The areas in focus are Vladivostok and parts of the Amur Oblast, territories China lost to Russia under the 1858 Treaty of Aigun and the 1860 Treaty of Peking. Both agreements were signed when China was weakened by defeats in the Opium Wars and feared further military pressure if it resisted Russia’s demands. Vladivostok was incorporated into Russia the same year the treaty was signed, becoming a major Pacific port.
China has never formally renounced its view that the treaties were “unequal,” and online nationalist sentiment in recent years has amplified calls for reclaiming “lost” lands. Beijing, however, officially maintains that its relationship with Moscow remains strong, even as both countries navigate shifting geopolitical realities.
According to a New York Times report, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has internally warned that China may be using historical research, land leases, and cartographic changes to strengthen its territorial narrative. An eight-page FSB document reportedly describes China as a “major threat” to Russian security, despite public displays of friendship between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Tensions briefly resurfaced in 2023 when China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment released official maps labeling several Russian locations with Chinese names and marking a disputed island at the Amur–Ussuri confluence entirely as Chinese territory. The island had been jointly divided after a 2008 agreement.
The two nations share a 4,200-km border, once a flashpoint that saw armed clashes in the 1960s before a series of settlements in the 1990s and 2000s eased disputes. Yet concerns persist in Moscow that Russia’s growing economic dependence on China intensified by the Ukraine war and Western sanctions could leave it vulnerable to Beijing’s long-term strategic ambitions.
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