All the information at present available regarding the Mongolian-Manchuokuo border fighting, and most of it comes from Japanese sources, seems to indicate that the whole affair will continue to remain just as localized as was the Changkaofeng incident last year. A communique issued by the Japanese Embassy in London professes to give a somewhat fuller account of the causes of the conflict than have already appeared, and is apparently designed to give political assistance to the Japanese-Manchoukuo forces' offensive, and to explain to the British public the background of Japanese action. The declaration that the Kalka River definitely settles the boundary between Outer Mongolia and Manchoukuo is interesting as outlining a delimitation which is consequently more definite than that involved in the Chang-kaifeng affair, and so long as this is recognized by both sides the situation should be reasonably clear. Since January of this year it is claimed there have been frequent border clashes, and towards the end of May it is claimed that about 1,000 Mongolian troops with equipment advanced into Manchuokuo territory. On June 27 Manchoukuo forces commenced a counterattack which appears to have driven the invaders beyond the river Kalka, back into their own territory, but since then fresh frontier violations are alleged to have taken place forcing the Manchoukuo troops to take action. The Kwantung army consequently commenced a counter-offensive on July 1, again throwing back the Mongolian troops who had again established themselves in Manchoukuo territory across the Kalka. If this does indeed represent the facts of the case then the whole affair is simply just another of those border incidents, but the manner in which the Mongolians come back for more punishment suggests that in no instance have they received anything in the nature of a severe defeat, and that earlier stories of the magnitude of Japanese victories were rightly at the time take cum grano salis. One of the interesting features of the whole matter is the almost complete silence which Moscow has preserved on the subject, which may be due from a desire to show that the issue is between Outer Mongolia and Manchoukuo and that the Soviet is only involved because of the supplies of arms and munitions which have been supplied to the Mongols.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.