The Qing Dynasty originated from Manchuria. Before and during WW2, Japan put Puyi in power over a puppet state in the Manchuria region. Was this pure coincidence or did the Japanese do this as some form of symbolism?

by Kaiserpenguin23

To the best of my knowledge, Puyi was promised a restoration of his Chinese empire by the Japanese. When they put him in power as a puppet it happened to be in Manchuria. Seeing as the Japanese had this land because of previous conflicts, I can see how this would just be a coincidence. Even if it is, did the Japanese government have any symbolic purpose behind this decision?

hellcatfighter

In 1931, Guomindang (GMD) representatives met with Puyi in the Japanese concession in Tianjin. The GMD offered Puyi various housing and living benefits, as well as promising greater Manchu representation in the Republican government, as long as he did not return to Manchuria. Why was the GMD so concerned with an emperor who had lost his throne twenty years earlier and played no active part in Chinese politics since then (aside from a quixotic royalist attempt to restore dynastic rule in 1917)? Gao You-tang, the chief GMD negotiator, explained:

The League of Nations is not happy with the Japanese. The Japanese have no way out. If the Japanese establish an independent nation under the name of Manchu autonomy in the Northeast, which is the home-land of the Manchus, the Japanese can manipulate [the state] behind the scenes. Furthermore, after WWI, in Europe many new states were established under the name of restoration of a nation. World powers could not stop them from doing so.

Following the Manchurian Incident in 1931, the Japanese Kwantung Army had driven out the Fengtian warlord Zhang Xue-liang from Manchuria and established the state of Manchukuo. To Chinese and western observers, Manchukuo was merely a Japanese colony masquerading as a nation-state. Japan was therefore eager to bring Puyi into the fold, for despite his fall from power, his identity as the last Manchu emperor continued to hold prestige among ethnic Manchus and in the Manchu homeland of Manchuria. By returning Puyi to the throne, some much needed legitimacy could be given to the state of Manchukuo. Unsurprisingly, Puyi rejected the offers from the very party that had thrown him out from the Forbidden Palace in 1911, and was once again crowned emperor in the Manchukuo capital of Changchun on 9 March 1932.

However, Puyi’s status as the ruler of the Manchus posed an equally big danger to Japanese hopes of exploiting the natural resources of Manchuria. To use Puyi in the early days of Manchukuo to stress its legitimacy on the basis of ethnic self-determination was one thing; to actually give Puyi practical power and declare a “Manchuria for the Manchus” was a different thing entirely. After all, any emphasis on the right of Manchus for an independent nation-state would inevitably raise questions on the Japanese presence on Manchurian soil. In light of this contradiction, rhetoric on Manchurian identity began to change by 1933. With the withdrawal of Japan from the League of Nations, international opinion could be largely ignored, and the emphasis on ethnic self-determination could be set aside. A new slogan was brought forth: “Harmony of the Five Ethnic Groups (wuzu xiehe)”.

The new Manchukuo national principle of ethnic harmony was much better suited to justify Japanese involvement in Manchuria. Conceiving Manchuria as a melting pot of different ethnic groups, Japanese theorists hoped that a new national identity could be formed. No longer were Han Chinese, Manchus, Koreans, Japanese and Mongols separated by ethnic differences: they were now all Manchurians. While some Japanese thinkers did indeed idealise Manchukuo as a nation of ethnic harmony, it is clear that most Japanese politicians saw this as merely a facade. A confidential report of the Japanese Diet in 1933 highlighted the continued prominence of Japan:

Imperial Japan should guide Manchoukuo in accordance with its social characteristics and with respect to its façade of independence and historical customs in order to realise ethnic harmony and peaceful contentment...However, Imperial Japan must continually act as the guiding power behind the scenes.

This, of course, grated heavily against the sentiments of Puyi and his supporters. Xiqia, the Secretary of Finance and a firm Manchu royalist, questioned Japanese prominence in the Manchukuo government:

Because we are in a multi-ethnic state where all ethnic groups are equal, why should the Japanese get special privileges?

This was dismissed by Japanese officials (and soon after, Xiqia was dismissed as well) as mere bellyaching. Clearly, the higher salaries of Japanese officials and military personnel was justified by the Japanese blood spilled in defence of Manchukuo. In the Outline of the Directive Principles for Personnel Administration in Manchukuo, issued by the Staff Office of the Kwantung Army in 1935, Japanese superiority was defended:

It is not a policy of ethnic prejudice, but a just policy that helps Japanese officials who work in Manchukuo at high risk to their safety and lives, and who spend more on daily expenditures.

Such attitudes did not improve the bad mood of Puyi’s supporters. They became even more furious when Japanese advisors told Puyi not to visit the mausoleum of his imperial ancestors, as he was now the emperor of the five ethnic groups and not only of the Manchus. Many were aghast when Puyi declared that Amaterasu, the divine ancestress of the Japanese imperial line, was also his ancestor and volunteered to worship her. Without armed support, Manchu anger could amount to nothing more than petty grumblings. The diary of Pujia, Puyi’s cousin and an officer of the imperial guardsmen, had an entry on 16 July 1940 that intentionally misspelled the Chinese terms of the Japanese ambassador. Instead of the term of ambassador, dashi (大使), Pujia wrote dashi (大屎) - literally “big shit”. Petty insubordination did little to change the fact that the "Manchu" nature of Manchukuo had long been discarded by the Japanese.

From 1933 onward, the Manchu elite were powerless to stop the erosion of their status as banner people in face of “ethnic harmony”, or the transformation of their emperor as a symbol for Manchukuo instead of the Manchus. The Japanese did indeed need Puyi and the symbolism of ethnic self-determination during the establishment of Manchukuo, but once the state was in place, this symbolism was no longer needed. Instead of “Manchuria for the Manchus,” the Northeast Provinces had become “Manchukuo for the Manchurians.”

Sources:

Shao, Dan. Remote Homeland, Recovered Borderland : Manchus, Manchoukuo, and Manchuria, 1907-1985. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2011.

Yamamuro, Shin'ichi. Manchuria under Japanese dominion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Young, Louise. Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism. University of California Press, 1998.

Duara, Prasenjit. Sovereignty and authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian modern. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004.