The Cartographic Steppe: Mapping Environment and Ethnicity in Japan's Imperial Borderlands

The Cartographic Steppe: Mapping
Environment and Ethnicity in Japan's Imperial Borderlands

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Christmas, Sakura. 2016. The Cartographic Steppe: Mapping

Environment and Ethnicity in Japan's Imperial Borderlands. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

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The Cartographic Steppe:
Mapping Environment and Ethnicity in Japan’s Imperial Borderlands

A dissertation presented by
Sakura Marcelle Christmas to
The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of
History

Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
August 2016
© 2016 Sakura Marcelle Christmas All rights reserved.

Dissertation Advisor: Ian Jared Miller

Sakura Marcelle Christmas

The Cartographic Steppe: Mapping Environment and Ethnicity in Japan’s Imperial Borderlands

ABSTRACT

This dissertation traces one of the origins of the autonomous region system in the
People’s Republic of China to the Japanese imperial project by focusing on Inner Mongolia in the 1930s. Here, Japanese technocrats demarcated the borderlands through categories of ethnicity and livelihood. At the center of this endeavor was the perceived problem of nomadic decline: the loss of the region’s deep history of transhumance to Chinese agricultural expansion and capitalist extraction. As Japanese occupiers and their collaborators witnessed the social costs of state-led modernization, they began to pursue radical solutions in ethnic cleansing and environmental engineering on the steppe. These chapters show how Japanese administrators strove to reconstitute the relationship between land and nomad through theories of Social Darwinism, Marxian materialism, and cooperative evolution—theories they translated into technologies of rule on the periphery. Nomadism, often cast as incompatible to modernity, actually became integral to its conceit for the empire. Maps acted as the primary idiom through which Japanese planners sought to visualize the borderlands.
Using Japanese, Chinese, and Mongolian sources, the dissertation challenges the nationbased paradigms that have come to dominate the environmental history of East Asia. To view the colonies from afar as an extractive frontier removes us from environmental consequences of imperialism as much as it did for those living on the archipelago at the time. Rather, the social scientific theories and land surveying technologies, as discussed in these chapters, combined to

iii disrupt the lives of hunters, herders, and farmers with environmental consequences that persisted into the postwar. As such, the dissertation brings together the seemingly irreconcilable histories of the Japanese empire and the People’s Republic. The narrative here addresses the problematic practice in the literature on Japanese imperialism of overlooking the Mongolian territories as empty space. It also serves as an alternate understanding to the beginnings of the multiethnic framework of the People’s Republic. Instead of only seeing the beginnings of Communist rule as forged in the fires of war against the Japanese, the dissertation also points to the significance of the occupation in shaping the ethnic and ecological bounds of modern China.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
LIST OF FIGURES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

iii vi ix

INTRODUCTION CARTOGRAPHIC CHAOS IN THE IMPERIAL BORDERLANDS

Imperialist Nostalgia in the Borderlands
1
11 27 36
Historiographical Borderlands and the “Mongolian Question” Mapping the Dissertation

CHAPTER ONE DELIMITING AUTONOMY

Geographies of Sovereignty
41 43 58 74
The Politics of Demarcation Settling and Unsettling the Pale

CHAPTER TWO RATIONALIZING NOMADS

The Pastoral Preserve
90 93
103 123
Concentration-Villages and the Five Year Plan Hybrid Sheep in the Alfalfa Empire

CHAPTER THREE EXHAUSTING THE EARTH

Climate and the Interpreter of Maladies Settler Colonialism in the Orphan Banner Soybean Imperialism and Selenium Deficiency
141 144 156 176

CHAPTER FOUR DISASSEMBLING THE FEUDAL

Nomadic Feudalism in Marxist Thought The Mongol Land Offer
186 188 197

213

The Mongol Land Management Plan

CHAPTER FIVE ADVANCING THE AERIAL

Empire up in the Air
233 236 245 254
Technologies of the Gaze A Cartographic Way of Thinking

CONCLUSION IMPERIALISM, COMMUNISM, AND THE TRANSWAR BIBLIOGRAPHY

271 283

v

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 0.1 “Owen Lattimore’s Map of the Mongolian Territories in Manchukuo” from

Owen Lattimore, The Mongols of Manchuria: Their Tribal Divisions, Geographical Distribution, Historical Relations with Manchus and Chinese, and Present Political Problems (London: G. Allen and Unwin,

1935).
Figure 0.2 “Owen Lattimore’s Map of Ethnic Groups in Eastern Inner Mongolia” from

1935).
Figure 0.3 “Owen Lattimore’s Map of Mongolia, Manchukuo, and China” from

1935).
Figure 1.1 “Banners and Counties in Eastern Inner Mongolia by Kikutake Jitsuzō”

from Yamamoto Sansei, ed., Nihon chiri taikei, bekkan: Mansh ū oyobi

Nan’y ō hen, Vol. 2 (Tokyo: Kaizōsha, 1930).
4
13 16 45
Figure 1.2 “Map of Qing League and Manchukuo Provincial Boundaries” from
Takemura Shigeaki, M ō chi no hanashi (Kōan kyoku, 1939).
Figure 1.3 “Map of Qing League and Manchukuo Provincial Boundaries in English” by Sakura Christmas
55 56 59 60 68
Figure 1.4 “Map of Khinggan Province and the Former Mongol Territories” by Sakura
Christmas
Figure 1.5 “Banner Jurisdictions from Republican to Manchukuo Periods” from Kōan

sōsho chōsaka, Shink ō no K ō an sh ō gaikan (Kōan sōsho chōsaka, 1934).

Figure 1.6 “Map of Heilongjiang Province with League and County Boundaries” from

Heilongjiang sheng qingzhang quyu quantu (Shanghai: Shanghai zhonghua

shuju, 1915).
Figure 1.7 “Counties Disbanded within and Excised from Khinggan Province” from

Katakura Tadashi kankei monjo, Modern Japanese Political History

Materials Room, National Diet Library, Tokyo, Japan.
72 77 83
Figure 1.8 “Ethnic Composition of Khinggan Border Counties” from “Kōan shōkyō mondai to sono kaiketsu an” (28 November 1933) in Riku Man mitsu dainikki S9–1–30, Japanese Ministry of Defense Archives.
Figure 1.9 “Population Transfers into East Khinggan and Relief Aid” from
Manzhouguo zhengfu gongbao, No. 112 (29 March 1933); Maki Tokuji, “Keitoku hachi nendo Kōan shinkō kōsaku kaisetsu” in M ō ko kenky ū, Vol. 3, No. 1 (April 1941); Manshū teikoku kyōwakai chōsabu, K ō an M ō ko (Shinkyō: Manshū jijō annaisho, 1943).
Figure 2.1 “Map of Open and Closed Territories under Directive 105” from Takemura

Shigeaki, M ō chi no hanashi (Kōan kyoku, 1939).

Figure 2.2 “Number and Cost in yuan of Livestock Borrowed per Banner” from
98
100

vi

Mōseibu, K ō an kakush ō sangy ō gaikan (Typewritten manuscript, 1936),

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., United States.
Figure 2.3 “Concentration-Villages Built in Manchukuo by Year” from Sōsaishitsu

kōhōka, Mansh ū ni okeru tokushu jichi seido (Dairen: Minami Manshū

tetsudō kabushiki kaisha sōsaishitsu kōhōka, 1938).
Figure 2.4 “Map of Sir-a khar-a aɣula, Naiman Banner” from Muraoka Shigeo, “Kōan sei shō Naman ki Nishi Saryokukōrai ton no shizen jōken oyobi kōshu gaiyō” in M ō ko kenky ū, Vol. 6, No. 2 (June 1944), 13–48.
Figure 2.5 “Nomadic Households in Select Consolidated Villages of Jarud Banner” from Minami Manshū tetsudō kabushiki kaisha chōsa bu, K ō an sei sh ō

Satsurotoku ki Ajikajishin ki chikusan ch ō sa h ō koku (Minami Manshū

tetsudō, 1939).
113 117 119

Figure 2.6 “Map of Seasonal Pastures in New Baraɣ Left Flank Banner” from Kōan

kyoku chōsa ka, K ō an hoku sh ō ni okeru bokuya narabini h ō boku kank ō ch ō sa h ō koku (Shinkyō: Kōan kyoku chōsa ka, 1939).

120 121 128
Figure 2.7 “Map of Nomadic Migrations in Old Baraɣ Banner” from Kōan kyoku

chōsa ka, K ō an hoku sh ō ni okeru bokuya narabini h ō boku kank ō ch ō sa

h ō koku (Shinkyō: Kōan kyoku chōsa ka, 1939).
Figure 2.8 “Projected Yield for Target Crops in Khinggan Province for the Five Year

Plan” from Ishizaka Tadayuki, Mansh ū koku sangy ō kaihatsu gokanen keikaku no shiry ō teki ch ō sa kenky ū , n ō gy ō bumon (Tokyo: Tō-A kenkyūjo,

1941).
Figure 2.9 “Projected Surface Area for Target Crops in Khinggan Province for the Five 128

Year Plan” from Ishizaka Tadayuki, Mansh ū koku sangy ō kaihatsu gokanen keikaku no shiry ō teki ch ō sa kenky ū , n ō gy ō bumon (Tokyo: Tō-A kenkyūjo,

1941).
Figure 3.1 “Farming Village in Keshan County” from Kokuzan nōji shikenjō, Kokuzan 142 chih ō n ō ka keizai (Shinkyō: Sangyōbu daijin kanbō shiryōka, 1937).
Figure 3.2 “Chest Cavity X-Rays of Keshan Disease Patients” from Abe Toshio,
“Kokuzanbyō ni tsuite” in Tokyo iji shinshi, Vol. 62, No. 3091 (9 July 1938).
Figure 3.3 “Hieda Kentarō’s Photograph of Kashin-Beck Patients” from Hieda

Kentarō, Mansh ū ni okeru chih ō by ō ni tsuite (Kantō kyoku imin eisei chōsa

iinkai, 1935).
Figure 3.4 “Original Boundaries of Yekhe Mingɣan Banner” from Karte des Banners

der Yeke Mingghan (Nonni-Tal, Heilungkiang), Die Ostasienabteilung,

Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, Germany.
Figure 3.5 “Projected and Actual Rent for Yekhe Mingɣan on Former Territories”

from Kōan kyoku, Kakujirashi k ō ki, Tojihaku tokki, Ikokumeian ki kaih ō M ō chi ch ō sa h ō kokusho (Shinkyō: Kōan kyoku, 1939).

148 149 159 170
Figure 4.1 “Map of the Open Territories under the Land Offer” from Kōan kyoku,

Kaih ō M ō chi h ō j ō kankei kiroku sh ū sei (Kōan kyoku, 1938).
Figure 4.2 “Research Reports on the Mongol Lands Open to Reclamation Teams in
1938” from Hirokawa Saho, M ō chi h ō j ō : “Mansh ū koku” no tochi seisaku

(Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 2005).
199 206

vii
Figure 4.3 “Surface Area of Open Territories Affected by the Mongol Land Offer”

from Kōan kyoku, Kaih ō M ō chi h ō j ō kankei kiroku sh ū sei (Kōan kyoku,

1938).
Figure 4.4 “Mongol Rent Collected from and Redistributed to Banners under the Land

Offer” from Kōan kyoku, Kaih ō M ō chi h ō j ō kankei kiroku sh ū sei (Kōan

kyoku, 1938).

Figure 4.5 “Khinggan Survey Sites in Reports on the Research of Actual Conditions” from Takemura Shigeaki, M ō ko minzoku no n ō boku seikatsu no jittai (Tō-A

kenkyū sho, 1941).
Figure 4.6 “Map of Khinggan Survey Sites” from Takemura Shigeaki, M ō ko minzoku

no n ō boku seikatsu no jittai (Tō-A kenkyū sho, 1941).

211 212 216 217

Figure 4.7 “Khinggan Survey Teams in Reports on the Research of Actual Conditions” 219

from Yoshida Jun’ichi, “Kōan yonshō jittai chōsa ni tsuite: Hikaihō Mōchi

no chōsa wo chūshin ni” in Waseda daigaku daigakuin bungaku kenky ū ka

kiy ō, Vol. 43 (1997), 57–71.
Figure 4.8 “Definitions of Class Divisions in Reports on the Research of Actual

Conditions” from Kōan kyoku, K ō jitsu ch ō shi t ō kei (Kōan kyoku, 1940).

Figure 4.9 “Takemura Shigeaki’s Diagram of Labor Relations in Kharatoɣchin” from

Takemura Shigeaki, M ō ko minzoku no n ō boku seikatsu no jittai (Tō-A

kenkyū sho, 1941).
222 226

Figure 5.1 “Imanishi Kinji’s Migration Map of the Orochon” from Imanishi Kinji, Dai 235
K ō an rei tanken (Tokyo: Mainichi shinbunsha, 1952).
Figure 6.1 “Map of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region” from Guanghua yu

dixue she, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo xinditu (Shanghai: Shenghuo,

dushu, xinzhi sanlian shudian, 1951).
277 viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation has left many debts of gratitude in its wake. First and foremost, I must acknowledge the patience and faith of my committee in this endeavor: to Ian J. Miller and Mark C. Elliott, my two main advisors, whose unbounded enthusiasm for the transnational nature of the project propelled it forward even when I felt it had become almost impossible to finish; to Andrew Gordon, whose careful scrutiny and generous comments have saved me from many embarrassing errors; and to Ruth Rogaski, whose ambitious vision of the work reminds me how much I have yet to do. I also owe David Howell a bottle of port not only for his sharp comments as outside reader, but also for his critical eye over the years. Thank you.
My project relied upon the generous financial support of several organizations and their staff. At Harvard University, I thank Ted Gilman, Catherine Glover, and Stacie Matsumoto at the Reischauer Institute and Susan Pharr and Shinju Fujihira at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations for grants to conduct summer research and attend national conferences. The Foreign Language and Area Studies Program and Harvard University Asia Center both funded summers of training in Mandarin in the early years of graduate school. As for my years abroad, the Japan Foundation sponsored my eight-month residence in Tokyo, as well as visits to cities that spanned the length of the archipelago from Sapporo to Yamaguchi. Fellowships from the Fulbright Commission and the Social Science Research Council made my ten months in Hohhot possible, as well as trips to Beijing, Hailar, and Qiqihar. In my last year in Cambridge, the Fairbank Center housed and nourished me with its glaringly bright fluorescent lights and leftover conference food late into the night. The Mahindra Center for the Humanities, along with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, covered my finishing grant. Finally I thank the Harvard University History

ix
Department, and especially Dan Bertwell, who dealt with the bureaucratic work of seeing me through graduation.
While researching in Japan, Yanagisawa Akira kindly sponsored my affiliation at Waseda
University. Takagi Hiroshi, to whom I have yet to repay an intellectual debt since my college years, accompanied me through the stacks of the Institute for Research in the Humanities Library at Kyoto University. I also would like to recognize Nakami Tatsuo, Hirokawa Saho at Niigata University, Suzuki Nirei, and Erdenchuluu Khohchahar for listening to me while I still worked through inchoate thoughts about my project. Members of the Modern Japan Workshop at Waseda University, run by Ryan Moran and Ariel Acosta, gave valuable comments in revising my fifth chapter. I would like to recognize the staff at the university libraries of Hokkaido, Kyoto, Takushoku, Toyama, and Yamaguchi, the National Diet Library, and the Tōyō Bunko, as well as at the archives at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Institute for Defense Studies for always accommodating my research requests, no matter how ridiculous, with grace. Assel Bitabarova, Hannah Shepherd, Yamazaki Noriko, and Yokota Nobuko all scanned rare materials that remained out of reach for me. Mimaki Seiko sent me an important book from Tokyo that Chinese authorities had confiscated from my belongings. My uncle Hiraiwa Shūgo has purchased multiple volumes for me from used book dealers as well. Over the last three years, Shi-Lin Loh has saved me in so many research emergencies, despite an ocean separating us: document scans, library books, and endless hours of astutde advice. I will always have fond memories of triumph at the Coco Ichibanya Curry Challenge and the Takadanobaba Sutampu Rarii with Andre Dekrow, Tom Gaubatz, Matt McMullen, and Pau Pitarch Fernández. To Ethan Bushelle, Andrew Campana and Ed von Aderkas, Lena Hasanova, Ho Kayu, Ventsislav Kelchev

xand Ōhira Saki, Justyna Swiatkowska and Tsuruyama Kōhei, and Ueda Nanako and her sister Wakana: thank you for welcoming me into homes when I had none.
In China, I faced grim prospects in researching my topic, an increasingly sensitive subject for the current regime. I remain deeply indebted to my advisor Sodbilig at the Institute for Mongolian Studies, Inner Mongolia University, for his patient efforts in negotiating archival access on my behalf. Likewise I want to express profound gratitude to his graduate student and my reading tutor, Cholmon, for her friendship and openness throughout my stay and beyond. My first Mongolian language professor Erdenebaatar gave me lessons, bought me lunch, and presented me dictionaries. Zhou Taiping also at Inner Mongolia University always spurred me on with his infectious energy and zeal. Janet Upton and the staff of the Fulbright Office in Beijing arranged my institutional affiliation and provided guidance from afar. Other scholars offered valuable advice, gifted rare books, and granted archival access: Timur at the Inner Mongolia Region Library, Oyungerel at Inner Mongolia University, Professor Soyolma at Hulunbuir College, and Dashnima in the local government of the Evenk Autonomous Banner, whom I met by chance at a Buriyad wedding banquet on the steppe. Burged, at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, continued my language training in Mongolian bi č ig later in Cambridge. Several friends, both old and new, insured that I would not leave China empty-handed. Uugan worked unfailingly as my intrepid research assistant. Helen Gao and Mirshad Ghalip helped me purchase used books online, while Chogmandola, now at the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences, procured copies of oral histories on my behalf. Gu Songjie and Zhao Xiaotong photographed an entire book for me at Central Minorities University. Evelyn Boettcher aided in navigating the bureaucratic maze of Inner Mongolia University and secured my lodging. I thank Felicia Sonmez and Angela Sun for their gracious hospitality during my stay in Beijing. Okuyama Ariɣun and

xi his family hosted me for a weekend in the Hulunbuir grasslands. Dong Yuting and Hua Rui, my k ō hai at Harvard, obliged me on a fool’s errand to track down a long lost copy of an economic survey in Harbin. We failed, but I know that some day we will find this document.
I relied on help from librarians and friends to access other collections in the United States.
At Harvard-Yenching, I thank Kuniko McVey, who first initiated me into the National Diet Library when I was an undergraduate and has advised me ever since. David Weimer located cartographic depictions of Manchukuo at the Harvard Map Collection. Mari Nakahara, formerly of the Asian Division at the Library of Congress, guided me through their labyrinthine cache of materials. Gina Anne Tam conveyed precious, singular copies of books from Stanford University. Brian Vivier helped me fill in the final pieces of the dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania this summer.
Several conferences gave me the intellectual space to test out ideas for my nascent chapters. I thank Micah Muscolino, Miya Qiong, Norman Smith, Zhang Ling, among others, for organizing some of these spirited exchanges. In particular, the Association for Asian Studies and the Social Science Research Council hosted a workshop on “Dispossession, Capital, and the State” which reoriented the dissertation at a critical time. At various stages of the project, conversations with and comments from David Atwill, Christopher Atwood, Azuma Eiichiro, Dani Botsman, Susan Burns, Sarah Cameron, Arash Khazeni, Kate McDonald, Janis Mimura, Mizuno Hiromi, Alyssa Park, Norman Smith, David Sneath, and Wang Yi shaped its framing enormously. Without the encouragement of Connie Chiang, Dallas Denery, Matthew Klingle, Vyjayanthi Selinger, Emily Wanderer, and my writing partner, Peggy Wang, I would not have completed the dissertation while teaching at Bowdoin College.