Mukden Incident of 1931

the capture by Japanese troops of the city of Mukden (Shenyang) on Sept. 18, 1931, an event that marked the beginning of the Japanese occupation of Northeast China (Manchuria). As part of a deliberate plan to capture Manchuria, the Japanese imperialists published a false report on Sept. 18, 1931, that the Chinese had destroyed the roadbed of the South Manchurian Railway near Mukden. The same day, under the pretext of protecting the railroad, the Japanese Kwangtung Army seized the city. Taking advantage of the capitulationist policy of China’s Kuomintang government and the policy of noninterference of the USA, Great Britain, and the other capitalist powers, the Japanese militarists were able to occupy Manchuria in a few months. They established the puppet state of Manchukuo on the captured territory. Northeast China was liberated from the Japanese by the Soviet Army in August 1945.