Dr Yasutomi who had earlier contributed an essay on Japan's financial activities in Manchuria down to 1931 to the International Studies series, completed with this essay the topics he studied during his two years as Research Associate. It explains how Manchuria became in 1935 part of the Yen bloc, based on yen-yuan parity, and benefited from huge Japanese investment, especially in the heavy industry sector in order to meet Japan's wartime needs. But the Central Bank linked its note-issue to the Shanghai silver exchange so that Manchukuo, though it was a puppet state of Japan, was subject to pressures from the Chinese economy leading in 1945 to its total collapse.
