The Sino-Soviet border conflict was a seven-month undeclared military conflict between the Soviet Union and China at the height of the Sino-Soviet split in 1969. Although military clashes ceased that year, the underlying issues were not resolved until the 1991 Sino-Soviet Border Agreement.
The most serious of these border clashes, which brought the two communist-led countries to the brink of war, occurred in March 1969 in the vicinity of Zhenbao (Damansky) Island on the Ussuri (Wusuli) River; as such, Chinese historians most commonly refer to the conflict as the Zhenbao Island Incident. The border dispute in the west centered on 52,000 square kilometers (20,000 sq mi) of Soviet-controlled land in the Pamirs that lay on the border of China's Xinjiang region with the Soviet Republic of Tajikistan. In 1892 the Russian Empire and the Qing Dynasty had agreed that the border would consist of the ridge of the Sarikol Range, but the exact border remained contentious throughout the 20th century. In the 1960s the Chinese began to insist that the Soviet Union should evacuate the region.
From around 1900 - after the Treaty of Peking (1860) had assigned Outer Manchuria to Russia - the eastern part of the Sino-Soviet border had mainly been demarcated by three rivers, the Argun River from the tripartite junction with Mongolia to the north tip of China, running southwest to northeast, then the Amur River to Khabarovsk from northwest to southeast, where it was joined by Ussuri River running south to north. The Ussuri River was demarcated in a non-conventional manner: the demarcation line ran along the right (Chinese) side of the river, putting the river itself with all its islands in Russian possession. ("The modern method (used for the past 200 years) of demarcating a river boundary between states today is to set the boundary at either the median line (ligne médiane) of the river or around the area most suitable for navigation under what is known as the 'thalweg principle.'")
China claimed these islands, as they were located on the Chinese side of the river (if demarcated according to international rule using shipping lanes). The USSR wanted (and by then, already effectively controlled) almost every single island along the rivers.
Both sides understood that the People's Liberation Army was militarily inferior to the Soviet Army as far as equipment was concerned. However, the Chinese adopted an asymmetric deterrence strategy that threatened a large-scale conventional "People's War" in response to a Soviet counterforce first-strike.
China's superiority in sheer numbers of troops was the cornerstone of Beijing's strategy to deter a Soviet nuclear attack. Since 1949, Chinese military strategy as articulated by Chinese leader Mao Zedong continually emphasized the superiority of "man over weapons". While weapons were certainly an important component of warfare, Mao argued that they were "not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale."[1] In Mao's view, non-material qualities, including subjectivity, creativity, flexibility, and high morale, were critical determinants in warfare.
The Soviets were not confident they could win such a conflict. A large-scale Chinese incursion could threaten key strategic centers in Blagoveshchensk, Vladivostok, and Khabarovsk, as well as crucial nodes of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. According to Arkady Shevchenko, a high-ranking Russian defector to the United States, "The Politburo was terrified that the Chinese might make a large-scale intrusion into Soviet territory. A nightmare vision of invasion by millions of Chinese made the Soviet leaders almost frantic. Despite our overwhelming superiority in weaponry, it would not be easy for the USSR to cope with an assault of this magnitude." Given China's "vast population and deep knowledge and experience in guerrilla warfare", if the Soviets launched a major attack on China's nuclear program they would surely become "mired in an endless war".
Concerns about China's strength in manpower and its "people's war" strategy ran so deep that some bureaucrats in Moscow argued the only way to defend against a massive conventional onslaught was to use nuclear weapons. Some even advocated deploying nuclear mines along the Sino-Soviet border. By threatening to initiate a prolonged conventional conflict in retaliation for a nuclear strike, Beijing employed an asymmetric deterrence strategy intended to convince Moscow that the costs of an attack would outweigh the benefits.
China had found its strategic angle. While most Soviet military specialists did not fear a Chinese nuclear reprisal, believing that China's arsenal was so small, rudimentary, and vulnerable that it could not survive a first strike and carry out a retaliatory attack, there was great concern about China's massive conventional army. Nikolai Ogarkov, a senior Soviet military officer, believed that a massive nuclear attack "would inevitably mean world war". Even a limited counterforce strike on China's nuclear facilities was dangerous, Ogarkov argued, because a few nuclear weapons would "hardly annihilate" a country the size of China and in response China would "fight unrelentingly".
Karim Mandal is a freelance contributor and educator
