Analysis on Japanese-Manchurian Relation Under Manchukuo: A Case Study of Labor Relation
in Iyasaka and Chiburi in late 1930s
Bohao Wu 17’ Department of History
Instructor: Professor Kerry Smith, Department of History
How the Labor Relation in Iyasaka and Chiburi Was Established?
Long-term laborers
Japanese Immigrants
Became Landowners
through
Commandeering
Farmland from Local
Manchurian
Annual laborers hired to
do agricultural works
The Lack of Laborers in
Agricultural Production
The failure of Hokkaido
nōhō and the adoption
of zairai nōhō, a laborintensive mode of
production
Fewer adult members
in Japanese
Immigrants'
households
Manchurian
landowners became
landless peasants
How Japanese Immigrants Perceived Their Relation with
Manchurian Laborers?
Short-term laborers
Daily laborers hired to do Ukeoi-kyu workers
agricultural works
Many were the former
landowners who lost
their land during land
commandeering.
Lack of capital to invest
on draft stocks and
farming implements.
Farmland acquired
exceeded the ability to
develop
Labor Relation:
Japanese immigrants
as employers and
Manchurian as
agricultural laborers
Japanese immigrants
became dependent on
Manchurian laborers
Japanese immigrants
and investigators
believed that
Manchurian laborers
are the beneficiaries in
this labor relation
Questions Explored in the Project
Many were petty farmers Many were petty farmers
from nearby Manchurian with their own tools and
communities; some were draft stocks.
professional laborers with
high mobility.
Hired yearly to help
Hired during busy periods, Hired to do a particular
agricultural works.
and were paid daily for
kind of work and were
their works.
paid with a fixed amount
of money.
Only a small portion of
Most of payments
Received cash as
the payment was in cash; received were in cash.
payments.
most were paid in the
forms of catering,
housing, and tools.
Highly dependent on
Not dependent on Japanese employers. Most of the
Japanese employers,
short term laborers lived independently.
many of whom owed
debts to their employers.
Their relation with
The relation between short-term laborers and
Japanese immigrants
Japanese employers remained strictly that between
were described as that
employers and employees.
between benefactors and
beneficiaries.
Research Methods for the Project
Archival Research:
1. How the labor relationship affected and even shaped
Japanese-Manchurian relation in Iyasaka and Chiburi as a whole?
2. Should we characterize the Japanese-Manchurian Relation in
the two communities as that between colonists and indigenous
groups?
3. Was there a hierarchical relation between Japanese
immigrants and local Manchurian population?
RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION DESIGN © 2012
www.PosterPresentations.com
- National Diet Library
[JPN]
(国会図書館)
- Central Library of Waseda University
[JPN]
(早稲田大学中央図書館)
- S. Takata Memorial Research Library
[JPN]
(高田早苗記念図書館)
- Liaoning Provincial Archives
[CHN]
(辽宁省档案馆)
- Jilin Provincial Archives
[CHN]
(吉林省档案馆)
What Do We Know?
It is observed that how Japanese immigrants perceived their
relationship with local Manchurian is largely the reflection of the labor
relations between the two groups. The difficulties that Japanese
immigrants faced when they arrived in Manchuria – the lack of capital,
the slow progress to adopt a more efficient mode of production, the
failure to become entirely independent in agricultural activities– had
all contributed to their dependence on Manchurian laborers in
agricultural production, which was treated by both immigrants and
investigators as the reason for the lack of economic success in Iyasaka
and Chiburi. According to these Japanese landowners, Manchurian
laborers, instead of them, are the true beneficiaries of their relationship.
However, the various forms of labor relation established in Iyasaka
and Chiburi suggested otherwise. Daily laborers and Ukeoi-kyu
workers had indeed gained higher wages compared to those worked
for Manchurian landowners, and most of them lived independently on
their own. Annual laborers, in contrast, had largely dependent on
Japanese immigrants for their livings. Because only a small portion of
their payment was in cash and they have to rely on Japanese employers
for their daily necessities, annual laborers lacked the means to become
independent and were thus restricted by their contracts with Japanese
immigrants.
What is the argument?
Because of factors listed above, it is not surprising to see that how
Japanese immigrants perceive their relation with Manchuria is divided
and to some extent, even self-contradictory. For those who mainly
interacted with annual laborers, Manchurian laborers were a group of
submissive, loyal, and hardworking people. Holding the belief that
Manchurian laborers are the true beneficiaries in the labor relation,
Japanese immigrants in Iyasaka and Chiburi often pictured their
relation with long-term Manchurian laborers as that between
benefactors and beneficiaries, through which a hierarchical relation
was implied. As a result, the intimacy that they described in their
relationship is merely the implication of a lordly benevolence
demonstrated by Japanese landowners and an assumed gratitude they
imagined from Manchurian laborers.
For daily laborers, there was little room for these perceptions to
form. The fact that daily laborers were much freer and more
independent than annual laborers had kept their relation with Japanese
immigrants strictly business, and resembled that between employers
and employees. Unlike the case of annual laborers, the benefactorbeneficiary relation was largely absent for in the case of daily laborers,
and there was no basis for the intimacy to be demonstrated in their
cash-for-labor interactions.