Russia's Land Grabbing

     Russia's recent annexation of Crimea, and possible further incursions into eastern Ukraine is not something that is alien to Russian behavior when dealing with a weaker neighbor.  Not many realize that today's Manchuria is only about half of its original size.  What used to be Outer Manchuria is now a part of Russia's Primorsky Krai, the area around and northwest of Vladivostok.  Russia began taking chunks of Manchuria from China under a series of "treaties" that it forced upon its weaker neighbor.  Most of the land grabbing took place in the 19th Century, but another chunk was grabbed in 1900 when Russia invaded Manchuria once more and forcibly took an area around Amur that was known as the "Incident of Sixty Four Villages."  The land that Russia took included sixty four Manchu villages that were under Chinese  administration.  What remains of the area called Manchuria today was once called Inner Manchuria.  The other part, called the Outer Manchuria was all swallowed up by Russia and became part of Siberia!
     Although Manchuria was never really a part of China, it was considered to be under Chinese administration and therefore, Chinese territory.  It was not there for anyone to take if they wanted, but Russia did!  There was no international protestation, and China was too weak to do anything.  Besides, at that time most European powers were too busy carving up China themselves, acquiring favorable 99 year leases (Hong Kong and Macao) and splitting Shanghai into several concessions.  Today, there may be a lot of noise made by in protest, but nothing will prevent Russia from grabbing more land, if they want, short of a war!
     More than likely, Manchuria would have become part of Russia had there not been the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and Japan won that conflict.  Russia had already moved in to the remaining (Inner Manchuria) by establishing various concessions and building a completely Russian city, Harbin!  There were over 250,000 Russian troops stationed in Manchuria before Russia lost the war to Japan and gave up the territory.  Japan, of course, colonized Manchuria and in 1931 created its own short lived puppet state of Manchukuo.  At the conclusion of World War Two, Japan lost all of that territory, plus a lot more.  There were the so-called "northern territories," the Kurils and  Sakhalin itself that was under Japanese administration since the mid 1800s.  Russia took all those territories as well.  No one objected to Russia's actions after World War Two and Japan was in no position to protest.  In the west, Russia swallowed up Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, not as a part of the Soviet Bloc, but as actual part of the Soviet Union!  Land grabbing, it seems, is very much a part of Russia's history, both past and present.