Author(s)

Zihang Ding ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Woodberry Forest School, Virginia, 22989, USA

Corresponding Author

Zihang Ding

ABSTRACT

This article explores the emergence of a Manchurian Lifeline as a concept in 20th-century Northeast Asian political economy. It claims that the latter concept, an endogenous (Imperial) Japanese idea conceived to rationalize colonial expansion and resource extraction in Manchuria at its apex, was functionally invariant over succeeding periods and traceable into the post-World War II era. Its logic of extraction was bequeathed to and reconstituted by the postrevolutionary People's Republic of China, which made the region one of the poles of industrial development in its national project. Thus, by comparing the case of Japanese occupation (1931-1945) with that of early Maoism in the region, this study demonstrates how Manchuria was constantly deployed as an "umbilical cord" supporting external powers. The paper examines the theory's fascist parallels in practice, the colonial dualism of Japanese rule — of brutal atrocities and rapid industrialization during its occupation — and the continuation of this basic model under Chinese Communist governance. It can thereby foreground the one-hundred-year history of the region as a lifeline to others, rather than for itself, which helps to explain the subsequent economic decline and ambiguous historical identity of the region.

KEYWORDS

Manchurian Lifeline, Japanese Imperialism, Chinese Communism, Extractive Logic, Regional Development

CITE THIS PAPER

Zihang Ding, The Manchurian Lifeline: From Imperial Japan's Fantasy to Communist China's Foundation. Lecture Notes on History (2025) Vol. 7: 88-94. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/history.2025.070114.

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