When it comes to the development of history, we are quite proud as a person with a history of more than 5,000 years of development. As one of the four ancient civilizations, China's development history of more than 5,000 years has become a miracle in the world and one of the countries with the longest history in the world. Throughout the development of the whole history, China's land area is also very large, ranking in the forefront of the world, in the ancient period, many countries around China were China's vassal states, until the outbreak of war in the modern period gradually broke off contact with China, growing into an independent country. With the beginning of the Opium War, China also began to degenerate into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, many unequal treaties began to appear in our country, and various great powers cut off our territory one after another, and it was not until the modern period that it began to be slowly returned.
We all know that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia returned China's territory four times in a row, so how big is the land area recovered by our country in these four times? At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, China was in a period of internal and external troubles, not only domestic political corruption, but also overseas powers began to regard our country as a target and wanted to divide it up. Britain launched two Opium Wars, followed by the Sino-Japanese War and the Eight-Power Alliance's invasion of China. The absence of Tsarist Russia in these countries does not mean that it does not exist. In fact, Tsarist Russia was the biggest beneficiary country, and they did not waste a single soldier to invade and occupy a large amount of our territory, and the area occupied by them was the largest among all countries.
As can be seen from several humiliating treaties, Tsarist Russia has occupied a total of 1.5 million square kilometers of our country, and this does not include Outer Mongolia. Over time Russia became the largest country in the world. However, with the rise of our country and the rapid development of the economy in recent years, the overall international situation has undergone great changes, and today China and Russia also maintain very close relations, and economic exchanges are also very frequent. Under the influence of these reasons, in recent years, Russia has also taken the initiative to return some of our territories, a total of 4 times before and after.
The first spiritual land returned was northeast Siberia. But the territory of this area is extremely small, only 9 square kilometers. It was then sent back to the Far East, which was also small and not very important. Although the area of the country is not very large, it is also the territory of our country and an indispensable part of our country. Shortly thereafter, after a series of conversations with Russia, they agreed to return half of the country to our country, and the entire Border Area of Sang in the northeast reached 10 square kilometers. The last return amounted to 173 square kilometres, the largest and most meaningful. The return of Black Blind Island has not only made the people at home happy.
It has also led to a growing relationship between my country and Russia. In the conversation between the two countries, they said that they would gradually return the territory of our country, after all, the relationship between the two countries is also obvious to all. As an ancient country of historical civilization, these lands originally belonged to us, and as sons and daughters of China, we must not let go of the issue of territorial sovereignty.