Moscow: AST; Vostok-Zapad Publ., 2006, 366 p.
In order to understand such a complex issue as the changes on the Russian-Chinese border1 that occurred in 1991-2004, it is sometimes necessary to look at them from the outside, for example, from Japan. The monograph by Professor A. Iwasita, a leading Japanese expert in the field of Soviet-Chinese and Russian-Chinese border problems (Center for Slavic Studies, Hokkaido University), is a Russian translation of the book "4000 Kilometers along the Russian-Chinese Border" (2003), published in Japan. International interest in the book was such that an English translation was published in Hokkaido (2003) and a Chinese translation was published in Beijing (2007).
The monograph contains the results of the author's work for 10 years on the study of relations between Russia and China in border areas, in particular, the problem of border demarcation. The book contains extensive factual material, as it is a systematic account of the author's journey of 4,000 km along the Russian-Chinese border. The large number of cartographic diagrams and photographs included in the work allows the reader to better understand border issues. The main advantage of this book is that its analysis and conclusions are based on unpublished materials and information obtained directly from the border regions of Russia and China.
The book consists of an introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion.
1 In 2008, the magazine "Vostok (Oriens)" (No. 6) published my review of E. D. Stepanov's book " Politics Begins with the Border. Some issues of the border policy of the PRC in the second half of the XX century" (Moscow, 2007).
page 199
In the introductory part - "Behind the scenes of demarcation" - A. Iwasita bluntly writes that in the 1990s and later, the essence of Article 5 of the 1991 "Agreement between the USSR and the PRC on the Eastern Part of the Soviet-Chinese Border", which defined the border line along the main fairway, was clear to Russian residents ...
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