Importance of Manchuria

Manchuria, located in northeast China, is where the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo during World War II. As the war wound down it was among the last of Japan’s territorial conquests to be stripped from them, and was taken in particularly ominous form. Asked to intervene on the side of the Allies against Japan by Roosevelt, the Soviets invade on August 9 – the same day as the Nagasaki bombing – quickly overrunning the Japanese. This illustrates the threat the Soviets presented, especially if they had been permitted to invade mainland Japan.