EXPANDING FRONTIER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 151, 27 June 1936, Page 17

EXPANDING FRONTIER.

MONGOLIA MOVES NORTH. DAILY SKIRMISHES. RIGA (Latvia). Intermittent fighting on the Morigo-lian-Manchukuo frontier which began in 1934 and which has developed into almost daily skirmishes during the last six weeks is due to an effort of the Mongolian Republic to straighten its frontier with Manchukuo and incidentally to acquire two large; fresh water lakes and some 8000 square miles of sparsely populated territory. Until recently Soviet maps showed both lakes within Manchukuo territory, ! but according to accounts published in the Moscow Press the Mongolians have already pushed their frontier some fifty miles to the north, swallowing Lake Buir Nor, 240 square miles, and are now fighting Manchukuo troops (Japanese) in Khalkin Same, a small town on the north shore. Another large lake in the centre of the territory, coveted by the Mongolians is Deali Nor, which is three times as large as Buir Nor.'

If the Mongolians are successful in their frontier battles the new'-iborder .with Manchukuo Will run from a point near Solun almost directly north to the town of Manchushuri on the border between Soviet Russia and Manchukuo. The. claim of , the Japanese vassal State to this territory is not only upheld by official Soviet maps, but in a brochure on this territory published by the Commissariat in 1932, the Red general staff acknowledges that both lakes belong to Manchukuo. ; However, the latest maps published in the Soviet Press show Lake Buir Nor in the Mongolian territory,, and each successive map shows the frontier to be expanding northward in Mongolia's favour. ■; a * 1