Wanpaoshan Incident

The Wanpaoshan Incident (万宝山事件, Manpozan jiken^?) was a minor dispute between Chinese and Korean farmers which occurred on 1 July 1931, before the Mukden Incident. Although the issue was trivial, it was highly sensationalized in the Imperial Japanese and Korean press, and used for considerable propaganda effect to increase anti-Chinese sentiment in the Empire of Japan prior to the Mukden Incident of September, 1931 and the subsequent Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

Wanpaoshan was a small village some 18 miles north of Changchun, in Manchuria, in a low marshy area alongside the Itung River. A group of ethnic Koreans (who were regarded at the time as subjects of the Empire of Japan) sub-leased a large tract of land from a local Chinese broker and prepared to irrigate by digging a ditch several kilometers long, extending from the Itung River across a tract of land not included in their lease and occupied by local Chinese farmers. After a considerable length of the ditch had been dug, the Chinese farmers protested to the Wanpaoshan local authorities, who dispatched police and ordered the Koreans to cease construction at once and leave the area. The Imperial Japanese Consul based at Changchun responded by sending Japanese consular police to protect the Koreans, and both Japanese and Chinese authorities in Changchun agreed to a joint investigation.

However, before the joint investigation could be launched, a party of 400 Chinese farmers whose lands were cut by the irrigation ditch, armed with agricultural implements and pikes, drove the Koreans away and filled in much of the ditch. The Japanese consular police thereupon fired rifles to disperse the mob and to protect the Korean farmers but there were no casualties. The Chinese farmers withdrew and the Japanese police remained on the spot until the Koreans completed the ditch and a dam across the Itung River.

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