Philippines takes China to the UN over Spratlys

[Flashermac]

 

FDR was willing to let Stalin take whatever he wanted anywhere, in Europe and Asia, to encourage him to join the war against Japan. (But it was wrong for Hitler to seize his neighbour's land, and a major war had to be fought to stop him. ) Stalin wanted southern Karafuto (Sakhalin), which had Japan's coal mines and its only oil field, and also the Chishima Island (now called Kurile Islands) - historically Japanese but long lusted after by Russia. FDR would have let Stalin occupy Hokkaido and divide Japan as Germany had been, even though Stalin did fark all against the Japanese until AFTER the nukes had been dropped. By then FDR had gone on to his big wheelchair in the sky and Truman was the Pres. Truman nixed the Soviets occupying any part of the main islands, but the Soviets seized the rest and invaded Manchuria.

 

Fair enough, war is war ... however the Soviets went beyond the Chishima Islands and occupied the offshore islands of Hokkaido as well. As elsewhere, the Soviets ethnic cleansed the islands of their population (though Japanese and Koreans were held as slave labourers on Sakhalin for decades.) The Japanese are still trying to get the Hokkaido islands back, but the Russkies thumb their noses at them. Putin even made a visit to the southernmost island to swear it would forever remain Russian. The Russians may have rejected communism and Stalin, but they fully intend to hang on to every bit of territory he seized by force ed no matter what. It is now part of the "sacred soil of Mother Russia". Fark 'em.

 

The Japanese-China squabble is over some other islands.