Like all empires, Japans prewar empire encompassed diverse territories as well as a variety of political forms for governing such spaces. This book focuses on Japans Kwantung Leasehold and Railway Zone in Chinas three northeastern provinces. The hybrid nature of the leaseholds political status vis-ą-vis the metropole, the presence of the semipublic and enormously powerful South Manchuria Railway Company, and the regions vulnerability to inter-imperial rivalries, intra-imperial competition, and Chinese nationalism throughout the first decades of the twentieth century combined to give rise to a distinctive type of settler politics. Settlers sought inclusion within a broad Japanese imperial sphere while successfully utilizing the continental space as a site for political and social innovation.
In this study, Emer ODwyer traces the history of Japans prewar Manchurian empire over four decades, mapping how South Manchuriaand especially its principal city, Dairenwas naturalized as a Japanese space and revealing how this process ultimately contributed to the success of the Japanese armys early 1930s takeover of Manchuria. Simultaneously, Significant Soil demonstrates the conditional nature of popular support for Kwantung Army state-building in Manchukuo, highlighting the settlers determination that the Kwantung Leasehold and Railway Zone remain separate from the project of total empire.
