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The Sino-Soviet Territorial Dispute in the Pamir Mountains Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

John W. Garver
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Extract

The single largest territorial issue explicitly in dispute between China and the Soviet Union is in the region of the Pamir Mountains-just north of Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan corridor. The nature of this dispute is important because it impinges on the ease with which major sources of tension between the two countries may be eliminated. Moreover, the potential resolutions of this issue have important geo-political implications for the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Type
Research Notes
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 85 , March 1981 , pp. 107 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1981

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References

1. Zhonghua renmen kongheguo fensheng ditu ji (Beijing: Map publishing company, 1974).Google Scholar See also the large sheet map Zhonghua renmen kongheguo, (Beijing: Guozi shudian, 1972).Google Scholar

2. The Chinese government statement of 8 October 1969 specified that Russian forces had illegally occupied more than 20,000 sq. km. of “Chinese territory” to the west of the Sarikol range. See, Renmin ribao, 9 October 1969, p. 2.

3. Sheehy, Ann, “Russia and China in the Pamirs: 18th and 19th centuries,” Central Asian Review, Vol. XVI, No. 1 (1968), p. 7.Google Scholar

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9. Regarding the post 1876 Russian explorations see, Alder, , British India, pp. 113–14, 152, 219.Google Scholar

10. Sheehy, “Russia and China,” p. 7.

11. Hsu, Immanuel C. Y., “The late Ch'ing reconquest of Sinkiang: a reappraisal of Tso Tung-t'ung's role,” Central Asiatic Journal, Vol. XII, No. 1 (1968), p. 50.Google Scholar

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13. See People's Republic of China statement of 8 October 1969.

14. Tung-li, Yuan, Russo-Chinese Treaties and Agreements Relating to Sinkiang 1851–1949, Sinkiang Collectanea No. 4 (Hong Kong, 1963), p. 71.Google Scholar

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18. Ibid.. p. 220. Darkot Pass lies a short distance south of Baroghil Pass.

19. Statement by U.S.S.R. Government, 13 June 1969, in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 9 July 1969, Vol. xxi, No. 24, p. 9.Google Scholar

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21. Alder, British India, pp. 223–24, 303–308.

22. Ibid.. pp. 218–25.

23. Ibid.. pp. 233–34.

24. Ibid..

25. Ibid.. p. 234.

26. Hedin, Sved, Through Asia (New York: Harper and Brother, 1899), p. 96. Hedin was a Swedish adventurer and “explorer” who spent several years wandering about Central Asia, including the Pamirs, in the early 1890s. He was apparently welcomed by British, Russian, and Chinese officials along his route. His two volume travelogue contains much useful information.Google Scholar

27. Alder, British India, pp. 225–26.

28. Sheehy, “Russia and China,” p. 9.

29. Heden, Through Asia, p. 390.

30. Sheehy, “Russia and China,” p. 9.

31. Hedin, Through China, p. 96.

32. Sheehy, “Russia and China,” pp. 9–10.

33. Alder, British India, p. 252.

34. Hedin, Through Asia, p. 635.

35. Sheehy, “Russia and China,” p. 10.

36. Ibid.. p. 13. See also, Alder, British India, p. 254.

37. Clubb, China and Russia, p. 116.Sheehy,“Russia and China,” p. 13.

38. U.S.S.R. statement of 13 June 1969.

39. P.R.C. statement of 8 October 1969.

40. See Whiting, Allen S. and Shih-ts'ai, Sheng, Sinkiang: Pawn or Pivot, (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958);Google Scholar and Jackson, W. A. D., The Russo-Chinese Borderlands: Zone of Peaceful Contact or Potential Conflict? (London: Van Nostrand, 1962).Google Scholar

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42. Ibid..

43. Atlas of the Republic of China, Vol. I, Hsitsang, (Tibet), Sinkiang, and Mongolia (Taiwan: National War College, 1960), p. A 13. This map indicates the Sarikol line as a “special boundary,” one of many such lines in the region.Google Scholar

44. Other hypothetical Chinese claims can also be formulated. Alastair Lamb shows a line running north from a point near the confluence of the Amu-Darya and Wakhan Rivers, passing just west of Yeshil Kul and Sarezskoye, and continuing generally northwards before turning to the north-west and passing just to the north-east of Mount Communism. Alastair Lamb, The Sino-Indian Border in Ladakh (Canberra; Australian National University, Asian Publications Series, 1973), pp. 94–95. Alder also says that during their negotiations with Russia in the early 1890s Chinese officials tended to claim the Ak Su River as the Sino-Russian boundary. Alder, British India, pp. 243, 253.Google Scholar

45. International Boundary Study No. 64, China-USSR Boundary, 14 February 1966, Geographer, Office of Research in Economics and Science, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State, Washington.

46. Ibid.. 13 February 1978 edit.

47. See, Seymour Topping, “Opening a new road to China: the Karakoram highway,” New York Times, Magazine section, 2 December 1979, p. 37.

48. See for example, Moscow radio on 19 January 1970 and 16 January 1970 in, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, PRC, 19 January 1970, p. A 3–5.

49. Medvedev, Zhores, “Russia Under Brezhnev,” New Left Review, No. 117 (September-October 1979), p. 12.Google Scholar

50. Beijing Review, No. 1, (5 January 1981), p. 16.Google Scholar

51. Ibid.. No. 48 (1 December 1980), p. 8.