The Japanese expedition to Tibet was an intelligence mission undertaken by in
Tibet in 1939.
Background
From 1918 to 1922,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
began conducting secret operations in the
Xinjiang area. Japanese
Genyosha agents operated undercover in
Hami and other cities to gain information about the
Soviets
Soviet people ( rus, сове́тский наро́д, r=sovyétsky naród), or citizens of the USSR ( rus, гра́ждане СССР, grázhdanye SSSR), was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union.
Nationality policy in th ...
in Central Asia.
During the 1930s, the Imperial Intelligence Services was interested in gaining in-depth intelligence about
Tibet and Xinjiang. In the
Kantogun
''Kantō-gun''
, image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG
, image_size = 300px
, caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo
, dates = Apri ...
headquarters, a series of undercover operations was organized, and Jinzō Nomoto was one of those to be sent on such missions.
Germany also sent expeditions to the same areas in Xinjiang.
Expedition
In 1935, Jinzō Nomoto, from
Kagoshima, was sent to
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 was posted to an intelligence unit in the Japanese
Kantogun
''Kantō-gun''
, image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG
, image_size = 300px
, caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo
, dates = Apri ...
Army as a
Mongolian-language research student specializing in
Central Asian issues.
In May 1939, during the
Second Sino-Japanese War, Nomoto secretly entered
Tibet by disguising himself as a
Mongolian and accompanying a Tibetan monk. He began an 18-month intelligence-gathering mission that collected information regarding the social conditions, culture, religion, and local policies of the natives by personal interviews with local residents. He submitted the intelligence mainly to the Intelligence Army Bureau and left the area in October 1940.
The
Muslim Chinese (Dungan) General
Ma Bufang was an obstruction to Japanese agents trying to contact the Tibetans and was labeled as an "adversary" by a Japanese agent.
Aftermath
Other agents continued secret moves in the area by meeting local
Afghan
Afghan may refer to:
*Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia
*Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity
** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...
tribesmen to organize infiltrations, sabotage, and disturbances in
British India on the
North West Frontier in case of a
Japanese invasion of
India. Another alleged interest in the Tibet area was the recovery of all information related to ancient powers related in
Tibetan legends.
Jinzō Nomoto published his memoirs on his experiences in his Tibetan mission during the war in 2001 as ''Tibet Underground 1939''(チベット潜行1939).
See also
*
1938–1939 German expedition to Tibet
The 1938-1939 German Expedition to Tibet, a German scientific expedition, took place between April 1938 and August 1939 under the leadership of the German zoologist and SS-officer Ernst Schäfer.
Origins
Nazi ''Reichsführer''-SS Heinrich H ...
References
*Jinzō Nomoto, Edited by Yuyusha Publishing Co.
Russian and Japanese Involvement with Pre-Communist Tibet: The Role of the Shambhala Legend
{{Tibet topics
History of Tibet
Japanese
Expeditions from Japan
1939 in Tibet
Japan–Tibet relations
Second Sino-Japanese War
Asian expeditions