Manchuria's motor city — Japan's puppet capital, China's auto industry birthplace, and the world's most surreal imperial palace
Changchun is the capital of Jilin Province in Manchuria and one of China's most unusual historical cities — it served as the capital of Manchukuo, Japan's puppet state (1932–1945), with the last Qing emperor Puyi installed as nominal ruler. The Puppet Emperor's Palace is a deeply strange museum: a Japanese colonial government building where Puyi lived under effective house arrest, decorated with a bizarre blend of Chinese imperial symbolism and 1930s Japanese modernism. Changchun is also China's auto industry hub (FAW/First Automobile Works was established here in 1953) and home to the countr…
Changchun was a small village before the Russian-built Chinese Eastern Railway arrived in 1898, transforming it into a significant railway junction. Japan seized Manchuria in 1931 and renamed Changchun 'Xinjing' (New Capital), building a planned city with wide boulevards and modernist government buildings as the capital of the Manchukuo puppet state. Puyi, the last Qing emperor who had been deposed as a child in 1912, was installed as emperor — a role he later wrote about in his autobiography 'From Emperor to Citizen.' The Soviet invasion of August 1945 ended Manchukuo; Changchun became a key…