Treaty of Aigun

The Treaty of Aigun (May 28, 1858) granted the expanding Russian Empire vast new territories in eastern Siberia at the expense of China, which had entered upon a period of decline. In the late 1840s, after more than a century of stable relations with China, governed by the Treaties of Nerchinsk (1689) and Kiakhta (1728), Russia renewed its eastward expansion under the leadership of Nikolai Muraviev, the governor-general of Eastern Siberia, and Count E. V. Putiatin and General Nikolai Ignatiev, both of whom were diplomatic envoys. The three men shared a vision of Russia as a Pacific power, and operated as quasi-independent agents of an imperial state in this era before modern transportation and communications.

In the early 1850s, Russia sent a naval flotilla down the Amur River, established military settlements along its northern bank, and ignored Chinese protests. Focused on suppressing the Taiping rebellion that threatened the dynasty's hold on power, Chinese officials greatly feared Russian military power, the strength of which they overestimated. When they failed to persuade the Russians to withdraw from territories they considered part of their own domain, the Chinese had no choice but to negotiate with Muraviev, who had threatened them with war.

In accordance with Muraviev's demands, the Treaty of Aigun established the Russo-Chinese boundary along the Amur, from the Argun River in the west to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. Russia was accorded navigation rights on the Amur, Ussuri, and Sungari rivers along with China, but third countries were excluded, as Muraviev feared encroachment by the British Navy. Trade, which had been previously been restricted to one point along the border, was now permitted along its entire length. China viewed the Treaty of Aigun as a temporary concession to Russian military pressure, but Muraviev and St. Petersburg correctly understood it as a giant step in Russia's rise as an Asia-Pacific power.

Bibliography

Clubb, O. Edmund. (1971). China and Russia: The "Great Game." New York: Columbia University Press.

Mancall, Mark. (1971). Russia and China: Their Diplomatic Relations to 1728. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Paine, S. C. M. (1997). Imperial Rivals: Russia, China, and Their Disputed Frontier. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Quested, Rosemary. (1984). Sino-Russian Relations: A Short History. Boston: George Allen & Unwin.

Tien-fong Cheng. (1973). A History of Sino-Russian Relations. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973.

—STEVEN I. LEVINE

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Russian Wikisource has original text related to this article: Айгунский договор

Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article: 璦琿條約

The Treaty of Aigun was the Russian-Chinese treaty that established much of the modern border between the Russian Far East and the Northeastern China (Manchuria). Its provisions were confirmed by the Beijing Treaty of 1860. Basically, it reversed the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) by transferring the land between the Stanovoy Mountains and the Amur River from China (Qing Empire) to the Russian Empire.

The Russian representative Nikolay Muravyov and the Qing representative Yishan signed the treaty on May 28, 1858, in the town of Aigun.

Since the 1700s, Russia had desired to become a naval power in the Pacific. It did so by establishing naval outposts near the River Amur watershed, encouraging Russians to go there and settle, and slowly developing a strong military presence in the region. China never really governed the region effectively, and these Russian advances went unnoticed.

By the late 19th century, Russia was strong enough, and China weakened enough, for Russia to consider seriously the annexation of the Amur territories to the Russian crown. The Chinese estimates of the strength of the Russians, particularly with regard to their military, were grossly exaggerated. When official protests from Beijing went unheeded and Muravyov threatened China with war, the Qing Dynasty agreed to enter negotiations with Russia.

The resulting treaty established a border between the Russian and Chinese Empires along the Amur River, further south than the original border. Under the terms of this treaty:

1. Russia gained the left bank of the Amur River that had been assigned to China as a result of Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689. (Chinese and Manchu residents of the Sixty-Four Villages East of the Heilongjiang River would be allowed to remain, under the jurisdiction of Manchu government.) The Amur, Sungari, and Ussuri rivers were to be open exclusively to both Chinese and Russian ships. The territory bounded on the west by the Ussuri, on the north by the Amur, and on the east and south by the Sea of Japan was to be jointly administered by Russia and China -- a "condominium" arrangement similar to that which the British and Americans had agreed upon for the Oregon Territory in the Treaty of 1818. In total, China effectively lost more than one million square kilometers of land.
2. The inhabitants along the Amur, Sungari, and Ussuri rivers were to be allowed to trade with each other.
3. The Russians would retain Russian and Manchu copies of the text, and the Chinese would retain Manchu and Mongolian copies of the text.
4. All restrictions on trade to be lifted along the border.

Significantly, the Treaty of Aigun was never approved by the Xianfeng Emperor,^{[citation needed]} and was largely superseded by the Treaty of Beijing in November 1860.

See also

• Amur Annexation
• Outer Manchuria
• Unequal Treaties

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