Manchukuo

A nominal state under Japanese Army control

The 1931–1933 crisis · the regional war ending in 1945

Manchukuo was proclaimed in Manchuria after the Japanese conquest. Although presented as an autonomous state, it was controlled by the local Japanese Army. Whether to recognize it became an international dispute.

Statehood and actual power

This story begins with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria after the 1931 incident near Mukden. Proclaiming a new state did not change the fact that the Japanese Army controlled the territory. Manchukuo therefore identifies a political entity in this account; Manchuria identifies the region.

The recognition dispute

The Lytton Report rejected recognition of Manchukuo because its establishment violated China’s territorial integrity. The League of Nations endorsed the report in 1933. Japanese control of Manchuria nevertheless continued: a truce between China and Japan also left it in place.

Manchuria at the war’s end

The region’s story continued beyond the recognition dispute of the 1930s. On 9 August 1945 Soviet forces invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria in China. This attack belongs to the war’s ending in Asia. Manchukuo as a political entity and Manchuria as a region must still be distinguished.

Explore further

• Mukden and Manchuria

  Japanese expansion and the question of international recognition.

• League of Nations

  The dispute over recognition of a state under Japanese control.