Of all the ‘practice’ wars that preceded the main events of the second world war, including the Spanish civil war and the winter war between Finland and the Soviet Union, the least well known is the four-month war on the Mongolia-Manchurian border between the Soviet Union and Japan that ended in September 1939. This is not surprising, perhaps, because British attention was
The northeast of China used to be called Manchuria. Another name was “the cockpit of Asia.” Many wars were fought there. A French priest who traveled through the region in the 1920s wrote: “Although it is uncertain where God created paradise, we can be sure He chose some other place than this.” The quote is from Michael Meyer’s splendid book In Manchuria.Manchuria must be one
On September 18, 1931, a very small bomb caused a very minor explosion on the South Manchurian Railway just north of Mukden, a railway controlled by the Japanese and crucial to their economic domination of Manchuria. The explosion was denounced as the work of Chinese saboteurs. Two railway sleepers, half a dozen fish plates, one rifle, and two Chinese soldiers’ caps were
Award-winning screenwriter and author Geling Yan has written more than 20 novels and short story collections about China, many adapted to film or TV, including Coming Home and The Flowers of War, both of which became feature films directed by Zhang Yimou. But the novel Little Aunt Crane was one of her most difficult to complete, the seasoned Chinese-American writer admits.