Comments by "August Hayek" (@hayek218) on "Jabzy"
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Manchurian Incident
Manchuria:
Historically the people in the northern part of China were always militarily stronger than the Han Chinese as they were good at riding horses. That is why the southern Chinese built the Great Wall of China. Manchuria was never ruled by the Han Chinese, and it was a land of Manchurians (Jurchens) or their relatives like Mongols. Though the Han Chinese were allowed into the land towards the end of the Qing Dynasty, this region was one of the least populated area in today’s China.
However, though as simple as it seems, the issue surrounding the region was so complex that even the Lytton’s report said that the complication is unparalleled like none in the world, and that nobody is entitle to judge anything unless fully aware of the situation.
The Great Game:
The Great Game came eastward all the way to the Far East. They even fought Crimean War in Kamchatka Peninsula. As such, for the Japanese in Edo Era, Russians were the biggest threat, appearing in Hokkaido every now and then and at one point taking over Tsushima. Even after the Meiji Restoration, with Nicholai II calling himself the Commodore of the Pacific, they were always eager to expand into the Pacific Ocean.
Russia had Vladivostok, but its port freezes during the winter. That is why they had set an eye to the Yellow Sea and Liaodong Peninsula where there are some good ports at which today’s North Sea Fleet of People's Liberation Army Navy is stationed.
Thus Russians intervened in the Triple Intervention so that Japan had to return the peninsula which they obtained after the Sino-Japan War. But soon after the return, of course Russia bribed their way to buy rights from Qing for the Chinese Eastern Railway to the Peninsula. The British and the US were concerned about this a lot since if it connects to Trans-Siberian Railway as planned to be completed in 1904, the Russian’s advantage in material transportation to the Far East could change the balance of power in the region and the Pacific.
That is why Russo-Japan War broke out in 1904 with the help of the British and the US. That is why the southern part of the Chinese Eastern Railway was taken by the Japanese in the Treaty of Portsmouth with the mediation by the US.
Development of Manchu:
So Japan took Liaodong Peninsula. But Manchuria at the time was nothing but rugged deserted land just like the western US with poor soil short in phosphor and freezes during winter. Even Dalian was nothing as the Manchurians were land people. Russian started this city (that is why the name Dalian is a part of Russian name meaning Far East) for a few years but it was Japan that developed the entire city. As you can see some photos in internet, the city was just like Shanghai developed by the Sassoon. In the first year alone, Japan invested an equal amount to its national budget.
Japan then developed a new-type soybeans, Manchurian soybeans, that could grow on this poor and cold soil, and started running farms in other parts of Manchuria by leasing and buying lands and hiring locals. Japan could have cultivated lands by machines, but instead it hired locals purposely so they could become well off, too. The export of the Manchurian Soybeans to Europe subsequently grew rapidly and Manchuria become the world’s biggest exporter of soybeans that accounted for over 50% of its total export. Soybean oil was first developed here too. Soybeans were grown throughout the region, and within 20 years, the desert of Manchuria became a prosperous green farm land.
Japan also developed other agricultural products like wheat but they also developed heavy industries like steel, coal, electricity, petroleum, automobile, airplanes, among other things by investing a huge amount of money.
Manchuria became a rich land from nothing.
The Incident:
Then all of sudden, the Han Chinese started saying it is all theirs and Japan has to go home leaving everything behind for free.
In 1912, ROC established itself following the Xinhan Revolution in 1911. Then Qing Dynasty fell in the following month. But no non-Han Chinese regions, Manchuria, Inner Mongol, Uighur or Tibet wanted to join, and with countless wars and plunders among Kuomintang, CCP, many warlords, bandits were going on, the place was in total turmoil like today’s Syria. As all Japan’s contracts were made with the Qing Dynasty and because there was no Manchurian government, Japan formed new contracts with ROC of Yuan Shikai.
However, the Han Chinese started saying this new contract was invalid. Behind this was the Comintern too. Right from the beginning, the Comintern targeted Japan for the following reasons: Japan had monarch; Japan won the Russo-Japan War; Japan intervened Soviet’s revolution in Siberia with the British and others; Soviet wants Manchuria also. Not only blatant breaches of the agreements such as death penalties on people leasing lands to Japanese were imposed, crimes like destructions of railways, factories, facilities, and mines, and burglaries were being reported more than ten thousand cases a year. In the name of “Revolution,” they did anything to get Japanese out of the place.
Although Japan did not originally have its army in Manchuria, they could not maintain the order and had to station Kwantung Army in 1919. Incidentally, Kwantung literally means the east of a barrier, specifically meaning the barrier where Great Wall touches Bohai Sea. So by definition, Kwantung Army was not mean to cross the Great Wall.
However, crimes and harassment kept on increasing, and in the end, the Manchurian Incident broke out. It was not a cause, but it was a result of what happened in the previous 15 years.
Helen Mears, a US historian and an author of “Mirrors of America: Japan” says in her book that Japan can sue ROC with the information collected in the Lytton’s report; the armed force that Japan used in the Incident was no more than other country used for retaliations against China’s crimes and threats. A US diplomat in China, John Van Antwerp MacMurray, says in his book “How the Peace was Lost” that Japan kept all international treaties and it was ROC that broke them, and because US did not treat Japan equally on this matter, it became unbearable for the Japanese. Also another US diplomat Ralph Townsend wrote in his book, “Ways That Are Dark: The Truth About China,” that Japan did what we had been thinking we should do; every foreigners in the Far East was on the Japan’s side; everyone scornfully laughed at Stimson who criticized Japan on this; but because newspaper did not report the truth, anti-Japan sentiment grew in the US. Behind all this in Manchuria was Zhang Xueliang who was a member of Kuomintang, and Timperley was already in China, so of course all the lies were being spread out. But the Incident was not even against the International Law.
Manchukuo:
One day Puyi escaped into the Japanese Embassy from the Forbidden City, where he was confined after being dethroned. He asked for help. The Han Chinese was keeping him to make it look as if Manchuria belong to ROC. But with all his ancestor graves being destroyed and all the treasures stolen, Puyi really became sick of the Han Chinese and demanded to go back to Manchuria as an emperor. Since then some 700 representatives of Manchurians, Mongols, Koreans, youth, and other groups living in Manchuria got together in Fengtian and decided to found Manchukuo.
So the Machukuo was established with the help of the Japanese government but all of its ministers and politicians were Manchurians. And with the return of the emperor, all the robbers, bulgars and the like got together under him, and soon the order was restored in Manchuria.
Some people call it a puppet state. But if this was a puppet state, what about all the Latin America and Caribbean countries of the time supported by US? What about India supported by the British? The truth is that it was a country all Manchurian wanted and welcomed.
After the War in Tokyo Trial, Puyi testified that he did not want to be an emperor and the whole thing was forced by the Japanese. But at the time he was kept in Soviet’s concentration camp; escorted by Soviet’s soldiers; and was taken back to the camp. He later wrote in his memoir that he hid the truth in the Toyo Trial. Also in “Twilight in the Forbidden City” written by Reginald F. Johnston, a Puyi’s personal teacher, Johnston says that Puyi wanted to found his own country. This is a first class primary source evidence.
Lytton’s report:
Right or left, and Great Powers or Japanese, they more or less all agree that the report written by the Lytton Commission was thorough and good, but except for its conclusion. The report literally says that just about everything Japan said is right, and respects all its rights in Manchuria. But in its conclusions, it suggests the Manchukuo to be under the control of the League of Nations.
Of course, the League of Nations was heavily controlled by the Great Powers, so in a way, this conclusion was understandable. But for the Japanese it was not acceptable. At the time, the Japanese politicians were pacifists and the Kwantung Army was aggressive. But it was really the media that fueled the whole thing everyday.
One of the communists and a Soviet spy arrested in the Sorge Incident was a Japanese journalist, Hotsumi Ozaki, at the leading newspaper company, Asahi Shinbun, who was executed in jail. He was also a brain to the Prime Minister Konoe, but previously he stationed in China as an analyst of Asahi for the Manchurian Railway.
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Yi Sun-sin:
Even though Korean wants to include Yi Sun-sin (李舜臣) as one of the three Greatest Admirals of the world, Horatio Nelson of the Britain who prevailed in the Battle of Trafalgar, John Paul Jones of the America who defeated the British for its independence, and Heihachiro Togo of Japan who defeated the Russia’s Baltic Fleet, he was not even a supreme commander, nor did he prevail in the battle Koreans claim to have won.
To start with, throughout their history, Korea was the weakest in the region. Since the time of Yuan Dynasty, Korea had been a tribunary state of China for almost one thousand years. They always ask other countries to fight for Korea’s domestic issues like in the Korean War, and this is why they have no true national hero.
Yi Sun-sin was merely a commander of a fleet out of many Joseon fleets, certainly not the admiral or the commander of the Ming-Joseon Navy. Not only he failed to defeat the Japanese navy, he could not them on the sea and allowed them to land on the Korean Peninsula.
Japan at the time as the hay days of samurai and had the largest number of guns in the world with many experienced samurai in communications and modern battle tactics of the day. Korea on the other hand was merely a tribunary state of Ming with NO guns. There is no way Korean could beat Japan by itself.
In fact, in the first dispatch, Japan conquered Seoul within one month, and Pyeongyang within two month capturing the prince of Joseon as a hostage while there was NO Japanese commander who was killed except for one who was assassinated during hawking.
The only military exploit that Yi Sun-sin had against Japan was when he attacked “a supply fleet” and temporally cut off its supply route. But this is by no means being destroyed or defeated. He strategies were more like those of pirates or guerrillas such as setting fire on ships at night or attacking from the back of Japanese fleets after agreeing on cease-fire. Coward and so typical of the weak.
Later, since the military leader of Japan, Hideyoshi who planned to conquer China through Korea, died of old age in Osaka, Japan agreed on cease-fire and retreated. But it is a blatant lie for Koreans to say that Yi Sun-sin was a great admiral of the world, defeated the Japanese navy, and is the one from whom the world’s other admirals learn from.
However, you could at least say he had some brain, avoiding front-to-front battle with the mighty Japan.
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