evidence: TG: Your research has looked mainly at Japan’s international relations in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially looking at relations with the northern territories, places like Sakhalin (or Karafuto, as it’s known in Japan). And in fact, you recently just published this article about crime in Karafuto. So, could you tell us a little bit about this article and lay out for us what the diplomatic situation was like for Japan during the early Meiji period? TY: Sure. So, this is going to be a two-part answer. I think it’s best if I first explain the diplomatic situation in general in the northern part of Japan, and then I’ll talk about the article. The central question of Japan’s north for Bakumatsu and early Meiji is its boundary negotiations with Russia. Scholars have written about it essentially as a bilateral affair, where the Russians pushed and the Japanese reacted, resulting in the Treaty of St. Petersburg in 1875. In Japanese, it’s known as Karafuto Chishima kōkan jōyaku, under which Russia took the entire island of Karafuto/Sakhalin, and the Japanese took the Kuril Islands that run between the Kamchatka Peninsula and Hokkaidō.