Manchukuo

Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostensibly founded as a republic, its territory consisting of the lands seized in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria; it was later declared to be a constitutional monarchy in 1934, though very little changed in the actual functioning of government. Manchukuo received limited diplomatic recognition, primarily from states aligned with the Axis powers, with its existence widely regarded as illegitimate.

The region now known as Manchuria had historically been the homeland of the Manchu people, though by the 20th century they had long since become a minority in the region, with Han Chinese constituting by far the largest ethnic group. The Manchu-led Qing dynasty, which had governed China since 17th century, was overthrown with the permanent abolition of the dynastic system in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, with Puyi, the final emperor of China, forced to abdicate at the age of six. In 1931, Manchuria was invaded and occupied by the Empire of Japan following the Mukden incident. A puppet government was set up the following year, with Puyi brought in by the Japanese to serve as its nominal regent, though he himself had no actual political power. Japanese officials ultimately made all pertinent decisions, and exercised total control over Puyi's court and personal safety. Upon the nominal transition from republic to empire, Puyi was proclaimed as the emperor of Manchukuo.

The Japanese population of Manchuria increased dramatically during this period, largely due to Japan's efforts to resettle young, land-poor farmers from the inner islands. By 1945, more than a million Japanese people had settled within Manchukuo. The region's Korean population also increased during this period. Under vice-minister Nobusuke Kishi and the Manchurian Industrial Development Company, heavy industry was dramatically expanded using slave labor of the local populations. Manchukuo was the primary launching ground for further invasion of China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, beginning with the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident.

Regions in the western part of the country with large Mongolian populations were ruled under a slightly different system, reflecting the distinct traditions extant there. The southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, now the city of Dalian, continued to be ruled directly by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory until the end of the war.

The state was ultimately toppled at the end of World War II with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945; its government was formally dissolved following the surrender of Japan in September. The territory was transferred to Chinese administration the following year.

The name of the state is written with the same Han characters sharing the same meaning in both Japanese and Chinese, allowing for the use of the simplified and variant characters that exist in both languages. In Chinese, the name of Manchukuo has often been prefixed with 偽; wěi; 'so-called' to stress its perceived illegitimacy.

In English, 'Manchukuo' derives from the Wade–Giles romanization Man-chou-kuo, incorporating the anglicized demonym 'Manchu'. Other European languages used equivalent terms: Manchukuo was known to its Axis allies as Manciukuò in Italian and Mandschukuo or Mandschureich in German.

Manchukuo was often referred to in English simply as 'Manchuria', itself an unfamiliar term within China; its use had previously been widely encouraged by the Japanese in order to connote a level of separation from the rest of China. This was in stark contrast to the position held by the Qing, that Manchus were one of several integral Chinese peoples, with their homeland being an integral part of China. The historian Norman Smith wrote that "the term 'Manchuria' is controversial". Professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi remarked that she would "use the term in quotation marks". Herbert Giles wrote that the name was unknown to the Manchu people themselves as a geographical designation. In 2012, Professor Chad D. Garcia noted that usage of the term was out of favor in "current scholarly practice", instead preferring "the northeast [of China]".