The establishment of the cordons of the PRC with the territories of Central Asia: history and heritages
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31558/2519-2949.2025.2.18Keywords:
China, Central Asia, borders, history of international relations, limologyAbstract
The article discusses the process of settling China's border problems with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The problem of borders in the region had a long and very complicated history, in which numerous states that existed on the territory of modern Central Asia were involved. On the one hand, the exact delimitation and demarcation of borders in historical times was impossible, and since the nineteenth century, the issue of borders depended on the position of the Russian Empire at first, and then the USSR. Both of these countries did not consider China as an equal, so the issue of borders was most often resolved "on the ground" and not documented accurately enough. Thus, since 1991, numerous problems have arisen in the demarcation of the borders of the new states and the PRC, which were complicated by the process of state-building in the former and some unpreparedness of Beijing for the emergence of new states on its border and numerous negative narratives of the past. The main imperatives of the PRC's foreign policy were formed in response to international changes and therefore had a reactive character. At the same time, China's attempt to solve internal problems through cooperation with the states of Central Asia was clearly visible. Negotiations on the establishment of common borders between China and the Central Asian republics in the 1990s played a fundamental role in establishing good-neighborly relations between the Central Asia and China, which favorably distinguished a similar process with other neighbors, but it was during the settlement of border problems that Beijing received some territorial increase, which was simply impossible in the previous period, avoiding the deterioration of relations with neighbors, and, thus, the isolation of the country in the region and in the international arena. Thus, when establishing borders with the republics of Central Asia, the People's Republic of China fully fulfilled its own political and diplomatic tasks.
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