Taiwan’s President Suggests China Demand Return of Land Ceded to Russia a Century Ago

Executive Summary:

• Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te stated that if China’s claims on Taiwan are about territorial integrity, then it should also press for the restoration of land from Russia that the Qing dynasty signed over in the 19th century.
• If Russia can insist that Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, and other territories are historically Russian, then China, in turn, could contend that large swathes of Russia’s Far East are historically Chinese.
• As Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, China’s importance to the survival of Russia’s economy increases, as its explosive economic growth has turned Russia’s east into a colony with an abundance of energy and raw materials.

On September 2, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te added a new dimension to China’s irredentist assertions by suggesting that if China’s claims on Taiwan are about territorial integrity, then it should also press for the restoration of land from Russia that the Qing empire signed over in the 19th century (Era TV, September 1; Taiwan News, September 2). Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration remains quietly nervous about Chinese intentions toward its far eastern provinces, which are slowly depopulating while their economies stagnate (see EDM, June 16, 2022, May 14, July 9). Sino-Russian relations remain tranquil on the surface, but China’s ascendancy has shifted the dynamics of their bilateral relationship and could  add weight to Lai’s observation.

Sino-Russian relations date back to the thirteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, China had descended into what its historians have labeled the “century of humiliation.” This was a period that began with political instability, Western imperialism, and multiple internal conflicts and rebellions during the Qing, and ended with the Republic of China emerging from World War II as one of the Big Four and achieving a permanent seat on the newly established United Nations Security Council in 1945. The Sino-Russian borderlands have long been sites of contention. China’s oldest treaty, the Treaty of Nerchinsk, was signed with Russia in 1689 (Presidential Library, accessed September 30). Nearly two centuries later on May 16, 1858, the two states  signed the Treaty of Aigun, which established a border along the Amur River. This was closely followed two years later by the Treaty of Beijing. Taken together, these  two “unequal” treaties allowed Russia bloodlessly to annex 231,660 square miles (600,000 square kilometers) of Qing land, an area almost twice the size of modern Germany (Komsomol’skaia Pravda, February 9, 2019).

Apart from the areas ceded to the Russian empire, the concessions granted by a weakened Qing dynasty were only terminated after the 1949 establishment of the People’s Republic of China by Mao Zedong. After the March 1953 death of Stalin, relations between the Soviet Union and China steadily deteriorated as Mao felt that the new Soviet leadership was revisionist. In 1964, Mao raised the “unequal treaties” issue and declared territorial claims against the Soviet Union for an area of 1.5 million square kilometers (580 thousand square miles). By 1969, armed conflict briefly broke out along the Ussuri River on Damanskii Island.

China’s stridency towards the Soviet Union subsided following Mao’s death in 1976. Former Chinese paramount leader Deng Xiaoping later negotiated with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 to normalize relations. While repeating the “unfair treaties” thesis, Deng nevertheless proposed to “close the past and open the future.”  In 2001, former Chinese President Jiang Zemin inscribed in the new Treaty of Friendship with Russia the principle of “good neighborliness,” which had essentially no mention of territorial claims (Zavtra.ru, March 23, 2005).

Russia was quick to respond to President Lai’s suggestion. The same day that he made his observation, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova stated that instead of suggesting that China “take back” land from Russia, Taiwan should focus on China’s offer of peaceful reunification, adding that the two countries have no outstanding territorial disputes (TV-Novosti, September 3). Zakharova concluded by noting that Lai is not authorized to speak on China’s behalf about the ownership of Russian territories.

For his part, Putin is determined to strengthen Russia’s position in the Far East by promoting massive infrastructure projects. He is deepening Russia’s sovereignty over its depopulated Far East even as his war against Ukraine subjects the Russian economy to increasingly hard sanctions, increasing China’s importance as Russia’s most important trade partner (see EDM, June 16, July 20, 2022, July 23).

Various estimates put the population density on the Chinese side of the eastern Siberia frontier as 15–30 times greater than on the Russian side. In Russia’s most populated Siberian territory, Primorskii krai, there are only 13.5 people per square kilometer, while in adjoining Northeast China, there are 130 people per square kilometer—nearly ten times the population density  (Polit.ru, September 20).

Despite such disparities, Russia is determined to bolster its Far Eastern presence. Speaking at the plenary session of the ninth Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on September 4, Putin spoke about his government’s efforts to bolster the economy of its Far Eastern regions, remarking, “Without any exaggeration, the Far East has become the most important factor in strengthening Russia’s position in the world. … In the past ten years, more than 2,000 km (1,242 miles) of railway tracks have been built, and more than 5,000 km (3,106 miles) have been renovated on the Trans-Siberian Railway (Transsib) and the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM)” (Kremlin.ru, September 5; see EDM, September 9).

Addressing the EEF the same day as Putin, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitalii Savelev remarked that the government intends to boost the carrying capacity of the Russian Railways’ Eastern Polygon from its current annual rate of 80 million tons to 270 million tons by 2032, a 66 percent increase within six years (Baikal-Daily, September 5).

In pursuing conciliation, Xi’s China has made closer alignment with Russia a key pillar of its foreign policy. Since acceding to power over a decade ago, Xi has met with Putin more than 44 times. In March 2023, Xi assured Putin, “Right now, there are changes, the likes of which we have not seen for 100 years. And we are the ones driving these changes together” (Noviye Izvestiya, April 3, 2023).

If China were to make territorial demands of Russia according to Lai’s claims, China would be acting in accordance with the Putin regime’s own historical claims. If Russia can insist that Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, and other territories are historically Russian, then China, in turn, could contend that large swathes of Russia’s Far East are historically Chinese. That said, China’s explosive economic growth has turned Russia’s east into a source of energy and raw materials. Furthermore, as China’s Belt and Road Initiative has conclusively demonstrated, Beijing does not need to occupy territory to dominate it. As the Putin administration continues its war, producing further sanctions in turn, China’s importance to the survival of Russia’s economy increases. According to ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, “The apogee of victory is to win without fighting”—a neat summary of China’s current relationship with the Russian Federation, which is now effectively its economic colony (see EDM, February 6, 2023, April 17, June 4).