The Japanese rightist

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Communists got Manchukuo (1)

Study of Manchukuo implies a lot of resources to us even now. Historically and geopolitically Japan and US are to cooperate for covering up continental superpowers but conflict for each profit in the continent. The two countries opened fire for the dream land, Manchukuo. Who won that area after all? Japan lost all, the US didn't won, and the continental super powers took all.

My claim throughout this article series is that the WWII between Japan and the US was determined already in 1931 when Japan seized Manchukuo. With a number of resemblances of situations, Japan nowadays have been seeing the future of Iraq or Iran superimposing on the aftermath of Manchukuo. The heartland country Manchukuo failed. So will the plan of Iraq and Iran fail. It's going to take a few articles to reach this conclusion. First of all, let us take an overview of the history and background of the Manchukuo.



The flag of Manchukuo consists of five colors. The base, yellow implies the color of Manchu. Red is assigned for Japan, blue for Hun(China), white for Mongol, and black for Korea. The concept with the five colors was called "五族協和"(five ethnics in coordination), a dreamy slogan.

You might say it's a propaganda. Of course the Japanese military neglected the coordinative cabinet's order. The military conducted assasination of the leader and allegedly obtained Manchuria. The Japanese people and media supported the military's runaway. Since the people permitted the military's dogma, the system of civilian control began to be out of control. There were many other greedy aspects Japan was showing at that time. However, there must be something more than those "evil Japanese" that I have been taught in school.

In order to reveal the circumstances of the period and the puppet country, I went to a nearby library where I found several books focusing on Manchuria. I found a book interesting because it was written by an American but published in Japan. Which country did he write this book in favor of?


"Manchukuo a bird's-eye view", James A. B. Scherer, Hokuseido Press(1933).


I opened the last page and found an intriguing phrase in the end.
She(Japan) made mistakes - what country hasn't? - but she is building a model State as a bulwark between Chinese anarchy and Russian communism, and as an object-lesson to China. She(Japan) is the spear-head of the West thrust between China and Russia, fighting a lone hand. If Theodore Roosevelt's Asiatic policy had been followed, perhaps she could have been spared some of the mistakes she has made during the last quarte-century. She might today be America's best friend in Asia. It is not yet too late to win her back.


What do you think about this? This book must indeed be written for Japan's profit probably with support of a Japanese publisher or supposedly government. The "mistake" he refers to as would be Japanese invasion into Manchuria with all the explosion and assassination of the local leader. And he concludes that America shouldn't become hostile on Japan's policy, and he suggests a satisfactory solution, "international cooperation in the internal reconstruction in China." Obviously his and Japan's plead didn't reach Washington.

When he wrote this book in 1933, he already foresaw occurence of the future war between Japan and the US. Hmm, Interesting. Although the world may look the runaway of Japanese military as dangerous enemy, the author didn't seem to share the same perspective. So what was he claiming as the threat? Firstly he points out China's anarchy.
A report in May, 1931, by General Ho Ying-chin, then leading his fourth campaign against Chinese Reds, estimated that since the middle of 1928 the communists had massacred over 260,000 people, burned 220,000 houses and destroyed about $200,000,000 worth of property, American money. In addition, 1,500,000 people had fled from their homes.

We hardly know that China was in anarchy at that time, and Chinese militaries invaded castles and massacre people inside. In China, massacring civilains inside castles has been historically and widely taking place. There's even a term, "屠城(slaughter castle)". In such situations, it was not desirable to continue or expand economical activities from European and American point of view.

Secondly, he notices the threat of Sovietism, prevailing into a south province of China and northern states, Manchuria, as shown in the map below. The shaded areas denote the places where Sovietism was influential. It is interesting that Sovietism or communism grew their strong influence along the railroads in Manchukuo (see the map). As written above, 260,000 people were already massacred by communists. Therefore, the author regards the invasion of communists as "nightmare of Japan".



Espionage, terrorism or propaganda by Soviet communists must have been a piece of cake in Manchukuo, for there's already 70,000 Russians living in Harbin. Manchuria was slowly leaving from Japan's hand.


6 Comments:

At 4/17/2007 03:03:00 AM , Blogger TheNipponese said...

Can you talk about a more basic topic for a minute? Today I asked myself why Japan and the US fought each other in WWII and I didn't have an answer. To be honest, I don't think I ever thought about it once. What is your opinion?

 
At 4/18/2007 08:26:00 PM , Blogger yellowpeep said...

Hey, noah.

The history around that time was very complicated as you say, so it would be desirable to have a summary of these days first.

The history leading up to fighting between Japan and the US is worth very much of noting even now. I agree.

 
At 8/27/2011 08:33:00 PM , Anonymous Chao said...

@Yellowpeep

Very interesting article with some good views but I just want to point out a few corrections.

#1 "屠城"(slaughter castle)is not unique in Chinese culture. Had you heard of Oda Nobunaga's Campaign in Sengoku era or Hideyoshi's Campaign of Korea? Quite alot of incidents of "屠城".

While "屠城" occurred frequently in Chinese history, it like many other cultures is much or less always always frowned upon on. In fact, the Chinese also had a term in regards to war, "善戰者,不戰而屈人之兵" which means "one who know war, would not fight to convince others' their prowess". Having a term to define "massacre" does not mean one nation's love of massacre.

2. During the 1930s, Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang had very much stabilize the south and foreign investments-especially
German and American are booming (There was a Sino-German Pact which only terminated because Japan forced Germany to do so diplomatically and the American investment in China being threatened is in fact one of the main reason in US's intervention in China).

In fact, one of the biggest obstacle for Chiang and the Kuomintang to pacify the North is the Japanese who is funding local warlords (especially the Fengtian clique) in an attempt to protect their investments. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria hence is clearly more for their own selfish investment than an attempt to create a model state for international investment. And the Japan did not do a very good job in promoting Manchukuo's economy. One of the main stable corp in Manchuria is Opium,good business for the investors but very detrimental to the local population. It got so bad that the Manchukuo army never rid themselves off Opium addicts (Opium addicts occurred throughout China at this time, but in Manchukuo the worst, even worser than local warlords).

3. According to Soviet experts, while Japan is fearful of USSR, the USSR too was also fearful of Japan (Hence the mass deportation of ethnic Koreans from Siberia to Eastern Europe). This is why Stalin decided to funded Chiang Kai-Shek (noted not Mao). Stalin never thought Mao would win the war, in fact, the Chinese during the Chinese Civil War was many times using the Arikasa Rifle (The Japanese standard Rifle), hence, I would not blame entirely on the Soviets for giving Manchuria to the Reds. As for the 70,000 Russians, many of them were mainly "White Russians", anti-communist Czarist forces that the Japanese themselves wanted in Manchuria to fight communists as officers or other experts for the Manchukuo army.


Personally, i believed China is slowly turning itself to a democratic republic in the 1930s and would have succeed if Japan not invaded. What killed the Republic of China in the mainland is not simply corruption but also inflation after the war. Much like Greece today, Chiang is not able to pay back mass foreign debts and with mass corruption of his underlings is certainly not helping. This in turn lead to mass selling of national properties and many armies became unpaid.This lead to large mutiny in the army to the Communist sides and civilian opinion slowly in favor of the Radical Reds. In fact, the only way Mao can fixed the economic situation in China is by expelling all foreign investors through brute force when he won, so that they never had to pay back any debts.

This would never had happened if Japan did not invaded but again, everyone had their opinion and I do not wish to make you think I am forcing you to think the same.


And please forgive the racist bullcrap by some anonymous posters.

 
At 10/29/2011 03:45:00 AM , Anonymous www.santa-cruz-3d.com said...

To my mind one and all ought to look at this.

 
At 10/26/2013 06:53:00 PM , Anonymous G. Decrell de la Fontaine said...

I'd like to puke in the mouth of every undividual's mother who has posted tominsult Japan. Cheers!

 
At 7/02/2019 05:32:00 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Imperial Japan was in competition with the American Empire. Don't be an empire- the American Empire hates competition.

 

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