Abstract: achibana Shiraki is a wellknown modern Japanese specialist of China studies. His representative and indepth studies on China were highly praised by LU Xun, and had a great influence upon Japanese understanding and research of China at that time. However, after the Manchurian Incident, his ideas underwent a radical change. He was then the influential political ideologist of the puppet State of Manzhouguo. Not only did he consciously assume the role of defending Japan’s unjustifiable aggression against China, but he also invented the inflammatory slogans of the socalled ‘imperial’ way and ‘racial harmony’. This contributed a lot to Japanese imperialist ambition of military aggression and expansion, and fitted in well with the establishment of the puppet State of Manzhouguo. He had then transformed completely into a political ideologist defending teoretically Japan’s aggression against Manzhouguo.

Key words: Tachibana Shiraki, the Manchurian Incident, the puppet State of Manzhouguo, the ‘imperial’ way