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This paper looks at the problems faced by the Chinese silver-backed currencies in Manchuria during the period of Northern Expedition (1925–1928), the Chinese attempt to overcome these problems, and the reasons for its failure. Manchuria was a peculiar territory during the interwar period (1919–1939), where several currencies, backed by silver or gold, competed against one another. The Chinese silver banknote, first introduced at the turn of the twentieth century, was challenged by gold-backed Japanese yen issued by the Bank of Korea, and by the Russian ruble. This competition was set in the context of the struggle for political control over the area between China (the Qing Dynasty and its successor, the Chinese Republic), Russia (and its successor the Soviet Union), and the Japanese Empire, as well as the war between the southern Nationalists (Kuomintang) and the militarists (warlords) who controlled the Chinese central government in Beijing and Manchuria. This paper suggests that the difficult financial situation determined the course followed by the warlords, and that their failure was the result of the complex regional context, and the failures in their military strategy rather than of their fiscal policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the continuity between cosmopolitan collaboration and wartime collaborationism from 1932–1941 by exploring the Chinese Maritime Customs Service (CMCS) and its international staff. The CMCS managed China's international trade and directed the custom houses in northern China before 1937, and in occupied China and free China from 1937–1941. The customs revenues generated by this international trade were pledged to service China's international obligations. This article argues that both Chinese and Japanese staff members' activities to maintain the status quo could be considered as wartime collaborationism from the perspectives of Japan, Manchukuo, and the Collaborationist and Chongqing governments, but all parties tolerated their activities until the outbreak of the Pacific War. The reason for this was that all parties benefitted from the CMCS's management of international trade and its implementation of international obligations which had existed since the mid-nineteenth century. This article situates wartime collaborationism within the long-existing institutional network that was welcomed as cosmopolitan collaboration in the prewar, wartime, and postwar periods, rather than treating it as a unique wartime setup and ideology. Such a view also illuminates the postwar exchange of personnel and cooperation among former enemies, which grew out of prewar collaboration and wartime collaborationism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even after the Russo-Japanese War, Manchuria remained the powder keg of East Asia. In the war’s aftermath, three empires, the Qing, the Russian and the Japanese, stationed their troops in Manchuria, in a struggle for military supremacy there. There has already been a considerable amount of research on these military activities. However, previous works have not discussed them from a triangular relationship. This paper contends that the history of modern East Asia cannot be understood until one examines the shift in the military balance in Manchuria from a triangular comparative point of view. The results of such examination show that, in Manchuria, each empire was unable to establish military domination alone, and therefore needed an alliance partner. During the Xinhai Revolution, the Russia-Japan ‘alliance’ wielded overwhelming military power against China. However, after the Russian Revolution in 1917, Japan renounced cooperation with a weakened Russia and built a new partnership with China to advance the Siberian intervention. The military triangle of Russia, China and Japan was unable to create a comprehensive regional security system in Manchuria because what was established was based on mutual distrust and fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians hold that to preserve the Manchu homeland the Qing court instituted a "policy of prohibition" (Ch: fengjin zhengce), forbidding Han immigrants from settling in the region until the final decades of its rule. Using Manchu-language archives from the garrison of Hunčun (Ch: Hunchun), this article questions whether such a prohibition guided local governance. In some jurisdictions in Manchuria, including in Hunčun, the Qing state did not always have an overarching policy towards Han migrants. Migration, in fact, was often less of a concern to the state than poaching. We can reassess the history of Manchuria accordingly. Modern historians have been preoccupied with the coming of Han migrants to Qing Manchuria; the Qing government in Hunčun was not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mongolian People's Republic (MPR) became the focus of intense competition between the Soviet Union and Japan in the 1930s, when it was more commonly known as Outer Mongolia. The Soviet Union viewed the MPR as an ideological and strategic ally, and was determined to defend that state against the increasingly adventurist actions of the Japanese military based in northern China. Japanese ambitions to solve the so-called 'Manmo' (Manchuria-Mongolia) problem led the Soviets to initiate ever-closer links with the MPR, culminating in the 1936 pact of mutual assistance which was intended to constrain Japanese pressure. Using unpublished Japanese materials as well as Russian and Mongolian sources, this article demonstrates how the Soviet leadership increasingly viewed the MPR as strategically crucial to the defence of the Soviet Far East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the political economy of Manchuria under the rule of Zhang Zuolin, which resulted in the economic instability that occurred during the winter of 1928. One can conjecture that the economic instability did not occur only because of the arbitrariness of the political and military regional government. The instability appears to be related to an ongoing seasonal demand for monies, which was relatively high between the months of September and March, since it corresponded to the period of commerce in soybeans − the region's main economic activity −, the migration of seasonal workers, and also the festive period of the Chinese New Year. The analysis was conducted based on primary materials published by the South Manchuria Railway Company, such as currency issuance and the variation of the exchange rate of the major currencies in circulation among foreign and Chinese currencies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Northeast China, large volumes of Mesozoic–Cenozoic igneous rocks have developed as a result of long-lasting subduction of the palaeo-Pacific and Pacific plates beneath the eastern Eurasian continent. Previous studies have convincingly confirmed the presence of depleted mantle (DM), FOcal ZOne (FOZO) mantle and enriched mantle 1 (EM1) end-members; the enriched mantle 2 (EM2) end-member is probably present but it has been poorly constrained. The Late Cretaceous Shuangyashan suite, comprising a monzogabbro and diorite–porphyrite stocks and their cumulate hornblendite enclaves, from the Shuangyashan coal basin, Northeast China, is characterized by high initial 87Sr/86Sr (0.70922–0.71095) and low initial 143Nd/144Nd ratios (0.51221–0.51238) at 98 Ma. Their occurrence demonstrates that EM2 is present in the lithospheric mantle of Northeast China and its formation may be related to recycled continental material in a subduction setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Khanka Massif is a crustal block located along the eastern margin of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB) and bordered to the east by Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous circum- Pacific accretionary complexes of the Eastern Asian continental margin. It consists of graphite-, sillimanite- and cordierite-bearing gneisses, carbonates and felsic paragneisses, in association with various orthogneisses. Metamorphic zircons from a sillimanite gneiss from the Hutou complex yield a weighted mean 206Pb/238U age of 490 ± 4 Ma, whereas detrital zircons from the same sample give ages from 934-610 Ma. Magmatic zircon cores in two garnet-bearing granite gneiss samples, also collected from the Hutou complex, yield weighted mean 206Pb/238U ages of 522 ± 5 Ma and 515 ± 8 Ma, whereas their metamorphic rims record 206Pb/238U ages of 510-500 Ma. These data indicate that the Hutou complex in the Khanka Massif records early Palaeozoic magmatic and metamorphic events, identical in age to those in the Mashan Complex of the Jiamusi Massif to the west. The older zircon populations in the sillimanite gneiss indicate derivation from Neoproterozoic sources, as do similar rocks in the Jiamusi Massif. These data confirm that the Khanka Massif has a close affinity with other major components of the CAOB to the west of the Dun-Mi Fault. Based on these results and previously published data, the Khanka Massif is therefore confirmed as having formed a single crustal entity with the Jiamusi (and possibly the Bureya) massif since Neoproterozoic time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the economic history of Manchuria during the Great Depression in China between 1929 to 1936. It presents four arguments based on its GDP between 1924 to 1937, including its use of silver currency to protect the Manchurian economy from global downturn, the impact of Depressions in the soybean trade, the decline in output levels such as in agriculture due to climate and military disasters, and the Keynesian policies that led to the rapid growth of its modern sector and the recovery of its economy.