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 should belong to China or to Korea, the idea being that, since the district is predominantly Korean, over half of the arable land being cultivated by them, "they have so ﬁrmly established themselves in the locality that it may practically be regarded as a Korean sphere". In Chientao, more than elsewhere in Manchuria, the Japanese Government has been insistent on exercising jurisdiction and surveillance over the Koreans, over 400 Japanese consular police having been maintained there for years. The Japanese Consular Service, in co-operation with Japanese functionaries assigned by the Government-General of Chosen, exercise broad powers of an administrative character in the region, their functions including maintenance of Japanese schools, hospitals and Government-subsidised ﬁnancing media for the Koreans. The area is regarded as a natural outlet for Korean emigrants who cultivate rice-fields, while politically it has special importance, since Chientao has long been a refuge of Korean independence advocates. Communist groups and other disaffected anti-Japanese partisans, a region where, as evidenced by the Hunchun Rising of Koreans against the Japanese in 1920, after the Independence Outbreak in Korea, the Japanese have had serious political problems intimately associated with the general problem of governance of Korea. The military importance of this region is obvious from the fact that the lower reaches of the Tumen River form the boundary between Japanese, Chinese and Soviet territory.

The Chientao Agreement provided that "the residence of Korean subjects, as heretofore, on agricultural lands lying north of the River Tumen", should be permitted by China; that Korean subjects residing on such lands should henceforth "be amenable to the jurisdiction of the Chinese local officials"; that they should be given equal treatment with the Chinese; and that, although all civil and criminal cases involving such Koreans should be "heard and decided by the Chinese authorities", a Japanese consular official should be permitted to attend the court, especially in capital cases, with the right to "apply to the Chinese authorities for a new trial" under special Chinese judicial procedure.

The Japanese, however, have taken the position that the Sim-Japanese Treaty and Notes of 1915 override the Chientao Agreement in so far as jurisdictional questions are concerned, and that, since 1915. Koreans, as Japanese subjects, are entitled to all the rights and privileges of extraterritorial status under the Japanese treaties with China. This contention has never been admitted by the Chinese Government, the Chinese insisting that the Chientao Agreement, if applicable in so far as the right granted to Koreans to reside on agricultural lands is concerned, is also applicable in those articles where it is provided that the Koreans should submit to Chinese jurisdiction. The Japanese have interpreted the article permitting Korean residence on agricultural lands to mean the right to purchase and lease such lands in Chientao; the Chinese, contesting this interpretation, take up the position that the article must be interpreted literally and that only Koreans who have become naturalised Chinese subjects are entitled to purchase land there.

The actual situation is therefore anomalous, since, as a matter of fact, there are non-naturalised Koreans in Chientao who have acquired lands in freehold title, with the connivance of the local Chinese officials, although as a general rule the Koreans themselves recognise the acquisition of Chinese nationality as a necessary condition of obtaining the right to purchase land in Chientao. Japanese official figures represent over half the arable land of Chientao (including Hunchun) as "owned" by Koreans, their ﬁgures admitting that over 15 per cent of the Koreans there have become naturalised as Chinese subjects. Whether it is these naturalised Koreans who "own" those lands is impossible to say. Such a situation naturally gave rise to numerous irregularities and constant differences, often manifested by open clashes between the Chinese and Japanese police.