Manchukuo passionating history
It all started from this flag I passed in Yasukuni Jinja shrine. I just wondered what it was and did not dare to approach and read (some guys already shout at me in this place and I do not want to mess with them).
I Googled my picture and it found that it was the Manchukuo flag. Manchukuo was the state Japan created in Manchuria.
I was not sure how Manchuria was linked to the extreme right in Japan. I dug further.
I had a fuzzy image of Manchuria from school and echoing image that Japan made bad things there. Which is not totally right.
Between the 2 world wars, Japan created a state from scratch in what is now Northern China. Here are the key elements that amazed me:
Manchuria was not populated by Chinese but was "discovered" mostly by Russian. It was considered by Chinese as a wasteland populated by salvage people (Asian but not Han).
The Japanese created there a modern state which does not match the typical Western colony as our countries used to have. They seriously applied an Utopia vision of an ideal country. The Manchukuo was populated by 5 different types of peoples and these people are reflected on the flag. Japan envisioned an egalitarian country where all races were equal (it actually did not really happened).
This new utopian country lured millions of Japanese who settled there. The Manchukuo had 40 millions inhabitants, same as the population of France at that time. It was huge.
Manchukuo was not a colony but a friend state who was to contribute to "Japanese enlightening of Asia".
The Manchukuo is often considered as a fascistic state but I suspect that it is our contemporary eye. Japan is fascistic and the world was fascistic. Manchukuo was certainly fascistic at that time, like 80% of the world. Some historical vision of the situation can be found in Tintin the Blue Lotus.
Japanese investments in Manchukuo were huge and results were amazing in both industry and agriculture.
Korea was Japan and there was no question about this. I was amazed that The League of Nations questioned the invasion of Manchuria by Japan but never questioned that Korea was a province of Japan.
The Manchukuo dreams was destroyed by the stupid Japanese war game. With neutrality, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened from Manchuria.
It is interesting to think that war winners decided on writing history on there own terms, that they said Manchuria was China, which seems obvious today, as obvious as telling that France belongs to Germany. Japan lost a lot in playing the war game.
Sovereignty and Authenticity is a very interesting book about Manchukuo. I will definitely dig further on this.
