The Pamir Plateau once had a very beautiful name " Onion Ridge " , which has been China's territory since ancient times, and this is beyond doubt. The Tang Dynasty set up the Anxi Capital Protectorate east of the Aral Sea and the Onion Ridge guard in Tashkurgan, while during the Qing Dynasty, the Pamir Gao Principle was under the jurisdiction of the Kashgar Counsellor.
However, with the continuous invasion of Western powers, the Qing government was a little unable to manage the frontier areas, which gave those countries interested in Chinese territory, especially Britain and Russia.
Britain has always wanted to protect its pearl British India, so it put forward a so-called "arch Indian security" strategic plan, and then tried to directly control Tibet, Xinjiang and other places, including them into the British sphere of influence, so the British continued to invade Tibet, including the Pamir Plateau, hoping to move this strategic border north.
Of course, there is also a reason for Tsarist Russia, and Britain's ambitions for Tsarist Russia are clear. Tsarist Russia had always wanted to occupy Central Asia and open up the Indian Ocean, and after occupying some khanates in Central Asia, it had been actively preparing to encroach on the Pamir. At the same time, Britain had expanded into Afghanistan and infiltrated the Pamirs. This inevitably led to conflict with Britain.
The two countries are in constant contradictions in Afghanistan and western China. Chinese did not fail to understand that after Zuo Zongtang regained Xinjiang, he sent troops to establish a post on the Pamir Plateau, and SumanTash also erected a boundary monument during the Qianlong period.
In 1884, Russia forced the Qing government to sign the Treaty of The Continuation of the Kashgar Boundary, which was also the first treaty involving the Pamir Plateau, according to which russia embezzled most of the Sarez Pamir and the northwest corner of the Alchur Pamir. The Qing government repeatedly protested to the Russian government for this reason, but to no avail.
And that's not all, then Tsarist Russia blatantly tore up the treaty and encroached on the Pamir region of China in Uzbekistan, east of the line all the way south to the Sharaikol Ridge.
Seeing that the Tsarist sphere of influence was expanding step by step, Britain was not very satisfied. But Britain and Russia were not willing to fight a war here, and at best engaged in a verbal dispute. But neither of the two countries obeyed the other, but Britain was an empire that could not pull down this face. And Tsarist Russia's desire for land is even more exaggerated. In order not to clash between the two countries, the two countries signed a treaty to divide the Pamir Plateau.
Among them, the Wakhan Corridor was allocated to Afghanistan, which at that time did not dare to ask for it, and only accepted it under British pressure. In the end, China barely preserved this section of the Pamir Plateau in Tatunbashi.
In 1960, the People's Republic of China signed a border treaty with Afghanistan, formally recognizing the renunciation of the Wakhan Pamir. The part that had previously been taken away by the Russians was returned to Tajikistan after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and China and Tajikistan later signed a border agreement, and when the new border was drawn in 2011, 1,158 square kilometers returned to China.
For China, this was very helpless, when Britain and Russia divided the Pamirs, the Qing government still protested and negotiated with Britain and Russia. However, the Qing government was powerless to look west, and at this time, a fierce conflict broke out between the Qing Dynasty and Japan, and the Sino-Japanese War was on the verge of breaking out.
Of course, objectively speaking, if there was no Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government would not have been able to do anything, after all, under the condition of insufficient strength, it could not affect the situation at all, and when Britain and Russia dared to sign a contract in this way, they themselves did not take the Qing government into account.