Yoshiko Kawashima (1906–1948)

Chinese-born Japanese spy. Name variations: Eastern Jewel. Born in 1906; executed in China in 1948; daughter of Prince Su of Mongolia and his second wife, a concubine; given at birth to Naniwa Kawashima, Prince Su's Japanese military advisor, who named her Yoshiko Kawashima and raised her as his own daughter; educated in Tokyo; married Kanjurjab (son of a Mongol prince), in 1927 (separated within four months).

Born to Prince Su, a descendant of Nurhachi, founder of the Manchu dynasty, Yoshiko Kawashima was given at birth to her father's Japanese military advisor Naniwa Kawashima, who raised and educated her in Japan. By 1921, the year of her father's death, she had become indifferent to her Chinese heritage and was living what was then described as a "depraved" life. Although she had numerous sexual liaisons, in 1927 she married the son of a Mongol prince to whom she had been promised by her father in an earlier arrangement. Four months later, she deserted him and returned to a life of intemperance in Tokyo. Petite in stature and extremely pretty, she took to wearing men's clothing, particularly uniforms with riding breeches and shiny black boots. Among a string of new lovers was Major Ryukichi Tanaka, head of the Japanese Intelligence Service in Shanghai. Chroniclers contend that Tanaka harbored an intense hatred for all Chinese and in taking Yoshiko Kawashima as his mistress set out to exact revenge upon a race he despised.

In order to keep his mistress in high style, Tanaka put her on the Japanese intelligence payroll and sent her to school to learn English, which he thought would benefit her later in espionage. In the fall of 1931, when Tanaka was ordered to create disturbances in Shanghai to divert attention from the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, he put Yoshiko Kawashima to work. Giving her instructions and money, Tanaka directed her to hire dozens of Chinese thugs to break into homes and businesses and create general mayhem, while warships of the Japanese navy deposited marine detachments which occupied sections of the city. Weeks later, she was dispatched to Tientsin, where she successfully "persuaded" the deposed boy emperor Henry Puyi, last of the Manchu sovereigns and a relative of hers, to move to Mukden, where he served as a puppet ruler of the Japanese militarists who were about to take over Manchuria. (Puyi was subjected to a variety of scare tactics, from phony death threats to snakes in his bed.) By 1932, Yoshiko

Kawashima had performed her duties so well that she was made a commander and allowed to wear a Japanese uniform. She reportedly rejoiced while Shanghai was being bombed by the Japanese air force and strolled the devastated city with Japanese officers, blithely stepping over the bodies of slaughtered women and children.

Years later, Yoshiko Kawashima moved to occupied Peking (Beijing) where she amassed a fortune extorting large sums of money from local Chinese by interceding with the Japanese on behalf of those who stood accused of collaboration with the enemy, chiefly Chiang Kai-shek. Yoshiko Kawashima gave a percentage of her extortion money to her local Japanese commander, Colonel Yamaga, until he began to demand more money than she wished to give. In 1943, Yoshiko Kawashima rid herself of Yamaga by telling authorities that he opposed General Tojo's war schemes. He was eventually courtmartialed as a traitor.

Toward the end of her life, Yoshiko Kawashima's behavior became increasingly bizarre, purportedly due to the syphilis that had invaded her body and probably her brain. In 1948, as the result of a betrayal, she was brought before a Chinese tribunal and condemned to death as a traitor. Although the firing squad was the standard form of military execution at the time, Yoshiko Kawashima was sent to the block and beheaded.

related media:

The Last Emperor (162 min. film), starring John Lone, Joan Chen , Peter O'Toole, and Maggie Han as the Eastern Jewel, produced and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, 1987.

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts