ABSTRACT
By the Sino-Soviet Agreement of 1924, the Chinese Eastern Railway was given the plain status of a joint government enterprise. The Soviet Union suggested that disputes upon which the Chinese and Soviet directors failed to reach an agreement should be referred to the two governments for a just and amicable settlement, whereas the Chinese Government proposed that such outstanding problems could easily be settled through arbitration by neutral experts. The Japanese made their initial success in South Manchuria all of a sudden on September 18, 1930. The Soviet authorities knew they had no chance against the well-armed Japanese, but, on the other hand, they were astute enough to remove most of the rolling stock from the railway, which was the crux of the whole trouble. The Soviet Government, on the contrary, claimed sole ownership in view of the fact that the railway was constructed by the toiling masses of Russia with their hard-earned money.
