The Russian-Chinese Borderland in the Late Imperial Period in the Revision of Trade and Economic Relations

Abstract

The article based on the analysis of modern Russian historiography, archival materials, and press information characterizes a number of problems of economic policy in the Russian-Chinese borderland from 1880–1890 until the crisis in relations between the two powers in 1911. The methods of the 19th century were becoming less and less effective as the economy of the Qing Empire was being put on new capitalist “tracks”. Materials of periodicals, documents of personal origin received by governmental chanceries of Russia allow to reveal patterns of social thought of the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, describing the eastern lines of internal and foreign policy. The article outlines the opinions of the involved Russian regional population and the administration on trade and economic relations. The principles of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg and trade rules of 1881 did not stand the test of time. The Russian population in Eastern Turkestan, Mongolia, and later in the alienation zone of the Chinese Eastern Railway faced numerous problems related to property rights, illegal expropriation, barriers to commerce from the residents and the Chinese Qing authorities who saw in Russia a threat to their territory and even to the existence of the Qing dynasty. Foreign invasion into Manchzhuria, the construction of Russian settlements and cities in Chinese land, and then Russia’s defeat in the war with Japan forced the authorities of the two powers to look for new approaches to resolving trade and economic conflicts.