Aisin-Gioro Xiqia (Aisin-Gioro Hsi-hsia; ; 1883–1950), commonly known as Xi Qia or Xi Xia (Hsi Hsia; ; Hepburn: ''Ki Kō''), was a general in command of the Kirin Provincial Army of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...

, who defected to the Japanese during the Invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and who subsequently served as a cabinet minister in

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 after the Japanese ...

Biography

Xi Qia was an ethnic

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) an ...

(

Plain Blue Banner The Plain Blue Banner () was one of the Eight Banners of Manchu military and society during the Later Jin and Qing dynasty of China. Members * Li Yongfang * Abatai * Agui * Zhao Erfeng (Han) * Keying (official) * Imperial Noble Consort Gong ...

) of the imperial clan of

Aisin Gioro The House of Aisin-Gioro was a Manchu clan that ruled the Later Jin dynasty (1616–1636), the Qing dynasty (1636–1912), and Manchukuo (1932–1945) in the history of China. Under the Ming dynasty, members of the Aisin Gioro clan served as ch ...

as a direct descendant of Murhaci (穆爾哈齊), a younger half-brother of

Nurhaci Nurhaci (14 May 1559 – 30 September 1626), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Qing (), was a Jurchen chieftain who rose to prominence in the late 16th century in Manchuria. A member of the House of Aisin-Gioro, he reigned ...

and second son of

Taksi Taksi (Manchu: ; ; 1543–1583) or posthumously titled as Emperor Xuan was a Jurchen chieftain and father of Nurhaci, founder of the Later Jin dynasty, and the fourth son of Giocangga. A member of the House of Aisin-Gioro, he was killed in ...

, thus, making him a member of the collateral bloodline of the Aisin Gioro clan. He contributed to making and a supporter of efforts to create a new Manchu-dominated state in

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...

after the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China. The revolution was the culmination of ...

overthrew the

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

dynasty in China. As a youth, he studied in Japan at the Tokyo Shimbu Gakko, a military preparatory school for Chinese students, followed by the

Imperial Japanese Army Academy The was the principal officer's training school for the Imperial Japanese Army. The programme consisted of a junior course for graduates of local army cadet schools and for those who had completed four years of middle school, and a senior course f ...

. He rose to the rank of

lieutenant general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on th ...

and

commanding officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitu ...

of the Provincial Army of Kirin Province under the Fengtian clique. On 23 September 1931, after the

Mukden Incident The Mukden Incident, or Manchurian Incident, known in Chinese as the 9.18 Incident (九・一八), was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. On September 18, 1931, ...

, Xi Qia, was invited by the Japanese government to form a government for Kirin Province. The

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emper ...

succeeded in achieving a bloodless occupation of the capital, Kirin city. General Xi Qia called a meeting of government organizations and Japanese advisers, and on 30 September 1931 issued a proclamation declaring Kirin Province to be independent of the Republic of China, with himself as head of a provisional government. After the Japanese

Kwantung Army ''Kantō-gun'' , image = Kwantung Army Headquarters.JPG , image_size = 300px , caption = Kwantung Army headquarters in Hsinking, Manchukuo , dates = April ...

completed military control over southern Manchuria in early January 1932, occupying

Jinzhou Jinzhou (, ), formerly Chinchow, is a coastal prefecture-level city in central-west Liaoning province, China. It is a geographically strategic city located in the Liaoxi Corridor, which connects most of the land transports between North Chin ...

and Shanhaiguan, it turned to the north to secure the remainder of Manchuria. When negotiations with Generals Ma Zhanshan and

Ting Chao Ding Chao (; 1883–1950s) was a military general of the Republic of China, known for his defense of Harbin during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and 1932. Biography Ding Chao's forces commenced mobilization in November 1931 at the r ...

had come to naught, Japanese Colonel

Kenji Doihara was a Japanese army officer. As a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, he was instrumental in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. As a leading intelligence officer, he played a key role to the Japanese machinations that ...

in early January 1932 requested that General Xi Qia advance with his forces to take

Harbin Harbin (; mnc, , v=Halbin; ) is a sub-provincial city and the provincial capital and the largest city of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, as well as the second largest city by urban population after Shenyang and largest c ...

from the last major

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Ta ...

force in the north led by General Ting Chao. General Xi Qia advanced to Shuangcheng on 25 January, and fighting began on the morning of the 26th. However, Xi Qia's troops soon suffered a serious reverse and Doihara was forced to call upon the Kwantung Army to assist. To justify this, Colonel Doihara created the Harbin Incident. The Japanese 2nd Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant General

Jiro Tamon Jiro is the registered name used by Sun Microsystems for an extension to Java and Jini. Jiro as an industry initiative, along with an EMC initiative called "Wide Sky" were catalysts in the late nineties for a common interface to storage devices, ...

, was ordered to go to the rescue of General Xi Qia, and entrained on 28 January. Because of transportation difficulties in the cold winter weather it took seven days for Japanese columns to struggle north over the frozen countryside in temperatures of 30° below zero. Finally they closed in on the Harbin from the west and south on 4 February and took the city on 5 February 1932. Within two months, the state of

was established, and Xi Qia was confirmed by the new government as governor of Kirin Province. A couple of months later, on 29 March 1932, Xi Qia's militia suffered another defeat, this time at the hands of the

Anti-Japanese Army For The Salvation Of The Country The Anti-Japanese Army for the Salvation of the Country was a volunteer army led by Li Hai-ching resisting the pacification of Manchukuo. It had about 10,000 guerrilla troops described as being equipped with light artillery and numerous machine gun ...

, a

Volunteer Army The Volunteer Army (russian: Добровольческая армия, translit=Dobrovolcheskaya armiya, abbreviated to russian: Добрармия, translit=Dobrarmiya) was a White Army active in South Russia during the Russian Civil War from ...

led by General

Li Hai-ching Li Hai-ching, or Li Hai-Tsing (died 1930s), was the leader of about 10,000 Anti-Japanese guerrilla troops in the south of Kirin, now Heilongjiang province, resisting the pacification of Manchukuo. They called themselves Anti-Japanese Army For The ...

on outside the town of Nong'an, only 35 miles from the Manchukuoan capital of

Hsinking Changchun (, ; ), also romanized as Ch'angch'un, is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China. Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a , comprising 7 districts, 1 county and 3 ...

. Japanese forces from the east at Yao-men, tried to fight their way through to Nong'an with

close air support In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movemen ...

from IJAAF bombers but the defender's radio ceased broadcasting when Li's forces captured the town. Japanese regular army troops soon drove Li's forces out of Nong'an. Xi Qia was removed from office soon after his defeat and was given a desk job in 1932. Xi Qia became Minister of Finance of Manchukuo in 1934. He subsequently served as Imperial Household Minister and Interior Minister in 1936. At the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he was captured by the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

and held in a

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...

n prison until he was extradited to the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

in 1950, where he later died in captivity at the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre in

Fushun Fushun (, formerly romanised as ''Fouchouen'', using French spelling, also as Fuxi ()) is a prefecture level city in Liaoning province, China, about east of Shenyang, with a total area of , of which is the city proper. Situated on the Hun Rive ...

Liaoning Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmo ...

Province.

External links

IMTFE, Japanese Aggression Against ChinaNewspaperARCHIVE.com - Search Old Newspaper Articles Online
at www.newspaperarchive.com SATURDAY EVENING. FEBRUARY 27. 1032. THE COSHOCTON TRIBUNE
Photo of Manchukuo politicians: Xi Qia third from the left, front row
{{DEFAULTSORT:Xi Qia 1883 births 1950 deaths Politicians from Shenyang Chinese collaborators with Imperial Japan Government ministers of Manchukuo World War II political leaders Manchu politicians Prisoners and detainees of the Soviet Union Prisoners and detainees of China People extradited from the Soviet Union Chinese people who died in prison custody Generals from Liaoning Generals of Manchukuo Aisin Gioro Manchu Plain Blue Bannermen