Machine: Manchurian Colonization and State Growth
10. The Paradox of Total Empire
Map and Tables
Map of Manchukuo circa 1944
Tables
1. Investment in public and private enterprises in Manchukuo
2. Capital investment in Manchukuo through stocks, loans, and bonds
3. Direct investment in Manchukuo by new and old zaibatsu
4. Japanese companies in Manchuria, 1931
5. New corporations in Manchukuo and the Kwantung Leased Territory, January 1932–December 1937
6. Growth of Japanese population in selected Manchukuo cities
7. Japanese hotel patrons in selected Manchukuo cities, 1934–1939
8. Japanese overseas population in 1930
9. Emigration by prefecture
10. Village colonization model budget
11. Emigration targets and percentage of target achieved
12. Marichurian emigration, 1932–1945
13. Number of Youth Brigade recruits by age, 1940–1942
14. Conscription of Manchurian settlers
15. Violent deaths during evacuation, August-September 1945
Acknowledgments
Without the support of numerous individuals and institutions, this study could never have been completed; their help is gratefully acknowledged. Carol Gluck gave timely and inspirational support at every stage of the project, from her help in shaping its conceptual categories when it was still a dissertation proposal, to her suggestions for some last-minute improvements to the conclusion when it had become a book. Meticulous readings by Elizabeth Blackmar, Henry Smith, Arthur Tiedemann, Jack Snyder, and especially John Dower helped me rethink and reframe my ideas. Geoffrey Chambers, K
Note on Sources
Most primary materials cited in the notes can be located in the following Tokyo archives: Tokyo University Libraries, Waseda University Library, National Diet Library, Kindai bungakukan, le no hikari ky
PART I
THE MAKING OF
A TOTAL EMPIRE
1 Manchukuo and Japan
Today the words “Empire of Japan” evoke multiple meanings: one set of images for former colonial subjects, another for former enemies in the Pacific War, and yet another for the Japanese themselves. No epoch did more to inscribe these words with meaning than the period between 1931 and 1945, when Japan moved aggressively to expand its overseas territory, occupying first China and then Southeast Asia, and initiating a series of military conflicts against Nationalist and Communist forces in China, against the Soviet Union, against the United States, and against the British Empire. At the heart of the new empire Japan won and then lost in the military engagements of these years lay the puppet state of Manchukuo in Northeast China.
Although Manchukuo was created in 1932, its roots went back to 1905, when Japan acquired a sphere of influence in the southern half of Manchuria as a result of victory in the Russo-Japanese War. A mix of formal and informal elements, the South Manchurian sphere of influence was anchored by long-term leases on the Liaodong Peninsula and on lands held by Japan's colonial railway company, the South Manchurian Railway, which the Japanese knew as Mantetsu. Over these leased territories, which represented but a small fraction of South Manchuria, Japan ruled directly through a formal colonial apparatus. Over the rest of South Manchuria Japan exerted influence indirectly, through the relationship with local Chinese rulers, through economic dominance of the market, and through the constant threat of force by its garrison army.
The first phase of Japanese involvement situated the sphere of influence in Manchuria within a rapidly expanding empire. By the end of World War I, the empire included Taiwan, Korea, the Pacific island chains the Japanese called Nan'yo, the southern half of Sakhalin, as well as participation
