History of Sino-Russian relations

Prior to the 1600s China and Russia were on opposite ends of Siberia, which was populated by independent nomads. By about 1640 Russian settlers had traversed most of Siberia and founded settlements in the Amur River basin. From 1652 to 1689, China's armies drove the Russian settlers out, but after 1689 China and Russia made peace and established trade agreements. By the mid-1800s China's economy and military lagged far behind the colonial powers, so it signed unequal treaties with Western countries such as Russia, through which Russia annexed the Amur basin and Vladivostok. The Russian Empire and other powers exacted many other concessions from China, among which were indemnities for anti-Western riots, control over China's tariffs, and extraterritorial agreements including legal immunity for foreigners and foreign businesses. Many Chinese people felt humiliated by China's submission to these foreign interests, and this contributed to widespread hostility towards the emperor of China. In 1911 public anger led to a revolution, which marked the beginning of the Republic of China. However, China's new regime (known as the Beiyang government) was forced to sign further unequal treaties with Western countries, including Russia.

In late 1917, the Moscow and Petrograd were taken over by a communist group called the Bolsheviks, in a coup known as the October Revolution. This caused a civil war in Russia between the Bolshevik Red Army and the anti-communist White forces. China's Beiyang government sided with the Whites, and along with most of the colonial powers, sent troops to fight against the Reds. In 1922 the Reds won the civil war and established a new country: the Soviet Union, or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). From 1923 onward the USSR provided aid and support to the Kuomintang, a Chinese faction opposed to the Beiyang government. In alliance with the small Communist Party of China (CCP), the Kuomintang seized power in 1928 and the two countries established diplomatic ties. Sino-Soviet relations remained fractious, and they fought two wars in the next ten years. Nevertheless, the USSR under Joseph Stalin gave help to Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang government against Imperial Japan. Stalin told the CCP's leader Mao Zedong to cooperate with China's Kuomintang regime. Mao attacked the Kuomintang anyway, but the CCP failed to overthrow Chiang's Nationalist government. In 1937 the Kuomintang and the CCP formed a new alliance to oppose the Japanese invasion of China, but they resumed fighting each other in 1942. After Japan had been defeated in 1945, the two Chinese factions signed a truce, but the Chinese Civil War soon erupted again between them. In 1949, with Soviet support, the CCP won the Chinese Civil War and established the People's Republic of China, which made an alliance with the USSR. Mao became the PRC's first leader. Mao's most radical supporters, who became known as 'the Gang of Four', gradually eliminated most of Mao's rivals throughout his twenty-seven years in power.

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