A Spanish Delegation in Manchukuo

The Japanese invasion of the northeastern regions of China - what the Chinese Republic called Fengtian, Heilongjiang, Rehel, and Jilin – and the establishing of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932 had a great impact around the world. In Spain, these distant events had significant influence on the first years of the Second Republic. The press was divided between conservative papers like ABC, which supported Japan, and others, like El Liberal, which were critical of the military intervention that had given rise to the creation of Manchukuo.

The Japanese policy of faits accomplis was an affront to the peace treaties signed after World War I and the international organizations that ensured they were respected, especially the League of Nations, which was based in Geneva. Spanish diplomat Salvador de Madariaga played an important role in the League as a defender of Chinese sovereignty and advocate for respecting international treaties in the face of the passivity of the great powers and the contempt of Japan, which left the League in 1933. His defense of Chinese sovereignty earned Madariage the nickname “Don Quijote of Manchuria”.

If the cause of Chinese nationalism enjoyed support among Spanish liberals and republicans, Japanese militarism was a source of inspiration for some of the participants in the military uprising of July 1936. The spread of war between China and Japan in 1937 brought the two sides closer together and led to them recognizing each other as states when both were practically international pariahs.

This recognition took place in December 1937, but it was not accompanied by substantive diplomatic exchanges, in part due to the circumstances created by war, and in part because it was primarily a symbolic gesture behind which there was little interest in developing actual bilateral relations.

The Spanish ambassador in Manchukuo was represented by the ambassador in Tokyo, Santiago Méndez de Vigo. In 1939, two years after the act of mutual recognition, he organized the visit of a Spanish Economic Mission which met with the prime minister of Manchukuo Zhang Jinghui, the head of state and last emperor of the Qing dynasty, Pu Yi, and finally, the Japanese military authorities, who were the real power holders in the puppet state.