East Hebei Autonomous Council

The East Hebei Autonomous Government (Chinese: 冀東防共自治政府; pinyin: Jìdōng Fánggòng Zìzhì Zhèngfǔ) Japanese: 冀東防共自治政府, Kitō Bōkyō Jichi Seifu), also known as the East Hebei Anti-Communist Autonomous Government was a puppet state established by the Japanese Empire.

History

After the creation of Manchukuo and subsequent military action by the Imperial Japanese Army, which brought northeast China east of the Great Wall under Japanese control, the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China signed the Tanggu Truce, that established a demilitarized zone in the south of the country. The Great Wall, which stretches from Tianjin to Beiping (Beijing). Under the terms of the truce and the subsequent He-Umezu Agreement of 1935, this demilitarized zone was also purged of the political and military influence of the Kuomintang government of China.

On November 15, 1935, the Chinese local administrator of the 22 counties of Hopei Province, Yin Ju-keng, proclaimed the territories under his control to be autonomous. Ten days later, on November 25, he proclaimed that they were independent of the ROC and that they had their capital in Tongzhou. The new government immediately signed economic and military treaties with Japan. The Demilitarized Zone Peace Preservation Corps that had been created by the Tanggu Truce was disbanded and reorganized as the East Hebei Army with Japanese military support. The Japanese goal was to establish a buffer zone between Manchukuo and China, but the collaborationist pro-Japanese regime was seen as an affront by the Chinese government and a violation of the Tanggu truce.

The East Hebei Autonomous Government received a response in the form of General Song Zheyuan's Hebei-Chahar political government, which was under the Nanjing government, launched on December 18, 1935. Chinese soldiers remained in the area.

In July 1936, a peasant uprising against the East Hebei Autonomous Government broke out in Miyun County. Led by an old Taoist priest, the rebels were organized by the Yellow Sand Society and managed to defeat a unit of the Eastern Hopei Army that was sent to suppress them. Thereafter, the Imperial Japanese Army moved in to put down the uprising., defeating peasant rebels in September. Some 300 insurgents were killed or wounded in the fighting.

The government of Eastern Hebei survived the Tungchow mutiny in late July 1937 before being absorbed by China's collaborationist Provisional Government in February 1938.