Emperor in Exile: Pu Yi in the West ?

A thought after watching an Australian documentary about Pu Yi. He and his entourage very nearly made it out of Manchukuo and to Japan in Aug 1945. Had they immediately gone from Shenyang to Japan as planned, they'd have probably made it back to Hokkaido or Honshu.

So, let's allow Pu Yi and his entourage their escape and they arrive on an isolated airfield on Hokkaido on August 18th 1945. All around is chaos and confusion and for four weeks, little is known about his movements.

On September 15th 1945, Pu Yi reports to American HQ in Tokyo where no one seems to know what to do with him. MacArthur recognises the potential propaganda value of the last Emperor of China and affords Pu Yi the utmost respect and deference.

Pu Yi testifies to the War Crimes Trial in Tokyo where he is convicted for his complicity with Japanese abuses in Manchuria from 1931 onward. He is sentenced to 20 years prison but serves his time in relative comfort.

George Marshall thinks he could be useful in brokering a peace between Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong as a way of ending the conflict in China. Pu Yi himself proposes a solution whereby he is constitutional monarch presiding over a joint Government but it soon becomes clear Pu Yi has no influence in China and the Communists will not deal with him.

The Communist triumph in 1949 ends any chance of Pu Yi returning to his homeland. He is reluctantly allowed to settle in Taiwan in 1955 after he is released from jail in Japan. However, Chiang Kai-Shek quickly regards Pu Yi as a potential political rival though there is no evidence for this and in 1960 Pu Yi is deported and seeks refuge in the United States.

At a time of poor Sino-American relations, Pu Yi was warmly welcomed when he arrived in San Francisco on January 26th 1961. Newly-elected President John F, Kennedy sent his brother, the new Attorney General, to talk to Pu Yi but Robert Kennedy reports back that Pu Yi is of no political importance.

That said, Pu Yi found himself among friends in California and married a wealthy business woman in 1965. He became a representative for the influential Chinese business community for a number of years before ill-health affected him in the late 1970s.

His last significant contribution was to publically support Richard Nixon's rapprochement with China in the early 70s. This surprised many but was a recognition of the help the American Government had given him in 1945.

In a hugely magnaminous gesture which went down very well in the West, Mao invited Pu Yi to be part of the American delegation which visited Beijing in 1972. The historic meeting of Nixon, Mao and Pu Yi was filmed workdwide and although Pu Yi was a minor player, his presence was hugely symbolic for millions of exiled Chinese worldwide.

From 1973, Pu Yi enjoyed a new status as a UN ambassador but was shunned by Taiwan. He attended Mao's funeral as an honoured guest but Deng Xiaoping was cooler toward him.

In June 1978, Pu Yi suffered a major stroke which effectively ended his public life. He retired to his home in the California Hills and often visited Richard Nixon with whom he remained a close friend. Pu Yi died on July 16th 1982.

The Chinese Government agreed following a request from President Reagan to allow Pu Yi's body to be buried in his homeland.

Any thoughts ?
 
This is an interesting idea, but I'm not so sure that the Chinese would be so forgiving to Pu Yi. Cooperating with the Japanese was a pretty major sin, perhaps the biggest betrayal there is. I'm reminded of the fate of Wang Jingwei, who was the puppet president of southern China under the Japanese occupation. He died before the war ended and was buried in Nanjing, and when Chiang Kai-shek victoriously retook the city, he bulldozed Wang's grave, burned his corpse, and scattered the ashes. So I imagine it would be pretty darn hard for Puyi to atone for his "sins" against China.

It might be possible though, if he makes some kind of grovelling apology to the Chinese people.

But even after that, he's still the representative of the Qing dynasty, which both the PRC and ROC like to portray as backwards and subservient to foreigners; and as a Manchu, he might be considered "not quite Chinese enough."

But I really do like your idea of Puyi escaping China. He would surely become some kind of a celebrity in the US, and indeed everywhere outside of China, and I'm sure he could milk that for a bunch of lucrative book deals, and maybe he can establish himself as a wise old China expert who everyone turns to for a perspective on current events. So when Nixon goes to China in 72, Puyi will make the rounds on the major TV networks and write a bunch of editorials for the New Yorker or the New Republic. And I'm sure all the rich old money socialites on the East Coast are going to invite him to all their parties -- who wouldn't want the Emperor of China as a guest? :)

But in order to get back into the good graces of the Chinese, he's going to have to make some huge sign of public pennance.
 
This is an interesting idea, but I'm not so sure that the Chinese would be so forgiving to Pu Yi. Cooperating with the Japanese was a pretty major sin, perhaps the biggest betrayal there is. I'm reminded of the fate of Wang Jingwei, who was the puppet president of southern China under the Japanese occupation. He died before the war ended and was buried in Nanjing, and when Chiang Kai-shek victoriously retook the city, he bulldozed Wang's grave, burned his corpse, and scattered the ashes. So I imagine it would be pretty darn hard for Puyi to atone for his "sins" against China.

It might be possible though, if he makes some kind of grovelling apology to the Chinese people.

It was mentioned that Pu Yi testified against the Japanese in the War Crimes Trial in Tokyo. Shouldn't that be a good enough but kind of subtle apology?
 
It was mentioned that Pu Yi testified against the Japanese in the War Crimes Trial in Tokyo. Shouldn't that be a good enough but kind of subtle apology?
Nope!! Especially considering that it means he was complicit in allowing his fellow countrymen to be used as guinea pigs for medical experiments (e.g. Unit #731), its women to be used as "comfort women" (e.g. sex slaves), the use of an entire generation as factory slaves, and allowed the systematic mass slaughter of people (e.g. the Nanking Massacre).

To put this into perspective. Imagine if an American President, actually sided with the Axis during the Second World War, allowed the mass slaughter of the entire cities of Boston, Chicago, and New York. This same President also allows the Axis to take women in the occupied territories to be used as sex-slaves. This leader also allowed thousands of men to be experimented on. Even 25 years after the war has ended, would the American people love him, simply because he received a light prison sentence for betraying the people he collaborated with? Probably Not!!
 
Comments

Thanks for the comments. Pu Yi went through an extensive period of "re-education" after 1945 in various Chinese prisons and emerged a fundamentally changed man. He had enjoyed a sheltered, spoilt existence for most of his life prior to his capture in 1945.

The "problem" with him escaping to the West is not the practicalities but whether it would lead to any change in the man himself. I've offered a positive, perhaps over-generous assessment of a scenario in which Pu Yi is chastened and finds a degree of peace.

In OTL, he was feted in the early 60s by Mao, with whom he is known to have had conversations regarding his memoir, and achieved a small level of status before the Cultural Revolution.

He was forced to adapt following a sudden and violent change in his circumstances in 1945 and arguably did so.

Had he made it to Japan, would he have faced such a violent change and the necessary and positive adaptation ? It seems doubtful - MacArthur would probably have dismissed him as irrelevent and it seems implausible he could have played any part in the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War but even a prison sentence in the West would have been incomparably easier than his experience in the immediate post-war period in China.

Indeed, on reflection, I doubt he could even have gone to Taiwan. It's possible he could have remained living modestly in Japan playing little or no role in events. As others have argued, he might have found celebrity and notoriety in the US - he was used to the "celebrity" lifestyle with its trappings and I've argued that the wealthy expatriate community of San Francisco might have taken him in gladly.

There's also the thought that another side benefit of the years of incarceration was an improvement in his physical well-being. It's well known that by the early 1960s, he was, apart from his chain smoking, in good shape. The West would have offered better medical care but would he or could he have made the journey of self-improvement he was forced to make in China in the West ?

He died from kidney cancer which I suppose could have received some treatment with earlier diagnosis and he died at age 61 which is early enough. Better health might have seen him live to see Nixon's rapprochement with China - I've offered a positive view on this. It's also possible Pu Yi would have been implacably opposed.

I've no view one way or the other - there's some evidence Pu Yi never enjoyed being an Emperor, puppet or otherwise, and was inwardly glad to see those days end. Like the princes of Europe, he would have never stopped loving his country but would have given up any hope of ever ruling it.
 

Hendryk

Banned
It would have been possible for Pu Yi to escape to Japan and surrender to the Americans, but once he had testified in the Tokyo war crimes trials, that would have been the end of his life as a public figure: the Chinese, whether Nationalist or Communist, would regard him as a traitor; the Japanese would find it a diplomatic embarrassment to keep him around; and the Americans just wouldn't care about him. Your best bet is to have him live out his days in quiet seclusion somewhere nice, like California or the French Riviera.

He might strike a friendship with another exiled former emperor, Bao Dai of Vietnam.
 
Top