SINO SOVIET BORDER

CONFLICT-1969

V.YOGESHWAR
22BCC0216
BUSSINESS LAW DA-11
HISTORY
 Under the governorship of Sheng Shicai (1933–1944) in Northwest China's 
Xinjiang Province, China's Kuomintang recognized for the first time the ethnic
category of a Uyghur people by following the Soviet ethnic policy. That ethnogenesis
 of a "national" people eligible for territorialized autonomy broadly benefited the 
Soviet Union, which organized conferences in Fergana and Semirechye (in 
Soviet Central Asia) to cause "revolution" in Altishahr (southern Xinjiang) and 
Dzungaria.
 In July 1964, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong, in a meeting with the 
Japanese Socialist Party delegation, stated that Russia had unilaterally incorporated
vast territories in Siberia and the Far East as far as Kamchatka. He stated that China
and Russia still had not resolved this issue. The comments were leaked to the public.
Outraged, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev refused to approve the border agreement.
 The Soviets also encouraged migration of Uyghurs to its territory in Kazakhstan, along
the 4,380 km (2,738 mi) border. In May 1962, 60,000 Uyghurs from Xinjiang Province
crossed the frontier into the Soviet Union to flee the famine and economic chaos of the 
Great Leap Forward.
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GEOGRAPHY
 The border dispute in the west centered on 52,000 square kilometres (20,000 sq mi) of
Soviet-controlled land in the Pamirs that lay on the border of Xinjiang and the 
Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1892, the Russian Empire and the Qing Dynasty had
agreed that the border would consist of the ridge of the Sarikol Range, but the exact
border remained contentious throughout the 20th century. In the 1960s, the Chinese
began to insist that the Soviet Union evacuate the region.
 From around 1900, after the Treaty of Peking (1860) had assigned Outer Manchuria (
Primorskiy Kray) to Russia, the eastern part of the Sino-Soviet border had mainly been
demarcated by three rivers, the Argun River from the tripartite junction with Mongolia
to the north tip of China, running southwest to northeast, then the Amur River to 
Khabarovsk from northwest to southeast, where it was joined by the Ussuri River
 running south to north.
 China claimed the islands, as they were on the Chinese side of the river if they were
demarcated according to international law by using shipping lanes. The Soviets claimed
and already effectively controlled almost every island along the rivers.

3
 There is nothing in either the 1858 or the 1860 treaty to
suggest the border is anywhere other than the thalweg. In
1861, at a meeting to further define the border, Petr
Kazakevich, chief Russian boundary commissioner,
persuaded or coerced his Chinese opposite to accept and
sign a small-scale map (less than 1:1,000,000) that he
presented as giving expression to the terms of the Treaty of
Peking. Where that treaty had left the Amur and Ussuri as
boundary rivers and therefore as shared international
waterways, Kazakevich's map made them exclusively
Russian by marking the international boundary along the
Chinese banks. 

Kazakevich drew his boundary along this channel, thus making inland waterways of the river
stretches between the mouths of the channel and the confluence, and making the inter-
connecting channel itself a boundary feature.
From the early 1920s, Bear Island was occupied by Soviet citizens, coming with time to be
regarded as an offshore development of Khabarovsk.

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Chinese and Soviet governments' views

 The Soviets had possessed nuclear weapons for a longer time than the Chinese and so
the Chinese adopted an asymmetric deterrence strategy that threatened a large
conventional people's war in response to a Soviet counterforce nuclear first strike.
Chinese numerical superiority was the basis of its strategy to deter a Soviet nuclear
attack. Since 1949, Chinese strategy, as articulated by Mao, emphasized the superiority
of "man over weapons". Although weapons were certainly an important component of
warfare.
 The Soviets were not confident that they could win such a conflict. A large Chinese
incursion could threaten strategic centers in Blagoveshchensk, Vladivostok, and 
Khabarovsk as well as crucial nodes of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. According to 
Arkady Shevchenko, a high-ranking Soviet defector to the United States, "The 
Politburo was terrified that the Chinese might make a mass intrusion into Soviet
territory". A nightmare vision of invasion by millions of Chinese made the Soviet
leaders almost frantic

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Eastern border: Heilongjiang (1969)

 The Soviet Border Service started to report an intensifying Chinese military activity in
the region in the early 1960s. Tensions at first built slowly, but the Cultural Revolution
 made them rise much faster. The number of troops on both sides of the Sino-Soviet
border increased dramatically after 1964. Militarily, in 1961, the Soviets had 225,000
men and 200 aircraft at the border. In 1968, there were 375,000 men, 1,200 aircraft and
120 medium-range missiles. China had 1.5 million men stationed at the border and had
tested its first nuclear weapon (the 596 Test in October 1964, at Lop Nur basin). Both
sides' political rhetoric was increasingly hostile.
 Speaking at a banquet held at the Romanian embassy in Beijing on 23 August 1968, 
Zhou Enlai denounced the Soviet Union for "fascist politics, great power chauvinism,
national egoism and social imperialism." He went on to compare the invasion of
Czechoslovakia to the Americans in the Vietnam War and more pointedly to the
policies of Adolf Hitler towards Czechoslovakia in 1938 to 1939.[19] Zhou ended his
speech with a barely veiled-call for the people of Czechoslovakia to wage guerrilla war
 against the Red Army.

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 Battle of Zhenbao (Damansky) Island

On 2 March 1969, a group of 

People's Liberation Army troops ambushed Soviet
border guards on Zhenbao Island. According to
Chinese sources, the Soviets suffered 58 dead,
including a senior colonel, and 94 wounded. The
Chinese losses were reported as 29 dead.[23]
 According to Soviet (and now Russian) sources,
at least 248 Chinese troops were killed on the
island and on the frozen river,[24] and 32 Soviet
border guards were killed, with 14 wounded.

On 15 March, the Soviets dispatched another 30 soldiers and six combat vehicles to
Zhenbao Island. After an hour of fighting, the Chinese had destroyed two of the Soviet
vehicles. A few hours later, the Soviets sent a second wave with artillery support. The
Chinese destroyed five more Soviet combat vehicles. A third wave was repulsed by
effective Chinese artillery, which destroyed one Soviet tank and four APCs and damaged
two other APCs.
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 By the end of the day, with the Chinese in full control of the island[citation needed], Soviet
General Oleg Losik ordered to deploy then-secret 
BM-21 "Grad" multiple rocket launchers. The Soviets fired 10,000 artillery rounds in a
nine-hour engagement with the Chinese along with 36 sorties. [10] The attack was
devastating for the Chinese troops and materials. The Chinese troops left their positions
on the island, and the Soviets withdrew to their positions on the Russian bank of the
Ussuri River.[29][22]
 On 16 March 1969, the Soviets entered the island to collect their dead, with the
Chinese holding their fire. On 17 March 1969, the Soviets tried to recover a disabled 
T-62 tank from the island, but their effort was repelled by Chinese artillery. [23]
 On 21 March, the Soviets sent a demolition team in an attempt to destroy the tank. The
Chinese opened fire and thwarted the Soviet attempt. [23] With the help of divers from
the Chinese navy, the PLA pulled the T-62 tank onshore. The tank was later given to
the Chinese Military Museum.
 Until 1991, the island remained contested.
 Chinese General Chen Xilian stated the Chinese had won a clear victory on the
battlefield.
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Soviet combat heroes
 Five Soviet soldiers were awarded the top honour of Hero of the Soviet Union for
bravery and valor during the Damansky conflict. Colonel Demokrat Leonov led the
group of four T-62 tanks in a counterattack on 15 March and was killed by a Chinese
sniper when he was leaving a destroyed vehicle. Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov tried
to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal of the Chinese commandos from the island and was
killed while he was talking to the enemy.
 Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Bubenin led a relief mission of 23 soldiers from the nearby
border guards outpost and conducted a BTR-60 raid into the Chinese rear that allegedly
left 248 attackers dead. Junior Sergeant Yuri Babansky assumed command in a battle on
2 March, when the enemy had a 10-1 superiority, and when Senior Lieutenant Strelnikov
was killed. Babansky later led combat search-and-rescue teams, which retrieved the
bodies of Strelnikov and Leonov. Junior Sergeant Vladimir Orekhov took part in the 15
March battle. As a machine gunner, he was part of the first attacking line against the
Chinese forces encamped on the island. He destroyed the enemy machine gun nest and
was wounded twice, but he continued to fight until he died of his wounds. High military
orders of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Red Star and Glory were awarded to 54 soldiers and
officers, and the medals "For Courage" and "For Battle Merit" to 94 border guards and
servicemen.
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Western border: Xinjiang (1969)
Further border clashes occurred in August
1969, which is now along the western section
of the Sino-Soviet border in Xinjiang. After
the Tasiti and the Bacha Dao Incidents, the 
Tielieketi Incident finally broke out, with
Chinese troops suffering 28 losses. The
heightened tensions raised the prospect of an
all-out nuclear exchange between China and
the Soviet Union.
On 2–3 August 1969, Nixon visited Romania
to meet with Ceaușescu and ask him to pass
along the same message to Mao.[34] Ceaușescu
agreed to do so, and on 7 September 1969,
Romanian Prime Minister 
Ion Gheorghe Maurer, who was in Hanoi to
attend the funeral of Ho Chi Minh, took Zhou
aside to tell him that Nixon wanted an
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opening to China
Ho Chi Minh's funeral

 The decisive event that stopped the crisis from escalating into all-out war was the death
of Ho Chi Minh on 2 September 1969. His funeral was attended by both Zhou and
Kosygin, albeit at different times. Zhou flew out of Hanoi to avoid being in the same
room as Kosygin. The possibility of North Vietnam's leading supporters going to war
with each other alarmed the North Vietnamese. During the funeral, messages were
exchanged between the Soviets and the Chinese via the North Vietnamese. Meanwhile,
Nixon's message via Maurer had reached the Chinese, and it was decided in Beijing to
"whet the appetite of the Americans" by making China appear stronger.
 Zhou argued that a war with the Soviets would weaken China's hand towards the
United States. The Chinese were more interested in the possibility of a rapprochement
with the United States as a way of acquiring Taiwan than in having the United States
ally with them against the Soviet Union. After Kosygin had attended Ho's funeral, the
airplane taking him back to Moscow was denied permission to use Chinese air space,
which forced it to land for refuelling in Calcutta. In India, Kosygin received the
message via the Indian government that the Chinese were willing to discuss peace,
which caused him to fly back to Beijing instead.

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Border negotiations: 1990s–2000s

 Serious border demarcation negotiations did not occur until shortly before the fall of the
Soviet Union in 1991. In particular, both sides agreed that Zhenbao belonged to China. (Both
sides claimed the island to be under their control at the time of the agreement.) On 17 October
1995, an agreement over the last 54 kilometres (34 mi) stretch of the border was reached, but
the question of control over three islands in the Amur and Argun rivers was left to be settled
later.
 In a border agreement between Russia and China signed on 14 October 2003, the final dispute
was resolved. China was granted control over Tarabarov Island (Yinlong Island), Zhenbao
Island, and around 50% of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island (Heixiazi Island), near Khabarovsk.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress ratified the agreement for China
on 27 April 2005, and the Russian Duma followed suit on 20 May. On 2 June, foreign Minister
of China, Li Zhaoxing and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, exchanged the ratification
documents from their respective governments. [49]
 On 21 July 2008, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his Russian counterpart, Lavrov,
signed an additional Sino-Russian Border Line Agreement, marking the acceptance of the
demarcation of the eastern portion of the Chinese-Russian border in Beijing, China. An
additional protocol with a map affiliated on the eastern part of the borders both countries share
was signed. The agreement also includes the Chinese gain of ownership of Yinlong /
Tarabarov Island and half of Heixiazi / Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island. 12
 State of near war
 As war fever gripped China, Moscow and Beijing took steps to lower the danger of a
large-scale conflict. On 11 September 1969, Kosygin, on his way back from the funeral
of Ho Chi Minh, stopped over in Beijing for talks with his Chinese counterpart, Zhou
Enlai. Symbolic of the frosty relations between the two communist countries, the talks
were held at Beijing Airport. Both agreed to return ambassadors who had been recalled
and to begin border negotiations. On September 23 and 29 of 1969, China conducted
two unannounced nuclear weapons tests, with the second one a 3 MT thermonuclear
device, to verify its nuclear strike capacity.
 Possible reasons for attack
 The view on the reasoning and consequences of the conflict differ. Western historians
believe that the events at Zhenbao Island and the subsequent border clashes in Xinjiang
were caused mainly by Mao's use of Chinese local military superiority to satisfy
domestic political imperatives in 1969.[45] Yang Kuisong concludes that "the [Sino-
Soviet] military clashes were primarily the result of Mao Zedong's domestic
mobilization strategies, connected to his worries about the development of the Cultural
Revolution.

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 Aftermath
 Seen against the background of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between Brezhnev and
Nixon, the Damansky incident could serve the double purpose of undermining the Soviet image
of a peaceloving country if the Soviets chose to respond by a massive military operation against
the invaders. If they demonstrated Soviet weakness, the Chinese attack could have been left
without response. The killing of Soviet servicemen on the border signaled to the US that China
had graduated into high politics and was ready to talk.
 After the conflict, the US showed interest in strengthening ties with the Chinese government by
secretly sending Henry Kissinger to China for a meeting with Zhou in 1971, during the so-called 
Ping Pong Diplomacy. That paved the way for Nixon to visit China and meet with Mao in 1972
 Sino-Soviet relations remained sour after the conflict, despite the border talks, which began in
1969 and continued inconclusively for a decade. Domestically, the threat of war caused by the
border clashes inaugurated a new stage in the Cultural Revolution: China's thorough
militarization. The 9th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held in the aftermath
of the Zhenbao incident, confirmed Defense Minister Lin Biao as Mao's heir apparent. Following
the events of 1969, the Soviets further increased their forces along the Sino-Soviet border and in
the Mongolian People's Republic.
 Overall, the Sino-Soviet confrontation, which reached its peak in 1969, paved the way to a
profound transformation in the international political system.

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Deportation of Chinese

 In 1928, Arsenyev Mikhail Mikhailovich . Staff Colonel of Red Army Headquarter,

submitted a report to the Far Eastern Bureau that advised that free migration from
China and Korea in the areas bordering the countries should be stopped and that the
area should be filled with migrants from Siberia and Europe instead.
 As the Sino-Soviet conflict over the Chinese Eastern Railway worsened bilateral
relations, the Soviet government began to stop Chinese crossing the border since
1931. All Soviet diplomats in China were called back, all Chinese diplomats to Soviet
Union were expelled, and trains between both countries were forced out of service.

The Soviets forced the Chinese to move to 

Northeast China. Thousands of Chinese in 
Irkutsk, Chita, and Ulan-Ude were arrested for
breach of local orders, tax evasion, and other
reasons. When they left Russia, any Chinese to
cross the border with more than 30 rubles in
cash had to pay the surplus to the authorities. If
they had at least 1,000 rubles in cash, they
would arrested and have all of their money
confiscated.
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In popular culture

 The map-based war game "The East is Red: the Sino-Soviet War" (based on a hypothetical war
using publicly-known orders of battle on either side) was published with an accompanying article
in issue No. 42 of Strategy and Tactics magazine by Simulations Publications, Inc. in 1974.
 Wargame: Red Dragon features a hypothetical war between both powers based on the border
conflict.
 Graviteam Tactics: Operation Star features a general depiction of the combat in its DLC
Zhalanaskol 1969.
 The 1971 post-apocalyptic film The Omega Man is set in a world following a border conflict that
involves both powers using biological warfare, which cause a pandemic.
 Andrei Tarkovsky's film, Mirror (1975), includes actual footage of unrest from the Sino-Soviet
border conflict setting.
 The 2006 zombie apocalypse novel World War Z features a Chinese doctor who served as a
combat medic during the Sino-Soviet border conflict serving as a key narrator, being the first
responder to patient zero of the zombie plague in a rural Chinese village.
 The fourth season of the streaming series Stranger Things, references Damansky. The character
Yuri fought and defeated the Chinese at the island.
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REMEDIAL MEASURES BY JUDICARY
 During the spring and summer of 1969, U.S. government officials watched the
ideological and political split between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of
China escalate into fighting on Sino-Soviet borders. Some U.S. officials wondered
whether the clashes would escalate; some even speculated that the Soviet Union might
launch attacks on Chinese nuclear weapons facilities. This electronic briefing book of
declassified U.S. government documents captures the apprehensions on the U.S. side as
well as on the part of the Chinese and the Russians, with Moscow worried about
China's nuclear potential and Beijing worried about a Soviet attack. The briefing book
includes some of the most significant sources cited in an article in the current issue of
Cold War History, "Sino-American Relations, 1969: Sino-Soviet Border Conflict and
Steps Toward Rapprochement," by William Burr, a senior analyst at the National
Security Archive. Drawing on archival records and material released through the
Freedom of Information Act, the article reviews the Nixon administration's early steps
toward a new relationship with the People's Republic of China and the impact of Sino-
Soviet tensions on the moves toward rapprochement taken by both Beijing and
Washington.

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CONCLUSION (END OF WAR)
 SINO SOVIET SPLIT
 The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of
China and the Soviet Union caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different
interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Leninism, as influenced by their
respective geopolitics during the Cold War of 1947–1991.[2] In the late 1950s and early
1960s, Sino-Soviet debates about the interpretation of orthodox Marxism became specific
disputes about the Soviet Union's policies of national de-Stalinization and international
peaceful coexistence with the Western Bloc, which Chinese founding father Mao Zedong
decried as revisionism. Against that ideological background, China took a belligerent stance
towards the Western world, and publicly rejected the Soviet Union's policy of peaceful
coexistence between the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc.[2] In addition, Beijing resented the
Soviet Union's growing ties with India due to factors such as the Sino-Indian border dispute,
and Moscow feared that Mao was too nonchalant about the horrors of nuclear warfare.
  The possibility of North Vietnam's leading supporters going to war with each other alarmed
the North Vietnamese. During the funeral, messages were exchanged between the Soviets
and the Chinese via the North Vietnamese. Meanwhile, Nixon's message via Maurer had
reached the Chinese, and it was decided in Beijing to "whet the appetite of the Americans"
by making China appear stronger.

18
 During the spring and summer of 1969, U.S. government officials watched the
ideological and political split between the Soviet Union and the People's
Republic of China escalate into fighting on Sino-Soviet borders. Some U.S.
officials wondered whether the clashes would escalate; some even speculated
that the Soviet Union might launch attacks on Chinese nuclear weapons
facilities. This electronic briefing book of declassified U.S. government
documents captures the apprehensions on the U.S. side as well as on the part
of the Chinese and the Russians, with Moscow worried about China's nuclear
potential and Beijing worried about a Soviet attack. The briefing book
includes some of the most significant sources cited in an article in the current
issue of Cold War History, "Sino-American Relations, 1969: Sino-Soviet Border
Conflict and Steps Toward Rapprochement," by William Burr, a senior analyst
at the National Security Archive. Drawing on archival records and material
released through the Freedom of Information Act, the article reviews the
Nixon administration's early steps toward a new relationship with the People's
Republic of China and the impact of Sino-Soviet tensions on the moves toward
rapprochement taken by both Beijing and Washington.

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THANK YOU

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