media regarding
his activities in Japan, Feng became a pawn in the rhetoric of realizing Japan-
Manchukuo friendship and Asian solidarity after the war between Japan and the
ROC started in July 1937. Having been involuntarily removed from the Ministry
of Justice in 1937, Feng’s goal of realizing judicial justice and independence for
Fengtian became an unachievable dream.
Feng’s career ended with the collapse of Manchukuo in August 1945. Takasaki
recalled that he and Feng visited Mikhail Kovalyov (1897–1967), commander of
the Soviet occupation army of Manchuria in 1945 and 1946, in Xinjing, to discuss
affairs on the Soviet and the Chinese takeover of Mangyō after Soviet troops occu-
pied the city in August 1945.160 This is the last time that Feng appeared in Takasaki’s
writings, which suggests that the two never met each other again. To date, no one
knows where Feng spent the rest of his life after 1945. Regardless of a lack of
evidence, Feng likely managed to escape from arrest by both the Soviets and the
CCP; otherwise, he would not have easily faded into obscurity given his signifi-
cance to the establishment of Manchukuo’s judiciary in the early 1930s. The
examples of people like Han Yunjie (1894–1982) and Bao Guancheng (1898–
1975?)—former Manchukuo officials who managed to flee from mainland China
after 1945—also suggest a possibility of Feng’s escape from arrest. His exit from the
inner circle of Manchukuo in the late 1930s protected him from becoming a pri-
mary target of surveillance, persecution, and prosecution for the Soviets and the
194 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
CCP in the postwar era, unlike those who governed Manchukuo or served in the
collaborationist regimes of China proper until 1945. The possible declassification
or discovery of more relevant documents, particularly household registrations and
immigration records in both China and Japan, in the future might gradually solve
the confusion surrounding Feng’s mysterious later life.

A One-Sided Wish for Sino-Japanese Cooperation: Chapter

Conclusion
This chapter explores two intellectual government leaders of Manchukuo in the
early 1930s, Zhao Xinbo and Feng Hanqing. Receiving modern higher legal edu-
cation in China and Japan, they represented a rising force of intellectual officials in
the province of Fengtian after the collapse of Zhang Xueliang’s warlord regime in
September 1931. Compared to Fengtian’s military figures and civil elites, intellec-
tual officials, of a minor and marginalized group in warlord Manchuria, had no
stable bases of power and support in the warlord era and instead often suffered
isolation in politics. They managed to rise to power due to changes that the Kantō
Army brought about after the autumn of 1931, with the rise of Zhao and Feng as
two prominent examples.
Both figures embraced concepts like law and judicial order and were thus not
desperate to reestablish China’s imperial order, in contrast to a shared ideal of
Manchu aristocrats and Qing loyalists. At least for Zhao and Feng, China did not
necessarily require the forming of a monolithic government for unification: creat-
ing Manchukuo was thus unrelated to treason. Given both figures’ lack of political
influence in warlord Manchuria and connections with the Nationalist Nanjing
ROC government, they did not share the plight that military leaders and civil
elites did. Their grasp of modern legal concepts and voluntary cooperation with
Japan enabled both Zhao and Feng to enter the core of Manchukuo governance,
yet such a fragile status guaranteed an ephemeral influence for both figures in the
decision-making circles of Manchukuo. Hitting the weakest part of the veneer of
Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders, the Japanese, particularly Kantō Army
officials, successfully cracked it in October 1934 by dismissing Zhao, and smashed
it with Feng’s removal in 1937.
Zhao’s and Feng’s struggle for Fengtian’s judicial modernity and independence
with Japanese support reveals a desire for change among the province’s intellectu-
als, notably jurists, during and after warlord governance. Spending ten years in
Japan studying the country’s laws and constitution, the warm support that Zhao
received from Japanese legal experts and media for his critical 1925 doctoral dis-
sertation on the absence of legal provisions against negligent crimes in Japan helped
strengthen his pro-Japan standpoint. Anticipating using the knowledge that he
acquired in Japan to strive for the abolition of extraterritoriality in China with
assistance from Japan’s judiciary, Zhao opposed Zhang Xueliang’s anti-Japan stance
and joined the Japanese in governing Fengtian in October 1931. Zhao associated
his ideal of Sino-Japanese cooperation with Japan’s pan-Asianist pronouncements
during his service as the head of Manchukuo’s Legislative Council between March
1932 and October 1934. Treating Japan as a lighthouse for East Asian nations,
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 195
Zhao insisted that Japan’s decline would make the people of East Asia yield to the
West again. Although Zhao wanted Japan to become the leader of an East Asian
alliance, he opposed the Japanese hindrance of local affairs and made the Legislative
Council operate without consultation with the Japanese, something that resulted
in his loss of power in 1934, allegedly for economic misconduct. Dying in 1951
during imprisonment in Beijing, Zhao’s assets in Japan unexpectedly haunted the
relationship between Japan and the PRC for more than 30 years, yet the CCP
turned the dispute into an opportunity to enhance the PRC’s communications
with Japan in the 1980s.
Feng was a native Fengtian jurist who was eager to abolish extraterritoriality in
Manchuria and improve the judicial environment of Fengtian; he approached
Zhao Xinbo following the Manchurian Incident in September 1931 and deemed
the collapse of Zhang Xueliang’s warlord regime an opportunity to realize his
ideals. Disappointed with the local judicial situation in the warlord era, Feng tried
to reform the system with assistance from Japanese legal experts after becoming
Manchukuo’s minister of justice. Japanese Kantō Army officials, however, inten-
tionally isolated Feng after Zhao’s dismissal in October 1934 and eventually trans-
ferred Feng to Mangyō in May 1937. Spending the rest of his career in Manchukuo
as a nominal executive of Mangyō, source issues prevent historians from detailed
analyses of Feng’s later life, especially after August 1945. Both Zhao and Feng
experienced a path from utilizing the Japanese to being abandoned by the Japanese
within five years after Manchukuo’s creation; their rise and fall represented a shared
plight of Manchukuo’s intellectual officials.
By July 1937, when Japan began to invade China proper following the Marco
Polo Bridge Incident, all the figures that this study examines, except for Puyi, had
either quit the inner circle of Manchukuo (Zheng Xiaoxu, Luo Zhenyu, Ma
Zhanshan, Yu Chonghan, Zhao Xinbo, and Feng Hanqing) or remained silent in
front of the Kantō Army (Xixia, Zhang Jinghui, and Zang Shiyi). Exploiting the
Japanese invasion of China proper, Puyi strove to enhance a proclaimed kinship
relation between the imperial families of Manchukuo and Japan. Historian Bill
Sewell argues that the year 1931 signified the transformation of Japanese imperial-
ism in Manchuria from indirect economic manipulation to direct military domi-
nation and moral inculcation.161 Similarly, one may consider the period of
1935–1937, specifically between the fall of Prime Minister Zheng Xiaoxu in May
1935 and a major reshuffle of Manchukuo’s government departments in May
1937, a watershed of Chinese government leader experiences. Between 1935 and
1937, Manchukuo’s Chinese leading forces gradually crumbled in front of an “iron
pyramid of [Japanese] military men acting as bureaucrats, administrative techno-
crats, and managers of semi-governmental corporations.”162 Based on hindsight of
the Japanese domination of Manchukuo, many scholars today tend to downplay or
ignore the significance of Chinese officials to the creation and governance of
Manchukuo. In the following chapter, this book concludes with an examination
of Chinese postwar analyses of Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders and
explores some possible reasons why most of the country’s Chinese founding fathers
failed to maintain a dominant status in the state of Manchukuo, despite many of
them enjoying considerable autonomous powers in the early 1930s.
196 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
Notes
1 For two particular examples, see Douglas Reynolds, China, 1898–1912: The Xinzheng
Revolution and Japan (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1993); Liu Jianhui, Ni Chū
ni hyaku nen: sasae au kindai [Two hundred-year history between Japan and China: a
modernity of mutual-support] (Tokyo: Takeda randamu hausu Japan, 2012).
2 Reynolds, China, 1898–1912, 42.
3 Huang Zijin, Zhuli yu zuli zhijian: Sun Zhongshan, Jiang Jieshi qin Ri kang Ri wushi nian
[Between external assistance and obstruction: a fifty-year history of pro-Japan and
anti-Japan of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek] (Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe, 2015), 27.
4 Wang Guoyu, “Manzhouguo de chanpo Zhao Xinbo” [Manchukuo’s midwife Zhao
Xinbo], in Changchun wenshi ziliao disan ji [Changchun municipal documents on cul-
ture and history volume 3], ed. Changchunshi zhengxie wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui
(Changchun: Changchunshi zhengxie wenshi ziliao weiyuanhui, 1988), 143–158;
Guo Yu, “Wei Lifayuan zhang Zhao Xinbo” [Zhao Xinbo, bogus head of the
Legislative Council], in Wei Man shiliao congshu: wei Man renwu [Bogus Manchukuo
historical material series: bogus Manchukuo figures], ed. Sun Bang (Changchun: Jilin
renmin chubanshe, 1993), 468–180.
5 DuBois, “Inauthentic sovereignty,” 756.
6 Xu Xueji, ed., Koushu lishi congshu 79–Rizhi shiqi zai Manzhou de Taiwanren [Oral
history series No. 79–Taiwanese experiences in Manchuria during the Japanese occu-
pation] (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 2002), v.
7 Fei Cui and Ren Zhaoxiang, “Zhao Xinbo ju’e yichan’an jiemi” [Unmasking the case
over Zhao Xinbo’s huge assets], Longmen zhen [Dragon gate formation], October
2013, 84.
8 Yu Jizeng, “Yige Zhongguo nüren de Dongjing ju’e caichan an” [The case of a
Chinese woman’s huge assets in Tokyo], Wenshi jinghua [Essence of culture and his-
tory], June 2003, 45–49.
9 Jitsugyō no sekaisha henshūkyoku, ed., Jitsugyō no sekai sōkan nijū shūnen kinen dai kōen
roku [Commemoratory record of the speeches on the twentieth publishing anniver-
sary of the periodical world of resource development] (Tokyo: Jitsugyō no sekaisha,
1927), 37; Anonymous, ed., The Manchukuo Year Book (Tokyo: East Asiatic Economic
Investigation Bureau, 1934), 751.
10 K. K. Kawakami, Manchukuo: Child of Conflict (New York: The Macmillan Company,
1933), 163.
11 “Naki tsuma no fukushū o nashi togeta namida no ronbun” [A dissertation of tears and
vengeance that (Zhao) produced for his deceased wife], Asahi shinbun [Asahi News]
(November 12, 1925): 7; Hamaguchi Yūko, “Manshū jihen to Chūgokujin:
Manshūkoku ni hairu Chūgokujin kanri to Nihon no seisaku” [The Manchurian
Incident and the Chinese: Chinese officials who joined Manchukuo and the policies
of Japan], Hōgaku kenkyū: Hōritsu, seiji, shakai [Study of Laws: Laws, Politics and
Society] 64:11 (November 1991): 43.
12 “Naki tsuma no fukushū,” 7; Kawakami, Manchukuo, 163.
13 Okada Asatarō, “Xuwen” [Preface], in Zhao Xinbo, Keihō kashitsu ron [On the negli-
gence of criminal laws] (Tokyo: Shimizu shoten, 1926), 1–2.
14 “Naki tsuma no fukushū,” 7.
15 “Fujin no shi wa goshin to Chō shi ga Iwase hakase o kokuso” [Wife died from mis-
diagnosis; Mr. Zhao sues Dr. Iwase], Yomiuri shinbun [Yomiuri News] (July 9, 1921): 5.
16 Ibid; “Nihon suki no Chūgoku bijin: sakura ni sakin jite haru no yū nakunaru” [A
Chinese beauty who loved Japan died in a spring evening before the withering of
cherry flower], Yomiuri shinbun (April 10, 1921): 5.
17 “Fujin no shi wa goshin,” 5.
18 “Naki tsuma no fukushū,” 7.
19 Ibid.
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 197
20 Ibid.
21 Zhao, Keihō kashitsu ron, 330.
22 Zhao, “Zixu” [Self-Written Preface], in Ibid., 1.
23 Ibid., 332.
24 Ibid., 336.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid., 333.
27 Okada, “Xuwen,” in Ibid., 1.
28 Yokota Hideo, “Jo” [Preface], in Ibid., 3.
29 “Naki tsuma no fukushū,” 7.
30 “Keihō kashitsu ron no zairyō shō: hōgaku hakushi Chō Kinhaku shi dan” [Sources of
On the Negligence of Criminal Laws part one; Doctor of Laws Zhao Xinbo discusses],
Yomiuri shinbun (February 19, 1926): 4.
31 “Naki tsuma no fukushū,” 7.
32 Zhao Xinbo, “Nihon no kitai ni sohan: Minkoku ni okeru ryōji saibanken no teppai
ni tsuite” [Along with my expectation for Japan: about the abolition of extraterritori-
ality in the ROC], Gaikō jihō [Revue diplomatique] 44:6 (September 1926): 29,
32–33.
33 For example, see “Chō Sakurin shi komon Chō hakasei raichō” [Zhang Zuolin’s
advisor Dr. Zhao visits Japan], Yomiuri shinbun (December 12, 1926): 2; “Chō Kinhaku
shi tōjō” [Zhao Xinbo is heading to the East], Asahi shinbun (April 27, 1927): 2.
34 Zhao Xinbo, “Chū Nichi shinzen to fubyōdō jōyaku” [Sino-Japanese friendship and
unequal treaties], in Jitsugyō no sekaisha henshukyoku, ed., Kinen dai kōen roku,
40–42.
35 Ibid., 42.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid., 42–43.
38 “Kōshi no na de keishichō e nise denwa” [Fake phone call to the police station in the
name of (a Chinese) minister], Yomiuri shinbun (August 30, 1926): 3.
39 “Nihon no sōku Chō o hōmure” [Bury Japan’s running dog Zhao (Xinbo)], Yomiuri
shinbun (September 20, 1927): 2.
40 Guo, “Wei Lifayuan zhang Zhao Xinbo,” in Wei Man renwu, 469.
41 Zhao Xinbo, “Minguo shiqi’nian shiyi yue ershiyi ri shang Zhang Hanqing zongsiling
shu” [Letter to commander in chief Zhang Hanqing on November 21 of the seven-
teenth year of Republic], in Zhao Xinbo, Ming ren jian; Datong ernian sanyue xiugai ban
[Mirror of wise and benevolence; revised edition of March of the second year of
Datong] (Unknown publisher; printed by Shuangfa yanghang yinshuabu, 1933), 28.
Hanqing was the courtesy name of Zhang Xueliang. Zhu Guangmu was secretary to
the commander of the Northeast Border Defense Army (Dong sansheng bianfang jun),
while Wang Jiazhen (1899–1984) was Zhang Xueliang’s diplomatic secretary.
42 Ibid., 28–29.
43 Ibid., 23. Zhao revealed that that he wrote four letters to Zhang Xueliang in 1928 to
encourage the latter to “give up going to brothels at night and focus on politics”
besides “consolidating the status of the Northeast by formulating policies that deal
with internal and external affairs.” Zhao Xinbo, “Shiba’nian yi yue ershiba ri shang
Zhang Fuchen siling shu” [Letter to commander Zhang Fuchen on January 28 of the
eighteenth year (of Republic)], in Ibid., 32. Fuchen was the courtesy name of Zhang
Zuoxiang (1881–1949).
44 “Dongbei minzhong dianqing xue Zhao Xinbo guoji” [People of the Northeast ask
in a telegram for eradicating Zhao Xinbo’s nationality], Shen Bao [Shanghai news]
(October 14, 1931): 7.
45 “Zhao Xinbo deng huanying Guolian diaochatuan” [Zhao Xinbo and others greet the
commission of the League of Nations], Shen Bao zengkan [Supplement pages of
Shanghai news] (April 2, 1932): 1.
198 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
46 Ding Jianxiu, “Jian’guo huixianglu” [Recollection of my experiences during the
establishment of Manchukuo], Datong bao [Great unity herald] (March 21, 1935): 1.
47 “Zhao Xinbo shizhang zhaoji shuyuan xunhua: churen jujian jiumin shuihuo bingwu
yexin; guoren bujia liangjie jing diwo wei maiguo” [Mayor Zhao Xinbo’s speech in
front of his subordinates: my purpose is to save people from disasters—no ambitions
are involved. People do not try to understand my intention and even blame me as a
traitor], Taidong ribao [Eastern daily] (November 6, 1931): 4.
48 “Kyū gunbatsu no gyakusei o seppa suru Doihara shōshō” [Major Doihara: a man
who uncovers the atrocities of the former warlord regime], Ōsaka mainichi shinbun
[Osaka daily news] (June 16, 1932): 8.
49 “Zhao shizhang huiji pinmin” [Mayor Zhao helps poor people], Taidong ribao
(November 7, 1931): 4; “Xingzheng men jiuji lei” [Category of relief; section of
administration], in Zhi Shen ji [Records of governing Shenyang], ed. Lifayuan jiluchu,
vol. 1 (Xinjing: Fuwensheng yinshuju, 1934), 64–65.
50 “Xingzheng men jiuji lei,” in Zhi Shen ji, 18.
51 “Zhao shizhang zhi shanzheng” [Mayor Zhao’s kind policies], Manzhou bao
[Manchurian newspaper] (December 1, 1931): 4.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 “Jiaoyu men jiaoyu lei” [Category of education; section of education], in Zhi Shen ji,
vol. 1, 16.
55 “Zhi’an men fangfan lei” [Category of prevention; section of public security], in Zhi
Shen ji, vol. 2, 93, 96.
56 “Wu jutou jingshi miyi xin guojia jianshe wenti” [The big five discusses issues relating to
the establishment of the new state in a quiet room], Taidong ribao (February 18, 1932): 2.
57 “Zhengweihui taolun guoti wenti; duoshu yijian rengzhu gonghe zhi” [The executive
committee discusses the new state’s political system; majority opinions still support
republicanism], Taidong ribao (February 24, 1932): 2.
58 Ibid.
59 Zhou Guangpei, ed., Wei Manzhouguo zhengfu gongbao yingyin ben [Photocopied edi-
tion of bogus Manchukuo’s government bulletins], vol. 1, April 1, 1932 (Shenyang:
Liaoshen shushe, 1990), 7.
60 Zhao Xinbo, Shin kokka dai Manshū [The greater new Manchurian State] (Tokyo:
Tokyo shobō, 1932), 18.
61 Ibid., 19.
62 Ibid., 21.
63 Ibid., 30.
64 Ding Jianxiu, “Ming ren jian xu” [Preface to mirror of wise and benevolence], in Zhao,
Ming ren jian, vi.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid., 23.
67 Ibid., 25.
68 Ibid., 48–49.
69 Ibid., 39.
70 Ibid., 47.
71 Zhao Xinbo, Nihon seishin to Ajia minzoku no danketsu [Japanese spirits and the solidar-
ity of Asian ethnicities] (Tokyo: Ritsukōsha, 1934), i.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid., 2–3.
74 Ibid., 7.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid., 7–8.
77 Ibid., 15.
78 Ibid., 16.
79 Ibid.
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 199
80 Ibid., 10.
81 Ibid., 22–23.
82 “Rippōin chō oyobi kenpō seido iin Chō Kinhaku sokuji menkan no denpō”
[Telegram on the immediate dismissal of Zhao Xinbo as the head of the Legislative
Council and a member of the committee for constitution], October 10, 1934,
Reference No. A15060462200, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, 200.
83 Luo Zhenyu, “Dachen weifa nizhi shu” [Memorial on the Malfeasance of an Imperial
Minister], cited in Luo Jizu, Wo de zufu Luo Zhenyu [My grandfather Luo Zhenyu]
(Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe, 2007), 191–192.
84 Ibid., 192.
85 Furumi Tadayuki, Wasure enu Manshū [Unforgettable Manchuria] (Tokyo: Keizai ōrai-
sha, 1978), 68.
86 Yamaguchi Jūji, Kieta teikoku Manshū [The disappeared empire of Manchuria] (Tokyo:
Mainichi shinbunsha, 1967), 232.
87 “Kyū Manshūkoku yōjin no tochi 40 nen go no sōzoku arasoi” [Disputes over the
inheritance of the land of a former Manchukuo high-level official arouses forty years
later], Yomiuri shinbun (July 10, 1984): 23.
88 Guo, “Wei Lifa yuan zhang Zhao Xinbo,” in Wei Man renwu, 478.
89 Zhao, Nihon seishin to Ajia minzoku no danketsu, 39.
90 “Koiso sanbōchō iken yōshi” [Main points of the opinion of Chief of Staff Koiso],
1933, Reference No. A15060459800, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records, 59.
91 Tanaka Ryūichi, Manshūkoku to Nihon no teikoku shihai [Manchukuo and Japan’s
imperial domination] (Tokyo: Yūshisha, 2007), 77.
92 Himeno Norikazu, Chō Kinhaku shi o kataru [Talking with Zhao Xinbo] (Tokyo: Ni
Shi mondai kenkyūkai, 1935), 60; “Zhao Xinbo jiang guiguo jiuren xinzhi” [Zhao
Xinbo will return and serve in a new position], Shengjing shibao [Shengjing times]
(October 14, 1937): 2.
93 “Chō Kinhaku shi o komon ni” [Zhao Xinbo becomes a consultant], Asahi shinbun
(January 12, 1939): 2.
94 “Kyū Manshūkoku yōjin no tochi,” 23; Guo, “Wei Lifa yuan zhang Zhao Xinbo,” in
Wei Man renwu, 479.
95 “Kyū Manshūkoku yōjin no tochi,” 23.
96 “Kyū Manshūkoku kōkan no isan sūjūoku en” [The assets of a former Manchukuo
high-level official in Japan exceed several billion yen], Asahi shinbun (September 12,
1984): 22.
97 “Tochi o nijū uri—takuchi futō tenbai no Chūgokujin kiso” [Double sale of land—
prosecuting a Chinese who illicitly resells a land], Yomiuri shinbun (March 26, 1961): 11.
98 “Kyū Manshūkoku yōjin no tochi,” 23.
99 Ibid.
100 “Kyū Manshūkoku kōkan no isan,” 22.
101 Ibid.
102 Fei and Ren, “Zhao Xinbo ju’e yichan’an jiemi,” 93.
103 Ibid.
104 Wang Hongbin et al., Dongbei renwu da cidian [Grand dictionary of Northeastern fig-
ures], 2 vols. (Shenyang: Shenyang guji chubanshe, 1996).
105 Kwong Chi Man, War and Geopolitics in Interwar Manchuria: Zhang Zuolin and the
Fengtian Clique during the Northern Expedition (Leiden: Boston Brill, 2017), 2.
106 Wu Di, “Fū Kansei to kyū Manshū kenkoku shoki no shihō taisei no seibi” [Feng
Hanqing and Manchukuo’s legal construction in the early years of its creation], Hokutō
Ajia chiiki kenkyū [Journal of Northeast Asian Studies] 28 (2022): 99–114.
107 Anonymous, ed., Dai Manshū teikoku meikan [Dictionary of the greater empire of
Manchukuo’s figures] (Tokyo: Kyokokusha, 1934), 9, section Kokudo. The dictionary
suggests that Feng was born in 1891 (17th year of Guangxu), yet more sources suggest
that Feng was born in 1892. The dictionary contains similar mistakes; for example, it
suggests that Zheng Xiaoxu was born in 1859, and Zang Shiyi was born in 1885, and
200 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems
the correct year for the former is 1860 and 1884 for the later. Because the dictionary
uses lunar calendar for individuals’ date of birth, this study calculates Feng’s Gregorian
birthday based on the year 1892 rather than 1891.
108 “Manzhouguo zhi yuanxun geyuan buzhang lüeli: Feng Hanqing” [Brief introduction
of the leaders of Manchukuo’s departments: Feng Hanqing], Manzhou bao (March 15,
1932): 1.
109 Anonymous, ed., Dai Manshū teikoku meikan, 9.
110 “Manzhouguo zhi yuanxun geyuan buzhang lüeli,” 1.
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid.
113 Ibid.
114 Zhang Huanxiang, “Zhang Huanxiang bigong” [Zhang Huanxiang’s written confession],
September 15, 1954, in Wei Manzhouguo de tongzhi yu neimu: Wei Man guanyuan gongshu
[Bogus Manchukuo’s domination and inside stories: confessions of bogus Manchukuo
officials], ed. Zhongyang dang’anguan (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), 256.
115 Hoshino Naoki, Mi hatenu yume: Manshūkoku gaishi [Unachievable dreams: unofficial
history of Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Daiyamondo sha, 1963), 37.
116 Feng Hanqing, “Xu” [Preface], in Lifayuan jiluchu, ed., Zhi Shen ji, vol. 1, 5.
117 Hamaguchi, “Manshū jihen to Chūgokujin,” 43.
118 “Ge sheng daibiao zaidu qianwang dunqing Puyi shi chushan: Fengtian daibiao Feng
Hanqing tan” [Each province’s representatives ask Puyi to return to politics again:
Fengtian’s representative Feng Hanqing discusses], Manzhou bao (March 5, 1932): 4.
119 Ibid.
120 “Fengtian ge fatuan sheyan huansong Zhao, Feng liangshi” [Fengtian’s judicial organ-
izations hold a banquet for Zhao (Xinbo) and Feng (Hanqing) before their departure
(from Fengtian)], Manzhou bao (May 14, 1932): 2.
121 Feng Hanqing, “Sifabu yuancheng” [Original proposal from the Ministry of Justice],
in Zhengfu gongbao, vol. 1 (April 21, 1932): 12.
122 Ibid.
123 “Fazhang Feng Hanqing li Ha, liqiu gailiang sifa” [Minister of Justice Feng Hanqing
who strives to reform the judiciary visits Harbin], Taidong ribao (August 5, 1932): 1.
124 Ibid.
125 Annika A. Culver, “The Making of a Japanese Avant-Garde in Colonial Dairen,
1924–1937,” History Compass 5:2 (2007): 354.
126 Feng Hanqing, “Xu” [Preface], in Manzhouguo sifa ziliao [Manchukuo’s judicial sources],
ed. Manzhouguo sifabu fawusi (Xinjing: Manzhouguo sifabu fawusi, 1933), 1.
127 Ibid.
128 Feng, “Sifabu yuancheng,” 12.
129 Feng, “Nianshou suogan” [My aspirations on the new year’s day], Taidong ribao
(January 1, 1933): 17.
130 “Fazhang Feng Hanqing li Ha,” 1.
131 Ibid.
132 “Wang Zhong Ri renmin anju leye; shenwu yongren zirao [Hope Chinese and
Japanese residents will resume their normal lives; do not be fooled by rumors],
Manzhou bao (September 23, 1931): 7.
133 For example, see Harry L. Kingman, Effects of Chinese Nationalism Upon Manchurian
Railway Developments, 1925–1931 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1932), x.
134 Feng Hanqing, “Dizheng jinhua” [Humble words on monarchical politics], in Jiwei
dadian qingzhu dahui jinian lu [Memorial record of the celebration ceremony for the
enthronement] (Xinjing: Guowuyuan zongwuting qingbaochu, 1934), 26.
135 Ibid.
136 “Fu Ri kaocha sifa zhi Feng Hanqing shi shibi guijing” [Feng Hanqing has returned
from Japan as the representative of the judicial inspection team and headed to the
capital (of Xinjing)], Taidong ribao (December 25, 1932): 3.
 Reforming China’s Political and Legal Systems 201
137 Feng Hanqing, “Qiwang Riben yuyi zhidao jieyi gaishan sifa zhidu” [Wish Japan
could provide Manchukuo with assistance and improve the quality of the country’s
judicial system], Taidong ribao (December 24, 1932): 1.
138 “Seikan o kiwameta: Fū shihō sōchō no kangei en” [Extremely spectacular: the wel-
come banquet for the Minister of Justice Feng], Hōsō kōron [Public opinion of lawyers]
391 (January 1933): 111–113.
139 Ibid., 116.
140 Ibid.
141 Ibid., 117.
142 Ibid., 116.
143 “Fu Ri kaocha sifa,” 3.
144 Mutō Tomio, Manshūkoku to watashi [Manchukuo and I] (Tokyo: Bungei shunjū,
1988), 21.
145 Oka Ichirō, ed., Manshūkoku shokuin roku: Daidō ninen nigatsu matsu genzai [Manchukuo
staff record: as of the end of February of the second year of Datong] (Dalian: Saitō
insatsujo shuppanbu, 1933), 122–125.
146 Hayashide Kenjirō, “Genpi san: Kōtei heika to taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Top secret
No. 3: main points of the conversation between the Emperor and the Ambassador],
May 20, 1935, unpublished handwritten manuscript, in Hayashide Kenjirō kankei bun-
sho [Hayashide Kenjirō related documents], microfilm vol. 2 (Tokyo: Yūshōdō, 1999).
147 For an introduction of Zhang Huanxiang’s background, see his written confession in
Neimu, 247–249.
148 “Chō tokuha taishi kefu raichō” [Special envoy Zhang (Jinghui) arrives in Tokyo
today], Asahi shinbun yūkan [Evening edition of Asahi News] (March 15, 1942): 1.
149 Furumi, Wasure enu Manshū, 110.
150 Ibid., 111. For a study of Ayukawa and Nissan, see Haruo Iguchi, Unfinished Business:
Ayukawa Yoshisuke and US-Japan Relations, 1937–1953 (Cambridge, MA and London:
Harvard University Press, 2003).
151 Takasaki Tatsu’nosuke, Manshū no shūen [The demise of Manchuria] (Tokyo: Jitsugyō
no Nihonsha, 1953), 246.
152 Takasaki, Takasaki Tatsu’nosuke shū [Collected works of Takasaki Tatsu’nosuke], vol. 1
(Tokyo: Tōyō seikan, 1965), 147.
153 Ibid., 146.
154 Takasaki, Manshū no shūen, 65–66.
155 Ibid., 77.
156 Ibid.
157 Ibid., 79.
158 “Shushō kefu keizai kondankai daihyō shōtai” [Prime Minister (Konoe Fumimaro)
receives the representatives of Economic Roundtable this morning], Asahi shinbun
(November 22, 1938): 2; “Sai Keizaibu daijin tōjō” [Minister of the Economic
Department Cai (Yunsheng) is heading to the East], Asahi shinbun (November 21,
1940): 2; “Kenkoku no chūseki; raichō shoshi ryakureki” [The pillar stones of
(Manchukuo’s) national foundation; a brief introduction of the visiting representatives
(from Manchukuo)], Asahi shinbun yūkan (March 15, 1942): 1; “Tō A keizai kon-
dankai kyō kara kaisai” [East Asian Economic Roundtable convenes today], Asahi
shinbun (November 26, 1942): 1.
159 “Chō tokuha taishi kefu raichō,” 1.
160 Takasaki, Manshū no shūen, 203.
161 Bill Sewell, “Reconsidering the Modern in Japanese History: Modernity in the
Service of the Prewar Japanese Empire,” Japan Review 16 (2004): 236.
162 Yamamuro Shin’ichi, Manchuria under Japanese Domination, trans. Joshua A. Fogel
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 178.
Conclusion
Overcoming the National, Ethnic, and Emotional
Boundaries in the Study of Manchukuo

In December 1985, I visited [Aixin-Jueluo] Pujie [in Beijing]. “What is Manchukuo

for Emperor [Aixin-Jueluo] Puyi and you?” I made my question straight. In a silent
mood, Pujie answered without panic: “We utilized the Kantō Army, to revive [the
Manchu monarchy], and the Kantō Army also utilized us for [its own] political
objectives. Such a purposeful structure [of mutual utilization] summarizes our
view of Manchukuo.”
Nakata Seiichi, Manshūkoku kōtei no hiroku: rasuto enpera to Genpi kaiken roku no
nazo [A secret record of the emperor of Manchukuo: the last emperor and the
mysteries surrounding top secret meeting records] (Tokyo: Genki shobō, 2005),
319–320.
Manchukuo, a short-lived country where the national ideals of different Asian
ethnicities converged, cooperated, coordinated, competed, and mutually utilized
in the words of Aixin-Jueluo Pujie (1907–1994), the younger brother of Aixin-
Jueluo Puyi (1906–1967), disappeared following Japan’s defeat in the Second
World War. Historian Yamamuro Shin’ichi deems Manchukuo an experiment for
the Japanese that strove to create an unprecedented polity where people from dif-
ferent countries and cultural circles in East Asia could coexist through coopera-
tion.1 Such an experiment attracted participants with different personal and
educational backgrounds from Japan; their views and definitions of Manchukuo
varied and sometimes contradicted each other.
Compared to the Japanese side, the Chinese officials of Manchukuo lacked an
equivalent level of initiative because their participation in the country was mainly
a pressing response to the unexpected result of the Japanese conquest of Manchuria
and the power struggles between the Republic of China (ROC) and the Japanese
in Manchuria following the Manchurian Incident of September 1931. When for-
mulating their policies, Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders, therefore, had
to tolerate Japanese ideals more than the degree to which the Japanese tolerated
Chinese ideals; those who refused to make concessions in front of the Japanese
gradually quit politics under Japanese pressures after the mid-1930s. This phenom-
enon perhaps motivated many scholars to ignore or undervalue Chinese roles in
the development of Manchukuo.
Pujie deemed a mutual utilization between the Chinese-speaking ethnicities—
particularly the Manchus—and the Japanese the core of Manchukuo’s 14-year oper-
ation. Although whether a Chinese influence in the state of Manchukuo lasted until
DOI: 10.4324/9781003357773-8
 Conclusion 203
1945 is arguable, and the Chinese-speaking leaders of Manchukuo exploited each
other’s influence, to advance their own projects, Pujie’s words summarize more
comprehensively the political ecology of Manchukuo’s top-level officials at least
before 1937 than those who focus on Japanese governance or Chinese obedience.
For the Aixin-Jueluo clan in Manchukuo, the Manchus indisputably held title to
Manchuria. Reminding a Japanese official of Manchukuo in 1938, one of Puyi’s
nephews said, “Please remember that we hold the sovereignty of Manchuria” because
“Manchuria is the territory of our ancestors…[and] the birth place of our ethnic-
ity.”2 Manchukuo’s Han Chinese officials identified the Chinese origins of Manchuria
from perspectives other than ethnicity, considering the subjects of this book.
Regardless of disputes over their national ideals, Manchukuo’s Chinese govern-
ment leaders were not interested in fostering the Japanese domination of
Manchuria, and the Japanese Kantō Army officials did not enjoy an unchallenged
manipulating power in the state of Manchukuo since 1932. Given the turning of
Manchukuo into a supply base for Japan during the Second World War and the
country’s collapse following Japan’s surrender in August 1945, few scholars have
intently examined the relationship between Manchukuo’s Chinese and Japanese
government leaders. Historian Goza Yūichi argues for the inappropriateness of
“reversely tracing reason [and process] based on result” when analyzing history,
noting that such a logic often makes one fall into the trap of conspiracy by deem-
ing “the eventual winners controlling and operating everything [based on their
plans] from the beginning.”3 The subjects of this book testify to Goza’s insight.
This chapter examines how Chinese-language studies after the 1980s analyze the
Chinese government leaders of Manchukuo and how they tried to construct and
deconstruct an image of Japanese conspiracy in Manchukuo. It places relevant his-
toriographies into the same categories as this book, respectively, Manchu aristo-
crats, Qing loyalists, military leaders, civil elites, and modern intellectuals. The
chapter concludes by examining why most of the country’s Chinese founders failed
to survive politically after the period of 1935–1937, arguing that a growing Japanese
strength in the state of Manchukuo encouraged the Kantō Army to shift its policy
from cooperation with Chinese officials to fostering Japanese manipulation of
Manchukuo. Puyi’s official visit to Japan in April 1935 and the fall of Prime Minister
Zheng Xiaoxu (1860–1938) in May 1935 signify such a change. A continuous
arrival of more Japanese military men, technocrats, and entrepreneurs after the
mid-1930s gradually weeded out those on the Chinese side who failed to recognize
or adapt to the changing political environment of Manchukuo and left those who
followed Japanese decisions in office. Although the Japanese successfully manipu-
lated Manchukuo after 1937, their struggles for power in the early 1930s were by
no means the smooth and meticulously planned conspiracy that many assumed.

Betraying the National Interests of China: PRC Studies on

Manchu Aristocrats
To date, a monograph that centers on the Manchu leading forces in the state of
Manchukuo in any language has yet to exist. Relevant studies on the Manchus in
Manchukuo in People’s Republic of China (PRC) academia focus on Puyi, given
204 Conclusion
his fame. Since the 1980s, when the study of Manchukuo in the PRC became an
attractive topic due to a state emphasis on Japanese atrocities in China during the
Second World War, research on Puyi never failed to leave the center of PRC his-
toriographies on Manchukuo. For example, Jilin University cooperates with the
Bogus Manchukuo Imperial Palace Museum (Wei Man huanggong bowuyuan) and
publish an academic periodical titled Research on Puyi [Puyi yanjiu] in 2013 and
2017, collecting to date 113 research articles on Puyi, Manchukuo, Manchukuo-
era cultural relics, and regional histories of Manchuria, mostly by PRC historians.4
They represent the latest research outputs on the study of Puyi in China.
Regardless of the abundance of Puyi-related studies in PRC academia in the
past 40 years, they rarely overcome the framework of considering Puyi a puppet or
accomplice of Japanese imperialism “who sold out the ethnic interests” of China.5
Some PRC researchers try to reveal their sympathy toward Puyi’s decision to
revive his monarchical status by analyzing his private life and relationship with his
siblings in the Manchukuo years, imitating the 1946 ROC analysis, Twilight in the
Manchukuo Imperial Palace [Man gong canzhao ji], one of the earliest Chinese studies
on Puyi in the Manchukuo era.6 Although the themes of Puyi-related studies by
PRC historians vary, they inherit a critical tone of denouncing Puyi’s submission
and treason in Manchukuo, one that helps strengthen an impression that all the
Japanese in Manchukuo between 1931 and 1945 were malicious invaders.
Compared to the rich studies on Puyi, specific studies on Aixin-Jueluo Xixia
(1884–1952) in PRC academia virtually do not exist, except for a 2015 commen-
tary article on his Jilin regional identity and a 2021 article that examines his tele-
gram to the Jilin provincial leader Zhang Zuoxiang (1881–1949) on September
20, 1931.7 PRC studies that mention Xixia since the 1980s all render him a trea-
sonous figure who gave Jilin province to the Japanese in September 1931, for his
“greedy” ambition of using the Japanese to revive the Qing Dynasty.8 Although
more PRC historians have studied Manchukuo in the 2000s, their critical attitudes
toward Puyi and Xixia rarely change.

Treating the Year 1931 as a Watershed: Chinese-Language

Studies on Qing Loyalists
The ideals and activities of Han Chinese loyalists to the Qing Dynasty between the
1910s and the early 1930s have recently received scholarly attention in the aca-
demia of both the PRC and the ROC. In 2009, the PRC and the ROC, respec-
tively, published monographs on Qing loyalists in the early Republican and
Manchukuo eras: Cultural Crisis in Modern China [Jindai Zhongguo de wenhua weiji],
by Zhou Mingzhi, and The Republic of China Is a Hostile State [Minguo nai diguo ye],
by Lin Zhihong.9 Given a variety of available documents, both scholars chose to
analyze Zheng Xiaoxu in their chapters on Manchukuo by examining Zheng’s
Kingly Way ideals. Zhou’s analysis makes him conclude that Zheng Xiaoxu’s
Kingly Way was “a naïve fantasy,” and Lin considers the Kingly Way a “drug” that
Zheng took to “convince himself that Japan’s armed invasion” of Manchuria was a
righteous action.10 Nonetheless, they recognize the necessity of associating Zheng’s
Kingly Way ideals in the 1930s with his experiences in the late Qing and the early
 Conclusion 205
Republican eras and note the problematic nature of overly examining Zheng’s life
from a critical or condemnatory perspective.11 Their evaluations of Zheng signify
a trend in Chinese-language academia after the 2000s of reconsidering Zheng’s
political contributions to China before 1931, especially before the creation of the
ROC in 1912, yet a revisionist trend of reexamining Zheng’s thoughts as the
prime minister of Manchukuo in the early 1930s has yet to develop among
Chinese-speaking historians.12
Relevant studies on the ideals of Luo Zhenyu (1866–1940) in the Manchukuo
years in Chinese-language historiography, other than the aforementioned mono-
graphs, are scarce—probably due to Luo’s exalted status in the field of oracle bone
studies to this day, one that motivates historians to refrain from mentioning his
“dark” history of serving in the state of Manchukuo. Zhou and Lin examine Luo
from the perspective of Qing loyalists rather than placing his desire of reviving the
monarchy into the intertwined national ideals of Manchukuo’s Chinese govern-
ment leaders, missing a chance of observing significant factors of the political
ecology of the country’s Chinese leadership.

Shameless Betrayal versus National Salvation: PRC Studies on

Military Leaders
PRC studies on the Chinese military leaders of the early Manchukuo years since
the 1980s render a polarized trend of criticizing people like Zhang Jinghui (1872–
1959) for their collaboration with the Japanese and praising people like Ma
Zhanshan (1885–1950) for their resistance against the Japanese. The 1990s wit-
nessed the appearance of Zhang Jinghui–related monographs in PRC academia,
yet Zhang gradually faded from academic attention after the 2000s probably
because more studies would only appear to further confirm Zhang’s treasonous
and submissive image. A 1991 monograph on Zhang, for instance, states that the
purpose of that study was to reveal the “darkness of semi-feudal and semi-colonial
society” of the early Republican era and to “stimulate readers’ patriotic enthusi-
asm.”13 Such a purpose inevitably places Zhang into the category of a Han Chinese
traitor who proactively approached the Japanese in September 1931 for profit.
In contrast to that critical tone, existing PRC studies on Ma Zhanshan tend to
emphasize his commitment to the territorial integrity of China based on hindsight
of his prolonged resistance against the Japanese between 1931 and 1945. The 1987
source collection, General Ma Zhanshan [Ma Zhanshan jiangjun], for example, tries
to resonate readers’ patriotic sentiment with Ma’s anti-Japan struggles by stating
that “the era that Ma Zhanshan lived in was an extremely miserable and hard
period of China when brightness fought against darkness.”14 Brightness here
mainly refers to the “impoverished” peasants of China and the Chinese practition-
ers of communism, whereas darkness signifies concepts and individuals like foreign
imperialism and “repressive” domestic governors and landlords. Numerous PRC
research articles in the past 40 years on the experiences of Ma between 1931 and
1932 highlight the impact of his resistance against the Kantō Army’s invasion of
Heilongjiang province in 1931 on contemporary Chinese people’s anti-Japan sen-
timent.15 Studies on Ma’s cooperation with the Japanese between December 1931
206 Conclusion
and April 1932 tend to defend him by portraying it as a well-planned tactic or an
unfortunate result of Japanese fraud.16 To date, most PRC historians on Manchukuo
are still reluctant to examine Zhang Jinghui and Ma Zhanshan from a perspective
other than the former’s betrayal and the latter’s patriotism.

Fading into Obscurity: PRC Studies on Civil Elites and Modern

Intellectuals
Unlike the former three groups, studies on Manchukuo’s civil and intellectual
leaders in PRC academia virtually do not exist, rendering civil elites and modern
intellectuals two forgotten groups in the Chinese historiography of Manchukuo.
Compared to people like Puyi and Zhang Jinghui, Yu Chonghan (1871–1932) and
Zhao Xinbo (1887–1951)—representative civil and intellectual leaders of
Manchukuo—are lesser-known figures in China today. This arguably makes many
PRC historians deem relevant studies on these two groups less effective in bolster-
ing the image of Manchukuo as a puppet state of Japan, suggesting why people like
Yu Chonghan and Zang Shiyi (1884–1956) received some academic attention in
the late 1980s and the early 1990s and then faded into obscurity after the 2000s.17
Existing PRC studies on Yu, Zang, and Zhao portray them as traitors who
helped the Japanese dominate the people and the territory of Manchuria. For
example, a 1995 research article on Yu conceptualizes him as a “dog-headed advi-
sor” who “helped Japanese imperialism snatch interests in Northeast China.”18
Given Yu’s prolonged interactions with Japan, the article argues that Yu’s “betrayal
of the mother country was a guaranteed result when objective conditions were
met.”19 “Objective conditions” arguably refer to the Japanese occupation of
Manchuria in 1931, as the article tries to associate Yu’s ideals with the territorial
ambitions of the “Japanese invaders.”20 A 1989 research article on Zang deems his
“crimes unforgivable” because Zang “helped the Japanese invaders strengthen
their fascist domination in political, economic, military, and cultural spheres”
between 1931 and 1945.21 The section on Zhao Xinbo in the 1988 source collec-
tion, Changchun Municipal Documents on Culture and History [Changchun wenshi zil-
iao], describes him as an “infamous traitor” who “has turned into excrement”
because “humans all despise him.”22 PRC historians have yet to specifically analyze
Feng Hanqing (1892–?) in any book- or article-length studies, making it difficult
for others to sense their evaluations of this intellectual leader, although one should
not be surprised to see researchers place him into the category of traitors.

Unable to Problematize the Notion of Betrayal: Section

Summary
The previous analysis explores the reasons behind a lack of relevant studies on the
national ideals or personal ambitions of Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders
in the Chinese-language academia, even though the study of Manchukuo has
become an increasingly important topic in the PRC since the 1980s. ROC studies
on modern China in Taiwan tend to focus more on topics that relate to the
Nationalist Party instead of Manchuria, except for Taiwanese experiences in
 Conclusion 207
Manchukuo. Many PRC studies on Manchukuo contain a critical—sometimes
hateful—tone toward the “collaborators” with Japanese imperialism due to mem-
ories of wartime suffering and postwar education on Japanese wartime atrocities in
mainland China, especially after the 1980s.23 The introspective and self-critical
confessions that many former Manchukuo officials produced in the mid-1950s at
Fushun War Criminal Prison (Fushun zhanfan guanlisuo) due to Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) political reeducation seem to further consolidate their traitorous
image.24 Few PRC historians today are thus willing to examine the Chinese lead-
ers of Manchukuo without concentrating on the vague and specious concept of
betrayal. Those like Zhou Mingzhi who try to problematize such a framework are
not able to avoid criticizing their research targets either because they want to pass
the rigorous political censorship of the PRC for publication or because such con-
tentions more or less reflect their genuine thoughts.
Criticizing the Chinese leaders of Manchukuo in the early 1930s for their sub-
servience in front of Japanese imperialism inadvertently helps consolidate the myth
of the “power” and “strength” of Japan’s formal empire in Manchuria following
the 1931 Manchurian Incident. However, the analyses of this book suggest that
such an observation is more of a political or nationalist conclusion that one reaches
from the result of Japan’s continued expansions in East Asia and the Pacific between
1937 and 1945 than an analysis of documents on both the Chinese and the Japanese
sides. Because the growing strength of Japanese officials in the state of Manchukuo
after 1937 convinces many in China and abroad that the Japanese dictatorship in
Manchukuo started in 1932, the following sections conclude by analyzing the May
1937 reform of Manchukuo’s top government institutions and answering why
many of the country’s founding fathers lost their power by 1937.

Constructing Japanese Manchukuo: The May 1937 Reform and

Its Significance
In hindsight, the May 1937 reform—or a reshuffle of Manchukuo’s departments—
signifies a watershed of the country’s, or the empire’s, mode of domination. By
centralizing the governing power in the hands of the State Council and the prime
minister, the reform aimed to subvert a mutual cooperative form of governance
between different departments, a policy that Manchukuo practiced between 1932
and 1937. Domestic Manchukuo media intentionally blurred the purpose of such
an important policy shift by depicting the May 1937 reform as a means to “quickly
realize domestic stability, the development of industry and economy, the vitaliza-
tion of commerce and livelihoods, and the enrichment of national defense and
power by cooperating with our allied nation of the Empire of Japan.”25 It con-
cluded that Manchukuo would “transform its government departments, including
planning and executive agencies, into a unity, to strengthen communications
between the central government and local officials.”26 Apparently, the Manchukuo
state tried to prevent the majority from understanding, or having the interest to
understand, the significance of this government reshuffle with confusing statements
and clichés. To examine the May 1937 reform, therefore, historians should refer-
ence sources other than those that everyone in Manchukuo could access in 1937.
208 Conclusion
Fortunately, Aixin-Jueluo Puyi’s Japanese interpreter, Hayashide Kenjirō (1882–
1970), recorded the conversation between Puyi and the Kantō Army’s commander,
Ueda Kenkichi (1875–1962), on the May 1937 reform in his Top Secret Meeting
Records [Genpi kaiken roku]. On May 3, 1937, Ueda introduced Puyi to the core of
the reform with plain language, suggesting that “given a gradual development
Manchukuo’s industries, [the country’s] political affairs should be more central-
ized” in the hands of the State Council.27 To realize that objective, the state abol-
ished the Supervisory Council (Ch: Jiancha yuan; Jp: Kansatsu in) and the Ministries
of Civil Affairs (Ch: Minzheng bu; Jp: Minsei bu), Military Affairs (Ch: Junzheng bu;
Jp: Gunsei bu), Finance (Ch: Caizheng bu; Jp: Zaisei bu), Foreign Affairs (Ch:
Waijiao bu; Jp: Gaikō bu), Development (Ch: Shiye bu; Jp: Jitsugyō bu), and Culture
and Education (Ch: Wenjiao bu; Jp: Bunkyō bu). To disintegrate the Supervisory
Council, the Ministry of Justice (Ch: Sifa bu; Jp: Shihō bu) and a newly created
Department of Audit (Ch: Shenji chu; Jp: Shinkei sho), respectively, inherited the
Council’s supervising power on human resources and finance, and the State
Council inherited the remaining powers of the Supervisory Council.28 By inte-
grating a portion of the Ministries of Civil Affairs and Finance, Manchukuo cre-
ated the Department of Development (Ch: Chanye bu; Jp: Sangyō bu).29 Combining
the Ministry of Development and another portion of the Ministry of Finance, it
created the Department of Economy (Ch: Jingji bu; Jp: Keizai bu).30 To make the
prime minister handle Manchukuo’s diplomacy, the State Council replaced the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs with an affiliated department, the Diplomatic Bureau
(Ch: Waijiao ju; Jp: Gaikō kyoku).31 Replacing the Ministry of Military Affairs with
the Department of Domestic Security (Ch: Zhian bu; Jp: Chian bu), state leaders
made the Department handle the country’s military and police forces to maintain
domestic security.32 Integrating the remaining portions of these five abolished
ministries, the newly created Department of People’s Livelihoods (Ch: Minsheng
bu; Jp: Minsei bu) handled civil-related policies and affairs.33 To prevent “the for-
mation of an independent Mongolian government” in Manchukuo, the state abol-
ished the Ministry of Mongolian Affairs (Ch: Mengzheng bu; Jp: Mōsei bu), an
institution that governed the Inner Mongolian territory of Manchukuo between
December 1934 and May 1937, and made the State Council directly control the
region through the new Xing’an Bureau (Ch: Xing’an ju; Jp: Kōan kyoku).34 All the
new departments followed direct orders of the State Council.
Ueda deemed the May 1937 reform integral to Manchukuo’s second five-year
plan between 1937 and 1941 one that primarily aimed to realize a “total state
manipulation over [Manchukuo’s] industry and economy” in the words of his pre-
decessor, Minami Jirō (1874–1955), in February 1936.35 To advance the second
five-year plan in January 1937, Ueda encouraged Puyi to formulate a labor system
that could encompass all the urban residents of Manchukuo regardless of social
status to make them engage in compulsory physical labor for five or six days a year.
Such a policy for Ueda would not only “have a huge effect” on the cultivation of
urban citizens’ cooperative mentality but also on the eradication of peasant dissat-
isfaction over state negligence regarding the construction of countryside facili-
ties.36 Puyi deemed Ueda’s suggestions “good ideas” and said that they “completely
match my recent thought.”37
 Conclusion 209
As the General Affairs Board (Ch: Zongwu ting; Jp: Sōmu chō) operated the State
Council of Manchukuo, and the Board was a Japanese-controlled institution, the
May 1937 reshuffle of Manchukuo’s government departments consolidated Japanese
ruling power and disabled much of the country’s Chinese leading forces. In other
words, the construction of the Japanese dictatorship in Manchukuo was a lengthy
process that involved compromise and competition with both the country’s Chinese
government leaders and Japanese idealists between 1932 and 1937, not a smooth and
natural result of the 1931 Manchurian Incident. It is also important to remember
that Puyi played a significant role in fostering Japanese domination because he legit-
imized Japanese control over Manchukuo’s defense and resources through the secret
Puyi-Honjō Agreement on March 6, 1932, one that became the legal basis of the
Japan-Manchukuo Protocol of September 1932 (see Chapter 2). If the Kantō Army’s
presence was a great disadvantage facing Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders
who sought Sino-Japanese equality, the Puyi-Honjō Agreement and the Japan-
Manchukuo Protocol further constrained their activities and authorities in the state,
as the treaties provided the Kantō Army’s commander with the power of hiring and
dismissing Japanese officials of Manchukuo.38 In short, Kantō Army decision-makers
managed to construct Japanese power in Manchukuo between 1932 and 1937 with
the manipulating policy of internal guidance (naimen shidō) not only due to their
military power but also due to the privileges that Puyi provided the army in 1932.
By consolidating their unchallenged positions in the state of Manchukuo in 1937,
the Kantō Army relinquished its initial policy of governing Manchukuo together
with Chinese-speaking officials and instead relied more on Japanese officials, par-
ticularly newly arriving technocrats from the home islands, to operate the country.
In the words of historian Janis Mimura, the Japanese technocrat leaders of Manchukuo
were a group of “highly rational and conscientious public servants” who “rejected
the liberal capitalist system of free enterprise based on the principles of private prop-
erty, private profit, and business autonomy” but “embraced Western science and
technology.”39 As pragmatists, they emphasized the capitalist system’s value of a man-
ager’s “managerial ability” and mixed it with ideologies like “authoritarian rule,”
“state-directed economy,” and “ethnic chauvinis[m]” to “overcome the crisis of cap-
italism and resolve the problems of class conflict and authority in modern industrial
society.”40 Hoshino Naoki (1892–1978), the director of Manchukuo’s General
Affairs Board between 1936 and 1940, and Kishi Nobusuke (1896–1987), the vice
director of the General Affairs Board in 1939 who became the Japanese prime min-
ister between 1957 and 1960, were icons of Manchukuo’s Japanese technocrat lead-
ers who directed Manchukuo’s development together with the Kantō Army after
1937. Janis Mimura and Yamamuro Shin’ichi have explored this topic in detail.41

Either Becoming Abandoned Pawns or Silent Followers of the

Japanese: The Dilemma of Manchukuo’s Chinese Government
Leaders
To answer the question of why most of Manchukuo’s Chinese founding fathers
failed to survive politically after 1937, one should place their national ideals into
the reality of the country’s growing Japanese bureaucracy and identify the
210 Conclusion
ideological commonalities among those Chinese leaders who quit politics and
those who managed to maintain their government positions by 1937. The key to
answering this important question, in other words, is to figure out what kind of
Chinese ideals could coexist with the ambitions of Manchukuo’s Japanese techno-
crat and military leaders after 1937 and what kind of ideals could not. In short, the
Japanese desired followers and executers of Japanese decisions and strove to isolate
those who had their own ideals, especially those who challenged Japanese manip-
ulation of Manchukuo’s politics and development. According to Yamamuro, for
instance, Kishi Nobusuke envisioned “exceptional officials from the Japanese
Ministry of Commerce and Industry (Shōkō shō)” to replace the Kantō Army in the
control of Manchukuo’s administration and industry before sailing to Manchukuo
in 1936, ignoring the country’s Chinese leaders.42 Thus, Aixin-Jueluo Xixia,
Zhang Jinghui, and Zang Shiyi survived the Manchukuo years due to their relative
silence in the face of Japanese ambitions, while Zheng Xiaoxu, Luo Zhenyu, Zhao
Xinbo, and Feng Hanqing reluctantly quit the inner circle of Manchukuo by 1937
because they primarily emphasized Chinese rather than Japanese interests. Ma
Zhanshan quit Manchukuo in 1932, and Yu Chonghan died in 1932; their expe-
riences thus hardly fit into the analysis of this section. Puyi is perhaps the most
special case among the ten figures this book examines, as he intended to share the
fruits of Japanese manipulation of Manchukuo by identifying the interests of the
Japanese imperial clan with the interests of the Manchu imperial clan. Such a
cooperative attitude was highly compatible with Manchukuo’s changing political
environment after the mid-1930s.
Why could Xixia, Zhang Jinghui, and Zang Shiyi refrain from challenging
Japanese decisions, while Zheng Xiaoxu, Luo Zhenyu, Zhao Xinbo, and Feng
Hanqing could not? This is a question that deserves serious historical considera-
tion, as Xixia’s ideal of reviving the Manchu monarchy utterly contradicted Zhang
Jinghui’s and Zang Shiyi’s desire to maintain warlord-era administration in
Manchuria, while Manchukuo’s Qing loyalists and modern intellectuals shared
few similar ideals. To solve this issue, historians need to identify the commonalities
of both sides. Although having different objectives, Xixia, Zhang, and Zang
worked for others. Xixia voluntarily helped Puyi reclaim his throne, to re-estab-
lish Manchu order in China proper, while Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) and
Zhang Xueliang (1901–2001) ordered Zhang Jinghui and Zang Shiyi to maintain
the ROC’s governance of Manchuria in 1931. Puyi’s growing reliance on the
Japanese after 1935 motivated Xixia to avoid confrontation with the Japanese,
regardless of his dissatisfaction with Japanese authoritarianism in the state of
Manchukuo. Zhang Jinghui and Zang Shiyi both waited for the ROC to reclaim
Manchuria between 1931 and 1945; they would have considered losing their gov-
ernment positions in Manchukuo as a betrayal of Chiang’s and Zhang Xueliang’s
orders. In contrast, Zheng Xiaoxu, Luo Zhenyu, Zhao Xinbo, and Feng Hanqing
felt less obligated to serve a particular person or organization compared with the
former. When Japanese policies contradicted their own political blueprints, they
questioned or challenged the Japanese because they considered Japan an assistant
or associate that they could utilize instead of a dominator that they must follow.
Such differences produced two distinctive endings for the research subjects of this
 Conclusion 211
book, yet their evaluations in postwar Chinese historiography resemble each
other, except for Ma Zhanshan, whom PRC historians virtually always celebrate
as a national hero.
Criticizing other Japanese historians’ excessive emphasis on Japanese perspec-
tives in their studies of Manchukuo, historian Matsushige Mitsuhiro has encour-
aged scholars to gradually “restore a diverse image of Manchuria’s history” in the
early twentieth century by utilizing and discovering more sources on the interac-
tions between the Japanese and other Asian ethnicities.43 Non-Japanese historians
of Manchuria perhaps also need to consider Matsushige’s suggestion and remind
themselves that invasion is one of the many facets—rather than the whole story—
of the history of colonization.

Epilogue: The Way of Approaching Manchuria and Manchukuo

In the epilogue of his 1978 memoir, Furumi Tadayuki (1900–1983) wrote, “in
human history, Manchukuo resembled a quickly disappeared water bubble, yet its
ideal [of ethnic harmony] is an unfinished dream” that many former Japanese
participants of Manchukuo strove to accomplish in the postwar era.44 Although
experiencing years of Soviet and PRC imprisonment and political reeducation
from 1945 to 1963, Furumi stated that “the world cannot enjoy eternal peace
before realizing ethnic harmony”; this explains, he argues, why “we always desire
to witness the advent of an ideal society where ethnic harmony could flourish.”45
Exploring reasons behind the failure of ethnic harmony in Manchukuo, Fujikawa
Yūji (1909–?), a former vice county magistrate of Manchukuo, summarized in
1981 that neither the Japanese nor the Han Chinese could relinquish their sense of
national superiority in the Manchukuo years. This betrayed Manchukuo’s prospect
of constructing an “exceptional multi-ethnic nation state that overcame [the fanat-
icism of] nationalism” based on a “mutual respect and coordination between the
ethnic awareness” of Manchukuo’s ethnicities.46 Historian Yamamuro Shin’ichi
deems Manchukuo’s unsuccessful struggle for ethnic harmony “an experiment for
the future” because future generations could reference Manchukuo’s ethnic poli-
cies and refrain from repeating the same mistakes that Manchukuo made when
“cooperating with other ethnicities.”47 Although few Kantō Army decision-makers
took the rhetoric of ethnic harmony seriously, there is no doubt that the influence
of Manchukuo-related experiences in Japanese society lasted for decades after
1945. In the words of historian Bill Sewell, Manchukuo cultivated a group of
Japanese government officials who laid “the groundwork for key components of
Japan’s postwar economic recovery.”48
Compared to the Japanese, those on the Chinese side who used to govern
Manchukuo were more hesitant to elaborate their thoughts on Manchukuo and
Sino-Japanese cooperation after 1945 due to political, personal, and other compli-
cated reasons, yet one cannot overlook the influence of Manchukuo-related expe-
riences on Chinese society. During its conquest of Manchuria between 1945 and
1948, the CCP hired considerable personnel of the Manchukuo era, including
Japanese, and made them serve in local communist government institutions and
armies as employees or military instructors; many of them helped the CCP
212 Conclusion
manage and develop Manchuria’s medical, railway, and aviation services.49 The
Party inherited the Japanese technology of sterilization, pest control, and fertiliza-
tion for rice crops in Manchuria after 1948 and encouraged local peasants to con-
tinue to plant Japanese rice until 1953 when the Party developed a new variety
based on Japanese agricultural knowledge.50 Manchukuo’s school education made
many Chinese in northeast China capable of reading, speaking, and writing in
Chinese and Japanese. Aixin-Jueluo Pujie, for example, not only “spoke fluent
Japanese” but also “retained many unique expressions that only prewar Japanese
males used” in his discourse, such as adding a suffix ru to a sentence that ends with
the verb stem su (e.g., shimasu ru and dearimasu ru). For scholar Nakata Seiichi, they
were “remnants of a [past] era.”51 The famous PRC policy of reform and opening
up (gaige kaifang) more or less resonated with Zheng Xiaoxu’s insistence on the
government’s use of its administrative power to guide China’s openness, a policy
that Zheng developed during his interactions in Manchuria in 1910 and promoted
during his tenure as the prime minister of Manchukuo between 1932 and 1935.
Rapid economic growth in the PRC after the 1990s due to the opening also
inspired the CCP to demonstrate to the world China’s soft power by emphasizing
the importance of traditional Chinese culture and morality to cultivate Chinese
people’s tolerant mentality and shape the PRC’s positive international image. This
again reminds one of the Kingly Way policies that Zheng strove to promote in the
early 1930s. One certainly cannot dismiss all these intertwined factors as part of
the “evil” remnants of Japanese colonialism and Chinese traitors.
To date, both the Chinese and the Japanese in their popular memory often recall
the history of Manchukuo from the perspective of a victim. While the Chinese
often condemn Japanese wartime atrocities and commemorate Chinese sufferings,
the Japanese often treat the miserable experiences of Japanese death, escape,
imprisonment, and repatriation from Manchuria following the August 1945 defeat
as the main story of their lives in the disappeared country of “former Manchuria”
(kyū Manshū).52 Without relinquishing each other’s grief and embracing a mutual
understanding of each other’s national ideals, it will be difficult for both sides to
overcome the constraint of national boundaries when examining the history of
Manchukuo. Indeed, Manchukuo is not the history of a particular country or
ethnicity; it is the collective history of the Hans, the Manchus, the Japanese, the
Koreans, the Mongols, the Russians, and other ethnic minorities. This revisionist
study of Manchukuo’s inner circle in the early 1930s serves as a step to restore an
often-overlooked diverse image of Manchukuo, hoping to inspire further research
that examines multiple perspectives instead of overly focusing on one side or
another. Until that is accomplished, the “former Manchuria” remains a specter in
East Asia.

Notes
1 Yamamuro Shin’ichi, Kimera—Manshūkoku no shōzō zōhoban [Chimera—portrait of
Manchukuo; expanded edition] (Tokyo: Chūō kōron shinsha, 2004), 283.
2 Mutō Tomio, Manshūkoku to watashi [Manchukuo and I] (Tokyo: Bungei shunjū, 1988), 7.
3 Goza Yūichi, Gudai Riben de zhanzheng yu yinmou: cong Yuan Ping zhengba dao Guanyuan
hezhan [Wars and conspiracies of feudal Japan: from the clash of the Minamoto and the
 Conclusion 213
Taira clans to the Battle of Sekigahara], trans. Ji Xiaopeng (Guangzhou: Guangdong
lüyou chubanshe, 2020), 20, 245.
4 Wang Zhiqiang, ed., Puyi yanjiu [Research on Puyi], 2 vols. (Changchun: Jilin daxue
chubanshe, 2013, 2017). Volume one contains 58 articles, and volume two contains 55
articles.
5 Liu Jianhua, “Wei Man chuqi Puyi yu Riben” [Puyi and Japan in the early years of
bogus Manchukuo], in Puyi yanjiu, vol. 2, 22.
6 For example, see Wang Qingxiang, Wei huanggong neimu [Inside stories of the bogus
imperial palace] (Changchun: Changchun shi zhengxie wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuan-
hui, 1984); Zhang Wei, “Modai huangdi Puyi he ta de meimei men” [The last emperor
Puyi and his younger sisters], in Puyi yanjiu, vol. 2, 75–94; Qin Hancai, Man gong can-
zhao ji [Twilight in the Manchukuo imperial palace] (1946; repr. Shanghai: Shanghai
shudian chubanshe, 1998).
7 Liu Yuliang, “Qianxi Xixia da Jilin zhuyi” [A brief analysis of Xixia’s greater Jilinism],
Chizi [Patriotists] 23 (2015): 38; Wang Wenli, “Lüetan Xixia dianwen gao de shiliao
zuoyong” [A brief discussion on the values of the Xixia Telegram as a historical mate-
rial], Wenshi zongheng [Regional culture study] 26:5 (2021): 147–152.
8 For example, see Guan Zhongxiang, “Xixia qiren” [About Xixia], in Wei Man shiliao
congshu: wei Man renwu [Bogus Manchukuo historical material series: bogus Manchukuo
figures], ed. Sun Bang (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 363–372.
9 Zhou Mingzhi, Jindai Zhongguo de wenhua weiji: Qing yilao de jingshen shijie [Cultural
crisis in modern China: Qing loyalists and their mental world] (Jinan: Shandong daxue
chubanshe, 2009); Lin Zhihong, Minguo nai diguo ye: zhengzhi wenhua zhuanxing xia de
Qing yimin [The Republic of China is a hostile state: Qing loyalists during China’s
political and cultural transformation] (Taibei: Lianjing chuban shiye gufen youxian
gongsi, 2009).
10 Zhou, Jindai Zhongguo de wenhua weiji, 248; Lin, Minguo nai diguo ye, 340.
11 Zhou, 37; Lin, 330–331.
12 For example, see Xu Linjiang, Zheng Xiaoxu qian bansheng pingzhuan [Commentary biog-
raphy of Zheng Xiaoxu’s early life] (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2003); Li Jun, 1931
nian qian Zheng Xiaoxu [Zheng Xiaoxu before 1931] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2018).
13 Liu Xiaohui, Wang Wenfeng, and Wang Jiurong, Wei Man guowu Zongli dachen Zhang
Jinghui [Bogus Manchukuo Prime Minister Zhang Jinghui] (Changchun: Jilin wenshi
chubanshe, 1991), 2.
14 Liu Banghou, “Bianzhe de hua” [Editor’s note], in Ma Zhanshan jiangjun [General Ma
Zhanshan], ed. Liu Banghou (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1987), 1.
15 For example, see Liu Banghou, and Pei Lin, “Ping Ma Zhanshan de kang Ri huodong”
[Commenting on the anti-Japan activities of Ma Zhanshan], Xuexi yu tansuo [Study and
exploration] 5 (1981): 132–144; Qian Zhanyuan, “Ma Zhanshan jiangjun kangzhan
shilüe” [A brief history of General Ma Zhanshan’s anti-Japan resistance], Saiwai chunqiu
[Spring and autumn beyond the Great Wall] 8 (August 2007): 42–43.
16 For example, see: Zhang Guizhi, “Ma Zhanshan de zhenxiang yu zhaxiang zhi bian”
[Analyzing whether or not Ma Zhanshan’s surrender was genuine], Dalian jindai shi
yanjiu [Studies on the contemporary history of Dalian] 17 (2020): 172–178; Jiang
Chongfeng, Jia Ting, and Yu Yaozhou, “Ma Zhanshan xiang Ri wenti zai sikao”
[Reconsidering Ma Zhanshan’s surrender to the Japanese], Lilun guancha [Theoretical
observation] 3 (2021): 130–132.
17 For example, see Zhang Fulin, “Jiuyiba shibian hou de Zang Shiyi” [Zang Shiyi after
the September 18 Incident], Shehui kexue zhanxian [Front of social science] 2 (1989):
249–253; Zhang Hongjun, “Yu Chonghan yu wei Manzhouguo de jianli” [Yu
Chonghan and the creation of bogus Manchukuo]. Shehui kexue jikan [Journal of social
science] 3 (1995): 114–117.
18 Zhang Hongjun, “Yu Chonghan yu wei Manzhouguo de jianli,” 117. “Dog-headed
advisor” (goutou junshi), a pejorative adjective in Chinese, refers to those who like to
give others, especially their superiors, sinister advice.
214 Conclusion
19 Ibid., 114.
20 Ibid., 115.
21 Zhang Fulin, “Jiuyiba shibian hou de Zang Shiyi,” 253.
22 Wang Guoyu, “Manzhouguo de chanpo Zhao Xinbo” [Manchukuo’s midwife Zhao
Xinbo], in Changchun wenshi ziliao disan ji [Changchun municipal documents on cul-
ture and history volume 3], ed. Changchun shi zhengxie wenshiziliao weiyuanhui
(Changchun: Changchunshi zhengxie wenshiziliao weiyuanhui, 1988), 143.
23 For a study on why the PRC emphasized wartime Japanese atrocities in school educa-
tion and media after the 1980s, see Kirk A. Denton, “Horror and Atrocity: Memory of
Japanese Imperialism in Chinese Museums,” in Re-Envisioning the Chinese Revolution:
The Politics and Poetics of Collective Memories in Reform China, ed. Ching Kwan Lee and
Guobin Yang (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), 245–286.
24 For a study on the political re-education of former Manchukuo officials in the PRC,
see Adam Cathcart, and Patricia Nash, “War Criminals and the Road to Sino-Japanese
Normalization: Zhou Enlai and the Shenyang Trials, 1954–1956,” Twentieth-Century
China 34:2 (2008): 89–111.
25 “Guanyu xingzheng jigou gaige: Zhang guowu zongli fangsong ci” [About reforming
the existing administrative agencies: Prime Minister Zhang discusses], Shengjing shibao
[Shengjing Times] (May 14, 1937): 2.
26 Ibid.
27 Hayashide Kenjirō, “Gokuhi rokujū ichi: Kōtei heika to Ueda taishi to no kaidan
yōryō” [Top secret No. 61: main points of the conversation between the emperor and
Ambassador Ueda], May 3, 1937, unpublished typescript, in Hayashide Kenjirō kankei
bunsho [Hayashide Kenjirō related documents], microfilm vol. 1 (Tokyo: Yūshōdō,
1999).
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid. Xing’an was name of northeast Inner Mongolia in the Manchukuo years.
35 Hayashide, “Gokuhi nijū yon: Kōtei heika to Minami taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Top
secret No. 24: main points of the conversation between the emperor and Ambassador
Minami], February 3, 1936, unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
36 Hayashide, “Gokuhi gojū ichi: Kōtei heika to Ueda taishi to no kaidan yōryō” [Top
secret No. 51: main points of the conversation between the emperor and Ambassador
Ueda], January 11, 1937, unpublished typescript, in Bunsho, microfilm vol. 1.
37 Ibid.
38 Katakura Tadashi, Manshū jihen kimitsu seiryaku nisshi [Confidential record of political
strategies following the Manchurian Incident], March 6, 1932, in Gendai shi shiryō
[Documents of modern history], vol. 7, ed. Kobayashi Tatsuo and Shimada Toshihiko
(Tokyo: Misuzu shobō, 1964), 407.
39 Janis Mimura, Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State
(Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), 1.
40 Ibid., 3–5.
41 Ibid.; Yamamuro, Kimera.
42 Yamamuro, Kimera, 256.
43 Matsushige Mitsuhiro, “Sekaishi kara Manshū shi o kangaeru: “nijyū seiki Manshū” no
shatei ni kansuru oboegaki [Considering the history of Manchuria from a perspective
of world history: a memorandum on the scope of “twentieth century Manchuria”], in
Chōsen suru Manshū kenkyū: chiiki, minzoku, jikan [The challenging study of Manchuria:
space, ethnicity, and time], ed. Katō Kiyofumi, Tabata Mitsunaga, and Matsushige
Mitsuhiro (Tokyo: Tōhō shoten, 2015), 12.
 Conclusion 215
44 Furumi Tadayuki, Wasure enu Manshū [Unforgettable Manchuria] (Tokyo: Keizai ōrai-
sha, 1978), 287.
45 Ibid.
46 Fujikawa Yūji, Jitsuroku Manshūkoku ken sanji kan: Dai Ajia shugi no shito [Veritable
record of Manchukuo’s county counselor officials: The messengers of greater Asianism]
(Osaka: Ōminato shobō, 1981), 180.
47 Yamamuro, Kimera, 13.
48 Bill Sewell, “Reconsidering the Modern in Japanese History: Modernity in the Service
of the Prewar Japanese Empire,” Japan Review 16 (2004): 236.
49 Historian Ōsawa Takeshi notes that at least 15,000 Japanese served in the PRC by June
1950, based on statistics in the recently declassified Zhongguo waijiao bu dang’an [Archive
of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs], and the total number of those Japanese who
were trapped in the PRC by January 1953 was 58,941, according to the Japanese
Foreign Ministry. Ōsawa Takeshi, “Shin Chūgoku kara sokoku e: Nihonjin ryūyō sha
to Nihonjin senpan no kikan” [Returning to the motherland from new China: the
return of hired Japanese personnel and Japanese war criminals], in Chōsen suru Manshū
kenkyū, 147–148.
50 Yukawa Makie, “Nijū seiki zenhan no Manshū ni okeru suitō saku shiken to hinshu no
fukyū ni tsuite” [About the experimentation and variety promotion of rice crops in the
early twentieth century Manchuria], in Chōsen suru Manshū kenkyū, 141.
51 Nakata, Manshūkoku kōtei no hiroku, 11.
52 Okabe Makio, Manshūkoku [Manchukuo] (Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1978), 198.
Appendix 1
Manchukuo’s Top-Level Government Structure
in March 1932

Chief Executive
(Puyi)

Chief Executive Privy Council

Mansion (Canyi fu)
(Zhizheng fu)

Supervisory State Council Legislative

Council (Guowu yuan) Council
(Jiancha yuan) (Lifa yuan)

General Affairs Governance

Board Support Bureau
(Zongwu ting) (Zizheng ju)

Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of

Justice Foreign Affairs Civil Affairs Military Affairs
(Sifa bu) (Waijiao bu) (Minzheng bu) (Junzheng bu)

Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of

Communications Finance Development
(Jiaotong bu) (Caizheng bu) (Shiye bu)

This structure was known as the “system of three councils and seven ministries”
(sanyuan qibu zhi). The Chief Executive Mansion and the Privy Council were
institutions that belonged to Puyi, while the General Affairs Board and the
Governance Support Bureau were two institutions inside the State Council. The
 Appendix 1 217
seven ministries operated under the State Council. In July 1932, the Manchukuo
government made the Department of Culture and Education (Wenjiao si) in the
Ministry of Civil Affairs an independent institution and created the Ministry of
Culture and Education (Wenjiao bu).
Source: Asahi shinbunsha, ed., Shōwa hachinen Asahi nenkan furoku: Manshūkoku
taikan [Affiliated brochure of the eighth year of Shōwa’s Asahi yearbook: an over-
view of Manchukuo] (Ōsaka: Asahi shinbunsha, 1932), 4.
Appendix 2
Manchukuo’s Major Government Institutions
after May 1937

Emperor
(Puyi)

Imperial Privy Council

Household (Canyi fu)
Mansion
(Gongnei fu)

State Council General Affairs

(Guowu yuan) Board
(Zongwu ting)

Ministry of Diplomatic Department of Department of

Justice Bureau Audit Economy
(Sifa bu) (Waijiao ju) (Shenji chu) (Jingji bu)

Xing’an Bureau Department of Department of Department of

(Xing’an ju) Communications Development People’s
(Jiaotong bu) (Chanye chu) Livelihoods
(Minsheng bu)
Department of
Domestic
Security
(Zhian bu)
 Appendix 2 219
The biggest change of the 1937 system compared with the 1932 system is the
centralization of power in the State Council. Except for the Ministry of Justice, all
the other departments and bureaus became affiliated institutions of the State
Council and followed the Council’s direct orders. The Ministry of Justice operated
under the State Council but was not affiliated with it.
Source: Manshūkoku shi hensan kankōkai, ed., Manzhouguo shi zonglun [The
history of Manchukuo: an overview], 1970, trans., Bai Qingwen (Harbin:
Heilongjiang sheng shehui kexue yuan lishi yanjiusuo, 1990), 599.
Appendix 3
Time Line of Relevant Events in This Book

Year Month/Season Events

1860 May Zheng Xiaoxu was born into a Fujian bureaucratic

family in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.
1866 August Luo Zhenyu was born into a Shangyu county
scholarly family in Huaian, Jiangsu province.
1868 September The Japanese imperial court changed the name of
the Tokugawa bakufu’s capital from Edo to Tokyo.
October The Japanese imperial court adopted the reign
name of Meiji (Meiji Restoration began).
1871 Unknown Yu Chonghan was born in Liaoyang, Fengtian
province.
1872 June Zhang Jinghui was born in Taian county, Fengtian
province.
1884 October Aixin-Jueluo Xixia was born in Fengtian.
December Zang Shiyi was born in Fengtian.
1885 January Itagaki Seishirō was born in Iwate prefecture.
June Komai Tokuzō was born in Shiga prefecture.
November Ma Zhanshan was born into a peasant family in
Huaide county, Fengtian province (present-day
Jilin province).
1887 Unknown Zhao Xinbo was born in Wanping, Zhili province
(present-day Beijing).
1889 January Ishiwara Kanji was born in Yamagata prefecture.
1891 May Zheng Xiaoxu sailed to Japan and served as a Qing
consular official.
1892 July Kasagi Yoshiaki was born in Tochigi prefecture.
September Feng Hanqing was born in Gaiping county,
Fengtian province.
1894 July The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 broke out.
August Zheng Xiaoxu returned to China due to the
Sino-Japanese War.
1895 April The Qing Dynasty signed the Treaty of
Shimonoseki with Japan after its defeat in the
Sino-Japanese War.
November Japan occupied Taiwan.
1898 March The Russians acquired permission from the Qing
Dynasty to construct the South Manchuria Railway
(a railway that connects Changchun and Lüshun).
(Continued)
 Appendix 3 221

Year Month/Season Events

1901 December Luo Zhenyu sailed to Japan to inspect the country’s
education and financial system.
1902 February Luo Zhenyu returned to China from Japan.
1903 July The South Manchuria Railway was opened.
1904 February The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 broke out.
1905 August Sun Yat-sen founded the United Allegiance Society
(Tongmenghui; predecessor to the Nationalist
Party) in Tokyo.
September Japan and Russia signed the Treaty of Portsmouth
in the United States, marking the end of the
Russo-Japanese War under Japanese victory.
Japan acquired Dalian and Lüshun (Kantō colony),
including the South Manchuria Railway, from
Russia through the Treaty of Portsmouth.
1906 February Aixin-Jueluo Puyi was born in Beijing.
July The Kantō Army was created with the name
Manchuria Railway Defense Troop (Manshū
tetsudō shubitai). It initially served as a defense
troop of the South Manchuria Railway.
November The South Manchuria Railway Company was
created in Tokyo.
1907 March The South Manchuria Railway Company moved its
headquarters from Tokyo to Dalian.
April The Qing Dynasty divided Manchuria into three
provinces—namely, Fengtian, Jilin, and
Heilongjiang from south to north.
1908 December Puyi became the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty.
1910 February Zheng Xiaoxu went to Fengtian from Shanghai and
served as an advisor to the governor-general of
the Three Eastern Provinces.
May Zheng Xiaoxu returned to Shanghai from Fengtian.
August Japan annexed Korea.
1911 October The Nationalist Revolution broke out.
December The Manchu National Party (Zongshe dang) was
created in Beijing.
1912 January The Republic of China was created in Nanjing.
Sun Yat-sen became the president of the Republic
of China.
Luo Zhenyu and his family moved to Kyoto from
Beijing.
The first independent movement of Manchuria and
Mongolia broke out under the direction of the
Manchu National Party.
February The Qing Dynasty collapsed.
Sun Yat-sen resigned from the presidency of the
Republic of China in favor of Yuan Shikai.
The first independent movement of Manchuria and
Mongolia failed after the Japanese home
government stopped supporting the Manchu
National Party.
July The Japanese government adopted the reign name
of Taishō.
(Continued)
222 Appendix 3

Year Month/Season Events

1915 Winter The second independent movement of Manchuria
and Mongolia broke out under the direction of
the Manchu National Party.
1916 June Yuan Shikai died in Beijing.
Zhang Zuolin became the provincial leader and
military commander of Fengtian province.
August Zhang Zuolin suppressed the second independent
movement of Manchuria and Mongolia.
1917 July An unsuccessful attempt to revive Puyi’s status as
the Qing emperor happened in the Forbidden
City (Zhang Xun restoration).
1919 Spring Luo Zhenyu returned to China from Japan.
May The Manchuria Railway Defense Troop became an
independent garrison and changed its name to
Kantō Army.
1924 February Zheng Xiaoxu went to serve Puyi in the Forbidden
City.
June Luo Zhenyu went to serve Puyi in the Forbidden City.
November Republican general Feng Yuxiang drove Puyi out of
the Forbidden City.
1925 February Puyi settled in the Japanese legation in Tianjin.
March Sun Yat-sen died in Beijing.
October Zhao Xinbo graduated from Meiji University and
became the first Chinese recipient of a Japanese
doctorate of laws.
1926 July Sun Yat-sen’s successor Chiang Kai-shek became the
supreme commander of the Nationalist Revolution
Army and started the Northern Expedition.
December The Japanese government adopted the reign name
of Shōwa.
1927 April Chiang Kai-shek declared Nanjing to be the capital
of the Republic of China to confront the Beijing
Republican government under Zhang Zuolin’s
control.
June Zhang Zuolin became the supreme army and navy
commander of the Republic of China in Beijing.
1928 June The Nationalist Revolution Army occupied Beijing
and drove Zhang Zuolin out of the city.
The Kantō Army assassinated Zhang Zuolin on his
way back to Fengtian from Beijing.
Zhang Zuolin’s son Zhang Xueliang became the
new warlord of Manchuria.
Republican general Sun Dianying ordered his troops
to loot the Qing Eastern Tombs in Hebei province.
November Zhang Jinghui became the head of the Harbin
Eastern Provincial Special District (Haerbin
dongsheng tebiequ).
Luo Zhenyu and his family left Tianjin and settled
in Lüshun.
December Zhang Xueliang sided with Chiang Kai-shek; the
Nationalist Party nominally unified south and
north China.
The Northern Expedition ended.
(Continued)
 Appendix 3 223

Year Month/Season Events

1930 January Zang Shiyi became the provincial leader of
Fengtian.
September Zhang Xueliang moved his base from Fengtian to
Beijing.
November Kasagi Yoshiaki founded the Greater Magnificent
Peak Society (Dai yūhōkai) in Dalian.
1931 September The Manchurian Incident broke out.
The Kantō Army conquered Fengtian and Jilin
provinces and detained Fengtian’s provincial
leader Zang Shiyi.
Kantō Army officials, Tatekawa Yoshitsugu, Doihara
Kenji, Itagaki Seishirō, Ishiwara Kanji, and
Katakura Tadashi, decided during a meeting at
the Fengtian Yamato Hotel to create an inde-
pendent state of Manchuria and make Puyi the
leader of the new state.
Yu Chonghan and Yuan Jinkai created the Fengtian
Maintenance Committee for Autonomy (Fengtian
zizhi weichihui).
Aixin-Jueluo Xixia proclaimed Jilin’s independence
from the Nanjing Republican government.
Luo Zhenyu visited Puyi in Tianjin and encouraged
the latter to settle in Manchuria in order to revive
the Qing Dynasty.
October Doihara Kenji visited Puyi in Tianjin and invited
the latter to go to Manchuria.
Ma Zhanshan became the acting provincial
chairman (provincial leader) of Heilongjiang
province under Zhang Xueliang’s approval.
Warlord Zhang Haipeng invaded Heilongjiang with
the support of the Kantō Army.
Komai Tokuzō sailed to Manchuria from Japan.
Zhao Xinbo became the mayor of Fengtian and the
head of the Supreme Court of the Northeast
(Dongbei zuigao fayuan).
November The Kantō Army invaded Heilongjiang; the Battle
of Nenjiang Bridge broke out.
Puyi fled from Tianjin and made his way to Lüshun
under Japanese assistance.
Ma Zhanshan abandoned Qiqihar and retreated to
Hailun after defeat in the Battle of Nenjiang
Bridge.
Zhang Jinghui proclaimed Heilongjiang’s inde-
pendence from the Nanjing Republican
government.
December Ma Zhanshan compromised with the Kantō Army
and cooperated with the Japanese to restore
Heilongjiang’s order.
The Kantō Army released Zang Shiyi and
retained his position as the provincial leader of
Fengtian.
(Continued)
224 Appendix 3

Year Month/Season Events

1932 January Japanese naval marines attacked Shanghai (January
28 Incident).
February The Northeast Executive Committee (Dongbei
xingzheng weiyuanhui) convened the Meeting of
the National Foundation (Jian’guo huiyi) in
Fengtian and decided during the meeting to
create an independent state of Manchuria.
The Kantō Army agreed to name the new state
Manchukuo and adopt the reign name of Datong
(Great Unity) for Manchukuo.
March Manchukuo was formally created; the state changed
the name of its capital from Changchun to
Xinjing, literally the “new capital.”
Japan and the Republic of China stopped their clash
at Shanghai.
Puyi signed the Puyi-Honjō Agreement with the
Kantō Army on his way from Lüshun to Xinjing.
April Ma Zhanshan defected from Manchukuo.
Zhang Jinghui inherited Ma Zhanshan’s position as
the head of the Ministry of Military Affairs
(Junzheng bu).
The Lytton Commission of the League of Nations
reached Manchukuo.
July The Manchukuo state abolished the Governance
Support Bureau (Zizheng ju) of Kasagi Yoshiaki;
the latter returned to his private residence in
Dalian without further political activities.
August All the major planners of the Manchurian Incident,
except for Itagaki Seishirō, had returned to Japan.
September Japan formally recognized Manchukuo through the
Japan-Manchukuo Protocol (Ri Man yidingshu).
October The Lytton Commission published the famous
Lytton Report and described Manchukuo in the
Report as a production of the Japanese invasion
of Manchuria.
November Yu Chonghan died in Dalian.
Feng Hanqing visited Japan as the head of
Manchukuo’s Ministry of Justice (Sifa bu).
December Feng Hanqing returned to Manchukuo from Japan.
1933 January Kasagi Yoshiaki returned to Japan from Dalian.
March The Kantō Army occupied Rehe province
(present-day Chengde) and made it part of
Manchukuo’s territory.
Japan quit the League of Nations.
May Kasagi Yoshiaki began to publish the journal Greater
Asia [Dai Ajia] in Tokyo.
June Luo Zhenyu became the head of the Supervisory
Council (Jiancha yuan).
July Komai Tokuzō’s tenure in Manchukuo ended, and
he returned to Japan.
Zhao Xinbo sailed to Tokyo, to inspect the legal
system of Japan and help Manchukuo draft its
constitution.
(Continued)
 Appendix 3 225

Year Month/Season Events

1934 March Manchukuo changed its polity from a republic to an
empire; Puyi became the emperor of
Manchukuo.
When Manchukuo became an empire, its name
changed to Manchutikuo (Empire of Manchuria),
although people still referred to it as Manchukuo.
The Manchukuo government adopted the reign
name of Kangde (Tranquil Virtue).
Zheng Xiaoxu and Xixia visited Japan as the envoys
of Manchukuo.
April Zheng Xiaoxu and Xixia returned to Manchukuo
from Japan.
October The Manchukuo government dismissed Zhao Xinbo
from his government positions and abolished the
Legislative Council (Lifa yuan) in practice.
1935 January Zang Shiyi visited Japan as the minister of civil
affairs (Minzheng bu).
February Zang Shiyi returned to Manchukuo from Japan.
April Puyi visited Japan as the emperor of Manchukuo
and received a warm welcome from the Japanese
home government and the imperial court.
May Puyi issued the famous Huiluan xunmin zhaoshu
[Admonitory rescript tothe people on the
emperor’s return].
Zhang Jinghui replaced Zheng Xiaoxu as the prime
minister of Manchukuo.
Xixia became the minister of the Imperial
Household Mansion (Gongnei fu).
Zang Shiyi became the head of the Privy Council
(Canyi fu).
1937 January Manchukuo started its second five-year plan.
March Luo Zhenyu resigned from the head of the
Supervisory Council and returned to Lüshun
from Xinjing.
April Puyi’s younger brother Aixin-Jueluo Pujie and
Japanese aristocrat Saga Hiro married in Tokyo.
May The Manchukuo state reshuffled its national
departments, which greatly weakened the
country’s Chinese leadership.
Feng Hanqing resigned as the minister of justice
and became vice director of the Manchurian
Heavy Industrial Development Corporation
(Manshū jūkōgyō kaihatsu kabushiki gaisha).
July Japan invaded China proper; the Chinese Anti-
Japan War of Resistance of 1937–1945 broke out.
November The Republic of China abandoned Nanjing due to
the Japanese invasion and moved its capital to
Chongqing.
December The Japanese army occupied Nanjing; a massacre of
local Chinese residents and war captives followed
the occupation (Rape of Nanjing).
1938 March Zheng Xiaoxu died in Xinjing.
(Continued)
226 Appendix 3

Year Month/Season Events

1940 June Luo Zhenyu died in Lüshun.
Puyi visited Japan, to congratulate Japan’s 2,600th
anniversary of the national foundation.
July Zheng Xiaoxu’s former Japanese secretary Ōta
Toyoo established the Taiyi Shrine (Taiyi gong) in
Fengtian, to commemorate Zheng.
Puyi returned to Manchukuo from Japan.
1942 March Zhang Jinghui, Feng Hanqing, and 24 Chinese and
Japanese officials of Manchukuo visited Japan, to
thank Japan for its contribution to the develop-
ment of Manchukuo in the past decade.
1945 August The Soviet Union invaded Manchukuo.
The Manchukuo government abandoned Xinjing
and retreated to the Korean border province of
Tonghua.
The Japanese Shōwa Emperor declared Japan’s
surrender.
Puyi abdicated as the Manchukuo emperor and
declared Manchukuo’s disintegration in Tonghua.
The Soviets captured Puyi, Xixia, Zhang Jinghui,
Zang Shiyi, and numerous former Chinese and
Japanese officials of Manchukuo and sent them to
Siberia for imprisonment.
September Japanese government representatives signed the
Japanese Instrument of Surrender on the
American battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay,
marking the end of the Second World War.
The Kantō Army disintegrated following
Manchukuo’s collapse.
Korea gained its independence from Japan.
Chinese Communist Party troops in China proper
began to enter Manchuria to augment existing
underground operatives.
The South Manchuria Railway Company disinte-
grated due to orders from the American
occupation army.
October The Republic of China accepted Japanese surrender
in Taiwan and reclaimed the island from Japan.
December Xinjing changed its name back to Changchun.
1946 April The Soviet troops retreated from Manchuria but
continued to occupy Dalian and Lüshun.
May The International Military Tribunal for the Fast
East convened in Tokyo.
June Intensified clashes between the armies of the
Nationalist and the Communist parties broke out
in north China, which Chinese Communist Party
historiography deems the beginning of the
Chinese Civil War of 1945–1949.
August Puyi attended the International Military Tribunal
for the Fast East under Soviet arrangement as a
witness to Japanese war crimes.
(Continued)
 Appendix 3 227

Year Month/Season Events

1948 May–October Chinese Communist Party troops surrounded
Changchun (Siege of Changchun) and eventually
made the city’s Republic of China troops
surrender. Although the exact number is
controversial, more than 100,000 residents of
Changchun died from starvation and war during
the siege.
November The Chinese Communist Party occupied
Manchuria from the Republic of China.
December The International Military Tribunal for the Fast
East sentenced Itagaki Seishirō, Tōjō Hideki, and
another five convicted class A war criminals to
death and executed them.
1949 August Ishiwara Kanji died in Yamagata prefecture.
October The People’s Republic of China was created in
Beijing.
December The Republic of China government abandoned the
mainland and retreated to Taiwan.
1950 June North Korea invaded South Korea; the Korean War
of 1950–1953 broke out.
July The United Nations nominally participated in the
Korean War to help South Korea resist North
Korea.
The Soviet Union began to repatriate the war
captives of former Manchukuo to the People’s
Republic of China. It repatriated 969 people to
the Heilongjiang border city of Suifenhe via train
in this month.
August The Soviet Union repatriated the remaining 58
Manchukuo war captives, including Puyi and his
relatives, to the People’s Republic of China. The
People’s Republic of China imprisoned those
1,027 war captives in Fushun, Liaoning province.
October The People’s Republic of China participated in the
Korean War to support North Korea.
The People’s Republic of China relocated the
repatriated war captives of former Manchukuo
from Fushun to Harbin for imprisonment, given
the former’s close distance to the North Korean
border.
November Ma Zhanshan died in Beijing.
1951 July Zhao Xinbo died in Beijing during imprisonment.
1952 Spring People’s Republic of China premier Zhou Enlai
ordered local communist cadres and organizations
in Harbin to start reeducating Manchukuo’s war
captives to make them repent their actions in the
Manchukuo era and expose each other’s crimes.
October Xixia died in Harbin during imprisonment.
1953 July The Korean War stopped; the People’s Republic of
China sent Manchukuo war captives back to
Fushun for imprisonment.
(Continued)
228 Appendix 3

Year Month/Season Events

1955 May The Soviet troops retreated from Dalian and
Lüshun.
September Kasagi Yoshiaki died in Tokyo.
1956 June–July The People’s Republic of China convened the
Shenyang Trials. The country’s Special Military
Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court (Zuigao
renmin fayuan tebie junshi fating) sentenced 45
convicted Japanese war criminals to imprison-
ment ranging from 8 to 20 years and released
1,017 Japanese war captives without prosecution.
November Zang Shiyi died in Fushun during imprisonment.
1959 January Zhang Jinghui died in Fushun during
imprisonment.
December The People’s Republic of China released Puyi from
prison.
1961 March A Chinese employee in Tokyo illicitly sold Zhao
Xinbo’s mansion in the Setagaya ward; Zhao’s
assets in Japan began to catch Japanese public
attention.
May Komai Tokuzō died in Tokyo.
1964 March Puyi published his famous memoir Wo de qianban-
sheng [My Earlier Life; Eng. From Emperor to
Citizen] in Beijing.
1966 May The Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976 started.
Puyi received letters that urged him to repent his
early life several times from surrounding
communist cadres during the Revolution.
1967 October Puyi died in Beijing.
1972 September The People’s Republic of China established a
formal diplomatic relationship with Japan through
the China-Japan Joint Communiqué.
1976 September People’s Republic of China leader Mao Zedong
died in Beijing.
October The Cultural Revolution ended following the arrest
of the Gang of Four.
1978 December The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
(Shiyi jie sanzhong quanhui) convened in Beijing,
marking the beginning of mainland China’s
reform and opening up (gaige kaifang).
1984 September The Tokyo Family Court (Tōkyō katei saibansho)
announced that Zhao Zongyang, the son of Zhao
Xinbo, was the inheritor of the latter’s four
billion yen asset in Japan.
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Datong]. Unknown publisher; printed by Shuangfa yanghang yinshuabu 雙發洋行印刷
部, 1933.
———. Zhi Shen ji [治瀋記 Records of governing Shenyang]. Edited by Lifayuan Jiluchu
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———. Zheng zongli dachen wangdao yanjiangji [鄭總理大臣王道演講集 Collection of
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彭述先. Xinjing: Fu wensheng yinshuju 福文盛印書局, 1934b.
———. Zheng Xiaoxu riji [鄭孝胥日記 Zheng Xiaoxu’s diary]. Edited by Lao Zude 勞祖
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———. Haicanglou shiji [海藏樓詩集 Haicanglou poetry collection]. Edited by Yang
Xiaobo 楊曉波, and Huang Shen 黃珅. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe 上海古籍
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Books reprinted in an edited source collection

Luo, Zhenyu 羅振玉, ed. Leng she shiji [冷社詩集 Poetry collection of the Cold Club]. 4
vols. 1935.
Qing mo Minguo jiuti shici jieshe wenxian huibian, vol. 3–4 (2013).
Luo, Zhenyu 羅振玉. Fusang liangyue ji [扶桑兩月記 Journal of a Two-Month Visit to
Japan]. 1902.
———. Jiliao bian [集蓼編 Recollection of my bitter experiences]. 1931.
———. Zhensong laoren yigao jiaji [貞松老人遺稿甲集 Manuscripts of the deceased old
man of virtuous pine; part one]. Edited by Luo Fuyi 羅福頤. 1941.
Zhongguo xueren zishu (1999).

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———. Shōwa hachinen Asahi nenkan furoku: Manshūkoku taikan [昭和八年朝日年鑑付録:
満州国大観 Affiliated brochure of the eighth year of Shōwa’s Asahi Yearbook: an over-
view of Manchukuo]. Ōsaka: Asahi shinbunsha, 1932b.
Dai Manshū teikoku meikan [大満州帝国名鑑 Dictionary of the greater empire of
Manchukuo’s figures]. Tokyo: Kyokokusha 挙国社, 1934.
Fujikawa, Yūji 藤川宥二. Jitsuroku Manshūkoku ken sanji kan: Dai Ajia shugi no shito [実録満
州国県参事官:大アジア主義の使徒 Veritable record of Manchukuo’s county counse-
lor officials: the messengers of greater Asianism]. Ōsaka: Ōminato shobō 大湊書房, 1981.
Furumi, Tadayuki 古海忠之. Wasure enu Manshū [忘れ得ぬ満州 Unforgettable
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Dictionary of modern Chinese figures]. Tokyo: Gaimushō jōhō bu, 1928.
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Handa, Toshiharu 半田敏治. Yume yabureta ri [夢破れたり Dream shattered]. Tokyo:
Shīpusha シープ社, 1950.
Hayashide, Kenjirō 林出賢次郎. Kojū hō Nichi kyōki [扈從訪日恭紀 Respectful record of
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Unachievable dreams: unofficial history of Manchukuo]. Tokyo: Daiyamondosha ダイ
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Introduction of Manchukuo’s great men]. Tokyo: Ni Shi mondai kenkyūkai 日支問題
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Collected works of Ishiwara Kanji additional volume: East Asian alliance movement].
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Japanese spirits and the solidarity of Asian ethnicities]. Tokyo: Ritsukōsha 立興社, 1934.

Journal Articles and Chapters in a Book

Kanasaki, Masaru 金崎賢. “Taii gū chinza sai sanpai ki” [太夷宮鎮座祭参拝記 Record of
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“Manshū Kōtoku kōtei wa waga Genji no matsuryū setsu” [満州康徳皇帝は我源氏の末流
説 A saying that Manchukuo’s Kangde Emperor is the descendant of our Minamoto clan].
In Gunmin [軍民 Military and civilian], vol. 1, 18–31. Tokyo: Gunminsha 軍民社, 1934.
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Taiyi shrine]. Dai Ajia 8:6 (July 1940): 27–49.
“Seikan o kiwameta: Fū shihō sōchō no kangei en” [盛観を極めた:馮司法総長の歓迎宴
Extremely spectacular: the welcome banquet for the Minister of Justice Feng]. Hōsō kōron
[法曹公論 Public Opinion of Lawyers] 391 (January 1933): 106–117.
Uchida, Toshio 内田俊夫. “Zō Shikiki no omoi dasu” [臧式毅を想い出 Recalling Zang
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———. “Nihon no kitai ni sohan: Minkoku ni okeru ryōji saibanken no teppai ni tsuite”
日本の期待に添はん:民国に於ける領事裁判権の撤廃に就いて Along with my
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Journal Articles, Chapters in an Edited Collection, and Doctoral Dissertations

Cheng, Taihong 程太紅. “Zheng Xiaoxu wangdao sixiang bianyi tanjiu” [鄭孝胥王道思想變
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中、日關係史新論 A new view on the history of modern Sino-Japanese relations].
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Journal Articles and Chapters in a Book

Hamaguchi, Yūko 浜口裕子. “Manshū jihen to Chūgokujin: Manshūkoku ni hairu
Chūgokujin kanri to Nihon no seisaku” [満州事変と中国人:満州国に入る中国人官
吏と日本の政策 The Manchurian Incident and the Chinese: Chinese officials who
joined Manchukuo and the policies of Japan]. Hōgaku kenkyū: hōritsu, seiji, shakai [法学
研究:法律、政治、社会 Study of Laws: Laws, Politics and Society] 64:11 (November
1991): 33–76.
———. “Ishiwara Kanji no tai Chūgoku kan o ou: Manshū jihen kara Tō A renmei e no
kiseki” [石原莞爾の対中国観を追う:満州事変から東亜連盟への軌跡 Tracing
Ishiwara Kanji’s view of China: from the Manchurian Incident to East Asian alliance].
Seiji keizai hōritsu kenkyū [政治経済法律研究 Studies of Politics, Economy, and Law]
21:1 (September 2018): 1–24.
Hatano, Sumio 波多野澄雄. “Chūgoku to tomoni: Hayashide Kenjirō kankei bunsho ni yos-
ete” [中国とともに:林出賢次郎関係文書に寄せて Together with China: collecting
 Bibliography 241
Hayashide Kenjirō related documents]. In Maikuro firumu ban Hayashi Kenjirō kankei bunsho
daiichi bunsatsu: meisaisho [マイクロフィルム版林出賢次郎関係文書第一分冊:明細
書 Microfilmed version of Hayashide Kenjirō related documents additional volume: a
detailed list]. Edited by Nitta Mitsuo 新田満夫, i–iii. Tokyo: Yūshōdō 雄松堂, 2000.
Katō, Michiya 加藤道也. “Manshūkoku to Komai Tokuzō: tōchi ninshiki o chūshin ni”
[満州国と駒井徳三:統治認識を中心に Manchukuo and Komai Tokuzō: centering
on his ideology of governance]. Ōsaka sangyō daigaku keizai ronshū [大阪産業大学経済
論集 Ōsaka Sangyo University Journal of Economics] 23:2 (March 2022): 85–110.
Liu, Jianhui 劉建輝. “Manshū gensō no seiritsu to sono shatei” [満州幻想の成立とその
射程 The creation of (Japan’s) Manchuria fantasy and its influence]. Ajia yūgaku [アジア
遊学 Intriguing Asia] 44 (Oct. 2002): 2–18.
Matsumiya, Takayuki 松宮貴之. “Taitō shodōin no Manshū gaikō: Tei Kōsho to Kiyoura
Keigo no yaritori o chūshin toshite” [泰東書道院の満州外交:鄭孝胥と清浦奎吾の
遣り取りを中心として Manchukuo’s diplomacy in the Taitō calligraphy institute: cen-
tering on the cultural exchange between Zheng Xiaoxu and Kiyoura Keigo]. Kyōto gobun
[京都語文 Language Text of Kyoto] 20 (Nov 2013): 249–277.
Matsushige, Mitsuhiro 松重充浩. “Sekaishi kara Manshū shi o kangaeru: “nijyū seiki
Manshū” no shatei ni kansuru oboegaki” [世界史から満州史を考える:「二十世紀満
州」の射程に関する覚書 Considering the history of Manchuria from a perspective of
world history: a memorandum on the scope of “twentieth century Manchuria”]. In
Chōsen suru Manshū kenkyū: chiiki, minzoku, jikan [挑戦する満州研究:地域、民族、時
間 The challenging study of Manchuria: space, ethnicity, and time]. Edited by Katō
Kiyofumi 加藤聖文, Tabata Mitsunaga 田畑光永, and Matsushige Mitsuhiro, 3–14.
Tokyo: Tōhō shoten 東方書店, 2015.
Ōsawa, Takeshi 大澤武司. “Shin Chūgoku kara sokoku e: Nihonjin ryūyō sha to Nihonjin
senpan no kikan” [新中国から祖国へ:日本人留用者と日本人戦犯の帰還 Returning
to the motherland from new China: the return of hired Japanese personnel and Japanese
war criminals]. In Chōsen suru Manshū kenkyū, 145–162.
Wu, Di 吳迪. “Fū Kansei to kyū Manshū kenkoku shoki no shihō taisei no seibi” [馮涵清
と旧満洲建国初期の司法体制の整備 Feng Hanqing and Manchukuo’s legal con-
struction in the early years of its creation]. Hokutō Ajia chiiki kenkyū [北東アジジア地域
研究 Journal of Northeast Asian studies] 28 (2022): 99–114.
Yukawa, Makie 湯川真樹江. “Nijū seiki zenhan no Manshū ni okeru suitō saku shiken to
hinshu no fukyū ni tsuite” [二十世紀前半の満州における水稲作試験と品種の普及
について About the experimentation and variety promotion of rice crops in the early
twentieth century Manchuria]. In Chōsen suru Manshū kenkyū, 125–144.
Index

Pages in bold refer tables; pages in italics refer figures and pages followed by n refer notes.
Japanese pronunciation follows Chinese pronunciation for terms that are relevant to both
sides; whether it is necessary to include Japanese-simplified characters for those terms
depends on the author’s judgment.

Aixin-Jueluo Liangbi 愛新覺羅·良弼 59 Akasaka palace 赤坂離宮/迎賓館 51

Aixin-Jueluo Pujie 愛新覺羅·溥傑 40, 42, Andō Kazuko 安藤和子 2
54, 202–203, 212, 225 Ang’angxi 昂昂溪 123
Aixin-Jueluo Puyi 愛新覺羅·溥儀: anka naru seiji 安価ナル政治 30
abdication of 117; birth and early life of Archibald Steele 125
40, 42–44, 221; connection with Asahi shinbun 朝日新聞 132, 171
Manchuria 4; death of 228; Feng Awaji maru 淡路丸 44
Hanqing’s observation of 186–187; Ayukawa Yoshisuke 鮎川義介 192
Furumi Tadayuki’s observation of 55;
historiography of 12, 16, 18, 39–40, 204; Bajiaotai 八角臺 112
ideal of 16, 42, 66, 87; imprisonment of Baoding lujun junguan xuexiao 保定陸軍軍
158; Itagaki Seishirō’s observation of 24; 官學校 153
position in the book 13–14; recoronation Bao Guancheng 鮑觀澄 193
of 49–50; settling in Manchuria 44; baojing anmin 保境安民 see territorial
Takebe Rokuzō’s observation of 54–55; defense and civil pacification
two Japanese officials’ observation of 55; baoxian dui 保險隊 112
visiting Japan 50–54; Zhang Jinghui’s Battle of Nenjiang Bridge 122–124, 127, 223
observation of 137n53 Bayan 巴彥 128
Aixin-Jueluo Shanqi 愛新覺羅·善耆 59 bianfang dachen 邊防大臣 77
Aixin-Jueluo Xixia 愛新覺羅·熙洽: birth Binjiang shibao 濱江時報 124
and early life of 58, 220; conflict with Boketu 博克圖 128
Komai Tokuzō 27, 36n36, 62; conflict Boxer Rebellion 79–80, 95
with Zheng Xiaoxu 61–62; bunsō teki bubi 文装的武備 6
historiography of 18, 40, 58, 204; ideal bu yangbing zhuyi 不養兵主義 146
of 16, 58–61, 66; later life and death of
64–66, 227; Luo Zhenyu’s observation Cai Yunsheng 蔡運升 87, 105n76, 113,
of 60, 98; Minami Jirō’s observation of 115, 132, 158
115; position in the book 13–14; Puyi’s Caizheng bu/Zaisei bu 財政部 see Ministry
observation of 64; significance of 57; of Finance
Zheng Xiaoxu’s observation of 61–62 canshi guan/sanji kan 參事官 see county
Aixin-Jueluo Yixin 愛新覺羅·奕訢 68n16 counselor officials
Aixin-Jueluo Yixuan 愛新覺羅·奕譞 42, Canyi fu/Sangi fu 參議府 see Privy Council
68n16 CCP see Chinese Communist Party
Aixin-Jueluo Zaifeng 愛新覺羅·載灃 censorship 2–3, 152, 159, 207, 211,
42–43, 68n17 214n23, 214n24
 Index 243
CER see Chinese Eastern Railway Difang weichi weiyuanhui 地方維持委員會
Chahaer 察哈爾 112 141, 174
Changchun 長春 6, 226 Ding Jianxiu 丁鑒修 140, 176
Chanye bu/Sangyō bu 產業部 see Dingmao chuxi yougan 丁卯除夕有感 59
Department of Development Diplomatic Bureau 208, 218
Cheng Zhiyuan 程志遠 128 dog-headed advisor 213n18
Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石/蔣中正: Chinese Doihara Kenji 土肥原賢二 44, 154, 176,
Communist Party portrayal of 119; 223
commenting on the Kingly Way 84; Dongbei xingzheng weiyuanhui 東北行政委
communication with Zhang Jinghui 員會 224
112, 114–115; introduction of 9, Dongbei zuigao fayuan 東北最高法院 176,
20n47; Puyi’s break with 44; Puyi’s 223
observation of 48; Yu Chonghan’s Dong sansheng bianfang jun 東三省邊防軍
observation of 146 122, 197n41
Chinese: the book’s use of 4 Dong sansheng guanyinhao 東三省官銀號
Chinese Anti-Japan War of Resistance 55, 127, 144
225 Dong sansheng jiangwu xuetang 東三省講武
Chinese Communist Party 110, 119, 學堂 58
132–133, 152, 183–184, 207, 211–212, Dong sansheng zongdu 東三省總督 8
226–227 Ducha yuan 督察院 149
Chinese Eastern Railway 112–113, 123,
149 Eastern Tomb Incident 43, 222
Choi Kyu-hah 崔圭夏 34 Edo 江戸 5, 49, 220
chunwang chihan 唇亡齒寒 107n139 ethnic harmony 1, 29, 35, 157, 211
Cixi, Empress Dowager 慈禧 43, 68n17 extraterritoriality 30, 146, 168–169,
collaboration 11, 14–15, 21n77 172–173, 191
Concordia Association 14, 30, 155, 191
Confucius 孔子 16, 75 Fan Shuren 範淑人 93
county counselor officials 32–33 Feng Hanqing 馮涵清: birth of 199n106,
220; dismissal of 191; early life of
Dai Ajia 大アジア 34, 224 185–186; historiography of 18, 168,
dai Ajia shugi 大アジア主義 see 184, 206; Hoshino Naoki’s observation
pan-Asianism of 186; ideal of 18, 168, 185, 187–188,
Dai shin’in 大審院 170 190–191, 195; later life 193–194; plight
Dai yūhōkai 大雄峯会 see Greater of 192–193; position in the book 13–14
Magnificent Peak Society Fengpiao 奉票 8–9
Dalian/Dairen 大連 6, 9, 25, 30, 144, 150, Fengtian 奉天: Kantō Army’s invasion of
170, 221, 226, 228 113, 154, 223; province of 7, 81–82,
Daoguang 道光 42 221; Yu Chonghan’s reform and
Datong/Daidō 大同 224 protection of 144–149; Zhao Xinbo’s
Datong bao 大同報 90 governance of 176
Datong xueyuan/Daidō gakuin 大同學院 see Fengtian fazheng xuetang 奉天法政學堂
Great Unity Academy 185
Daxing 大興 122 Fengtian san yuanlao 奉天三元老 146
Daxue yuan 大學院 100 Fengtian shiyeting 奉天實業廳 186
dayang 大洋 147 Fengtian ziyiju 奉天諮議局 81
Demchugdongrub, Prince De 德穆楚克棟 Fengtian zizhi weichihui 奉天自治維持會
魯普/德王 132, 139n135 146, 223
Department of Audit 208, 218 Feng Yuxiang 馮玉祥 43, 222
Department of Communications 218 From Emperor to Citizen see Wo de
Department of Development 208, 218 qianbansheng
Department of Domestic Security 208, 218 Fujikawa Yūji 藤川宥二 211
Department of Economy 208, 218 fuku kenchō 副県長 33
Department of People’s Livelihoods 208, Furumi Tadayuki 古海忠之 1, 55,
218 116–118, 135n7, 152, 211
244 Index
Fusang liangyue ji 扶桑兩月記 98 Harbin 哈爾濱 10, 65, 113–114, 124, 149
Fushun 撫順 65 Hashimoto Tora’nosuke 橋本虎之助 129
Fushun zhanfan guanlisuo 撫順戰犯管理所 Hayashide Kenjirō 林出賢次郎: early life
111, 151–152, 158–159, 207 and introduction of 41–42, 46; drafting
Top Secret Meeting Records 42; loyalty to
gaige kaifang 改革開放 212, 228 Puyi 56–57; Puyi’s observation of
Gaimushō gaikō shiryōkan 外務省外交史料 47–48
館 42 Hayashide Kenzō 林出賢三 42, 69n47
Gaiping 蓋平 185 Hayashi Yoshihide 林義秀 123
General Affairs Board 1, 26, 33, 128, Heihe 黑河 121, 128, 130
157–158, 209, 216, 218 Heilongjiang 黑龍江: anti-Ma Zhanshan
General Ma Zhanshan cigarettes 130, 131 rebellion in 128; Japanese invasion of
Geng Weifu 耿維馥 see Zhao Biyan 122–124; province of 7, 221; Soviet
Genpi kaiken roku 厳秘会見録 see Top invasion of 113; Zhang Jinghui’s
Secret Meeting Records governance of 113
Gobō 御坊 46 Heilongjiang dujun shu 黑龍江督軍署 153
gongchan 共產 82 Heilongjiang sheng daili zhuxi 黑龍江省代
gongguan 共管 see joint international 理主席 122
supervision He Zhuguo 何柱國 10
gonghe 共和 82 Hiei 比叡 51
Gongnei fu/Ku’nai fu 宮内府 see Imperial Hirohito 裕仁 16, 24, 30, 42, 50, 51, 55,
Household Mansion 87, 117, 150, 226
Gongnei fu xingzou 宮内府行走 46 Hirota Kōki 広田弘毅 90
Gongxue 公學 99 Hishikari Takashi 菱刈隆 24, 49–50, 90
Gotō Shinpei 後藤新平 6 hitobashira 人柱 33
goutou junshi 狗頭軍師 see dog-headed Honjō Shigeru 本庄繁 30, 45, 123–124
advisor Hoshino Naoki 星野直樹 12, 27, 68n37,
Governance Support Bureau 31, 33, 128, 116–117, 121, 209
147, 150, 216, 224 Huaide 懷德 121
Greater Magnificent Peak Society 32, Huang Fu 黃郛 43
223 Huang Jinrong 黃金榮 130
Great Unity Academy 2, 34, 38n91 Huang Taiji 皇太極 5
GSB see Governance Support Bureau Huiluan xunmin zhaoshu 囘鑾訓民詔書 54,
Guangxu 光緒 42–43, 49 225
guanli 冠禮 84–85 Huji fa 戶籍法 148
guannei 關内 60 Hulan zhengshouju 呼蘭徵收局 186
guanwai 關外 7
Guan Zhong 管仲/管夷吾 147 Imperial Household Mansion 41, 46, 55,
guojia 國家 93 158, 182, 218
Guowu yuan/Kokumu in 國務院 see State Inner Mongolian nationalism 39, 66
Council internal guidance 22, 31, 45, 209
Guoxue guan 國學舘 99 International Friendly Neighbor
gushi tian zhi mingming 顧諟天之明命 49 Association 1
Gustav Detring 78 International Military Tribunal for the Far
Gu Weijun 顧維鈞 10 East 23, 31, 34, 40, 226
Inukai Tsuyoshi 犬養毅 96
Haerbin dongsheng tebiequ 哈爾濱東省特別 Ishiwara Kanji 石原莞爾: birth of 220;
區 112, 144, 222 death of 227; Kantō Army staff 10;
Haerbin yike daxue fushu yiyuan 哈爾濱醫 ideal of 22, 28–30, 35; observation of
科大學附屬醫院 65 the Kingly Way 84; plight of 30–31;
Haicheng 海城 8, 144 position in the book 15
Hailaer 海拉爾 10, 128 Itagaki Seishirō 板垣征四郎: birth and
Hailun 海倫 124–125, 127, 130 early life of 23, 220; execution of 227;
Hanjian 漢奸 141, 205 Kantō Army staff 10; ideal of 22, 24,
Han Yunjie 韓雲階 193 34, 182; position in the book 15
haohao xiansheng 好好先生 117 Iwase Yūichi 磐瀬雄一 170–171
 Index 245
Japan-Manchukuo Protocol 45–46, 69n54, Kantō chō 関東庁 98
209, 224 Kasagi Yoshiaki 笠木良明: birth of 220;
Jiancha yuan/Kansatsu in 監察院 see ideal of 22, 31–34, 35, 147; Komai
Supervisory Council Tokuzō’s observation of 33–34; later life
Jiandao/Kantō 間島 105n76, 115 and death of 34, 228; position in the
Jian’guo daxue/Kenkoku daigaku 建國大學 book 15
see National Foundation University Katakura Tadashi 片倉衷 23, 122–124,
Jian’guo huiyi 建國會議 155, 224 154, 223
Jian’guo lianhe yundong dahui 建國聯合運 Katsu Kaishū 勝海舟/勝安芳 77
動大會 156 Katsura Tarō 桂太郎 6
Jiaotong bu/Kōtsū bu 交通部 see Ministry of Kawashima Yoshiko 川島芳子 59
Communications Keihō kashitsu ron 刑法過失論 see On the
Jiashu 家塾 99 Negligence of Criminal Laws
Jidong 冀東 173 Kingly Way: Chiang Kai-shek’s observation
Jiliao bian 集蓼編 91 of 84; Ishiwara Kanji’s observation of
Jilin 吉林: independence of 60; province 84; Japanese exploitation of 90; Kantō
of 7, 149, 221 Army’s adoption of 4, 86, 89; Kasagi
ji ming qie zhe 既明且哲 178 Yoshiaki’s observation of 31, 84; origin
Jin Bidong 金壁東 140 of 83; Ōta Toyoo’s observation of 90;
jingbei siling/keibi shirei 警備司令 26 Qing loyalists’ exploitation of 74–75;
Jing Feng tielu 京奉鐵路 149 Sun Yat-sen’s observation of 84; Yu
Jingji bu/Keizai bu 經濟部/経済部 see Chonghan’s observation of 145–146;
Department of Economy Zang Shiyi’s practice of 157; Zhao
Jingyuan 靜園 44 Xinbo’s observation of 178; Zheng
Jin Mingshi 金名世 58 Xiaoxu’s observation of 16, 83–84;
Jinshi chu 近侍處 56 Zheng Xiaoxu’s practice of 85–86
Jitsugyō no sekai 実業之世界 172 Kishi Nobusuke 岸信介 12, 209–210
Jinzhou 錦州 10 Koiso Kuniaki 小磯国昭 27, 48, 58,
jiuguo jun 救國軍 128 63–64, 181–182
John Barrett 79–80 Kojū hō Nichi kyōki 扈從訪日恭紀 51
John Hay 79 Kokusai zenrin kyōkai 国際善隣協会 see
joint international supervision 82–83 International Friendly Neighbor
joshi bijutsu gakkō 女子美術学校 170 Association
junfa 軍閥 8 kokutai 国体 179
Junshi canyi yuan 軍事參議院 110 Komai Tokuzō 駒井徳三: birth and early
Junzheng bu/Gunsei bu 軍政部 see Ministry life of 25, 220; conflict with Xixia 62;
of Military Affairs conflict with Zheng Xiaoxu 88–89;
Junzheng dachen/Gunsei daijin 軍政大臣 86 death of 228; ideal of 22, 25–28,
junzi 君子 84 34–35; plight of 27–28; position in the
book 15; reform of 26–27
Kaiyuan 開原 59 Konoe Division 近衛師団 51
Kan Chaoxi 闞朝璽/闞潮洗 140 Kotohito, Prince Kan’in no miya 閑院宮
Kaneko Sessai 金子雪斎 170 載仁親王 63
Kangde/Kōtoku 康德 225 Koyama Matsukichi 小山松吉 190
Kangxi 康熙 5 Kudō Chū 工藤忠 41
Kang Youwei 康有爲 74 kuilei/kairai 傀儡 40, 67n6
Kantō Army 関東軍: assassination of Kyokujitsu daijushō 旭日大綬章 150
Zhang Zuolin 9; concern about Japan’s kyōzon kyōei 共存共栄 23
domestic problems 10; confrontation kyū Manshū 旧満州 212
with Xixia 62–64, 89; creation and
development of 6, 221–222; creation of Laozi 老子 180
Manchukuo 3, 203; dismissal of League of Nations 114, 125, 133, 224
Japanese dissidents 35; occupation of Legislative Council 13, 63, 149, 167, 177,
Heilongjiang 122–124; occupation of 182, 216
Rehe 48; utilization of Manchukuo’s Leng she 冷社 59
Chinese government leaders 210 Leng she shiji 冷社詩集 59–60, 65
246 Index
liansheng zizhi 聯省自治 145 invasion of 158; Zang Shiyi’s observation
Liaoyang jiaosheju 遼陽交涉局 144 of 157; Zhang Jinghui’s observation of
Lifa yuan/Rippō in 立法院 see Legislative 116; Zhao Xinbo’s observation of
Council 177–178, 181
Li Wenda 李文達 40 Manchukuo Constitution 63–64, 182
Liu Kunyi 劉坤一 94 Manchuria: Han Chinese cultivation of
Lujun zongzhang 陸軍總長 112 7–8; independent movements of 59,
Lujun zong zhifachu 陸軍總執法處 186 221–222; Ishiwara Kanji’s observation
Luo Jizu 羅繼祖 91, 99 of 10, 12, 23; Itagaki Seishirō’s
Luo Shuxun 羅樹勛 93 observation of 10, 23–24; Kantō Army’s
Luo Zhenyu 羅振玉: birth of 93, 220; plan of occupying 10; Luo Zhenyu’s
conflict with Zheng Xiaoxu 98–99; observation of 9, 60, 97–98; origin of
cooperation with the Kantō Army 5; warlord era 8; Yu Chonghan’s
97–98; death and commemoration of observation of 146, 148; Zhao Xinbo’s
101, 226; early life of 93–94; observation of 174–175
historiography of 18, 74–75, 91–92, Manchurian Incident 10–11, 15, 60, 62,
205; ideal of 16, 60–61, 92–93, 95, 97, 109
102; inviting Puyi to go to Manchuria Man go 満語 192
44, 97, 223; Komai Tokuzō’s meeting Mangong canzhao ji 滿宮殘照記 204
of 25; observation on education 95, Mangyō 満業 191–193
99–100; plight of 98–99, 101; position Man Meng/Man Mō 滿蒙 5
in the book 16; Puyi’s observation of Man Mō dōhō engokai 満蒙同胞援護会
101; serving Puyi 96–97; visiting Japan 18n4
94–95; Wang Guowei’s observation of Man Mō jiyūkoku setsuritsu an taikō 満蒙自
91 由国設立案大綱 23–24
Lüshun 旅順 6, 9, 30, 59, 97, 101, 221, Man Ri wenhua xiehui/Man Nich bunka
223, 226, 228 kyōkai 滿日文化協會 98
Lytton Report 224 Manshū daizu ron 満州大豆論 25
Manshū jūkōgyō kaihatsu kabushiki geisha 満
Machuankou zhengshouju 馬船口徵收局 州重工業開発株式会社 see Mangyō
186 Manshūkoku no konpon rinen to Kyōwakai no
McKinley Doctrine 80 honshitsu 満州国ノ根本理念ト協和会
Mahatma Gandhi 33 ノ本質 23–24
maiguo qiurong 賣國求榮 175 Manshūkoku shokuin roku 満州国職員録
Man bun 満文 192 191
Manchu: identify of 58, 66, 203; origin of Manshū tetsudō shubitai 満州鉄道守備隊 6,
5; plight of 39, 66–67 221
Manchukuo: collapse of 117, 226; Feng Mantie fushu di/Mantetsu fuzoku chi 滿鐵附
Hanqing’s observation of 189; Fujikawa 屬地/満鉄付属地 146
Yūji’s observation of 211; Furumi Manzhou/Manshū 滿洲/満州 see
Takayuki’s observation of 1, 211; Manchuria
geography of 1; Hishikari Takashi’s Manzhou guofang furen hui 滿洲國防婦人
observation of 24; historiography of 會 110
11–13, 22, 206–207, 211; Japanese Manzhouguo jian’guo xuanyan 滿洲國建國
nostalgia of 1–2, 212; Japanese 宣言 9
population of 1; Japanese privilege in 45; Manzhouguo lujun zhidao yaogang 滿洲國陸
Ishiwara Kanji’s observation of 15; Itagaki 軍指導要綱 24
Seishirō’s observation of 15; Kasagi Manzhouguo sifa ziliao 滿洲國司法資料
Yoshiaki’s observation of 15, 31; Kishi 188
Nobusuke’s observation of 210; Komai Manzhouguo xianfa caoan 滿洲國憲法草案
Tokuzō’s observation of 15, 26–27; Ma see Manchukuo Constitution
Zhanshan’s observation of 132; national Manzhouli 滿洲里 128, 132
flag of 177–178; operating mechanism of Manzhu 曼珠 see Manchuria
3–4, 13–14; postwar Japanese publication Matsuki Tamotsu 松木侠 23
of 2; Pujie’s observation of 202; Soviet Matsumoto Masuo 松本益雄 116
 Index 247
Mao Zedong 毛澤東 20n47, 40, 119, 132, Nagaoka Ryūichirō 長岡隆一郎 87
228 naimen shidō 内面指導 see internal
Ma Zhanshan 馬占山: Archibald Steele’s guidance
observation of 125, 127; birth and early Naitō Konan 内藤湖南 96
life of 121, 220; defection from Nakajima Hitaki 中島比多吉 98
Manchukuo 130–132; historiography of Napoleon Bonaparte 28
18, 109, 120, 133, 205–206; ideal of National Foundation University 2
16–17, 121, 133; Itagaki Seishirō’s Nationalist Revolution 77, 221
observation of 123; Japanese National Party 58–59, 63, 221–222
exploitation of 133; Komai Tokuzō’s Narita Tsutomu 成田努 81
observation of 125, 128; later life and Nenjiang 嫩江 122
death of 132–133, 227; plight of Nihon sangrō kaisha 日本産業会社 192
124–130, 134; position in the book Nihon seishin to Ajia minzoku no danketsu 日
13–14; significance of 17, 134 本精神トアジア民族ノ団結 179
Ma Zhanshan jiangjun xiangyan 馬占山將軍 Nippon bengoshi kyōkai 日本弁護士協会
香煙 see General Ma Zhanshan 190
cigarettes Ni Shi shinzen 日支親善 23
Mencius 孟子 16, 75, 83 Nitobe Inazō 新渡戸稲造 25
Mengzheng bu/Mōsei bu 蒙政部 see Nongwu ju zongli 農務局總理 94
Ministry of Mongolian Affairs Nongxue bao 農學報 94
Meiji Restoration 49, 77, 220 Nongxue hui 農學會 94
Mihara Asao 三原朝雄 34 Nurhaci 努爾哈赤 58
Mikhail Kovalyov 193
Minami Jirō 南次郎 47, 52, 54, 87, 115, Ochanomizu joshi kōtō shihan gakkō 御茶ノ
156, 191 水女子高等師範学校 170
Minamoto no Yoritomo 源頼朝 54 Okada Asatarō 岡田朝太郎 170–171
Minamoto no Yoshitsune 源義経 54 Ōkura shō 大蔵省 182
Ming ren jian 明仁鑒 178 On the Negligence of Criminal Laws 170–172
Minguo 民國 95 Open Door: Itagaki Seishirō’s observation
Ministry of Civil Affairs 13, 26, 115, 151, of 87; origin of 79–80; Zheng Xiaoxu’s
155–157, 208, 216 observation and exploitation of 16, 75,
Ministry of Communications 27, 216 80–85
Ministry of Culture and Education 86, Ōta Toyoo 太田外世雄 90, 226
208, 217
Ministry of Development 208, 216 pan-Asianism 22, 34–35, 54, 173,
Ministry of Finance 13, 27, 208, 216 179–180, 189–190
Ministry of Foreign Affairs 208, 216 People’s Republic of China 40, 74, 110,
Ministry of Justice 13, 151, 167, 187–188, 132–133, 168, 212, 227
191, 208, 216, 218–219 Philippe Petain 14
Ministry of Military Affairs 13, 26, 109, Privy Council 27, 45, 98, 109–110, 117,
127, 208, 216, 224 151, 157–158, 216, 218
Ministry of Mongolian Affairs 208 Provision of Preferential Treatments of the Qing
Minsheng bu/Minsei bu 民生部 see Imperial Clan 43
Department of People’s Livelihoods Puyi-Honjō Agreement 44–46, 62, 209,
Minzheng bu/Minsei bu 民政部 see Ministry 224
of Civil Affairs
minzu xiehe/minzoku kyōwa 民族協和 see Qianlong 乾隆 43
ethnic harmony Qianyuan 乾園 44
Miyake Mitsuharu 三宅光治 30, 123, 129 Qing Dynasty 5, 40, 58, 77–78, 79, 82,
Miyazaki Tōten 宮崎滔天/宮崎寅蔵 25 93–95, 97, 221
Mori Kaku 森恪 19n20 Qing loyalists: definition of 74;
Moto kairoku 元会録 see Top Secret Meeting historiography of 74–75, 101–102; ideal
Records of 102–103; Kantō Army’s exploitation
Muerhaqi 穆爾哈齊 58 of 102
Mutō Nobuyoshi 武藤信義 45, 46, 48–49 Qing yilao 清遺老 see Qing loyalists
248 Index
Qinhuangdao 秦皇島 59 Shenji yuan 審計院 148
Qiqihar 齊齊哈爾 10, 122–123, 127, 130 Shenyang Trials 152, 228
Qingshi youdai tiaojian 清室優待條件 see shezheng 攝政 68n17
Provision of Preferential Treatments of the Shijing 詩經 178
Qing Imperial Clan Shinagawa Kazue 品川主計 180–181
Shin kokka dai Manshū 新国家大満州 177
Reginald Johnston 莊士敦 43, 82 Shiye bu/Jitsugyō bu 實業部 see Ministry of
regional autonomy 32 Development
Rehe 熱河 48, 143, 224 Shiyi jie sanzhong quanhui 十一屆三中全會
renlei buchi 人類不齒 175 228
repatriation 1, 215n49 Shōkō shō 商工省 210
Republic of China: conflict with the Shōwa ishin sengen 昭和維新宣言 30
ex-Qing court 43–44; creation of 221; shuangbi 雙璧 144
dilemma of 140; Ishiwara Kanji’s Sifa bu/Shihō bu 司法部 see Ministry of
observation of 28–29; Luo Zhenyu’s Justice
observation of 95–96; Ma Zhanshan’s Si jutou 四巨頭 127, 155
communication with 132–133; Sino-Japanese War 1, 8, 78, 94, 112, 167,
multi-ethnic portrayal of 3, 39; 220
nationalism of 74; Puyi’s observation of Siyue shijiu ri ci guowu Zongli deyun 四月十
48, 55–56; support of Ma Zhanshan 九日辭國務總理得允 89
125; Zhang Jinghui’s communication SMR see South Manchuria Railway
with 112, 118–119; Zhao Xinbo’s South Manchuria Railway 3, 6, 7, 10, 25,
observation of 172–173, 179; Zheng 30, 31, 32, 51, 128, 144, 220–221,
Xiaoxu’s observation of 79 226
Rikugun dai gakkō 陸軍大学校 170 State Council 33, 149, 151, 156–157,
Rikugun daijin 陸軍大臣 149 207–208, 216
Rikugun hohei gakkō 陸軍歩兵学校 54 Su Bingwen 蘇炳文 128–129
Rikugun shikan gakkō 陸軍士官学校 23, Suifenhe 綏芬河 227
153 Sukunahikona 少彦名 90
Rikugun shō 陸軍省 23, 63 Sun Dianying 孫殿英 43, 222
Ri Man junshi xieding/Nichi Man gunji kyōtei Sun Yat-sen 孫逸仙/孫中山/孫文 6,
日滿軍事協定 24 19n20, 25, 28, 39, 82, 84, 167,
Ri Man yidingshu/Nichi Man giteisho 日滿 221–222
議定書 see Japan-Manchukuo Protocol Supervisory Council 13, 98, 149–151, 180,
ROC see Republic of China 208, 216
Russo-Japanese War 6, 8, 121, 143, 179,
221 Taian 臺安 112
Taidong ribao 泰東日報 170
Saga Hiro 嵯峨浩 54, 225 Taiyi gong/Taii gū 太夷宮 90, 226
Saitō Makoto 斎藤実 64 Takasaki Tatsu’nosuke 高碕達之助
Sakatani Kiichi 阪谷希一 89 192–193
Sakatani Yoshirō 阪谷芳郎 89 Takebe Rokuzō 武部六蔵 54–55, 86–87,
Sanbō honbu 参謀本部 59 158
san gong lun 三共論 82 Tamon Jirō 多門二郎 60
sanyuan qibu zhi 三院七部制 216 tanbai congkuan kangju congyan 坦白從寬，
Satō Nobuhiro 佐藤信淵 5 抗拒從嚴 152
Shanghai guoli yinyue zhaunke xuexiao 上海 Tanggangzi 湯崗子 45
國立音樂專科學校 125 Tang Yulin 湯玉麟 98
Shanxi gaodeng shenpanting 山西高等審判 Taonan 洮南 122
廳 186 Tatekawa Yoshitsugu 建川美次 223
shanzi shuiming 山紫水明 51 Teimei, Empress Dowager 貞明 51
Shen Bao 申報 128–130, 175 territorial defense and civil pacification
Shenji chu/Shinkei sho 審計處: Manchukuo 141, 145
department of 208; Yu Chonghan’s Tian Heng 田橫 124
blueprint of 151 tianxia 天下 78
 Index 249
Tō A keizai chōsa kyoku 東亜経済調査局 Wang Jingwei 汪精衛/汪兆銘 14
25 Wang Guowei 王國維 87, 91–92, 97–98
Tō A keizai kondankai 東亜経済懇談会 Wang Shu’nan 王樹枏/王晉卿 46
193 Wang Yongjiang 王永江 8–9, 144–145,
Tō A kyoku 東亜局 42 146, 149
Tōchi bu 統治部 26 Wang Ziheng 王子衡 154
tōchi shugi 統治主義 30 Wanping 宛平 170
Tōjō gochō 東条伍長 31 wei/gi偽 2
Tōjō Hideki 東条英機 31, 227 Wei Man huanggong bowuyuan 偽滿皇宮博
Tokugawa bakufu 徳川幕府 49, 220 物院 204
Tokumu bu 特務部 26 Wenjiao bu/Bunkyō bu 文教部 see Ministry
Tokutomi Sohō 徳富蘇峰/徳富猪一郎 157 of Culture and Education
Tōkyō chihō saibansho 東京地方裁判所 170 Wenjiao si/Bunkyō shi 文教司 217
Tōkyō gaikoku go gakkō 東京外国語学校 Willington Koo see Gu Weijun
143 Wo de qianbansheng 我的前半生 36n36,
Tōkyō katei saibansho 東京家庭裁判所 183, 40–41, 50, 55–56, 118–119, 228
228 Wuchen xiari fang Zhao ling yougan 戊辰夏
Tōkyō nichinichi shinbun 東京日日新聞 158 日訪昭陵有感 65
tongchuang yimeng 同床異夢 102 Wu Junsheng 吳俊陞 121
Tonghua 通化 65, 117, 158, 226 Wu jutou 五巨頭 177
Tongmenghui 同盟會 167, 221 Wushi ri menghen lu 五十日夢痕錄 91
Top Secret Meeting Records: discovery of 48, Wu Tingfang 伍廷芳 79
69n47; Minami Jirō’s words on wuzu gonghe 五族共和 3, 39
dismissing Feng Hanqing 191; origin of
41–42, 47; Puyi’s words on Japanese xiancheng 縣丞 93
abuse of power 55; Puyi’s words on Xianfeng 咸豐 42
occupying Rehe 48; Puyi’s words on xiangshi 鄉試 77
Pujie’s marriage 54; Puyi’s words on xianxue 縣學 93
recoronation 49; Puyi’s words on Xiehehui/Kyōwakai 協和會 see Concordia
Sino-Japanese cooperation 49–50, 56, Association
52–53; Puyi’s words on the Marco Polo Xie Jieshi 謝介石 13, 132, 168
Bridge incident 55–56; Puyi’s words on Xie Ke 謝珂 122, 125
visiting Japan 50; Puyi’s words on Xiguo 西國 78
Zheng Xiaoxu’s resignation 87; Ueda Xing’an ju/Kōan kyoku 興安局 208,
Kenkichi’s words on the May 1937 214n34, 218
reform 208; Ueda Kenkichi’s words on Xingjing 興京 60
Zheng Xiaoxu’s funeral 89 Xinjing 新京 44, 46, 52, 117–118,
Tōsō shi 闘争史 11 127–128, 158, 193, 224, 226
Xinjing gaodeng nüxiao 新京高等女校 150
Ueda Kenkichi 植田謙吉 42, 89, 118 Xinhai 辛亥 79
Utsunomiya Tarō 宇都宮太郎 59 Xinwei 辛未 60
Xuetang 雪堂 20n39, 91
Vichy France 14–15 Xu Zhiqing 徐芷卿 110

Waijiao bu/Gaikō bu 外交部 see Ministry of Yamaguchi Jūji 山口重次 155, 181
Foreign Affairs Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu no miya 秩父
Waijiao ju/Gaikō kyoku 外交局 see 宮雍仁親王 50–51
Diplomatic Bureau Yi Dynasty of Korea 李氏朝鮮 44
Wakayama 和歌山 46 Yingkou 營口 44
Wanbaoshan (Manpōzan) Incident 萬寶山 yishi zu er zhi rongru 衣食足而知榮辱 147
事件/万宝山事件 113, 135n18 Yokota Hideo 横田秀雄 171, 174
Wan Fulin 萬福麟 121, 153 Yomiuri shinbun 読売新聞 158, 171
Wang Biyan 王碧琰 170 Yoshida Shōin 吉田松陰 5
wangdao/ōdō 王道 Yoshioka Yasunao 吉岡安直 46
Wang Jiazhen 王家楨 174, 197n41 Yoyogi 代々木 51
250 Index
Yuan Chonggu 苑崇谷 125, 128 Zhang Xueliang 張學良: cooperating with
Yuan Jinkai 袁金鎧 146, 154, 174, 223 Chiang Kai-shek 222; hiring Zang
Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 6, 19n20, 28, Shiyi 153; inheriting Zhang Zuolin’s
221–222 position 9, 222; Komai Tokuzō’s
Yu Chonghan 于冲漢: birth of 143, 220; observation of 27; non-resistant policy
death and commemoration of 150, 224; of 113–114, 154; plight of 11, 140;
early life of 8–9, 143–144; Puyi’s observation of 48; Yu Chonghan’s
historiography of 18, 140, 206; ideal of observation of 146; Zhao Xinbo’s
17, 140–143, 160; plight of 160; observation of 174–175, 178, 197n43
position in Manchukuo 149–150; Zhang Xun 張勛 222
position in the book 13–14; significance Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 77, 94, 100–101
of 141–142, 144 Zhang Zuolin 張作霖: career of 8, 112,
Yu Jingtao 于鏡濤 114, 117–119, 136n27 222; death of 9, 153; Komai Tokuzō’s
Yu Jingyuan 于靜遠 150 observation of 27; Zhao Xinbo’s
Yun qiwei 雲騎尉 143 observation of 174, 178
Zhang Zuoxiang 張作相 8, 58, 60, 112,
Zang Shiyi 臧式毅: birth and early life of 153, 204
153, 220; Furumi Tadayuki’s Zhao Biyan 趙碧琰 182–184
observation of 116–117; historiography Zhao Erxun 趙爾巽 112
of 18, 140–141, 206; ideal of 17, Zhao Xinbo 趙欣伯: assets of 168,
140–141, 151–152, 156, 160; 182–184, 228; birth of 170, 220; death
imprisonment and death of 158–159, of 182, 227; dismissal of 63, 180–182,
228; Itagaki Seishirō’s observation of 225; historiography of 18, 168, 206;
155; Komai Tokuzō’s observation of ideal of 17–18, 168–169, 194–195;
155; Minami Jirō’s observation of 115, investigation of Japanese constitution
156; plight of 153–155, 160; position in 63–64; Luo Zhenyu’s observation of
the book 13–14; Puyi’s observation of 180–181; observation of Japan
115, 156; Takebe Rokuzō’s observation 172–173; plight of 173–176, 186;
of 152 position in the book 13–14
Zhang Fuchen 張輔忱 see Zhang Zhao Zongyang 趙宗陽/趙重光 183, 228
Zuoxiang Zheng Chui 鄭垂 82, 99, 114
Zhang Haipeng 張海鵬 98, 122, 127, 223 Zheng Xiaoxu 鄭孝胥: birth of 76, 220;
Zhang Hanqing 張漢卿 see Zhang conflict with Komai Tokuzō 26, 88–89;
Xueliang conflict with Luo Zhenyu 98–99;
Zhang Huanxiang 張煥相 186, 191 conflict with Xixia 62; death, funeral,
Zhang Jinghui 張景惠: birth of 112, 220; and commemoration of 89–90, 225;
early life of 8, 112–113; death of 111, Doihara Kenji’s meeting of 44; early life
119, 228; Furumi Tadayuki’s of 76–77; historiography of 12, 18,
observation of 116–117; historiography 74–75, 204–205; ideal of 16, 75–76,
of 18, 109, 111, 205; Hoshino Naoki’s 102, 212; Komai Tokuzō’s meeting of
observation 115–116; ideal of 16–17, 25; plight of 46, 86, 88–91; position in
112–113, 133; Japanese exploitation of the book 16; Puyi’s observation of 87;
17, 112, 116, 122, 133–134; Komai Qing loyalists’ observation of 87; serving
Tokuzō’s observation of 113, 115; Luo Puyi 43–44, 77; resignation of 86, 225;
Zhenyu’s observation of 98; Minami Takebe Rokuzō’s observation of 86–87
Jirō’s observation of 115; plight of Zheng Yu 鄭禹 44, 82
113–115, 117; position in the book Zhensong laoren 貞松老人 91
13–14; postwar experience and Zhian bu/Chian bu 治安部 see Department
imprisonment of 110, 117–119; prime of Domestic Security
ministership of 86, 110, 115–117, 225; Zhi’na/Shi’na 支那 5
significance of 134; Xixia’s observation Zhili 直隸 7, 43, 143, 170
of 65 Zhi Shen ji 治瀋記 176
Zhang Mengshi 張夢實/張紹紀 110, 118 zhizheng/shissei 執政 44
Zhang Taiyan 章太炎/章炳麟 39, 145 zhizheng fu 執政府 216
 Index 251
zhizheng fu xingzou 執政府行走 46 Zizhi zhidaobu 自治指導部 147
Zhong Dong tielu duban 中東鐵路督辦 144 zizhi zhidaoyuan/jichi shidōin 自治指導員
Zhongguo 中國 58, 75–76, 78–79, 82, 32
84–85, 102 zongguan Neiwu fu dachen 總管内務府大臣
Zhongguo waijiao bu dang’an 中國外交部檔 77
案 215n49 Zongshe dang 宗社黨 see National Party
Zhonghua minguo linshi zhengfu 中華民國 Zongwu ting/Sōmu chō 總務廳/総務;庁 see
臨時政府 182 General Affairs Board
Zhong Ri youhao yiyuan 中日友好醫院 184 Zongwu zhangguan/Sōmu chōkan 總務長官/
Zhongyang zhengzhi huiyi 中央政治會議 110 総務長官 26
Zhou Enlai 周恩來 227 Zuigao renmin fayuan tebie junshi fating 最高
Zhu Guangmu 朱光沐 174, 197n41 人民法院特別軍事法庭 228
Zizheng ju/Shisei kyoku 資政局 see Zuihōshō 瑞宝章 143–144
Governance Support Bureau Zuo zhuan 左傳 107n139