The Russian-Chinese relations in Central Asia in the 19th century

During the 19th century, Russian-Chinese relations in Central Asia (mostly on the territory of the modern Xinjian-Uigur autonomous region of the P.R.C.) went through complex and ambiguous formation and development process. The stage of settlement of problematic issues and the Russian and the Qing Empire interaction takes significant place in the history of Russian-Chinese relations. The article is devoted to the settlement of territorial issues in the 19th century in view of division of the former possessions of Dzhungaria Khanate, conquest of East Turkestan by Qing Empire, joining the Kazakh khanates to the Russian Empire. The problems of interaction between the Russian state and the Qing Empire received attention from domestic and foreign scholars, both in the past and the present. Joining Kazakh ulus to Russia was finished by the middle of the 19th century. The fact of the Russian final frontier convergence to the Qing Empire required adoption of a number of diplomatic documents on the border and economic cooperation. The border was identified and marked on the ground in 60 years. However, the civil war in western China destabilized the region and devalued the done work. The major issues in relationships between the Qing and Russian empires were only allowed in the 1880. The most difficult issues in relations between the two empires in Central Asia were the division of the territories formerly belonging to Dzungar Khanate and the Kazakhs, including land Ili Valley, as well as the issue of citizenship of the Central Asian nations. Despite the diplomatic bitterness, this fight did not came to large-scale armed conflict because of number of reasons. On the one hand, Russia did not have sufficient military resources in the region in this period for military confrontation with the Qing Empire in view of the huge even by modern standards, the boundary line. On the other hand, the Manchu government attention was focused on the internal problems of China relating to the uprising of Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and the intensification of aggressive foreign policy of the Western powers in the central regions of China. The both sides despite the difficulties in resolving local border conflicts, tried to find mutually acceptable solutions, and set the border cooperation.