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Manchuria, also known as Northeast China, is usually composed of the provinces of Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang, with the eastern part of Inner Mongolia sometimes included.
Manchuria is a region in China that was, quite for a today-relatively obscure region, played a lot of role in World History. This is the homeland of the Manchus that would create the last Chinese dynasty; this is also a bone of contention for the First Sino Japanese War and Russo Japanese War; this is also again a bone of contention for China and Japan in the Second Sino Japanese War and later World War II; and lastly, this is the decisive battlefield for the final phases of Chinese Civil War. Why a small region warrant its own page?
A reason is that first, Manchuria is full of natural resources, and had a strategic location; if Russia controls Manchuria, it will have more sea access in Asia; if Japan controls it, it will have enough resources to sustain its expansion for some years. China values it as strategic as well; the heavy industry put in place by Japan had helped the communist regime's early economic growth.
Second, it was the ethnogenesis of the last great Chinese Dynasty, the Qing. It was founded by a Tungustic people called the Manchus, formerly called the Jurchen. For years after the conquest, the Manchus have tried to separate it from the rest of China by building the so-called Willow Palisade, a network of willow trees setting it as a border between China and Manchuria. The Manchus, in time, got assimilated into Chinese society, and allowed the Chinese to settle there in the 19th century to prevent Russia [already having snapped Outer Manchuria] from taking more Manchurian territory. It was called the Chuang Guandong movement, akin to the Westward Movement to the United States. As a result, the Chinese are the majority of Manchuria today, and is called Northeast China. Calling this region Manchuria in the PRC causes a Berserk Button among patriotic ethnic Chinese, unless you happen to be a Manchu, of course.
Then, came the warlord period in China, and Manchuria is run as a fiefdom by Zhang Zuolin, who is Japanese friendly. When he tried to reduce Japanese influence, the Japanese were not amused. In 1928, his train was blown up. Then the 1931 Manchurian Incident also occured, the Japanese claiming that the Chinese authorities there are harassing the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway and even blew it up. The Chinese said that the explosion was a False Flag Operation by Japan, and there are credible evidence that supports the latter. The Japanese eventually prevailed, and Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, was installed as the new head of state and later Emperor of Manchukuo. It was supposed to be independent, with the titular Manchu ethnic group, the majority Chinese, the Koreans, the Mongols, and Japanese working in harmony. Of course, Japan runs it as a puppet state, with Japanese officials getting the final power in matters. Unit 731 also was founded in Manchuria.
The reaction was mixed. The majority Chinese saw Manchuria as part of China and many of them resisted by both passive and active means. The Manchus are somewhat more divided, one part took the former position, others saw it as a last chance to have their own homeland, knowing that they are almost assimilated by China, never mind that the Japanese authorities are much worse.
In the final days of World War II, the Soviets invaded Manchuria, arrested Pu Yi, and returned it to China in 1946. The caveat is that the Soviets encouraged the Chinese communists to set up camp there. When the Nationalists tried to seize Manchuria, they learned the communists are too entrenched there. This was the start of the downfall of the Nationalist government in mainland China.
The communists after the Chinese Civil War later rebuilt Manchuria as an industrial base, and was the staging ground for Chinese forces in the Korean War. Manchuria was also a forefront of Chinese industrialization; however, it became a rust belt in the 1990s and today, was a decaying industrial region. Recent Chinese policies however, are trying to reverse the trend.
Also, the PRC authorities encouraged the Manchus to take up their ethnic heritage seriously, something that surprised even some Manchus, being jaded by the Manchukuo and Ro C experience. Unlike the Uyghurs and Tibetans, who were at least given an autonomous region, the Manchus had only autonomous counties. This caused some ethnic Manchu to argue for separation from China, albeit in a smaller scale than the Tibetans or Uyghurs' effort. The Manchus are also the third largest minority group in China, about 10 million of them. Most now speak Mandarin, though efforts are being made by Manchus themselves to revive their nearly extinct language.
Works set in Manchuria, or had its residents in fiction:
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alternative title(s): Manchuria
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