Japanese Emperor claims Mandate of Heaven after successful conquest of China

Mandate of Heaven doesn't exist post 1911 and Japan's plan for China was puppet states not the Japanese emperor as emperor of China.
 
The Emperor of Japan has the Mandate of Heaven anyway as the descendant of Amaterasu. Unlike the chinese concept, however, it is hereditary, whereas the chinese emperors could be rebelled against, with the winner claiming the Mandate, as you are undoubtedly aware.
 
The Mandate of Heaven isn't a path to legitimacy.

It's the acknowledgement of legitimacy that has already been acquired.
 
He'd eventually move to China and Japan would become a backwater province.
This is within the 1900s not 1700s or before. Chinese can’t just swarm in like they did in Manchuria and become majority because Japan is a island and the Japanese would probably heavily regulated movement of non Japanese to the home islands. The emperor is also going to stay in Japan. Japanese also have a much more strict view of race and ethnicity that is more similar to the west then China. If they conquer China I could see Japan and some of there holding like Korea and Taiwan becoming just as nice in industry, wealth, living standards, and technology as otl. They would be first world regions. This could also apply to some coastal areas and cities in China under their direct control. The rest of China would probably be divided up into puppet nations that are full of sweatshop factories and raw resource laborers who often use cheap labor and even child labor. Conditions similar to otl Chinese factories, mines, and farming. These industries are probably controlled by Japanese interest groups or people who often use the local government as a tool for their own gains. Japan uses these countries like banana republics or places to produce cheap products in large numbers for very low cost while Japanese lands produce more high end and high tech products within its actual country. Japan would profit greatly off Chinese labor and resources.
 
I mean as a symbolic title as the head of some sort of co prosperity sphere

To fulfill this challenge, does the Empire of Japan have to conquer all of China, or would something like Manchukuo, Mengjiang, Formosa, and Kwantung Territory as provinces of the Japanese Empire with the Emperor as head of state if not head of government suffice?
 
Bear in mind that the Emperor of Japan had very little de facto power. He wouldn't have been claiming anything without the government and the military approving it first.
 
1930s Imperial Japan conquering China? Claiming the Mandate of Heaven would be a sham at best. It might even be seen by Chinese as more of an insult from the occupying forces, not convincing even as propaganda.
 
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