Yoshiko Kawashima (川島 芳子, Kawashima Yoshiko, 24 May 1907 – 25 March 1948), born Aisin Gioro Xianyu, was a Qing dynasty princess of the Aisin-Gioro clan. He was raised in Japan and served as a spy for the Japanese Kwantung Army and Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War. He is sometimes known in fiction under the pseudonym "Eastern Mata Hari". After the war, He was captured, tried, and executed as a traitor by the Nationalist government of the Republic of China. He was also a notable descendant of Hooge, eldest son of Hong Taiji. Kawashima took a male name Ryōsuke later in life and used only male Japanese grammar towards himself.
Yoshiko Kawashima | |
|---|---|
 Yoshiko Kawashima in Manchukuo army uniform | |
| Native name | 川島 芳子 |
| Birth name | Aisin Gioro Xianyu (愛新覺羅·顯玗) |
| Other name(s) | Dongzhen (東珍) Jin Bihui (金璧輝) Eastern Jewel |
| Nickname(s) | Joan of Arc of Manchukuo |
| Born | 24 May 1907 Beijing, Qing Empire |
| Died | 25 March 1948 (aged 40) Beiping, Republic of China |
| Buried | Shōrinji, Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Japan |
| Allegiance |  Manchukuo  Empire of Japan |
| Service/ | Kwantung Army |
| Battles/wars | Pacification of Manchukuo |
| Spouse(s) |
Ganjuurjab
(m. 1927; div. 1930) |
| 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 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Birth name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 愛新覺羅·顯玗 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 爱新觉罗·显玗 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Courtesy name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 東珍 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 东珍 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | Eastern Jewel | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Japanese name | |||||||||
| Kanji | 川島芳子 | ||||||||
| Hiragana | かわしま よしこ | ||||||||
| Katakana | カワシマ ヨシコ | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Names
editHe was born in the Aisin Gioro clan, the imperial clan of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. His birth name was Aisin Gioro Xianyu and his courtesy name was Dongzhen (literally "eastern jewel"). His Sinicised name was Jin Bihui. He is best known by his Japanese name, Kawashima Yoshiko (川島 芳子), which is read as Chuāndǎo Fāngzǐ in Chinese. In 1925, Yoshiko took the male name Ryōsuke.[1]
Family background and early life
edit
He was born Aisin Gioro Xianyu in Beijing in 1907 as the 14th daughter of Shanqi (1866–1922), a Manchu prince of the Aisin Gioro clan, the imperial clan of China's Qing dynasty. His mother was Lady Janggiya (張佳氏), Shanqi's fourth concubine. Shanqi was a descendant of Hooge, the eldest son of Hong Taiji (the second ruler of the Qing dynasty). Shanqi was also the tenth heir to the Prince Su peerage, one of the 12 "iron-cap" princely peerages of the Qing dynasty.
After the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1912, Xianyu was given up for adoption in 1915 at the age of eight to his father's friend, Naniwa Kawashima, a Japanese espionage agent and mercenary adventurer. His stepfather changed his name to "Yoshiko Kawashima" and took his back to Tokyo, 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 his adoptive family moved to Matsumoto, Kawashima's biological father, Shanqi, died. As Kawashima's mother had no official identity as Shanqi's concubine, she followed Manchu tradition and committed suicide to join Shanqi in death. At the age of seventeen, Kawashima’s adoptive father raped him and later continued to abuse him.[2]
On 22 November 1925, Yoshiko said that he had "...decided to cease being a woman forever." Earlier that day he had dressed in a kimono with a traditional female hair style and took a photo among blooming cosmos to commemorate "my farewell to life as a woman." That evening, Yoshiko went to a barbershop and had his hair cut into a crew cut, from then on dressing in men's clothes. A photo of the transformation appeared five days later in the 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 he had shot himself in the chest with a pistol given to him by Iwata Ainosuke.[1]
He 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 he had "boyish habits" despite his feminine beauty. He would only use the male style of Japanese grammar, even though that contributed to him not being re-admitted to his school after his biological father's death.[1]
Espionage career
editIn November 1927 at age 20, his brother and adoptive father arranged for his marriage to Ganjuurjab in Port Arthur (also known as Ryojun), who was the son of Inner Mongolian Army general Babojab, who once led the Mongolian-Manchurian Independence Movement there in 1911. The marriage ended in divorce after only three years. He left Mongolia, and he first traveled to teeming coastal towns of China and lived a bohemian lifestyle for some years in Tokyo with a series of rich lovers, both men and women.[3] Kawashima moved to the foreign concession in Shanghai.[4] While in Shanghai, he met Japanese military attaché and intelligence officer Ryukichi Tanaka, who utilised his contacts with the Manchu and Mongol nobility to expand his network. He was living with Tanaka in Shanghai at the time of the Shanghai Incident of 1932.
After Tanaka was recalled to Japan, Kawashima continued to serve as a spy for the general Kenji Doihara. He undertook undercover missions in Manchuria, 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. He 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". [5][6]
Kawashima was well-acquainted with Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, who regarded him as a member of the imperial family and welcomed him into his household during his stay in Tianjin. It was through this close liaison that Kawashima was able to persuade Puyi to become a figurehead ruler for Manchukuo, a puppet state created by the Japanese in Manchuria. However, Kawashima privately criticised Puyi for being too amenable to Japanese influence.[7]
After Puyi became Emperor of Manchukuo, Kawashima continued to play various roles and, for a time, was a lover of Hayao Tada, the chief military advisor to Puyi. He formed an independent counterinsurgency cavalry force in 1932 made up of 3,000-5,000 former bandits to hunt down anti-Japanese guerrilla bands during the Pacification of Manchukuo, and was hailed in the Japanese newspapers as the Joan of Arc of Manchukuo.[8] In 1933, he offered the unit to the Japanese Kwantung Army for Operation Nekka, but it was refused. The unit continued to exist under his command until sometime in the late 1930s.[9]
Kawashima became a well-known and popular figure in Manchukuo, making appearances on radio broadcasts and even issuing a record of his songs. Numerous fictional and semi-fictional stories of his exploits were published in newspapers and also as pulp fiction. However, his very popularity created issues with the Kwantung Army because his utility as an intelligence asset was long gone, and his value as a propaganda symbol was compromised by his increasingly critical tone against the Japanese military's exploitative policies in Manchukuo as a base of operations against China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and he gradually faded from public sight.
Capture, trial and execution
editAfter 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] he was held at Hebei Model Prison.
The Supreme Court of Hebei originally addressed Kawashima as "Chuandao Fangzi" (the Chinese pronunciation of her Japanese name's kanji). When his trial began a month later, Kawashima identified himself by his Chinese name, "Jin Bihui", which eventually became the name court officials used. However, in accordance with his lawyers' strategy to deflect his charge of treason, he gradually began to emphasise a Japanese or Manchu banner identity. The court rejected the defence's bid to have him tried as a war criminal rather than as a domestic traitor, based on a combination of jus sanguinis and Kawashima's failure to formally renounce his citizenship through China's Department of Civil Affairs.[7]
Charged with treason as a hanjian on 20 October 1947, he was executed by a bullet shot into the back of his head on 25 March 1948,[10] and his body was later put on public display.
His body was collected by a Japanese monk to be cremated. His remains were sent back to his adoptive family and later buried at Shōrinji temple in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.[11]
Gallery
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Yoshiko in Kimono with her signature to her friends -
Yoshiko in Kimono with her signature to her friends -
Yoshiko in Kimono with her signature to her friends -
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Yoshiko Kawashima in her high school days -
Yoshiko Kawashima with her brothers and foster-father Naniwa Kawashima -
Yoshiko Kawashima -
Renko Kawashima, Naniwa Kawashima, Yoshiko Kawashima, and Chizuko (Yoshiko's secretary) in Matsumoto. -
Yoshiko Kawashima's marriage with Ganjuurjab in 1927 -
Kawashima Yoshiko visiting the home of Tōyama Mitsuru. -
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Kawashima Yoshiko adolescent -
Kawashima in Manchurian military uniform -
Autographed Photo of Kawashima Yoshiko -
Kawashima (left) with Naniwa Kawashima (centre) and Ryukichi Tanaka (right), 1933 -
Kawashima Yoshiko -
Photo of executed Yoshiko Kawashima in 1948
In popular culture
edit- In the Chinese language, Kawashima's name (both Chuandao Fangzi and Jin Bihui) are synonymous with the idea of a "female spy" or a hanjian.[7]
Films
edit- In Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film The Last Emperor, Kawashima appeared as "Eastern Jewel", played by Maggie Han.
- Miyuki Takakura portrayed Kawashima in the 1957 Japanese film Sen'un Ajia no Joō.[12]
- Anita Mui portrayed Kawashima in the 1990 Hong Kong film Kawashima Yoshiko.[13]
- Wong Wan-sze portrayed Kawashima in 1991 Hong Kong film God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai.
- Kawashima was portrayed by Rei Kikukawa in the 2007 Japanese drama Ri Kouran, which tells the story of the life of Yoshiko Yamaguchi.
- Meisa Kuroki portrayed Kawashima in the 2008 Japanese drama Dansō no Reijin: Kawashima Yoshiko no Shōgai.
- Kawashima was portrayed by Shu Qi in the 2010 Hong Kong film Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen.
Books
editThe 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 titled The 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]
Video games
edit- Kawashima appears as a lieutenant colonel of the Japanese army in the 2004 JRPG game Shadow Hearts: Covenant.
- Kawashima appears as an army general for Manchukuo, and doubles as a spy agent/operative in the expansion "La Résistance" for both Japan and Manchukuo in the 2016 World War II grand strategy game Hearts of Iron IV, by Paradox Interactive.
References
edit- ^ a b c d e Birnbaum, Phyllis (2015). Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy: The Story of Kawashima Yoshiko, the Cross-Dressing Spy Who Commanded Her Own Army. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 46-50, 56, 65, 70-75. ISBN 9780231152181.
- ^ Zhu, Aijun. Feminism and Global Chineseness: The Cultural Production of Controversial Women Authors, p.254 Cambria Press, 2007, ISBN 9781934043127
- ^ Yue, Audrey. Ann Hui's Song of the Exile, Hong Kong University Press, 2010, ISBN 9789888028757
- ^ Yamamuro, Manchuria Under Japanese Domination, pp.98
- ^ Deacon,A History of Japanese Secret Service, 1982, p.151
- ^ Grant, Battle Cries and Lullabies, pp.260
- ^ a b c Shao, Dan (2005). "Princess, Traitor, Soldier, Spy: Aisin Gioro Xianyu and the Dilemma of Manchu Identity". In Tamanoi, Mariko Asano (ed.). Crossed Histories. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. pp. 83–120.
he did not use the term 'Manzu' (Manchu) or 'Manren' in his vocabulary of identity.
- ^ Woods, Princess Jin.
- ^ Jowett, Rays of the Rising Sun, vol. 1, p.31.
- ^ "Foreign News: Foolish Elder Brother". Time. 5 April 1948. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
- ^ Birnbaum, Phyllis (7 April 2015). Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0231152198.
- ^ James Kirkup (20 July 1995). "Obituary: Ryoichi Sasakawa". The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
- ^ TR (10 September 2012). "Kawashima Yoshiko". Time Out. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
Crowdy, Terry, The Enemy Within (Oxford: Osprey, 2006), Chapter 10
Bibliography
edit- Birnbaum, Phyllis (14 April 2015). Manchu Princess, Japanese Spy: The Story of Kawashima Yoshiko, the Cross-Dressing Spy Who Commanded Her Own Army. Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231152181.
- Deacon, Richard (1986). A History of the Japanese Secret Service. Berkley Publishing Company. ISBN 0-425-07458-7.
- Jowett, Philip (2005). Rays of the Rising Sun, Volume 1: Japan's Asian Allies 1931-45, China and Manchukuo. Helion and Company Ltd. ISBN 1-874622-21-3.
- Grant DePauw, Linda (2000). Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War from Prehistory to the Present. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3288-4.
- Lee, Lillian (1992). The Last Princess of Manchuria. William Morrow & Co. ISBN 0-688-10834-2.
- Woods, Willa Lou (1937). Princess Jin, the Joan of Arc of the Orient. World Publishing Company. OCLC 942732.
- Yamamuro, Shinichi (2005). Manchuria Under Japanese Domination. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-3912-1.
- Lindley, Maureen (2008). The private papers of Eastern Jewel. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-9116-0.
External links
edit- (in Chinese) 男裝女諜川島芳子
Media related to Kawashima Yoshiko at Wikimedia Commons