The East Hebei Autonomous Government (),

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

also known as the East Ji Autonomous Government and the East Hebei Autonomous Anti-Communist Government, was a short-lived late-1930s state in

northern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions within China. The exact boundary between these two regions is not precisely defined and only serve to depict where there appears to be regional differences between the climate ...

. It has been described by historians as either a Japanese

puppet state A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a State (polity), state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside Power (international relations), power and subject to its o ...

or a

buffer state A buffer state is a country geographically lying between two rival or potentially hostile great powers. Its existence can sometimes be thought to prevent conflict between them. A buffer state is sometimes a mutually agreed upon area lying between t ...

History

After the creation of

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...

and subsequent military action by the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

, which brought

Northeastern China Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of t ...

east of the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand Li (unit), ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against Eurasian noma ...

under Japanese control, the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

and the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

signed the

Tanggu Truce The Tanggu Truce, sometimes called the , was a ceasefire that was signed between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan in Tanggu District, Tianjin, on May 31, 1933. It formally ended the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which had begun in ...

, which established a

demilitarised zone A demilitarized zone (DMZ or DZ) is an area in which treaties or agreements between nations, military powers or contending groups forbid military installations, activities, or personnel. A DZ often lies along an established frontier or bounda ...

south of the Great Wall, extending from

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

to Beiping (Peking). Under the terms of the truce and the subsequent He-Umezu Agreement of 1935, this demilitarized zone was also purged of the political and military influence of the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

government of China. On 15 November 1935, the local Chinese administrator of the 22 counties in

Hopei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...

province,

Yin Ju-keng Yin Rukeng; (; Hepburn: ''In Jyokou''; 1885 - December 1, 1947) was a politician in the early Republic of China, later noted for his role as chairman in the Japanese-controlled East Hebei Autonomous Government and subsequent puppet regimes, ...

, proclaimed the territories under his control to be autonomous. Ten days later, on 25 November, he proclaimed them to be independent of the Republic of China and to have their capital at Tongzhou. The new government immediately signed economic and military treaties with Japan. The

Demilitarized Zone Peace Preservation Corps The Demilitarized Zone Peace Preservation Corps was a police force created by the Tanggu Truce to patrol and maintain order in the demilitarized zone extending from south of the Great Wall, to a line north east of the Bai River in Hebei province i ...

that had been created by the Tanggu Truce was disbanded and reorganized as the

East Hopei Army {{no footnotes, date=July 2015 The East Hopei Army was raised from the former soldiers of the Peace Preservation Corps that had been created by the Tangku Truce of 31 May 1933. The Demilitarized Zone Peace Preservation Corps had been the "neutr ...

with Japanese military support. The Japanese goal was to establish a buffer zone between Manchukuo and China, but the pro-Japanese collaborationist regime was seen as an affront by the Chinese government and a violation of the Tanggu Truce. 非武装地带

The East Hebei Autonomous government received a response in the form of Gen.

Song Zheyuan Sòng Zhéyuán (宋哲元) (October 30, 1885 – April 5, 1940) was a Chinese general during the Chinese Civil War and Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Biography Early life and education Born in the village of Zhaohong, northwest of the ...

's Hebei-Chahar Political Government, which was under the Nanjing government, launched on 18 December 1935. Chinese soldiers remained in the area. In July 1936, a peasant uprising against the East Hebei Autonomous Government broke out in

Miyun District Miyun District () is situated in northeast Beijing. It has an area of and a population of 460,800 (2010 Census). Miyun District government seat is located in Gulou Subdistrict. History Miyun was one of the places where Warlord Feng Yuxiang s ...

. Led by an old

Taoist Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the ''Tao'' ...

priest, the rebels were organized by the

Yellow Sand Society The Yellow Sand Society (), also known as Yellow Way Society (), and Yellow Gate Society (), was a rural secret society and folk religious sect in northern China during the 19th and 20th century. Inspired by millenarian ideas, the movement la ...

and managed to defeat an

unit that was sent to suppress them. Thereafter, the

mobilized to quell the uprising, defeating the peasant rebels by September. About 300 Yellow Sand insurgents were killed or wounded in the fighting. The East Hebei government survived the Tungchow mutiny in late July 1937 before being absorbed into the collaborationist Provisional Government of China in February 1938.

Notes and references

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History

See also

Notes and references

Further reading