From Emperor to Citizen: The Autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi [Paperback]

Although many left-wing scholars and journalists have believed that, by the great "thought reform programme" and the "generosity policy" of the Chinese Communist Party, Pu Yi was indeed "re-educated" perfectly and dramatically from an arrogant little tyrant in the Forbidden City to a decent able worker of acquired communism mind, however, in fact, that is not true at all. According to [the fourth wife of Pu Yi's] published account, she found his mouthing of progressive cliches hard to take when he showed hardly any interest in how she had coped during the intervening ten years." (She had not been informed his where-about until then.) Even as late as 1961, two years after Pu Yi's release from the prison, when she had finally got divorce Pu Yi and remarried and had a son, "there was still pressure on her to drop everything and start looking after Pu Yi again, as he was incapable of looking after himself. [......] Even his much-publicised labour in the Botanical Gardens outside Peking was something of a ritual." Pu Yi's final marriage to the fifth wife, who was well-qualified and experienced nurse, was "arranged for him by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the Communist Party's United Front Department."

"By 1955," Jenner writes, "the authorities had evidently decided that Pu Yi was by now useful for propaganda purposes. [......] Pu Yi's presentation to foreigners as a living advertisement for the People's Government and the Communist Party began in 1956, while he was still in prison; and after his release he was often required to meet foreign visitors to China." He survived the stormy Cultural Revolution not because he became a model citizen and a Communist Party member, but because of "Chou En-lai's intervention, and [because] the local police kept Red Guards away."

As for the "generosity policy" for which Pu Yi and the Japanese inmates expressed their gratefulness, again, it was a mere part of the "thought reform programme" Jenner writes; "The special consideration shown Pu Yi and other high-ranking Manchukuo (sic), Japanese, and Nationalist officials cannot be regarded as typical of Chinese prison conditions. These were all people of potential value in winning over others in future, and political considerations saved them from the harsh justice that many lesser figures received."
According to Chu Ch'u and Hsu Tse, the ex-vice governor and the ex-warder of the Fushun War Criminal Camp, respectively, they actually protested to the prison authority against that too generous treatment for the Manchus and Japanese. The Order was to give them good foods in good amount and good care for their health. No abusive words and no tortures should be given to those "special prisoners". The authority explained; It was the policy of the Chairman Mao and the Premier Chou.
It was, by the way, Mao and Chou who, in July 1950, decided to transfer those Manchus and the randomly selected Japanese kept in slave labour camps in Siberia to China, with an initial idea of Stalin himself.
"To be honest," Chu Ch'u says, "it was only when I heard of those Japanese inmates who were returned to Japan by "amnesty" and formed "the Association of Returnees from China" and have been confessing to the public their "crimes" for the anti-war campaign, I actually realised the true intention of the Premier Chou."

As "Political Imprisonment in the People's Republic of China: An Amnesty International Report" (published in 1978) and "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China" by Robert J. Lifton (pub.1961) reveal with their own research with those who were "brainwashed" in those prison camps like one in Fushun, other "non-special" prisoners' treatment in those prisons were severe. Physical and psychological tortures were used to force "self-education" "self-criticism"and "self-condemnation".
It is not, however, that there were no coercions towards those "special prisoners".
Let us not forget that those Manchus and Japanese had been kept in unimaginably harsh condition of Siberian slave labour camps for good 5 years before they were transferred to China. According to the abovementioned ex-officers of Fushun Camp, they seemed to have lost their sound mental health already at that point. After that until their deliberate release in late 50's, while being not allowed to receive any visitors from outside, they were kept in silent but severe psychological coercion; homesickness.
The prison officers and inmate leaders of the "education group" kept telling them that only when they "recognise their horrible crimes and confess them in front of everybody to become a good person and good communist" they would be able to go home to see their beloved families and friends.
Many of members of the "Association of Returnees from China" admit that they did confess those barbaric crimes like "Rape of Nanking" and biological experiments of "Unit 731" and "Three All Policy" just because they wanted to come home. They did it in their so-called "creative activity".

Their "confessions" were published after translated in Chinese and kept in the Social Science Institution in Beijing. What Chinese scholars have been using as "historical material" when they research "Japanese Army's atrocities in the Sino-Japanese war of 1937-1945" are those "confessions". Their works have been regarded as genuine scholarly researches by Western scholars. Now you can see where the fundamental problem lies.