NEW IMPORTANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22612, 2 July 1935, Page 11

NEW IMPORTANCE

THREE SMALL PORTS ON KOREAN COAST Three small ports on the upper northeast coast of Korea have become of great importance (says a writer in the Manchester Guardian) since the Japanese occupation late in 1931. Beginning with the most northern one, they are Yuki, Rashin and Seishin. Yuki and Seishin have been established 20 or 30 years; Rashin has only come into existence since the occupation of Manchuria. The Japanese hope to transform this port into a second Dairen. Another undoubted object is to put an end to the commercial importance of Vladivostock. The development of these three towns has long been contemplated by the Japanese General Staff, but it was only after the Japanese had eliminated the Chinese administration in Manchuria that they were in a position to go ahead with the completion of a branch railway extending from Changchun through Kirin City to Tunhua. After the seizure of Mukden their army engineers immediately went to WQrk on the linking up of the Kirin-Tunhua railway with the Korean lines. This area, embracing the mountainous country between Korea, Manchuria and Russian Siberia, is known as the “Chientao” area; the Japanese usually refer to it as “ Kando.” The Manchurian side is' largely populated by Korean farmers, and would quickly become a “•hot spot ” in the event of war between Japan and Russia. MILITARY WORK. Seishin, although only 20 years old, has approximately 40,000 people, about half of them being Japanese. , The Japanese objective in developing these three ports, but particularly Rashin, is almost entirely of a military nature. The military people feel that it will be possible to send troops from the Tokio district of Japan proper through these ports directly to Changchun, the capital of Manchukuo, in from 40 to 50 hours, and also directly from Tsuruga, Japan, by way of Rashin to Harbin, and thence oil north to the extreme borders of Manchukuo. After linking up the Northern Korean railways with Kirin City, the Japanese constructed an entirely new line extending from Lafa. on the Kirin line, directly to Harbin. At Harbin a new bridge which they constructed across the Sungari River links up this new railway with a line northward to Hailin. Late in last December they completed a further line to Taheiho, on the Amur, opposite the important Russian town of Blagovestchensk. To complete the strategic network, the Japanese are now working on a further line northward from Yenki, on the Korean border, to Hailin, on the eastern branch of the Chinese Eastern Railway, directly to the west of Vladivostock. From Hailin the road is being extended to Sans : ng, on the lower Sungari, only a short distance above Khabarovsk, the capital of the Soviet Far Eastern Province. RUSSIAN SUBMARINES. The Japanese have also built a new rotor highway, constructed to carry heavy nilitary equipment, along the south bank of the Sungari River from Harbin to a point almost opposite Khabarovsk. The Japanese have thus almost entirely enveloped the hinterland of Vladivostock in such a way that they feel the Russians would be more or less powerless to resist a combined land and sea attack. But the Russians have not been asleep, and have been developing their Far Eastern naval force, consisting of small

submarines and light, fast destroyers based on Vladivostock. No one knows how many of these boats the Russians may have concealed about the inlets of Amus Bay and the Golden Horn. How they have been able to assemble these boats at Vladivostock is not known, but the mystery is probably explained by the so-called “ Voroshiloff Iron Works,” the busiest industry in Vladivostock, It is said to employ from 3000 to 5000 men, most of them skilled _ workmen recruited from factories in European Russia. Shortly after the Japanese intervention at Mukden, Voroshiloff, Soviet War Commissar, made a trip to Vladivostock, and the new Soviet submarines and destroyers are said to be fabricated in plants in European Russia, shipped to Vladivostock by rail and steamer, and then assembled at the Voroshiloff works. With a strong fleet of submarines and a “ mosquito ” fleet of speedy destroyers and torpedo-boats, based on Vladivostock, the Russians might cause the Japanese considerable trouble in landing troops at Seishin. i THE KOREANS. The Soviet Maritime Province is separated from Japanese Korean territory by the narrow Possiet Bay, an estuary of the Japan Sea. The population of a considerable section of the territory radiating inland from Possiet Bay is predominantly Korean. The Russians claim that there are between 300,000 and 500,000 Koreans living on their side of the line, most of them being in the Maritime and Amur Provinces. The number of Koreans residing in Manchukuo is thought to be about a million and a-half. The population of Korea now probably exceeds 20,000,000, and is increasing rapidly, while the number of Japanese in Korea probably does not exceed 250,000. The migration of Koreans into Manchukuo has been going on for many years. The entire Chientao district 5s predominantly Korean, and an almost similar situation prevails In the territory about Vladivostock. The Korean nationalist sentiment is so strong here that it influences nationalistic sentiment far over the border into Korea proper.