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Tsuyoshi, 1993, p.42). It was submitted to the Japan’s cabinet and the top commanders of Japanese
army and navy. It also symbolized the starting point of Japan’s cultural aggression policy against
China. This report clearly stated that 1) “collecting Qing’s treasures should be regarded as the top
priority for academic research”; 2) “the war brings great convenience for Japan to collect cultural
relics which are hard to get in usual time”; and 3) “the war also makes it much easier and cheaper
to collect Qing’s treasures”. Following this plan, Japan launched subsequent activities to plunder
Chinese books and literatures. Furthermore, Japan started to carry out another policy called The
management methods for the property of enemy (Zhao, 1997) in 1941, which developed into a
national policy.
The second stage of plundering lasted almost 30 years from the early 20th century to Mukden
Incident (Sept. 18, 1931). In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded China. Japan as part of
the coalition forces briefly occupied Yi Luan Palace. Japan located its headquarters at the Heart-
East Study in Beihai Park, and stripped this area of cultural relics (“Japan had plundered 15 245
pieces of cultural relics from China since the Sino-Japanese War—The directory of cultural relics
into Japan after the Sino-Japanese War tells us another shocking fact”, 2012). After the Russo-
Japanese War, Japan forcibly took control of the South Manchurian Railway which ran between
Changchun and Dalian. Under Japanese control, the South Manchurian Railway Company set up
a reference room in 1907 searching for useful books and materials to support colonial domination.
The reference room provided lots of information to support Japan’s colonial domination. During
the World WarⅠ, the German colonies of Kiaochow Bay and Qingdao were captured by Japanese
forces. In 1914, Japan robbed approximately 25 000 books from the Library of Kiaochow and
the Library of Deutsch-Chinesische Hochschule, then deposited them in the Library of Tokyo
Imperial University (now known as the University of Tokyo). A brief introduction of those books
can be read in a bibliography named The directory of documents and books been captured (Zhao
& Ji, 2010). In addition to their wartime predatory actions, Japanese scholars were sent to western
Xinjiang, Northeast China and other places, to conduct so-called “archaeological surveys”. During
three of the most famous “expeditions into Central Asia”, Kozui Otani stole a number of Chinese
cultural relics and ancient books, such as Dunhuang manuscripts and Turfan documents (W. Song,
2010). During the early 20th century, it became popular among Japanese to visit China in search
of rare ancient books. Some Japanese even used military force to back them up so they could more
easily get books by forcing the price down. On other occasions they expropriated the intellectual
content by taking photographs and copying books, without approval.
The third stage of plundering dated from the Mukden Incident to the victory of Anti-Japanese
War (Sept. 1931 to Sept. 1945). After Mukden Incident, Japan’s predatory activities quickly spread
to the whole country. The Japanese army not only bombed cultural organizations such as schools
and libraries, but also implemented a policy to locate and destroy any “banned” books because of
their anti-Japanese content. At the same time, Japan established a variety of cultural organizations
to acquire and arrange books, and extract military intelligence from them. Book resources of