Communist China Just Lengthened World War II

Recently, the People’s Republic of China announced that they are officially changing the date for the start of World War II. They did this, they openly said, to highlight the role of the Communist Party in fighting the Japanese and as part of an overall campaign to instill patriotic fervor, and some would say xenophobia, in the Chinese youth of today. Which, in itself, only makes sense if one takes into account the amount of deception already in place when it comes to how the Chinese Communist Party uses history as a political tool. This has also meant that they have had to adjust their official name for World War II in East Asia from, “The Eight-Year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression” to, “The Fourteen-Year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression”. Hardly rolls off the tongue but maybe it sounds better in Chinese. Some commentators, such as Michael Peck at “The National Interest” have said that the Chinese are doing the right thing but for the wrong reason. Actually, they are doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason. Nothing about this is right or remotely accurate.

Traditionally, historians have dated the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War or World War II in East Asia (or the “Greater East Asian War” if you’re in Japan) to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of July 7, 1937. This is because it was from that point onward, increasing in intensity, that large-scale combat occurred between Chinese and Japanese military forces. So, that makes sense. The Republic of China did not actually declare war on the Empire of Japan until after the attack on Pearl Harbor when the United States, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Australia and others became involved. This was mostly because the leader of the Republic of China, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, was, in my opinion, leaving himself room for maneuver in case the persistent communist threat became a greater concern to him than the Japanese, so that he could negotiate a settlement with Japan in order to focus on fighting Mao Zedong and his communist bandits. Clearly, a war was being fought between Chinese and Japanese forces long before 1941 so taking into account declarations of war is rather meaningless.

Now, the Chinese Communist Party is changing its history books to say that the war actually began at the time of the Mukden Incident on September 18, 1931 when, after a small bomb was exploded on the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway, troops of the Imperial Japanese Army rushed in and quickly took control of the region, occupying Manchuria and later established the State (and finally Empire) of Manchukuo under the titular leadership of the last Qing Dynasty Emperor. This, they say, is when the Japanese first invaded China, first engaged in hostile action against China and thus that this was really when World War II in East Asia began. However, while it may make for a nice narrative, this is simply misleading. The war did not start in 1931, plain and simple. That is not what happened and no amount of word play can change the actual facts. The reason some people are buying into this narrative is because they have already swallowed a previous falsehood that has been allowed to take root. The preliminary falsehood is that the Republic of China had any legitimate right to claim ownership of Manchuria in the first place.

That is what this whole farce is based on, that “Japan invaded China” in 1931 and so the war can be said to have started then. Some, like Peter Harmsen, who writes about Japanese atrocities, say that the invasion of Manchuria was, “a full-scale Japanese invasion of territory that had been part of China for centuries” which sounds dramatic and is easy for people to believe, looking at maps seems to verify it, but this is totally untrue. Manchuria had not been part of China for centuries, the Manchu Imperial Family ruled over China for centuries. As I have said before, this would be like saying that prior to 1783 the British Isles had been part of America for centuries. Manchuria was a separate, independent country. The rulers of that country were the Qing Dynasty emperors. They ruled Manchuria and the Ming Dynasty ruled China. Then the Qing Emperor became the Great Khan of Mongolia also. So Manchuria and Mongolia had the same Emperor. Then the Ming Dynasty was overthrown, chaos ensued, the Qing Emperor from Manchuria invaded China and became the accepted, recognized Emperor. You will notice that at no point do the Chinese invade and conquer or buy or annex Manchuria. The ruler of Manchuria became the ruler of China.

Then, centuries later, the Chinese rose up against the Manchu Emperor, he abdicated and the Republic of China was established. The Republic of China, however, claimed ownership over all countries besides their own that had also been ruled by the Manchu Emperors such as Tibet, Mongolia and Manchuria. A certain White Russian general expelled them from Mongolia but the rest were eventually taken and remain part of China to this day, though at least in the case of Tibet some people do recognize the injustice of it. However, Manchuria should be no different. Which is why I have long said, and will go on saying no matter how unpopular it is, that the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and the restoration of the last Qing Emperor to the throne of “Manchukuo” (which is simply how you say Manchuria in Chinese) was the correction of an historical injustice. You can agree or disagree on whether the actions of the Japanese in Manchuria were positive or negative but they had put back on the throne the one man who had the only legitimate right to be there. They restored, officially (whether ‘genuinely’ or not people can debate) the independence of a country that had been independent before and had never been “a part of China”.

That is the basis of this issue and the one the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) most wishes to cover up because it is, so to speak, the root of their entire tree of lies on this issue. The more obvious falsehood is that, as U.S. General William T. Sherman said, “War means fighting and fighting means killing” and not much of that happened in 1931. It is perfectly obvious that the war did not start with the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931 because, on the whole, the Chinese did not resist. There was little to fighting in the whole process. China made no effort to defend Manchuria and this was a matter of official policy. It also makes the current tactic of the CCP trying to take credit for resisting the Japanese all the more laughable. Republic of China president Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek had ordered a policy of non-resistance to the Japanese in order to focus on the threat posed by the communist insurgency, which he regarded as more serious. The Chinese Northeastern Army under General Zhang Xueliang was vastly largely than the Japanese forces that moved into Manchuria and yet no significant resistance was offered.

It takes some severe twisting of the facts to insist that a war started in 1931 when there was little to no fighting rather than in 1937 when the armies of two nations became engaged in increasingly large scale combat. Common sense would seem to indicate that a war starts when two sides begin fighting but common sense is often unfashionable and doesn’t always fit with political narratives. The Chinese government decided, as a matter of policy, not to oppose the Japanese and that did not change until 1937 when both sides were drawn into conflict after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The Chinese communists, you may note, had little to do with any of this other than, perhaps, doing their best to instigate a clash between the Japanese and the Chinese nationalists, knowing it would be to their benefit (in certain cases Mao openly stated this). That, however, also goes against their current narrative. Getting into the details also, ultimately, only serves to bolster the case of Japan since doing that tends to reveal how chaotic China was during this period and what a loose claim to any actual authority the republican government had.

The Japanese have voiced some disapproval over what the Chinese communist government is doing with this re-working of the World War II timeline but they are likely the only ones who will. Encouraging anti-Japanese hatred over historical events has become a mainstay of the CCP’s program to unite the people and divert their frustrations away from the government and toward a foreign power that is not allowed to go to war anymore. One could say that it does reveal how insecure they are about their own national narrative and how shaky the ground is that it rests on. What is alarming is that so many people in other parts of the world have bought into their false narrative, usually because of anti-Japanese sentiment on their own part because of World War II which allows them to easily slip from, “the Japanese are guilty of this” to “the Japanese are guilty of everything”. It is not, however, factual, it is not real history and it should not go unanswered. The effort of the CCP to take credit for everything the nationalists did and to erase from the history books any traces of the Qing Dynasty and the Manchurian nation should be resisted.

Understanding the Last Emperor, Part III

Continued from Part II

The Emperor hoped he would finally have the opportunity to prove himself as an independent ruler but he was hampered by the degree to which Manchukuo depended on Japan for security and economic development. As Japan was the primary source of investment in Manchukuo, they naturally had the most influence in the country. Both then and in the years since this has been exaggerated to ridiculous proportions. However, because Japan was the primary source of support for the new regime and because the Emperor desired to show solidarity with Japan during times of increasing difficulty, the Emperor signed into law many directives to show that Manchukuo stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Japan. Some of these, such as Japanese being made the official language taught in Manchukuo schools, have since caused a great deal of unfair criticism to be heaped on the Emperor. However, in every government position it was a Manchu who held the top ministerial role with the Japanese being restricted to the position of deputy ministers. Many critics hold Manchukuo and Japan to an unfair standard in this regard, ignoring other countries which acted similarly. The United States, for example, recognized the independence of The Philippines after World War II but still imposed many conditions to give American interests a favored position and to maintain American military forces in the country.

Enemies of the Empire of Manchukuo, in and outside the country, worked tirelessly to spread fear and paranoia about the Japanese presence in the country. Especially after the start of World War II any person who died or left the country was immediately accused of having been assassinated by the Japanese. Even the Emperor's consort, Tan Yuling, who died in 1944 is an example of this. Despite the lack of any evidence at all that she died of anything but natural causes it is still widely held, whether outright or through innuendo, that she was murdered by Japanese doctors after opposing their influence in Manchukuo. What is certain is that the Japanese officials always treated the Emperor with the utmost respect and, though he later expressed misgivings, the Emperor gave his full support to Japan and the "holy war" for Greater East Asia and showed this support by proclaiming Shinto as the official state religion of Manchukuo. And yet, the Emperor himself was not immune from the fear-mongering going on throughout the country. Concerns about security became causes for suspicion and in time the Emperor himself became very worried about his safety and constantly consulted Buddhist oracles and delved into divination to try to protect himself. Empress Wan Jung dealt with the situation by becoming addicted to opium, a fact which particularly distressed the Emperor as his mother had died of an opium overdose when he was young.

In actuality, the life of the Emperor had in a way regressed to what it had been like for him as a boy in the Forbidden City, only with a change in handlers. He signed what documents the Japanese put before him, he followed their advice on who he was to meet and what he was to say and was not allowed to leave the palace unless the trip had been cleared by the Japanese and he was accompanied by an official escort. Today this is all portrayed in the most negative light possible, yet is little different from the role of any constitutional monarch and, indeed, was not terribly dissimilar to what life was like for the Emperor of Japan at the same time. There was a war going on and it would not be the first or only time that progress toward greater independence for a client state was put on hold because of an on-going conflict. Moreover, the conflict was increasingly going against Japan and by extension for Manchukuo. Japanese security around the Emperor and his own paranoia only increased as the defeat of Japan loomed closer. This is unfortunate because the Emperor was legitimately popular among the native Manchu people, if for no other reason than that he was one of their own. Even those who grumbled about the Japanese being too heavy-handed still felt sympathy for their Emperor in whom they saw a brief vision of their former glory and status. And though things were far from ideal, it was lost on no one that without Japan the restoration would never have hapened at all, and if they were defeated the restored monarchy was surely doomed. When the end finally came PuYi hoped to fly to Japan where he could surrender to the Americans, but unfortunately for him, he was overtaken by the Russian invasion, captured and placed under house arrest in the Soviet Union for five years. Having long held the Communists to be the worst of all revolutionary, republican groups, he was certain that his fate was sealed.

His fear turned out to be misplaced. The Russians, for their own part, cared very little about him. The Soviet Union had, after all, originally recognized Manchukuo as a legitimate country and had only declared war on Japan at the last minute, after the atomic bomb had been dropped and Japan was all but defeated, in order to grab territory and extend their influence in the Far East. The actual state of mind of the former Chinese Emperor, at this period, is hard to estimate. He made gushing overtures to Joseph Stalin about how his mind had been liberated by reading Karl Marx, yet at the same time he named a cousin to be his successor in the imperial line. Was he genuinely being changed or was he simply throwing himself at the mercy of the powers that be as he had done before with the Chinese republic? He had, after all, testified at the war crimes trials in Tokyo in 1946 and claimed that he had been kidnapped by the Japanese, used against his will as their instrument and pleaded his total opposition to these people to whom he had once expressed his deepest thanks, loyalty and admiration to. Which stance represents his true beliefs? Only PuYi himself could say for sure and his story changed constantly. He was hardly in a position to be perfectly honest with anyone.

Whatever his feelings about Marxist doctrine he certainly did not want to go back to China and fall into Red Chinese hands, certain that he would face death at their hands. The Soviets soon grew uncomfortable keeping him and realized they could not use him to their benefit. So, as a gesture of friendship to the government of Chairman Mao Tse-tung who had recently seized power; even standing triumphantly over the gates of the Forbidden City announcing that the world had stood up, and turned over the despised former monarch to them in 1950. PuYi and his entourage were returned to Manchuria and incarcerated in the Fushun prison for war criminals. He underwent a constant battery of communist indoctrination and reeducation through labor. Famously, he had to learn to dress himself, tie his own shoes, make his own bed, wash his own clothes; all of which he had no idea how to do since he had never had to do anything for himself. He was a tragic figure, especially at that time, being a man who had never known real personal freedom except perhaps for his few years in Tientsin, and yet even the comfort of his previous prisons denied him of any independence and self worth because of his pampering.

In time, PuYi overcame his fear of being killed. The Communists had decided that he would be more useful to them alive than as a traditionalist martyr. Across China, as in most every Communist country, there was an effort to create a "new man" who would see no class distinctions, who would idolize the party, revere the Chairman and march lock-step with the dictates handed down by the absolutist government, even in terms of dictating thoughts and opinions. They saw in PuYi the chance for a great propaganda coup, that they could "reform", as they called it, the Emperor himself, the man once called the Son of Heaven and the Lord of 10,000 Years, as an ordinary working communist. Unfortunately, they were successful in this, though it took ten years to do it. It is hard to say how much individualism he ever had and the Communists have always been masters at denying the value of any individual and by the time of his release PuYi was praising his Communist captors, scorning his imperial background, voicing shame for his great crimes and thanking the Communist government for their charity, benevolence and wisdom.

Chairman Mao officially pardoned PuYi who returned to Beijing and became a simple worker at the Botanical Gardens. Having abandoned his wives in Manchukuo, Empress Wan Jung died in Communist prison in 1946 and his surviving concubine divorced him, the government played matchmaker to see him married to a nurse, also a member of the Communist Party of course, who he stayed with for the rest of his life. PuYi served on the Chinese People‘s Political Consultative Conference from 1964 and wrote his memoir, "From Emperor to Citizen" in which he recounts the story of his life, remarking on how very wicked he and his compatriots were in his time as Emperor and lavishing praise on the Communists for saving his life and helping him to see the truth and be apart of their remaking of China into a much better country than it had ever been before -as he had been duly taught. The life of the last Emperor of China finally came to an end in 1967 when he died in a hospital in Beijing from cancer. At this time, China was at the height of the horrific Cultural Revolution and rumors began that he had been assassinated by Red Guards. The truth, as with much of his life, may never be known. The Cultural Revolution was a reaction against all things traditional, and as the former Emperor PuYi inherently represented the old China, yet as a reborn Communist he also represented the new China and it would seem a little late to kill him. Interestingly, that night the sky turned brown and eerie from a Mongol sand storm that was quite unheard of at that time of year. The strange light and sounds caused many elder Chinese especially to guess that the "last dragon" had flown into the clouds.

Initially, after his death, PuYi was cremated and buried in a Communist Party cemetery alongside government elites and older graves of imperial concubines and eunuchs. Later, in 1995, his widow moved his body to a private cemetery near the old Qing dynasty tombs, paid for by a Hong Kong businessman who admitted that he hoped the presence of the last Emperor would help boost his sales for plots. He also stated that he planned to build a larger memorial for the Emperor and his later wives as a sort of tourist attraction. The Aisin-Gioro, never very taken by PuYi's last wife, were reportedly extremely upset about this action. Even in death, it seems, PuYi is still being used as an instrument for the cause of others.

MM Video: Chinese Imperial Family

MM Video: The Last Emperor

Monarchist Profile: Zheng Xiaoxu

Few monarchists are probably less remembered or more unjustly vilified than the late statesman, artist and diplomat Zheng Xiaoxu. He was an upright and loyal servant of the last Emperor of China and a man who wanted a China that was strong, united, independent and modern while still holding to their ancient traditions and cultural heritage, at the heart of which was the Confucian imperial system. Zheng Xiaoxu was born on April 2, 1860 in Suzhou, Jiangsu province into a Han family which originated in Fujian province. Noticeably bright from his youth, he took the imperial examinations in 1882 and earned an intermediate degree and within a few years became a secretary to Li Hongzhang, a high Qing official and later a prominent commander in the First Sino-Japanese War and the Taiping Rebellion. His performed his duties satisfactorily and in 1891 was posted to the Chinese legation in Tokyo and later acted as a Chinese consul in Tsukiji, Osaka and Kobe.

While in Kobe, Zheng Xiaoxu played a crucial role in the organization of the Chinese guild and he made many important contacts in Japanese high society in both the political and cultural spheres. However, he was recalled in 1894 with the outbreak of the war with Japan and he worked in Nanjing with Zhang Zhidong, an advocate of reform and opponent of the Japanese annexation of Formosa. Zheng Xiaoxu accompanied his master to Peking and there obtained an appointment to the Foreign Office, a position for which he was well suited. However, his association with many of the prominent reformers gathered around Emperor Guangxu during the “100 Days Reform” in 1898 meant that, once the Empress-Dowager had suppressed the effort, Zheng Xiaoxu suddenly became rather unpopular in Peking and he left the city for the southern provinces where he served in various capacities.

When the Revolution of 1911 came and brought down the Qing Dynasty, replacing the traditional imperial system with a western-style republic, Zheng Xiaoxu was outraged and spurned all efforts to induce him to join the new government. He adamantly refused to serve the republic or to even acknowledge them as the new masters of China and he retired to Shanghai where he wrote poetry and practiced his calligraphy. In fact, it is for his art and poems that he is probably most remembered today, when he is fondly remembered at all. However, even in his retirement he did not cease to make his political views known and he wrote a number of brutally honest criticisms of the republican government. Viewing their entire establishment as illegitimate and un-Chinese he denounced the succession of governments as a collection of thieves, ineffective, self-centered and only looking to pocket as much as they could while they could before being pushed out by others. So, all in all, he had a very accurate view of the early days of the Republic of China.

Zheng Xiaoxu and the Emperor

This brought Zheng Xiaoxu to the attention of certain individuals inside the massive walls of the “Great Within”. Reginald F. Johnston, the British tutor and unofficial advisor to the last Emperor, recommended Zheng Xiaoxu to the young former Emperor for the post of lord chamberlain. He was duly appointed and tasked with leading a wave of reforms in the operating of the Forbidden City. However, he met opposition from the outset by everyone from corrupt officials worried that their usual way of doing business was being endangered, from Manchurians who were suspicious of a Han official being given such an important post and naturally extending to some republican officials who were always nervous about possible efforts to restore the imperial system by those in the Forbidden City. Zheng Xiaoxu persevered however and became known for his staunch loyalty to the Emperor as well as his willingness to change and adapt to modern circumstances. When the freedom and, at times, even the safety of the Emperor was threatened, Zheng Xiaoxu helped arrange his transfer to the Japanese legation in Tianjin.

It is not surprising, given the history Zheng Xiaoxu had with the Japanese and the contacts he had long had in Japan, that he would look to them for assistance at this critical time for the Qing Dynasty. However, he was not wedded to the Japanese alone and encouraged maintaining contacts with as many foreign powers as possible from White Russian exiles to British diplomats. He reasoned that if numerous powers became involved their own competition amongst themselves would prevent any one of them from dominating the Qing restoration movement. However, it was ultimately the Japanese who proved to be the only ones willing to take concrete measures to help the former Manchu Emperor and attention turned toward moving the young former monarch back to his ancestral homeland of Manchuria. Zheng Xiaoxu urged the Emperor to accept this course of action and came to be the dominant figure in the imperial court. When Japan said they would support the creation of an independent Manchuria under the leadership of the Emperor but not a full blown restoration of the “Great Qing Empire” Zheng Xiaoxu embraced the idea while his longtime rival, Lo Chen-yu, felt this was not sufficient and resigned.

So, first as a state and then as an imperial monarchy, Manchukuo was created and Zheng Xiaoxu became prime minister to the Emperor who adopted the reigning name of Kang-Te. All the years of effort seemed to have paid off with an actual restoration, even if only over Manchuria. Most still hoped that this would, in any event, be one step toward the eventual restoration of the Qing Empire of China and the prime minister was certainly among them. Zheng Xiaoxu had been a key player in the establishment of Manchukuo, starting with his contacts in the foreign service as well as friends in the Black Dragon Society (formerly the Black Ocean Society) who wanted Manchuria to act as a buffer zone between Japan and the Soviet Union. He wrote the lyrics to the national anthem, helped organize the administration, wrote about the Confucian monarchist political-moral philosophy of the monarchy and many of the efforts to encourage public support for the new state. However, it would be incorrect to portray him (as most do) as simply a puppet of the Kwantung Army. He shared the views of the more benevolent Japanese imperialists that Manchukuo required Japanese assistance and oversight in the early formative period but that this role should be lessened until it disappeared entirely, leaving Japan and Manchukuo as totally equal and independent allies.

Many often forget how long Manchukuo was an established country, from 1932 to 1945. As early as 1934, after Manchukuo officially became a monarchy, Zheng Xiaoxu viewed the role of the Japanese as being effectively over and resented their continued oversight of Manchu affairs. As was his nature, he was not hesitant to voice his opinions and openly clashed with the Kwantung Army high command on a number of occasions. As a result, many of the Japanese leaders came to view Zheng Xiaoxu as an enemy rather than an ally and suggested the Emperor replace him with someone else. After this attitude was clearly proven to him, Zheng Xiaoxu requested permission to retire in May of 1935 and this was granted. He was still kept under close watch until his mysterious death on March 28, 1938. The Emperor ordered that he be given a state funeral, a fittingly ceremonious end for a man who had been such a loyal servant of his monarch and perhaps merciful in that, disillusioned as he had already become, he did not live to see the final fall of the last Emperor of the “Middle Kingdom”.

MM Video: Manchukuo

MM Video: The Pearl Concubine

MM Video: Emperor GuangXu

MM Movie Review: The Last Princess of Manchuria

“The Last Princess of Manchuria” was a 1990 Hong Kong bio-pic of the Manchurian princess known as “Eastern Jewel”, Kawashima Yoshiko, Kam Bik Fai and so on. Because of her reputation as a seductress and a spy she has sometimes been called the “Eastern Mata Hari” and because of her military deeds the more sympathetic Japanese press sometimes dubbed her the “Joan of Arc of Manchuria”. The film was directed by Eddie Ling-Ching Fong and starred Anita Mui in the title role. The look of the film may seem somewhat dated, but for those of us who look with nostalgia on the 1980’s this will not be a problem. What some may find a little hard to ignore is all of these very northeast Asian characters speaking Cantonese but those unfamiliar with Far East languages will take no notice of this. Though a product of the (then) British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw the movie that the character of the controversial princess was not devoid of sympathy.

The film is told mostly in flashback, starting with the princess in prison and on trial by the Republic of China at the end of World War II, her life story unfolds and then the trial resumes at the passing of judgment on her. If this style seems familiar it should as it was no coincidence that this same method was used in the film “The Last Emperor”. The producers of the film made a conscious effort to emulate the success of that epic drama with this film and, fans of the “The Last Emperor” will also remember the appearance of Eastern Jewel in the latter part of the movie played by Maggie Han. Obviously some of the same historical figures from that film appear in this one such as the last Emperor himself, the Empress “Elizabeth” and the Japanese filmmaker Amakasu, played in this film by Tung-Shing Yee. Obviously, due to time constraints, not every aspect of her life could be covered in detail, but they did a pretty good job of covering the main events from start to finish and giving the viewer some idea of what Eastern Jewel did what she did and why she was the sort of woman she was.

The flashback starts in the Peking of late Imperial China as the little child princess learns that she is to be sent to Japan. Sad but dutiful, she departs and excels at martial arts in school, eventually learning of the death of her parents and feeling the first glimpse of the struggle she will face throughout her life; where does she fit in? Is she Manchurian, Chinese, Japanese? Denied her true love, assaulted by her adopted father and forced to marry a Mongolian prince she finally rebels against being used as a tool by those around her and determines to be the master of her own destiny. After a brief visit to Japan to tell off her adopted father she sets out on her own in China and it is at this point that probably the most notable extension of ‘dramatic license’ is taken. While being mugged by a gang of thievish “missionaries” Eastern Jewel aka Kawashima Yoshiko is rescued by the kung fu-fighting opera star with the unfortunate name of “Fook” (after whom the Princess more unfortunately names her pet monkey “Ah Fook”) played by Andy Lau. Again, there is a genuine connection for the much mistreated princess but we see a hint of hurt as well as anger in her when they realize that their two visions of the future for China can never be reconciled. He is an ardent republican nationalist, she wishes the imperial monarchy and the honor of her family restored to glory.

Using all the means at her disposal, which at that point are simply her feminine wilds, the princess joins the Japanese forces of the Kwantung Army, rapidly rising as the favorite of the (rather over-acted) Commander Tanaka. Some more dramatic license is taken when the Qing princess is recruited to use a combination of force and blackmail to get the Empress Wan Jung to go to Manchuria as her husband, the last Emperor (who appears once) will not leave without her. She is not exactly thrilled with her place in the Japanese operation, but she looks to no one else to correct this and remains as ruthless and resourceful in ensuring her survival and advancement. I thought there was a chance for something much better when the princess took command of the Anguo Army but that period in her life was cut rather short. There is an assassination attempt (a mysterious one) and she is sent to Tianjin to run a thinly-veiled spy ring using a restaurant as a front. However, her operation is attacked by republican agents led by, you guessed it, Fook. This invented effort at romance (though the opera performances had a bewildering intoxication about them that was good) was probably the weakest part of the film in my view.

In her treatment of Fook we see another glimpse of the humanity of the star of the movie who is of course clearly portrayed as a villain. Yet, even the most adamant might be moved to some sympathy by her downfall with the defeat of Japan at the end of the war when she is abandoned by all and surrounded by enemies. The end is left with just a tad of ambiguity so that those wishing for something more can at least indulge their imaginations -if they so choose. Overall, I liked the movie though I am biased by my interest in the main character. It is, as stated, dated and there are plenty of flaws that those used to the standards of Hollywood will surely notice. However, if Anita Mui was always at her greatest as a singer she at least proved worthy of her salary as an actress as well. As stated, the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are pretty starkly identified, which is to be expected, yet I was pleasantly surprised that they were honest enough in this film to at least provoke a little sympathy for the Eastern Jewel. If she did unsavory things in her life we can at least see why, get some clue as to what made her have the attitude she did, and that she was not entirely selfish but also fighting, scheming and plotting for a future she truly felt would be greater than that of the republic.

Consort Profile: Empress Dowager Cixi

The story of the Grand Empress Dowager Cixi is one of the most remarkable in Chinese history. She rose from being a rather minor consort in the Forbidden City to become the dominant figure in Chinese government in the twilight of the Qing Empire and effectively the ruler of China in all but name. She was born on November 29, 1835 to a relatively minor Manchu official. Not much about her background is known and there are conflicting accounts as to her date of birth and even her given name. In 1851, after moving to Peking, she was chosen as a concubine for the Emperor Xianfeng, eighth emperor of the Qing Dynasty. The Emperor favored her and she was advanced in rank amongst the concubines and by 1855 she was pregnant. When she gave birth the following year to the future Emperor Tongzhi her position was assured to be a secure and influential one. This advanced her in rank above all the other concubines and second only to the Empress herself.

In 1860, during the second Opium War, British troops attacked Peking, burned the Summer Palace and forced the Imperial Family to flee to Manchuria. In the ensuing years this act would have a great effect on Cixi and instill in her a fear and loathing of foreigners and the British often in particular. The Emperor died shortly thereafter in Manchuria and Cixi’s son, Tongzhi, became Emperor of China. It was hoped that the Dowager Empress Ci’an and Consort Cixi would cooperate in overseeing the young monarch who would be acted for by a committee of eight regents. It was also at this point that Cixi was elevated to the rank of Empress Dowager. However, the Dowager Empress Ci’an was easily dominated and by 1861 Empress Dowager Cixi had consolidated enough support around her from those opposed to the regents to carry out a palace coup that effectively made her the ruler of China. She rewarded her supporters with high positions and was the dominant force in politics throughout the reign of Emperor Tongzhi.

Contrary to what some think the era of rule by Empress Dowager Cixi was not one of complete stagnation. She reformed the bureaucracy, personally interviewing candidates for high office, opening up offices to Han officials as well as Manchus and even placing Han Chinese officers in charge of military units if they showed more promise than the traditional Manchurian choices. Part of this was in response to the great danger represented by the Taiping Rebellion which threatened the Qing Dynasty with total destruction. Cixi was greatly disturbed to have to allow foreign elements in to quell the rebellion and she was determined to reform and modernize Chinese civil and military institutions so that such assistance would not be needed again. She allowed foreigners to teach Chinese students in Peking and also agreed, for a time at least, to allow Chinese students to go abroad for education. This only changed when these students returned home with new philosophical ideas as well as practical ones that posed a threat to the traditional political framework of China and their Confucian cultural heritage.

It is also true though that Empress Dowager Cixi jealously guarded the power she had attained. She prevented Emperor Tongzhi from taking power into his own hands and when he died without an heir in 1875 she chose as his successor her nephew the Emperor GuangXu who she continued to dominate. There were also increasing challenges for the Qing dynasty and a string of domestic and foreign defeats. The Taiping Rebellion was defeated but at great cost and with foreign assistance. China was defeated by the emerging power of Japan in the first Sino-Japanese War which pushed Chinese influence out of Korea and a war with France over influence in Vietnam also ended in defeat for China. This string of defeats helped encouraged many of the traditional Manchu elites that drastic changes were needed and they rallied around the figure of the young Emperor GuangXu to assert his authority and take power from the Empress Dowager.
This resulted in what is known as the “100 Days of Reform” led by modern-minded mandarins such as the staunch Qing loyalist Kang Youwei and the more liberal Liang Qiqao. The Empress Dowager went into retirement as the Emperor issued a string of reform edicts aimed at modernization and a transition to a Chinese-style constitutional monarchy. However, all of these sudden changes generated a great deal of opposition. It is usual to portray the opposition of the Empress Dowager and those supporting her to these reforms as simple reactionary intransigence and desperation to hold on to power. There were certainly elements of that but there was more to it such a genuine concern that such changes were too far-reaching, coming too fast and that foreign influences were gaining too much power through them; particularly the influence of the Japanese. Empress Dowager Cixi came out of retirement, orchestrated a coup against the Emperor and effectively placed the monarch under house arrest and resumed her own rule of China.

Shortly thereafter another potential crisis emerged with the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, which the foreign press termed the Boxers, were a nationalistic group aroused to wrath against the presence and influence of foreigners in China. However, this opposition to “foreigners” extended to varying degrees to the Manchu dynasty who many Han Chinese viewed as foreign even though they had long been thoroughly acculturated. Because of this the Manchu court was divided over how to deal with the Boxers between those who saw the movement as a great opportunity to seize on their popular momentum to drive out the foreign influence and those who saw the Boxers as a threat to the dynasty, either on their own or by inciting the foreign powers to retaliate against the whole of the Chinese empire. Empress Dowager Cixi finally decided to cast her lot with the Boxers and give them the support of the imperial army, reasoning that, in their current state, China had nothing more to lose. Unequal treaties had been enforced on China, foreign possessions dotted the coast and most of China was divided amongst foreign spheres of influence. If the Qing court allied with the Boxers and they were victorious it could have been a new lease on life.

However, as we know, the Boxers were not successful. Despite some early victories the foreign legation in Peking held out in a dramatic 55-day siege against the Boxers and a coalition army eventually succeeded in marching to their relief. The Boxers were destroyed, the Empress Dowager and the whole imperial court were again forced to flee Peking which was sacked and looted by the foreign armies, enraged over the treatment of their officials and countrymen as well as the massacre of missionaries and Chinese Christians by the Boxers. A humiliating peace treaty was forced on the Empress Dowager which ended up being self-defeating for the foreign powers. The Qing dynasty might have collapsed then and there but the eight-nation alliance preferred that the empire continue rather than dissolve into chaos. However, by imposing such humiliating terms on them they all but ensured the eventual collapse of the Qing Empire which did occur less than ten years later.

The Empress Dowager did not return to Peking until 1902 but then embarked on a new push for reform and modernization, again, something she seldom is given credit for. Foreign models were studied, numerous changes enacted in everything from court protocol to civil administration and society as well as the military. However, most viewed these reforms as ‘too little, too late’. Things were also made uneasy by the fact that the Empress Dowager was clearly in failing health and would not live much longer. In 1908 she designated another nephew, Aisin-Gioro Pu-Yi, to be the heir to Emperor GuangXu who was soon to die. It is widely believed that the Empress Dowager had him poisoned to prevent him implementing the reforms he had previously attempted. However, regardless of how he died, this would seem an odd motive for assassination considering that the reforms the Empress Dowager herself implemented were more far-reaching than those of Emperor GuangXu she had previously opposed. In any event, the Emperor died, the next emperor was named and the Empress Dowager passed away herself on November 15, 1908 after a long and legendary career almost unique in the entire history of Imperial China.

The lady who had entered the Forbidden City as a lowly concubine ended her life as ‘Her Imperial Majesty the Current Divine Mother Empress Dowager of the Great Qing Empire’ with additional titles and nicknames such as “The Old Buddha”, “The Blessed”, “Holy Mother”, “The Respectful”, “The Eternal” and so on; a testament to her power, prestige and her image as a permanent fixture in the halls of power. That this was remarkable and unprecedented was not lost on the Dowager Empress herself who famously remarked, “I have often thought that i am the most clever woman that ever lived, and others cannot compare with me.... Although I have heard much about Queen Victoria...I don't think her life was half so interesting and eventful as mine.... she had... really nothing to say about the policy of the country. Now look at me. I have 4000,000,000 people dependent on my judgment.” How correct her judgments were remain much debated. Traditionally she has been seen as a villainous figure, thwarting efforts at reform and cheering Boxer atrocities. However, as we have seen, that is not a totally accurate view. Recent historians have started to paint a more favorable picture of her but they have a long way to go in changing the popular perception.

Favorite Royal Images: Two Asian Emperors

HIM Emperor Showa (Hirohito) of Japan and HIM Emperor Kang Teh (Pu-Yi) of Manchukuo during a formal visit to Tokyo to cement the Japanese-Manchu alliance.

Rare "Talkie" of the Last Emperor

Monarchist Profile: Eastern Jewel

The woman known as Eastern Jewel was born in Peking in 1907 as Princess Aisin-Gioro Xianyu into the house of Prince Su of the Qing Imperial Dynasty. After the revolution toppled the Qing she was sent to be raised in Japan by a friend of her father's who was deeply involved in the pan-Asian movement. There she went by the name of Yoshiko Kawashima. When she was 17 she attempted suicide and began wearing men's clothing on occasion. This behavior is usually attributed to being raped by her foster-father, which would certainly explain a lot. She was later married off to the Inner Mongolian prince Ganjuurjab to foster ties between the Japanese, Mongols and the Manchu Imperial Dynasty. However, she was not happy there and soon divorced and fled Mongolia.

Eastern Jewel moved to Shanghai and there first became involved with the Japanese military as an espionage agent were her Qing dynasty connections with the upper echelons of Chinese, Mongol and Manchu society proved invaluable. Throughout her life she suffered from something of an identity crisis but the one thing that never wavered was her devotion to monarchism; be it her loyalty to the Emperor of Japan or her zeal to see the restoration of the Qing Imperial Dynasty of which she was a member. The last Emperor of China was her cousin and always welcomed her at his court-in-exile. She played a major role in persuading the last Emperor to go with the Japanese to Manchuria to establish the new monarchy of Manchukuo.

When open warfare broke out again between the Chinese and Japanese, Eastern Jewel, then going by the name of Kam Bik Fai, became an officer in the Manchukuo Imperial military and formed and led her own anti-guerilla cavalry force known as the Anguo Army. As she cleared bandits and red guerillas out of Manchuria, Eastern Jewel became a media sensation in Japan where she was known as the "Joan of Arc of Manchukuo". However, the media attention all but ruined her chances to return to the spy game which was a problem following her being wounded and unable to remain with her army. She opened a resteraunt in Tientsin as a front for Japanese espionage work and she was still there when the war ended and Japan surrendered. She tried to return to Japan but was captured by the Chinese republican forces and executed in 1948.