page_title: Empire of Japan
section_title: Manchuria
hierarchical_section_title: Empire of Japan / Later Shōwa (1931–1941) – expansionism and war / Prewar expansionism / Manchuria
caption_attribution_description: Japanese cavalry entering Mukden (Shenyang)
context_page_description: The Empire of Japan is a historical nation-state along with its colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan.
  Japan's rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei and Shokusan Kōgyō led to its emergence as a great power and the establishment of a colonial empire following the First Sino-Japanese War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. Economic and political turmoil in the 1920s led to the rise of militarism, nationalism and totalitarianism, eventually culminating in Japan's membership in the Axis alliance and the conquest of a large part of the Asia-Pacific in World War II.
  Japan's armed forces initially achieved large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. However, after many Allied victories and following the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan on August 9, 1945, and subsequent invasion of Manchuria and other territories, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Empire surrendered to the Allies on August 15, 1945.
context_section_description: In 1931, Japan invaded and conquered Northeast China (Manchuria) with little resistance. Japan claimed that this invasion was a liberation of the local Manchus from the Chinese, although the majority of the population were Han Chinese as a result of the large scale settlement of Chinese in Manchuria in the 19th century. Japan then established a puppet regime called Manchukuo (Chinese: 滿洲國), and installed the last Manchu Emperor of China, Puyi, as the official head of state. Jehol, a Chinese territory bordering Manchukuo, was later also taken in 1933. This puppet regime had to carry on a protracted pacification campaign against the Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies in Manchuria. In 1936, Japan created a similar Mongolian puppet state in Inner Mongolia named Mengjiang (Chinese: 蒙疆), which was also predominantly Chinese as a result of recent Han immigration to the area. At that time, East Asians were banned from immigration to North America and Australia, but the newly established Manchukuo was open to immigration of Asians. Japan had an emigration plan to encourage colonization; the Japanese population in Manchuria subsequently grew to 850,000. With rich natural resources and labor force in Manchuria, army-owned corporations turned Manchuria into a solid material support machine of the Japanese Army.
caption: Japanese troops entering Shenyang, Northeast China during the Mukden Incident, 1931
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2006:01:02 17:59:55", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5622", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "417", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "333"}