A Study of Karafuto in the Sea of Japan Rim Regions after the Russo-Japanese War by Considering Reports of the Vocational Inspection Team from Niigata Prefecture, Japan

Abstract

This study focuses on the economic importance of Karafuto, the southern part of Sakhalin Island, in terms of its disputed status as a Japanese or Russian territory. The author focuses on the Sea of Japan Rim Region. Shotaro Kazama, Chief Secretary of the Niigata Chamber of Commerce, edited ‘A Report of inspection for business of Vladivostok and Karafuto’ which was published in 1907 after the Russo-Japanese War. Niigata Prefecture had sent a team to inspect not only the merchants in Vladivostok but also the fishermen in the territorial waters of the Far East of Russia, where, in 1907, Japanese rights were still unsettled. One of the reasons for inspecting the activities of the merchants and fishermen was to document the widespread circulation of soy sauce, dyeing, and weaving as a precondition to establish a Japanese territory in Karafuto. By developing their networks, the merchants had established the Port of Niigata and the markets between Vladivostok and Karafuto as part of a direct regular voyage in the Japan Sea. Niigata Prefecture expected its team to obtain information about economic conditions in these regions. This study clarifies that the inspection team was dispatched by Niigata Prefecture as part of its regional policy in 1907. Niigata Prefecture’s proposed regional framework, “The Sea of Japan Rim Regions,” was similar to the Japanese Imperial Region, in which colonial areas were set up around the Japanese Islands. The author considers the political framework that existed in the Sea of Japan Rim Region near Niigata Prefecture as part of “petit Japanese imperialism” after the Russo-Japanese War.