This week: Japanese Manchuria comes crashing down as a combination of poorly planned colonial policies and a worsening war situation see imperial power on the mainland collapse. Plus: what do we learn about the nature of empire from a long, in-depth look at Manchuria?
Sources
Yamamuro, Shinichi. Manchuria Under Japanese Dominion
Young, Louise. Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism
Images
Good series like usual. I had a question about Zhang Xueliang that I was saving to the end of the series incase you were touching on it. Do we know if he was hoping that he could restore his power base in Manchuria part of Zhang’s motivation for masterminding the Xi’An Incident ?
You know, to my understanding we don’t have much from the man himself until much later, and he always insisted his goals were totally patriotic. Certainly (at least in my experience) that’s how the Chinese historians I’ve met tend to view him. I tend to be a bit cynical about these things, and I can’t help but imagine the motivation was in his mind, but then again that’s not exactly mutually exclusive!