Post by Admin on Nov 16, 2014 14:33:12 GMT
Under the Fugu Plan, Japan wanted to create a large Jewish colony in Manchuria and China between 1934-45. The settlements were envisaged as an 'Israel in Asia,' controlled by Japan. The Japanese hoped the colonies would gain the approval of international Jewish financiers such as the Rothschilds, who would pump money into their empire.
The first global depression had left Imperial Japan in a desperate state. Despite being the most advanced nation in Asia, Japan lacked basic raw materials such as coal, iron, petroleum, alloy minerals, water, and even food. Unable to regenerate their broken economy internally, the Japanese sought to expand. In 1931, they invaded North China and Manchuria. The region, which had been a battleground of Chinese, Japanese and Russian interests for many decades, offered precious raw materials and markets.
The Japanese could not afford to develop the region especially as US-Japan relations were deteriorating. The history of the most advanced city in Manchukuo, Harbin, provided a solution. Harbin owed its rapid rise to housing a small community of pioneering Russian Jews. In 1898, the Russians built the trans-Siberian railway through Manchuria, and developed the small fishing village of Harbin into a regional center. Tsar Nicholas II encouraged Jews to move there.
Shanghai, China, A sports class at the Jewish Youth Association school. Courtesy of the Yad Vashem Photo Archive.
While their numbers peaked at only 25,000, the Jews started banks, oil and gas works, pharmacies, textile and clothes shops, a brewery, music shops, opticians etc, and exported goods to Europe such as North Chinese soya beans. Harbin was quickly transformed from a fishing town into a mercantile hub of East Asia with a renowned Jewish-run international trade-fair.
Memorandums written in 1930s Imperial Japan proposed settling Jewish refugees escaping Nazi-occupied Europe in Japanese-controlled territory. As interpreted by Tokayer and Swartz (who coined the term "Fugu Plan" to describe this), they proposed that large numbers of Jewish refugees should be encouraged to settle in Manchukuo or Japan-occupied Shanghai, thus gaining the benefit of the supposed economic prowess of the Jews and also convincing the United States, and specifically American Jewry, to grant political favor and economic investment into Japan. The idea was partly based on the acceptance of the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as being as a genuine document by at least part of the Japanese leadership.
The detailed scheme included how the settlement would be organized and how Jewish support, both in terms of investment and actual settlers, would be garnered. In June and July 1939, the memorandums "Concrete Measures to be Employed to Turn Friendly to Japan the Public Opinion Far East Diplomatic Policy Close Circle of President of USA by Manipulating Influential Jews in China," and "The Study and Analysis of Introducing Jewish Capital" came to be reviewed and approved by the top Japanese officials in China.
Methods of attracting both Jewish and American favor were to include the sending of a delegation to the United States, to introduce American rabbis to the similarities between Judaism and Shinto, and the bringing of rabbis back to Japan in order to introduce them and their religion to the Japanese. Methods were also suggested for gaining the favor of American journalism and Hollywood. The majority of the documents were devoted to the settlements, allowing for the settlement populations to range in size from 18,000, up to 600,000. Details included the land size of the settlement, infrastructural arrangements, schools, hospitals etc. for each level of population. Jews in these settlements were to be given complete freedom of religion, along with cultural and educational autonomy. While the authors were wary of affording too much political autonomy, it was felt that some freedom would be necessary to attract settlers, as well as economic investment.
The Japanese officials asked to approve the plan insisted that while the settlements could appear autonomous, controls needed to be placed to keep the Jews under surveillance. It was feared that the Jews might somehow penetrate into the mainstream Japanese government and economy, influencing or taking command of it in the same way that they, according to the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion, had done in many other countries. The world Jewish community was to fund the settlements and supply the settlers.
Japanese approval came as early as December 1918, when the Shanghai Zionist Association received a message endorsing the government's "pleasure of having learned of the advent desire of the Zionists to establish in Palestine a National Jewish Homeland". It indicated that, "Japan will accord its sympathy to the realization of your [Zionist] aspirations." This was further explicit endorsement in January 1919 when Chinda Sutemi wrote to Chaim Weizmann in the name of the Japanese Emperor stating that, "the Japanese government gladly takes note of the Zionist aspiration to extend in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people and they look forward with a sympathetic interest to the realization of such desire upon the basis proposed." Japan recognized British policies in Palestine in return for British approval of Japanese control over the Shandong Peninsula in China.
The first global depression had left Imperial Japan in a desperate state. Despite being the most advanced nation in Asia, Japan lacked basic raw materials such as coal, iron, petroleum, alloy minerals, water, and even food. Unable to regenerate their broken economy internally, the Japanese sought to expand. In 1931, they invaded North China and Manchuria. The region, which had been a battleground of Chinese, Japanese and Russian interests for many decades, offered precious raw materials and markets.
The Japanese could not afford to develop the region especially as US-Japan relations were deteriorating. The history of the most advanced city in Manchukuo, Harbin, provided a solution. Harbin owed its rapid rise to housing a small community of pioneering Russian Jews. In 1898, the Russians built the trans-Siberian railway through Manchuria, and developed the small fishing village of Harbin into a regional center. Tsar Nicholas II encouraged Jews to move there.
Shanghai, China, A sports class at the Jewish Youth Association school. Courtesy of the Yad Vashem Photo Archive.
While their numbers peaked at only 25,000, the Jews started banks, oil and gas works, pharmacies, textile and clothes shops, a brewery, music shops, opticians etc, and exported goods to Europe such as North Chinese soya beans. Harbin was quickly transformed from a fishing town into a mercantile hub of East Asia with a renowned Jewish-run international trade-fair.
Memorandums written in 1930s Imperial Japan proposed settling Jewish refugees escaping Nazi-occupied Europe in Japanese-controlled territory. As interpreted by Tokayer and Swartz (who coined the term "Fugu Plan" to describe this), they proposed that large numbers of Jewish refugees should be encouraged to settle in Manchukuo or Japan-occupied Shanghai, thus gaining the benefit of the supposed economic prowess of the Jews and also convincing the United States, and specifically American Jewry, to grant political favor and economic investment into Japan. The idea was partly based on the acceptance of the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as being as a genuine document by at least part of the Japanese leadership.
The detailed scheme included how the settlement would be organized and how Jewish support, both in terms of investment and actual settlers, would be garnered. In June and July 1939, the memorandums "Concrete Measures to be Employed to Turn Friendly to Japan the Public Opinion Far East Diplomatic Policy Close Circle of President of USA by Manipulating Influential Jews in China," and "The Study and Analysis of Introducing Jewish Capital" came to be reviewed and approved by the top Japanese officials in China.
Methods of attracting both Jewish and American favor were to include the sending of a delegation to the United States, to introduce American rabbis to the similarities between Judaism and Shinto, and the bringing of rabbis back to Japan in order to introduce them and their religion to the Japanese. Methods were also suggested for gaining the favor of American journalism and Hollywood. The majority of the documents were devoted to the settlements, allowing for the settlement populations to range in size from 18,000, up to 600,000. Details included the land size of the settlement, infrastructural arrangements, schools, hospitals etc. for each level of population. Jews in these settlements were to be given complete freedom of religion, along with cultural and educational autonomy. While the authors were wary of affording too much political autonomy, it was felt that some freedom would be necessary to attract settlers, as well as economic investment.
The Japanese officials asked to approve the plan insisted that while the settlements could appear autonomous, controls needed to be placed to keep the Jews under surveillance. It was feared that the Jews might somehow penetrate into the mainstream Japanese government and economy, influencing or taking command of it in the same way that they, according to the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion, had done in many other countries. The world Jewish community was to fund the settlements and supply the settlers.
Japanese approval came as early as December 1918, when the Shanghai Zionist Association received a message endorsing the government's "pleasure of having learned of the advent desire of the Zionists to establish in Palestine a National Jewish Homeland". It indicated that, "Japan will accord its sympathy to the realization of your [Zionist] aspirations." This was further explicit endorsement in January 1919 when Chinda Sutemi wrote to Chaim Weizmann in the name of the Japanese Emperor stating that, "the Japanese government gladly takes note of the Zionist aspiration to extend in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people and they look forward with a sympathetic interest to the realization of such desire upon the basis proposed." Japan recognized British policies in Palestine in return for British approval of Japanese control over the Shandong Peninsula in China.