Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2013

 

Japanese Policy towards Chinese Students in Japan (1937-1945)

(Abstract)

 

Xu Zhimin

 

After the July 7 Incident of 1937, most of the Chinese students studying in Japan returned home. But the Japanese government, aiming to cultivate "leverage" for so-called "Japan-China friendship" and "associates" for the construction of "The New Order of Greater East Asia," inveigled or coerced the puppet regime into continuing to send students to Japan, resulting in the unusual phenomenon of a continuous flow of Chinese students going to study in Japan. Although the Japanese government adopted numerous stratagems in an attempt to brainwash them, it did not trust the students and monitored them strictly. After they returned to China, few of these students willingly became turncoats; instead, they participated in the work of post-war Japanese repatriation from China or the trial of Japanese war criminals. Japanese policy towards the Chinese students who studied in Japan during the war was unjust, and so was ultimately defeated by the surrender of Japan.