Yoshiko Kawashima | |
|---|---|
 Yoshiko Kawashima inManchukuo army uniform | |
| Native name | 川島 芳子 |
| Birth name | Xianyu (顯玗) |
| Other names | Dongzhen (東珍) Jin Bihui (金璧輝) Eastern Jewel |
| Nickname | Joan of Arc of Manchukuo |
| Born | (1907-05-24)24 May 1907 |
| Died | 25 March 1948(1948-03-25) (aged 40) |
| Buried | Shōrinji,Matsumoto,Nagano Prefecture, Japan |
| Allegiance |  Manchukuo Empire of Japan |
| Branch | Kwantung Army |
| Conflicts | Pacification of Manchukuo |
| Spouse | |
| Relations | Shanqi (father) Lady Zhanggiya (mother) Naniwa Kawashima (adoptive father) |
| Other work | Spy |
| Aisin Gioro Xianyu | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kawashima in a recording studio, 1933 | |||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 金璧輝 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 金璧辉 | ||||||||
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| Birth name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 愛新覺羅·顯玗 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 爱新觉罗·显玗 | ||||||||
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| Courtesy name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 東珍 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 东珍 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | Eastern Jewel | ||||||||
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| Japanese name | |||||||||
| Kanji | 川島芳子 | ||||||||
| Hiragana | かわしま よしこ | ||||||||
| Katakana | カワシマ ヨシコ | ||||||||
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Yoshiko Kawashima (川島 芳子,Kawashima Yoshiko; 24 May 1907 – 25 March 1948), bornXianyu, was aQing dynasty princess of theAisin-Gioro clan. She was raised in Japan and served as a spy for the JapaneseKwantung Army andManchukuo during theSecond Sino-Japanese War. She is sometimes known in fiction under the pseudonym "EasternMata Hari". After the war, she was captured, sentenced, and executed as atraitor by theNationalist government of theRepublic of China. She was also a notable descendant ofHooge, eldest son ofHong Taiji.
She was born in theAisin-Gioro clan, the imperial clan of theManchu-ledQing dynasty. Her birth name wasAisin Gioro Xianyu and hercourtesy name wasDongzhen (literally "eastern jewel"). Her Sinicised name wasJin Bihui. She is best known by her Japanese name,Kawashima Yoshiko (川島 芳子), which is read asChuāndǎo Fāngzǐ in Chinese. In 1925, Yoshiko took the male nameRyōsuke.[1]
She was born Aisin Gioro Xianyu inBeijing in 1907 as the 14th daughter ofShanqi (1866–1922), aManchu prince of theAisin Gioro clan, the imperial clan of China'sQing dynasty. Her mother was Lady Janggiya (張佳氏), Shanqi's fourth concubine. Shanqi was a descendant ofHooge, the eldest son ofHong Taiji (the second ruler of the Qing dynasty). Shanqi was also the tenth heir to thePrince Su peerage, one of the 12"iron-cap" princely peerages of the Qing dynasty.
After theXinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1912, Xianyu was given up for adoption in 1915 at the age of eight to her father's friend,Naniwa Kawashima, a Japanese espionage agent and mercenary adventurer. Her adoptive father changed her name to "Yoshiko Kawashima" and took her back toTokyo,Japan, to be raised and educated in the Kawashima family house. As a teenage girl, Kawashima was sent to school in Tokyo for an education that included judo and fencing.
In 1922, around the time her adoptive family moved toMatsumoto, Kawashima's biological father, Shanqi, died. As Kawashima's mother had no official identity as Shanqi's concubine, she followed Manchu tradition and died by suicide to join Shanqi in death.
On 22 November 1925, Yoshiko said that she had "...decided to cease being a woman forever." Earlier that day, she had dressed in akimono with a traditional female hair style and took a photo amongblooming cosmos to commemorate "my farewell to life as a woman." That evening, Yoshiko went to a barbershop and had her hair cut into acrew cut, from then on dressing in men's clothes. A photo of the transformation appeared five days later inthe Asahi Shimbun under the headline: "Kawashima Yoshiko's Beautiful Black Hair Completely Cut Off - Because of Unfounded 'Rumors,' Makes Firm Decision to Become a Man - Touching Secret Tale of Her Shooting Herself", alluding to a prior episode in which she had shot herself in the chest with a pistol given to her byIwata Ainosuke [ja].[1]
Several explanations have later been given as to what triggered her decision, including the death of her parents, failed romances or alleged sexual abuse from her foster father.[2]
Kawashima explained in another article two days after the first that "I was born with what the doctors call a tendency toward the third sex, and so I cannot pursue an ordinary woman's goals in life... Since I was young I've been dying to do the things that boys do. My impossible dream is to work hard like a man for China, for Asia."[1]
Earlier in her life, it had been remarked upon that she had "boyish habits" despite her feminine beauty. She would use only the male style of Japanese grammar, even though that contributed to her not being re-admitted to her school after her biological father's death.[1]
In November 1927 at age 20, her brother and adoptive father arranged for her marriage inPort Arthur (also known asRyojun) to Ganjuurjab, the son ofInner Mongolian Army generalBabojab, who once led theMongolian-Manchurian Independence Movement there in 1911. The marriage ended in divorce after only three years. Kawashima moved to theforeign concession inShanghai.[3] While in Shanghai, she met Japanesemilitary attaché and intelligence officerRyukichi Tanaka, who utilised her contacts with the Manchu and Mongol nobility to expand her network. She was living with Tanaka in Shanghai at the time of theShanghai Incident of 1932.
After Tanaka was recalled to Japan, Kawashima continued to serve as a spy for the generalKenji Doihara. She undertook undercover missions inManchuria, often in disguise, and was considered "strikingly attractive, with a dominating personality, almost a film-drama figure, half tom-boy and half heroine, and with a passion for dressing up as a male. She possibly did this in order to impress the men, or she may have done it in order to more easily fit into the tightly-knit guerrilla groups without attracting too much attention".[4][5]
Kawashima was well-acquainted withPuyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, who regarded her as a member of the imperial family and welcomed her into his household during her stay inTianjin. It was through this close liaison that Kawashima was able to persuade Puyi to become a figurehead ruler forManchukuo, a puppet state created by the Japanese in Manchuria. However, Kawashima privately criticised Puyi for being too amenable to Japanese influence.[6]
After Puyi became Emperor of Manchukuo, Kawashima continued to play various roles and, for a time, was a lover ofHayao Tada, the chief military advisor to Puyi. She formed an independentcounterinsurgency cavalry force in 1932 made up of 3,000-5,000 former bandits to hunt down anti-Japanese guerrilla bands during thePacification of Manchukuo, and was hailed in theJapanese newspapers as theJoan of Arc of Manchukuo.[7] In 1933, she offered the unit to the JapaneseKwantung Army forOperation Nekka, but it was refused. The unit continued to exist under her command until sometime in the late 1930s.[8]
Kawashima became a well-known and popular figure in Manchukuo, making appearances on radio broadcasts and even issuing a record of her songs. Numerous fictional and semi-fictional stories of her exploits were published in newspapers and also aspulp fiction. However, her very popularity created issues with the Kwantung Army because her utility as an intelligence asset was long gone, and her value as a propaganda symbol was compromised by her increasingly critical tone against the Japanese military's exploitative policies in Manchukuo as a base of operations against China in theSecond Sino-Japanese War, and she gradually faded from public sight.
After the end of the war, on 11 November 1945, a news agency[which?] reported that "a long sought-for beauty in male costume was arrested in Beijing by counter-intelligence officers".[citation needed] She was held at Hebei Model Prison.
The Supreme Court ofHebei originally addressed Kawashima as "Chuandao Fangzi" (the Chinese pronunciation of her Japanese name'skanji). When her trial began a month later, Kawashima identified herself by her Chinese name, "Jin Bihui", which eventually became the name court officials used. However, in accordance with her lawyers' strategy to deflect her charge of treason, she gradually began to emphasise a Japanese orManchu banner identity. The court rejected the defence's bid to have her tried as a war criminal rather than as a domestic traitor, based on a combination ofjus sanguinis and Kawashima's failure to formally renounce her citizenship through China's Department of Civil Affairs.[6]
Charged with treason as ahanjian on 20 October 1947, she was executed by a bullet shot into the back of her head on 25 March 1948,[9] and her body was later put on public display.
Her body was collected by a Japanese monk to becremated. Her remains were sent back to her adoptive family and later buried at Shōrinji temple inMatsumoto,Nagano Prefecture,Japan.[10]
The private papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley. Based on the real-life story of Yoshiko Kawashima, Chinese princess turned ruthless Japanese spy, with fictional embellishments.
Two books titledThe Beauty in Men's Clothing have been published about Yoshiko, the first a partly-fictionalized novel by Muramatsu Shōfū published in 1933, the second by Shōfū's grandson Tomomi in 2002 about the composition of the former.[1]
he did not use the term 'Manzu' (Manchu) or 'Manren' in his vocabulary of identity.
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Media related toKawashima Yoshiko at Wikimedia Commons
