Manchuria
Pu Yi aka Aisin Gioro aka Kangde aka The Last Emperor (1906-1967)

In 1908, he was chosen by Dowager Empress Cixi on her deathbed to access the throne of China. It was a brief reign, interrupted in 1911 by the establishment of the Republic of China, Thanks to the agreement between the imperial court and general Yuan Shikai, Pu Yi was granted the right to stay in the Forbidden City, to be honored like a living God, served by an army of eunuchs and sycophants, to enjoy the splendors of the Summer Palace… but he would be powerless. In his golden cage, the last emperor was ignorant of the turmoil and reality of the country he was supposed to rule. In 1924, Beijing warlord Feng Yuxiang proved less merciful than the republicans: he expelled Pu Yi from the Forbidden City. Among all the choices, Pu Yi decided to side with the Japanese. For years, he conspired to seize power again, to no avail. Yet, he would soon be given the opportunity again.
In 1931, the Japanese army invaded Manchuria. Was it not logical to put there at the head of this “new state” the last representative of the Manchu dynasty, the Qing? Yes. On March 1, 1932, Pu Yi was made ruler of Manchukuo, and crowned emperor under the reign title of Kangde in 1934. A puppet emperor in a puppet state… Manchukuo was recognized only by Japan, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, and Vichy’s France. For the international community, it was nothing more than a Japanese colony. Japan administered defense, security, railways, harbors, waterways, airways, open mines, natural resources…
The power of Pu Yi-Kangde was most limited – the price to pay for the support of Japan.
“In fact I did not even have the power to decide when I would go out of my own front gates. One day I thought of going for a stroll and took my wife Wang Jung and two of my sisters for a walk in the Tatung Park”. Before I had been in the park for many minutes, Japanese gendarmes and men of the Security Bureau of the Residence of the Chief Executive drove up and asked me to go back”.
In 1945, the Red Army invaded Manchukuo and captured Pu Yi. He stayed in a Soviet prison until 1950, when the People’s Republic of China claimed for his extradition. Pu Yi spent almost ten years in the reeducation camp of Fushun. When he was granted Special Pardon Order in December 1959, he burst into tears. One must say that he had genuinely reformed thanks to the remolding through labor and ideological education. Pu Yi died in 1967, apparently full of praise for Mao’s regime:
“Man” was the very first word I learnt to read in my first reader, the ‘Three Characters Classic’, but I had never understood its meaning before. Only today, with the Communist Party and the policy of remolding criminals, have I learnt the significance of this magnificent word and become a real man”.

(All excerpts: Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi, “Autobiography - From Emperor to Citizen”, Vol. 2, Foreign Language Press, Beijing, 1965)