Lytton Commission

Lytton Report (リットン報告書, Ritton Hōkokusho^?) are the findings of the Lytton Commission, entrusted in 1931 by the League of Nations in an attempt to evaluate the Mukden Incident, which led to the Empire of Japan’s seizure of Manchuria.

That five-member commission headed by Victor Bulwer-Lytton of Great Britain announced its conclusions on to October 1932. It stated Japan was the aggressor, argued that the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo should not be recognized, and recommended Manchurian autonomy under Chinese sovereignty. The League of Nations General Assembly adopted the report, and Japan quit the League. The recommendations went into effect after Japan surrendered in 1945

The Lytton Commission was headed by V. A. G. R. Bulwer-Lytton, the second Earl of Lytton of Great Britain, and included four other members, one each from the US (Major General Frank Ross McCoy), Germany (Dr. Heinrich Schnee), Italy (Count Aldrovandi-Marescotti), and France (General Henri Claudel). The group spent six weeks in Manchuria in spring 1932 (despite having been sent in December 1931) on a fact-finding mission, after meeting with government leaders in the Republic of China and in Japan. It was hoped that the report would defuse the hostilities between Japan and China and would thus help maintain peace and stability in the Far East.

The Lytton Report contained an account of the situation in Manchuria before September 1931, when the Ferrell, Mukden Incident took place as the Japanese army (without authorization from the Japanese government) seized the large Chinese province of Manchuria. The Report described the unsatisfactory features of the Chinese administration and giving weight to the various claims and complaints of Japan. It then proceeded with a narrative of the events in Manchuria subsequent to September 18, 1931, based on the evidence of many participants and on that of eyewitnesses. It devoted particular attention to the origins and development of the State of Manchukuo, which had already been proclaimed by the time the Commission reached Manchuria. It also covered the question of the economic interests of Japan both in Manchuria and China as a whole, and the nature and effects of the Chinese anti-Japanese boycott. Soviet Union interests in the region were also mentioned. Finally, the Commission submitted a study of the conditions to which, in its judgment, any satisfactory solution should conform, and made various proposals and suggestions as to how an agreement embodying these principles might be brought about.

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