, born Xianyu, was a Qing dynasty royal, part of the Aisin-Gioro clan. Kawashima was raised in Japan and served as a spy for the Japanese Kwantung Army and Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and is sometimes known in fiction under the pseudonym "Eastern Mata Hari". After the war, Kawashima was captured, sentenced, and executed as a traitor by the Nationalist government of the Republic of China. Kawashima is also a notable descendant of Hooge, eldest son of Hong Taiji.

Names

Born to the Aisin-Gioro clan, the imperial clan of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, Kawashima had the birth name Aisin Gioro Xianyu and the courtesy name Dongzhen (literally "eastern jewel"). Kawashima's Sinicised name was Jin Bihui. Kawashima is best known under their Japanese name, Kawashima Yoshiko (川島 芳子), which is read as Chuāndǎo Fāngzǐ in Chinese. After 1925, Kawashima occasionally used the male name Ryōsuke.

Family background and early life

thumb|right|150px|[[Shanqi (1866–1922), Kawashima's biological father]]

thumb|right|150px|Kawashima's mother Lady Janggiya, the 4th consort of Prince Suzhong

Kawashima was born Aisin Gioro Xianyu in Beijing in 1907 as the 14th child of Shanqi (1866–1922), a Manchu royal of the Aisin Gioro clan, the imperial clan of China's Qing dynasty. Lady Janggiya (), Shanqi's fourth concubine, was Xianyu's mother. Shanqi was a descendant of Hooge, the eldest son of Hong Taiji (the second ruler of the Qing dynasty). Shanqi was also the tenth heir to the Prince Su peerage, one of the 12 "iron-cap" princely peerages of the Qing dynasty.

After the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty in 1912, Xianyu was given up for adoption in 1915 at the age of eight to Shanqi's friend, Naniwa Kawashima, a Japanese espionage agent and mercenary adventurer. Xianyu's adoptive father changed their name to "Yoshiko Kawashima" and took Kawashima back to Tokyo, Japan, to be raised and educated in the Kawashima family house. As a teenager, Kawashima was sent to school in Tokyo for an education that included judo and fencing.

In 1922, around the time Kawashima's adoptive family moved to Matsumoto, Kawashima's biological father, Shanqi, died. As Kawashima's mother had no official identity as Shanqi's concubine, she followed Manchu tradition and died by suicide to join Shanqi in death.

Gender identity

On 22 November 1925, Kawashima claimed to have "...decided to cease being a woman forever." Earlier that day, Kawashima had dressed in a kimono with a traditional female hair style and took a photo among blooming cosmos to commemorate "my farewell to life as a woman." That evening, Kawashima went to a barbershop and got a crew cut, from then on dressing in men's clothes. A photo of the transformation appeared five days later in the Asahi Shimbun under the headline: "Kawashima Yoshiko's Beautiful Black Hair Completely Cut Off - Because of Unfounded 'Rumors,' Makes Firm Decision to Become a Man - Touching Secret Tale of [Kawashima] Shooting [Themself]", alluding to a prior episode in which Kawashima attempted suicide with a pistol given by . While in Shanghai, Kawashima met Japanese military attaché and intelligence officer Ryukichi Tanaka, who utilised Kawashima's contacts with the Manchu and Mongol nobility to expand Kawashima's network. Kawashima was living with Tanaka in Shanghai at the time of the Shanghai Incident of 1932.

After Tanaka was recalled to Japan, Kawashima continued to serve as a spy for the general Kenji Doihara. Kawashima undertook undercover missions in Manchuria, often in disguise, and was considered "strikingly attractive, with a dominating personality, almost a film-drama figure, half tom-boy and half heroine, and with a passion for dressing up as a male. [She] possibly did this in order to impress the men, or [she] may have done it in order to more easily fit into the tightly-knit guerrilla groups without attracting too much attention".

Kawashima was well-acquainted with Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, who regarded Kawashima as a member of the imperial family and welcomed Kawashima into his household during Kawashima's stay in Tianjin. It was through this close liaison that Kawashima was able to persuade Puyi to become a figurehead ruler for Manchukuo, a puppet state created by the Japanese in Manchuria. However, Kawashima privately criticised Puyi for being too amenable to Japanese influence.

After Puyi became Emperor of Manchukuo, Kawashima continued to play various roles and, for a time, was a lover of Hayao Tada, the chief military advisor to Puyi. Kawashima formed an independent counterinsurgency cavalry force in 1932 made up of 3,000-5,000 former bandits to hunt down anti-Japanese guerrilla bands during the Pacification of Manchukuo, and was hailed in the Japanese newspapers as the Joan of Arc of Manchukuo. In 1933, Kawashima was offered the unit to the Japanese Kwantung Army for Operation Nekka, but it was refused. The unit continued to exist under Kawashima's command until sometime in the late 1930s.

Kawashima became a well-known and popular figure in Manchukuo, making appearances on radio broadcasts and even issuing a record of their songs. Numerous fictional and semi-fictional stories of Kawashima's exploits were published in newspapers and also as pulp fiction. However, Kawashima's very popularity created issues with the Kwantung Army because Kawashima's utility as an intelligence asset was long gone, and Kawashima's value as a propaganda symbol was compromised by their increasingly critical tone against the Japanese military's exploitative policies in Manchukuo as a base of operations against China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and Kawashima gradually faded from public sight.

Capture, trial and execution

After the end of the war, on 11 November 1945, a news agency reported that "a long sought-for beauty in male costume was arrested in Beijing by counter-intelligence officers". Kawashima was held at Hebei Model Prison.

The Supreme Court of Hebei originally addressed Kawashima as "Chuandao Fangzi" (the Chinese pronunciation of their Japanese name's kanji). When Kawashima's trial began a month later, Kawashima identified themself by their Chinese name, "Jin Bihui", which eventually became the name court officials used. However, in accordance with Kawashima's lawyers' strategy to deflect Kawashima's charge of treason, Kawashima gradually began to emphasise a Japanese or Manchu banner identity. The court rejected the defence's bid to have Kawashima tried as a war criminal rather than as a domestic traitor, based on a combination of jus sanguinis and Kawashima's failure to formally renounce their citizenship through China's Department of Civil Affairs. and their body was later put on public display.

Kawashima's body was collected by a Japanese monk to be cremated. Kawashima's remains were sent back to their adoptive family and later buried at Shōrinji temple in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.

<gallery widths="150" heights="150">

File:Photo of Ms.Yoshiko Kawashima with her signature 1.jpg|Kawashima in Kimono with a signature to their friends

File:Photo of Ms.Yoshiko Kawashima with her signature 2.jpg|Kawashima in Kimono with a signature to their friends

File:Photo of Ms.Yoshiko Kawashima with her signature 3.jpg|Kawashima in Kimono with a signature to their friends

File:川岛芳子.jpg

File:Kawashima Yoshiko High School.jpg|During Kawashima's high school days

File:Kawashima Yoshiko Brothers.jpg|Yoshiko Kawashima and brothers and foster-father Naniwa Kawashima

File:Aisin-Gioro Xianyu.JPG|Yoshiko Kawashima

File:Kawashima Matsumoto.jpg|Renko Kawashima, Naniwa Kawashima, Yoshiko Kawashima, and Chizuko (Yoshiko's secretary) in Matsumoto.

File:Kawashima Yoshiko Wedding.jpg|Yoshiko Kawashima's marriage with Ganjuurjab in 1927

File:Kawashima Yoshiko Toyama.jpg|Kawashima Yoshiko visiting the home of Tōyama Mitsuru.

File:Kawashima yoshiko1.jpg

File:Kawashima Yoshiko adolescent.jpg|Kawashima Yoshiko adolescent

File:Gen Yoshiko Kawashima.jpg|Kawashima in Manchurian military uniform

File:Kawashima Yoshiko Signed.jpg|Autographed Photo of Kawashima Yoshiko

File:Y.Kawashima wN.K2.jpg|Kawashima (left) with Naniwa Kawashima (centre) and Ryukichi Tanaka (right), 1933

File:Kawashima yoshiko2.jpg|Kawashima Yoshiko

File:19480325 yoshiko kawashima hinrichtung 2a.jpg|Photo of executed Yoshiko Kawashima in 1948

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  • In the Chinese language, Kawashima's name (both Chuandao Fangzi and Jin Bihui) are synonymous with the idea of a "female spy" or a hanjian.
  • Anita Mui portrayed Kawashima in the 1990 Hong Kong film Kawashima Yoshiko.
  • Wong Wan-sze portrayed Kawashima in 1991 Hong Kong film God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai.
  • Kawashima was portrayed by Rei Kikukawa in the 2007 Japanese drama Ri Kouran, which tells the story of the life of Yoshiko Yamaguchi.
  • Meisa Kuroki portrayed Kawashima in the 2008 Japanese drama Dansō no Reijin: Kawashima Yoshiko no Shōgai.

Books

Two books titled The Beauty in Men's Clothing have been published about Yoshiko, the first a partly-fictionalized novel by Muramatsu Shōfū published in 1933, the second by Shōfū's grandson Tomomi in 2002 about the composition of the former.