The first official Russian embassy visited Beijing in September 1618. This day can be considered a reference to diplomatic Russian-Chinese relations, which over the course of four centuries have undergone sharp turns from distrust to friendship, from strong alliances to open conflicts. The two great powers for a long time were separated by vast, almost uninhabited distances, and recognized each other casually from the lips of travelers and merchants.
In the first centuries of its formation, the young Russian state was directed westward, and Ancient China by the Middle Ages was already a powerful state, which was fenced off from the outside world by walls and millennia-old traditions. The Chinese emperors even considered foreign kings as their vassals and were extremely reluctant to contact other countries. The rapprochement between China and Russia was facilitated by a common misfortune.
First contacts
No walls and distance could hold back the formidable waves of the Mongol raids. In the 13th century, warlike nomads defeated the numerous armies of the Chinese emperor and crushed the squads of the Russian princes. For a long time, China and Russia became part of the immense Mongol Empire.
In the 14th century, a Russian detachment appeared in the guard of the Peking Khan, assembled from Slavic soldiers captured by the Mongols. The Russians lived together, cultivated the land, maintained their households as they did in their homeland. It is difficult to call such a state of affairs full-fledged Russian-Chinese relations, however, peoples better recognized each other’s culture, habits and traditions.
After the mongols
The collapse of the nomadic empire of the Mongols again estranged the two states, which became free, but now thousands and thousands of kilometers of poorly developed lands again lay between their borders. The Western powers traveled to China by sea, in the Middle Ages it was the most convenient and fastest way to travel. Only the most desperate Russian travelers and merchants decided to defeat the forests, steppes, mountains and taiga. Russian-Chinese contacts were reduced to insignificant trade and news that merchants brought to Russia.
Russian expansion to the East
He changed the Russian-Chinese relations of the 17th century, during which Russia developed the eastern territories. It was an age of bold and harsh explorers. The Russian state included all the eastern lands to the Pacific Ocean, Cossacks actively studied the Amur Region, Russian borders steadily approached the borders of China, which could no longer completely ignore the energetic neighbor.
In May 1618, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich sent an embassy to China led by Ivan Petlin. It reached Pikin for almost four months, but the Chinese authorities considered that it was not real ambassadors who came to them, but tributaries from the distant vassal king, so Petlin was refused to meet with the emperor, but they gave a letter in which the emperor allowed Russia to trade with China and send other embassies. Thus began the official history of Russian-Chinese relations.
First clashes
In the second half of the 17th century, conditions developed for closer interstate contacts. The territory of Russia expanded rapidly, at about the same time China was subjugated by the Manchu invaders, the great Qing Empire appeared, which existed until the beginning of the 20th century. Both Moscow and Beijing now claimed huge and practically empty Amur lands. The first obvious conflict of interest appeared.
Russia did not have the strength and resources to send large expeditions or regular troops to the Amur Region; it was mastered by units of dashing Cossacks, who at times looked more like robbers than representatives of the tsar. They collected tribute from the local population, sometimes fell to robbery, they preferred to resolve issues by force rather than negotiations. Therefore, it is not surprising that the indigenous population was opposed to newcomers.
Manchu troops, with the support of Beijing and indigenous peoples, entered into confrontation with the Cossacks. There were no big battles, but China, through the hands of the Manchus, decided to make the life of the Russians in the Amur region intolerable. The newly formed Cossack settlements were constantly attacked, the settlers could not feel safe. Without really formalizing diplomatic Russian-Chinese relations, the two states entered into armed confrontation, albeit without declaring war.
Diplomatic rapprochement
However, as often happens in history, the economy silenced the guns. States were much more interested in cooperating as trading partners than in a smoldering military conflict. In 1689, the Nerchinsky Russo-Chinese agreement on borders and trade was concluded, Russia ceded to China almost all the lands south of the Amur, but it became the first Western state to send trade caravans to the Qing Empire on an ongoing basis.
The Chinese Emperor first agreed to regular trade with a foreign state. He allowed annually to arrange one caravan, which could be up to a thousand merchants. Moreover, merchants were considered guests of the Celestial Emperor, their stay in China was paid for by the imperial treasury. Therefore, the Chinese treated the Russian envoys with great respect, trade flourished. Soon, Russian courtyards, a churchyard, and the Orthodox Church appeared in Beijing.
From that moment on, the mutual relations of the two countries developed rapidly. Starting with the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the Russian tsars sent eighteen diplomatic missions to Beijing. However, there is an interesting fact: the Russian spiritual mission was founded in 1716, and the permanent Embassy of the Russian Empire - only in 1861.
Russian-Chinese relations in the 18th century were marked by the conclusion in 1727 of the extremely important Kyakhtinsky treatise, which once again fixed the border between the states, consolidated the equal position of the Empires, since earlier the Chinese emperor considered the Russian tsar to be his subordinate. The treatise also regulated diplomatic correspondence and the reception of embassies, legitimized the presence of a Russian spiritual mission in Beijing, and established the order of trade between states.
Diplomatic victories
The Kyakhtinsky Treaty has been the basis of political and economic relations between the two countries for more than a hundred years. In the mid-19th century, the Qing Empire shook from the opium wars waged by the leading Western powers. Russian-Chinese relations in the 19th century remained friendly, but Russia was able to achieve brilliant successes through diplomatic means.
Weakened by defeats, China in 1858 agreed to change the state borders with the Russian Empire, henceforth they passed along the Amur River, the Qing Empire refused Primorye and part of Manchuria, which was recorded in the Aigun Treaty. The subsequent Beijing (1860) and Chuguchak treaties finally formalized the Russo-Chinese borders.
After the union agreement of 1896 between the two countries, Russia began to build in the Chinese East railway. In 1897, the Russian Empire leased two ports for its squadrons: Dalian and Port Arthur. In 1898, the city of Harbin was founded by the Russians. In 1905, Russia, unconditionally losing the war of Japan, lost its leased ports, and the treaty of 1896 was also terminated. Both empires were on the verge of destruction, the Chinese one disappeared in 1913, the Russian one in 1917. New states appeared on their wreckage.
USSR and Republic of China
The historiography of Russian-Chinese relations of 1917-1922 is just as confusing as the political situation in Russia, which was engulfed in a bloody civil war. In such circumstances, any negotiations with the young Republic of China on borders, territorial claims, economic and political cooperation were temporary and unsteady. After all, it was not clear who would eventually rule Russia. The country was divided into parts in which power was constantly changing. The Bolsheviks were able to finally crush the resistance of the White Guards in the Far East only in the autumn of 1922.
After the victory in the civil war, the Bolsheviks desperately needed allies for a joint struggle with imperialist Europe. Anti-imperialist and anti-Western sentiments were also strong in the Republic of China. The Chinese still remembered the opium wars and their own semi-colonial position in relation to the Western powers.
In the fall of 1920, General Zhang Sulin arrived in Moscow for official negotiations on behalf of the Republic of China. Soviet diplomats handed him a return note, which outlined the principles of Russian-Chinese cooperation. However, the Chinese were in no hurry to conclude any treaties; they were waiting for the outcome of the civil war.
Only on May 31, 1924, a landmark document consisting of 15 articles was signed, which settled all disputed and important issues between the Republic of China and the USSR. Two young states officially became allies. However, good relations did not last long.
Cooling
In China, the Kuomintang party, led by the charismatic leader Chiang Kai-shek, was the main political force. The Communist Party was inferior to the Kuomintang in influence. Moscow supported both parties, believing in the loyalty of Chiang Kai-shek, who spent several months in Moscow and was perceived by many leaders of the USSR as an ideological ally.
However, in the spring of 1927 the Canton uprising of the Communists broke out, which, according to some historians, was initiated from Moscow. Government forces brutally suppressed the rebellion, after which in December Chiang Kai-shek ordered to close all USSR diplomatic missions in China and sever diplomatic relations between Russia and China. The documents and materials of that time do not give an exact answer what caused this diplomatic defeat in Moscow: own mistakes, the work of British diplomats or the intrigue of Chiang Kai-shek, which destroyed serious political rivals with one blow.
Resuming relationships: from enemies to friends
Five years, two major powers were fenced off by a diplomatic boycott. But in December 1932 there was a turning point: at the international conference in Geneva, the Chinese and Russian delegations exchanged letters with a mutual proposal to restore normal diplomatic relations. In 1937, in Nanjing, Soviet representatives and Chiang Kai-shek signed a Russo-Chinese non-aggression agreement, in 1939 ratified the Trade Agreement between Russia and China, and in May 1945 - the Friendship Agreement.
However, Chiang Kai-shek did not suit Moscow, the Soviet government began to provide all kinds of support to Mao Zedong, who was Stalin's personal friend and a sincere communist. Mao's rise to power in 1949 marked the beginning of a golden time for Russo-Chinese relations. In 1950, an alliance agreement on friendship and mutual assistance was concluded.
The Soviet Union helped Chinese friends with loans and specialists, the USSR practically built Katai industry by launching more than three hundred plants, Russian professionals trained Chinese workers and military personnel, more than half of Chinese exports came from the Union. Moscow returned to Beijing seized from Japan, the ports of Dalniy and Port Arthur, as well as the Chinese East railway.
Next cooling
After the death of Stalin and the total de-Stalinization that began after her, relations between countries have once again deteriorated. Mao felt that Khrushchev was too soft with the West, which gives communist ideas. In response to criticism, Khrushchev ordered the withdrawal of all Soviet specialists from China in 1960, and many factories stopped. Mao called the peaceful resolution of the Caribbean crisis a defeat for the USSR, and the Soviet Union supported India in its armed conflict with China.
In 1963, the USSR and the People's Republic of China formally recognized mutual differences. Yesterday’s friends and allies turned into enemies that even the common geopolitical rival, the United States, who launched the Vietnam War, could not reconcile. In 1969, clashes broke out over the Soviet island of Damansky, claimed by China, killing dozens of soldiers on both sides.
It seemed that the conflict between the countries could escalate to the extreme - a complete break in diplomatic relations and even war. Until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, aggressive anti-Soviet sentiments prevailed in Chinese society. Then they began to subside little by little, but trade, cultural and political ties had to be renewed practically from scratch. The problem was finally resolved and economic and trade relations were restored in 1989 during the negotiations in Beijing between Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping.
Russian-Chinese relations today
After the collapse of the Union and the loss of power by the Communist Party, at first, relations between Russia and China moved mainly into the commercial sphere. The booming Chinese economy needed markets, and the huge and geographically close Russian Federation became a profitable trading partner. But geopolitical challenges brought the two states closer together; in 1996, a strategic partnership began.
Today, the Russian Federation and the PRC are allies in joint organizations such as the SCO, BRICS, and the UN Security Council. Despite the fact that national interests are priority for each country, there are factors that bring them together. This is counteraction to the aggressive policies of the United States and its allies, the fight against terrorism, and ensuring global and regional security and stability. Russia and China give each other political support, and its leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping show sincerely friendly relations and develop interstate cooperation in every possible way.
And, of course, the two countries have strong economic ties. Russian-Chinese trade in 2017 amounted to $ 87 billion. Russia is one of the largest exporters of oil and gas to China, the share of Chinese goods in total Russian imports reached 21%. The states are implementing many joint projects: they are building bridges across the Amur, laying railways that will become part of the new Silk Road, and creating investment banks.
In detail and very professionally, the main milestones of the formation and development of relations between Russia and China are presented in the books of the doctor of historical sciences, orientalist Vladimir Datsyshen. The history of Russian-Chinese relations in the works of Professor Datsyshen is presented in detail and is available to the reader. When writing his works, the historian uses reliable historical documents and studies of authoritative sinologists.