Episode 605 – The Final Frontier, Part 1

November 28, 2025 Leave a comment

This week, we’re turning our attention to possibly the most unique of Japan’s colonial ventures during the imperial era: Manchuria. Most know about Manchuria because of its role in the turbulent politics of the 1930s, but Japanese involvement in the region goes back quite a bit further. But first, what even is Manchuria in the first place?

Sources

Matsutaka, Yoshihisa. The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932

Young, Louise. Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism

Images

The darker red here is modern Manchuria; the lighter red is “Outer Manchuria”, ceded to Russia in the 1850s. It was to connect Outer Manchuria, especially Vladivostok, back to European Russia that Russia first started to move into Manchuria proper.
From Warhistory.org, a map depicting the final terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905. This gives you a rough sense of where the Japanese sphere of influence expanded to as a part of the war, and in particular what the initial Japanese presence in Manchuria looked like.
“Sit by the Sea and Wait for the Weather,” A Russian political cartoon from 1904 depicting the situation in Manchuria. It depicts the US and UK as the forces behind Japanese desire for Manchuria–in reality, of course, that was not the case.
The Prefectural Office of the Guandong Leased Territory, established in 1905.

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