Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast episode 611, The Final Frontier, Part 7.

From its inception, Manchuquo slash Manjolguel was a mess of contradictions. I think it's fair to say that as a result,

its prospects in the long term were dim from the jump. We've covered, of course, the messy racial

contradictions that underlay Manchurian

propaganda, the claims about the unity of the five races, really being undercut by the reality

that those with Japanese passports enjoyed distinct legal privileges in Manchuria nobody else had.

Similarly, the claim that Manchuria would be a fairer and less exploitative state was

hard to take seriously, given that Japanese control over the region was based on subordinating

local elites through sweetheart deals.

Nobody was going to get a new, less exploitative landlord or boss because that landlord

or boss had almost certainly cut a deal with the Japanese to stay in power as long as they played ball with the Guandong army.

A secret agreement that didn't go public until after the end of the Second World War really makes it clear how much this whole system was intended to be just a fiction to legitimized Japanese colonial

rule. That agreement took the form of a letter written to the commander of the Guangdong army,

General Honjo Shigeru, by Emperor Puyi himself, though at that point he was just the chief

executive. It was attached to the first treaty between Japan and Manchukuo in September 1932.

The treaty formally recognized Manchukuo as an independent state on the Japanese side, while the

Manchukuo government agreed to the stationing of Japanese troops for mutual defense.

That was the public side of the agreement, and on its face, it wasn't equal, but it wasn't

inherently exploitive, or at least not unusually so.

But the secret letter between Honjo and Puii added four more items summarized by

Professor Yamamoto Shinichi in his history of Manchuria.

One, Manjoguo will rely on Japan for national defense and the maintenance of order and

...