The Chinese Eastern Railway: Storm Center in Asia

Abstract

In attempting to gain a true perspective of Russo-Chinese relations I have examined certain historical aspects of Russia's penetration into China in both the Tsarist and Soviet periods and China's subsequent reactions in the Manchu, Kuomintang, and Communist periods. The foreign policies on both sides run from callousness and vicious self-interest to almost niaive idealism. Not only Japan but most of the world powers become involved. The Chinese Eastern Railway was chosen as a focal point in the belief that it serves as a microcosm of Russo-Chinese relations for the past sixty years and that its history helps to indicate some basic reasons for future dissent or unity between the Soviet Union and Communist China. The qualifications of the railroad for this purpose have been summed up by Mr. David Dallin who points out, in his book The Rise of Russia in Asia, that the C. E. R. has not been merely a means of transportation but that since its construction, around 1900, it has been a constant political problem and a sensitive barometer to the changing political atmosphere of the Far East. [From Introduction]