ABSTRACT
Russia’s advance in the Far East was not confined to Siberia, Mongolia and the Amur, but was extended to Central Asia, and eventually menaced Chinese Turkistan. At the beginning of the Ching Dynasty, Chinese Turkistan was renamed ‘Sinkiang’ or the ‘New Dominion’ after the subjugation of the Jungarian tribes. The initial step of Russian expansion in Central Asia was the colonization of the country through immigration. Russian merchants also became active, and made their first contacts with Sinkiang at Ili or Kuldja. In 1850 the Russian Government requested China to open Kashgar for trade. Russian trade with China had always occupied a favoured position. In 1860 Russia took advantage of the unrest in China occasioned by the Taiping rebellion to make China sign the Treaty of Peking, which specified that the boundary between Russian and Chinese territory in Central Asia should be based upon the existing line of the pasture-pickets.
