Settling the Sino–Russian Border Issue: Land in Exchange for a Strategic Partnership?

Abstract

China has been committed to resolving its border disputes with Russia since the late 1980s and expedited this move in the wake of the Cold War in the hope of removing what has been referred to as the ‘biggest obstacle’ to the establishment of a strategic partnership with Russia. In so doing, China pursued three interconnected objectives. The first relates to China’s strategic and security environment that, in the Chinese perspective, has worsened since the United States has unilaterally engaged in a policy of China-containment. The second objective is to maintain China’s economic growth through a partnership with its resource-abundant neighbour. Chinese political leadership and academics have considered economic modernisation as their ‘paramount’ task since Deng Xiaoping launched market reform in the late 1970s. The third objective is to fulfil China’s dream of restoring its past glory by rising in the global power hierarchy and reshaping the current world order more to its liking.