page_title: Sino-Soviet Relations 1969–1991
section_title: Military Build-up
hierarchical_section_title: Sino-Soviet Relations 1969–1991 / Sino-Soviet Border War of 1969 / Military Build-up
caption_attribution_description: Disputed sections of the border between China and Russia before the final border agreement of 2004.
context_page_description: Relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union underwent a sea change from 1969 to 1991, from open conflict to bitter détente to diplomatic partners by 1989. Relations between the Soviet Union and Communist Party of China dated back to the founding of the CCP in Shanghai in 1921, a meeting conducted under the supervision of the Soviet Comintern. The Soviets remained cautious partners with the rising CCP throughout the 22 years of the Chinese Civil War, and the USSR was the first nation to recognize the People's Republic of China in 1949. The following year saw the signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty and founding of the Sino-Soviet alliance as well as the beginning of a decade of economic cooperation between the two nations.
  Despite transfers of aid and raw materials between the nations, by 1956 this once warm friendship had cooled, and the Sino-Soviet split began. In 1960, the Soviet Union withdrew all economic advisors from the PRC, and relations became confrontational in political, economic, military and ideological arenas.
context_section_description: With the intensification of the Sino-Soviet Split, both nations deployed troops to the shared border, which stretched from North Korea to Central Asia. However, for the first part of the Sino-Soviet confrontation, the Mongolian People's Republic, a Soviet satellite since 1921, remained relatively neutral, and facilitated continued trade between the USSR and PRC. This changed with the signing of "The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the USSR and the Mongolian People's Republic" which superseded previous agreements of economic cooperation between the allied communist nations. The treaty, signed in Ulaanbaatar on January 15, 1966 by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and Mongolian Prime Minister Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal, allowed the Soviet Union to station troops in Mongolia to ensure mutual defense. While the Soviet Army had previously operated in Mongolia, this was the first time that troops would be based in the independent nation. By 1967, the Soviet Union had deployed armored units and mechanized troops as well as ballistic missiles inside Mongolia and along the Chinese border. Border incidents and clashes continued to increase with 4,189 border crossing incidents between 1964 and 1969. The border conflict grew worse as each side moved more troops into the borderlands, and tensions in Moscow and Beijing rose to a breaking point. These developments along the northern border put Mao into a potential two front war, what Mao called "[A] new historical epoch of combating both U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism" in a letter to Enver Hoxha in September 1968. This letter, reprinted in the People's Daily, September 19, 1968 illustrated the brewing potential for a trilateral nuclear war.
caption: Disputed sections of the border between China and Russia before the final border agreement of 2004.
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