ABSTRACT
The 1969 Sino-Soviet conflict was arguably China’s third imperialist war in the post-1949 period, only this time the goal was to consolidate control over her northern borders with the Soviet Union. Sino-Soviet relations through the late 1960s were hostile, and in addition to major ideological differences included sharp disagreements over the status of Outer Mongolia, and numerous territorial disputes along the Sino-Soviet border. The origins of these clashes are rooted in the Sino-Soviet diplomacy during late 1949 and early 1950, when Stalin and Mao agreed to respect all previous Sino-Soviet treaties, while making necessary changes and alterations in the future. To Stalin, this meant that so long as the USSR and China never opened discussions on the matter, then Outer Mongolia’s status as a Soviet satellite state and the SinoSoviet border would remain unchanged. Mao disagreed with this assessment and believed that Outer Mongolia’s status and the exact location of the border were issues that warranted discussion and renegotiation. For Mao, over a century of Russo-Chinese treaties that had the combined effect of stripping China of hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory also fell into this category.
