Economy of Manchukuo
The Kwantung Army held the highest authority, representing the Emperor of Japan, and the respective ministries of the nominal Manchukou central government were also involved.
[1]: 43 Industrial development had as a primary goal supplying raw material and finished products for the Japanese military.
Amid the 1930s, thousands of idealistic engineers, most connected with the Home Ministry, left for the neighboring colonies of Taiwan, Manchukuo and Korea, laying down the foundation of a modernized empire, amongst such plans: roads, bridges, railroads, canals, ports, water works, and communications networks were commissioned.
Products included aircraft, automobiles and trucks, blankets, boots, bread and flour, bricks, candies and foods, carpets, raw cellulose, cement, dyes and inks, electrical devices, fabric, farm equipment, glass, industrial paint, industrial paper, liquor and beer, locomotive manufacturing and repair and related railway industries, milk and cheese, mining equipment, munitions, processed leather products, rubber articles, soy and other processed foods, vegetable oil, hand and heavy weapons, etc.
[1]: 47 The organization of Manchukuo's labor force was explicitly based on ethnic hierarchy, with Japanese receiving better treatment than Chinese.
Others in quantity were: alfalfa, apples, apricots, chestnuts, col, cotton, cucumber, forage, garlic, giant radish, hemp, indigo, lupulus, millet, nuts, onions, opium poppies (for opium), peaches, pears, peanuts, rice, ricine, rye, sesame, sugar beet, sweet potatoes, thyme, tobacco, and others.
From kaoliang and corn liquors were made, including vodka, sake, beer, soy juices and vinegar.
The modern wheat and flour industry was located in Harbin from Russian times apart from basic mills in other areas.
The economic expansion of soy is attributed in great part to the South Manchurian Railway Company, which enabled direct export from Dairen abroad, in particular to China and Japan proper.
In November 1932 the Mitsui Zaibatsu conglomerate held a state monopoly for poppy farming with the "declared intention" of reducing its heavy local use.
Professor Motohiro Kobayashi of Tokai University said the Japanese army's intelligence division worked with local gangs to sell opium.
[5] One of the participants, Naoki Hoshino negotiated a large loan from Japanese banks using a lien on the profits of Manchukuo's Opium Monopoly Bureau as collateral.
Another authority states that annual narcotics revenue in China, including Manchukuo, was estimated by the Japanese military at 300 million yen a year.
- Heilongjiang: - Jilin: - Liaoning: - Rehe: - Chahar: - Suiyuan: Manchukuo was a productive area, with many domestic animals in subsistence farms or larger properties.
Japanese experts increased production with the introduction of foreign species, including pigs, cattle, and sheep, which produced milk, meat, leather and wool.
From 1911 to 1931 Chinese lumberjacks began to work there; the volume of cut wood during the Manchu period was some 2,500,000,000 cubic metres (3.3×109 cu yd).
Uses were: railroad ties, cellulose paste for paper and for Karafuto rayon production, and export to Japan, Russia and Central and Northern China.
The rivers Amur, Sungari, Nonni, Mutang-Kiang, Ussuri, Liao, Yalu and Tumen, and the lakes Khanka, Buir-Nor and Hulun-Nor are all important fish sources.
The Amur, Nonni, Yalu Liao and Sungari rivers served regular cabotage boats and transport vessels in the West and Northwest.
In 1931 it invested 27% of capital in coal in Fushum, 3% Anshan iron factory, 8% in Dairen and Ryoujun ports in Kantoshu, with other lesser investments in Yamato Hotel, Tuitsuike Hotel in Tangkatzu spa, merchant and fishing vessels, electricity power plants, local institutions, schools, research institutes for farming, geology, and mining, sanitation and medical, public services, public architecture, etc.
Other minerals include: asbestos, antimony, bauxite, calize, copper, gold, lead, lime, magnesite, manganese, pyrite, marble, salt, soda, silver, sulphur, tar, tin, tungsten, zinc, etc.
Fushum, 32 kilometers (20 mi) from Mukden, contains bituminous coal reserves of 700,000,000–1,000,000,000 metric tonnes which became available via open-pit or regular mining methods.
Bituminous coal reserves are estimated at 3,000,000,000 metric tonnes, mostly in Liaoning with the rest in Jilin, Heilongjiang, Hsingam, and Rehe provinces.
During 1925 the South Manchurian Railway Company invested in opening coal deposits in Chalai Nor 25 kilometers (16 mi) from frontier station Manzhouli which extracted 290,000 metric tonnes.
Manchukuo has little petroleum except at Fushum and Fusin where there were extensive deposits of oil-rich slate, oil shale and schist.
In 1932 the "Mantetsu" (South Manchurian Railway Company and Anshan Iron Steel Works) organized laboratories in Fushun and Tokyo to develop processes to exploit these sources.
[1]: 53 Japanese investment led to Manchukuo's emergence as the third-largest industrial area in East Asia (after Japan-proper and the U.S.S.R.).
At Manchukuo, other foreign businessmen mentioned how "Japanchukuo" controlled all Manchukuoan industry with Japanese filling all important technical and administrative roles.
Investments were made in the Dowa Automobile Company (for the manufacture of cars and trucks), Manshukoku Hikoki Seizo KK (for making engines and aircraft) in Harbin, Morishita Jintan, Mukden Arsenal, Anshan Iron & Steel Works (founded in 1913) and renamed Showa Steel Works (in 1933) in Anshan, Manshukoku Koku KK (Manchurian National Airways), Central Bank of Manchou (national central bank), South Manchurian Railway Company, Yamato Hotel, Tuitsuike Hotel in Tangkantzu lake, Kirin Company and others.
A second goal was to regulate the flow of the Liao-ho river on the left side of Fushun en route to Mukden.
