<P> By the end of February Ma had sought terms and joined the newly formed Manchukuo government as governor of Heilongjiang province and Minister of War . </P> <P> On 27 February 1932, Ting offered to cease hostilities, ending official Chinese resistance in Manchuria, although combat by guerrilla and irregular forces continued as Japan spent many years in their campaign to pacify Manchukuo . </P> <P> The conquest of Manchuria, a land rich in natural resources, was widely seen as an economic "lifeline" to save Japan from the effects of the Great Depression, generating much public support . The American historian Louise Young described Japan from September 1931 to the spring of 1933 as gripped by "war fever" as the conquest of Manchuria proved to be an extremely popular war . The metaphor of a "lifeline" suggested that Manchuria was crucial to the functioning of the Japanese economy, which explains why the conquest of Manchuria was so popular and why afterwards Japanese public opinion was so hostile towards any suggestion of letting Manchuria go . At the time, censorship in Japan was nowhere near as stringent as it later became, and Young noted: "Had they wished, it would have been possible in 1931 and 1932 for journalists and editors to express anti-war sentiments". The liberal journal Kaizō criticized the war with the journalist Gotō Shinobu in the November 1931 edition accusing the Kwangtung Army of a "two-fold coup d'état" against both the government in Tokyo and against the government of China . Voices like Kaizō were a minority as mainstream newspapers like the Asahi soon discovered that an anti-war editorial position hurt sales, and so switched over to an aggressively militaristic editorial position as the best way to increase sales . Japan's most famous pacifist, the poet Akiko Yosano had caused a sensation in 1904 with her anti-war poem "Brother Do Not Give Your Life", addressed to her younger brother serving in the Imperial Army that called the war with Russia stupid and senseless . Such was the extent of "war fever" in Japan in 1931 that even Akiko succumbed, writing a poem in 1932 praising bushidō, urging the Kwantung Army to "smash the sissified dreams of compromise" and declared that to die for the Emperor in battle was the most "purest" act a Japanese man could perform . </P> <P> The Western media reported on the events with accounts of atrocities such as bombing civilians, or firing upon shell - shocked survivors . It aroused considerable antipathy to Japan, which lasted until the end of World War II . </P>

What was the purpose of japan seizing manchuria
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