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The question derived from Russia's recent action on Crimea. I wondered why didn't China support Crimean annexation. A local user mentioned the region Amur-Khabarovsk-Primorsky or Eastern-Manchuria, which was part of China, and in the Treaty of Aigun it ceded to Tzarist Russia.

Does China (any of legal Chinese government, like Republic or People's Republic of China) keep up any form of a claim on the territory nowadays?

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  • Just to be clear - I didn't claim that China has an official staked claim. Merely that China leaves to itself the option of acting to grab that place by the same argument Russians used in Crimea (predominance of their nationals)
    – user4012
    Mar 31, 2014 at 22:12
  • @DVK can we say then it is not really a conflict source nowadays between China and Russia? Anyways I was interested in this question and thank you for the idea. Apr 1, 2014 at 12:23
  • it looks like there is no conflicts just yet possibly thanks for land transfer of few Amur river islands to China finalized in 2005. More information on that: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict
    – lowtech
    Apr 2, 2014 at 14:38

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No, it does not appear to maintain such a revanchist claim.

The Chinese and Soviets skirmished over some of this same territory back in the late 1960s, but my understanding today is that most of the substantive territorial disagreements are resolved. The parties signed a 1991 agreement (see scholarly discussion here) that wrapped up a lot of the disagreements, including the Amur River region. This also corrected for the 1850s treaty-based border changes that China argued disproportionately favored Russia.

Although the two countries have had subsequent border adjustments (see, e.g., 2008 transfer of some islands), I do not believe China still maintains any substantial territory claims against Russia. It does still have claims against other nations, such as Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, India, etc. (see here for a Wikipedia listing of territorial claims).

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  • You gave good sources. By this wikipedia source Republic of China still has claim on Russia also on Tuvan region. Mar 31, 2014 at 16:22
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    Yeah, I saw that. I figured I'd ignore the Taiwan claims since there is little chance of ROC assuming the PRC territory. It's also generally accepted by the major powers, including the UN and the UNSC permanent members, that PRC is the diplomatic successor to China.
    – NL7
    Mar 31, 2014 at 16:25
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    Though I suppose by ignoring Taiwan's claims I'm implicitly accepting PRC's claims. Obviously Taiwan/ROC claims to be a successor to the previous continental ROC government, which claimed to be a successor to the Treaty of Aigun. So I guess the claim is diplomatically live for Taiwan. But since the government in Taipei has little interest in actually reclaiming mainland China, it's probably not unreasonable to marginalize their continuing claim. - Sorry, just thinking out of my keyboard.
    – NL7
    Apr 1, 2014 at 14:24

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