Conflicts - TensionsFree and Open Indo-Pacific/FOIPNortheast Asia

PRC-Russia ‘no limits’ friendship has disputed boundaries

FORUM Staff

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) 2023 “standard map” raised familiar protests with its long-invalidated claims to most of the South China Sea as well as the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and other disputed territory. An unexpected assertion of sovereignty over an island at the PRC’s Russian border, however, showed Beijing’s willingness to appropriate territory even from its closest partners.

Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared in early 2022 — less than a month before Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine — that their partnership “has no limits.” The relationship does appear to have border disputes.

In the days after the PRC’s release of its 2023 map, Russia rejected Beijing’s claim to all of Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, reported Newsweek magazine. The island, known as Heixiazi, or Black Bear, in Chinese, sits at the confluence of two border rivers, the Ussuri and Amur. After more than a century of territorial dispute, Russia ceded roughly half of the island to the PRC in 2008. Moscow also abandoned its army base there and handed over nearby Tarabarov Island. The PRC agreed in return not to claim more territory from Russia, according to Newsweek.

“The border issue … has now been solved,” the Russian news site Pravda declared at the time.

After the PRC’s latest claim to the entire island, Russia’s foreign ministry stated that the issue was settled more than a decade ago and dismissed any suggestion of reopening the dispute, Newsweek reported.

While Russia’s protest of the PRC map was muted, other affected nations expressed alarm over Beijing’s expansive — if now familiar — assertions.

The Philippines referred to a 2016 international tribunal ruling that invalidated the PRC’s claims to the South China Sea. Manila has embarked on a campaign to expose the PRC’s harassment of Philippine fishing crews and military operations in its exclusive economic zone. In response to the map, the nation called on the PRC “to act responsibly and abide by its obligations under UNCLOS [the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea] and the final and binding 2016 Arbitral Award.”

Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry rejected the map, saying it encroaches on Malaysian maritime areas in Sabah and Sarawak states. Vietnam said the PRC’s invalidated boundaries violate Hanoi’s sovereignty over sea regions as determined by UNCLOS. The PRC’s claim on Indonesia’s Natuna Islands drew protest from Jakarta, with its Foreign Ministry stating, “Any drawing of lines, any claims made must be in accordance with UNCLOS.”

India also lodged a complaint with Beijing over the latest map, saying the territorial assertions have no basis, reported the BBC. The map stakes claim to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and the disputed Aksai Chin plateau in the Beijing-administered Kashmir region.

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