Re: Saghalin (was Japanese Destroyers in the Mediterranean - 1917 ?)

On Jun 28, 3:09 pm, "BF Lake" <non...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:1f04dde6-6cb8-4a29-a440-> >

Japan had been after Korea for centuries. They got it after
the war with China in 1895. I thought the Russo-Japanese War got them
their toehold in China.

and the southern half of Sakhalin, they grabbed the rest in 1917 and
gave it back in 1924.

Ref: War Between Russia and Japan, by Hon. Murat Halstead (written about
1906 AFAIK)

"The Island of Saghalin first comes into history in the year 1780, when some
Japanese mariners, shipwrecked on the shores of the Okhotsk Sea, were taken
prisoners to Irkutsk, when the Russians for the first time learned of the
existence of Saghalin and the chain of islands to the south of it. In the
following year a Russian expedition landed on its shores, but the Ainu and
Japanese inhabitants refused to trade with the strangers, and the expedition
met with no success.

In the year 1806 an unsuccessful attempt was made to force a treaty on the
Tokio Government with regard to trading on the island, as the Russians were
looked upon with suspicion by the Japanese, who had heard of their
high-handed annexations in Siberia. Disappointed and enraged, the Russians
now landed on Saghalin, pillaged and burned the town of Kurhununkotan and
retired, leaving behind them a document threatening Japan with loss of her
northern islands in the event of her continuing to refuse to trade with
Russia.

These threats the Russians tried to enforce, but after the failure of the
Diana expedition, in 1811, they changed their tactics and began to send over
peaceable Russian emigrants to the island, until in 1845 they practically
had possession of all the northern half. Japan, powerless at that time to
cope with a foreign enemy, had to be content with the southern half of her
own island. ....In 1859 all the northern half was formally annexed by
Russia......Japanese Embassies were sent in 1862, and again in 1867 to St
Petersburg....(and) was forced (1875) to exchange the southern half of
Saghalin for the Kurile Islands, which was a fraud, as the Kuriles never
belonged to Russia and are of no value. Japan submitted, just as she did
to her evacuation of Port Arthur in 1895, but only because she knew that her
own day was coming.

Saghalin is much the same sort of country as our own Alaska, and with about
the same possibilities of cultivation and development. The forests are rich
in valuable timber. Since the reversion of the island to the Japanese a few
weeks ago, the Imperial Government is already beginning to send out
emigrants, advising those who go to Saghalin to study the conditions in
Norway and Sweden, as the climate and products are said to resemble those of
the above-named countries.

It is to them (Japanese) what Alsace-Lorraine is to the loyal Frenchman.

Regards,
Barry

and it's got oil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakhalin-II

The two fields contain an estimated 1.2 billion barrels (190,000,000
m³) of crude oil and 500 billion cubic meters (18 trillion cubic feet)
of natural gas; 9.6 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year and
about 180,000 barrels per day (29,000 m³/d) (29,000 m³/d) of oil will
be produced. The total project cost until 2014 was originally
estimated by Shell to be between $9 and $11 billion US dollars.
However, the costs turned out to be substantially underestimated and
in July 2005 Shell revised the estimate upwards to $20 billion,
causing much consternation among analysts and Russian business
partners alike. There are six main phases to the project: field
development in the Piltun-Astokhskoye oil field, field development in
the Lunskoye gas field, upgrading infrastructure on the island (IUP —
Infrastructure Upgrade Project) which includes building a pipeline to
Prigorodnoye on Aniva Bay, building an onshore processing facility
(OPF), building an oil export terminal (OET), and building a liquid
natural gas (LNG) plant and terminal.
.

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