The Sino-Soviet border conflict was a seven-month
undeclared military conflict between the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and
China in 1969, following the
Sino-Soviet split
The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the China, People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by Doctrine, doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications ...
. The most serious border clash, which brought the world's two largest communist states to the brink of war, occurred in March 1969 near
Zhenbao (Damansky) Island on the
Ussuri (Wusuli) River, near
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...
. The conflict resulted in a ceasefire, which led to a return to the
status quo.
Background
History
Under the governorship of
Sheng Shicai
Sheng Shicai (; 3 December 189513 July 1970) was a Chinese warlord who ruled Xinjiang from 1933 to 1944. Sheng's rise to power started with a coup d'état in 1933 when he was appointed the ''duban'' or Military Governor of Xinjiang. His rule o ...
(1933–1944) in
Northwest China
Northwest China () is a statistical region of China which includes the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia and the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai. It has an area of 3,107,900 km2.
The region is characterized by a (semi-)arid con ...
's
Xinjiang Province
Xinjiang Province is a historical administrative area of Northwest China, between 1884 and 1955.
Periods during which various boundaries of Xinjiang Province have been defined include:
* Xinjiang Province (Qing) (1884–1912).
* Xinjiang Provi ...
,
China's
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
recognized for the first time the ethnic category of a
Uyghur people
The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghu ...
by following Soviet ethnic policy.
That
ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis (; ) is "the formation and development of an ethnic group".
This can originate by group self-identification or by outside identification.
The term ''ethnogenesis'' was originally a mid-19th century neologism that was later introd ...
of a "national" people eligible for territorialized autonomy broadly benefited the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, which organized conferences in
Fergana
Fergana ( uz, Fargʻona/Фарғона, ), or Ferghana, is a district-level city and the capital of Fergana Region in eastern Uzbekistan. Fergana is about 420 km east of Tashkent, about 75 km west of Andijan, and less than 20 km fr ...
and
Semirechye
Zhetysu, or Jeti-Suu ( kk, , Жетісу, pronounced ; ky, ''Jeti-Suu'', (), meaning "seven rivers"; also transcribed ''Zhetisu'', ''Jetisuw'', ''Jetysu'', ''Jeti-su'', ''Jity-su'', ''Жетысу'',, United States National Geospatial-I ...
(in
Soviet Central Asia
Soviet Central Asia (russian: link=no, Советская Средняя Азия, Sovetskaya Srednyaya Aziya) was the part of Central Asia administered by the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1991, when the Central Asian republics declared ind ...
) to cause "revolution" in
Altishahr
Altishahr (, , ; romanized: ''Altä-şähär'' or ''Alti-şähär''), also known as Kashgaria, is a historical name for the Tarim Basin region used in the 18th and 19th centuries. The term means 'Six Cities' in Turkic languages, referring to oasis ...
(southern Xinjiang) and
Dzungaria
Dzungaria (; from the Mongolian words , meaning 'left hand') is a geographical subregion in Northwest China that corresponds to the northern half of Xinjiang. It is thus also known as Beijiang, which means "Northern Xinjiang". Bounded by the ...
(northern Xinjiang).
Both the Soviet Union and the
White Movement covertly allied with the
Ili National Army
The East Turkistan National Army, also known as the Ili National Army (), was the army of the East Turkestan Republic (ETR) that originally consisted of six regiments: the Suidun Infantry Regiment, the Ghulja Regiment, the Kensai Regiment, the ...
to fight the Kuomintang in the
Three Districts Revolution
The Ili Rebellion () (Üch Wiläyt inqilawi) was a Uyghur separatist movement backed by the Soviet Union against the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China in 1944. After the start of the rebellion, the rebels established the Provisio ...
. Although the mostly-Muslim Uyghur rebels participated in
pogroms against
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...
generally, the turmoil eventually resulted in the replacement of Kuomintang rule in Xinjiang with that of the
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
.
Soviet historiography
Soviet historiography is the methodology of history studies by historians in the Soviet Union (USSR). In the USSR, the study of history was marked by restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Soviet historiography i ...
, more specifically "Uyghur Studies," was increasingly politicized to match the tension of the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s and 1970s. One Soviet
Turkologist
Turkology (or Turcology or Turkic studies) is a complex of humanities sciences studying languages, history, literature, folklore, culture, and ethnology of people speaking Turkic languages and Turkic peoples in chronological and comparative con ...
, Tursun Rakhminov, who worked for the
Soviet Communist Party
"Hymn of the Bolshevik Party"
, headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow
, general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last)
, founded =
, banned =
, founder = Vladimir Lenin
, newspaper ...
, argued that the modern Uyghurs had founded the ancient
Toquz Oghuz Country (744–840), the
Kara-Khanid Khanate
The Kara-Khanid Khanate (; ), also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids (), was a Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia in the 9th through the early 13th century. The dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek K ...
(840–1212), and so forth. The premodern states' wars against Chinese dynasties were cast as struggles for national liberation by the Uyghur ethnic group. Soviet historiography was not consistent on such questions. When Sino-Soviet relations were warmer, for example, the Three Districts Revolution was portrayed by Soviet historians as part of opposition to the Kuomintang during the
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...
, not an anti-Chinese bid for national liberation. The Soviets also encouraged migration of Uyghurs to its territory in
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
, along the 4,380 km (2,738 mi) border. In May 1962, 60,000 Uyghurs from Xinjiang Province crossed the frontier into the Soviet Union to flee the famine and economic chaos of the
Great Leap Forward.
Amid heightening tensions, the Soviet Union and China began border talks. Although the Soviet Union had granted all of the territory of the Japanese puppet state of
Manchukuo to the Chinese Communists in 1945, which decisively assisted them during the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese now indirectly demanded territorial concessions on the basis that the 19th-century treaties transferring ownership of the sparsely-populated
Outer Manchuria
Outer Manchuria (russian: Приаму́рье, translit=Priamurye; zh, s=外满洲, t=外滿洲, p=Wài Mǎnzhōu), or Outer Northeast China ( zh, s=外东北, t=外東北, p=Wài Dōngběi), refers to a territory in Northeast Asia that is now ...
, concluded by
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...
China and the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, were "
Unequal Treaties
Unequal treaty is the name given by the Chinese to a series of treaties signed during the 19th and early 20th centuries, between China (mostly referring to the Qing dynasty) and various Western powers (specifically the British Empire, France, the ...
" and amounted to the annexation of rightful Chinese territory. Moscow would not accept that interpretation, but by 1964 the two sides had reached a preliminary agreement on the eastern section of the border, including Zhenbao Island, which would be handed over to China.
[Wang, Zhen 王楨. Huángpái dàfàngsòng 皇牌大放送, "Duóbǎo bīngyuán——ZhōngSū Zhēnbǎo dǎo chōngtú 45 zhōunián jì" 奪寶冰原——中蘇珍寶島衝突45周年記 ighting for the treasure on icefield—Sino-Soviet Zhenbao Island conflict 45th anniversary Aired 5 April 2014 on Phoenix Television. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtzIuc5FIMk ]
In July 1964,
CCP Chairman Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
, in a meeting with the
Japanese Socialist Party
The was a socialist and progressive political party in Japan that existed from 1945 to 1996. The party was founded as the Social Democratic Party of Japan by members of several proletarian parties that existed before World War II, including ...
delegation, stated that Russia had unilaterally incorporated vast territories in Siberia and the Far East as far as
Kamchatka
The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and west ...
. He stated that China and Russia still had not resolved this issue. The comments were leaked to the public. Outraged, Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
refused to approve the border agreement.
Geography
The border dispute in the west centered on of Soviet-controlled land in the
Pamirs
The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the world ...
that lay on the border of Xinjiang and the Soviet Republic of
Tajikistan
Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
. In 1892, the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
and the
Qing Dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...
had agreed that the border would consist of the ridge of the
Sarikol Range, but the exact border remained contentious throughout the 20th century. In the 1960s, the Chinese began to insist for the Soviet Union to evacuate the region.
From around 1900, after the
Treaty of Peking
The Convention of Peking or First Convention of Peking is an agreement comprising three distinct treaties concluded between the Qing dynasty of China and Great Britain, France, and the Russian Empire in 1860. In China, they are regarded as amon ...
(1860) had assigned
Outer Manchuria
Outer Manchuria (russian: Приаму́рье, translit=Priamurye; zh, s=外满洲, t=外滿洲, p=Wài Mǎnzhōu), or Outer Northeast China ( zh, s=外东北, t=外東北, p=Wài Dōngběi), refers to a territory in Northeast Asia that is now ...
(
Primorskiy Kray) to Russia, the eastern part of the Sino-Soviet border had mainly been demarcated by three rivers, the
Argun River from the tripartite junction with Mongolia to the north tip of China, running southwest to northeast, then the
Amur River to
Khabarovsk from northwest to southeast, where it was joined by Ussuri River running south to north.
"The modern method (used for the past 200 years) of demarcating a river boundary between states today is to set the boundary at either the median line (''ligne médiane'') of the river or around the area most suitable for navigation under what is known as the 'thalweg
In geography and fluvial geomorphology, a thalweg or talweg () is the line of lowest elevation within a valley or watercourse.
Under international law, a thalweg is the middle of the primary navigable channel of a waterway that defines the boun ...
principle'".
There is nothing in either the 1858 or 1860 treaty to suggest the border is anywhere other than the thalweg. In 1861, at a meeting to further define the border, Petr Kazakevich, chief Russian boundary commissioner, persuaded or coerced his Chinese opposite to accept and sign a small-scale map (less than 1:1,000,000) that he presented as giving expression to the terms of the Treaty of Peking: it did no such thing. Where that treaty had left the Amur and Ussuri as boundary rivers and therefore as shared international waterways, Kazakevich's map made them exclusively Russian by marking the international boundary along the Chinese banks. He went even further. The text of the Treaty of Peking explicitly runs the boundary through the Amur/Ussuri confluence, but the line on Kazakevich's map takes a different route at that point. The rivers draw together at an oblique angle, creating a delta of land between them; but some thirty miles short of the point where their main currents merge, a minor channel connects the rivers, cartographically making an island of the land between the rivers. Kazakevich drew his boundary along this channel, thus making inland waterways of the river stretches between the mouths of the channel and the confluence Russian, and making the inter-connecting channel itself a boundary feature. Kazakevich's grateful government named the channel after him (the Chinese call it the Fuyuan Channel). The notional island thus created what the Russians call Great Ussuri, the Chinese Heixiazi, the word signifying a bear, so henceforth, “Bear Island.” In due course, the Russians began depicting Kazakevich's version of the boundary on their maps, and over the years, authoritative European cartographers came to follow suit. From the early 1920s, Bear Island was occupied by Soviet citizens, coming with time to be regarded as an offshore development of Khabarovsk.
China claimed the islands, as they were on the Chinese side of the river if they were demarcated according to international law by using shipping lanes. The Soviets wanted and had already effectively controlled almost every island along the rivers.
Russia, and subsequently the Soviet Union claimed all the islands in both rivers including those that were Chinese according to the thalweg principle. In the 1991 treaty, Russia largely conceded that these islands were Chinese, but Bolshoy Ussuriysky (Большой Уссурийский) Island at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers had become part of the Russian city of Khabarovsk/Хабаровск and China agreed that about 2/3 of this island should remain Russian.
Chinese and Soviet governments' views
The Soviets had possessed nuclear weapons for a longer time than the Chinese had, and so the Chinese adopted an
asymmetric deterrence strategy that threatened a large conventional
People's war
People's war ( Chinese: 人民战争), also called protracted people's war, is a Maoist military strategy. First developed by the Chinese communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong (1893–1976), the basic concept behind people's war is to main ...
in response to a Soviet counterforce nuclear
first strike. Chinese numerical superiority was the basis of its strategy to deter a Soviet nuclear attack. Since 1949, Chinese strategy, as articulated by Mao, emphasized the superiority of "man over weapons". Although weapons were certainly an important component of warfare, Mao argued that they were "not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale". To Mao "non-material" factors like "creativity, flexibility and high morale" were also "critical determinants in warfare'.
The Soviets were not confident that they could win such a conflict. A large Chinese incursion could threaten strategic centers in
Blagoveshchensk
Blagoveshchensk ( rus, Благове́щенск, p=bləgɐˈvʲeɕːɪnsk, meaning ''City of the Annunciation'') is a city and the administrative center of Amur Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of the Amur and the Zeya Rivers, o ...
,
Vladivostok
Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, c ...
, and
Khabarovsk as well as crucial nodes of the
Trans-Siberian Railroad
The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the eas ...
. According to
Arkady Shevchenko
Arkady Nikolayevich Shevchenko ( uk, Аркадій Миколайович Шевченко, russian: Аркадий Николаевич Шевченко; October 11, 1930 – February 28, 1998) was a Soviet diplomat who was the highest-ran ...
, a high-ranking Soviet defector to the United States, "The
Politburo was terrified that the Chinese might make a mass intrusion into Soviet territory". A nightmare vision of invasion by millions of Chinese made the Soviet leaders almost frantic: "Despite our overwhelming superiority in weaponry, it would not be easy for the USSR to cope with an assault of this magnitude". China's "vast population and deep knowledge and experience in
guerrilla warfare" made the Soviets' launching of an attack on China's nuclear program nearly certain to end in both states being "mired in an endless war".
Concerns about Chinese manpower and its "People's War" strategy ran so deep that some bureaucrats in Moscow argued the only way to defend against a massive conventional onslaught was to use nuclear weapons. Some even advocated deploying nuclear mines along the Sino-Soviet border. By threatening to initiate a prolonged conventional conflict in retaliation for a nuclear strike, Beijing used an asymmetric deterrence strategy that was intended to convince Moscow that the costs of an attack would outweigh the benefits.
China had found its strategic rationale. While most Soviet military specialists did not fear a Chinese nuclear reprisal and believed that China's arsenal was too small, rudimentary and vulnerable to survive a first strike and to carry out a retaliatory attack, China's massive conventional army caused great concern.
Nikolai Ogarkov
Nikolai Vasilyevich Ogarkov (russian: Николай Васильевич Огарков; 30 October 1917 – 23 January 1994) was a prominent Soviet military personality. He was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1977. Between 1977 and 1 ...
, a senior Soviet military officer, believed that a massive nuclear attack "would inevitably mean world war". Even a limited counterforce strike on China's nuclear facilities was dangerous, Ogarkov argued, because a few nuclear weapons would "hardly annihilate" a country the size of China, which, in response, would "fight unrelentingly".
Eastern border: Heilongjiang (1969)
The Soviet Border Service started to report an intensifying Chinese military activity in the region in the early 1960s. Tensions at first built slowly, but the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
made them rise much faster. The number of troops on both sides of the Sino-Soviet border increased dramatically after 1964. Militarily, in 1961, the Soviets had 225,000 men and 200 aircraft at that border. In 1968, there were 375,000 men, 1,200 aircraft and 120 medium-range missiles. China had 1.5 million men stationed at the border and had tested its first nuclear weapon (
the 596 Test in October 1964, at
Lop Nur basin). Both sides' political rhetoric was increasingly hostile.
The key moment in escalating Sino-Soviet tensions was the
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...
on 20–21 August 1968 and the proclamation of the
Brezhnev Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet foreign policy that proclaimed any threat to socialist rule in any state of the Soviet Bloc in Central and Eastern Europe was a threat to them all, and therefore justified the intervention of fellow socialist st ...
that the Soviets had the right to overthrow any communist government that was diverging from what was defined by the Kremlin. Mao saw the Brezhnev Doctrine as the ideological justification for a Soviet invasion of China to overthrow him and launched a massive propaganda campaign attacking the invasion of Czechoslovakia, although he had condemned the
Prague Spring as "revisionism". On 21 August 1968, the Romanian leader
Nicolae Ceaușescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu ( , ; – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He ...
gave a
speech in Revolution Square in
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
that denounced the invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was widely seen both in Romania and abroad as virtual declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. Romania started to move away from being in the Soviet
sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity.
While there may be a formal a ...
to the Chinese sphere of influence.
Speaking at a banquet held at the Romanian embassy in Beijing on 23 August 1968,
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Ma ...
denounced the Soviet Union for "fascist politics, great power chauvinism, national egoism and social imperialism". He went on to compare the invasion of Czechoslovakia to the Americans in the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
and more pointedly to the policies of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
towards Czechoslovakia in 1938 to 1939. Zhou ended his speech with a barely veiled-call for the people of Czechoslovakia to wage
guerrilla war
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics ...
against the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
.
The Chinese historian Li Danhui wrote, "Already in 1968, China began preparations to create a small war on the border". She noted that prior to March 1969, the Chinese troops had twice attempted to provoke a clash along the border, "but the Soviets, feeling weak, did not accept the Chinese challenge and retreated". Another Chinese historian, Yang Kuisong, wrote, "There were already significant preparations in 1968, but the Russians did not come, so the planned ambush was not successful".
Battle of Zhenbao (Damansky) Island
![Sino-Soviet border conflict May 1969](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict_May_1969.jpg)
On 2 March 1969, a group of
People's Liberation Army troops ambushed Soviet border guards on Zhenbao Island. According to Chinese sources, the Soviets suffered 58 dead, including a senior colonel, and 94 wounded. The Chinese losses were reported as 29 dead.
["Zhēnbǎo dǎo zìwèi fǎnjí zhàn de qíngkuàng jièshào" 珍宝岛自卫反击战的情况介绍, ''Zhànbèi jiàoyù cáiliào'' 战备教育材料, p. 3–5, 7–9.] According to Soviet (and now Russian) sources, at least 248 Chinese troops were killed on the island and on the frozen river, and 32 Soviet border guards were killed, with 14 wounded.
Both sides have since blamed the other for the start of the conflict. However, a scholarly consensus has emerged that the border crisis had been a premeditated act of aggression orchestrated by the Chinese side. The American scholar Lyle J. Goldstein noted that Russian documents released since the ''
glasnost'' era paint an unflattering picture of the Red Army command in the Far East with senior generals surprised by the outbreak of the fighting and of Red Army units haphazardly committed to action in a piecemeal style, but all of the documents speak of the Chinese as the aggressors. Even most Chinese historians now agree that on 2 March 1969, Chinese forces planned and executed an ambush, which took the Soviets completely by surprise. The reasons for the Chinese leadership to opt for such an offensive measure against the Soviets remains a disputed question.
The Chinese claim a different version of the conflict. The Cultural Revolution increased tensions between China and the Soviets, which led to brawls between border patrols. On 27 December 1968, several Soviet armored vehicles landed on Zhenbao Island, and Soviet soldiers used sticks to beat Chinese soldiers. On 23 January 1969, another violent conflict occurred on the island, and 28 Chinese soldiers were reportedly wounded. From 6 to 25 February 1969, five more similar incidents occurred, and shooting broke out in March 1969. According to the Chinese version of events, at 8:40 a.m. on the 2 March 1969, 30 Chinese border patrol personnel split into two groups approached the island and were met by about 70 Soviet soldiers along one truck and reinforced with two armoured vehicles attempting to encircle the Chinese patrol. The Chinese claim the Soviets to have opened fire at 9:17. The Soviets responded with tanks,
armoured personnel carriers
An armoured personnel carrier (APC) is a broad type of armoured military vehicle designed to transport personnel and equipment in combat zones. Since World War I, APCs have become a very common piece of military equipment around the world.
Acc ...
(APCs), and artillery bombardment. Over three days, the PLA successfully halted Soviet penetration and eventually evicted all Soviet troops from Zhenbao Island. During the skirmish, the Chinese deployed two reinforced infantry platoons with artillery support. Chinese sources state the Soviets deployed some 60 soldiers and six
BTR-60
The BTR-60 is the first vehicle in a series of Soviet eight-wheeled armoured personnel carriers (APCs). It was developed in the late 1950s as a replacement for the BTR-152 and was seen in public for the first time in 1961. BTR stands for ''Brone ...
amphibious APCs, and in a second attack, some 100 troops backed up by 10 tanks and 14 APCs including artillery.
The PLA had prepared for that confrontation for two to three months.
From among the units, the Chinese selected 900 soldiers commanded by army staff members with combat experience. They were provided with special training and special equipment and were secretly dispatched to take position on Zhenbao Island in advance.
[ Kuisong, pp. 28–29] Chinese General
Chen Xilian
Chen Xilian (pronounced ; 4 January 1915 – 10 June 1999) was a Chinese military officer and politician, general of the People's Liberation Army. A prominent Mao Zedong, Maoist, he held very important positions in both military and political sph ...
stated the Chinese had won a clear victory on the battlefield.
By the end of the day, , Soviet General Oleg Losik ordered to deploy then-secret
BM-21 "Grad" multiple rocket launchers. The Soviets fired 10,000 artillery rounds in a nine-hour engagement with the Chinese along with 36 sorties.
The attack was devastating for the Chinese troops and materials. Chinese troops left their positions on the island, and the Soviets withdrew to their positions on the Russian bank of the Ussuri River.
On 16 March 1969, the Soviets entered the island to collect their dead. The Chinese held their fire. On 17 March 1969, the Soviets tried to recover a disabled T-62 tank
The T-62 is a Soviet main battle tank that was first introduced in 1961. As a further development of the T-55 series, the T-62 retained many similar design elements of its predecessor including low profile and thick turret armour. In contras ...
from the island, but their effort was repelled by Chinese artillery.
On 21 March, the Soviets sent a demolition team attempting to destroy the tank. The Chinese opened fire and thwarted the Soviets. With the help of divers of the Chinese navy
The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN; ), also known as the People's Navy, Chinese Navy, or PLA Navy, is the maritime service branch of the People's Liberation Army.
The PLAN traces its lineage to naval units fighting during the Chine ...
, the PLA pulled the T-62 tank onshore. The tank was later given to the Chinese Military Museum.
Until 1991, the island remained contested.
Soviet combat heroes
Five Soviet soldiers were awarded the top honour of Hero of the Soviet Union
The title Hero of the Soviet Union (russian: Герой Советского Союза, translit=Geroy Sovietskogo Soyuza) was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for ...
for bravery and valor during the Damansky conflict. Colonel Demokrat Leonov led the group of four T-62 tanks in a counterattack on 15 March and was killed by a Chinese sniper when he was leaving the destroyed vehicle. Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov tried to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal of the Chinese commandos from the island and was killed for his troubles while he was talking to the enemy.
Senior Lieutenant Vitaly Bubenin led a relief mission of 23 soldiers from the nearby border guards outpost and conducted a BTR-60 raid into the Chinese rear that allegedly left 248 attackers dead. Junior sergeant Yuri Babansky assumed command in a battle on 2 March, when the enemy had a 10-1 superiority, and when Senior Lieutenant Strelnikov was killed. Babansky later led combat search-and-rescue teams, which retrieved the bodies of Strelnikov and Leonov. Junior Sergeant Vladimir Orekhov took part in the 15 March battle. As a machine gunner, he was part of the first attacking line against the Chinese forces encamped on the island. He destroyed the enemy machine gun nest and was wounded twice, but he continued to fight until he died of his wounds. High military orders of Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
, the Red Banner
Red Banner (russian: Красное знамя) was a symbol of revolutionary struggle used late Russian Empire, in Soviet Russia, and in the USSR and the background of the Soviet state flag and other similar flags.
Military units, ins ...
, the Red Star and Glory were awarded to 54 soldiers and officers, and the medals "For Courage" and "For Battle Merit" to 94 border guards and servicemen.
Diplomacy
On 17 March 1969, an emergency meeting of the Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist repub ...
was called in Budapest by Brezhnev with the aim of condemning China. The meeting turned acrimonious as Romania's Nicolae Ceaușescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu ( , ; – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He ...
refused, despite considerable Soviet pressure, to sign the statement condemning China. Ceaușescu's intransigence led to no statement being issued, which was widely seen as a Soviet diplomatic defeat. The next day, a meeting of the delegations representing 66 communist parties in Moscow discussed the preparations for a world summit in Moscow on 5 June 1969. A Soviet motion to condemn China failed, with the delegations representing the communist parties of Romania, India, Spain, Switzerland and Austria all supporting the Chinese position that it was the Soviet Union that attacked China, rather than vice versa.
On 21 March 1969, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin
Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin ( rus, Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ kɐˈsɨɡʲɪn; – 18 December 1980) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Premi ...
tried to phone Mao with the aim of discussing a ceasefire. The Chinese operator who took Kosygin's call rather rudely called him a "revisionist element" and hung up. Zhou, who wanted to take up Kosygin's ceasefire offer, was shocked by what he regarded as Mao's recklessness: "The two countries are at war, one cannot chop the messenger." Diplomats from the Soviet embassy in Beijing spent much of 22 March in vain trying to get hold of Mao's private phone number so that Kosygin could call him to discuss peace. On 22 March 1969, Mao had a meeting with the four marshals who commanded the Chinese troops in the border regions with the Soviet Union to begin preparations for a possible all-out war. Zhou repeatedly urged Mao to discuss a ceasefire but agreed with Mao's refusal to take phone calls from Kosygin. In an effort to placate Zhou, Mao told him, "Immediately prepare to hold diplomatic negotiations".
Between 1 and 24 April 1969, the 9th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party took place, and Mao officially proclaimed the end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
, which he had begun in May 1966. Despite the official end of the Cultural Revolution, the Congress elected to key positions followers of the ultraleftist factions associated with Mao's powerful wife, Jiang Qing
Jiang Qing (19 March 191414 May 1991), also known as Madame Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary, actress, and major political figure during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). She was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of ...
and Defense Minister Lin Biao
)
, serviceyears = 1925–1971
, branch = People's Liberation Army
, rank = Marshal of the People's Republic of China Lieutenant general of the National Revolutionary Army, Republic of China
, commands ...
. Both Jiang and Lin favored a hard line towards the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, Mao had ordered preparations for a "defense in depth" along the border because real fears had arisen of the border crisis escalating into all-out war. On 1 May 1969, in a bid to repair China's image abroad, which had been badly damaged by the Cultural Revolution, Mao invited diplomats from several Third World nations to attend the May Day celebrations in Beijing. To the assembled diplomats, Mao formally apologized for the attacks by the Red Guards against diplomats in China and the smashing up of the embassies in Beijing in 1967. Mao claimed not to be aware of the fact that the xenophobic
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
Red Guard had been beating up and sometimes killing foreigners living in China during the Cultural Revolution. Also, Mao announced that for the first time since the Cultural Revolution, he would send out ambassadors to represent China abroad (most Chinese ambassadors had been recalled and executed during the Cultural Revolution with no replacements being sent out). By then, Mao had felt that China's isolation caused by the Cultural Revolution had become a problem with China on the brink of a war with the Soviet Union.
On 5 May 1969, Kosygin traveled to India, which was strongly against China since it had won the 1962 war, to discuss with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on a Soviet-Indian alliance against China. Between 14 and 19 May 1969, Nikolai Podgorny
Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny, ''Mykola Viktorovych Pidhornyy'' rus, Никола́й Ви́кторович Подго́рный, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ˈvʲiktərəvʲɪtɕ pɐdˈgornɨj, links=yes ( – 12 January 1983) was a Soviet statesman who ...
visited North Korea to try to pull Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung (; , ; born Kim Song-ju, ; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of ...
away from the Chinese orbit. Kim declined to move away from China, and, in a show of support for Mao, North Korea sent no delegation to the world conference of communist parties held in Moscow in June 1969.
On 17 June 1969, US Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield
Michael Joseph Mansfield (March 16, 1903 – October 5, 2001) was an American politician and diplomat. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. representative (1943–1953) and a U.S. senator (1953–1977) from Montana. He was the longest-serving Sen ...
, who had long been an advocate of normalizing American relations with China, wrote a letter, in consultation with the White House, to urge that he be allowed to visit China and to meet with Mao to discuss measures to improve Sino-American relations. The letter was sent to King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...
with the request to pass it on to Mao, and by 26 July 1969, Mansfield's letter had arrived in Beijing. The Chinese reply was harsh, with Zhou giving a speech accusing the US of "aggression" in Vietnam and of "occupation" of Taiwan, which Zhou asserted was rightfully a part of China. On 1 August 1969, US President Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
visited Pakistan, a close ally of China since both were anti-Indian, to ask General Yahya Khan
General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan , (Urdu: ; 4 February 1917 – 10 August 1980); commonly known as Yahya Khan, was a Pakistani military general who served as the third President of Pakistan and Chief Martial Law Administrator following his p ...
to pass a message to Mao that he wanted to normalize relations with China, especially because of the crisis with the Soviet Union.
On 2–3 August 1969, Nixon visited Romania to meet with Ceaușescu and ask him to pass along the same message to Mao. Ceaușescu agreed to do so, and on 7 September 1969, Romanian Prime Minister Ion Gheorghe Maurer
Ion Gheorghe Iosif Maurer (23 September 1902 – 8 February 2000) was a Romanian communist politician and lawyer, and the 49th Prime Minister of Romania. He is the longest serving Prime Minister in the history of Romania (having served for ...
, who was in Hanoi
Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...
to attend the funeral of Ho Chi Minh
(: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as (' Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as P ...
, took Zhou aside to tell him that Nixon wanted an opening to China.
Western border: Xinjiang (1969)
Further border clashes occurred in August 1969, which is now along the western section of the Sino-Soviet border in Xinjiang. After the Tasiti and the Bacha Dao Incidents, the Tielieketi Incident finally broke out. Chinese troops suffered 28 losses. The heightened tensions raised the prospect of an all-out nuclear exchange between China and the Soviet Union.[ Kuisong]
Ho Chi Minh's funeral
The decisive event that stopped the crisis from escalating into all-out war was the death of Ho Chi Minh
(: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as (' Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as P ...
on 2 September 1969. His funeral was attended by both Zhou and Kosygin, albeit at different times. Zhou flew out of Hanoi to avoid being in the same room as Kosygin. The possibility of North Vietnam's leading supporters going to war with each other alarmed the North Vietnamese. During the funeral, messages were exchanged between the Soviets and the Chinese via the North Vietnamese. Meanwhile, Nixon's message via Maurer had reached the Chinese, and it was decided in Beijing to "whet the appetite of the Americans" by making China appear stronger.
Zhou argued that a war with the Soviets would weaken China's hand towards the United States. The Chinese were more interested in the possibility of a rapprochement with the United States as a way of acquiring Taiwan than in having the United States as an ally against the Soviet Union. After Kosygin had attended Ho's funeral, the airplane taking him back to Moscow was denied permission to use Chinese air space, forcing it to land for refuelling in Calcutta. In India, Kosygin received the message via the Indian government that the Chinese were willing to discuss peace, which caused him to fly back to Beijing instead.
Assessment
State of near war
In the early 1960s, the United States had "probed" the level of Soviet interest in joint action against Chinese nuclear weapons facilities; now the Soviets probed what the US reaction would be if the Soviets attacked the facilities.[Burr, William.]
The Sino-Soviet Border Conflict, 1969
" National Security Archive, 12 June 2001. Noting that "neither side wishes the inflamed border situation to get out of hand", the Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
in August 1969 described the conflict as having "explosive potential" in the President's Daily Briefing
The President's Daily Brief (PDB), sometimes referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top-secret document produced and given each morning to the president of the United States; it is also distributed ...
. The agency stated that "the potential for a war between them clearly exists", including a Soviet attack on Chinese nuclear facilities, and China "appears to view the USSR as its most immediate enemy".
As war fever gripped China, Moscow and Beijing took steps to lower the danger of a large-scale conflict. On 11 September 1969, Kosygin, on his way back from the funeral of Ho Chi Minh, stopped over in Beijing for talks with his Chinese counterpart, Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Ma ...
. Symbolic of the frosty relations between the two communist countries, the talks were held at Beijing Airport. Both agreed to return ambassadors who had been recalled and to begin border negotiations. On September 23 and 29 of 1969, China conducted two unannounced nuclear weapons tests, with the second one a 3 Mt thermo-nuclear device, to verify its nuclear strike capacity.
Possible reasons for attack
The view on the reasoning and consequences of the conflict differ. Western historians believe the events at Zhenbao Island and the subsequent border clashes in Xinjiang were caused mainly by Mao's use of Chinese local military superiority to satisfy domestic political imperatives in 1969. Yang Kuisong concludes that "the ino-Sovietmilitary clashes were primarily the result of Mao Zedong's domestic mobilization strategies, connected to his worries about the development of the Cultural Revolution."
Russian historians point out that the consequences of the conflict stem directly from a Chinese desire to take a leading role in the world and to strengthen ties with the US. According to the 2004 Russian documentary film, ''Damansky Island Year 1969
Zhenbao Island () or Damansky Island (russian: о́стров Дама́нский, ''ostrov Damanskiy'') is an island with an area of only . It is on the Ussuri River on the border between Primorsky Krai, Russia, and Heilongjiang Province, Ch ...
'', Mao sought to elevate his country from the world's periphery and to place it at the centre of world politics. Other analysts say the Chinese intended their attack on Zhenbao to deter future Soviet invasions by demonstrating that China could not be "bullied".
Aftermath
Seen against the background of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between Brezhnev and Nixon, the Damansky incident could serve the double purpose of undermining the Soviet image of a peaceloving country if the Soviets chose to respond by a massive military operation against the invaders. If they demonstrated Soviet weakness, the Chinese attack could have been left without response. The killing of Soviet servicemen on the border signaled to the US that China had graduated into high politics and was ready to talk.
After the conflict, the US showed interest in strengthening ties with the Chinese government by secretly sending Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
to China for a meeting with Zhou in 1971, during the so-called Ping Pong Diplomacy. That paved the way for Nixon to visit China and meet with Mao Zedong in 1972.
Sino-Soviet relations
SinoSoviet relations (; russian: Советско-китайские отношения, ''Sovetsko-kitayskiye otnosheniya''), or China–Soviet Union relations, refers to the diplomatic relationship between China (both the Chinese Republic of 19 ...
remained sour after the conflict, despite the border talks, which began in 1969 and continued inconclusively for a decade. Domestically, the threat of war caused by the border clashes inaugurated a new stage in the Cultural Revolution: China's thorough militarization. The 9th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party
9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding .
Evolution of the Arabic digit
In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra a ...
, held in the aftermath of the Zhenbao incident, confirmed Defense Minister Lin Biao
)
, serviceyears = 1925–1971
, branch = People's Liberation Army
, rank = Marshal of the People's Republic of China Lieutenant general of the National Revolutionary Army, Republic of China
, commands ...
as Mao's heir apparent
An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...
. Following the events of 1969, the Soviets further increased their forces along the Sino-Soviet border and in the Mongolian People's Republic
The Mongolian People's Republic ( mn, Бүгд Найрамдах Монгол Ард Улс, БНМАУ; , ''BNMAU''; ) was a socialist state which existed from 1924 to 1992, located in the historical region of Outer Mongolia in East Asia. It w ...
.
Overall, the Sino-Soviet confrontation, which reached its peak in 1969, paved the way to a profound transformation in the international political system.
Border negotiations: 1990s–2000s
Serious border demarcation negotiations did not occur until shortly before the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. In particular, both sides agreed that Zhenbao belonged to China. (Both sides claimed the island to be under their control at the time of the agreement.) On 17 October 1995, an agreement over the last stretch of the border was reached, but the question of control over three islands in the Amur and Argun rivers was left to be settled later.
In a border agreement between Russia and China signed on 14 October 2003, the final dispute was resolved. China was granted control over Tarabarov Island (Yinlong Island), Zhenbao Island, and around 50% of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island
Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island (russian: Большо́й Уссури́йский о́стров Bol'shoy Ussuriyskiy Ostrov), or Heixiazi Island (; lit. "black blind island"), is a sedimentary island at the confluence of the Ussuri and ...
(Heixiazi Island), near Khabarovsk. The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress ratified the agreement for China on 27 April 2005, and the Russian Duma
The State Duma (russian: Госуда́рственная ду́ма, r=Gosudárstvennaja dúma), commonly abbreviated in Russian as Gosduma ( rus, Госду́ма), is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, while the upper house ...
followed suit on 20 May. On 2 June, foreign Minister of China, Li Zhaoxing
Li Zhaoxing (; born 20 October 1940 in Jiaonan, Qingdao, Shandong) is a Chinese diplomat and politician. He served as the Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China from 2003 to 2007.
He graduated from Peking University in 1964. He ...
and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, exchanged the ratification documents from their respective governments.
On 21 July 2008, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi
Yang Jiechi (; born 1 May 1950) is a high-ranking Chinese politician and diplomat, who served as a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party between 2017 and 2022.
Yang spent much of his professional life in the United States, wh ...
and his Russian counterpart, Lavrov, signed an additional Sino-Russian Border Line Agreement, marking the acceptance of the demarcation of the eastern portion of the Chinese-Russian border in Beijing, China. An additional protocol with a map affiliated on the eastern part of the borders both countries share was signed. The agreement also includes the Chinese gain of ownership of Yinlong / Tarabarov Island and half of Heixiazi / Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island.
In the 21st century, the Chinese Communist Party's version of the conflict, which is present on many official websites, describes the events of March 1969 as a Soviet aggression against China.
In popular culture
*The map-based war game "The East is Red: the Sino-Soviet War" (based on a hypothetical war using publicly-known orders of battle on either side) was published with an accompanying article in issue No. 42 of '' Strategy and Tactics'' magazine by Simulations Publications, Inc. in 1974.
*'' Wargame: Red Dragon'' features a hypothetical war between both powers based on the border conflict.
*'' Graviteam Tactics: Operation Star'' features a general depiction of the combat in its DLC Zhalanaskol 1969.Graviteam Tactics: Zhalanashkol 1969 on Steam
. Store.steampowered.com (24 July 2014). Retrieved on 2019-02-03.
*The 1971 post-apocalyptic film ''
The Omega Man
''The Omega Man'' (stylized as ''The Ωmega Man'') is a 1971 American post-apocalyptic action film directed by Boris Sagal and starring Charlton Heston as a survivor of a pandemic. It was written by John William Corrington and Joyce Corrington, b ...
'' is set in a world following a border conflict that involves both powers using
biological warfare
Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi with the intent to kill, harm or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. ...
, which cause a
pandemic.
*Andrei Tarkovsky's film, ''
Mirror
A mirror or looking glass is an object that reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the direction of the im ...
'' (1975), includes actual footage of unrest from the Sino-Soviet border conflict setting.
*The 2006 zombie apocalypse novel ''
World War Z
''World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War'' is a 2006 zombie apocalyptic horror novel written by American author Max Brooks. The novel is broken into eight chapters: “Warnings”, “Blame”, “The Great Panic”, “Turning the Ti ...
'' features a Chinese doctor who served as a combat medic during the Sino-Soviet border conflict serves as a key narrator, being the first responder to
patient zero of the zombie plague in a rural Chinese village.
*The fourth season of the streaming series ''
Stranger Things'', references Damansky. The character Yuri fought and defeated the Chinese at the island.
See also
*
History of the Soviet Union (1964–1982)
The history of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, referred to as the Brezhnev Era, covers the period of Leonid Brezhnev's rule of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This period began with high economic growth and soaring prosperi ...
*
History of the People's Republic of China
The history of the People's Republic of China details the history of mainland China since 1 October 1949, when CCP chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China (PRC) from atop Tiananmen, after a near complete victory (1949) ...
*
Foreign relations of the People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), has full diplomatic relations with 178 out of the other 193 United Nations member states, Cook Islands, Niue and the State of Palestine. Since 2019, China has had the most diplomatic mi ...
*
Soviet invasion of Xinjiang
*
Xinjiang War (1937)
In 1937 an Islamic rebellion broke out in southern Xinjiang. The rebels were 1,500 Uighur Muslims led by Kichik Akhund, who was tacitly aided by the new 36th Division, against the pro-Soviet provincial forces of the puppet Sheng Shicai.
St ...
*
Pei-ta-shan Incident
The Battle of Baitag Bogd Mountain ( mn, Байтаг богдын тулгарал, translit=Baitag bogdyn tulgaral) or Beitashan Incident (; alternatively ''Baitak Bogdo incident'') was a border conflict between China, Mongolia, and the Sovie ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* Olgin, Vladimir.
On the Soviet-Chinese Border: Questions and Answers'. Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1978.
*Ryabushkin and Orenstein, ''The Sino-Soviet Border War of 1969 Volume 2: Confrontation at Lake Zhalanashkol August 1969,''
Helion & Co., 2021.
External links
Damansky Island Incident Part 1 (English Subtitles)YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
Map showing some of the disputed areasSino-Soviet Border Conflict, 1969The Sino-Soviet Border Conflict: Deterrence, Escalation, and the Threat of Nuclear War in 1969New Documents on the Sino-Soviet Ussuri Border Clashes of 1969
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sino-Soviet Border Conflict
Conflicts in 1969
1969 in China
1969 in the Soviet Union
China–Soviet Union relations
Cold War military history of the Soviet Union
Cold War military history of China
Military history of Manchuria
History of the Russian Far East
Wars involving the People's Republic of China
Wars involving the Soviet Union
Territorial disputes of China
Territorial disputes of the Soviet Union
China–Soviet Union border
China–Russia border