Kawashima Naniwa

In this Japanese name, the surname is Kawashima.

Kawashima Naniwa
川島浪速
Kawashima Renko, Kawashima Naniwa (second from left), Kawashima Yoshiko, and Chizuko (Yoshiko's secretary) in Matsumoto.
Born	(1866-01-23)23 January 1866
Died	14 June 1949(1949-06-14) (aged 83)

Kawashima Naniwa (Japanese: 川島浪速; Kawashima Naniwa; 1865–1949) was a Japanese adventurer in China, known for his activities supporting the Qing dynasty. He was the foster father of the Japanese spy Kawashima Yoshiko, who was the biological daughter of the Manchu Prince Su Shanqi.

Biography

Kawashima Naniwa was born on 23 January 1866, to a samurai family in the castle town of Matsumoto in Shinano Province. In 1882, he enrolled at the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages and studied Chinese. He left school in 1885 and began traveling in China. Kawashima returned to Japan due to illness in 1889.[1]

Kawashima followed the Japanese army as an interpreter in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894. After the Japanese victory he worked for the Government-General of Taiwan, before returning to Japan in 1897 to serve as a Chinese teacher at the Army Academy and Tokyo Higher Normal School.[1]

Kawashima (left) with Prince Su Shanqi (right)

In August 1900, Kawashima again went to China as an interpreter with the Japanese contingent of the Eight-Nation Alliance forces during the Boxer Rebellion. He was also made a civilian official in the military police section. After the allied forces occupied Beijing, he was charged with training police officers among the Chinese. Upon the reversion of control to the Qing government, they left this police force intact and contracted Kawashima to help create a modern police organisation. Kawashima organised a police academy in Beijing and served as its principal.[1][2]

Kawashima became a close friend of Shanqi, the 10th Prince Su, who was chief of the new police force, and later interior minister. After the 1911 Revolution and the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor in 1912, Kawashima helped Prince Su and his family flee to Port Arthur in the Kwantung Leased Territory.[3]

The Prince became a leading figure of the Royalist Party, which sought to restore the Qing dynasty. Kawashima and Prince Su envisioned a plan in which an uprising would establish an independent Manchu-Mongol state under the Qing dynasty with Japanese support. The plan had support within the Japanese Army, particularly in the Kwantung Garrison, but was opposed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The plan fell apart when the Japanese government decided it was safer to support President Yuan Shikai.[3][4]

The movement for a Manchu-Mongol state was revived in 1916, as Yuan had fallen out of favour with the Japanese government. With the tacit approval of the cabinet, the Army General Staff supported the activities of Kawashima in order to undermine Yuan. Kawashima incorporated an uprising by the Mongol Prince Babojab with his broader plan. The cause received funds from the businessman Ōkura Kihachirō among others, which were used to supply Babojab's army and to raise additional forces under Prince Su, consisting of local brigands and Japanese volunteers.[5][6] However, after the death of Yuan Shikai in June 1916, the Japanese cabinet decided to support his successor Li Yuanhong, leading the army to withdraw support for Manchu-Mongol independence. Babojab would be killed in battle against the Chinese army in October 1916. Kawashima reluctantly agreed to call of the plan and the forces under Prince Su were dispersed.[7][8]

In 1915 Prince Su had sent his fourteenth daughter, the eight-year old Xianyu to be fostered by Kawashima in Japan. Kawashima raised her as his own daughter gave her the Japanese name Kawashima Yoshiko. She later became famous as a spy for the Japanese Army.

References

1. Reynolds 1993, pp. 195–197.
2. Valliant 1972, p. 23.
3. Valliant 1972, pp. 4–7.
4. Hattori 2011, p. 68.
5. Valliant 1972, pp. 7–12.
6. Orbach 2019, p. 364.
7. Valliant 1972, pp. 7–13.
8. Orbach 2019, pp. 365–367.

Bibliography

• Hattori, Ryûji (March 2011). "Japan's Continental Expansion Policy and the Chinese National Revolution Movement". JAPAN-CHINA JOINT HISTORY RESEARCH REPORT: MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY HISTORY. Vol.1 (PDF). Japan-China Joint History Research Committee. pp. 66–94.
• Reynolds, Douglas R. (1993). China, 18g8-1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 0-674-11660-7.
• Valliant, Robert B. (1972). "Japanese Involvement in Mongol Independence Movements, 1912-1919". The Mongolia Society Bulletin. 11 (2): 1–32. JSTOR 43192993.
• Orbach, Danny (2019). "The Military-Adventurous Complex: Officers, adventurers, and Japanese expansion in East Asia, 1884–1937". Modern Asian Studies. 53 (2). Cambridge University Press: 339–376.

External links

• A site about Kawashima