China–Russia border

The shifting eastern border from 1689-1860

Today's Sino-Russian border line is mostly inherited by Russia (with minor adjustments) from the Soviet Union, while the Sino-Soviet border line was essentially the same as the border between the Russian and Qing Empires, settled by a number of treaties from the 17th through to the 19th centuries. Border issues first became an issue following Russia's rapid expansion into Siberia in the 17th century, with intermittent skirmishes occurring between them and Qing China.[9] Below is a list of important border treaties, along with the indication as to which section of today's Sino-Russian border were largely set by them:

• Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) - this covered the far eastern section of the border, creating a line along the Argun River and Shilka River, then proceeding overland via the Stanovoy Mountains, and then along the Uda river, terminating at the Tugur peninsula by the Sea of Okhotsk.[9]
• Treaty of Kyakhta (1727), plus supplementary protocols of the same year - these were concerned mostly with the border line that is currently the Mongolia–Russia border (Mongolia then being part of China), this fixing a line from the river Irtysh in the west to the Argun in the east.[9]
• Treaty of Aigun (1858) - this shifted the eastern border to run along the Amur River out to the Okhotsk.[9]
• Convention of Peking (1860) - this finalised the eastern stretch of the border, with China ceding to Russia the territory of modern Primorsky Krai and southern Khabarovsk Krai.[9]
• Treaty of Tarbagatai (1864) - this created the western section of the border in Central Asia, with the bulk of this border now forming China's borders with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (with modifications).[10] The border was modified via later treaties such as the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881), though the modern Russian section remained at the same place.[9]
• Qiqihar Agreement (1911) - modified the eastern border along the Argun slightly, however China later repudiated the treaty.[9]

Map showing the locations of major clashes during the 1969 border war

Following the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the later formation of the Soviet Union, there have been a number of issues along the border:

• In 1911 Outer Mongolia declared independence from China; the USSR recognised the country the 1921, thus removing a large part of the China-USSR border and splitting it into two sections.[9] China later recognised Mongolian independence in 1946.[9]
• Sino-Soviet conflict (1929) - a conflict largely centred on the Chinese Eastern Railway.
• Sino-Soviet border conflict (1969) - this was a serious seven-month undeclared military conflict between the Soviet Union and China at the height of the Sino-Soviet split in 1969 (China having being taken over by Communists in 1949). Although military clashes ceased that year, the underlying issues were not resolved until the 1991 Sino-Soviet Border Agreement. The most serious of these border clashes, which brought the two countries to the brink of all-out war, occurred in March 1969 in the vicinity of Zhenbao (Damansky) Island on the Ussuri (Wusuli) River; as such, Chinese historians most commonly refer to the conflict as the Zhenbao Island Incident.[11] Heavily militarised following the war, the border slowly opened after 1982, allowing the first exchange of goods between the two countries, though the territorial disputes remained unresolved. Between 1988 and 1992 the cross-border commerce between Russia and the Heilongjiang province increased threefold, with the number of legal Chinese workers in Russia increasing from 1,286 to 18,905.[2]

The waning years of the Soviet Union saw a reduction of the tensions on the then heavily fortified Sino-Soviet border. In 1990–91, the two countries agreed to significantly reduce their military forces stationed along the border.[12] To this day one can find numerous abandoned military facilities in Russia's border districts.[13]

Even though the Sino-Soviet border trade resumed as early as 1983–85, it accelerated in 1990–91; the rate of cross-border trade continue increasing as the USSR's former republics became separate states. To accommodate increasing volume of travel and private trade, a number of border crossings were re-opened.[12] In early 1992, China announced border trade incentives and the creation of special economic zones (SEZs) along the Sino-Russian border, the largest of these being in Hunchun, Jilin.[12]

In 1991, China and USSR signed the 1991 Sino-Soviet Border Agreement, which intended to start the process of resolving the border disputes held in abeyance since the 1960s. However, just a few months later the USSR was dissolved, and four former Soviet republics — Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan — inherited various sections of the former Sino–Soviet border.

It took more than a decade for Russia and China to fully resolve the border issues and to demarcate the border. On May 29, 1994, during Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin's visit to Beijing, an "Agreement on the Sino-Russian Border Management System intended to facilitate border trade and hinder criminal activity" was signed. On September 3, a demarcation agreement was signed for the short (55 kilometres (34 mi)) western section of the binational border; the demarcation of this section was completed in 1998.[14]

In November 1997, at a meeting in Beijing, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and General Secretary and Chinese President Jiang Zemin signed an agreement for the demarcation of the much longer (over 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi)) eastern section of the border, in accordance with the provisions of the 1991 Sino-Soviet agreement.

The last unresolved territorial issue between the two countries was settled by the 2004 Complementary Agreement between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation on the Eastern Section of the China–Russia Boundary.[15] Pursuant to that agreement, Russia transferred to China a part of Abagaitu Islet, the entire Yinlong (Tarabarov) Island, about half of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, and some adjacent river islets. The transfer has been ratified by both the Chinese National People's Congress and the Russian State Duma in 2005, thus ending the decades-long border dispute. The official transfer ceremony was held on-site October 14, 2008.

According to the Russia's border agency, as of October 1, 2013, there are 26 border crossings on the China–Russia border; all of them are located on the eastern section of the border. Twenty-five of them are provided for by the bilateral agreement of January 27, 1994, and one more is designated by an additional special order of the Russian government. The 25 crossing points established by the treaty include four railway crossings (at one of them, at Tongjiang/Nizhneleninskoye, the railway bridge is still under construction), eleven as highway crossings, one as river crossing, and nine as "mixed" (mostly ferry crossings).[1][17]

At present three railway lines cross the border. The two railway border crossings at Zabaikalsk/Manzhouli and Suifenhe/Grodekovo are over a century old, brought into existence by the original design of Russia's Transsiberian Railway that took a shortcut across Manchuria (the Chinese Eastern Railway). The third railway crossing, near Hunchun/Makhalino, operated between 2000 and 2004, was then closed for a few years,[18][19] and only recently reopened. Construction has started on a Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge near Tongjiang/Nizhneleninskoye, which will become the fourth railway border crossing.

As of 2018, there were no border crossings of any kind on the two countries' short and remote western border section.[20]

According to Russian topographic maps, the lowest mountain passes on the western section of the border are the Betsu-Kanas Pass (перевал Бетсу-Канас), elevation 2,671.3 metres (8,764 ft)[8][21] and Kanas (перевал Канас), elevation 2,650 metres (8,690 ft).[22] No roads suitable for wheeled vehicles exist over these two passes, although a difficult dirt road approaches from the Russian side to within 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the Kanas Pass. Until the Soviet authorities closed the border in 1936, Kazakh nomads would occasionally use these passes.[21]

Proposals exist for the construction of a cross-border highway and the Altai gas pipeline from China to Russia, which would cross the western section of the Sino-Russian border.[23]