Article
Russian-Chinese Relations
Thе article is dedicated to the Roman legal concept of "empire" and its importance for the development of Russian state. Particular attention is paid to the reasons of conclusions and to the analysis of the content of the first Russian-Chinese Treaty (Treaty of Nerchinsk) of 1689.
The Soviet assistance to the leading political forces in China, including the Guomindang, has been always an object of numerous discussions. Soviet/Russian historians tend to emphasize its major importance for the political development of China, but their Chinese counterparts belittle its significance quite often. Why is it still difficult to evaluate the quantity and the quality of this assistance? What criteria should be used for its objective assessment? These questions are answered in the book by the historian and sinologist Alexander Yurkevich (the National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Moscow). Judging from documents (some of them have never been known) the author shows why and how Moscow’s assistance to the Guomindang in the 1920’s with advisers, finance and material supplies did not become an instrument of the Moscow plans in China, but rather helped the Guomindang undermine these plans and form its own strategy of the unification of China.
This book will help specialists in social history, students and general readers interested in the history of China and Russia learn more about the subject.
1860s The author makes an attempt at analysing the legal status of the Ili Province, the region of the Qing Empire which had been an independent Junghar Khanate conquered by the Manchu dynasty at the turn of the 1760s. Referring to different sources and research works, the author characterises the legal status of the Ili Province from its foundation in the early 1760s to the Muslim rebellion of the early 1860s which resulted in the region’s separation from the Qing Empire. The author analyses the administrative system and the local government, the status f specific groups of population, the policy of Qing regional authorities as regarded foreigners (subjects of Central Asian khanates and the Russian Empire), and its regulations in the field of trade and taxation. The author refers to a wide range of notes of Russian diplomats and merchants who visited the Ili Province between 1770 and the 1860s which makes the work innovative. The analysis of these materials allows the author to describe the formally fixed legal status of the region, its population and foreigners but also the specific features of putting legal regulations into practice, and problems which the Manchu authorities faced in the Ili Province connected with the population and subjects of the neighbouring states. The author concludes that the Ili Province in 1760–1860s had a “transitional character” which caused a specific legal status both Manchu subjects and foreigners had, and which was different from their status in other Chinese regions. Later, this specific status was fixed legally, specifically in the Russian-Chinese treaties on the rights of Russian subjects in the Ili Province.
The material is devoted to the study of the basic processes of deepening and expanding the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership, Russian-Chinese cooperation in the context of Western sanctions, cooperation in the areas of security, trade, energy, innovation and investment.
The author investigates how various themes, including mutual interaction, territory delimitation and key periods in Russian history are presented both in contemporary Chinese history textbooks for secondary schools and Russianist literature for wide readership that had been published in China during 1997-2008. The author emphasizes the peculiar perception of Russian history in China and considers it most important factor for creation the image of Russia in contemporary PRC.