THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1933 RUSSIA IN THE EAST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21468, 17 April 1933, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1933 RUSSIA IN THE EAST

News from Shanghai suggests an early development of the Russian phase of the trouble in the Far East. It relates to that old bone of contention, the Chinese Eastern Railway, about which Russia and China were at odds in 1929. If the Manchukuo Government carries out its reported purpose, the place and power of Russia in the Ear East will be seriously challenged. The story of the railway covers considerably more than thirty years. It was essentially a Russian enterprise. The TransSiberian line, of which it is the easternmost branch, was built to conserve and extend national interests as far as the Pacific, the terminus at Vladivostok being a promising port. But the distant part of the line, keeping to Russian territory, was necessarily circuitous as it skirted the northern frontier of Manchuria. To take a shorter route directly through Manchuria was so manifestly desirable, from a merely commercial point of view, that before the close of last century nego- ! tiations wer*3 afoot to obtain a concession from China allowing this short-cut to be constructed. Arrangements were made through the Russo-Chinese Bank. This was a joint-stock bank, and other than Russian and Chinese money was contributed to the undertaking ; but the bank was under Russian direction and behind it stood the Tsarist Government. China was given a halfshare in acknowledgment of the concession, with a clear right to surveili lance and a participation in management. However, the concession gave Russia effectual control, exercised over a "railway zone" comprising a strip of land on either side of the line. There was nothing strikingly unusual in this arrangement of 1896, but subsequent events were to invest it with cardinal importance in the perilous politics of the Far East. An apparently innocuous venture, ostensibly based on engineering and commercial needs, was to bring grave international consequences. These consequences rapidly emerged. They came in the train of steadily advancing Russian influence throughout Manchuria and Mongolia. A potentially wealthy territory, which offered in addition an ice-free door to the Pacific at Port Arthur, tempted expanding dominance. A claim to station troops to guard the. railway and to establish a police force in the vicinity was accompanied by insistence on the creation of a network of Russian post and telegraph facilities. The Chinese Government, fearing the outcome of these developments and contesting their legality, tried to recover full sovereignty in Manchuria, but it required the strength of Japan, in 1905, to prevent the passing of the whole region into Russian hands. International complications came thereafter to weaken the opposition confronting i;he Muscovite purpose, and while Japan gained a railway concession northward from Port Arthur, to a junction with the Chinese Eastern Railway, the menace of this spearhead continued. It has never ceased to be a strategic base for Russian influence. For a brief period China had hope of reasserting actual sovereignty. At the end of the Great War, when Moscow's affairs were in a chaotic state and the Bolshevik regime was undefined, therei seemed to be a chance of this, and hope of it was encouraged by declarations of the Soviet Government, in 1919 and 1920, renouncing all special privileges acquired in China by the Russia of the Tsars. Had these declarations been honestly made and honoured, the history of Manchuria might have been very di:lerent, but as soon as the Bolsheviks found their feet they flagrantly broke faith with China. Failing to overawe the Peking Government and Chang Tso-lin—the latter held practically independent sway in Manchuria—they turned to intrigue with the Cantonese in the south, profiting by the internecine strife in China until Chiang Kai-shek came to partial dominance and sent the Russian envoy packing. Nevertheless, the iall of Peking from its high estate as the seat of central government lessened the risk of challenge to the Chinese Eastern Railway designs, as was proved by revelations in 1929. Tn the interval, diplomatic relations had been resumed by the two countries, ths Soviet Government reiterating in 1924 its renunciation of the concession and agreeing that henceforth ths railway was to be administered afi a purely commercial enterprise dissociated from the Government. This pledge was never kept. Instead, the Soviet Government so exasperated China with Communist intrigue conducted by highly-placed Russian employees of the railway that forcible means were taken to eject them. The Chinese Minister in Washington told an interested world—"My Government's action in ejecting from the management of the Chinese Eastern Railway certain Russian citizens was made necessary when the Russians concerned misussd their positions in a manner detrimental to Chinese interests, in violation of the Soviet Government's solemn pledges." That crisis passed like a thunderstorm, but it did not clear the air. Reason all too good has remained for believing that Russian control has continued to exceed the pledged commercial limits, and that beneath the apparent acquiescence of the Soviet Government in the institution of the Manchukuo Republic the old Communist aim has been pursued. Inheriting, by whatever means, the rights and prerogatives of China, Manchukuo may well be on guard against Bolshevik malpractice in this strategic region, and assured of the support of Japan be prepared to enforce legitimate demands. It is not merely the ownership of certain rolling-stock that is at stake: there will be no peace in the Far East until either Moscow has an honourabfre Government or Manchuria is rid of Soviet intrigue.