What happens
This episode of The Pacific Story, broadcast on September 23, 1945 over the National Broadcasting Company, traces the uneasy relations between China and Russia over roughly a quarter century. Following the Russian Revolution, Russia renounces its tsarist rights in China, but disputes over Outer Mongolia, the Chinese Eastern Railway and Manchuria keep the two nations at odds. Advisers, party politics and Japanese expansion shape the rivalry, which swings between friendship and hostility until a 1945 treaty reopens relations. The narration follows the events in sequence, with reporters and officials offering their views along the way.
China, Manchuria, Outer Mongolia and Russia, from 1917 to 1945
Characters: Mr. Howell, Mr. Wang, Adolf Joffe, Michel Borodin, Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen
Listen for: The 1945 Treaty of Friendship and Alliance between China and the USSR and its terms on Manchuria, the railways and Port Arthur
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.