"May God Bless Manchukuo:” Manchuria and the Crisis of Vatican Diplomacy

• In Event: Religion and Institutional Transformation in 20th Century China

Abstract

The rules governing interstate diplomacy changed dramatically in the period between the two world wars. As a semi-sovereign entity, the Vatican was in some ways at the mercy of these changes, yet as a proponent of an alternative framework that in some ways challenged the ideas of the Wilsonian postwar order, it was also an activist force in shaping global norms that lay far beyond its direct sphere of interest. This presentation examines the influence that three decades of political crisis in early twentieth century Northeast Asia had on the diplomatic initiatives and legal personality of the Vatican, and thus by extension of religious bodies as independent pseudo-state actors. Underlying these crises was the question of how the Vatican would coexist with the Japanese Empire, a question that came to a head over the need to respond diplomatically to the formation of the Japanese client state in Manchuria.

Author

• Thomas DuBois, Australian National University