In 1960's the relationship between China and Russia was the most tense since the end of the 19th century. The major confrontation between Soviet Russia and Communist China had for some time been not in the Communist councils of the world, but in the Sino-Soviet borderlands. Two great nation-state, one Asian and the other Eurasian, faced each other in belligerent mood, as they had often done in the past along 4,500 miles of frontier.

Mao Tse-tung, in an interview of July 10 with a group of visiting Japanese Socialists, gave some confirmation of the scope of Chinese territorial desires. He said that, after World War II, the Soviet Union occupied "too many places", in Eastern Europe and in Northeast Asia as well. Moscow had brought Outer Mongolia under its rule, and Peking had raised this question with Khrushchev when he visited China in 1954, but he refused to discuss it. "Some people", Mao said, had suggested that Sinkiang should be included in the Soviet Union. "China has not yet asked the Soviet Union for an accounting about Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka, and other towns and regions east of Lake Baikal which became Russian territory about 100 years ago." He offered a sop to his visitors by voicing support for the return to Japan of "the northern islands" (the Kriles). Krushchev observed that Chinese emperors, as Russian tsars, had engaged in wars of conquest and voiced a warning: "The border of the Soviet Union are sacred, and he who dares to violate them will meet with a most decisive rebuff on the part of the peoples of the Soviet Union."

In May, 1966, foreign minister Ch'en yi reiterated the Maoist theme in an interview with a group of visiting Scandinavian journalists: the Russians, he said, were thieves who had annexed one and a half million kilometers of Chinese territory in the nineteenth century and even afterward. In October, as the Revolution swirled around the gates of the Soviet embassy in Peking, the Moscow press charged that Chinese troops had begun to fire indiscriminately at Russian ships plying the Amur, and Occidental correspondents in Moscow reported that, according to a Soviet source, organized Chinese "people's" movements in the Amur region and Sinkiang were calling for the return of "lost territories".

Clash over the Damanski Island of Ussuri River:

On March 2, 1969, Chinese and Soviet forces clashed on obscure Damanski (Chen Pao) Island in the Ussuri River, and the Soviets suffered thirty-four killed. Given the heavy Soviet casualties, and the circumstance that only a Soviet border patrol was involved, logic leads to the conclusion that, as charged by Moscow, China initiated the attack.

The Chinese claimed victory, but the evidence indicates that the Soviets brought up reinforcements and reoccupied the island. Then, in a note delivered to the Soviet embassy and published in Peking on March 13, the Chinese charged new Soviet aggressions in the disputed sector - as if building up a case. Chinese Defense Minister Lin Piao made a tour of inspection to the Damanski sector. On March 15, there was a new, and much bigger, armed clash on that battleground.

A diplomatic exchange followed. On the day after the clash, the Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs delivered a note to the Soviet embassy at Peking charging that a large number of Soviet forces accompanied by armored cars and tanks had penetrated Danamski Island "and the region west of that island". Chinese stated immediately that the Soviet government must bear the entire responsibility for all the grave consequences which could result from this.

The Soviet government on the same day addressed to the Chinese government a note which, referring to the clash, stated that this new provocation by the Chinese authorities is heavy with consequences. The message contained a plain warning: "the Soviet government declares that if new attempts are made to violate the integrity of Soviet territory, the Soviet Union and all its peoples will defend it resolutely and will oppose a crushing riposte to such violations."

No detailed report was made by either side. But what appears to have happened was that the Chinese had again attacked the Soviet position on Damanski Island. The Soviets effected a withdrawal, thus leading the Chinese to mass in the Damanski sector, whereupon the Soviets, who had anticipated the attack, opened up on the Chinese along a front several kilometers in length with artillery, missiles, tanks, and air power. Chinese lost 800 men as compared with about 60 Soviet dead. Soviet circles seemed assured that the "lesson" had gotten across to the Chinese.

On March 29, 1969, the Soviet government delivered the declaration to the Chinese embassy in Moscow regarding Sino-Soviet relations. The declaration began with a consideration of recent events on the Ussuri. It gave fewer details regarding the second clash than about the first. More significantly is stated with respect to the question of the Ussuri boundary that: "In 1861, the two sides signed a map on which the frontier line in the Ussuri region was traced. Near Damanski island, that line passes directly along the chinese shore of the river. The originals of those documents are held by the Chinese government as well as by that of the U.S.S.R.

When Moscow at the end of the declaration invited the government of the Chinese People's Republic to abstain from all action along the frontier that "would risk bringing about complications", and called upon Peking to resolve any differences "in calm and by means of negotiations", through the prompt resumption of the border negotiations undertaken at Peking in 1964, it was assured of an audience at the ninth congress. Symbolically, low-lying Damanski Island would about this time have been submerged by the spring floods.

Peking in its April report to the congress acknowledged receipt of the Soviet offer and said that "our government is considering its reply to this".

On May 12, Peking announced that it had sent a message to the Soviet Union accepting in principle the Soviet proposal for resumption of the work of the mixed commission for the regulation of traffic on the border rivers and proposing that the date be fixed for mid-June. Moscow agreed, naming June 18 as the exact date. A few days after that exchange, on May 18, the Peking, as if to demonstrate that there had been no Chinese surrender, denounced the "new Soviet tsars" policy of naval expansion.

The Sino-Soviet frontier issue was still pending. The Chinese government complained that Soviet gunfire on the Ussuri had continued as an evident attempt to force negotiations, but in the end it agreed in principle to the Soviet proposal, suggesting that the date and place of the projected negotiations regarding the Sino-Soviet frontier be discussed and decided by the two parties through the diplomatic channel.

Goldinski Island incident of 1961:

On July 8, shortly after the prognostication of war, the Chinese charged that the Soviets had violated chinese territory by intruding into Goldinski (Pacha) Island in the Amur near Khabarovsk. Moscow described the incident as a Chinese violation of the existing frontier and charged that the Chinese had staged a "malicious provocation" with the aim of sabotaging the Khabarovsk talks. In an address of July 10, Soviet Foreign Minister voiced a warning to China : "We rebuffed and we shall rebuff all the attempts to speak with the Soviet Union in terms of threats or, moreover, weapons. What happened in March of this year near Damansky Island on the Ussuri River must make certain people consider more soberly the consequences of their actions"(New York Times, July, 1969).

The next development seemed to bear out the Moscow charge that the Goldinski Island clash was a "provocation" designed to abort the river-navigation negotiations. The Chinese delegation at Khabarovsk on July 12 broke off the talks. But on the following day the delegation reversed itself and informed the Soviet side that, contrary to its statement of July 12, it has decided to remain in Khabarovsk and agreed to the continuation of the commission's work. Interestingly enough, nothing more was heard of the Goldinski incident.

An agreement was signed at the Khabarovsk conference to govern navigation of the border rivers in the current year, and provision was made for holding further talks regarding the matter in 1970.

On October 7, 1969, it was officially announced by Peking that there is no reason whatsoever for China and the Soviet Union to fight a war over the boundary question. The Chinese government, the statement said, had "never" demanded the return of territory annexed by tsarist Russia "by means of the unequal treaties", and had "always" stood for the settlement of existing boundary questions in "earnest all-round negotiations". The provisions of the "unequal treaties" of the nineteenth century were not the prime issue at the negotiation of 1970.

The shattered Chinese leadership was undertaking the long, arduous road toward adjusting to the world, instead of remaking it immediately in Maolist design. In accordance with the principle of peaceful coexistence, it had at last manifested a readiness to accept a measure of reconciliation with Moscow.