Puyi escapes to Japan

What would the impact be on the PRC is Puyi, the Last Emperor of China, had escaped the Red Army and made it to Japan to be arrested by US forces?

What happens to the Emperor in American custody?
 
I would imagine the Americans wouldnt recognize him as a legit emperor since Manchukuo wasnt recognized by them. So they would probably turn him over to the Republic of China.
 
Could not agree more. Puyi was a willing Axis collaborator hated by the regionally-relevant wartime ally.
The odd thing i found about the Communist Chinese was that they let both Puyi and De Wang live quiet lives despite them formerly being (officially) in charge of Japanese puppet states.

No chance of that under a ROC regime.
 
The odd thing i found about the Communist Chinese was that they let both Puyi and De Wang live quiet lives despite them formerly being (officially) in charge of Japanese puppet states.

No chance of that under a ROC regime.

so the best option for the Emperor is OTL, or maybe Axis victory?
 
Axis victory in the Pacific is implausible. And even in that scenario, Puyi was an unhappy puppet. He disliked the Japanese.

At the same time, I don't know enough about RoC attitudes to know whether they would execute him, or just keep him under house arrest like the PRC did. For better or worse, he's a former head of state, and executing him might not sit well with some people.
 
If Puyi fled to Japan before the end of the war he may very well survive. The reason for this is that the US wanted occupying Japan to be as easy as possible.

One request Japan made in surrender negotiations was that their Emperor was not to be killed. The US wanted Japan to surrender as soon as possible and with as little post war resistance as possible so they allowed it. The end result was a fairly smooth occupation.

If Puyi were in Japan at the time of surrender he might be able to convince the US to keep him alive and to not hand him over to any of the Chinese nations. His case would be this, killing one emperor would make the Japanese people fear they would kill their emperor as well. He could claim that he was only a puppet in Manchuku and to execute a puppet was not worth risking insurrection in Japan.

In my mind, that's a pretty good case. I guessing Truman and MacArthur wouldn't have liked it but may be willing to accept the proposal. The didn't know what to expect in occupied Japan at that point. The real question though is; would Puyi make that case. He was the Emperor of China and making that case would be basically begging for his life. A very undignified move to say the least.
 

J.D.Ward

Donor
His case would be this, killing one emperor would make the Japanese people fear they would kill their emperor as well. He could claim that he was only a puppet in Manchuku and to execute a puppet was not worth risking insurrection in Japan.

In my mind, that's a pretty good case. I guessing Truman and MacArthur wouldn't have liked it but may be willing to accept the proposal. The didn't know what to expect in occupied Japan at that point. The real question though is; would Puyi make that case. He was the Emperor of China and making that case would be basically begging for his life. A very undignified move to say the least.

Pu Yi might make a case

EITHER

That he is regarded by both the Japanese and Chinese as a semi-divine Emperor, and the Americans would not wish to face the consequences of a mass uprising after killing a living god.

OR

That he was an all-too-human puppet ruler just following instructions from his Japanese "advisors".

Attempting to argue for both positions at once, as you seem to have him doing, would be less consistent, and less convincing, than taking either one position or the other.
 
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