ABSTRACT
In 1900, imperial Russia dispatched 200,000 troops into China as part of an international expedition to suppress the Boxer Uprising and to rescue the foreign embassies in Beijing. In July, the Russian army imposed a blockade along the Amur River, which served as the Sino-Russian border at the time. Most of the northern bank of the river, an area densely populated with Chinese residents, had been ceded to Russia in the Treaty of Aigun in 1858, but part of the area was still under Chinese jurisdiction. In an attempt to reduce Chinese influence in that area, the Russians massacred more than seven thousand Chinese residents along the northern bank (as in Hailanpao) and burned their houses. The Chinese authorities in Heilongjiang Province, south of the river, could offer little protection to those Chinese. After the incident, Russia annexed the entire northern bank.
