ABSTRACT
In May 1991, after four years of intensive but secret negotiations, a boundary agreement was signed between official representatives from China and the Soviet Union. Ratified by the national legislatures of both China and Russia, the primary successor state to the Soviet Union, in February 1992, this boundary agreement would demarcate the 3,700 kilometers of border separating both states which runs along the thalweg, or middle of the main channels, of the Amur/Heilongjiang and the Ussuri/Wusuli.1 The border agreement also transferred to China some 600 tiny islets and rocks, uninhabited except for itinerant fisherman, which fall on the Chinese side of the mid-channel of the two rivers. These include the island of Damansky/Zhenbao, the site of two short but bloody clashes between Chinese and Soviet soldiers in 1969.
