Karafuto as a Border Island of the Empire of Japan:
In Comparison with Okinawa
Naoki Amano
Abstract
This paper aims at reconsidering the history of Karafuto (the southern part of Sakhalin Island
under Japanese rule) from the viewpoint of border studies. I will review the history of Karafuto (1905–1945) as a border island of the Empire of Japan in comparison to another Japanese border island,
Okinawa. This historical research allows us to develop some characteristics which define border islands.
Firstly, border islands were always in an unstable situation: they could be incorporated into or excluded
from the homeland, depending on the wishes of the central government. Secondly, border islands
needed close co-operation with large corporations from the economic core of the homeland during theprocess of internalization and colonization. Thirdly, political internalization and economic colonizationof border islands could be inconsistent. Paradoxically, it is because they were politically incorporated
into the homeland that border islands could be de-bordered and economically excluded from thehomeland market.
Introduction
This paper aims at reconsidering the history of Karafuto in comparison with Okinawa.
Karafuto is the Japanese name for the southern part of Sakhalin Island, which is located north of
Hokkaido, Japan. Although the island is now governed by the Russian Federation, the southern part,
below the 50th parallel north, belonged to the Japanese Empire from 1905 to 1945. As this paper
focuses on the history of the southern part of Sakhalin Island under the Japanese Empire, it will refer
to Karafuto. Over the past decade, a considerable number of studies on Karafuto history have been
conducted in Japan. 1 I have also published several works based on empirical research concerning Naoki Amano is Associate Professor of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Yamagata University. He canbe contacted at: amano@human.kj.yamagata-u.ac.jp
1 Masafumi Miki, Iju-gata shokuminch Karafuto no Keisei [Study of Japanese Settlement Colony of Karafuto](Tokyo: Hanawa Shobo, 2012); Teruyuki Hara, ed., Nichiro Senso to Sakhalin-to [The Russo-Japanese War andSakhalin Island] (Sapporo: Hokkaido University Press, 2012); Taisho Nakayama, Akantai Shokuminchi Karafuto
no Imin Shakai Keisei: Shuen-teki National Identity to Shokumichi Ideology [Formation of Settlement Society in
Karafuto as a Subarctic Colony: Peripheral National Identity and Colonial Ideology] (Kyoto: Kyoto University
Press, 2014); Taisho Nakayama, Sakhalin zanryu nihonjin to sengo Nihon: Karafuto jumin no kyokai chiikishi[Japanese Left Behind in Sakhalin and Postwar Japan: A Border Area History of the Karafuto People] (Tokyo:
Kokusai Shoin, 2019).
DOI: 10.14943/ebr.10.1.3

3Eurasia Border Review < Article >various, restricted, periods of Karafuto history.2 In this paper, based on these previous works, I would
like to reconsider the history of Karafuto from the viewpoint of border studies.
To analyze the historical experience of Karafuto, I will introduce the concept of “borderislands.” Border islands are literally located on national borders. Border islands have common features
as islands called insularity: oceanic, small, and remote.3 The insularity, especially the remoteness, cancreate a border between the islands and their homeland in the legal and administrative system.4 The
internal border, as will be stated later, also divides human groups between the homeland people andamong ethnic groups or classes inside the islands.
In addition to this insularity, let me point out a feature of border-islandness: uneasiness. The
uneasiness of border islands refers to unstable status or functions of the islands, and the complex
identities of islanders. The uneasiness stems from the bordering / de-bordering / re-bordering process
on border islands. The central government can include or exclude the border islands into / from their
homeland due to national security and the benefit / cost of rule. The geopolitical strategy of the central
government can make border islands a fortress or sacrificial stones defending the mainland. If an
empire aims at further expansion in the direction of border islands, the islands can function as bases ofimperial actions or just stepping-stones. If the imperial government regards border islands as steppingstones, the government pays less strategical attention to the peripheral islands. When such islands are
exposed to invasion by foreign powers, the islands are likely to be discarded and to function as
sacrificial stones in order to delay the invasion of the homeland.
The uneasiness of border islands affects the identity of the island people.5 Their identity isdiverse and often conflicting. Some border island people may show strong loyalty to the nation called
peripheral nationalism, fearing being discarded and excluded from the country. Others on the sameisland may regard themselves as different from the homeland people and even view their island as a

2 Naoki Amano, “Misuterareta shima deno senso: kyokai no ningen / ningen no kyokai [A War in a Discarded

Island: People on a Border / Borders between the People],” in Nichiro-senso to Sakhalin-to, ed. Hara, 35–64; Naoki
Amano, “Sakhalin / Karafuto: the Colony between Empires,” in Borders and Transborder Processes in Eurasia,
eds. Sergei V. Sevastianov et al. (Vladivostok: Dalnauka, 2013), 119–132; Naoki Amano, “Karafuto ni okeru
kokunai-shokuminchi no keisei: kokunaika to shokuminchika [Formation of Internal Colony in Karafuto:
Internalization and Colonization],” Teikoku Nihon no ido to doin [Mobilities and Mobilizations in the Empire ofJapan], eds. Hajime Imanishi and Kazuyuki Iizuka (Osaka: Osaka University Press, 2018), 113–144; Teruyuki
Hara and Naoki Amano, eds., Karafuto 40-nen no Rekishi [Forty Years History of Karafuto] (Tokyo: Karafuto
Renmei, 2017), 2–42, 272–331.
3 Hiroshi Kakazu, Toshogaku [Nissology] (Tokyo: Kokonshoin, 2019), 3.
4 For the legal and administrative differences in Japanese islands, see Masaya Takaesu, Kindai Nihon no chiho
tochi to “tosho” [The Rule over Locals and Islands of Modern Japan] (Tokyo: Yumani Shobo, 2009).
5 Tessa Morris-Suzuki wrote a paper on Karafuto identity, but she analyzed the view of the homeland Japanese
toward the Karafuto people much more than the identity of the Karafuto people. Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Northern
Lights: the Making and Unmaking of Karafuto Identity,” The Journal of Asian Studies 60:3 (2001): 645–671. For
well-balanced explanations of the Okinawan identity, see Richard Siddle, “Colonialism and Identity in Okinawa
before 1945,” Japanese Studies 18:2 (1998): 117–133.

4

Naoki Amanocolony of the mainland. This colonial identity does not only stem from the inferiority to the homeland,
but from the pride of their cultural uniqueness.6
Typical border islands in the Japanese Empire were Karafuto and the Okinawa Islands. 7
Karafuto served as the border between the Japanese Empire and Russia / USSR on the island, while
Okinawa is located at the southern edge of Japan. In this paper I will analyze the history of Karafuto
as a border island in comparison with Okinawa.
The first section describes the common
historical experiences of Karafuto and Okinawa inthe second half of nineteenth century. The Tokugawa
shogunate and the new Meiji government both had tocontend with the process of bordering and rebordering their national territory. The subjects of thisbordering and re-bordering included the borderislands of Karafuto (Sakhalin Island) and the Ryukyu/ Okinawa. During this process these border islands
were in an unstable situation with ambiguous
relations to the main body of Japan proper. These
relations, moreover, were also affected by the Westand subsequent Japanese expansion.
The second section highlights the processes
for the internalizing and colonizing of Karafuto in
the 1920s. To internalize Karafuto, or make Karafuto
a true “Japanese” territory, the Empire of Japan tried
to settle labor migrants throughout the border island.
These migrations were also necessary to colonize
Karafuto, or make Karafuto an economic
dependency of the imperial core. These mutual
processes saved Karafuto from depression after
Figure 1: Japanese Karafuto
6 Amano, “Sakhalin / Karafuto: the Colony between Empires,” 119–121; Tadashi Anno, “Gendai Russia no tainichi

nationalism: Sakhalin-shu gikai no katsudo wo chushinni [Nationalism against Japan in the Present Russia: A Caseof Members of the Sakhalin oblast assembly],” in Azia ni sekkinsuru Russia: sono jittai to imi [Russia Moving
towards Asia: the Realities and Meanings], eds. Hiroshi Kimura and Shigeki Hakamada (Sapporo: Hokkaido
University Press, 2007), 188–210.
7 Hokkaido is not an “island.” Though the area of Hokkaido (78, 073km2) is a little larger than that of Sakhalin
Island (76,400km2), the Hokkaido people do not identify themselves as island people. This shows the relativity ofsmallness as insularity. This insularity depends not only on geographical scale, but also on the size of population,
the degree of cultivation, and status as a main island or not. Well cultivated, Hokkaido has more than five million
inhabitants and a lot of rito (remote islands or islands annex). By the end of World War II, Hokkaido had been wellinternalized into the homeland and regarded as an integral part of Japan, and its people did not feel the uneasinessof border island.

5Eurasia Border Review < Article >World War I, although the postwar recession led to Okinawa’s economic collapse.
In the third section I will examine the re-bordering of the Empire of Japan during wartime andthe influence of this process on Karafuto. The Empire of Japan tried to expand its sphere of influenceand consolidate the Dai Toa Kyoeiken (the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere) in the late 1930s
and the early 1940s. Karafuto was politically internalized and re-bordered as a part of the homeland
during this period. However, this internalization paradoxically caused exclusion of Karafuto out of theimperial economic sphere, as Okinawa had been excluded in the 1920s. This paradox will be analyzed
in the end of this paper.
Uneasiness of Being a Border Island: Bordering and Expansion in the Japanese Empire
In July 1945, the Japanese government requested the USSR to mediate between Japan and theUnited States. in order to start peace talks. In return for this mediation, Tokyo was ready to transfer
Karafuto to the USSR. 8 As enumerated later, Karafuto had already been made a part of naichi(homeland) by this time, and was therefore not officially a colony. However, this offer would suggestthat the Japanese central government did not really view Karafuto as an integral part of the Japanese
homeland. The same can be said of Okinawa. A document entitled “The Main Principles for Peace
Negotiations,” prepared in July 1945, stated, “As for an interpretation of the realm of inherent territory,
we can exclude Okinawa, Ogasawara [the Bonin Islands] and Karafuto from the integral part ofJapan…”9 Although the attempt to end the war through the USSR’s mediation failed, this process shows
how ambiguous and unstable the status of border islands was. Whether border islands are regarded aspart of the homeland or not depends on the situation of their central government. This is one of themain characteristics of border islands. You can find this unstable status, which I call the uneasiness ofborder islands, from the beginning of Japan’s modern history.
The modern history of Japan began with the bordering of territory in the second half ofnineteenth century. On 7 February 1855, the Tokugawa shogunate and the Russian Empire concluded
the Treaty of Shimoda. The Russo-Japanese border in the Kurile Islands was fixed between the islandsof Iturup and Urup, leaving Kunashir and Iturup to Japan while Urup and the islands to the northbelonged to Russia. And Sakhalin Island was declared a “joint possession of Russia and Japan.”
Sakhalin stayed an island jointly possessed by Russia and Japan until 1875. Concerning anothernorthern island, Ezo, the shogunate did not look on the island as a part of the homeland except for thesouthernmost area. After the Meiji Restoration, the new government renamed it Hokkaido in 1869 andbegan governing the whole island.
During this bordering process we should highlight how the shogunate treated Okinawa. Until
the 1870s, Okinawa was called the Ryukyu Kingdom, which was an independent state, signaling its
allegiance to both the shogunate and the Qing Dynasty. In the second half of 1850s the shogunate

8 Hara and Amano, ed., Karafuto 40-nen no Rekishi, 287.
9 Ken Kurihara and Sumio Hatano, ed., Shusen kosaku no kiroku [Records of Maneuvering for the end of WorldWar II], vol. 2 (Tokyo: Kodan-sha, 1986), 241.

6

Naoki Amano

allowed the Ryukyu Kingdom to conclude a series of treaties with the United States, France and theNetherlands. The shogunate wished to limit the validity of the treaties to within the Ryukyu Islands,
and to guard the shogunate regime from Western powers. In other words, the shogunate exploited
Ryukyu as a seawall to protect the homeland, as Tokyo again attempted towards the end of World War
II.10
The bordering of Ryukyu after the Meiji Restoration was relevant to the bordering of Sakhalin
Island and the imperial expansion of Japan. The Ryukyu Kingdom was forcibly incorporated into Japanin the 1870s. This process, called Ryukyu shobun [Disposition of Ryukyu], ended with the replacementof Ryukyu with Okinawa prefecture in 1879.11 The disposition had a connection with Japanese imperial
expansion to Taiwan (Formosa). Japan had dispatched troops to Taiwan in 1874 to punish theindigenous Taiwanese, because they had killed castaways from Ryukyu, i.e., “Japanese” castaways.
Already by this time, the Japanese government was asserting that the Ryukyu people were Japanese,and exploited Ryukyu as a stepping stone for imperial expansion.12
In the 1870s the Japanese government tried to border and expand its territory at the same time.
In the northern border area, Sakhalin and Korea were the focus of attention. In 1873 the Seikanron, apolitical debate regarding a punitive expedition against Korea, split the Meiji government. The debate
was essentially over the question of whether to prioritize expansion to Korea over bordering Sakhalin
and internalizing Okinawa, where the process of disposition was occurring. Takamori Saigo, the leaderof the expansionists, insisted that Japan should dispatch troops and force Korea to open up the country
to the outside world. This is why he also insisted that Japan give up Sakhalin to concentrate its attention
and energy on Korea. 13 Shigenobu Okuma was opposed to Saigo, claiming that Japan should pay
attention to Sakhalin, not Korea or Taiwan, because Sakhalin was inherent Japanese territory and Japan
must not cede the island to Russia. He wrote that, “Ryukyu was exterior, while Karafuto [Sakhalin]
was interior.” 14 In his opinion, internalization of Sakhalin should be granted priority over theincorporation of Ryukyu. Other leading politicians against the expedition to Korea also insisted thatJapan should place a higher priority on the bordering of Sakhalin than on expanding to Korea. The
Seikanron debate ended in Saigo’s defeat, and the Meiji government gave up expansion to Korea forthe time being, and concentrated instead on the demarcation issue on Sakhalin Island.15
10 Kiko Nisizato, “Ryukyu shobun to Karafuto-Chishima koukan joyaku [Disposition of Ryukyu and the Treaty of

St. Petersburg],” in Asia no naka-no Nihon IV: chiiki to ethnos [Japan in Asia IV: Regions and Ethnicity], eds.
Yasunori Arano et al. (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1992), 168–169.
11 For Disposition of Ryukiyu, see Tsuneo Namihira, Kindai Higashi-Asia no naka-no Ryukyu heigo: Chuka sekaichitsujo kara shokuminchi teikoku Nihon he [Disposition of Ryukyu in Modern East Asia: from Chinese World
Order to Colonial Empire of Japan] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2014).
12 Kenichi Goto, Kindai Nihon no “nanshin” to Okinawa [Southward Expansion of Modern Japan and Okinawa](Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2015), 18–19.
13 Dai-Saigo Zenshu Kanko Kai, ed., Dai-Saigo zenshu [Great Saigo’s Complete Works], vol. 2 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1926), 736–737.
14 Shigenobu Okuma, Okuma bunsho [Okuma’s Documents], vol. 1 (Tokyo: Institute of Social Science, Waseda
University, 1958), 208–211.
15 For details of Seikanron debate and Sakhalin problem, see, Nisizato, “Ryukyu shobun to Karafuto-Chishimakoukan jouyaku,” 178–179.

7

Eurasia Border Review < Article >On 7 May 1875, Admiral Takeaki Enomoto and Prince Aleksandr Gorchakov signed the Treatyof St. Petersburg. Japan renounced its claims to the island of Sakhalin in exchange for the Kurile Islands
north of Urup. The whole of the Kurile Islands chain was governed by the Japanese government until
1945, while the whole of Sakhalin Island was under Russian rule until 1905. It is noteworthy that
Enomoto asked Russia to recognize Japanese interests to Korea in return for Sakhalin Island during
these negotiations. Enomoto thought that Japan could renounce its claims to Sakhalin Island if theRussian Empire tacitly condoned Japanese expansion in Korea. In other words, imperial expansion in
Korea would be considered “proportional” compensation for the abandonment of Sakhalin.16
The problem of Japanese expansion to Korea was once again linked to Sakhalin Island in 1905.
On July 7, 1905, during the final phase of the Russo-Japanese War, the thirteenth Japanese Infantry
Division landed on Sakhalin and occupied the whole island by July 24. The Japanese continued
mopping-up operations until 1 September, five days before signing the Treaty of Portsmouth.17
Before its occupation by the Japanese army, Sakhalin Island was a penal colony of the Russian
Empire. In 1902 the island had a population of 36,595, most of which was made up of convicts or exconvict peasants.18 The Japanese occupation army tried to mop-up the settlers and make the island“uninhabited” by force. In several places, Russian citizens and POWs were slaughtered,19 though theexact numbers are unknown. The majority of the slaughtered POWs were local volunteer soldiers fromthe ex-convict peasants, who accounted for 40 percent of the total number of Russian troops on
Sakhalin.
Many local survivors were forcibly repatriated to the continental part of Russia, the expenses
for which were borne by the Japanese occupation authorities. From the end of August to the beginningof September 1905, 3,962 Russians were forced to leave from the southern part of the island and 2,758
were shipped off from the northern part.20 As a result of the massacres and repatriations, as of December
1905, 5,487 lived on the northern part of the island, while only about 500 Russians remained in thesouthern part, more than half of whom left the island over the course of 1906.21
The Japanese army division was transferred to Korea soon after finishing its operations in
Sakhalin. In the course of the annexation process there, it repeated many of the same activities in Korea
that had been witnessed in Sakhalin. The thirteenth Infantry Division committed mopping-up exerciseson the Korean citizenry later in 1907. Some of the officers and soldiers involved had engaged in the

16 Nihongaikoubunsho [Documents on Japanese Foreign Policy], Vol. 7 (1874), 445; Vol. 8 (1875), 174.
17 For details on the Russo-Japanese War in Sakhalin, see, Amano, “Misuterareta shima deno senso,” 35–64.
18 Marina I. Ishchenko, Russikie starozhily Sakhalina: vtoraia polovina XIX – nachalo XX vv. [Russian Old

Inhabitants of Sakhalin: the Second Half of nineteenth century – the beginning of 20th century] (Iuzhno-Sakhalinsk:
Sakhalinskoe Knizhnoe Isdatel’stvo, 2007), 38.
19 RGVIA (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv [Russian State Miritary History Archive]), file
no. 846–16–10064, 73; GIASO (Rossiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv Sakalinskoi oblasti [Russian State
History Archive of Sakhalin Oblast]), file no. 23i-2-104, 27–29.
20 Masaki Itahashi, “Taikyo ka, soretomo zanryu ka: 1905nen natsu, Sakhaklin-tomin no ‘sentaku’ [Repatriate or
Remain?: the Sakhalin People’s ‘Choice’ in Summer of 1905],” in Nichiro-senso to Sakhalin-to, ed. Hara, 182.
21 Amano, “Sakhalin / Karafuto: the Colony between Empires,” 128.

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Sakhalin operation, too.22 When building colonies, the Empire of Japan tried to “empty” land not onlyin Sakhalin, but also in Taiwan and Korea, so that the empire could achieve security in foreign lands
and encourage Japanese to immigrate to new colonies.23
It seems that such activities during the imperial expansion process reflected a traditional
Japanese perception of homeland. In Japan, it was thought that the territory where the “Japanese” lived
was their homeland. During the bordering process in the second half of nineteenth century, the Okinawa
people and the Ainu people were seen as “Japanese,” because they were descended from the same
parent source as the “true” Japanese people. This idea made it possible and necessary for the Meiji
government to incorporate Okinawa.24 The Tokugawa shogunate also claimed Sakhalin Island during
demarcation negotiations with Russia, because the Ainu people lived in the southern part of the island,
thus, making it a part of Japanese territory.25
Although it was impossible for the Empire of Japan to “empty” Taiwan and Korea, Japanesecolonialists were greatly aided when settling lands emptied of foreign inhabitants. They succeeded in
making Sakhalin uninhabited. After the Russo-Japanese War Japanese immigrants flocked to the“empty” island.
Internalizing and Colonizing Karafuto in the Interwar Period
On 5 September 1905 the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed. Sakhalin Island was portioned at
the 50th parallel of latitude, the southern half of which became Japanese territory and was named
Karafuto. In the first five years more than 50,000 Japanese immigrants settled in Karafuto, making up
96 percent of the population.26 Half of this border island was made into “Japanese” territory.
As the American historian John J. Stephan, author of the first complete history of Sakhalin
Island, points out, the goals in Karafuto were economic, not strategic. Karafuto’s rich fisheries, forests,
coal deposits offered promising opportunities.27 This is reflected in the trend of Karafuto studies. Most
works on Karafuto history have focused on economic history: industrial development, the trend of

22 Ibid, 131.
23 Toguji Kasahara, “Chian-sen no siso to gijutsu [Thought and Technique of the Battle for Security],” in Asia-

Taiheiyo senso [Asian-Pacific War], eds. Yutaka Yoshida et al., vol. 5 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2006), 215–244.
See also: Toguji Kasahara, Nihongun no chian-sen [The Battle for Security of the Japanese Army] (Tokyo: Iwanami
Shoten, 2010).
24 Tsuneo Namihira points out that the Japanese Empire applied the same theory as Okinawa to the Korean people.
Namihira, Kindai Higashi-Asia no naakano Ryukyu heigeo, 343–359.
25 Other indigenous people in Sakhalin Island, such as Nivkh and Uilta people, lived in the northern part, soJapanese did not view the northern part of Sakhalin as Japanese territory. Toshiyuki Akizuki, Nichiro-kankei to
Sakhalin-to: Bakumatsu Meiji-shonen no ryodo-mondai [Russo-Japanese Relations and Sakhalin Island: theTerritorial Problem in the end of the Tokugawa shogunate period and the beginning of Meiji] (Tokyo: Chikuma
Shobo, 1994), 116–135.
26 Takumusho (Ministry of Colonial Affairs), Nihon oyobi kakkoku shokuminchi zuhyo [Maps and Charts ofColonies of Japan and the World] (Tokyo: Takumusyo, 1912), 12.
27 John J. Stephan, Sakhalin: a History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 87.

9Eurasia Border Review < Article >migration and its colonial character.28 Studies of Okinawa history, by contrast, have focused on political
history. Although many more books and articles have been published on Okinawa history than Karafuto
history, you will only find a few books on economic history.29 This seems to reflect the fact that theJapanese Empire did not count on the potential of Okinawa economy.
As Stephan A. Royle says, it is useful to analyze island economic history from the viewpointof internal colonialism.30 The point of internal colonialism is: (1) officials from the core of the country
make up the elite strata in peripheral internal colonies, so local people’s wishes cannot be reflected inlocal political decision making; (2) internal colonies exclusively supply raw materials to the core, so
the pattern of development is dependent, and complementary to the core; (3) the trend of migration tointernal colonies depends on the economy of the homeland; (4) settlers in internal colonies can have a
different identity from citizens in the homeland, even if they are identical in ethnicity.31
In order to investigate the history of border islands, it is important to understand that the courseof internal colonization is a reversible process, because, as stated above, the status of border islands is
unstable and ambiguous. They may be incorporated into or excluded from the homeland at the wishesof core. Border islands can be politically internal but economically external at the same time, and viceversa. In this paper, I will analyze the process of internal colonization of Karafuto from these two
mutual viewpoints: the process of being internalized and of being colonized. The process of being
internalized means politically incorporating border islands into homelands. On the other hand, theprocess of being colonized makes border islands economically dependent and complementary to thecore. These mutual processes can be reversible, and they do not always coincide with each other.
Some Okinawan and Karafuto people often identified their homeland islands with colonies of
the Japanese Empire, even though the border islands had been politically incorporated into parts of thehomeland. The uneasiness of being border lands and the paradox of the internal-colonizing process
made the island people uneasy and feel that they did not live in Japan.32

28 Besides the leading Japanese studies listed in note no.1 and Stephan’s monograph, Steven Edward Ivings,“Colonial Settlement and Migratory Labour in Karafuto 1905–1941,” a PhD thesis submitted to The Departmentof Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2014.
29 Kiko Nishizato, Kindai Okinawa no kiryu-shonin [Temporarily Residing Traders in Modern Okinawa] (Naha:
Hirugisha, 1982); Kiyoshi Mukai, Kindai Okinawa keizaishi [Economic History of Modern Okinawa] (Tokyo:
Nihon Keizai Hyoronsha, 1988); Ichiro Tomiyama, Kindai Nihon to “Okinawa-zhin” [Modern Japan and “theOkinawan People”: Becoming the “Japanese” People] (Tokyo; Nihon Keizai Hyoronsha, 1991); Yasukatsu
Matsushima, Okinawa tosho keizai-shi: 12-seiki Kara Genzai Made [Economic History of the Okinawa Islands:
from twelfth Century to the Present] (Tokyo: Fujiwara Shoten, 2002).
30 Stephan A. Royle, A Geography of Islands: Small Island Insularity (London: Routledge, 2001), 137–140.
31 Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism: the Celtic Fringe in British National Development (New Jersey:
Transaction Publishers, 1999), 15–43.
32 For examples of the colonial identities of the border island people, see Fuyu Ifa, Ifa Fuyu zenshu [Fuyu Ifa’s
complete works], vol. 2 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1974); Kotaro Kokuba, Okinawa no ayumi [Historical Course of
Okinawa] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2019, originally published in 1973); Katsutaro Arasawa, Karafuto bungakushi[A History of Karafuto literature], vol. 3 (Kushiro: Sojinsha, 1987). Also see Masanao Kano, Okinawa no fuchi:
Ifa Fuyu to sono jidai [The Edge of Okinawa: Fuyu Ifa and his age] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2018).

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On 31 March 1907 the Karafuto-cho (Karafuto office) was established at Toyohara (presentday Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City). The governor of Karafuto-cho exercised a much more wide-ranging
authority than governors of prefectural governments on the mainland. The Karafuto-cho governor’s
authority included the direct control of police, construction, taxation, and education. Karafuto wasadministered as a colony like Taiwan and Korea.
In the early days, Karafuto-cho drew up a document entitled “National Policy on Governanceof Karafuto.” The document said, “All of the colonies of the Empire of Japan should be regarded as apart of the homeland.”33 According to the document, Japanese colonies are temporary, and different
from the permanent colonies of European empires. The Karafuto-cho’s goal was the internalization of
Karafuto into an inherent part of the mainland. In order to achieve this goal, Karafuto had to beeconomically developed enough for the core to recognize the advantages of its absorption. Karafutocho, therefore, was incentivized to invite a large number of permanent settlers to the colony, in order
to begin establishing a basis for development.34
As Table 1 indicates, fishery was the mainstay of the Karafuto economy in the first decade ofgovernance. Fishing accounted for 56 percent of gross production in 1915. Japanese fishermen had
been traditionally engaged in the fishing industry around Sakhalin Island before demarcation in thenineteenth century. They continued to work under the rule of the Russian Empire just before the RussoJapanese War. As soon as the war finished, Japanese fishermen from Hokkaido rushed to work this
newly-Japanese sea again.35
Table 1: Share of Production by Industry in Karafuto 1910–1938* Pulp and Paper account for more than 90 percent of manufacturing.
** T&C means government receipts from transportation and communication services.
Source: Toshiyuki Mizoguchi and Mataji Umemura, ed., Kyu-Nihon Shokuminch Keizai Tokei [Economic Statistics in theColonies of the Empire of Japan] (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinposha, 1988), 308.
33 Sakhalin to Karafuto-shi Kenkyukai [Association for Sakhalin & Karafuto History], ed., Ritsumeikan 100-nenshi

hensanshitsu shozo Nakagawa Kojuro bunsho Karafuto kanrenbubun DVD [Nakagawa Kojuro’s Documents
Concerning Karafuto in Possession of the Editorial Office of 100 years History of Ritsumeikan, Ritsumeikan
University, DVD], file no. 1574.
34 Ibid.
35 For details on history of the fishing industry in Sakhalin Island, see, Eisuke Kaminaga, “Hirakareta umi no tomi
to rukeishokuminchi: Nichiro-senso chokuzen no Sakhalin gyogyo [Riches in an Open Sea and a Penal Colony:Fishing Industry in Sakhalin just before the Russo-Japanese War],” in Nichiro-senso to Sakhalin-to, ed. Hara, 65–95.

11Eurasia Border Review < Article >However, fishermen could not form firm foundations for the development envisaged by the
Karafuto-cho, because they were seasonal workers. They came to Karafuto to work when the sea ice
melted and went back to Hokkaido before it froze over.36 Karafuto-cho needed permanent settlers anddifferent industries to bring migrants.
Karafuto-cho’s strategy for attracting permanent migrants was close co-operation with large
corporations from the core of the homeland. A document drawn up by the police department of
Karafuto-cho called this strategy “Letting capitals bring settlers.”37 Karafuto-cho tried to attract large
industrial companies and encouraged them to build manufacturing factories in Karafuto. Karafuto-cho
wanted such factories to let workers from the mainland permanently settle Karafuto.
The First World War enabled the fulfilment of Karafuto-cho’s dreams. Owing to World War I,
pulp supplies available from Europe were depleted, and pulp prices were raised to unprecedented levels.
This situation stimulated heavily capitalized firms to open pulp factories throughout Karafuto.
Karafuto-cho helped large pulp corporations advance to this northern border island. Karafuto-cho soldoff the vast virgin forests in the colony only to corporations which already had or had decided to build
pulp factories in Karafuto.38 From 1914 to 1927 Karafuto-cho disposed of eight divisions of forests invarious areas. Five corporations, including the biggest pulp-paper corporation Oji-seishi (Oji Paper),bought up forests at one-third of the price prevalent in Hokkaido, and built pulp factories there.39
The last two factories were built in the northern area. One was built in Esutoru (present-day
Uglegorsk City) located on the northwestern coast in 1925; the other was built in Shiritoru (presentday Makarov City) on the northeastern coast in 1927.40 Although as of 1920 only 636 people lived in
Esutoru and 698 people in Shiritoru, 10 years later, the population of Esutoru had increased to 17,774,
while the population of Shiritoru to 19,275. The total population of Karafuto almost tripled during that
decade, from 105,899 as of 1920 to 295,196 as of 1930.41 Before heavily capitalized pulp companies
advanced to Karafuto, the northern half of Karafuto was sparsely settled. Migrants from the mainland
inhabited developed cities in the southern half such as Toyohara, Odomari (present-day Korsakov City),
and Maoka (present-day Kholmsk City). Karafuto-cho succeeded in “letting capital bring settlers” andspreading them throughout Karafuto.

36 For details on the fishing industry in Karafuto, see, Hara and Amano, ed., Karafuto 40-nen no rekishi, 44–114.
37 Karafuto-cho Keisatsu-bu [Police Department of Karafuto-cho], Karafuto zairyu Chosen-jin ippan [A Document

on Koreans in Karafuto] (unpublished documents in possession of Hakodate Municipal Library, 1927), 7.
38 Karafuto-cho, ed., Karafuto shinrin houki [A Statute Book on Forests in Karafuto] (Toyohara: Karafuto-cho,1917), 12.
39 Koichi Hirai, Nihon Shokuminch zaisei-shi kenkyu [Studies on History of Finance in Japanese Colonies] (Tokyo:
Minerva Shobo, 1997), 192–193.
40 Miki, Iju-gata shokuminch Karafuto no keisei, 245.
41 Karafuto-cho, Karafuto-cho kokusei chosa kekka houkoku Showa 10-nen [Report on National Census of
Karafuto-cho in 1935] (Toyohara: Karafuto-cho, 1937), statistics section, 8.

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Table 2: Population of the major cities of Karafuto 1920–1941

Source: Karafuto-cho, Karafuto-cho kokusei chosa kekka houkoku Showa 10-nen, statistics chapter, 4–9; Karafuto-cho,Karafuto-cho tokeisho Showa 16-nen [Statistics of Karafuto-cho in 1941] (Toyohara: Karafuto-cho, 1943), 23.

Karafuto was very rich in wood, raw materials for pulp and paper. When the southern part of
Sakhalin Island became Japanese territory, pine, spruce, larch, and birch trees covered 90 percent of
Karafuto.42 As Table 1 shows, forestry and pulp-paper manufacturing were Karafuto’s largest industry
after 1916. Pulp-paper manufacturing and forestry accounted for about 80 percent of Karafuto’s total
product until the second half of 1930s. Karafuto’s pulp industry supplied the homeland with 70 percent
of its pulp and paper production during the 1930s and early 1940s.43
After the First World War, European countries advanced on the Asian market again. This
caused Japanese exports to plummet and led to an oversupply in the domestic market. Moreover, theKanto Great Earthquake in 1923 did serious damage to the core of Japan. As indicated above,
Karafuto’s pulp-paper industry was able to survive this recession after World War I. By contrast, though,the recession dealt a fatal blow to the Okinawan economy.
Okinawa also benefitted from the economic boom during World War I. Okinawa’s economy
was largely based on sugar production. More than 70 percent of Okinawa farmers exclusively cultivatedsugar cane. World War I caused an upswing in sugar prices, the profits of which were so great that agroup of newly rich known as the “Sugar Rich” emerged in Okinawa. The price of Okinawan sugar
remained high during the 1910s, but then fell sharply in 1920. This dealt the Okinawan people a fatal
blow. The economic depression which gripped Okinawa was called Sotetsu jigoku, or “Cycad hell.”
The starving people of Okinawa were forced to eat poisonous indigenous cycads because theagriculture of Okinawa was a sugar monoculture, with little land devoted to rice or potatoes for local
consumption.44 With the collapse of sugar prices, the locals were unable to either buy or grow food,and a mass famine occurred. Because of this Sotetsu jigoku, the Okinawan people were compelled to

42 Hara and Amano, Karafuto 40-nen shi, 18–19.
43 Karafuto ringyo shi hensan kai [The editorial group of Karafuto ringyo shi], Karafuto Ringyo shi [History ofForestry in Karafuto] (Tokyo: Norin Shuppan, 1960), 306–307.
44 For the details on the agricultural structure in Okinawa, see, Mukai, Okinawa Kindai Keizai-shi, 9–29.

13Eurasia Border Review < Article >leave their native land and to emigrate to the Philippines, South Pacific Mandate, South America andso on. A lot of emigrants also settled in Osaka, the second economic core of Japan.45
Why did Karafuto survive this recession, while Okinawa could not? Two factors could saveperipheral islands from an economic downturn: alternative resources and aid from the governments.
Ogasawara (or Bonin) Islands and Iwo-jima Islands, other Japanese border islands, also suffered fromthe collapse of sugar prices in the 1920s. But they succeeded in growing different agricultural products:
tomatoes, pumpkins, coca,46 etc. Because these islands pulled out of a sugar monoculture, mass outmigrations were avoided.47
However, it is usually very difficult for islands to find another resource for revival due to thelimited scale. Okinawa could not develop an alternative strategy by itself, so the Japanese government
created plans to promote the economic development in 1932. This plan, however, only encouraged selfhelp for the Okinawan people. The government attached greater importance to another southern colonyof the Japanese Empire, Taiwan, the economy of which was also based on sugar production. The coreareas of the Japanese economy prioritized sugar production on Taiwan, and Okinawa lost out. The
government concluded that it did not need to protect Okinawa and stopped colonizing the borderislands.48 Okinawa was discarded and excluded by the homeland.
In contrast, the Japanese government of the early 1930s tried to protect the Karafuto economy.
The government also planned for the promotion of development in Karafuto in 1933. 49 This planencouraged the development of coal mines, as the available deposits had mostly not been mined yet.
As shown below, the coal industry in Karafuto made remarkable progress in the late 1930s. Karafuto,
like Okinawa, depended on the homeland for food. Rice could not be cultivated in Karafuto because of
the cold weather, and Karafuto imported rice from Hokkaido. Okinawa sold sugar to the core andbought rice from the mainland. So did Karafuto. The Okinawa people had no choice but to starve whenthe market for their sugar collapsed, but Karafuto had another option, coal.
Karafuto’s survival also depended on a piece of “luck.” Karafuto forests were seriously
damaged by the matsugareha (pine moth) in 1924. Karafuto-cho decided to sell the damaged woods at
a loss to the pulp-paper companies. The damage did not affect the manufacturing of pulp. Thanks to
the low prices, Karafuto pulp manufacturing proved more competitive than Hokkaido pulp, and it
continued to be the main supplier of pulp to the Japanese paper industry until the early 1940s.50
Karafuto was being colonized by Karafuto-cho and the heavily capitalized corporations afterWorld War I. The Karafuto economy was more and more dependent on the core during the inter-war
45 Goto, Kindai Nihon no “nanshin” to Okinawa, 90–97, 121–125.
46 Coca began to be cultivated and refined in Iwo-jima Islands and Okinawa in the late 1920s. Refined coca,cocaine, was used as anesthetics and in greater demand in the Japanese Army during the World War II. The
cultivation of coca in the Japanese border islands stopped by the end of the World War II.
47 Shun Isihara, Iwo-to [Iwo-jima Islands] (Tokyo: Chuokoron Shinsha, 2019), 20–26.
48 Ryukyu Seifu [Government of the Ryukyu Islands], ed., Okinawaken-shi [History of Okinawa Prefecture] (Naha:
Ryukyu Seifu, 1969), vol. 15-5, 596–663.
49 Miki, Iju-gata shokuminch Karafuto no keisei, 308–312.
50 Asuka Yamaguchi, Senzenki Nihon no seisigyo niokeru genryo chotatsu [The Role of Timber in the Prewar
Japanese Paper Industry],” Mita-gakkai zasshi [Keio Journal of Economics] 105:2 (2012): 126–128.

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Naoki Amano

years. Although Karafuto survived the recession, this dependency implied the possibility of exclusion,
as experienced by Okinawa.
The Re-bordering and De-bordering of Karafuto during Wartime
Connectivity to the homelands was the basis of colonizing border lands. Karafuto reliedheavily on sea communication, as very few airfields were constructed on Karafuto before World War
II. Communications with the homeland were consolidated with the establishment of regular steamer
service between Odomari and Wakkanai located about 160 kilometers south on the opposite side of the
La Pérouse strait in 1923. It goes without saying that the establishment of this service, called Chi-Haku
koro (Wakkanai-Odomari line), was encouraged by the“letting capital bring settlers” strategy. This line
carried a lot of migrant workers from the homeland. Maoka Port and Honto Port were busier than
Odomari as Karafuto’s main trade port, as Maoka and Honto were ice-free ports, while Odomari wasfrozen in winter. The selection of these as trade ports was carried out according to the wishes of the
Karafuto-cho and the ports were heavily capitalized by companies such as Oji Paper and Mitsui.51
Coal became one of the mainstays of the Karafuto economy in the early 1930s. The
development of the coal industry demanded a larger labor force shipped by the steamships of Chi-Haku
koro. Generally speaking, empires did not pay much attention to the origins of their labor force indeveloping colonies, as they mainly focused on the labor force’s efficiency.52 However, Karafuto-cho
officials could not ignore the issue of the labor force’s nationality, because they had to not only colonize
the border island but also internalize it. According to a document written by Karafuto-cho officials,
Chinese laborers were the best in terms of efficiency. Yet although officials recognized that Chineselaborers worked much better than Japanese and Koreans, they were reluctant to let more Chinese
migrants settle on the border island, because they were not subjects of the Empire of Japan. The Empire
had to encourage its own subjects (Japanese and Koreans) to settle in Karafuto in order to internalize
the border island.53
Korean migrants began to appear on Karafuto in the mid-1920s, after the Siberian intervention
and the occupation of the northern part of Sakhalin Island by the Japanese Army was over.54 As thecoal industry in Karafuto was developing, coal mines needed larger labor forces. The Empire of Japanbegan mobilizing Korean workers in July 1939, and Karafuto-cho decided to mobilize 6,456 laborers
in 1939, and 13,000 laborers in 1940. Although it is difficult to know the exact number of the mobilized
Korean settlers, more than 60 percent of them worked for the coal mines.55
It is not so hard to imagine that Korean migrants were exposed to discrimination by Japanesesettlers. However, Japanese laborers working in coal mines, pulp factories, forestry and so on were also
51 Miki, Iju-gata shokuminch Karafuto no keisei, 233–258.
52 Tadao Yanaihara, Yanaihara Tadao zenshu [The Complete Works of Tadao Yanaihara], vol. 1 (Tokyo: Iwanami

shoten, 1962), 140.
53 Karafuto-cho Keisatsu-bu, Karafuto zairyu Chosen-jin ippan, 9–10.
54 Amano, “Karafuto niokeru kokunai-shokuminchi no keisei,” 128–130.
55 Miki, Iju-gata shokuminch Karafuto no keisei, 349–351.

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Eurasia Border Review < Article >looked down on by the core elite. The imperial elite tended to classify their subjects, especially the
peripheral people, on the basis of work efficiency and productivity. Workers of low productivity werelooked down on as lesser and unsound Japanese.56 The elite in Karafuto thought that sound Japanesefrom the mainland did not want to live in Karafuto, because the border land was full of lazy, downand-out, and unsound Japanese laborers. The Karafuto-cho officials even regarded Korean and Chinese
workers as more preferable in terms of work efficiency.57
The Okinawan people also suffered from such discriminations. A lot of the Okinawan people
were forced to move to the homeland after Sotetsu jigoku (Cycad hell) in the 1920s. The majority ofthem worked in the Kansai district. The homeland Japanese discriminated the Okinawan migrants not
only because they had different cultures, but also because they looked lazy in their workplaces. The
Okinawan workers were compelled to work and live in the same way as sound Japanese. In other words,
the Okinawan people had to “become Japanese” in order to live in the mainland.58
At the beginning of the 1940s, the Empire of Japan tried to consolidate its sphere of influence,and systematize it as the Dai Toa Kyoeiken (the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere). One of thegoals of the sphere was to extend the boundaries of the imperial economy in order to establish an
autarkic command economy within the empire.59 This caused a great deal of rivalry among the different
colonies within the empire. Of course, the economic core of the homeland preferred those colonies
which supplied raw materials at the lowest cost. If the core selected one colony and other colonies werediscarded and excluded, this had little influence on gross domestic product, because the rivalry was“domestic” within the empire.60
As stated above, Okinawa was rendered uncompetitive by Taiwan. The Empire of Japanpreferred to protect Taiwan as the more important colony. This resulted in the exclusion of the Okinawa
sugar industry from the imperial market. On the other hand, the pulp and paper industry of Karafuto
proved to be more efficient than that of Hokkaido in the 1920s–1930s. However, the coal industry of
Karafuto had to compete with a new strong rival, the coal industry of North China in the early 1940s,
when Karafuto was to be politically incorporated into the homeland.
In general, the formal colonies of the Empire of Japan include Taiwan, Karafuto, Korea, theKwantung Leased Territory and the South Sea Islands. They became Japanese territories after 1899,
when the Constitution of the Empire of Japan came into force. The colonies were often called gaichi(exterior or overseas territory) in contrast to naichi (interior territory or mainland).61 The Governor of

56 Ichiro Tomiyama, Boryoku no yokan: Ifa Fuyu niokeru kiki no mondai [Presentiments of Violence: Fuyu Ifa andOkinawa’s Crisis] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2002), 171–212.
57 Karafuto-cho Keisatsu-bu, Karafuto zairyu Chosen-jin ippan, 7–9.
58 Tomiyama, Kindai Nihon to “Okinawa-zhin,” 1–38.
59 Aiko Kurasawa, Shigen no senso: Dai Toa Kyoeiken no jinryu to butsuryu [War for Resources: Mobilities andDistributions in the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2012), 2–9
60 For the relations between extended imperial economic spheres and colonies, see, Kozo Uno, Uno Kozo
chosakusyu [Collections of Kozo Uno’s works], vol. 8 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1974), 389–396.
61 Shiro Kiyomiya, Gaichi-ho josetsu [An Introduction to the Law of Japanese Colonies] (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1944),
3–11.

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the Karafuto-cho as well as the Governor-Generals of Chosen (Korea) and Taiwan were directly
responsible to the minister of Takumusho (the minister of Colonial Affairs) from 1929 to 1943.62
On 1 September 1942 the Japanese government decided to abolish the Ministry of Colonial
Affairs and establish the Ministry of Greater East Asia. While the governors of most of the Japanesecolonies became responsible to the minister of this new ministry, Karafuto-cho fell under thejurisdiction of the Ministry of Home Affairs like other prefectural government offices of the mainland.
The territory of the Japanese mainland was re-bordered, and the political internalization of Karafuto
seemed to be completed. However, it was because Karafuto was internalized and became naichi, orinterior territory of the homeland that Karafuto was paradoxically to be de-bordered, or excluded outof the imperial economic sphere.
The incorporation of Karafuto into the mainland coincided with the transformation and rebordering of the Empire of Japan. The more energies the empire devoted to further imperial expansion,
the less the empire took into account the more established colonies. Even less attention was paid to aformer colony, as the core of the homeland was less willing to protect a “normal prefecture.” The borderislands of the Empire of Japan served as mere stepping-stones to the further expansions: Karafuto fora northward expansion, to Korea and Manchuria; Okinawa to the south, to Taiwan, the South Seas, andSoutheast Asia.63
When the Empire of Japan was trying to establish the autarkic command economy of theGreater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, a rivalry arose between sources of coal supplies within theempire, i.e., between Karafuto and North China. Shortage of ships because of the war situation had amajor influence on the rivalry. As the Empire of Japan was trying to expand further and further
southward, fewer ships came to the northern border island to carry Karafuto coals to the core. The coreof the imperial market preferred the coals of North China to those of Karafuto. The core did not need
Karafuto coals and laborers any more.64 More than 9,000 Japanese and Korean male coal miners wereforced to rapidly move to more important coal mines in the mainland from the border island in August
1944.65 Karafuto was excluded out of the imperial economy and de-bordered.
There is no doubt that the strategic priorities of the military in the empire granted an advantage
to North China, as the Japanese Army engaged in a brutal campaign on the mainland. One of thesignificant features of Japanese border islands was comparative absence of the armed forces. The
Japanese 32nd Army, which was to be annihilated during the battles against the United States on
Okinawa, had been deployed there in March of 1944, just one year before the US. Army landed on thisborder island.66
62 The Governor of the Karafuto-cho was directly responsible to the Minister of Home Affairs in 1907–1910 and

1912–1917; to the Prime Minister in 1910–1912 and 1917–1929.
63 Hara and Amano, eds., Karafuto 40-nen no rekishi, 277–284.
64 Hokkaido tanko kisen kabushiki-kaisha (Hokkaido Colliery & Steamship Co., LTD), Sekitan kokka tosei shi[History of National Controls over Coals] (private edition, 1958), 375–386.
65 See, Makio Yano, Showa 19-nen natsu, Karafuto no tanko heizan [Closure of the coal mines in Karafuto insummer 1944] (Sapporo: Karafuto no rekishi wo manabu kai, 2006).
66 Susumu Asato et al., Okinawa-ken no rekishi [History of Okinawa Prefecture] (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha,
2004), 295–296

17Eurasia Border Review < Article >The Empire of Japan had not expected these border island stepping-stones to serve as
fortresses protecting the homeland. The Japanese army was not deployed on Karafuto until 1939, as
article IX of the Treaty of Portsmouth had prohibited military fortifications throughout Sakhalin Island.
A Special Karafuto Mixed Brigade was created and assigned to the defense of Japan’s northern borderon the island in May 1939, just as Japanese and Soviet army forces began to clash in an undeclared war
at Nomonhan (Khalkhin Gol), on the Outer Mongolia-Manchukuo frontier. The Mixed Brigade was
upgraded to the 88th Division in February 1945. However, the main forces, tanks and airplanes of theDivision were deployed not in Karafuto, but in Hokkaido and the Kuril Islands which were expected
to serve as the walls protecting the homeland against the United States, not USSR.67 Karafuto had
already been discarded by the homeland before the battle against the USSR began on the border islandon 9 August 1945.68 The Japanese border islands Okinawa and Karafuto only served as sacrificial
stones for the enemies delaying the invasion of the homeland territory.
Conclusion
The outcome of World War II caused a total change in the composition of the inhabitants of
Sakhalin Island again. Almost all the Japanese settlers were forced to repatriate between 1946 and 1949.
Therefore, every time a battle ended on the island and this border island was re-bordered, occupying
forces once again made the territory “uninhabited.”69
The paper has examined the characteristics of border islands, based on research on two borderislands of the Empire of Japan, Karafuto and Okinawa. In the first section, It was pointed out thatwhether border islands were regarded as a part of the homeland depended on the capricious wishes ofcentral governments. Border islands could be incorporated into the mainland at one time, but then they
could be de-bordered and excluded in the future, in accordance with the governments’ wishes. This has
been termed the unstable status “uneasiness of border islands.”
The second section analysed the process of border islands being politically internalized andeconomically colonized. These processes were mutual, but they did not always coincide with each other,and they could be reversible. A lack of labor force was one of the major obstacles to the colonizationof border islands, which sought to make border islands economic dependencies of the homeland.
Several factors, such as remoteness, inconvenience, severe climate, and the character of the local
inhabitants, discouraged people of the homelands from migrating to border islands. To solve thisproblem, local governments co-operated closely with heavily capitalized corporations from theeconomic core of the Empire. The Karafuto-cho adopted a strategy which has been termed in the paper“letting capital bring settlers”: the Karafuto-cho let large pulp companies build their factories to attract
labor migrants from the homeland.
67 Hara and Amano, eds., Karafuto 40-nen no rekishi, 288–289.
68 As for the details on the Soviet-Japanese battles in Karafuto, see, Toshio Kaneko, Karafuto 1945-nen natsu:

Karafuto shusen kiroku [Karafuto in Summer of 1945: Records of the End of the War in Karafuto] (Tokyo:
Kodansha, 1972).
69 Hara and Amano, eds., Karafuto 40-nen no rekishi, 317–331.

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The third section discussed a paradox in the processes of internalization and colonization. As
for Karafuto, when the process of politically internalizing Karafuto was finished, Karafuto was debordered and excluded from the imperial economic sphere. Although protection by the core was
essential for border islands to survive economically, the core was unwilling to give special treatment
to the politically interior but economically peripheral parts.
While the research in this paper was limited to Japan, comparative analysis of these Japaneseexamples could, be applied to the border islands of different countries or empires such as Quemoy, Jeju,
Guam, Cyprus etc. This provides intriguing opportunities for future work on developing these concepts
in a comparative context.

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