JAPAN-RUSSIA: Sakhalin Island Skirmish

One day last week Yakichiro Suma, thepositive little spokesman of Japan’s Foreign Office, told newspapermenthat relations with Russia were very nice, thank you. “For the moment,”he admitted, “a non-aggression pact is not a part of our program.” Twodays later Russia and Japan were on the verge of war.

First reports of difficulties came from Nomonhan, on the Manchukuo-OuterMongolian border, scene of severe fighting last summer. Observers toldof troop and supply trains being rushed to the old front. Fighting wasreported, then denied by Japan.

Not denied, but officially confirmed by the Japanese War Office, was asubsequent skirmish on half-Russian, half-Japanese Sakhalin Island.Soviet frontier guards were said to have crossed the border and firedon a band of Japanese policemen. The incident developed into a dogfightin which, the Japanese claimed, “a dozen”Russians and “several” Japanese were wounded.

Sakhalin, a 600-mile-long, fish-shaped island directly north of Japan,has always been a dark spot. Before 1850, the island was scarcelyinhabited. In 1875, Japan agreed to let Russia have the wholestorm-beaten spit. Russia made a grim prison of it, and every yearexiled to it some 7,000 prisoners—who then had a 4,000-mile walkacross the ice of Tartary Strait and Siberia to the nearest court ofappeals.In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, Japan won the half of the islandwhich lies south of latitude 50° north. Ever since, Japan and Russiahave squabbled (but never actually fought) over its oil, coal and fish.Each now wants the whole place. A full-fledged war could scarcelydevelop on bleak Sakhalin—last week’s clash was followed by a blizzardwhich stopped railroad trains, to say nothing of troops on foot—but itlooked at week’s end as if Sakhalin clashes and Nomonhan scares wouldkeep Russia and Japan from joining hands in what the Alliesfear—exclusive enemy domination of the Far East.