Map showing the original border (in pink) between Manchuria and Russia according to the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, and subsequent losses of territory to Russia in the 1858 Treaty of Aigun (beige) and 1860 Treaty of Peking (red)
The northern part of the area was disputed by Qing China and the Russian Empire, in the midst of the Russia's Far East expansion, between 1643 and 1689. The Treaty of Nerchinsk signed in 1689 after a series of conflicts, defined the Sino–Russian border as the Stanovoy Mountains and the Argun River. When the Qing sent officials to erect boundary markers, the markers were set up far to the south of the agreed limits, ignoring some 23,000 square miles of territory.[12]: 38
In 1809, the Japanese government sent explorer Mamiya Rinzō to Sakhalin and the region of the Amur to determine the extent of Russian influence and penetration.[12]: 334
To preserve the Manchu character of Manchuria, the Qing dynasty discouraged Han Chinese settlement in Manchuria; nevertheless, there was significant Han Chinese migration into areas south of the Amur and west of the Ussuri.[12]: 332 By the mid-19th century, there were very few subjects of the Qing Empire living in the areas north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri,[12]: 333 and Qing authority in the area was seen as tenuous by the Russians.[12]: 336 Despite warnings, Qing authorities remained indecisive about how to respond to the Russian presence.[12]: 338–339 In 1856, Russian military entered the area north of the Amur on pretext of defending the area from France and the UK,[12]: 341 Russian settlers founded new towns and cut down forests in the region,[12]: 341 and the Russian government created a new maritime province, Primorskaya Oblast, including Sakhalin, the mouth of the Amur, and Kamchatka with its capital at Nikolayevsk-on-Amur.[12]: 341 After losing the Opium Wars, Qing China was forced to sign a series of treaties that gave away territories and ports to various Western powers as well as to Russia and Japan; these were collectively known by the Chinese side[13] as the Unequal Treaties. Starting with the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and, in the wake of the Second Opium War, the Treaty of Peking in 1860, the Sino–Russian border was realigned in Russia's favour along the Amur and Ussuri rivers. As a result, China lost the region[12]: 348 that came to be known as Outer Manchuria or Russian Manchuria (an area of 350,000 square miles (910,000 km2)[2]) and access to the Sea of Japan.[14][15][16] In the wake of these events, the Qing government changed course and encouraged Han Chinese migration to Manchuria (Chuang Guandong).[1][12]: 348
Modern opinions
In Russia
In 2016, Victor L. Larin (Виктор Лаврентьевич Ларин), the director of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East in Vladivostok, said that the fact that Russia had built Vladivostok “is a historical fact that cannot be rewritten,” and that the notion that Vladivostok was ever a Chinese town is a “myth” based on a misreading of evidence that a few Chinese sometimes came to the area to fish and collect sea cucumbers.[17] The main point of Viktor Larin was that the Russian Far East (outer Manchuria) is Russia's. They developed the region and thus, will not give it back. Larin was a state historian and ethnographer. He would not stray from the government "line."
Sergey Radchenko, speaking for China's government stated, "China fully recognizes Russia's sovereignty over these territories [referring to the Russian Far East]." He also called Taiwan's President Lai, "seriously misguided" for attempting to suggest to China to take back her "lost territories," rather than invade Taiwan.[18] The next day, Sept. 3, 2024, TASS, the Russian state-run news agency issued an article entitled "Russia, China officially confirm renunciation of territorial claims, diplomat says." The article purported to cite Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry. What Zakharova actually said was quite telling. She said, "We are confident that our friends in Beijing share the same position." This statement acknowledges some doubt as she was "confident," but not completely sure. Zakharova also threw in some disparaging comments about Lai (referring to him as a "fringe politician").[19]
In the West
Despite the potential for territorial claims coextensive with the Qing dynasty, Chinese leaders as of 2014 had not suggested that Mongolia and part of Outer or Russian Manchuria would be a legitimate objective.[10] In April 2023, US diplomat John Bolton speculated that China is "undoubtedly eyeing this vast territory, which potentially contains incalculable mineral wealth", referring to Asian Russia generally, further noting that "[s]ignificant portions of this region were under Chinese sovereignty until the 1860 Treaty of Peking".[5] However, two American historians, Jon K. Chang and Bruce A. Elleman disagree with Larin, Radchenko and other Russian historians. Chang and Elleman note that in 1919 and 1920, Lev M. Karakhan, the Soviet deputy minister (also called "commissar") of foreign affairs, issued two legally binding "declarations" called the Karakhan Manifestos in which he promised to return to China all territories taken in Siberia and Manchuria during the Tsarist period and to return the Chinese Eastern Railway and other concessions. He signed his name on both documents as deputy minister of foreign affairs. To date, China has never renounced the offer of the two Karakhan Manifestos. During 1991 and 2004, there were border-treaties between Russia and China. The Karakhan Manifestos are not border treaties. They are unilateral, but legally binding offers of the return of territory to China.[20][21] Here are three excerpts from the first Karakhan Manifesto (I) according to the translated, English version published by Allen S. Whiting:
Karakhan Manifesto I (signed July 25, 1919) courtesy of Allen S. Whiting's Soviet Policies in China, 1917-1924.
We bring help not only to our own labouring classes, but to the Chinese people too, and we once more remind them of what they have been told ever since the great October revolution of 1917, but which was perhaps concealed from them by the venal press of America, Europe, and Japan.
— Whiting, Soviet Policies, p. 269
But the Chinese people, the Chinese workers and peasants, could not even learn the truth, could not find out the reason for this invasion by the American, European, and Japanese robbers of Manchuria and Siberia.
— Whiting, Soviet Policies, p. 270
The Soviet Government has renounced the conquests made by the Tsarist Government which deprived China of Manchuria and other areas....The Soviet Government is well aware ... that the return to the Chinese people of what was taken from them requires first of all putting an end to the robber invasion of Manchuria and Siberia.
The Karakhan Manifestos I and II are similar. Both promise to return "the conquests made by the Tsarist Government which deprived China of Manchuria and other areas."
Place names
Today, there are reminders of the ancient Manchu domination in English-language toponyms: for example, the Sikhote-Alin, the great coastal range; the Khanka Lake; the Amur and Ussuri rivers; the Greater Khingan, Lesser Khingan and other small mountain ranges; and the Shantar Islands. Evenks, a non-Manchu Tungusic people,[1] who speak a closely related Tungusic language, make up a significant part of the indigenous population.
In 1973, the Soviet Union renamed several locations in the region that bore names of Chinese origin. Names affected included Partizansk for Suchan; Dalnegorsk for Tetyukhe; Rudnaya Pristan for Teyukhe‐Pristan; Dalnerechensk for Iman; Sibirtsevo for Mankovka; Gurskoye for Khungari; Cherenshany for Sinan cha; Rudny for Lifudzin; and Uglekamensk for Severny Suchan.[13][23]
^ abcdefSchneider, Julia C. (2017). "The New Setting: Political Thinking after 1912". Nation and Ethnicity: Chinese Discourses on History,. p. 277. ISBN978-90-04-33011-5. ISSN1574-4493. OCLC974211957. "In the mid-19th century, the Qing government gave over (so-called) Outer Manchuria, where mostly non-Manchu Tungusic people dwelled, to the Russian Empire by the Treaty of Aigun (Aigun tiaoyue, 1858) and the (First) Convention of Peking (Beijing tiaoyue, 1860)....The Convention of Peking, one of several unequal treaties, moreover assigned the parts in the East of the Ussuri River (Wusulijiang) to Russia. Outer Manchuria, also called Russian Manchuria was never claimed to be part of a Chinese nation-state. Today it belongs to the Russian Federation, is no longer referred to as Outer Manchuria, and is considered to be part of Siberia. Consequently, the name Manchuria refers only to Inner Manchuria today. In the following, I will refer to Inner Manchuria as Manchuria."
^ abcKissinger, Henry (2011). "From Preeminence to Decline". On China. New York: Penguin Press. p. 68. ISBN978-1-59420-271-1. LCCN2011009265. OCLC1025648355. "For these services Moscow exacted a staggering territorial price: a broad swath of territory in so-called Outer Manchuria along the Pacific coast, including the port city now called Vladivostok.¹⁴ In a stroke, Russia had gained a major new naval base, a foothold in the Sea of Japan, and 350,000 square miles of territory once considered Chinese."
^Shurtleff, William (2022). History of Soybeans and Soyfoods in Manchuria (1833-2022). Soyinfo Center. p. 6. ISBN9781948436670.
^Shi, David (2023). Spirit Voices: The Mysteries and Magic of North Asian Shamanism. Red Wheel Weiser. p. 140. ISBN9781633412835.
^ abBolton, John (April 12, 2023). "A New American Grand Strategy to Counter Russia and China". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN0099-9660. OCLC781541372. Archived from the original on 29 April 2023."New Russian leaders may or may not look to the West rather than Beijing, and might be so weak that the Russian Federation’s fragmentation, especially east of the Urals, isn’t inconceivable. Beijing is undoubtedly eyeing this vast territory, which potentially contains incalculable mineral wealth. Significant portions of this region were under Chinese sovereignty until the 1860 Treaty of Peking transferred “outer Manchuria,” including extensive Pacific coast lands, to Moscow."
^"Manchuria". The New International Encyclopaedia. Vol. XII. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. 1906. p. 782. "MANCHURIA, man-cho͞oʹre-a (the land of the Manchus). The northeastern part of the Chinese Empire, situated east of Mongolia and the Argun River (which formerly traversed Manchurian territory), south of the Amur River (which separates it from Siberia), and west of the Usuri, which separates it from Primorsk (Maritime Province) or Russian Manchuria (a Chinese possession until 1860)."
^ ab"Amoor, Territory of". A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer or Geographical Dictionary of the World (New Revised ed.). Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1898. p. 489. OCLC83607338. "Amoor, Territory of, a name applied to Russian Manchooria, or the region of Southeastern Siberia acquired from the Chinese and Japanese by the Russians since 1858. It is bounded on the N. by Siberia proper, on the E. by the Seas of Okhotsk and Japan, the coast being Russian as far S. as the river Toomen, which divides it from Corea (the island of Saghalin being now included) ; on the W. by Chinese Manchooria, the rivers Oosooree, Argoon, Soongaree, and Amoor forming (for the most part) the boundary; and on the N.W. by the government of Transbaikalia. Its area, 905,462 square miles, is over four times that of France. It is divided into the provinces of Amoor and Primorsk."
^ abcdefghijklFletcher, Joseph (1978). "Sino-Russian Relations, 1800-62: The loss of north-east Manchuria". In Fairbank, John K (ed.). The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 10. Cambridge University Press. pp. 38, 332–351.
