Manchukuo , officially the State of Manchuria prior to and the Empire of Manchuria after , was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia from until It was founded in after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria , and in it became a constitutional monarchy. Under the de facto control of Japan, it had limited international recognition.
The area was the homeland of the Manchus , including the emperors of the Qing dynasty. In , the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident. A pro-Japanese government was installed one year later with Puyi , the last Qing emperor , as the nominal regent and later emperor. The territories claimed by Manchukuo were first seized in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August , [2] and then formally transferred to Chinese administration in the following year.
Manchus formed a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group was Han Chinese. The population of Koreans increased during the Manchukuo period, and there were also Japanese , Mongols , White Russians and other minorities. The Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgement of the Mongolian traditions there. The southern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula present-day Dalian continued to be directly ruled by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory.
In Japanese, the name refers to the state of Manchuria , the region of the Manchus. The English name, adapted to incorporate the word Manchu , would mean the state of the Manchu people.
Indeed, Manchukuo was often referred to in English as simply "Manchuria", a name for Northeast China which had been particularly employed by the Imperial Japanese to promote its separation from the rest of the country.
