page_title: Treaty of Nerchinsk
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Treaty of Nerchinsk / History
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Carte la plus generale et qui comprend la Chine, la Tartarie Chinoise, et le Thibet. Dressee sur les cartes particuliers des RR PP Jesuites, par le Sr. d'Anville..., qui ya joint le pays compris entre Kashgar et la mar Caspienne, tire des geographes et des historiens orientaux English: A most general map, including China, Chinese Tartary, and Tibet, based on individual maps of the Jesuit fathers. The map gives 1734 as the year, but the modern HKUST publishers say 1737 English: Fragment: North-eastern quarter
context_page_description: The Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 was the first treaty between Russia and China under the Qing dynasty. The Russians gave up the area north of the Amur River as far as the Stanovoy Range and kept the area between the Argun River and Lake Baikal. This border along the Argun River and Stanovoy Range lasted until the Amur Acquisition in 1858 and 1860. It opened markets for Russian goods in China, and gave Russians access to Chinese supplies and luxuries.
  The agreement was signed in Nerchinsk on August 27, 1689. The signatories were Songgotu on behalf of the Kangxi Emperor and Fyodor Golovin on behalf of the Russian tsars Peter I and Ivan V.
  The authoritative version was in Latin, with translations into Russian and Manchu, but these versions differed considerably. There was no official Chinese text for another two centuries, but the border markers were inscribed in Chinese along with Manchu, Russian and Latin.
  Later, in 1727, the Treaty of Kiakhta fixed what is now the border of Mongolia west of the Argun and opened up the caravan trade. In 1858 Russia annexed the land north of the Amur and in 1860 took the coast down to Vladivostok.
context_section_description: From about 1640, Russians entered the Amur basin from the north, into land claimed by the Manchus who at this time were just beginning their conquest of China. The Manchus had, by the 1680s, completed the conquest of China and eliminated the last Ming successor states in the south. With the Manchu Qing dynasty now firmly in control of the South, it was in a position to deal with what they saw as Russian encroachment in Manchuria, the dynasty's ancient homeland. By 1685 most of the Russians had been driven out of the area. See Sino–Russian border conflicts for details.
  After their first victory at Albazin in 1685, the Qing government sent two letters to the Tsar (in Latin) suggesting peace and demanding that Russian freebooters leave the Amur. The Russian government, knowing that the Amur could not be defended and being more concerned with events in the west, sent Fyodor Golovin east as plenipotentiary.  Golovin left Moscow in January 1686 with 500 streltsy and reached Selenginsk near Lake Baikal in October 1687, from whence he sent couriers ahead. It was agreed the meeting would be in Selenginsk in 1688. At this point the  Oirats (western Mongols) under Galdan attacked the eastern Mongols in the area between Selenginsk and Peking and negotiations had to be delayed. To avoid the fighting Golovin moved east to Nerchinsk where it was agreed that talks would take place. The Manchus with 3,000 to 15,000 soldiers under Songgotu left Peking on June 1689 and arrived in July. Talks went on from August 22 to September 6.
  The language used was Latin, the translators being, for the Russians, a Pole named Andrei Bielobocki and for the Chinese the Jesuits Jean-Francois Gerbillon and Thomas Pereira. To avoid problems of precedence, tents were erected side by side so that neither side would be seen as visiting the other.  Russian acceptance of the treaty required a relaxation of what had been, in Ming (the former dynasty) times, an iron rule of Chinese diplomacy, requiring the non-Chinese party to accept language which characterized the foreigner as an inferior or tributary. The conspicuous absence of such linguistic gamesmanship from the Treaty of Nerchinsk, together with the equally conspicuous absence of Chinese language or personnel, suggests that the Kangxi emperor was using the Manchu language as a deliberate end-run around his more conservative Han bureaucracy.  The Yuan Empire's rule of Mongol tribes living around Lake Baikal was claimed by the Qing, who incited the defection of the Nerchinsk Onggut and Buryat Mongols away from the Russians.
  The Manchus wished to remove the Russians from the Amur. They were interested in the Amur since it was the northern border of the original Manchu heartland. They could ignore the area west of the Argun since it was then controlled by the Oirats. The Kangxi Emperor (i.e. the reigning Qing (Manchu) dynasty emperor of China) also wished to settle with Russia in order to free his hands to deal with the Dzungar Mongols of Central Asia, to his northwest. The Manchus also wanted a delineated frontier to keep nomads and outlaws from fleeing across the border.
  The Russians, for their part, knew that the Amur was indefensible and were more interested in establishing profitable trade, which the Kangxi Emperor had threatened to block unless the border dispute were resolved. Golovin accepted the loss of the Amur in exchange for possession of Trans-Baikalia and access to Chinese markets for Russian traders. The Russians were also concerned with the military strength of the Manchus, who had demonstrated their capability, in 1685 and 1686, by twice overrunning the Russian outpost at Albazin.
  At this time, Russia could not send large forces to the Far East, starting a war with the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, the Dzungars captured Mongolia, threatening China, so Russia and China were inclined to sign a peace treaty as soon as possible..
caption: The northern border of "Chinese Tartary", as shown on this map from 1734, was more or less the Sino-Russian border line settled at Nerchinsk. Nerchinsk itself is shown on the map (on the Russian side of the border) as well.
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