ABSTRACT
The Russian Far East has played an important symbolic role in the Russian national consciousness, but the reality is that the sparsely populated area is distant from the center of power in Moscow in both the literal and figurative sense. Nonetheless, since the establishment of the Russian Federation, three interrelated topics of Russian-Chinese relations have been especially salient for the Russian Far East and Transbaikal area: border demarcation; migration; and economic and trade relations in the border regions. The Soviet Union owned all river islands and controlled all river traffic along the Sino-Soviet border prior to the adoption of the 1991 border agreement. It was difficult, in particular, for regional residents within the border areas to come to terms with this evident diminishment of Russian sovereignty. The representatives continued to raise objections even after Boris Yeltsin signed the Russian-Chinese border demarcation agreement. The Chinese, however, flatly disputed Russian assessments of the extent of the illegal migration of Chinese into Russia.
