Showing posts tagged as: Qing Dynasty
The 1895 Republic of Formosa: Defying a Japanese Fait Accompli for 151 Days
Since 1949, for the small island-state of Taiwan (ROC), the question of its security and independence has been dominated by its hostile and fractious relationship with its large mainland neighbour, communist China (PRC). But 130 years ago the people of Taiwan were preoccupied less with the threat of Chinese subjugation than with that of another emerging Asian giant, Japan. In 1894-95 the Empire of Japan and Qing Dynasty China fought a one-sided, eight-month war, resulting in a humiliating Chinese capitulation and the loss of a number of Chinese-controlled territories to Japan (Korea, Taiwan and the Pescadores (now Penghu Islands)){𝓪}.
Japanese spoils of war: Under the Treaty of Shimonoseki which ended the war, the Qing government ceded Taiwan (a province of China since 1887) to the victorious Japanese…the Japanese military has already captured the strategic Pescadores in the Taiwan Strait while peace negotiations were still taking place, thus blocking the possibility of Chinese reinforcements being despatched for the mainland to help the Taiwanese. This prompted a defiant reaction from within Taiwan…a group of Taiwanese notables led by politician Qiu Fengjia viewed the outcome as a betrayal and determined that they would resist the Japanese takeover. The group declared independence and proclaimed a free and democratic “Republic of Formosa”. The former Chinese governor of Taiwan Tang Jingsong was persuaded to take the office of president of the Republic of Formosa. As the Sino-Japanese treaty had already given legal status to the annexation, no international recognition was afforded the new republic. As for China itself, the Qing government kept strict adherence to the terms of Shimonoseki—compliantly cooperating with Japanese objectives—although there was considerable unofficial support, especially in Beijing, for the Taiwanese insurrectionists.
Baguashan and beyond: On 29 May 1895 the Japanese under General Kageaki invaded northeastern Taiwan and commenced their campaign to pacify the rebellious locals. They met little resistance in capturing Taipei, the Taiwanese capital, and the army pushed south. “Black flag” general Liu Yang-fu was now the effective leader of the republic’s resistance (the unnerved Tang having fled back to the mainland). Under Liu, the Taiwanese fighters comprising militia and volunteers were no match for the Japanese soldiers’ superior manpower and training, forcing them to resort mainly to guerrilla warfare. In central Taiwan the resistance was stiffer, with the Taiwanese militia almost halting the Japanese at the Battle of Baguashan (late August), ultimately though the numerically stronger and better armed Japanese attained their objective of taking the town of Changhua, opening up the south to its advance. The push rolled on, eventually reaching the remaining southern Republican stronghold Tainan. By this time Liu had fled the country and the disillusioned Qing troops defending Tainan were persuaded to surrender the city, bringing the short war to its long expected conclusion, with it the irrevocable collapse of the Republic of Formosa [‘The rise and fall of the Republic of Formosa’, Gerrit van der Wees, Taipei Times, 04-June-2018, www.taipeitimes.com]. The Japanese victory was comprehensive but it took five months to subdue the island, much longer than it had anticipated at the outset. After the war Japan declared Taiwan pacified, however scattered resistance to its rule continued in the form of uprisings by Chinese nationalists and Hokkien villagers engaging and harassing the occupying Japanese force for years after.
The casualties of the Yiwei War (as it is known in Chinese) on the Taiwanese side amounted to around 14,000 deaths including civilians. The Japanese lost over 1,000 killed or wounded in action, a moderate toll compared to the Taiwanese losses, however disease, especially dysentery and malaria, exacted a much higher death toll on the Japanese troops (officially 6,903 dead) than the Chinese had inflicted on them in combat [Jonathan Clements, Rebel Island: The Incredible History of Taiwan (2024)].
A desire for progressive change?: Critics tend to dismiss the ephemeral Taiwanese ‘Republic’ as inconsequential, its material and military strength dooming it to failure from the get-go in the face of imperial Japan’s colonisation mission. Nonetheless the brief Formosa republican experiment did pave the ground for some lasting positive effects…helping to shape the island’s individuality and distinctive history, it demonstrated a genuine taste on the part of educated and literate Taiwanese for representative government based on democratic principles, and in the long term it signified to the Taiwanese people that their fate was ultimately in their own hands [Jonathan Manthorpe, Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan (2002)]. Its advocates and defenders in 1895 created the trappings and symbols of a modern sovereign state – its own distinctive (yellow tiger) flag. The Formosa government issued its own paper money and its own postage stamps. The experience was also valuable in playing a part in shaping a Taiwanese national identity, helping to unify disparate groups within the island society, Hoklo speakers, Hakka and the aboriginal population (Wees).
{𝓪} the Liaodong Peninsula (Dalian, parts of Anshan, Dandong and Yingkou in China’s northeast) had also been given to Japan but under pressure from the Triple Intervention (Russia, France and Germany acting purely in their own self-interests), the Japanese accepted a deal to retrocede it back to the Qing Chinese
{𝓫} Formosa (Ilha Formosa = “beautiful island”) was the name Portuguese sailors gave to Taiwan, also used by Dutch colonists
Manchuria 1910-1911: North-East China’s End of Empire Frontier Plague
In 1910 the 265 year-old Qing Dynasty in China was fasting approaching its denouement. The following year it would be deposed and replaced with a republic. Over the years leading up to this point, Imperial China had been in long drawn-out decline, suffering a series of reversals – a disastrous defeat in the (1st) Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) and ensuing loss of territorial sovereignty in Manchuria; the crushing of the Peking Boxer Rebellion in 1900. In 1907 China had been beset by the latest (and one of the worst) of a series of famines (“Third Plague Pandemic”), losing an estimated 25 million of it’s population. And in late 1910, Manchuria in the midst of a tense political situation—China having to share the region with competing Russian and Japanese aspirations—a plague broke out.
The plague was first noticed in the Inner Mongolian town of Manzhouli on the Chinese-Russian border, where Russian doctors began treating patients with fever and haemoptysis symptoms. Thus began the Great Manchurian Plague which eventually took up to 60,000 lives in less than six months – with a mortality rate very close to 100 per cent [William C Summers, The Great Manchurian Plague: The Geopolitics of an Epidemic Disease, (2012)].
Vector from the rodent family Because of a past pattern of bubonic plague in China, rats and fleas were initially suspected to be the source of human infection. 50,000 rats were examined but the results proved negative [CHERNIN, ELI. “Richard Pearson Strong and the Manchurian Epidemic of Pneumonic Plague, 1910–1911.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, vol. 44, no. 3, 1989, pp. 296–319. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24633015. Accessed 5 May 2020]. The disease was eventually traced to the Siberian marmot (Marmota sibirica) or tarbagan, found in Inner Mongolia, eastern Siberia and Heilongjiang. Later research by Dr Wu (see below) and others established that the plague, like the present coronavirus, was pneumonic, transmitted animal to human by respiratory droplets, and not bubonic.
A roaring trade in fake mink The European fashion for mink and ermine furs can be ‘fingered’ for being at the bottom of the preconditions leading to the 1910 plague. Mink’s popularity as one of the most prized materials for clothing accessories made it’s cost prohibitive to all but the richest Europeans. Things changed when it was discovered that the fur of the marmot when dyed passed very convincingly for mink fur. After the pelt price for marmot fur soared from 12 cents to 72 cents a hide, hordes of Chinese hunters from the central provinces swarmed into the region to join the lucrative hunt for the now in-demand creature. Mongol and Buryat hunters, long experienced in marmot-hunting knew how to select only tarbagan marmots which were not diseased for culling. The inexperienced Chinese trappers however didn’t practice safe hunting methods, failing to discern the difference, they hunted marmots indiscriminately. Thus, the infection was passed on to humans from the pelts of the disease-ridden rodents (Chernin; ‘Manchurian Plague 1910-11’, (Summers; Iain Meiklejohn), Disasterhistory.org, (April 2020), www.disasterhistory.org].
Spreading the plague by rail
Manchuria at the time was equipped with an extensive network of railroads, thanks to the vested interests of the Russians and the Japanese which the Qing Dynasty had, reluctantly, conceded. Russia controlled the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) and the China Eastern Railway (CER), Japan controlled the Southern Manchurian Railway (SMR)⌖. The time of the year was an important factor. From November/December, as the weather turned arctic-like, the Chinese hunters and agricultural migrant workers started to return to their home regions. The foremost consideration was to get back before the Chinese New Year. The hunters and the labourers, huddled together infecting each other in the bitter cold of the train carriages, carried the plague along the railway lines. In a short time the plague travelled from its origin point to large cities on the Dongbei line, Harbin, including the central district of Fuchiatien (Fujiandian), Changchun and Mukden (today Shenyang). Compare this to what happened with the coronavirus outbreak which spread from Wuhan to other Chinese cities by airplane.
In the disease’s wake mortality proceeded at an alarming rate, Harbin in the far north was the initial epicentre. In November 5,272 died in the city. It then spread along the tracks to cities further south, Mukden recorded a death toll of 2,571 by January 1911, and Changchun was losing over 200 a day to the plague (Meiklejohn). The plague was sustained and promoted by the prevailing conditions it encountered – dense population, high human mobility and poor hygiene environments (Cornelia Knab, cited in Meiklejohn). Eventually the plague reached Peking and as far as central China〲.
Enter Dr Wu The authorities, in desperation, turned to a migrant, Penang-born doctor working at the time in Tianjin, Wu Lien-Teh. Cambridge-educated Wu took immediate charge of the medical emergency in Harbin. Enforcing a strict quarantine in the city, Wu put in place a series of comprehensive measures to contain the disease, including:
● converting railway freight cars to makeshift quarantine centres and turning a bathing establishment into a plague hospital
● establishing “sanitary zones” in the city
● closing down the railways in Manchuria, impose blockades, border controls and so stop infected people from travelling (Wu needed to secure the co-operation of the Russian and Japanese rail companies to achieve this)
● burning the lodgings of those infected
● monitoring the population by checking households for new cases
● advocating the wearing of face masks (Wu had more effective masks with extra gauze padding made)
● carrying out mass cremations of the infected dead (considered a sacrilege in Chinese society, Wu had to petition the emperor for permission)✪
● undertaking post-mortem examinations of the victims (again, a Chinese taboo that Wu had to overcome objections to)✲
Temperature check, Fuchiatien ⟱ (www.Flickr.com)
With no vaccine for pneumatic plague available, Wu’s quarantine measures involved isolating people for a five to ten day period, if no symptoms present, they are released with a wire band attached to their wrist signifying they have been cleared of the disease [‘In 1911, another epidemic swept through China. That time, the world came together’, (Paul French), CNN, 19-Apr-2020, www.cnn.com; ‘The Chinese Doctor Who Beat the Plague’, (Jeremiah Jenne), China Channel, 20-Dec-2018, www.chinachannel.org].
⟱ Old plague hospital, Harbin. When the epidemic was suppressed, the hospital was burnt down to eliminate any residual risk of contamination
(Photo: www.avezink.livejournal.com)
Keeping the ports plague-free The concerted efforts of Japanese, Russian and Chinese managed to prevent the epidemic from reaching the eastern seaboard. Several towns close to the major port city Dalian reported cases, but Dalian itself (by this time under Japanese control, known as Dairen), initially undertook mass inspections of train and ship passengers, before closing the South Manchurian line altogether. With such strictures in place Dalian was wholly spared from the plague (French). The Russians were able to similarly stem the outbreak’s movement along the CER rail line and stop it from reaching Russia’s vital Pacific port, Vladivostok.
Racing against catastrophe What added even more pressure to Wu’s task in trying to control the plague was that he was working against a tight deadline. The plague needed to be contained before 30th January which was Chinese New Year’s Eve. Thousands of migrant workers would be returning home to their families for this most important annual celebrations in China via the Manchurian railway network, which Wu knew would make it almost impossible to rein in the outbreak. The conscientious and thorough measures implemented in northern China made it possible for Wu to be able to declare the epidemic virtually suppressed by the end of January. Decisive action in N.E. China also prevented the plague from spreading to near-by (Outer) Mongolia and Russian Siberia. By March all the region’s shops, factories and schools were reopened and the only lingering infection was confined within the specially established plague hospitals (Meiklejohn).
Endnote: Dr Wu Many Chinese medical personnel including epidemiologists and other physicians contributed to preventing the plague spreading throughout China, and to suppressing it all together within a short period. But if anyone should be called a hero of the Great Manchurian Plague of 1910-11, certainly that mantle should land on Dr Wu Lien-Teh, whose decisive leadership, organisation and enterprise saved China’s North-East provinces from a much higher casualty toll and from the regional plague developing into a nationwide epidemic.
꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙꧙
⌖ China for it’s part controlled the Imperial Railways of North China, which linked Peking with Mukden
〲 one case was recorded in Shanghai, 2,000 miles away
✪ thousands of bodies were still above ground in coffins because the relatives were waiting for the spring thaw to bury the dead…ideal incubators for the plague bacillus to magnify the contamination [‘Dr Wu Lien-Teh, plague fighter and father of the Chinese public health system’, (Zhongliang Ma & Yanli Li), www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov; Jenne)
✲ Wu performed the first autopsy in Harbin, identifying the disease as the bacterium Yersinia pestis of the pneumonic variant [‘Wu Lieh-Teh: Malaysia’s little-known plague virus fighter’, Star Online, 11-Feb-2020, www.msn.com]
Weihaiwei Under the Union Jack: An Odd Little British Enclave in China
Weihai City is a commercial port and major fishing centre jutting out on the north-easternmost tip of Kiaochow Peninsula in Shandong province. Geographically it is the southern point guarding the entrance to the Gulf of Zhili (Bohai) and the maritime route to Tianjin, the gateway to Beijing. Up until 1895 Weihai or Weihaiwei as it was formerly known was the China’s base for it’s Beiyang Fleet (Northern Seas Fleet). That year the port city was taken by the Japanese in the Jiawu War (First Sino-Japanese War).
⇓ Liugong Is. Chinese naval memorial
Britain’s motives for securing a port at Weihaiwei Britain in the late 19th century was one of several European powers jockeying for territorial possessions in China. Weihaiwei was important to the diplomats in Whitehall, not so much because it had a deep-sea port (the British already had Hong Kong, to which they added the New Territories in 1898), but as a strategic buffer to other great powers in China. Early in 1898 the Chinese government leased Qingtao (Tsingtao) in southern Shandong province to Germany and the Liaoning Peninsula to Russia (which included the geopolitically important Lüshunkou, renamed by the Russians “Port Arthur”). Acquiring Weihaiwei in 1898 gave Britain a strategic foothold on the mainland to counterbalance the presence of the Germans and the Russians✲. Britain’s lease, it said, would last until the Russians pulled out of Port Arthur. However when Russia withdrew from Port Arthur in 1905, Britain stayed in Weihaiwei, mainly because another rival, Japan, took its place.
⇓1st Chinese Regiment, Weihaiwei
(Picture: www.history-chron.com)
The British War Office took charge of administering Weihaiwei (the capital of which was called Port Edward) locating it’s naval base just off the port at Liugong Island (Liu-Kung-Tao). A garrison of 200 British men (who saw service in the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in Peking) and a local Chinese regiment was stationed at Pt Edward [‘Wei-Hai-Wei Police’, (Harry Fecitt), Gentleman’s Military International Club, 11-Nov-2008, www.gmic.co.uk].The Navy’s plans for a base in the mould of Hong Kong turned topsy-turvy when Port Edward was found to be unsuitable either as a major navy base or as a trading port. Administration of the territory was passed from the War Office to the Colonial Office which appointed a civilian commissioner to take charge [‘Weihaiwei under British Rule’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. The Navy retained a presence at Port Edward using it mainly as it’s China Station for summer anchorage∎.
A peculiar British enclave As British overseas entities go, Weihaiwei was quite atypical. First, it was a leased territory, a legal occupancy, but not a colony like Hong Kong. Britain had no sovereignty over Weihaiwei or it’s Chinese population. Unlike Hong Kong Chinese residents, the Chinese in Pt Edward could not achieve UK citizenship. From 1898 to 1930 Weihaiwei remained a Chinese territory with the British exercising “exclusive jurisdiction over a Chinese population”. Another difference from the colonial model: Hong Kong’s top office-holder was the governor, whereas Port Edward’s administration was headed up by “a lowly commissioner”⌖ [Reviews of British Rule in China: law and justice in Weihaiwei, 1898-1930, by Carol G S Tan, (2008), (Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Peter Wesley-Smith, Vol. 49, 2009; Li Chen, Law and History Review, Vol. 28, 2010)].
A quiet, unassuming ‘backwaters’
With British ambitions for Pt Edward scaled down considerably, the navy and the civil administration—both largely doing their own thing—settled down for a long and uneventful tenure in Shandong province. Weihaiwei’s mild summer climate (compared to the hotter climes in Peking and Hong Kong) free of malaria, allowed the Navy to use the locale for the pursuit of rest and recreation for UK personnel serving in China⌂ (Weihaiwei under British Rule’, Wiki). The British civil servants posted to Weihaiwei also enjoyed these relaxed conditions. Commissioner Lockhart, who spent nearly 19 years running the post, spent the bulk of his leisure time horse-riding and playing golf (Lethbridge).
⇓ Comm. Lockhart with some local headmen (1909) (Picture: National Galleries Scotland)
Relations with the local population
Lockhart’s tenure as civil commissioner from 1902 defined the pattern for the leasehold’s duration. A standardised tax-collecting system utilising the headmen of Weihai villages was established. The commissioner made sure that the enclave’s expenditure never exceeded that of revenue while implementing a modest program of reforms to education and infrastructure. Lockhart was able to administer Weihaiwei largely unencumbered…being free to govern unilaterally as there was no legislative council in the territory acting as a check on his actions. Lockhart, as a dedicated Sinologist, established a rapport with the middle-class Chinese merchants. He adopted an approach to the local community that was prudent and pragmatic, generally leaving them to run their own political and economic affairs at the village level. The Chinese headmen being conservative in nature in turn didn’t cause any undue problems for the commissioner (Wesley-Smith; Lethbridge).
Retrocession of Weihaiwei
In 1930 the lease expired on Weihaiwei, Britain handed back the territory to China and removed its garrison. By agreement Britain was allowed to retain certain buildings and facilities on Liugong Island for use by the British Navy for a further 10 years. Britain retained some personnel on the island using it only during winter…meanwhile the golf course activities continued. The day after the extended lease was up in 1940, a band of Japanese soldiers occupied Weihaiwei. Britain protested this action, contending that it had optioned a further extension on Liugong Island, but with larger issues to deal with didn’t press the matter. The remaining British personnel including the surgeon-commander were evacuated [‘Weihaiwei Withdrawal: Rights Reserved by Britain’, The Straits Times, 08-Dec-1940, www.eresources.nib.gov.sg]
Note: the last UK administrator of Weihaiwei, Reginald Fleming Johnston, had been a tutor and adviser to China’s last emperor, Pu-Yi.
⟠ ⟠ ⟠
Weihaiwei British Leasehold, 1898-1930. Capital: Port Edward. 288 square miles (including Liugong Island, 3.16 square miles) Population (1901) >120,000 European portion <200 (Li Chen)
✲ the British pressured China into the lease of Weihaiwei, doing so after the Japanese withdrew their forces, but apparently after overcoming some reservations within Westminster (Wei Peh T’i, Review of British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers, by Pamela Atwell, (1985), Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 27, 1987)
∎ although it did function also as a free port until 1923
⌖ although one biographer of Commissioner Lockhart equated it with the rank of lieutenant-governor (Lethbridge, Henry James. “SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART: COLONIAL CIVIL SERVANT AND SCHOLAR.” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 12, 1972, pp. 55–88. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23881565. Accessed 4 Apr. 2020)
⌂ today under the PRC Weihai is a health and convalescence town
Gù Gōng, a Cut-down version of the Beijing Archetype
If you’ve been to Beijing and trekked the city’s tourist trail, you will inevitably see, et al, the Forbidden City (Zǐjìnchéng) 顾功. If you subsequently also find yourself as a visitor in the principal city of Liaoning province, Shenyang, you’re almost equally inevitably going to include the Northeast version of Beijing’s imperial gem on your “to see” list.
For some, seeing the provincial version of the Forbidden Palace with the image of the monumental original in mind, might prove somewhat of a letdown. Shenyang Imperial Palace (Gù Gōng) 顾功❋ is a mere one-twelfth the size of the fabled Forbidden Palace, yet it would be very harsh to write off Gù Gōng as a pocket edition of the Beijing prototype. The architects have condensed a great deal of real estate into the >60,000 square metres of the palace grounds at Shenyang. There are more than 300 rooms and around 20 separate courtyards in the complex.
Note: The cost of a ticket to enter the Shenyang Imperial Palace and Museum is set at parity with the nearby Marshal Zhang Mansion (60 CN¥ for adults).
Gù Gōng was built in the 1630s under the directions of Nurhachi and Abahai (the two founding emperors of the Qing Dynasty from 1644). Shenyang Palace’s layout comprises three sections, an eastern, middle and western section (this latter section was constructed by a later Qing emperor). The eastern section includes a component known as the “Ten Kings’ Pavilion” – a group of pavilions where the Qings determined imperial policy for the internal affairs of the country.
The architecture of Gù Gōng is interesting in itself. Stylistically, Gù Gōng is a blend of different building styles. The many buildings and structures comprise an architectural amalgam – among these, Han, Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan styles can be readily discerned within the palace’s four walls.
The museum component of Gù Gōng includes a raft of Qing imperial art treasures. Among the items on display, direct from the Qing emperor’s pantry are many peerless examples delicate and beautifully glassware, together with enamel vases and gourds, ivory utensils. Not to forget the other such irreplaceable knickknacks from the erstwhile royal household.
Apart from visiting the palaces’s artworks and artefacts and it’s pavilions, another thing you can do at Gù Gōng, if you really want to get into the decadent spirit and sense of privilege of the Qing lifestyle, is costume hire! For not too many shekels✫ you can physically transform yourself into a Qing emperor or empress…for a few fleeting moments. Once you’ve traded your civilian garb for some over-the-top, fake imperial clobber (the colour red is non-negotiably mandatory), the vendor will snap a series of photos in various poses against an appropriate backdrop, ie, astride a mock Chinese imperial throne! 
When in non-English speaking countries, I must admit I do derive a wickedly almost schadenfreude-like buzz from seeking out colourfully inaccurate but humorous attempts at rendering public signs into English (AKA ‘Chinglish’). And my experience in China over three visits is that these translation concoctions are among the most wildly unrestrained, off-the-page and imaginative going – they are almost invariably, pure gold! And I’m pleased to report that Shenyang Imperial Palace did not let me down in this regard. The pick of the palace signs was this gems adorning (or guarding) the palace lawn: “Splash tears when stepping on. After stepping grass heart-wrenching”, a very roundabout way of conveying the direct, standard message “Please keep off the grass”⚀. And yet, as mangled syntactically and grammatically as it is, you can not but admire the very idiosyncratic but nonetheless quite poetic nature of it! Very Chinese to be sure!
PostScript: Shěnyáng lù 沈阳路 and that arch!
If you make your way to Shenyang Imperial Palace from North Shenyang (Zhongjie) subway station (in Shenhe district), it’s but a short walk (less than three blocks) but one itself of interest, even before you reach the palace. At the major cross-street just down from the station exit, an imposingly massive grey archway with a terracotta pagoda roof marks the start of the street, and in a way announces that you are passing into the precinct of the palace. Upon seeing the ‘imperial’ arch the first time I reasonably but erroneously assumed it was the palace entrance itself, which is actually another two blocks further east! Aside from the symbolic arch there are several other interesting buildings in this street, again presenting a contrast of traditional and more modern Chinese building styles.
Shenyang lu
⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢⇢
❋ sometimes referred to as the Mukden Palace (perhaps of archaic use now). ‘Mukden’ was the Manchu name for the city
✫ about 60 to 100 yuans depending on how regal you want to get!
⚀ in a similar bent, posted on another lawn (perhaps more abstrusely) was “Looking at flowers and plants outside the garden and laughing”
Manchukuo: An Instrument of Imperial Expansion for the Puppet-masters of Japan
In 1931 the Manchurian component of the Japanese Imperial Army faked the sabotage of the Southern Manchurian Railroad (which was controlled by the Japanese themselves) near Mukden (present day Shenyang). The Japanese military, playing the victim, alleged it was the work of Chinese dissidents, and used the so-called Mukden Incident to launch a full-scale invasion of Manchuria✴.
Kwantung Garrison troops in Shenyang, 1931 ⇓
The military onslaught from Japan’s Kwantung Army (formerly Garrison) [関東軍, Kantogun] (AKA the Guandong Army) met with determined if largely ineffective resistance…the Chinese were under-prepared, under-equipped and not as technologically advanced militarily as the Japanese, but their defensive efforts were also undermined by Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek who ordered the local warlord Zhang Xue-liang✪ to hold back on resisting the Japanese invaders. The reason – Chang had fixed on a strategy that prioritised gaining control over the rest of the China in the civil war against Mao’s Chinese communists [‘Mukden Incident’, Encyclopaedia Britannia, (John Swift), www.britannia.com]. The Japanese military successes were followed by the creation of a Japanese “puppet state”, Manchukuoꆤ, in Manchuria in April 1932 (comprising China’s Northeast and Inner Mongolia).
Background to Manchukuo: Japanese “special interests’
Japan had pursued an aggressively interventionist policy in the region for decades before Manchukuo. Victorious wars against a diminishing Chinese empire (First Sino-Japanese War, 1894-95) and Tsarist Russia (Russo-Japanese War 1904-05) emboldened Japan’s ambitions. Japan’s spoils of war after defeating the Russians included the extension of its economic sphere of influence to southern Manchuria. Moving into ports, mines, hotels and other businesses and its takeover of Russian railroads, brought with it a big influx of Japanese settlers [‘Manchukuo’, Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/].
Even prior to Manchukuo’s creation, Japan had been conceded a portion of Chinese territory in the southern Liaoning Peninsula which included Dalian (renamed Darien by the Japanese). Known as the Kwantung Leased Territory, it remained in Japanese hands until 1945.
Manchukuo’s capital was Hsinking [Xīnjīng: (literally ‘new capital’)] (today reverted to its original name, Chángchūn) in Jilin province. In 1945 at the end of WWII the capital was moved to nearby Tonghua. Hsinking had the status of a “special city” under the Manchurian state, as did Harbin.
Puppet statehood
The Manchukuo state established by the Japanese militarists was initially a republic but in 1934 it was changed to a one-party constitutional monarchy, the so-called Empire of (Greater) Manchuriaᴥ. The Japanese dredged up the former boy-emperor Pu Yi (last Chinese emperor of the Qing Dynasty) to be the titular figurehead of the ’empire’. Executive power of the Manchukuo government purportedly resided with the prime ministers (Zheng Xiaoxu 1932-35 and Zhang Jinghui 1935-45). The Manchukuo PM held authority under an authoritarian–personalist dictatorship, but this was more perception than substance as real power lay firmly with the Japanese☯️.
“Emperor of Manchukuo” ⇓ 
(Model display of puppet emperor in palace museum)
Kwantung Army, a rogue element
The Kwantung◘ Army, the arm of the Japanese Imperial Army in Manchuria, functioned as something of a rogue element, habitually acting independently of the Japanese government and the Army General Staff in Tokyo which struggled to rein it in. The Mukden Incident (see above) and the Huanggutun Incident (see below) are two such instances of their rogue activities. Service in the Kwantung Garrison, which had its headquarters in the Manchukuo capital Hsinkingᕡ, was a recognised path for promotion in the Japanese high command…instrumental chiefs of staff Seishirō Itagaki and Hideki Tōjō were both beneficiaries of this [ibid].
Hsinking: Kwantung Army HQs ⇓
Highly politicised, the Kwantung Army adopted an extra-military role for itself in Manchuria, eg, the commanding officer of the Kwantung Army was also Manchukuo ambassador to Japan and held an extraordinary power of veto – even over the Emperor of Japan! [ibid.].
‘Race’-based stratification
Japan peopled the sparsely populated parts of Manchuria with Japanese migrants who sat atop a social pyramid with other ethnic groups in the region stratified under the Japanese. Rationing of essential foodstuffs (including rice, wheat and sugar) was administered in accordance with this racial hierarchy. The Japanese-dominated colony of more than 30 million has been characterised as more “an Auschwitz state or a concentration-camp state” than merely a “puppet state” [Yamamuro Shin’ichi, quoted in Smith, Norman. “Disguising Resistance in Manchukuo: Feminism as Anti-Colonialism in the Collected Works of Zhu Ti.” The International History Review, vol. 28, no. 3, 2006, pp. 515–536. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40111222].
Japanese dominated Manchuria was indeed a police state, one of the most brutal in an (interwar) era of totalitarian excesses. The Manchukuo regime unleashed a systematic campaign of terror and intimidation against the local Russian and Chinese populations (including arrests without trial, “thought crimes”, organised riots and other forms of subjugation) [‘Manchuria’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Artillery unit of Fengtian Clique ⇓
Resistance to Japanese domination
After the establishment of Manchukuo and the ineffective performance of the Fengtian (Liaoning) Army against the Japanese war machine, various Chinese militias were formed to carry on the resistance. The main forces comprised Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies, backed by the KMT Nationalists and led by famous general Ma Zhanshanᕤ. Other resistance to the Japanese in the Northeast came from Communist-organised guerrilla units. The anti-Japanese militias’ campaigns, which included harrying and terrorising the Kwantung Army, lasted ten years until the Japanese Army and Airforce finally pacified Manchuria in 1942.
The brunt of the early Chinese fight-back against Japan’s imperial expansion was borne by these warlord militias and volunteer armies, but after Chiang Kai-shek was talked round to a truce with the communists and a united front against Japan in 1937 (in effect postponing the civil war to the conclusion of WWII), the Republic of China (ROC) army engaged directly with the Kwantung Army (Battles of Shanhai Pass, Rehe, Beiping-Tianjin, 2nd Battle of Héběi, Chahar Campaign, etc).
ROC flag (>1928) ⇓ 中華民國 Chunghwa Minkuo
1937: Second Sino-Japanese War
After colonising Manchuria, the Japanese military used it as a base to invade the rest of China. In 1937 the eruption of fighting between Chinese and Japanese troops near Peking (Marco Polo Bridge Incident) led to full-scale war. Antony Beevor [The Second World War, (2012)] marks this episode as being effectively the start of the Second World War (some historians date it’s origins earlier, from the Mukden Incident in 1931).
Marco Polo Bridge ⇓
Siberian sideshow
Eventually the Kwantung Army, unchecked by Tokyo, overreached itself by invading Siberia, provoking the USSR into an undeclared war and several border conflicts and battles in the late 1930s. The clashes culminated in the decimation of Japanese 6th Army at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in August 1939 [‘The Forgotten Soviet-Japanese War of 1939’, The Diplomat, (Stuart D Coleman), 28-Aug-2012, www.thediplomat.com].
1930s Tokyo ‘spin’
The Japanese came under attack in the West for establishing a harsh, totalitarian regime in Manchuria. Attempts were made to deflect the criticism by portraying the interventions in China’s northeast as a positive contribution to the restoration of regional order. Apologists for Japan, pointing to the pattern of internecine conflicts between warlords, communist insurgency and general chaotic conditions in the rest of China in the first third of the 20th century, argued that Manchuria in the same period had, courtesy of Japanese involvement, enjoyed “peace and order, progress and prosperity, (making) great strides in commercial and industrial development” [Saito, Hirosi. “A Japanese View of the Manchurian Situation.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 165 (1933): 159-66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1018175].
Manzhouguo passport ⇓
Japanese spin imbued the Manchukuo regime with a pseudo-legitimacy that was almost mythic: “the ‘Manchus’ followed the ‘kingly way’ (王道 wangdao) of harmony, prosperity, and peace under the benevolent guidance and protection of imperial Japan” [Review of Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern, (Prasenjit Duara), by John J. Stephan, The International History Review,Vol. 26, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 181-182. Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40110486]❅.
Myth-busting Manchukuo
Reconnecting with this, Japanese historians in the postwar period, tried to justify the horrors committed by the occupying Japanese army, characterising the incursion in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia as an act of ‘liberation’, prompted by motives which were ‘enlightened’. Recent research by Shin’ichi Yamamuro leads the Japanese academic to posit a view of the Manchukuo occupation that challenges the mainstream Japanese one. Yamamuro debunks the theory that right-wing Japanese military and civilian authorities were supposedly imbued with the idealism of wanting to construct a “paradise in earth” in China’s three northern provinces [Manchuria Under Japanese Dominion, (Shin’ichi Yamamuro, translated by Joshua A. Fogel), 2006; Bill Sewell. “Review of Yamamuro Shin’ichi. Manchuria under Japanese Dominion. Translated by Joshua A. Fogel. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006,” H-US-Japan Reviews, March, 2007. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=265211196449094].
Scope of the membership of the Greater EACP Sphere ⇓ 
“Greater Co-operation” – code for Japanese expansion and economic domination
In 1940 Japan incorporated its Manchurian client-state into the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (GEACS). The purported aim of GEACS was that it would be an economically self-sufficient “bloc of Asian nations led by Japan and free of Western powers”. In reality, this veneer of Pan-Asian idealism (regime motto: “five races under one union”) was a front for the Japanese militarists and nationalists to expand south and west and advance its domination of Asia [‘Manchukuo’, Wiki, loc.cit.].
A prized economic asset
Manchukuo (and the Inner Mongolia territory) was incorporated into both the Japanese war machine and the national economy. Rich in natural resources (especially coal and iron), under the Japanese Manchuria became an industrial powerhouse. Japanese citizens, who had been hard hit by the Great Depression, were enthusiastic in their support for the army’s intervention in Manchurian territory right through the period of Japanese occupancy [ibid.].
August 1945: D-day for the Japanese puppet states
August 9, 1945, the day after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, the Soviet Red Army and the Mongolian Army invaded Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, which was to be the final campaign of the Second World War. In a swift operation (Manchzhurskaya Strategicheskaya Nastupatelnaya Operatsiya), Manchukuo, Mengjiang and Japanese (northern) Korea were all liberated, thus culminating in the break-up of the Japanese empire. Manchuria and Inner Mongolia were returned to China, and the Soviets set about orchestrating a communist takeover of North Korea…meanwhile Korea south of the 38th Parallel was occupied by US forces [‘Soviet invasion of Manchuria’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Victorious Soviet soldiers in Harbin ⇓
Photo: https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/
Footnote: ‘Manchuria’ as a geographic descriptor was first used by the Japanese in the 1600s and later adopted by Westerners in China…the Chinese themselves these days are less inclined to use the term ‘Manchuria’, preferring to describe this part of China simply as Dongbei (东北), the Northeast).
Manchurian malfeasance – for the record: these days the once imperial “puppet palace” of Manchukuo is a history museum – a reminder to Chinese and the very occasional 外国人 (foreign) visitor alike of the aberrant and abhorrent regime imposed on North-East China during the interwar period of the 20th century.
Manchukuo (State of Manchuria) comprising northeastern China and part of Inner Mongolia Area: approx 1.19 million km Pop (est) 1940: 30-35 million Ethnic Mix: Han Chinese (majority), Manchus, Mongols, Huis, Koreans, Japanese, Belorussians (minorities)
⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰⥰
✴ in 1932 an independent inquiry with US participation, the Lytton Commission (Ritton Hōkokusho), found that both parties were at fault for the incident. In its Report which led to exposure of the Japanese duplicity, it condemned Japan for its aggression (albeit conceding it had “special interests” in the region), while also criticising China for inflaming anti-Japanese sentiments…the League of Nations subsequently demanded that Japan vacate Manchuria, Japan’s response was to give notice to withdraw unilaterally from the League (effective 1935) [‘Lytton Report’, (United States History), www.u-s-history.com]
✪ Zhang’s father, Marshal Zhang Zuolin, also a Manchurian warlord, had been assassinated by the Japanese Kwantung military in 1928, in an episode in Shenyang known as the Huanggutun incident. Zhang senior was one of the most powerful warlords in the Warlord Era, which saw local military cliques carve out territorial strongholds in different parts of China
ꆤ Manzhouguo in Chinese
ᴥ the Chinese expression for Manchukuo is 虚假帝国 (the “false empire”)
☯️ Zheng, a royalist and close collaborator of Pu Yi, had hoped that Manchukuo would become a springboard for the restoration of Qing rule in China, aims not shared by the Japanese who pressured him to resign in 1935 [‘Zheng Xiaoxu’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. His successor Zhang Jinghui was even more of a powerless figurehead, content to allow advisors from the Kwantung Army run the state, earning Zhang the unflattering sobriquet of the “Tofu prime minister” [‘Zhang Jinghui’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]
◘ Kwantung means “east of Shanhaiguan”, ie, Manchuria
ᕡ the Kwantung military also maintained a peninsula naval base at Ryojun (Port Arthur)
ᕤ the charismatic general started fighting against the Japanese, was then induced to swap over to the Japanese side and finally switched back to the cause of Chinese resistance
❅ Stephan summarises Manchukuo as “a producer of beans, bandits and bunk” with the ‘kingly way’ grandiloquence falling under the third of these attributes
💮ᕕ💮ᕕ💮ᕕ💮ᕕ💮ᕕ💮ᕕ💮
KMT’s Historical Australasian Presence: Sydney and Melbourne Offices and the Chinese Diaspora
KMT bldg in SydneyThe above photo shows the well-worn, slightly scruffy and tarnished facade of an old building in the historic industrial inner city district of Sydney. The sign on the shopfront says ‘Chinese Ginsengs and Herbs Co’. Google Maps tells me the address is 4-10 Goulburn Street, although the sign above the entrance indicates the address is “75-77 Ultimo Road Haymarket”. I’m going to go with what the building says rather than what my iPhone indicates…the key point is that this building is within wok-tossing distance of Hay and Dixon Streets, the epicentre of Sydney’s traditional Chinatown.
The awning above the Ginseng shop gives the real clue to the building’s history – in faded blue and red (the colours of the Republic of China better known today as Taiwan or Chinese Taipei), are the words The Chinese Nationalist Party of Australasia. The letters ‘KMT’ and the building’s date, 1921′, at the top of the facade further emphasises its political association with China.
The Haymarket building was purchased in 1921 with funds raised by Chinese-Australian supporters of the KMT or Kuomintang, a Chinese nationalist party headed by Dr Sun-Yat-sen that gained prominence after the overthrow of the last Qing emperor and the transition to republican rule. The Australasian KMT had earlier evolved out of a grass-roots organisation in Sydney called the Young China League, the impetus for the emergence of YCL/Australian KMT came largely from Sino-Australian merchants James Ah Chuey and William Yinson Lee.
KMT Sydney’s regional leadership Ultimo Road was KMT’s Australasian headquarters, from this building the local Party liaised with the KMT Central party in China and coordinated the activities of other regional KMT branch offices elsewhere in Australia, New Zealand and the wider Pacific Islands. The Sydney Office supervised seven branches – NSW, Victoria, WA, Wellington and Auckland (NZ), Fiji and New Guinea. It also directly administered Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwin and had jurisdiction over Tahiti. Melbourne office having to defer to Sydney’s seniority and hegemony provoked KMT membership tensions between Australia’s two largest cities.
KMT and the Chinese diaspora in Australia KMT’s Sydney branch performed several functions on behalf of the Party. One of these involved an educational role for the local émigré Chinese. The KMT association fostered modern political ideas, promoting pro-republican values and the virtues of parliamentary democracy as an antidote to the gains made by Chinese communists in courting popular support in the Chinese countryside.
Recruiting new KMT members from among the community in Sydney was part of the Australasian association’s growth strategy. To bind Chinese emigrants to the Party and its objectives, the Sydney office organised dances, dinners, social gatherings, held screenings of Chinese movies. Recreational activities were another means of incorporating the Chinese locals – gyms and sporting teams were established to encourage physical exercise.
At crunch periods in the 20th century during conflicts the KMT were embroiled in on mainland China (the National Defence War against Japan, the Nationalists/Communists Civil War), the offices in Sydney and Melbourne had an instrumental role on the ground in Australia. The two associations maintained solidarity with and mobilised support for the struggles of the Chinese Nationalists headed by Chiang Kai-shek…the local Sydney branch coordinated the collection of donations❉ that were remitted back to Nanking (the Nationalists’ Chinese capital) to finance the war effort (equip the KMT Army, buy fighter planes for the Air Force, etc).
KMT Club (pre-war)Concurrently with the establishment of the KMT headquarters in Sydney, the Chinese Nationalists with money from Chinese benefactors resident in Melbourne (above ↥) commissioned famous Chicagoan architect Walter Burley Griffin to convert a brick warehouse at 109 Little Bourke Street into the city’s KMT association premises. Griffin’s design of a new facade for the building in 1921 was financed by Canton-born, Melbourne social reformer, Cheok Hong Cheong. Cheong had a long association with Griffin as a client and was a shareholder in the Griffins’ Greater Sydney Development Association.
KMT Club Melbourne – 1980s (Walter B Griffin design) ⬇️
Australasian Canton Club
The Australasian association role eventually extended to working for returning émigrés from Australasia and Oceania. This happened when the Australasian KMT Canton Club was set up in that southern Chinese city(office)◊…its purpose was to assist the émigrés who subsequently returned to China. This assistance took many forms such as advocacy in legal matters, providing board and lodging for members passing through Canton to and from Australia and NZ and advice on investments. The Canton office also produced the widely distributed official journal of the Australasian KMT.
Both 1920s KMT buildings, Sydney and Melbourne, are still standing (the Sydney one the recent beneficiary of a bright, fresh paint job – as can be seen below)…the two clubs continue to have social associations with the local Chinese-Australian community in their respective cities.
回÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷回 ❉ this material support took on added significance and urgency for the KMT cause after imperial Japan invaded Manchuria in 1937 ◊ the location was chosen mainly because of the pattern of past migration to Australia and New Zealand – most Chinese migrants had come from Canton (Guangzhou) or from the wider province of Guangdong
Sources: Judith Brett & Mei-Fen Kuo, Unlocking the History of the Australasian Kuo-Min Tang 1911-2013, (2013) John Fitzgerald, Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia (2012) Kate Bagnall, ‘Picnics and Politics’, Inside Story, 24-Jan-2014, www.insidestory.org.au ‘Griffin’s Chinese Nationalist Party Building in Lt Bourke’ (Building & Architecture), www.walkingmelbourne.com