758 Chapter 6
MID#1668
Dispute Number: 1668
Date(s): November 1922 to September 29, 1923
Participants: 365 Russia/710 China
Outcome (and Settlement): Yield by side B (Negotiated)
Fatalities: None
Narrative: Russia and China had signed border treaties in 1858 and 1860, but they
failed to clarify sovereignty over multiple rivers. This dispute was over the Amur
River, which formed a border between Russia and China. Russia had exercised control
over the Amur, but the Russian Revolution weakened Russian control so that White
Guards, Soviets, and Chinese controlled parts of the river. The Chinese authorities
encouraged Chinese shipping on the Amur, and in spring 1918 Chinese merchants
began to sail there.
Once the Bolsheviks solidified control of Russia, they attempted to reassert their
control of the Amur. In 1920 the Soviets banned Chinese vessels from the Lower
Amur, and China began to press its claim to navigation in those waters. China then
banned non-Chinese vessels from the confluence of the Sungari and Amur rivers
to Harbin, except for vessels flying the old tri-color flag of Russia. When the river
unfroze in the spring of 1923 Russia implemented a blockade at the Sungari-Amur
junction that prevented Chinese traffic to and from the Amur. In July 1923 officials
representing Soviet Russia and Marshall Chang met at Mukden to discuss navigation
rights on the Sungari, Amur, and Ussuri Rivers; however, the talks made no progress.
China wanted free navigation of the river for both states, but Russia wanted mutual
exclusion from each other’s waters. Chinese vessels finally gained access to the com-
mon waters of the Amur “late in the sailing season” of 1923.
Coding changes: End day changed from Missing.
MID#3260
Dispute Number: 3260
Date(s): January 20, 1926
Participants: 740 Japan/365 Russia
Outcome (and Settlement): Unclear (Negotiated)
Fatalities: None
Narrative: This is a Soviet-Japanese dispute regarding their respective interests in
Manchuria (railways). Soviet Russia had the Zhongdong railway, and Japan had the
South Manchuria System. Russia held the upper hand in the area for the longest time,
but a growing imperial Japan increased tensions over competing interests in Man-
churia. Meanwhile, both states were frustrated by Chinese attempts to gain greater
control over its northeast region. Chinese bandits, several of them Chinese soldiers,
had become a problem for the Soviets and, on January 20, 1926, the Soviet govern-
ment issued a demand to China to ensure Russian rights to the safety of its railway,
threatening to send in its own troops if necessary. The Japanese threatened the Soviets
and vowed to protect their interests in Manchuria and Korea. Japan and the Soviets