ABSTRACT
In 1929, a brief conflict between Soviet Russia and China helped to persuade the Japanese Kwantung Army that the time was opportune for its takeover of the whole of Manchuria as the puppet state of Manchukuo. In 1939, the Red Army was victorious enough in the bloody battle of Nomonham or Khalkin Gol to convince Japan that it should concentrate its expansion in southern Asia and the Pacific Ocean, thus helping to bring about the Second World War.
In 1945, as that war was coming to an end, the Big Three concentrated heavily on the European theatres of war at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences. Nevertheless, the USA pressed the case for the USSR to share the burden of the defeat of Japan, and the USSR exacted large concessions in return, including the restoration of the former rights of Russia ‘violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904.’
