I don't know if you have noticed when you look at the map, there is a section of the western part of the mainland that is a dotted line, according to the labeling method of the continental map, the solid line represents the established national boundary, and the dotted line represents the undetermined national border.
So what is the border between the mainland and which country is drawn in this dotted line?
The answer is revealed: the place where the dotted line is drawn is the Pamir Plateau, located in the southwest of Xinjiang Province, which is the border between the mainland and Tajikistan.
With regard to the border, negotiations between the mainland and Tajikistan in 2002 resulted in the return of 3.5 per cent of the 28,000 square kilometres of land in the main disputed area of the Pamirs to the mainland, thus ending the dispute over the border between the two countries.
Since negotiations have been held in 2002, why is this part of the border line still a dotted line? It is necessary to trace several periods of history, and there are several important time nodes and important events:
During the turbulent period of the late Qing Dynasty, Tsarist Russia focused on China's northeast and northwest regions, trying to expand its sphere of influence with the help of these regions.
In 1860, that is, the tenth year of Xianfeng, the two countries signed the "Sino-Russian Treaty of Beijing", and in 1864, the two countries signed the "Sino-Russian Treaty on the Survey and Demarcation of the Northwest Boundary", the signing of these two unequal treaties, so that about 440,000 square kilometers of mainland territory fell into the hands of Tsarist Russia.
However, neither the Sino-Russian Treaty of Beijing nor the Sino-Russian Treaty on the Survey and Demarcation of the Northwest Boundary include the Pamir Plateau.
In the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty signed in 1881, Tsarist Russia also confessed to the fact that the Pamir region belonged to China.
However, jaw-dropping things are about to start happening:
On June 3, 1884 (the 10th day of the fifth month of the 10th year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty), when Tsarist Russia coerced the Qing government to survey the boundary and sign the fifth sub-treaty of the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty, the Sino-Russian Continuation of the Kashgar Boundary Treaty, it actually moved the starting point of the dividing line between China and Russia in the Pamir region from the Alai Mountains in the north of the Pamirs to the Uzberi Pass in the northeast.
What is even more bizarre is that the triangular area formed in the middle of the Chinese boundary to the south, the Russian boundary to the southwest, and the Uzberi Pass to the south is also designated as a "waiting area".
The most excessive thing is that in 1891, Tsarist Russia directly sent troops, sent people to invade this "waiting area", and even cooperated with Britain to completely occupy and carve up the Pamir region, and by 1895, most of the Pamir area was occupied by Britain and Russia.
The Chinese people are very angry about this series of banditry by Britain and Russia, and on the issue of territorial ownership, whether it is the Qing government, the Republic of China or New China, we have always insisted that the Pamirs are China.
The Pamir region was occupied by Tsarist Russia until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which originally belonged to the Sino-Russian border issue, but because the Pamir region was actually controlled by Tajikistan, this part of the area became a territorial dispute between China and Tajikistan, which became more difficult.
In 1999 and 2002, China and Tajikistan signed the China-Tajikistan State Border Agreement and the China-Tajikistan State Border Supplementary Agreement respectively.
By signing these two agreements, we have recovered 3.5 per cent of the main disputed areas of the Pamirs, or about 1,000 square kilometres of territory. (In fact, China has acquired more than 2,000 square kilometers of land outside the Line of Control.)
After recovering these areas, the national professional exploration team conducted professional research and evaluation of these areas, and found that there were many resources and cultural relics in this area, and the experts of Qi stomped their feet, and the late Qing Dynasty misled the country, resulting in these places being occupied by foreigners for more than 130 years.
As for everything settled, why the border line is still a dotted line:
Some people think that the current result of the negotiations has not yet been approved by the Tajik Congress, and there is also a theory that we are not satisfied with this result, and only a small part of it has been withdrawn, or we hope that it will be taken back in its entirety!
Each has its own reason, I don't know what you think about this?