Ethnicity in empire and nation: Manchus, Manzhouguo, and Manchuria (1911--1952) (China, Japan)

This dissertation documents and analyzes the politicization of ethnicity for nation-building and nation-destroying of Manzhouguo (1932–1945) amid the Sino-Japanese confrontation, as well as its effects on the reconfigurations of ethnic and national identities of the Manchus in the postwar years. This cross-disciplinary study focuses on how ethno-nationalist discourse is used for nation-building during international confrontation over a multi-ethnic area, as well as how political and cultural integration of an ethnic group into a nation-state is reached while ethnic identity is reconfigured. As a product of nation-building competition between the Chinese government and Japanese colonial authority, Manzhouguo may serve as a historical reference for scholars concerned with current ethnic tensions and the rising voice of ethno-nationalist discourse in contested terrain similar to Manchuria in the 1930s.; In the case of Manzhouguo, how did the Chinese and the Japanese sides politicize ethnicity and mobilize ethno-nationalist rhetoric in their nation-building projects for domestic and international audience? How did China and Manzhouguo try to include the Manchus into their rhetoric of nation-building? How did the Manchus view the nationhood of Manzhouguo? After Japan's defeat in 1945, what did Manchus remember about Manzhouguo? How is a collective memory of Manchus' roles in the Sino-Japanese war constructed, and how does it affect the reconfiguration of Manchus' national and ethnic identities in the post-war era?; To answer the questions above, I examine how Manchu ethnicity was represented, by government, intellectuals, and the media, differently in Manzhouguo and in the Republic of China. By interviewing Manchu people, I also investigate the relations between political construction and the Manchus' memories of Manzhouguo. This research treats Manzhouguo not as a strain in either Japanese or Chinese linear history, but as a historical product of nation-building competition between different political regimes over a multi-ethnic and transnational area. This study will enrich current research on ethnicity and nation-building because, unlike successful examples such as Japan since the Meiji era or the People's Republic of China, Manzhouguo may tell us more about why not everyone may accept a given community, an ethnic group, or a nation.