43 Facts About Manchukuo

Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Manchuria from 1932 until 1945.

Manchukuo's government was dissolved in 1945 after the surrender of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II.

The territories claimed by Manchukuo were first seized in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, and then formally transferred to Chinese administration in the following year.

The Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgment of the Mongolian traditions there.

Indeed, Manchukuo was often referred to in English as simply "Manchuria", a name for Northeast China which had been particularly employed by the Imperial Japanese to promote its separation from the rest of the country.

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On 18 February 1932 Manchukuo was proclaimed by the Northeast Supreme Administrative Council, nominally in control of Manchuria, and was officially founded on 1 March.

In 1935, Manchukuo bought the Chinese Eastern Railway from the Soviet Union.

The Manchukuo case persuaded the United States to articulate the so-called Stimson Doctrine, under which international recognition was withheld from changes in the international system created by the force of arms.

Manchukuo was proclaimed a monarchy on 1 March 1934, with Puyi assuming the throne under the reign name of Emperor Kang-de.

Manchukuo functioned in a manner similar to resident officers in European colonial empires, with the added ability to veto decisions by the emperor.

American historian Louise Young noted that one of the most striking aspects of Manchukuo was that many of the young Japanese civil servants who went to work in Manchukuo were on the left, or at least had once been.

Tachibana went to Manchukuo in 1932, proclaiming that the theory of the "five races" working together was the best solution to Asia's problems and argued in his writings that only Japan could save China from itself, which was a complete change from his previous policies, where he criticized Japan for exploiting China.

Ogami went to work in the "agricultural economy" desk of the Social Research Unit of the South Manchurian Railroad company, writing up reports about the rural economy of Manchukuo that were used by the Kwantung Army and the Manchukuo state.

The outbreak of the war with China in 1937 caused the state in Manchukuo to grow even bigger as a policy of "total war" came in, which meant there was a pressing demand for people with university degrees trained to think "scientifically".

The ambitious plans for land reform in Manchukuo were vetoed by the Kwantung Army for precisely the reason that it might inspire similar reforms in Japan.

The majority of Han Chinese in Manchukuo believed that Manchuria was rightfully part of China, who both passively and violently resisted Japan's propaganda that Manchukuo was a "multinational state".

The Russians living in Manchuria were stateless and as whites had an ambiguous status in Manchukuo, which was meant to be a Pan-Asian state, whose official "five races" were the Chinese, Mongols, Manchus, Koreans, and Japanese.

The Jewish community in Manchukuo was not subjected to the official persecution that Jews experienced under Japan's ally Nazi Germany, and Japanese authorities were involved in closing down local anti-Semitic publications such as the Russian periodical Nashput.

However, Jews in Manchukuo were victims of harassment by antisemitic elements among the White Russian population, one notable incident being the murder of Simon Kaspe.

Between 1937 and 1939 the city of Harbin in Manchukuo was the location of the Conference of Jewish Communities in the Far East.

The Manchukuo government had seized great portions of these land through "price manipulation, coerced sales and forced evictions".

Japanese went out of their way to try to ensure that Manchukuo was the embodiment of modernity in all of its aspects, as it was intended to prove to the world what the Asian peoples could accomplish if they worked together.

The official ideology of Manchukuo was the wangdao devised by a former mandarin under the Qing turned Prime Minister of Manchukuo Zheng Xiaoxu calling for an ordered Confucian society that would promote justice and harmony that was billed at the time as the beginning of a new era in world history.

The purpose of the law in Manchukuo was not the protection of the rights of the individual, as the wangdao ideology was expressly hostile towards individualism, which was seen as a decadent Western concept inimical to Asia, but rather the interests of the state by ensuring that subjects fulfilled their duties to the emperor.

The Japanese professors were "astonished" by the "enthusiasm" which the students wrote their essays on these subjects as the students expressed the hope that the wangdao was a uniquely Asian solution to the problems of the modern world, and that Manchukuo represented nothing less than the beginning of a new civilization that would lead to a utopian society in the near future.

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An example of the extent of Japanese influence on the legal system of Manchukuo was that every issue of the Manchukuo Legal Advisory Journal always contained a summary of the most recent rulings by the Supreme Court of Japan, and the reasons why the Japanese Supreme Court had ruled in these cases.

Manchukuo police had the power to arrest without charge anyone who was engaged in the vaguely defined crime of "undermining the state".

Manchukuo had an extensive system of courts at four levels staffed by a mixture of Chinese and Japanese judges.

The American historian Thomas David Dubois wrote the legal system of Manchukuo went through two phases: the first lasting from 1931 to 1937, when the Japanese wanted to show the world a state with an ultra-modern legal system that was meant to be a shining tribute to Asians working together in brotherhood; and the second from 1937 to 1945 when the legal system becomes more of a tool for the totalitarian mobilization of society for total war.

Manchukuo experienced rapid economic growth and progress in its social systems.

Kishi persuaded the Army to allow the zaibatsu to invest in Manchukuo, arguing that having the state carry out the entire industrialization of Manchukuo was costing too much money.

However, most railway lines in Manchukuo were owned by the Manchukuo National Railway, which, though theoretically independent, was managed and operated entirely by Mantetsu.

The force included members of all the major ethnic groups of Manchukuo, which were trained and led by Japanese instructors and advisors.

The Imperial Navy of Manchukuo existed mainly as a small river flotilla and consisted mainly of small gunboats and patrol boats, both captured Chinese ships and some Japanese additions.

Manchukuo government established a police force for general law-enforcement activities.

Manchukuo tried to ensure that Manchukuo would have its own industry and would be catering mainly to Manchurian audiences.

Manchukuo had a national football team, and football was considered the country's de facto national sport; the Football Association of Manchukuo was formed around it.

Manchukuo hosted and participated in baseball matches with Japanese teams.

Manchukuo was to compete in the 1932 Summer Olympic Games, but one of the athletes who intended to represent Manchukuo, Liu Changchun, refused to join the team and instead joined as the first Chinese representative in the Olympics.

Manchukuo had a chance to participate in the planned 1940 Helsinki Olympics, but the onset of World War II prevented the games from taking place.

Manchukuo instead sent athletes to compete at the 1940 East Asian Games in Tokyo organised by the Japanese Empire, as a replacement for the cancelled 1940 Summer Olympics.

Manchukuo issued postage stamps from 28 July 1932 until its dissolution following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in August 1945.

Michael Chabon's 2007 novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union; in this alternative 2007 Manchukuo has broken off from the rest of China and is an independent nation in its own right, and has its own Space Programme.