By the mid-twentieth century interna- pose standstill agreements so as to prevent tional practice had established the means clashes in disputed areas.But he warned it and procedure for the legal definition of a would not bow to the use of force by any boundary:the alignment would be agreed in neighbor.The succeeding half-century saw diplomatic negotiations (delimited),marked China implementing the policy laid down out on the ground by a joint commission by Zhou for the most part consistently and (demarcated),and described,verbally and scrupulously and with marked,and now cartographically,in a treaty between two nearly complete,success. states,which thus established and recog- Settlement of the Sino-Soviet bound- nized the limits of their territories. aries was not achieved without armed con- flict.Nineteenth-century treaties had placed Defining China's Boundaries the eastern borders of the Tsarist and Chi- So far as China was concerned when the PRC nese empires on two great continental rivers, was established in 1949,the problem of the the Amur and the Ussuri,and the PRC ac- Sino-Indian frontiers represented a small cepted that the treaties were binding despite but important element in an immense task: the fact that they were "unequal,"that is, negotiating to achieve or confirm bounda- they had been imposed on a China then en- ries with some ten states contiguous with feebled.The dispute sprang from Moscow's China over thousands of miles,often in inac- insistence that the treaties placed the line cessible terrain.Many sectors of that vast pe- of separation where the river waters lapped riphery represented the high-tide marks of the Chinese banks,thus giving the Soviet foreign encroachments on the Chinese em- Union exclusive ownership of the rivers and pire,and the Kuomintang authority just all their islands.Beijing argued that by in- driven offshore to Taiwan had bequeathed ir- ternational law and practice the boundary redentist commitments to the recovery of lay along the thalweg (an imaginary line such "lost lands."The new government in along the deepest part of the main channel), Beijing saw,however,that to pursue that which thus distributed the islands and gave cause would be to provoke intractable quar- the neighbors equal rights of use of the riv- rels with many of its neighbors,especially ers.China's resistance to Soviet force led to the Soviet Union,inheritor of the great far- battles on the frozen rivers in 1969 and to eastern tracts of territory that China had the brink of nuclear war.But in 1987 Mik- been forced to cede to Tsarist Russia in the hail Gorbachev reversed his government's previous century.Recognizing that friend- position and accepted the thalweg principle ship with neighbors would contribute more Negotiations soon began,and by 1997 the to China's well-being than could recovery of heads of state of Russia and China,meeting any territory unwillingly relinquished,the in Beijing,were able to hail their boundary Chinese government decided that it would settlement as"a model for resolving prob- settle its boundaries on the alignments upon lems left over by history"through negotia- which history had left them. tions based upon equality,mutual under- Zhou Enlai,Beijing's first prime minis- standing,and reciprocal concessions. ter and foreign minister,set out his govern- Led by Moscow,the central Asian suc- ment's approach at the 1955 Bandung Con- cessor states to the Soviet Union have nego- ference,which brought together representa- tiated the settlement of China's western tives of 29 African and Asian nations.China, boundaries,and Beijing has sealed boundary he declared,would negotiate to settle its treaties with almost all its other neighbors: boundaries peacefully,would not seek to Burma,Nepal,Pakistan,Afghanistan,Mon- expand the territory under its control,and, golia,Korea,Laos.Negotiations are still in pending negotiated settlement,would pro- train with Bhutan and Vietnam-and in the 112 WORLD POLI Y JOURNAL SUMMER 1999 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.Further reproduction prohibited without permission.Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission