copenlu/druid huggingface dataset:
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-05-28): In terms of bilateral cooperation, promises were made and documents signed. These covered economic relations, cultural links (Putin spent the second day of his trip in Harbin), media (Xinhua partnered up with several Russian media agencies), and softening the border by establishing a cross-border reserve for big cats and jointly developing Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island (Heixiazi Dao). The last point is particularly curious, as there was public outrage in Russia last year over official People’s Republic of China maps’ demarcation of the island as fully Chinese despite a 2008 agreement to divide the disputed island between the two countries.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-09-04): China’s inclusion of the Russian territory of the Bolshoy Ussuriysky/Heixiazi island on the Amur River in its new map, despite the countries officially resolving the territorial dispute 15 years ago, could be a mistake, experts suggest. The border issue had officially been settled by dividing the island between the two. Last week, the new map by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) stirred controversy as it included disputed territories with India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. [...] The island, in the far northeastern part of Manchuria located at the confluence of the Ussuri and Amur rivers, had been the subject of an old territorial dispute between China and Russia.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-09-06): In the far northeastern corner of China on the border with Russia, it shows Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, an island at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, as Chinese territory, even though the countries signed an agreement nearly 20 years ago to split the island.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-05-16): The President of the Russian Federation and the Chairman of the People's Republic of China signed an agreement on the joint development of the Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island. The previously disputed territory now has a chance to become a symbol of friendship between the two states. Note that the Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is located not far from Khabarovsk. It is divided between Russia and China. Beijing previously claimed full sovereignty over this territory. However, the signed agreement indicates that the PRC has made concessions to the Russian Federation in this matter. [...] Let us add that Bolshoy Ussuriysky, together with the neighboring Tarabarova Island and the small islands surrounding them, were taken under protection by Soviet troops in the 1920-1930s. Since 1964, the PRC began to dispute the ownership of this territory. But the agreement signed today indicates that the territorial dispute has been resolved.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2004-10-14): After treaties in 1991 and 2001 were not able to complete define the disputed border between the Russian Federation and the Republic of China, the two states were party to the Complementary Agreement between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation on the Eastern Section of the China–Russia Boundary in 2004. The disputed territories were islands at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers. Possession of the two islands was significant for military control of the Amur region, as the Russian city of Khabarovsk is in close proximity to the disputed border. China wished for the boundary to be the channel north of the islands, resulting in China’s possession of Bolshoy Ussuriyski and Tarabarov Island. Russia insisted that, consistent with the 1860 Treaty of Beijing, the southern channel should make up the boundary, allowing for Russian possession of the islands.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-10-06): 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. [...] 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. [...] 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.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-09-02): Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, or Heixiazi, sits at the confluence of two border rivers, and ownership is legally shared between the two countries. China's official map paints the entire 135-square mile piece of strategic land into its easternmost territory. [...] Jeff Liu, a spokesperson for Taiwan's Foreign Mionistry, told reporters on Wednesday that "the People's Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan. That is the fact and the status quo universally recognized by the international community." [...] The territorial dispute, which Taipei now rarely engages in due to warming ties with Tokyo, flared up a decade ago when the Japanese government nationalized the islands. Since then, China's largest maritime law enforcement ships—some equipped with autocannons—have staked Beijing's claim to the islets by circling them on a near-daily basis, often anchoring in their territorial waters for days.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-09-04): "Most of the contention seems to be that it claims Indian territory – Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin – as Chinese territory, but it also claims some territory of Russia [Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island], as well as the entirety of the South China Sea and Taiwan," Malcolm Davis, an Indo-Pacific expert at The Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra. "I believe there is also some suggestion that the way the dashes are drawn near Taiwan could indicate that China also sees Japanese islands in the Ryukyus as its territory. China had claimed the Indian territory, as well as South China Sea and Taiwan previously, but the re-assertion of claims to Russian territory and also the potential for claims to Japanese territory are new," Davis said in an email. "The Indians have reacted angrily and formally protested the Chinese move, and Japan will certainly seek clarification on China’s intentions. Not sure how Russia will respond, given that Moscow needs Beijing’s support in the Ukraine war."
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-09-04): Was China looking to take advantage of Russia's setbacks, under international sanctions and embroiled in its war in Ukraine, to nibble away a few dozen square kilometers? On Monday, August 28, the Ministry of Natural Resources published the 2023 edition of the "National Map of China," an official document that has become the reference regarding "national sovereignty." In the far northeast of the country, China seems to have made Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island its own. Located at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, this island of around 300 square kilometers has long been a subject of dispute between the two countries. In 1929, Russia occupied the island and prohibited China from navigating that part of the Amur River, which Beijing has always contested. In 2004, however, the two countries reached a compromise: The western part of the island went to China, which could also navigate on the Amur River, but in return, Beijing accepted that the eastern part would go to Russia. [...] By contrast, several other countries bordering China have officially protested against the publication of this map: India, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as Taiwan, which, according to this document, is an integral part of the People's Republic of China.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-07-26): Chinese investment interests are focused on two key areas. One is the junction of the Amur (Heilongjiang) and Ussuri rivers, where Bolshoy Ussuriysky (Heixiazi) Island and the Russian city of Khabarovsk (with its population of 620,000) are located. The other is near the mouth of the Tumen River, not far from Russia’s great Pacific port of Vladivostok (population 600,000), where the Chinese border lies just 15 kilometers away from the Sea of Japan. In both of these strategic locations, Russia intends to harness China’s financial resources and manufacturing savvy to build two gigantic special economic zones.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of People's Republic of China (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-07-23): Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced that funding has already been allocated for the construction of a border crossing between Russia and China on Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island in the Khabarovsk Territory. The funds are designated for the construction of the border crossing between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island. During a working visit to Khabarovsk on Monday, the Prime Minister was presented with master plans for Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Khabarovsk. Dmitry Dameshin, the acting governor of the Khabarovsk Territory, while sharing information about these projects, also mentioned plans for joint development of the island with China.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-09-27): Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island (Russian: Большо́й Уссури́йский о́стров, romanized: Bol'shoy Ussuriyskiy Ostrov), or Heixiazi Island (simplified Chinese: 黑瞎子岛; traditional Chinese: 黑瞎子島; pinyin: Hēixiāzi Dǎo; lit. 'black bear island'[a]), is a sedimentary island at the confluence of the Ussuri and Amur rivers. Since the Sino-Russian Border Agreement that was fully implemented in 2008, Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island was divided between China and Russia. China was given control over part of the island, and Russia retained the rest. Since then, the issue has been peacefully settled, and China no longer claims the entire island. It has an area of about 327 to 350 km2 and is bounded closely by Yinlong/Tarabarov Island, and over 90 islets.[b] Its position at the confluence of the Amur and the Ussuri, and right next to the major Russian city of Khabarovsk, has given it great strategic importance. History [edit]The 1860 Convention of Peking stipulated that the boundary between Russia and China lay along the Amur and Ussuri rivers. As such, the island at the confluence of the two rivers was Chinese. Until 2004, Bolshoy Ussuriyskiy Island was the site of a territorial dispute between mainland China and Russia. The Soviet Union forcefully occupied Bolshoy Ussuriyskiy and Yinlong Islands in 1929 in the wake of a Russo-Manchurian conflict, but this was not accepted by China. While Russia governed the islands as a part of Khabarovsk Krai, China claimed them as a part of Fuyuan County, Heilongjiang province, the easternmost part of China.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-11-14): Earlier in 2023, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources ordered that new maps must use the former Chinese names of its lost territories in what is now Russia’s Far East. Vladivostok, home to Russia’s Pacific fleet headquarters, became Haishenwai; Sakhalin Island became Kuyedao. Then in late August, the ministry released a map that showed the disputed Russian territory of Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island within China’s borders.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-06-19): In August 2023, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources released a new edition of its "standard map." According to defenseanalysts, it showed Bolshoy Ussuriysky, the Russian part of the island, as Chinese territory. Moscow’s response came three days later. "The Russian and Chinese sides adhere to the common position that the border issue between our countries has been finally resolved," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement. [...] Heixiazi/Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island has been a source of Chinese-Russian tension dating back to the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, under which Russia vastly expanded its Far Eastern territories at China’s expense. From the Chinese perspective, the Aigun pact is counted among the humiliating "unequal treaties" that the imperial government at the time was compelled to sign, granting technologically superior Western powers, including Britain, the United States, France, and Russia, broad economic and territorial concessions. [...] The case of Bolshoy Ussuriysky is more complex than it seems. "The island is, in some ways, a strategic beachhead because it gives greater access to Khabarovsk," Wishnick said. That city is the headquarters of the Eastern Military District, and an aviation regiment of the Russian Aerospace Forces is based there.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-06-17): In August 2023, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources released a new edition of its "standard map." According to defenseanalysts, it showed Bolshoy Ussuriysky, the Russian part of the island, as Chinese territory. Moscow’s response came three days later. "The Russian and Chinese sides adhere to the common position that the border issue between our countries has been finally resolved," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement. [...] Heixiazi/Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island has been a source of Chinese-Russian tension dating back to the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, under which Russia vastly expanded its Far Eastern territories at China’s expense. From the Chinese perspective, the Aigun pact is counted among the humiliating "unequal treaties" that the imperial government at the time was compelled to sign, granting technologically superior Western powers, including Britain, the United States, France and Russia, broad economic and territorial concessions. [...] The case of Bolshoy Ussuriysky is more complex than it seems. "The island is, in some ways, a strategic beachhead because it gives greater access to Khabarovsk," Wishnick said. That city is the headquarters of the Eastern Military District, and an aviation regiment of the Russian Aerospace Forces is based there.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-10-08): Russia and subsequently the Soviet Union claimed all the islands in both rivers including those that were Chinese according to the thalweg principle. In the 1991 treaty, Russia largely conceded that these islands were Chinese, but Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, at the confluence of the Amur and the Ussuri Rivers, had become part of the Russian city of Khabarovsk, and China agreed that about two-thirds of the island should remain Russian.[citation needed] [...] In a border agreement between Russia and China signed on 14 October 2003, the final dispute was resolved. China was granted control over Tarabarov Island (Yinlong Island), Zhenbao Island, and around 50% of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island (Heixiazi Island), near Khabarovsk. The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress ratified the agreement for China on 27 April 2005, and the Russian Duma followed suit on 20 May. On 2 June, Foreign Minister of China, Li Zhaoxing and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, exchanged the ratification documents from their respective governments.[56] On 21 July 2008, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his Russian counterpart, Lavrov, signed an additional Sino-Russian Border Line Agreement, marking the acceptance of the demarcation of the eastern portion of the Chinese-Russian border in Beijing, China. An additional protocol with a map affiliated on the eastern part of the borders both countries share was signed. The agreement also includes the Chinese gain of ownership of Yinlong / Tarabarov Island and half of Heixiazi / Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island.[57]
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-08-30): The 2023 geographic map indicates that Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island on the Amur River is part of China. Russia and China disputed claims over the island beginning in the 1860s until the two nations agreed to divide the territory in a 2008 treaty, according to the Russian business news outlet RBC. Whereas the agreement gave the western part of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island to China, the standard map service shows the entire island as Chinese territory. [...] Russian land was not the only territory belonging to another country that was claimed by the Chinese map. India's Arunachal Pradesh state and the border region of Aksai Chin are also shown as belonging to Beijing on the map.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-06-22): The new map also portrayed Bolshoy Ussuriysky, known in China as Heixiazi (Black Bear) Island, as entirely within Chinese territory. The island, which sits at the confluence of the Ussuri and Amur rivers, has been jointly owned since the two neighbors reached a border agreement in 2008.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-09-06): In the far northeastern corner of China on the border with Russia, it shows Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, an island at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers, as Chinese territory, even though the countries signed an agreement nearly 20 years ago to split the island.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2021-08-01): Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, an outpost on the Amur River in the Far East, was disputed by Russia and China for decades, but it has now been divided almost equally between the neighbors. The Chinese call it Heixiazi Island. Developers have put forward plans to make it an important gateway for trade and travel, but on the Russian side most people live in dilapidated homes with minimal infrastructure.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-09-01): The maps, recognizing 🇷🇺 Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island )or Heixiazi Island) as fully Chinese territory were released in China😁 — Sviat Hnizdovskyi (@s_hnizdovskyi) August 30, 2023
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-01-18): The Chinese map had claimed the Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island in its entirety as Chinese territory. After decades of conflict, China and Russia resolved the dispute in 2005 and the partition of the disputed island was completed by 2008. Under the deal, China got 170 of the 350 sq kms of the island along with some other nearby islands and Russia kept the rest of the disputed region. Russia reiterated this in its rejection of the new map. [...] In Russia, China has claimed Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island in its entirety. The disputed had been there since the 19th century but was resolved over a decade ago when the island and the surrounding region was peacefully split between the two countries to end the dispute. [...] By 2008, the dispute was over and the main Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island was split. China was given a 170 sq km slice of the island and Russia kept the rest. Additionally, smaller islands of Vinogradov, Koreysky, and Romashkin were also handed over to China to resolve the dispute.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2016-05-05): The island is divided in almost equal sections between Russia and China. The Soviet Union occupied the whole of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island (known as Heixiazi, or Black Bear, in Chinese) following the so-called Chinese Eastern Railway Incident of 1929, but in an historic agreement between Russia and China signed in 2004, Moscow agreed to return about half of it. The transfer took place in 2008. Since then the island in the Ussuri has become a miniature symbol of the vast Asian regions divided between the two geopolitical giants. [...] There was one point where the border guards and the "razvedchik" were clearly in disagreement. What will become of the island? One of the reasons for the partition — the main reason, I believe — was the implicit promise that China would help develop the border area with heavy investment and millions of tourists. Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island was to be a spearhead of this effort, a paradise of untouched nature transformed into a booming tourist zone and a hub of cross-border ties between Russia and China. Western sanctions have further pushed the notion that Russia’s future lies in developing closer ties with China. Bolshoy Ussuriysky is one of just three or four locations where this is being ground-tested. While the border guards and the people in the border village take the plans more or less seriously, the "razvedchik" had no qualms telling me this is nonsense and that sometimes he does not understand people in Moscow.
Claim: Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island is a territory of Russia (Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2023-09-05): China’s new map is notably broader than the official map that China submitted to the UN in 2009. Since at least 1947, China has claimed maritime features within a tongue-shaped "Nine-Dash Line" which traces the outlines of the South China Sea on China’s maps. This map adds a tenth dash around Taiwan, and encompasses parts of the Exclusive Economic Zones of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Brunei. While the map is not fully clear regarding the Senkaku/Ryuku islands, which China and Japan dispute, the map may be meant to encompass those as well. China’s claims to land boundaries with India and Russia are also especially bold. The map includes the Indian state of Arunchal Pradesh, along the Line of Actual Control, a de facto border in the Himalayas over which India and China fought a war in 1962, and where conflict has erupted in recent years. The map also encompasses the Aksai Chin plateau in the Himalayas, which India claims but China controls. The map also includes the entirety of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, which Russia and China agreed to split in a 2005 agreement. While China’s maritime claims and its dispute with India are well known, the claim to Russian territory is new. China launched a "national map awareness publicity week," as it has for map releases in recent years, to publicize its claims.