Manchuria: A Strong 'Candidate' For Deletion

摘要

Contacts made Sept. 16, 1963, and before, count for this country. Contacts made Sept. 17, 1963, and after, count as China. What's in a name? Manchuria? Manchukuo? The Northeast! It depends on your point of view and your time-reference. Manchuria is a term popularized in the West, and used by Imperial Japan, but The Northeast, or The Northeastern Provinces, are the preferred names in modern-day China. The Manchukuo label is a Japanese word meaning "State of Manchuria," referring to the conquest of the region, which was militarily overrun by Japan in 1931. A pro-Japanese government was installed there in 1932. The Japanese deliberately promoted the use of "Manchuria" as a geographic name in order to emphasize its separation from China. All of these names refer to a wide expanse of territory in what is today northeastern China (see Figure 1).