Conclusion: Orphan Issue and Sino-Japanese Relations

Abstract

As noted earlier, it is a little known fact that the highest death toll of Japanese civilians in World War II occurred in Manchuria. Out of 1,550,000 Japanese civiians in Manchuria, 245,000 died. The tragedy for Manchuria was that the civilian victims were concentrated among the farmer-settiers. The Kwantung Army’s last minute “uprooting conscription,” which continued as late as August 9, 1945 (the day that the Soviet Army invaded Manchuria), left women, children, and the elderly defenseless in the settlement villages. Consequently, out of 270,000 farmer-settlers in Manchuria, 78,500 died.¹ These farmer-setters were toyed with by the Japanese government through the prewar period, the wartime period, and the postwar period. The orphan issue, the product of the folly of the Manchuria-Mongolia settlement policy, has not been resolved to this day.