On June 13, 1858, a Russian-Chinese agreement was signed in the Chinese city of Tianjin, which went down in history as the Tianjin Treaty. The agreement consisted of 12 articles. He confirmed peace and friendship between the two states, and guaranteed the inviolability of property and personal safety of the Russians living in China and the Chinese in the Russian Empire. The agreement was signed by Count Evfimiy (Efim) Vasilyevich Putyatin and the plenipotentiary of the Chinese side Hua Shan.
The Tianjin Treaty confirmed the right of St. Petersburg to send envoys to Beijing and envisaged the opening of a number of Chinese ports for Russian ships. Overland trade was allowed without any restrictions on the number of traders taking part in it, the amount of goods brought in and the capital used.
The Russian side received the right to appoint consuls to the ports open to Russia. Russian subjects, along with subjects of other states, received the right of consular jurisdiction and extraterritoriality in the Chinese state. The Russian Empire also received the right to maintain a Russian spiritual mission in the Chinese capital.
Regarding the border between the two countries, it was decided that a border survey would be carried out by proxies from both governments, and their data would compose an additional article to the Tianjin Treaty. Negotiations between the two countries on territorial delimitation ended in 1860 with the signing of the Beijing Treaty.
Evfimy (Efim) Vasilievich Putyatin.
Background to the agreement
The expansion of Western European countries, the prologue of which was their entry into the water area of the world ocean at the end of the 15th century, the beginning of the so-called. The Age of Discovery was not the only one on the planet. The largest territorial acquisitions were also made by Russia and China. For Russians, collecting lands became the basis of foreign policy even under the sovereigns Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible. In a fairly short historical period, Russian influence spread over vast territories, which were located thousands of kilometers from the center of the state. The Russian state included the lands of the Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberian Khanates, and the Nogai Horde. At the end of the 16th century, vast territories of Western Siberia were annexed. In the 1630s, the Russians settled in the Lena River basin and continued to move in adjacent territories. Founded in 1632, the Yakutsk prison became the center of further movement, from here parties of Russian explorers went to the Arctic Ocean, to the Kamchatka Peninsula, to the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk and in the Amur region.
The change of dynasties in China in the middle of the 17th century (the establishment of power by the Manchu Qing dynasty) also contributed to an increase in military activity along the entire perimeter of the land borders. At the end of the 17th century, Russian settlers were driven out of the Amur region, the Manchus subjugated Mongolia, and in 1728 Tibet was annexed. In the middle of the 18th century, Dzungaria and Kashgaria passed into the possession of the Qing dynasty. Thus, Russia and China entered into direct contact.
The first clash between the Russians and the Chinese took place in the second half of the 17th century in the Amur River basin. For the Manchus, the arrival of Russians in a region that bordered their domain was extremely unpleasant. Because of the war in South China, they did not have significant forces for the expansion and development of Dauria, therefore they strove to create here the most powerful buffer of semi-dependent peoples here. In the second half of the 17th century, measures were taken in Northern Manchuria in order to strengthen the governability of the region. In 1662, the post of jiangjun (military governor) of Ninguta province was established, and in 1683, on the left bank of the Amur River, the city of Heilongjiang-cheng (Sakhalyan-ula-hoton), the center of the province of the same name, was founded.
The conflict of strategic interests of the two powers in the Amur region led in the 1680s to a local war and a diplomatic victory for the Qing state. In June 1685, the Manchu troops captured the center of the Russian Amur region - Albazin. Despite the rapid restoration of the fortress, after the withdrawal of the Manchu troops and the successful resistance of the Russian fortress during the second siege of 1686-1687, Russia was forced to yield. Moscow's representative Fyodor Golovin, yielding to the military and diplomatic pressure of the Qing state, signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk on August 27, 1689, which eliminated the Russian presence in the Amur region.
The territorial demarcation in Northern Mongolia became more profitable for the Russian state. The Burinsky and Kyakhtinsky treaties of 1727 established the border from the Abagaytu hill in the east to the Shabin-Dabag pass in the Sayan mountains in the west. Although the Russian side had to abandon some of its claims during negotiations with the Qing, the ceded lands were not reclaimed by Russian settlers. This border turned out to be quite viable; it, with the exception of one section (Tuva), has existed to this day.
Unlike the Amur region and Siberia, the delimitation of the zones of Russian and Chinese strategic interests in Central Asia by the middle of the 19th century was not formalized in the form of agreements. This situation is explained by the later penetration of the two powers into this region, as well as by the presence of sufficiently strong local state formations in Central Asia. After the establishment of the province of Ili Jiangjun in 1762, the Chinese authorities persistently began to try to turn the territory of Kazakhstan into a buffer zone between their territory and Russian possessions. However, the khans of the Kazakh zhuzes by the beginning of the 19th century showed more and more interest and desire to go under the protection of the "white king". The Qing embassy to the Russian Empire in 1731 made a direct promise to take into account Russian interests when dividing the territorial heritage of the Dzungar Khanate. Subsequently, the establishment of the Russian administrative system in the Semirechye region and the intensification of contradictions between China and Kokand forced the Xinjiang authorities to agree to preserve the status quo here.
After the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Russian Empire became the most powerful military power in Europe and gained relative stability on its western borders. This geopolitical position allowed St. Petersburg to seriously think about revising those agreements that were detrimental to the political and economic interests and the prestige of a great power. The loss of the Amur River, the only transport artery that could connect the metropolis with the Pacific possessions, caused strong irritation both in St. Petersburg and in the center of Eastern Siberia - Irkutsk. Until the middle of the 19th century, St. Petersburg made several attempts to resolve this issue through diplomatic negotiations with the Chinese side. It should be noted that similar attempts were made earlier. For example, even during the stay of the Russian embassy in Beijing in 1757, the head of the mission V. F. Bratishchev handed over to Lifanyuan (the Chamber of Dependent Territories is the department that was responsible for the relations of the Chinese state with its western neighbors) a Senate letter, which contained a request from St. Petersburg to allow the transportation of food for the Far Eastern possessions of Russia along the Amur. The same instructions were received in 1805 by the mission of Count Yu. A. Golovkina, who, due to protocol obstacles, never managed to get to Beijing.
Later in St. Petersburg there was a slight decline in interest in the development of the Amur. This was due to the position of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was headed by Karl Nesselrode (headed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1816-1856). Nesselrode was a supporter of Russia's full orientation towards European politics. He believed that an active eastern policy of Russia could lead to a break in relations with China, irritation of the European powers, especially England. Therefore, Tsar Nicholas I himself was forced to push through the decision to equip and send an expedition consisting of the corvette "Menelaus" and one transport. The expeditionary detachment was supposed to go from the Black Sea under the command of Putyatin to China and Japan to establish trade relations with these countries and to inspect the estuary and the mouth of the Amur River, which was considered inaccessible from the sea. But since the equipment of this expedition, important for the Russian Empire, required 250 thousand rubles, the Ministry of Finance came forward to support the head of the Foreign Ministry, Count Nesselrode, and Putyatin's expedition was canceled. Instead of Putyatin's expedition, with great precautions and with secret instructions, the brig "Konstantin" was sent to the mouth of the Amur under the command of Lieutenant Gavrilov. Lieutenant Gavrilov clearly stated in his report that in the conditions in which he was placed, his expedition could not fulfill the task. However, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Karl Nesselrode reported to the Emperor that the order of His Majesty was executed exactly, that the research of Lieutenant Gavrilov once again proved that Sakhalin is a peninsula, the Amur River is inaccessible from the sea. Therefore, it was concluded that Cupid has no meaning for the Russian Empire. After that, the Special Committee, headed by Count Nesselrode and with the participation of the Minister of War, Count Chernyshev, Quartermaster General Berg and others, decided to recognize the Amur River basin as belonging to China and to renounce forever any claims to it.
Only the "arbitrariness" of Gennady Ivanovich Nevelsky corrected the situation. Having received an appointment to the Far East and enlisting the support of the Governor of Eastern Siberia Nikolai Nikolaevich Muravyov (this statesman played an outstanding role in the development of the eastern territories of the empire), and the chief of the main naval headquarters of Prince Menshikov, G. Nevelskoy, without the Highest permission, decided on an expedition. On the transport ship "Baikal" Nevelskaya in the summer of 1849 reached the mouth of the Amur River and discovered the strait between the mainland and Sakhalin Island. In 1850, Nevelskoy was again sent to the Far East. Moreover, he received an order “not to touch the mouth of the Amur”. However, caring not so much about geographical discoveries as about the interests of the Motherland of Nevelskoy, contrary to the prescription, he founded the Nikolaevsky post at the mouth of the Amur (the modern city of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur), raising the Russian flag there and declaring the sovereignty of the Russian Empire over these lands.
The active actions of the expedition of Nevelskoy caused discontent and irritation in some of the government circles of Russia. The Special Committee considered his act as audacity, which should be punished by demotion to sailors, which was reported to the Russian Emperor Nicholas I. However, after hearing the report of Nikolai Muravyov, the Emperor called Nevelskoy's act "valiant, noble and patriotic", and even awarded the captain with the Order of Vladimir 4 degrees. Nikolai imposed the famous resolution on the report of the Special Committee: "Where the Russian flag is once raised, it should not go down there." The Amur expedition was of great importance. She proved that it is possible to navigate along the Amur River up to the exit to the Amur estuary, as well as the possibility of ships leaving the estuary, both to the north and to the south. It was proved that Sakhalin is an island and that from the mouth of the Amur River, as well as from the eastern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, one can directly go to the Sea of Japan without skirting Sakhalin. The absence of a Chinese presence on the Amur was proved.
In February 1851, a message was sent to Lifanyuan, which probed China's position on the problem of naval defense of the Amur estuary from the British by the forces of the Russian fleet. The actions of the Russian Empire formally assumed not anti-Chinese, but anti-British character. Petersburg foresaw a clash with European powers and feared attacks from Great Britain in the Far East. In addition, there was a desire to play on the anti-British sentiments of Beijing in this action. China was defeated in the first Opium War, 1840-1842. and was humiliated by the terms of the Nanking Treaty of August 29, 1842. However, at the beginning of 1850, the emperor died in China, this led to an outbreak of struggle between the supporters of the hard and soft lines against the European powers. Petersburg's appeal was never considered.
It should be noted that in the Russian Empire long before the middle of the 19th century. there were opinions that allowed a unilateral and even forceful solution to the Amur problem. So, back in 1814, the diplomat J. O. Lambert noted that the Chinese would never allow the Russians to sail on the Amur, unless they were forced to do so. But, the real awakening of interest in the problem of the Amur region in the middle of the 19th century. is associated primarily with the name of Nikolai Nikolaevich Muravyov, appointed in 1847 to the post of Governor-General of Eastern Siberia. He was a supporter of strengthening the influence of the Russian Empire in the Far East. In his letters, the Governor-General pointed out that: "Siberia is owned by the one who has the left bank and the mouth of the Amur in his hands." According to Muravyov, several directions should have become a guarantee of the success of the process of strengthening Russia's positions in the Far East. First, it was necessary to strengthen the Russian military power in the region. For this, the Trans-Baikal Cossack army was created and measures were planned to strengthen the defense of Petropavlovsk. Secondly, it was an active resettlement policy. It was caused not only by reasons of a geopolitical nature (it was necessary to populate vast areas with Russian people in order to secure them for themselves), but also by the demographic explosion in the central provinces of the empire. Overpopulation of the central provinces, with low yields and depletion of land, could lead to a social explosion.
Monument to Count Muravyov-Amursky in Khabarovsk.
Nikolay Muravyov, having received the results of the expeditions of A. F. Middendorf, N. H. Akhte and G. I. Nevelskoy, decided to carry out a series of rafting of Russian ships along the Amur River in order to resettle the Cossacks in unoccupied places on the left bank. The military-strategic necessity of such alloys and the development of the Amur became especially clear after the start of the Crimean War in October 1853. This war clearly showed the danger to the unprotected Pacific borders of the Russian Empire. On April 14, 1854, Governor-General Muravyov sent a letter to Beijing in which he warned the Chinese about the upcoming rafting and raised the question of the need for Chinese representatives to arrive at the site for negotiations. The absence of an official response from Beijing, as well as the events of August 1854 in Petropavlovsk, where only the heroism of the local garrison saved the fortress from its defeat by the British, prompted the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia to take more active actions.
In 1855, during the second rafting, Russian settlers founded on the left bank of the Amur River the settlements of Irkutskoye, Mikhailovskoye, Novo-Mikhailovskoye, Bogorodskoye, Sergeevskoye, the village of Suchi opposite the Mariinsky post. On the initiative of Nikolai Muravyov, on October 28, 1856, Emperor Alexander II approved a project to build a military line along the left bank of the Amur. As a result, on the issue of the annexation of the Amur region by the mid-1850s.the point of view of statesmen like Muravyov finally won out, and Russian diplomats now had to formalize a change in positions in the region. China at that time was in decline, experienced a severe internal crisis, and became a victim of the expansion of the Western powers. The Qing dynasty could not by force keep the territories that Beijing considered their own.
In June 1855, the emperor instructed Muravyov to begin negotiations with the Chinese on the establishment of the Russian-Chinese border line. On September 15, a Qing delegation arrived at the Mariinsky Post, where the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia was at that time. At the very first meeting, the Russian representative verbally motivated the desirability of changing the border of the two countries by the need to organize a more effective defense of the region against the naval forces of the Western powers. The Amur River has been named the most indisputable and natural border between Russia and China. The Chinese side asked to provide them with a written statement of Nikolai Muravyov's proposals for transmission to the capital. The Qing empire was in a difficult situation and risked receiving a unilateral denunciation of the Nerchinsk agreement by St. Petersburg. The Chinese, in order to save face and justify the cession of land, came up with a formula for the transfer of territory out of favor in order to support the Russian Empire, which needed to improve the supply routes for its Pacific possessions. In addition, another real motive for this act was given by the head of Beijing diplomacy, Prince Gong. He believed that the main tactical task in the middle of the 19th century. Is the destruction of internal rebels.
On March 30, 1856, the Treaty of Paris was signed, the Crimean War ended. The new Foreign Minister, Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, in a program circular dated August 21, announced new priorities for Russian diplomacy: Russia refused to defend the principles of the Holy Alliance and moved on to "concentration of forces." However, in the Far East, Russia intended to pursue a more active foreign policy, which would take into account, first of all, its own national interests. The idea of the former Minister of Commerce (1804-1810) and Foreign Affairs (1807-1814) N. P. Rumyantsev on the transformation of the Russian Empire into a trade bridge between Europe and Asia.
In 1857, an envoy, Count Evfimiy Vasilyevich Putyatin, was sent to the Qing Empire. He had the task of solving two main issues: borders and the extension of the status of the most favored nation to Russia. After a series of agreements, the Russian government of Russia agreed to hold negotiations in the largest Chinese settlement on the Amur - Aigun.
In December 1857, Lifanyuan was informed that Nikolai Muravyov had been appointed plenipotentiary representative of Russia. In early May 1858, the military governor of Heilongjiang Yi Shan left for negotiations with him. At the very first meeting, the Russian delegation handed over to the Chinese side the text of the draft treaty. In it, Article 1 provided for the establishment of borders along the Amur River so that the left bank to the mouth belonged to Russia, and the right bank to the river. Ussuri - to China, then along the river. Ussuri to its sources, and from them to the Korean Peninsula. In accordance with article 3, the Qing dynasty subjects had to move to the right bank of the Amur within 3 years. In the course of the subsequent negotiations, the Chinese achieved the status of joint ownership for the Ussuriysk Territory and the permission of Russia for permanent residence with an extraterritorial status for several thousand of their subjects, who remained in the transferred territories east of the mouth of the river. Zeya. On May 16, 1858, the Aigun Treaty was signed, which secured the legal results of the negotiations. Article 1 of the Aygun Treaty established that the left bank of the river. Amur, starting from the river. Argun to the sea mouth of the Amur, will be the possession of Russia, and the right bank, counting downstream, to the river. Ussuri, the possession of the Qing state. The lands from the Ussuri River to the sea, until the borders between the two countries are determined in these places, will be in the common possession of China and Russia. In the Chinese documents, the concepts of "left bank" and "right bank" were absent, which is why it was necessary to clarify the content of this paragraph in the subsequently published comments.
However, soon after it was signed, the May 16 treaty was threatened with unilateral cancellation. The Chinese emperor ratified it, but opponents of Russia's territorial concessions only intensified criticism of the treaty. They believed that Yi Shan violated the emperor's order on "strict observance" of the Treaty of Nerchinsk. In addition, Yi Shan, having agreed to the inclusion in the text of the agreement of the clause of joint ownership in the Ussuri region, exceeded his powers, since this region was administratively part of the Jirin province. As a result of their activities, the clause on the position of the Ussuriysk Territory was disavowed, but for a short time.
Special envoy Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatiev was entrusted with solving the problem of ownership of the Ussuriysk Territory on the part of Russia. During this period, China was defeated by England, France and the United States in the second Opium War of 1856-1860, a fierce peasant war was going on in the country (the Taiping Uprising of 1850-1864). The Qing court fled from the capital of the country, and Prince Gong was left to negotiate with the victors. He turned to the representative of Russia for mediation. Skillfully playing on the contradictions between the British, French and Americans in China, as well as on the fear of the Qing dynasty, Nikolai Ignatiev achieved an armistice and the refusal of the command of the British-French expeditionary force to storm the Chinese capital. Considering the services rendered by the Russian envoy in the matter of settling the war with the Europeans, the Qing agreed to meet the demands for the complete transfer of the Ussuri region to the Russian Empire. The Beijing Treaty was signed on November 2, 1860. He established the final border between China and Russia in the Amur region, Primorye and west of Mongolia.
