The Empire of Japan declares a puppet state of Manzhouguo (the obsolete Chinese name for Manchuria) independent from the Republic of China and installed former Chinese Emperor Aisin Gioro Puyi as Chief Executive of the State.
Manchuria is an exonym for a historical and geographic region of Russia and China in Northeast Asia (mostly in Northeast China today). Its extent may vary depending on the context:
Modern geographical region:
(most often) Northeast China, specifically the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning, but broadly also including the eastern Inner Mongolian prefectures of Hulunbuir, Hinggan, Tongliao, and Chifeng, and sometimes Xilin Gol;
Greater Manchuria, the region of Northeast Asia that served as the historical homeland of the Jurchens and later their descendants Manchus, which was controlled in whole by China before the Amur Annexation in 1860. The region was since then divided between China (Northeast China, also known as "Inner Manchuria") and Russia (the Amur drainage basin that located south of the Uda River and Stanovoy Range, which is now comprised the southern part of the Russian Far East. Also known as "Russian Manchuria", "Outer Northeast" or "Outer Manchuria");
Historical polities usually referred to as Manchuria:
The Later Jin (16161636), the Manchu-led dynasty which was the predecessor to the Qing dynasty, or the subsequent duration of the Qing Dynasty prior to its conquest of China proper (1644);
the northeastern provinces of the Qing dynasty, the homeland of Manchus, known as "Guandong" or "Guanwai" during the Qing dynasty;
Manchukuo (19321945), a puppet state of Imperial Japan. Its occupied territories included the entire Northeast China, the northern fringes of present-day Hebei Province, and the eastern part of Inner Mongolia.First used in the 17th century by the Japanese, it remains a common term elsewhere but is deprecated within China due to its association with Japanese imperialism and Manchu chauvinism. Instead, the term Northeast Region (; Dngbi) is used in official state documents to describe the region. Northeast China is predominantly Han Chinese due to internal Chinese migrations and Sinicization of the Manchus especially during the Qing Dynasty. It is considered the homeland of several minority groups besides the Manchus, including the Yemaek the Xianbei, the Shiwei, and the Khitans. The area is also home to many Mongols and Hui.Manchuria is often referred to as the "Chinese rust belt", due to the shrinking cities that used to be the center of China's heavy industry and natural resource mining, but today face increasing economic decline.
The Empire of Japan was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent formation of modern Japan. It encompassed the Japanese archipelago and several colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories.
Under the slogans of fukoku kyōhei and shokusan kōgyō, Japan underwent a period of industrialization and militarization, the Meiji Restoration being the fastest modernisation of any country to date, all of these aspects contributed to Japan's 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, including the Great Depression, led to the rise of militarism, nationalism and totalitarianism as embodied in the Showa Statism ideology, 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 (1937–1945) and the Pacific War. However, starting from 1942, particularly after the Battles of Midway and Guadalcanal, Japan was forced to adopt a defensive stance, and the American island hopping campaign meant that Japan was slowly losing all of the territory it had gained, and eventually, the Americans captured Iwo Jima and Okinawa Island, leaving the Japanese mainland completely unprotected. The U.S. forces had planned an invasion, but Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the nearly simultaneous Soviet declaration of war on August 9, 1945, and subsequent invasion of Manchuria and other territories. The Pacific War officially came to a close on September 2, 1945. A period of occupation by the Allies followed. In 1947, with American involvement, a new constitution was enacted, officially bringing the Empire of Japan to an end, and Japan's Imperial Army was replaced with the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Occupation and reconstruction continued until 1952, eventually forming the current constitutional monarchy known as Japan.
The Empire of Japan had three emperors, although it came to an end partway through Shōwa's reign. The emperors were given posthumous names, and the emperors are as follows: Meiji, Taisho, and Shōwa.