Puyi

Aisin-Gioro Puyi (7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty ruler. He became the Xuantong Emperor (then spelled as Hsuan Tung Emperor) at age two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on February 12, 1912 during the Xinhai Revolution. His era name as Qing emperor, "Xuantong", means "proclamation of unity". He later became the ruler of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo during World War II. After his capture by the Soviet Red Army and re-educuation by the People's Republic of China, he lived a private life as a citizen.

Quotes

1960s

You should not be serving me. I should be serving you.

• I now feel very ashamed of my testimony, as I withheld some of what I knew to protect myself from being punished by my country. I said nothing about my secret collaboration with the Japanese imperialists over a long period, an association to which my open capitulation after September 18, 1931 was but the conclusion. Instead, I spoke only of the way the Japanese had put pressure on me and forced me to do their will. I maintained that I had not betrayed my country but had been kidnapped; denied all my collaboration with the Japanese; and even claimed that the letter I had written to Jirō Minami was a fake. I covered up my crimes in order to protect myself.
  • From Emperor to Citizen, 1964

• You should not be serving me. I should be serving you.
  • Behr, 1987 p.314