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Manchurian Railway Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Norton S. Ginsburg
Norton S. Ginsburg
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

The three maps accompanying this brief text are meant to be the body of the article. They tell a major story in themselves. Railway development in Manchuria is shown graphically to have been rapid and extensive over a period of less than half a century. The rate of railway growth received exceptional impetus after the occupation of Manchuria by the Japanese in 1931, and by 1945 the total trackage of the railways in that country was estimated to be close to 13,000 kilometers as compared with 5,600 kilometers in 1931.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , August 1949 , pp. 398 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1949

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References

1 Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, S.E.S. 164, Railroads of Manchuria (Washington: Army Map Service, 1945), 24 and 31. This estimate is believed accurate for 1943-44; little or no railway construction took place after that date. The Manchukuo yearbook, 1942 gives the total mileage at the end of 1940 as over 11,500 kilometers. Forest railroads, 950 kilometers in length, are not included.Google Scholar

2 The Manchukuo yearbook, 1942, 585.

3 Lattimore, Owen, “Chinese colonization in Manchuria,” Geographical review (April 1932), 181–82.Google Scholar

4 Ibid.; Lee, Hoon K., “Korean migrants in Manchuria,” Geographical review (April 1932).Google Scholar

5 Russian railways have a 5-foot gauge. Since 1936 Manchurian railways, with a few minor exceptions, have been standardized at 4 feet, 8½ inches.

6 Among the numerous summaries of the historical development of Manchurian railways are those in the Far Eastern review, 1936, 1938, 1940, of which the latter two are reprints from Contemporary Manchuria; the Japan-Manchukuo yearbooks, the China year books, the Manchukuo yearbook, 1942, and the reports of the South Manchurian Railway on Progress in Manchuria.

7 The Wade-Giles system of place-name romanization has been followed in most cases, but where there is a common name more widely disseminated, such as Harbin itself, the common name has been used.

8 Far East year book, 1941, 675-78; Carte des chemins de fer de la Mandchourie, 1:4,000,000, August, 1932. Prepared for League of Nations Commission.

9 Manchuria (August 1940), 391.

10 Fifth report on progress in Manchuria to 1936 (Dairen: The South Manchurian Railway Company, 1936), 55.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., 121 ff.; Lattimore, “Chinese colonization.”

12 Murakoshi, N. and Trewartha, G. T., “Land utilization maps of Manchuria,” Geographical review July 1930), 480 ff.Google Scholar

13 Ladejinsky, W. I., “Manchurian agriculture under Japanese control,” Foreign agriculture (August 1941), 312.Google Scholar

14 Lattimore, Owen, Inner Asian frontiers of China (New York: American Geographical Society, 1940), 140.Google Scholar

15 Lattimore, “Chinese colonization,” 188.

16 Fifth report on progress in Manchuria to 1916, 58 ff; Manchuria (August 1940), 393.

17 Lattimore, Owen, Manchuria: cradle of conflict (New York, Macmillan, 1932). The conflict to which Lattimore refers is more cultural than political, since the latter follows from the first. In this sense the term is sound; in a power-political sense, as it is sometimes used, it is somewhat misleading.Google Scholar

18 Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, op. cit., 24.

19 Chief exceptions are the Ch′ang-ch′un - T′ao-an line; the Harbin - La-fa line running southeast from Harbin; the line running east from Ssu-p′ing-chieh; and the line running west from Pen-hsi-hu (Pen-ch′i) joining the main railway line north of An-shan. The first of these was politically motivated in an attempt to make the new Manchoukuan capital at Ch′ang-ch′un (Hsinking) a national transportation center, and it also made possible the shortest and most direct route between the newly developed ports in north Korea and the borders of Outer Mongolia; the third and fourth were designed to facilitate movements of coal from mine to smelter.

20 The Mnnchuhuo yearbook, 1942, 425.

21 Ladejinsky, op. cit., 334 and 338. The contrast between large increases in acreage and little or no increases in production casts doubt on the statistical data available. For example, kaoliang was raised on 3,004,000 hectares in 1931 and on 4,107,000 hectares in 1910, an increase of about 34 per cent. But output increased merely from 4,500,000 metric tons to 4,700,000 metric tons.

22 Agricultural production, an integral phase of Japanese economic plans and control schemes, has shown no signs of expansion” (Ladejinsky, op. cit., 338).

23 Ibid., 318.

24 Ibid., 322. Italics are mine.

25 See Horbaly, William, “Migration of agriculture in the Soviet Union” (unpublished Master's thesis, Dept. of Geography, University of Chicago, December, 1947).Google Scholar

26 Ladejinsky, op. cit., p. 322.

27 Rodgers, Allan, “The Manchurian iron and steel industry and its resource base,” Geographical review (January, 1948), 41–54. Data used in text are derived from this study.Google Scholar

28 Juan, V. C., “Mineral resources of China,” Economic geology (June-July 1946 supplement), 423 and 462.Google Scholar

29 Normal traffic was about 50 per cent. Increased estimate is made on the basis of increased imports at Dairen and expansion of industrial facilities in the Mukden area.

30 At an interview in Ch′ang-ch′un, August, 1946.

31 Logan, Richard, “Siberia as a base,” Far Eastern survey (May 9, 1945), 119.Google Scholar

32 According to rough estimates made by members of the Pauley Mission Soviet troops removed some 1,600 kilometers of railways. Possibly removed are portions of the Pei-an-Hei-ho Line, the Harbin-La-fa Line, the Mukden-An-tung Line (single track removed), the Nenchiang-Hei-ho Line, and the line leading southwest from Hu-lin.