Historical Atlas of Northeast Asia, 1590-2010

A f t e r f r a u d u l e n t e l e c t i o n s held in South Korea on March 15, 1960, widespread protests against his regime forced Yi Seungman to resign. Free elections in July returned the opposition Democratic Party, but the new government decided not to pursue legal cases for corruption and abuse of power against members of the Yi regime. The economy, however, continued to decline, and new protests spread.

Finally on May 16, 1961, with the approval of the United States, troops under General Bak Jeonghui (Park Chung-hee) seized power, promising anti-Communism, a self-sufficient economy, national reunification, and the eradication of corruption. Bak was elected president by a narrow margin in October 1963, whereupon he launched a dramatic program of centrally planned economic development. He took control of the larger Korean businesses (jaebeol) and the banking sector, and directed resources into electricity, steel, coal, oil, and cement. Tight management of the labor market (and thus low wages), together with favorable loans to the jaebeol, allowed them to grow rapidly. Bak regarded Japan as a potential source of investment and sought better relations. Secret negotiations for the normalization of relations began in 1961 and concluded in 1965. The treaty was unpopular in Korea because it was seen as giving way to Japan on the issues of reparations for the wrongs suffered under colonial rule, the status of Koreans in Japan, and access to fisheries. Under the treaty, Bak repealed the “Peace Line” (Rhee Line), which had claimed large stretches of international waters for Korean fishing.188 North Korea launched a Seven-Year Plan in 1961, emphasizing heavy industry and national income. For most of the 1960s, North Korea was the second most industrialized country in Asia, after Japan. The plan is reported to have achieved an annual growth rate of 16.6 percent, but later it became clear that many goals were not being met, partly because the Soviet Union withdrew some of its economic assistance when the DPRK sided with China in the Sino-Soviet dispute.189 From 1961, Kim Il-sung was the unquestioned leader of state and party, and signs of a personality cult surrounding the “Great Leader” began to emerge. In 1968, North Korean forces captured an American surveillance ship, the Pueblo, in waters claimed by the DPRK but identified as international by the United States.

1960-1970

1900–2010

EVENKI NATIONAL OKRUG

202 K RAS N OYAR S K

Vilyui R.

Vilyui Dam 1960s

SOVIET

1960-1970

Yakutsk

UNION

Territory claimed by PRC against MPR until 1962

KRAI

Yeniseisk YAKUT ASSR Ust Ilimsk Dam 1963-1974

Krasnoyarsk

Truncated Inner Mongolia from 1969

IRKUTSK

Unresolved territorial disputes

Bratsk Dam 1954-1967

Krasnoyarsk Dam 1956-1972 KHAKASS AO

Rhee (“Peace”) Line

TUVA AO

Zeya Dam 1965-1975

BURYAT MONGOL ASSR

Irkutsk

Zeya R.

UST-ORDA NO

CHITA

Blagoveshchensk

AGA BURYAT MONGOL NO

Tarabarov/Yinlong Khabarovsk JEWISH Bolshoy Ussuriysky/Heixiazi I. AO Goldinsky/Bacha I

Hailar

Damansky/Zhenbao I.

Ulaanbaatar

Qiqihar

MONGOLIAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC XINJIANG

ER INN

M NO TO U NA LIA GO N MO

N IO EG R S OU

HEBEI Baotou

Hohhot Beijing

QINGHAI Ejen Khoroo NINGXIA HUI AR GANSU

KHABAROVSK KRAI

Chita

Verkhneudinsk Khovd

SAKHALIN

AMUR

SHAANXI

Tianjin HEBEI

HEILONGJIANG

Daqing

MARITIME KRAI

Harbin

Jilin

Vladivostok JILIN

Shenyang LIAONING

Nakhodka

DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Pyongyang

USS Pueblo captured

Lüda Seoul

REPUBLIC OF KOREA SHANDONG

P E O P L E’ S R E P U B L I C O F C H I N A

JAPAN

1900–2010

During the 1960s, relations between China and the Soviet Union began to worsen as a result of the Soviets’ retreat from radical Communism under Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Under these circumstances, Mao Zedong began to assert a Chinese claim to territories on the Russian side of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, on the grounds that the Treaty of Beijing of 1860 had been “unequal.” In 1960, though, China and Mongolia signed the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance and in 1962 reached an agreement resolving multiple disputes over the border between the two countries. Despite the otherwise poor relations between China and Mongolia, China ceded considerable areas of contested territory to Mongolia in exchange for a settlement.190 The UN admitted Mongolia as a member in 1961.

In 1965, Mongolia signed a defense agreement with the Soviet Union, allowing the Soviets to station troops in Mongolia.191 The first soldiers arrived in 1967, and the Soviet Union eventually stationed fifty-two divisions along its eastern border with China, including four divisions in Mongolia. In 1969, hostilities broke out between the Soviet Union and China over a disputed island in the Ussuri River (Russian, Damansky; Chinese, Zhenbao) and over Goldinsky/Bacha Island in the Amur. China also pressed a claim to Bolshoy Ussuriysky/Heixiazi and Tarabarov/Yinlong islands, close to Khabarovsk. By then, the Soviet Union had about 60,000 to 75,000 troops stationed in Mongolia.192 On October 10, 1961, the Tuva Autonomous Oblast was elevated to the status of an Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic.193 In Inner Mongolia, the economic failure of the Great Leap Forward led to the relaxation of the social and economic policies encouraging Mongol assimilation to Chinese culture. In 1962, Chinese settlement was halted and even reversed in a few cases where settlements had failed. In mid-1966, however, the

chairman of the CCP, Mao Zedong, launched a radical campaign known as the Cultural Revolution, directed against what he termed bourgeois and reactionary elements in the party and the government in general. Supported by young radicals known as Red Guards, the campaign included the purge, torture, and execution of “counter-revolutionaries” and the destruction of objects of cultural heritage, especially temples and religious writings. In the northeast, violent clashes took place in January 1967 between rival Red Guard groups and their military and party allies. An alliance of party, army, and Red Guards seized power in Heilongjiang in January 1967 under Pan Fusheng; their action was held up as a model to be followed across the country.194 The harshest measures of the Cultural Revolution were felt, however, in Inner Mongolia. The Communist Party leader in Inner Mongolia, Ulanfu, was one of the first targets of Cultural Revolution radicals. During the second half of 1966, rhetoric on both sides took an increasingly ethnic tone, with “Inner Mongol nationalism” being set against “great Han chauvinism.” Ulanfu responded by suspending the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia in September. Red Guards tried to seize power in Hohhot in January 1967, but were suppressed by local army units. Inner Mongolia fell into widespread disorder until November 1967, when troops loyal to Beijing installed the Inner Mongolian Revolutionary Committee. Ulanfu was dismissed, and his followers were purged on the pretext that an “Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party” was preparing to secede from China. Red Guards launched a massive purge of the Mongol elite, including members of the CCP. An estimated 16,000 of the Inner Mongol elite were killed during this period.195 In 1969, the Chinese authorities dramatically trimmed the size of the IMAR, transferring large areas to neighboring provinces. Among the Mongol

203

1900–2010

204

cultural sites destroyed by Red Guards was the mausoleum of Chinggis Khan in Ejen Khoroo.196 In the early 1960s, oil production from the Daqing field in Heilongjiang began to increase, eventually accounting for 40 percent of China’s oil production and enabling it to achieve self-sufficiency.197

The completion of the Bratsk Dam in 1967 opened a new era of industrialization in central Siberia, especially energy-intensive but highly polluting aluminum, cellulose, and paper-processing plants. New dam projects began at Krasnoyarsk and Ust Ilimsk and on the Zeya and Vilyui rivers.198 The Soviet Pacific Fleet, based in Vladivostok, grew dramatically in size and strength.199

I n 1 971 , with Cold War tensions diminishing, the United States reduced its military presence in South Korea and transferred responsibility for the demilitarized zone to South Korean forces. Bak Jeonghui narrowly won South Korea’s presidential election, defeating Gim Daejung. To secure his position in the long term, he declared a state of emergency in December 1971 and suspended the constitution, which he replaced in December 1972 with the Yusin (Restoration) Constitution, concentrating political power in the office of the president. New laws then placed further restrictions on labor unionism and political activism. Bak continued to direct a program of intense industrial development. Industry overtook agriculture’s share of the economy in the mid-1970s, and the jaebeol grew increasingly dominant. Discontent with the Bak regime led to growing protests during the 1970s, culminating in massive demonstrations in Busan in 1979. Bak declared martial law in the city, but senior members of the regime disagreed with his strategy; on October 26, Bak was assassinated by the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. The assassination did not restore democracy to South Korea; rather, army generals staged a coup in December and kept most of the Yusin-era institutions in place. A major rebellion took place against the new regime in Gwangju in May 1980, but it was violently suppressed and in August, General Jeon Duhwan (Chun Doo Hwan) was installed as president.200 During the 1970s, South Korea discovered three tunnels constructed underneath the demilitarized zone, presumably in preparation for an attack by North Korea.

The economy of the DPRK, meanwhile, began to lag seriously behind that of the ROK. Successive plans failed to deliver intended growth or prosperity. As in other socialist economies, administrative bottlenecks and excessive adherence to abstract plans worked against business flexibility. The economy was especially hit by the 1973 oil shock, which forced down the global price of North Korea’s mineral exports, increased the cost of imported oil, and led the country to default on its foreign debts.201 In 1971, Mao Zedong finally began to wind back the Cultural Revolution. Pan Fusheng was removed from power in Heilongjiang, and a more conservative party committee took over.202 The alleged conspiracy of the “Inner Mongolian People’s

1970-1980

1900–2010

206 K RAS N OYAR S K

1970-1980

Yakutsk

EVENKI NATIONAL OKRUG

SOVIET

UNION

KRAI

Yeniseisk YAKUT ASSR

Krasnoyarsk

IRKUTSK

Taishet

COAL

Tyndinsky

Bratsk Nizhneangarsk

TUVA AO

La

Irkutsk

CHITA

ke

Ulan Ude

Ba

Khovd

ARKHANGAI

KHOVD

BULGAN

BAYAN KHONGOR

st

ra

lR

lw

ay

Komsomolsk na Amur KHABAROVSK KRAI

DORNOD

Khabarovsk

JEWISH AO

HEILONGJIANG

SAKHALIN OBLAST

Sovetskaya Gavan

Qiqihar

Öndörhaan Lin Biao’s plane crashes Sept. 1971

Baotou

Jilin

JILIN

Tianjin HEBEI

TIANJIN

Vladivostok Nakhodka

Shenyang

Baishan Dam 1975-1982

DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA

LIAONING

Beijing

NINGXIA HUI AR

MARITIME KRAI

Harbin

Hohhot

YEKE JUU LEAGUE

QINGHAI

ai

Blagoveshchensk

N IO DUNDGOVI SÜKHBAATAR EG R S MONGOLIAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC XINJIANG OU DORNOGOVI OM N ÖMNÖGOVI TO AU COPPER COAL NSHILINGOL A I GANSU OL LEAGUE NG MOULAANCHAB R BAYAN NUUR E N N I LEAGUE LEAGUE

Fourth tunnel (1990)

Ma

KHENTII

TÖV

North Korean tunnels beneath DMZ discovered in 1970s

ur

SELENGGE

ÖVÖRKHANGAI

Demilitarized zone (DMZ)

m

gi

Chita

COPPER

Ulaanbaatar GOVI-ALTAI

-A

Bureya Dam 1976-1999

AGA BURYAT MONGOL NO Erdenet

ZAVKHAN

al

AMUR

UVS KHÖVSGÖL

ik

Bamovskaya

BURYAT MONGOL ASSR

ika l

UST-ORDA NO

Ba

KHAKASS AO

BAYANÖLGII

Neryungri

Pyongyang Lüda

JAPAN

Seoul

SHANXI

REPUBLIC OF KOREA

SHAANXI SHANDONG

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Gwangju

Busan

1900–2010

Revolutionary Party” was announced to have been a falsehood, and in 1979 Inner Mongolia’s borders were restored to their pre–Cultural Revolution extent.203 The end of the radical period was also marked by a confusing incident in which Mao’s designated successor, Lin Biao, apparently plotted a coup against him, but fled in the direction of the Soviet Union when it appeared about to fail. His plane was said to have been shot down near Öndörkhaan in Mongolia.204 Beginning in 1974, with Soviet aid, the Erdenet copper mine in northern Mongolia was built, and an urban complex arose around the mine. The city of Erdenet was separated from the province of Bulgan in 1975 and was centrally administered.205 In 1975 and 1976 and again in 1979, the Soviet Union and Mongolia agreed on minor border adjustments. Despite the purges of Buddhist monks and the anti-religious propaganda of the Communist Party, both shamanism and Buddhism remained important parts of the beliefs of Mongolian herders. The traditions of building ovoos (cairns) and saying prayers to the local spirits were still common. As the repression of religion diminished in the 1970s, therefore, a rapid revival in religious practice took place. In 1971, after several decades, the school of theology was reopened and both Soviet and Mongolian students enrolled. In 1979, the Dalai Lama visited Ulaanbaatar for a meeting of the Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace.

It was reported that Mongols flocked to see the Dalai Lama: “From morning, streams of people trickled out of the yourt compounds and along the lanes, pouring in rivers onto the streets, and were in ferment at the monastery walls.”206 During this period, however, Mongolia’s relationship with China deteriorated further. In 1973, a newspaper report claimed that China had conducted 151 military exercises on the border between Mongolia and China in the preceding four years and that the Chinese Embassy was involved in

persuading Chinese contract workers to go on strike in order to “sabotage” the Mongolian economy. Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal criticized China for representing Chinggis Khan as a Chinese emperor and for publishing maps and atlases that showed Mongolia as part of China. In 1979, a group of Chinese were expelled for “crimes against the state.” The Mongolian–Chinese Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance of 1960 lapsed in 1980, and a Chinese diplomat was expelled for allegedly using Chinese residents to gather intelligence.207 Even Inner Mongols who had migrated to Mongolia to escape Chinese policies were accused of being Chinese spies.

In 1972, construction of the BAM resumed, and the route from Bamovskaya to Tynda (formerly Tyndinsky) was rebuilt. Leonid Brezhnev, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, promised that no prison labor would be used, but to obtain workers he had to offer wages at two and a half times the Soviet norm. The line required the construction of more than 4000 bridges and over 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) of tunnels; the western half of the route was subject to earthquakes that caused soil movement and avalanches.208 The line was also extended north to the coal mines of Neryungri, with the intention of eventually reaching Yakutsk. In the 1970s, output from a large cellulose plant on the southern shore of Lake Baikal began to pollute what until then had been one of the purest bodies of freshwater on the planet.209 The Soviet Far East languished during the 1970s: corruption was a serious problem, but a greater obstacle was the priorities of planners in Moscow who sent little investment to the region, so that productivity remained low and distribution chaotic. The region remained heavily dependent on external supplies for manufactured goods. Although the Soviet authorities planned to expand the region’s trade with the Asia-Pacific region, exports remained modest.210

207

1980-1990

D u r i n g t h e 1 980 s , South Korea’s economy grew spectacularly on the economic basis laid by Bak Jeonghui. By 1987, the country had a trade surplus of US$4.7 billion and an unemployment rate of only 2.5 percent. The nation’s progress was marked by its successful hosting of the 1988 Olympic Games. The growing prosperity led to increasing demands for democratization and for an improvement in the living standards of the mass of the people. Many argued for a democracy dividend as reward for the years of repression and low wages under Bak. In December 1987, the government held relatively free elections that were won by a former general, No Tae-u (Roh Tae Woo), who benefited from a split in the opposition vote between two candidates. The No government promised democratic reforms, reduced restrictions on unions, set a minimum wage, and introduced pensions.211 By the 1980s, the North Korean economy was in an increasingly difficult position. The country stopped payment on all its foreign debts in 1985, but still spent scarce resources on costly prestige activities, such as birthday celebrations for Kim Il-sung.212 In October 1983, North Korean agents detonated a bomb in Rangoon (Burma) during a visit by a large South Korean delegation, including many cabinet members; eighteen ministers and advisers were killed.

Despite the deep political differences, reunification of North and South Korea remained on the agenda of both countries. With the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe beginning in the mid-1980s, the South believed that an opportunity for reunion might have come. In 1988, No Tae-u declared that North and South Korea were partners and began to develop ideas of a confederation that would leave the two governments intact but unite them in a government of national unity.213 In 1989, he initiated the so-called Nordpolitik (Northern Policy), modeled on West Germany’s Ostpolitik, which included opening diplomatic relations with allies of North Korea, including the Soviet Union and China.

During the 1980s, the Inner Mongol elite that had been attacked during the Cultural Revolution recovered significant power, Ulanfu became a vice premier of China in 1983, and his son Buhe became regional chair.214 The teaching of the Mongolian language was resumed, and public displays of Mongol culture were encouraged as long as they remained without hint of separatism. Government pol-

1900–2010

TOMSK

Underground nuclear tests, 1974-1987

EVENKI AOk

1930-1991 GMT +6 1992-present GMT +7

SOVIET

1980-1990

Yakutsk

209

UNION YAKUT ASSR

Yeniseisk KRASNOYARSK KRAI KEMEROVO

Krasnoyarsk

1930-1991 GMT +9 1992-present GMT +10

1930-1991 GMT +7 1992-2011 GMT 1992-present GMT +8 +8

1930-1991 GMT +8 1992-present GMT +9

1930-1991 GMT +10 1992-present GMT +11

IRKUTSK KHAKASSIA AO

UST-ORDA BURYAT AOk

Kyzyl

Irkutsk

TUVA ASSR

GMT +7

CHITA

BURYAT ASSR Verkhneudinsk

AMUR

SAKHALIN

Chita

KHABAROVSK KRAI

AGA BURYAT AOk

Blagoveshchensk

Khovd JEWISH AO

19??-1978 GMT +7 1978-2011 GMT +8

Khabarovsk

Qiqihar

Ulaanbaatar

HEILONGJIANG

MONGOLIAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC

GMT +9

GMT +6

ER INN

GMT +7

M NO TO U NA LIA GO N MO

N IO EG R S OU

Changchun

QINGHAI

GANSU

SHANXI

Vladivostok Nakhodka 1888-present GMT +9

Hungnam

GMT +8 SHAANXI

Tianjin TIANJIN HEBEI

SHANDONG

P E O P L E’ S R E P U B L I C O F C H I N A

HOKKAIDŌ

LIAONING Official time zone boundaries

Pyongyang

Beijing NINGXIA HUI AR

Jilin JILIN GMT +8.5

Shenyang HEBEI

MARITIME PROVINCE

Harbin

1949-present GMT +8 GMT +6

KE007 shot down, 1983

Informal time zone boundaries in Mongolia and China

Dalian Seoul GMT +7

Approx. time zones in Republican China 1912-1949

1900–2010

210

icy emphasized support for pastoralism as the basis of the Inner Mongolian economy, and the practice of traditional Mongolian Buddhism was also tolerated.215 In August 1981, the government of the IMAR submitted a long-term plan to the central government in Beijing, known as Article 28, for the development of the region. This document included a proposal to encourage Chinese migration to Inner Mongolia. It caused consternation among many Mongols. University students in Hohhot demanded that the regional government reconsider. When government officials refused to talk to them, several thousand students went on strike and demonstrated in the streets, demanding a halt to the migration of Han Chinese to Inner Mongolia and an increase in the number of Mongol officials in the regional government. Their aim was to protect and maintain Mongol cultural integrity. The students also petitioned the national government in Beijing, but to no avail. After the students abandoned their strike, there was a quiet purge of Mongol officials suspected of having backed them.216 Mongolia’s frozen relationship with China showed signs of improvement in 1982 when a joint border inspection commission convened in Ulaanbaatar; the Soviet and Chinese leaders also resumed talks on normalizing relations at this time. A higher-ranking Mongolian diplomat was sent to Beijing, and for the first time in many years a Mongolian minister attended the reception to celebrate China’s National Day in 1983. First Deputy Foreign Minister Yondon visited China in 1984 to sign a border treaty. For the first time in more than three decades, the border between Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia was opened for family visits from each side; later, tourists and other visitors and traders were also able to travel between the two countries. The general secretary of the

CCP, Hu Yaobang, also emphasized the importance of the link between Inner Mongolia and Mongolia on his visit to Inner Mongolia in 1984. In the following year, the two countries signed a five-year agreement to trade Mongolian minerals and livestock for Chinese petroleum products. The Mongolian public and press were still critical of China. but the tenor of criticism was more restrained. In 1984, the Mongolian and Soviet leaders proposed to normalize their relationship with China, but China insisted that Soviet troops first withdraw from Mongolia. In 1986, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, proposed partial troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Mongolia. Along with the improvement in diplomatic relations, trade began to flourish between China and Mongolia. In 1989, the CCP and the MPRP restored their ties, and Mongolia opened a consulate in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, to promote economic, cultural, and technological exchange.217 In 1984, the Soviet authorities informally detained the Mongolian leader, Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal, in Moscow, permitting the installation of a new generation of reformers in Mongolia who emulated Gorbachev’s program of glasnost and perestroika; after widespread public demonstrations in 1988 and 1989, the Communist government collapsed in March 1990 and was replaced by a multiparty system.

In 1989, 89 percent of Buryats in Buryatia claimed to speak their national language (with higher percentages in Ust-Orda and Aga). There was a major cultural and religious revival.218 In September 1983, a Soviet interceptor shot shown a Korean commercial aircraft, Korean Air Lines, Flight 007, off the southwest coast of Sakhalin. The plane, which should have flown to the east of Hokkaidō, was well inside Soviet prohibited airspace.

W h e r e a s l a n d b o r d e r s between the states of Northeast Asia had largely been agreed on by 1990, disagreement over maritime boundaries remained significant. These disputes had their bases both in the continuing competition for strategic advantage and access to fisheries and in the growing technological capacity to extract mineral resources from the seabed. The differences were exacerbated by uncertainty under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea about which principles should apply in each case, by the continuing state of suspended conflict between North and South Korea, and by the dispute between South Korea and Japan over the Liancourt Rocks. China has, at times, claimed that its territorial waters in the Yellow Sea should be based on a “silt line,” being the extent of the seabed affected by silt deposits from Chinese rivers.219 In 1996, under the Law of the Sea, South Korea claimed a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, running up to the median line between its coast and that of its neighbors.220 China made its comparable claim in 1998.

Direct talks between the North and South Korean governments began as a step toward mutual recognition and a possible future confederation. On this basis, too, both countries joined the UN in September 1991.221 In 1991, North Korea attempted to salvage its economic difficulties by establishing a foreign-trade zone at Najin-Sonbong. In 1995 and 1996, floods devastated agricultural production in North Korea, followed by drought in 1997. The collapse of the agricultural sector, combined with the loss of markets in the Soviet Union, was disastrous, resulting in 600,000 to 900,000 deaths from starvation. Many North Koreans fled illegally to northeastern China.

In 1991, North and South Korea signed an agreement acknowledging that reunification was the goal of both governments; they agreed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in 1992, but in 1993 North Korea refused to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and threatened to withdraw from the agreement. By 1994, all cooperation stopped, and the United States considered military action. Kim Il-sung died in 1994 and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-il, often referred to as the “Dear Leader.” In 1997, the South Korean president, Gim Daejung, extended No Tae-u’s Nordpolitik under the rubric “Sunshine Policy,” in

1990-2000

1900–2010

TOMSK OBLAST

Median line between coastal states

China’s “silt line” (seabed KRASNOYARSK affected by silt deposits KRAI originating in China) Yeniseisk

RUSSIAN

F E D E RATI O N

Sino-Russian territorial disputes not resolved in the 1991 Sino-Russian Boundary Krasnoyarsk Agreement

OLEKMINSK N.P.

KHAKASSIA REPUBLIC

North Korea’s claimed economic zone South Korea “Special Economic Zones”

AMUR

UST-ORDA BURYAT AOk

ALKHANAY N.P.

Ba

ika l

TUNKINSKY N.P.

North Korea’s baseline and claimed “military zone”

CHARUODA RESERVE

IRKUTSK

Kyzyl

South Korea’s Exclusive Fishery and Territorial Sea Boundary

SAKHA REPUBLIC

ke

Erdenet Ulaanbaatar

R.

un

Abagaitu/ Bolshoi Is.

DARKHAN

JEWISH AO HEILONGJIANG Qiqihar

KHINGGAN LEAGUE

GREAT GOBI ‘A’ N.P. SHILINGOL LEAGUE

ALASHAN LEAGUE

HULUNBUIR LEAGUE

NÖMRÖG N.P.

GOVISÜMBER

MONGOLIAN REPUBLIC

Blagoveshchensk

HULUN NATURE RESERVE

ULAANBAATAR

KHABAROVSK KRAI

R.

AGA BURYAT AOk

Khovd ORKHON

CHITA

Chita

ur

BURYAT REPUBLIC Verkhneudinsk

Arg

La

Irkutsk

Am

TUVA REPUBLIC

Harbin

Khabarovsk Bolshoy Ussuriysky/Heixiazi I. Zhenbao I. CENTRAL SIKHOTE ALIN WORLD HERITAGE SITE MARITIME PROVINCE

INNER MONGOLIAN AUTONOMOUS REGION JUU UDA LEAGUE

Uss u r i R .

212

1990-2000

Yakutsk

VILYUI DIAMOND MINES

China military warning line

Vladivostok Jilin

JIRIM LEAGUE

Nakhodka Najin-Sonbong

JILIN Shenyang

BAYAN NUUR LEAGUE

Baotou

Yellow R. YEKE JUU LEAGUE

ULAANCHAB LEAGUE

LIAONING

Hohhot HOHHOT CITY

Beijing Tianjin

QINGHAI NATURE RESERVE

Pyongyang

Liancourt Rocks

Dalian Seoul

NINGXIA HUI AR

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA

YELLOW SEA

JAPAN

BAEKDUDAEGAN N.P.

National parks and nature reserves

REPUBLIC OF KOREA N.P.

National Park

1900–2010

which it was hoped that generous policies by the South would soften the hard line of the North. In September 1999, however, North Korea declared a new maritime boundary with South Korea in the Yellow Sea, significantly to the south of the Northern Limit Line, drawn unilaterally by the UN in 1953 as the maritime extension of the Military Demarcation Line. In November, North and South Korean armed vessels clashed over access to the waters claimed by North Korea.222 In 1999, North Korea, China, and Russia reached an agreement on navigation on the Tumen River.

During the 1990s, the three northeastern provinces of China began to suffer serious economic decline. Aging and inadequate infrastructure, along with unreformed management practices in the large state-owned enterprise sector, turned the region into China’s rust belt.223 The region was slower than the coastal provinces farther south to attract foreign investment, and its products were often not competitive in domestic and international markets.224 In Inner Mongolia, apparent desertification attracted increasing attention. It has been estimated that half of all the cultivated land in the Yellow River valley north of Ordos had been abandoned by the end of the twentieth century.225 The issue of responsibility for desertification became increasingly political in the 1990s, with Chinese authorities blaming overgrazing by Mongols’ livestock herds and Mongols attributing the phenomenon to inappropriate Chinese agricultural practices.226 Some scholars pointed out that land degradation from overgrazing was partly a consequence of herders being driven from their pasturelands and forced to subsist in marginal regions, and of policies under “market socialism” that privatized land into smallholdings, preventing herders from shifting their animals between summer and winter pastures, as had been traditional.227 During

the 1990s, too, effective autonomy in Inner Mongolia began to diminish. Government policies increasingly favored industrialization and “market socialism” over pastoralism. Mongol culture came increasingly to be constructed as “heritage,” an exotic tourist commodity in the form of architecture, clothing, music, and handicrafts, rather than as an aspect of the daily life of indigenous people.228 In 1992, Mongolia adopted a new constitution, institutionalizing multiparty democracy. Newly democratic Mongolia faced a serious economic crisis. The collapse of the Soviet Union had deprived the country of economic support, and hasty market liberalization caused serious economic disruption, including unemployment, corruption, and poverty. The first elections in 1992 restored the former Communist MPRP to office, though it lost power again in 1996. After the introduction of the new political system, the social and economic system broke down and Mongolia had to rely on China for such basic food supplies as flour and sugar. Mongolia became the fifth largest per capita recipient of foreign aid.229 In 1997, Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization. In 1994, changes in the constitution led to the creation of four new municipal aimags: Ulaanbaatar, Orkhon, Darkhan, and Govi-Sümber. Although it had reached border agreements with the Soviet Union (1958) and China (1962), Mongolia remained concerned about possible encroachments on its territory, especially in the undemarcated Nömrög region in the east. During the late twentieth century, the International Court of Justice had increasingly ruled in territorial disputes in favor of the claimant who could demonstrate actual use and occupation of disputed land. One measure to bolster the Mongolian claim to these border zones was to line them with national parks and nature reserves. More than 15,000 ethnic Kazakhs

213

1900–2010

214

from the far west of Mongolia migrated to newly independent Kazakhstan.230 Despite these tensions, the long-held idea that China would annex Mongolia gradually faded, and the Mongolian leaders became increasingly confident in dealing with China as well as with Russia as a relatively equal partner. China and Mongolia, in particular, aimed to develop a closer relationship in trade, energy, and human security. There were high-level state visits from both sides, promising peaceful coexistence and respect for each other’s sovereign rights: China guaranteed Mongolia’s independence, and Mongolia respected China’s one-China policy. China was in increasing need of Mongolia’s mineral resources and animal products, while Mongolia needed the Chinese market. China allowed Mongolia to use the port of Tianjin to export Mongolian goods and resources to the rest of the world.

The collapse of the Soviet Union opened new possibilities for regional self-assertion in Siberia. President Boris Yeltsin recruited the support of regional leaders in his power struggle against the Communist-dominated parliament in Moscow, promising the regions “as much sovereignty as they could swallow.” The experience of different territories in eastern Russia depended partly on the proportion of non-Russians in the local population and partly on each territory’s status: Buryatia, Tuva,

and Yakutia were republics; Aga Buryat and Ust-Orda Buryat were autonomous okrug; Amur, Chita, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Primoriye were oblasts or krai (there is only a historical difference in meaning between the two terms); and there was the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. The Yakut, Tuva, and Buryat republics claimed sovereignty in 1990, and in 1992 they signed the Federal Treaty with Russia, which granted them the right to draw up their own constitutions and to sign treaties with the federal government, as well as extensive powers over natural resources. The Buryat nationalist leader Nikolai Pinoyev, however, was jailed in 1991 for having proposed that Buryatia merge with Mongolia.231 Yakutia, renaming itself the Sakha Republic (from the indigenous name for the Yakuts), was especially effective in gaining control of its diamond industry, the world’s largest. After Yeltsin’s victory over parliament in 1993, however, regional authority was reduced, and the Federal Treaty was made subordinate to a new Russian constitution that ended the sovereignty of the republics. Nonetheless, Sakha retained significant autonomy in a separate agreement that it made with Russia in 1995.232 Because ethnic Russians constituted 50 percent of the population in Sakha and 70 percent in Buryatia, there was little serious talk of secession by either territory. Rather, Buryat and Yakut nationalists concentrated on measures to strengthen and

1900–2010

sustain their cultures; the Sakha Republic, for instance, put great emphasis on reintroducing the study of the Sakha language into schools.233 A treaty between Buryatia and the Russian Federation that was signed in 1995 sought to bind the central government to guarantee the ecological purity of Lake Baikal and led to the creation of a system of nature reserves covering all of the lake and most of its shorelands.234 In Tuva, by contrast, where native Tuvans constituted 65 percent of the population, sharp ethnic tensions emerged, and more than 10,000 Russian settlers had fled by 1992. With an estimated 90 percent of the budget of Tuva coming from central funds, however, the territory could not afford to leave Russia. In 1993, it changed its name from Tuva to Tyva.235 In 1991, China set aside its in-principle insistence that the Treaty of Beijing with Russia, signed 130 years earlier, had been unequal and reached an agreement with the Soviet Union (later signed with Russia), settling most of the border disputes along the Argun, Amur, and Ussuri rivers. The agreement allocated 1264 islands to China (including Zhenbao) and 1079 to Russia.

In 1993, Aga-Buryat and Ust-Orda became constituents of the Russian Federation, but fell into serious financial difficulty.

During the early 1990s, there were several frontier clashes between Russia and Mongolia, but an agreed demarcation of the border was completed in 1996.

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2000-2010

I n J u n e 2 0 0 0 , the “Sunshine Policy” of Gim Daejung culminated in a summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, at which they agreed on a range of measures to bring their countries closer, including family-reunion visits and increased economic cooperation. South Korea provided food aid to North Korea, and the railroad line between Seoul to Sinuiju was reopened. In September 2000, Gim Daejung won the Nobel Peace Prize for his policy, but there was little further progress. As his popularity in the ROK declined, partly due to economic crisis and reports of corruption, the DPRK became increasingly unwilling to rely on him. It was also apprehensive about the hostile policies of President George W. Bush, who described North Korea as belonging to an “axis of evil.” Increasingly, North Korea embarked on its own initiatives. It abolished state-controlled rationing in 2002 and legalized currency exchange at market rates, as well as establishing special zones at Sinuiju, Gaeseong, Geumgangsan, and Raseon to encourage cross-border economic relationships. The Hyundai Corporation invested heavily in Gaeseong, making the most of wages that were one-twentieth those in South Korea.236 The initiative in Sinuiju, however, was largely abandoned after its Dutch-Chinese governor was arrested in China on tax-evasion charges. Geumgangsan was an important tourist destination until 2008, when a South Korean tourist was shot after she strayed into a military zone.

In June and November 2002, North Korean and South Korean armed vessels clashed again in the Yellow Sea.237 In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which went into effect in 1970, and in October 2006 announced that it had successfully detonated a nuclear weapon, using fissile material prepared at the Nyeongbyeon Nuclear Scientific Research Center. Seismic evidence suggested that the test had taken place in the far north of the country. During the early years of the decade, several naval clashes took place between North and South Korea adjacent to three islands—Yeonpyeong, Daecheong, and Baengnyeong—immediately to the south of the so-called Northern Limit Line, drawn by the UN at the time of the Korean War armistice. In March 2010, an explosion (possibly accidental, but blamed on the North) sank the Cheonan, a South Korean naval

1900–2010

2000-2010

Yakutsk

R U S S IAN F E D E RATI O N TOMSK

Yeniseisk

KRASNOYARSK KRAI

SAKHA REPUBLIC

Len

FAR EASTERN FEDERAL OKRUG

SIBERIAN FEDERAL OKRUG

aR

.

“Northern limit Line”, claimed by South Korea North Korea’s Military Demarcation line in the Yellow Sea

Tommot

Likely site of north Korean nuclear test, 2006

Krasnoyarsk

IRKUTSK KHAKASSIA REPUBLIC

UST-ORDA BURYAT AOk

R.

ÖVÖRKHANGAI

GOVISÜMBER

SÜKHBAATAR

DUNDGOVI

DORNOGOVI ÖMNÖGOVI

BAYANNUR CITY (2003)

ALASHAN LEAGUE

ER INN

US MO O N TO AU

SHILINGOL LEAGUE

N LIA Weichang Manchu GO N and Mongol A.C. MO

BAOTOU ULAANCHAB CITY CITY (2003) Fengning Manchu A.C. HOHHOT ORDOS CITY CITY (2001) Beijing

Ha

NINGXIA

Qiqihar

HEILONGJIANG

a ng

ri

Ulaanbaatar

MONGOLIA

Subei Mongol A.C.

DORNOD

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Dorbod Mongol Dörbet Mongol A.C. A.C.

KHINGGAN LEAGUE

MARITIME

Harbin

South GorlosMongol MongolA.C. A.C. Qian Gorlos

Jilin

Changchun

CHIFENG TONGLIAO CITY (1983) CITY (1999)

Vladivostok

JILIN

Nakhodka

Yitong Manchu A.C. Qingyuan Manchu A.C.

Fuxin Mongol A.C.

Ku an c Qi ng hen gM lo rq ng in a Ma nch Le uA ft nc W .C . hu in A. g C. Mo ng oli an A. C.

BAYAN KHONGOR

ULAANBAATAR KHENTII

Su

TÖV

Tarabarov/Yinlong Khabarovsk Bolshoy Ussuriysky/Heixiazi I. JEWISH AO

HULUNBUIR CITY (2002)

R.

Darkhan

KHABAROVSK KRAI

Blagoveshchensk

RE GI ON

Erdenet

ARKHANGAI

KHOVD GOVI-ALTAI

Abagaitu/ Bolshoi Is.

SELENGGE BULGAN SELENGE ORKHON DARKHAN

ZAVKHAN

Arg

AGA BURYAT AOk

KHÖVSGÖL

Khovd

Chita

un

TYVA REPUBLIC

R.

UVS

AMUR

ZABAYKALSKY KRAI

ur

BAYANÖLGII

BURYAT REPUBLIC Verkhneudinsk

Irkutsk

Am

Kyzyl

Shenyang

LIAONING

Raseon

Xinbin Manchu A.C. Huanren Manchu A.C. Benxi Manchu A.C. Kuandian Manchu A.C. Nyeongbyeon

Xiuyan Manchu A.C. Sinuiju

D.P.R.K.

Pyongyang

Dalian Gaeseong Baengnyeong Daecheong Yeonpyeong

YELLOW SEA

Geumgangsan Seoul

REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Territorial disputes settled under the Sino-Russian J A PComAN plementary Agreement, 2004 Manchu and Mongol Autonomous Counties outside the Inner Mongolian Autonomous region

217

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218

vessel, near Baengnyeong; in November, North Korean artillery shelled Yeonpyeong after American and South Korean forces held naval exercises in the disputed waters.

In 2003, the Chinese government began a program called “Revitalize the Old Northeast Industrial Bases,” covering the three northeastern provinces (Dongbei; Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang) and five districts of eastern Inner Mongolia (Shilingol, Chifeng, Tongliao, Khinggan, and Hulun Buir). The region, formerly the industrial heart of China, suffered from aging infrastructure. The new program focused especially on the Shenyang–Dalian corridor, and there was talk that Dalian would become a “northeast Hong Kong.”238 Coal mining expanded dramatically in Inner Mongolia. In November 2005, an explosion at a factory in Jilin led to the release of a large quantity of the poisonous chemical benzene into the Sungari River. The authorities initially remained silent about the spill, but subsequently made a major effort to ensure that safe water would be supplied to Harbin and other downstream cities.239 In the early twenty-first century, the Chinese government extensively promoted what it called “ecological migration,” under which Mongol herders were removed from supposedly fragile landscapes and generally dispersed among Han Chinese communities. One-fifth of Inner Mongol pastureland was removed

from use, and 200,000 herders were displaced, especially from Shilingol League.240 This relocation of herders also had the unspoken purpose of removing traditional owners from land destined for mining operations. During the 1990s and 2000s, the administrative structure in the IMAR was gradually transformed: the designation “league” (Mongol, aimag; Chinese, meng) was replaced by “prefecture-level cities” (diji shi). By 2010, only three leagues remained in Inner Mongolia.

In the parliamentary elections held in Mongolia in 2000, the former Communist MPRP convincingly defeated the Democratic coalition, which was tarnished both by allegations of corruption and by the social disruption arising from market liberalization.

Although the new government tightened government controls in some areas, it began plans to privatize state-owned enterprises.

Economic prospects began to improve, with a dramatic increase in foreign investment in mining. In July 2008, a riot broke out in Ulaanbaatar after the MPRP was reelected.

In 2000, President Vladimir Putin of Russia tightened central control over the regions by creating seven federal districts (okrug), each under a presidential plenipotentiary with considerable power to intervene the in regional governments. Under the constitution ratified in 2001, constituent republics lost the formal right to secede. This control tightened still further in

1900–2010

2004, after an attack by Chechen terrorists on Beslan in which more than 300 hostages were killed, including many children.

Putin abolished the direct election of regional governors, appointing people to those posts himself. In April 2006, a referendum was held to consider merging Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous Okrug with Irkutsk Oblast. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor, and the merger took place in January 2008. A similar referendum in March 2007 led to the merger of Chita Oblast with Aga Buryat Autonomous Okrug on March 1, 2008, forming Zabaykalsky Krai.241 Plans were repeatedly announced for a rail and/or road bridge across the Amur River near Blagoveshchensk, but both estimated costs and local Russians’ fears of invasion or influx from China held the plans back from realization. By 2009, the Amur–Yakutsk Mainline had reached Tommot, about 390 kilometers (240 miles) from Yakutsk.

In October 2004, China and Russia signed the Complementary Agreement on the Eastern Section of the China-Russia Boundary, under which Russia agreed to surrender Tarabarov/Yinlong Island and about half of Bolshoy Ussuriysky/Heixiazi Island, while retaining that part of the island closest to Khabarovsk. The transfer took place in October 2008. The agreement also transferred to China the Abagaitu/Bolshoi Islands in the Argun River.

219