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China Sets Border of Cooperation with Russia
// Ratification
The Chinese parliament ratified yesterday an additional agreement between Russia and China on the Eastern part of the Russian-Sino state border, which was earlier ratified by the Russian parliament. Now the parties will have to exchange instruments of ratification. At this point, there will be no more border problems left in the relations between Russia and China.
An additional agreement between Russia and China on the eastern part of their state border defines the border line in the area of the Isle of Bolshoy in the upper reaches of the Argun River (Chita Region) and the territory of the isles of Tarabarov and Bolshoy Ussuriysky in the Amur River. These two strips total less than 2 percent of the whole 4,300 km border. The document was signed on October 14, 2004 during the visit of the Russian president Vladimir Putin to Beijing. It was already clear then that no problems with its ratification by the parliaments of the two countries would arise.
However, the residents of the Russian territories adjacent to those to be handed to China, tried protesting claiming they were losing agricultural lands and meadows. Locals threatened to pitch tents on these territories as a sign of protest. Yet, neither tents, nor rallies were spotted in the islands at the moment of the document’s ratification by the Russian Parliament, held last Wednesday.
Sergey Razov, deputy Foreign Minister (who is soon to take over from Igor Rogachev the Russian ambassadorship to China), spoke at the session of the Federation Council’s External Affairs Committee shortly before this event. He said that the ratification of the additional agreement did not mean either concessions, or the transfer “of Russian territories to China; the matter does not concern any territorial gains of our territories by this country”. “It is important that the Russian-Sino border will not become a seat of tensions,” Mr. Razov continued. “The agreement concludes long-standing negotiations that were launched by the Chinese party in 1964.” He explained that there are no settlements or strategic objects situated in the plots of land that are to be handed to China.
“The lived-in, inhabited part with 15,000 country houses will remain in Russia’s territory, so will a church-chapel and a water-supply point at the Argun River,” Mr. Razov added saying that the document rules out altering the provision on the line of the state border demarcated in the locality as a result of natural changes happening in the territory of the frontier region. He also reported that a joint demarcation commission is to be formed in order to determine at the spot the border line between Russia and China in compliance with the agreement. The commission will aim at the determining the belonging of the island in the frontier-region rivers and preparing draft document on the demarcation of the border and the drawing-up of demarcation maps.
The additional agreement was ratified by the 15th session of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress yesterday. “Our common [with Russia] goal is to make the Russian-Sino border a territory of friendship and cooperation,” Zhang Qiyue, Chinese Foreign ministry spokesman said.
Now the parties will have to exchange instruments of ratification. This is expected to happen soon in Vladivostok where a meeting of Russian, Chinese and Indian Foreign ministers is to take place on June 2.
Andrey Ivanov
All the Article in Russian as of May 30, 2005
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