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Rule of Law in a Brave New Empire: Legal Rhetoric and Practice in Manchukuo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2010

Thomas David Dubois
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An inquiry into law in Manchukuo might seem, at first glance, to be something of an oxymoronic task. The state itself was created in clear contravention to international law, and when the investigation of the Lytton Commission stated as much in 1933, Japan walked out of the League of Nations, the closest the world had to an international arbitrational body at the time. Within Japan itself, the creation of Manchukuo could be considered the point of no return in the march toward wartime militarism. After this event, arbitrary and military power ran roughshod over civilian institutions of governance, so much so that some scholars of Japanese legal history characterize the period as the “collapse of the legal system” (hō teisai hōkai).

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Law and History Review , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , Summer 2008 , pp. 285 - 318
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Copyright © the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 2008

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References

1. By far the most important work in English on the impact that Manchukuo had on Japan remains Young, Louise, Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998).Google ScholarThe titular “brave new empire” is taken from the sixth chapter of this book. On Manchukuo itself, there is a great deal of work in Japanese, some of the best of which has recently been translated into English. See for example, Yamamuro, Shin'ichi and Fogel, Joshua A., Manchuria under Japanese Dominion (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

2. Although many of the Asian language terms used in this article could be read equally well in either Chinese or Japanese, I will provide pronunciation only in the language of the original source. The validity of the idea of legal collapse and theories for the decline of law in Japan are discussed in Watanabe Yōzō, “Nihon fashizumu hōtaisai sōron” [The shape of Japanese fascist law—overview], in Senji Nihon no hōtaisei [The legal system of wartime Japan], ed. Tōkyō Daigaku Shakai Kagaku Kenkyūjo (Tokyo: Tokyo University, 1980), 3–70.

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7. Beyond the exigencies of colonial governance, the question of whether Japanese law should be extended to non-Japanese was also linked to an evolving sense of Japanese uniqueness. This issue became particularly emotional concerning the 1889 Meiji Constitution, which was understood to be a gift of the Meiji emperor to the Japanese people. On the evolution of Japanese images of self during this period, see Eiji, Oguma, A Genealogy of “Japanese” Self-Images, trans. Askew, David. Japanese Society Series (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

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12. “Waga Man-Mō sanzenman minshū no inochi.” This phrase is seen in the Declaration of the Founding of Manchukuo (Manshūkoku kenkoku sengen) and often thereafter. This and other documents associated with the founding of Manchukuo are available on pages 8–15 of Rikutsui, Yamada, “Manshūkoku no soshiki oyobi kokuhō kōgi” [Lectures on the organization and national law of Manchukuo], in Man-Mō zenshū [Complete works on Man-Mō], ed. Hideo, Sonoi (Tokyo: Man-Mō School Press, 1935), 2:1–92Google Scholar.

13. Most specifically Prime Minister Zheng Xiaoxu, who during the 1920s had accompanied the deposed Qing emperor Pu Yi into political exile in Tianjin and advocated a joint Western and Japanese administration of China. Yi, Aixinjueluo Pu, Wode qian ban sheng [My early life] (Beijing: Qunzhong chubanshe, 2007), 178–79Google Scholar.

14. Duara, Prasenjit, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003).Google Scholar

15. Jieshi, Xie, “Manshūkoku no likkoku ni tai suru kokka seiritsu ni kan suru togobun” [Proclamation concerning the national establishment of Manchukuo] March 2, 1933Google Scholar, in Rikutsui, Yamada, Manshūkoku no soshiki, 14–15Google Scholar.

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18. In Rikutsui, Yamada, Manshūkoku no soshiki, 8–11.Google Scholar

19. See the criticism levied in 1941 by Japanese jurist Naka Setsuo, as cited in Hsin-Che, Wu, “Riben zhiminzhuyi xia de Manzhouguo fazhi, 1932–1945” [The Legal System of Manchukuo under Japanese Colonialism, 1932–1945] (M.A. thesis, National Chengchi University, Department of Law, 2004), 128Google Scholar.

20. Conversely, voicing any sort of reservations against state intrusion necessarily marks one as outside the pale of this body politic, as racially, spiritually or otherwise impure. It is seen equally in the claim of Nazi law to the collective will of the German race, or the Communist invocation of the “dictatorship of the masses.” Jones, , Nazi Conception of Law, 17–21.Google Scholar While there is no room here for a full examination of the influence of fascism on Manchukuo, it is worth remembering that important Chinese figures such as Zheng Xiaoxu were vocal admirers of Mussolini. Yi, Aixinjueluo Pu, Wode qian ban sheng, 178Google Scholar.

21. Any literate resident of Manchukuo would have known the Confucian maxim that “when the people are ruled by means of laws, they will seek to evade them and have no sense of shame.” It has often been suggested, most famously by Max Weber, that this cultural background continues to bias Asian civilizations against the rule of law. For a more recent example of such thinking, see Kim, Chin and Lawson, Craig M., “The Law of the Subtle Mind: The Traditional Japanese Conception of Law,” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 28.3 (1979): 491–513CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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23. The attempt to inculcate the new ideology of the state included purging all references to Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles from educational materials. British Consular Report (hereafter BCR) Harbin, September 30, 1932. In Japan and Dependencies: Political and Economic Reports, 1906–1960, vols. 12–15 (London: Archive Editions, 1994)Google Scholar.

24. Meitarō, Okada, “Manshū rekishi kōza” [Lectures on the history of Manchuria], in Man-Mō zenshū [Complete works on Manchuria and Mongolia], ed. Hideo, Sonoi (Tokyo: Man-Mō School Press, 1935), 1:1–188, esp.177–88.Google Scholar

25. The Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 165. This had not always been the case, even in Japan. A few short decades earlier, the question of whether the Japanese emperor should have primacy over law or the reverse had been the topic of a debate among legal scholars that turned, significantly, on interpretations of the 1889 Constitution. See Colegrove, Kenneth, “Powers and Functions of the Japanese Diet,” American Political Science Review 27.6 (1933): 885–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. On the evolution of legal arguments behind the creation of Manchukuo, particularly the role of Nazi and Soviet theory, see Yoshiro, Matsui, “Nihon gunkoku shugi no kokusai hōron—Manshū shihen keisei” [The international legal theory of Japanese militarism—the development of the “Manchurian Incident”], in Senji Nihon no hō taisei [The legal system of wartime Japan], ed. Kenkyūjo, Tōkyō Daigaku Shakai Kagaku [Tokyo University Social Science Research Institute] (Tokyo: Tokyo University, 1980), 361–405.Google Scholar

27. For a contemporary perspective on the end of extraterritoriality in Japan, see Ker, William P., “Treaty Revision in Japan: A Survey of the Steps by Which the Abolition of Foreign Privilege Was Accomplished in the Island Empire,” Pacific Affairs 1.6 (Nov. 1928): 1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarFor some of the cultural issues surrounding extraterritoriality, particularly the role of settler colonists in lobbying against its abrogation, see Kolsky, Elizabeth, “Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference: Criminal Procedure in British India,” Law and History Review 23 (2005): 631–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. Among other places, the intention to honor existing treaty obligations is stated in the Declaration of the Founding of Manchukuo. Shōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi to chigai hōkan teppai” [Governance and the abolition of extraterritoriality in “Manchukuo”], in Manshūkoku no kenkyū [Research on Manchukuo], ed. Yūzo, Yamamoto (Tokyo: Ryokuin, 1995), 131–55.Google ScholarSee also the statement by Foreign Minister Xie Jieshi in Rikutsui, Yamada, Manshūkoku no soshiki, 14–15Google Scholar.

29. BCR Fengtian (now known as Shenyang; sources occasionally refer to this city as Shengjing, or by its older name of Mukden), March 31, 1934; Shōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 136–40Google Scholar.

30. On Japanese economic interests, see Hikita Yasuyuki, “Kyū ‘Manshū’ ni okeru kigyōkatsudō no sōgōteki kenkyū [Japanese investment to Manchuria and the establishment of Zaibatsu subsidiaries], in 1997–1999 nendo kagaku kenkyūhi hojyokin kiban kenkyū [Research based on 1997–1999 Science Research Grant], ed. Kunio, Suzuki 3 (2000): 91–128.Google ScholarOn the diversity of Japanese interests within Manchukuo, see Masanori, Taura, “Manshūkoku ni okeru chigai hōken teppai mondai” [The problem of extraterritoriality revision in Manchukuo], in Shokuminchi teikoku Nihon no hōteki tenkai [The development of law in the colonial Japanese empire], ed. Toyomi, Asano (Tokyo: Shinzan sha, 2004), 212–53.Google ScholarThe four hundred thousand Japanese in the lands granted by treaty to the South Manchurian Railway were organized and surprisingly vocal opponents of abrogation.

31. BCR Fengtian, November 21, 1933; BCR Fengtian, January 18, 1936.

32. Mitani Taichirō, “Manshūkoku kokka taisei to Nihon no kokunai seiji” [The national form of Manchukuo and domestic politics in Japan], in Iwanami kōza kindai Nihon to shokuminchi [Iwanami lectures in modern Japan and colonialism], vol. 2, Teikoku tōchi no kōzō [Lectures on Imperial rule], 179–213, esp. 186–87; Manshūkoku no kaibō, 12; BCR Fengtian, December 24, 1934Google Scholar.

33. Henderson, Dan Fenno, “Japanese Influences on Communist Legal Language,” in Contemporary Chinese Law: Research Problems and Perspectives, ed. Cohen, Jerome Alan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 158–87.Google ScholarHaifeng, Gao, “Lun Riben dui Qingmo fazhi de yingxiang” [On the influence of Japan on the legal system of the late Qing], in Zhongguo falushi yanjiu [Research on Chinese legal history], ed. Xiaoxin, Ye and Jian, Guo (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2003), 527–43Google Scholar.

34. Shōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 132–35.Google Scholar

35. Esselstrom, Eric W., “Rethinking the Colonial Conquest of Manchuria: The Japanese Consular Police in Jiandao, 1909–1937,” Modern Asian Studies 39.1 (2005): 39–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Qin, Zhang, “Civil Justice in Early Twentieth-Century Northeast China: Fengtian Province, 1900–1928” (Ph.D. diss., Department of East Asian Studies, McGill University, 2005), 69–112.Google Scholar

37. British consular reports from the early 1930s express dismay at the many delays in the promulgation of a new constitution and legal codes. One early report noted hopefully that “The reform of the judiciary, the revision of codes, and the training of judges and police have been considered, and will probably be put into effect in the near future.” BCR Fengtian, November 21, 1933. This sentiment is expressed again in BCR Harbin, December 31, 1935 and Fengtian, January 18, 1936.

38. Nominally temporary security laws, such as the 1932 Provisional Law for the Punishment of Political Criminals (zanxing cheng zhi pantu fa), remained in effect throughout the life of Manchukuo. This purposefully open-ended law, which was modeled on the equally vague Peace Preservation Law in Japan, stipulated death or life imprisonment for “those who engage in rebellion or undermine the foundation of the state.” Jue, Fang and Yunpeng, Yao, “Ri-Wei Fushun difang fayuan he Fushun jianyu” [Fushun local courts and prisons in Japanese Manchuria], in Zhimin zhengquan [Political rights of colonies], ed. al, Sun Bang et. (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 467–75.Google ScholarShōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 135Google Scholar.

39. Nineteen thirty-seven saw the promulgation of a Criminal Code (January 4), Criminal Procedure Law (March 8), Commercial, Shipping, Storage, Maritime Commerce laws (May 13), Civil Code (June 17), and Civil Procedure Law (June 30). For a complete list, see Shōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 135.Google ScholarSee also BCR Fengtian, January 18, 1936; December 31, 1937.

40. One high profile example was the arrest of sixty Chinese Christians on general anti-Manchukuo charges, which was taken as a general attempt at intimidation of the missionaries. BCR Fengtian, January 4, 1936; Harbin, September 30, 1935; Fengtian, March 31, 1935.

41. BCR Harbin, September 30, 1935.

42. In the previous system, local courts were part of the county government and were run by county level officials, such as the county judge (xian sifa gong) and trial officers (chengshen yuan). During the late 1920s, these were gradually replaced by three layers of modern courts. Zhang Qin provides a detailed examination of this complicated, and not strictly linear, transition. It is also worth noting that the boundaries of Fengtian did shift somewhat during this period. Qin, Zhang, “Civil Justice,” 72–78Google Scholar; The Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 428–29; Shōichi, , “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 140–41Google Scholar; Jue, Fang and Yunpeng, Yao, “Ri-Wei Fushun,” 469–70Google Scholar.

43. Hsin-Che, Wu, “Riben zhiminzhuyi xia de Manzhouguo,” 96–101.Google Scholar

44. The practice of importing foreign judges to sovereign states was not unique to Manchukuo—it was also common in newly independent nations of Latin America. Benton, Lauren, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 213Google Scholar, n. 4, 219.

45. Shōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 135.Google Scholar

46. Jue, Fang and Yunpeng, Yao, “Ri-Wei Fushun,” 468.Google ScholarOn Furuta, see BCR Fengtian, March 31, 1934.

47. Shōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 141.Google Scholar

48. See for example, Tamanoi, Mariko Asano, “Knowledge, Power, and Racial Classifications: The ‘Japanese’ in ‘Manchuria,’” Journal of Asian Studies 59.2 (2000): 248–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49. BCR Fengtian, December 24, 1934.

50. The Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 437–39; Supreme Court [Manchukuo], Saikō hōin hanketsurei [Rulings of the Supreme Court]. Unnumbered volume, vols. 5–8, 1940–1945 (Xinjing: Hōsōkai, 1935).Google ScholarSome of these cases are repeated in Supreme Court [Manchukuo],Saikō hōin minji hanketsurei shū [Collected civil rulings of the Supreme Court], vol. 5 (Xinjing: Hōsōkai, undated), and in kyōkai, Manshū shihō [Manchukuo judicial work group], ed., Manshū teikoku saikō hōin hanketsurei yōran [Collected civil rulings of the Supreme Court of the Empire of Manchuria] (Xinjing: Ganshōdō, 1938).Google ScholarCases fromKwantung appear in Gen'ichirō, Kawabata, ed., Kantō kōtō hōin jōkoku bu hanrei shū [Collected rulings of the Kwantung High Appellate Court], vol. 1 (Dairen: Hōritsu jippō, 1926)Google Scholar; and Court, Kwantung Territory High, Kantō todokufu kōtō hōin min, keiji hanrei shū [Civil and criminal rulings of the Kwantung Territory High Court Court], (Dairen: Manshū Nichinichi, 1915).Google ScholarThese materials are housed in the Hokkaido University and Shenyang Provincial Libraries.

51. The Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 435–36; Jue, Fang and Yunpeng, Yao, “Ri-Wei Fushun,” 468Google Scholar; BCR Fengtian, September 30, 1934; BCR Fengtian, December 24, 1934; Shōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 141–42.Google ScholarThere is slight discrepancy between Soejima and the consular reports concerning the exact numbers enrolled.

52. BCR Fengtian, December 24, 1934; Tomio, Mutō, Jinshu, Jiang, and Tatsurō, Sugawara, “Sifabu faxuexiao ruxue shiyan weiyuan zhi ganxiang” [Reflections from the Judicial Law College Entrance Examination Committee], Hōsō zasshi 1.1 (1934): 112–30Google Scholar.

53. The Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 427.

54. BCR Fengtian, December 24, 1934; BCR Harbin, October 1, 1936. Another example of the dismay at the courts felt by these observers concerned the Murata case, in which the case of a Japanese employee accused of embezzling money from a British firm was especially slow in being brought to trial. BCR Fengtian, September 30, 1935. Nor was this the first time that open anti-Soviet sentiment would be expressed in Japanese courts. When in 1929 a sixteen-year-old White Russian youth tried to assassinate the Soviet consul to Dairen (Dalian), killing his secretary instead, nineteen Japanese lawyers volunteered to work for his defense, and the local Japanese population was said to be “entirely on the side of the accused, although he was clearly guilty.” BCR Dairen, April 10, 1929.

55. Manzhouguo zhidao fangzhen yaogang, cited in Shōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 140.Google Scholar

56. This reform commenced with a massive ethnographic project that attempted to establish the traditional practices of each of the five races of Manchukuo. Tatsuo, Chikusa, Manshū shinzoku sōzoku hou no yōkō [Overview of family inheritance law in Manchuria]. Nihon rippō soshō, 26 (Tokyo: Nihon hōri kenkyūkai, 1943).Google ScholarThe Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 441–42.

57. It is worth noting that such emergency powers had been invoked much earlier to crush rebellion in Taiwan and Korea. Nor were they unique to Japan or Manchukuo. I suspect that the 1920 Emergency Powers Act in Britain probably influenced the way in which similar conditions were later instituted in the Japanese colonies. For a theoretical and historical introduction to the rhetorical significance of emergency law, see Hussain, Nasser, The Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58. On the 1937 reorganization, see Runsheng, Zhang, Wei Manzhouguo shi xinbian [Newly compiled history of the pretender Manchukuo] (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1995), 413–20Google Scholar.

59. BCR Fengtian, January 18, 1936; BCR Fengtian, December 31, 1937.

60. BCR Fengtian, January 6, 1937.

61. Before 1941, Americans and Canadians enjoyed somewhat better treatment. Again, this newly aggressive stance was not unique to Japanese imperialism. The Chinese National People's Congress announced a similar policy in May 1931, just months before the Kwantung Army initiated military action in Manchuria. Jordan, Donald A., “The Place of Chinese Disunity in Japanese Military Strategy during 1931,” The China Quarterly 109.1 (1987): 42–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62. BCR Fengtian, January 18, 1936; Fengtian, September 4, 1936; Fengtian, September 7, 1937; Fengtian, December 31, 1937; Fengtian, January 16, 1939. Zhang Runsheng further notes that the abolition of extraterritoriality also streamlined direct administration over Japanese assets, particularly the holdings of the SMR, thus freeing up 65 million yen and large numbers of personnel, who were then channeled into the Manchukuo government. Runsheng, Zhang, Wei Manzhouguo, 421–26.Google ScholarBeyond Manchukuo, war with China prompted legal centralization and integration throughout the empire under the Japanese aegis; not coincidentally, this was roughly the time that Taiwan and Korea were formally brought into the Japanese legal system. Hsin-Che, Wu, “Riben zhiminzhuyi xia de Manzhouguo,” 109–13Google Scholar.

63. Taura Masanori, “Manshūkoku ni okeru chigai hōken”; Shōichi, Soejima, “‘Manshūkoku’ tōchi,” 150–54Google Scholar; The Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 439.

64. BCR Fengtian, January 6, 1937; April 2, 1938; June 20, 1939.

65. The Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 165.

66. BCR Harbin, December 4, 1937.

67. BCR Fengtian, December 31, 1937

68. BCR Fengtian, December 31, 1937; April 2, 1938. Hongshan, Yao “Wei-man Siping jianchating jianjie” [Brief introduction to the Siping Procuracy], in Zhimin zhengquan [Political rights of colonies], ed. al, Sun Bang et. (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 475–84Google Scholar, esp. 484. In keeping with both the centralization of power, and the new emphasis on public security, the maintenance of order after 1937 was to be pursued jointly by the police and the army. Runsheng, Zhang, Wei Manzhouguo, 414Google Scholar.

69. Wang, , Legal Reform in Taiwan, 116.Google Scholar

70. Lee, Chulwoo, “Modernity, Legality and Power in Korea,” 45–49.Google Scholar

71. As recounted by Yao Hongshan, the five crimes were: civil disorder (nei luan zui), disloyalty (beipan zui), endangering national communications (weihai guojiao zui), high crimes against the Military Plan Protection Law (junji baohu fa zhi zhongzui), and high crimes against the Provisional Law for the Punishment of Political Criminals (zanxing cheng zhi pantu zhi zui). Hongshan, Yao, “Wei-man Siping jianchating jianjie,” 471Google Scholar.

72. Many of the security laws promulgated during this period appear to have been the personal initiative of Nakai Kyūji, a Japanese jurist who was made an advisor (canshi yuan) to the judiciary over the prison system in 1941, and head of the Thought Rectification Department (itself under the judiciary) in 1943. He was captured by Soviet troops in November 1945 and placed on trial for war crimes in Fushun in 1954. His confession, “I murdered 93,000 Chinese” (wo haisile 93,000 ming Zhongguo ren) is available in various collections of post-war confessions, such as Zui'e de zigongzhuang—Xin zhongguo dui Riben zhan fan de lishi shenpan [The most horrible confessions—new China casts history's judgment on Japanese war criminals] (Beijing: Jeifang jun, 2001)Google Scholar.

73. The Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 437; Shigetō, Iimori, “Tebie zhi'an ting de faxisi shenpan” [Fascist judges of the Special Public Security Courts], in Zhimin zhengquan [Political rights of colonies], ed. al, Sun Bang et. (Changchun: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 485–93.Google ScholarWhile this statement appears to have been collected in China, probably under duress, it is worth noting that Iimori continued to express sympathies for the Chinese communists after his return to Japan.

74. Hongshan, Yao, “Wei-man Siping jianchating jianjie,” 484.Google Scholar

75. Yunpeng, Fang Jue and Yao, “Ri-Wei Fushun,” 471Google Scholar; Hongshan, Yao, “Wei-man Siping jianchating jianjie.” 478–80.Google ScholarA large collection of land disputes tried by Japanese courts in occupied Beijing appears in Pekin chihō hōin minji hanketsu oyobi saitei [Cases and judgments in Beijing local courts], which was published in Shina toshi fudōsan kankō chōsa shiryō [Collected investigations on land customs in Chinese cities], vol. 7 (Dairen: Mantetsu chōsabu, 1941–1942).Google ScholarOutside of Manchukuo itself, Philip C. C. Huang has effectively refuted the notion that Chinese claimants always preferred informal arbitration to formal adjudication. See, for example, his “Civil Adjudication in China, Past and Present,” Modern China 32.2 (2006): 135–80Google Scholar.

76. Jue, Fang and Yunpeng, Yao, “Ri-Wei Fushun,” 470Google Scholar; Shigetō, Iimori, “Tebie zhi'an ting de faxisi shenpan,” 485.Google Scholar

77. Shigetō, Iimori, “Tebie zhi'an ting de faxisi shenpan,” 488–89.Google Scholar

78 Runsheng, Zhang, Wei Manzhouguo, 656–60.Google ScholarTucker, David, “Labor Policy and Construction in Manchukuo,” in Asian Labor in the Wartime Empire: Unknown Histories, ed. Kratoska, Paul H. (Armonk, N.Y. and London: M. E. Sharpe, 2005), 25–60.Google ScholarSee also Gottschang, Thomas R. and Lary, Diana, Swallows and Settlers: The Great Migration from North China to Manchuria (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2000), especially 127–33Google Scholar.

79 Convictions under special opium laws numbered 3,528 and 3,484 in 1933 and 1943, respectively. Shihō bu sōmu ji chōsa ka [Judicial department, general affairs section, investigations office], Manshū teikoku shihō tōkei nenpō [Empire of Manchukuo judicial statistics annual report] (Fengtian: Shihō bu sōmu ji chōsa ka, 1935), 148–58Google Scholar; Manchoukuo Year Book, 1943, 431–32, 440. While there is no need for a detailed outline here, suffice it to say that Manchukuo faced a massive partisan resistance, much of which was integrated with or sympathetic to the rapid expansion of the Communist guerilla movement in North China. Even taking into account that materials published in China tend to downplay the contribution of non-Communist resistance, there exists ample documentary evidence on the scale of the Communist movement in Manchukuo. al, Li Yunchang et., eds., Chengde kang-Ri douzheng shiliao xuan [Selected historical materials on the anti-Japanese struggle in Chengde] (Beijing: Renmin ribao chubanshe, 1997) is a typical exampleGoogle Scholar.

80. Duara, Prasenjit, “The New Imperialism and the Post-Colonial Developmental State: Manchukuo in Comparative Perspective,” Japan Focus, January 30, 2006. http://www.japanfocus. org/products/details/1715 (accessed February 12, 2007). For the enduring influence of Manchukuo on post-war politics, seeGoogle ScholarHan, Suk-Jung, “Those Who Imitated the Colonizers: The Legacy of the Disciplining State from Manchukuo to South Korea,” in Crossed Histories: Manchuria in the Age of Empire, ed. Tamanoi, Mariko Asano (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005), 165–83Google Scholar.

81. I address the independence of the Manchukuo judiciary in a forthcoming article.

82. For a sampling of the issues surrounding the control over the public discourse of law, see Lazarus-Black, Mindie and Hirsch, Susan F., Contested States: Law, Hegemony, and Resistance (New York: Routledge, 1994)Google Scholar.

83. This is particularly so in the context of colonial law. See Merry, Sally Engle, Colonizing Hawaii: The Cultural Power of Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Merry, Sally Engle, “Law and Colonialism,” Law and Society Review 25 (1991): 899–922CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures.

84. Julia C. Strauss sees these same motives at work in the impractically ambitious and ultimately impotent political reforms attempted by the Chinese Republic. Strauss, Julia C., “Creating ‘Virtuous and Talented’ Officials for the Twentieth Century: Discourse and Practice in Xinzheng China,” Modern Asian Studies 37 (2003): 831–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.