TAIPEI, Jan. 22 Kyodo
Newly published documents suggest that famed World War II-era spy Yoshiko Kawashima, a relative of the ''Last Emperor'' Pu Yi, was executed in China, countering decades of conjecture that she paid for an impersonator to take her place before the firing squad.
The Manchurian icon, whose extraordinary life spawned several books and films and popular curiosity over her fate, was a prominent security official in the WWII-era Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in northeastern China.
Despite her arrest by Chinese Nationalist authorities, conviction for treason and reported execution, doubts about her death endured for years.
paper bag printing But a recent publication from Taiwan's Justice Ministry, relying on court and prosecutorial documents sourced from China at the time, suggests that Kawashima was indeed executed.
The ministry publication, ''Seal of History: 100 Valuable Prison Archives,'' includes official reports testifying to the execution on March 25, 1948, five months after her death sentence was handed down.
One U.S.-based specialist, however, is not convinced by the documents, citing unresolved ''ambiguous'' circumstances and the absence of the obsessive attention that was normally paid to prominent enemies of then leader Chiang Kai-shek's government.
''Under Chiang Kai-shek's ever-suspicious mind, he would only accept and believe any of his condemned enemies (was) dead if he saw two photos of the individual -- one taken before the execution and one right after,'' said David Tsai, a retired U.S. Library of Congress official who is an expert on espionage history and
''This was a common and routine practice,'' he said.
But in Kawashima's case, only a postmortem photograph has surfaced, and the identity of the person in the photo has been disputed.
rolex replica ''The 'photograph' of her 'body' as released back then was of the poorest quality and was not authenticated in any convincing way,'' Tsai said.
Adding to the intrigue, the new documents indicate that Kawashima's body was photographed by several journalists, but it was not clear why these images of such a prominent figure would not have survived or been better distributed at the time.
Kawashima was born into royalty as a Manchu princess in the waning Qing Dynasty in the early 1900s, and originally carried the name Aisin Gioro Xianyu
She was sent to Japan by her father at an early age and adopted by a Japanese military advisor, who renamed her Yoshiko Kawashima. She later became a spy for Japan amid Prada Replica Handbags its bid to establish the state of Manchukuo in Manchuria.
By some accounts, it was Kawashima who, through her ties to Chinese royalty, convinced Pu Yi to nominally head up the puppet state.
Besides espionage, Kawashima was also involved in guerilla warfare against Chinese insurgents, activities that led to her capture and purported execution.
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