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p Russian good will towards China could hardly fail to influence the more farsighted Chinese officials, though Qing foreign policy continued erratic and contradictory, due to pressure from the western powers and the instability of the regime.

p Putyatin had reported that the Manchus were eager to enlist Russian support in their negotiations with England and France. Archimandrite Pallady testified that they looked to Putyatin to mitigate the English demands—indeed, they had a “blind belief" in his ability to do so.  [189•22 

p The Qing agreed to western demands for a new series of treaties. Then, on 8 April 1858, the Emperor ordered that preferential treatment be accorded to Russia. Since the Russian government had disassociated itself from several western claims, including the demand for embassies in Peking, the Qing government hoped that a new Sino-Russian agreement might help to limit British encroachments. Russia was consequently the first country to sign a treaty with China on 1 June 1858, after the hostilities had ended.

p The mutual desire to settle the frontier issue definitively is clearly reflected in the Tianjin (Tientsin) Treaty. Paragraph 9 states: “The undefined sections of the f ion tiers between China and Russia shall without delay be studied in situ by persons accredited by both governments and the stipulations they make about the boundary line shall comprise a supplementary paragraph of the present treaty. In fixing the boundaries, a detailed description and maps ofi the adjacent areas shall be drawn up, 190 which shall serve both governments for the future as incontestable documentation on the frontiers.”

p On the day he signed the Tianjin Treaty, Putyatin did not know that two weeks previously, on 16 May, a large segment of the frontier had been demarcated by the Aigun Treaty. Hence, the paragraph quoted above would refer only to the remaining sector around the Ussuri.

p The Russo-Chinese Tianjin Treaty was in China’s interests at that point: it did not even mention the extension of foreigners’ rights to freedom of movement and trade in the Chinese interior or the establishment of foreign embassies in Peking—both points for which England and France were still pressing.

p Putyatin announced that in addition the Russian government was willing to satisfy the Manchu request for arms and military instructors to create a new Chinese military machine capable of “restraining the urge of other states to apply force”.

p However, the Qing hope that this Treaty would inhibit England and France proved vain. The treaties which China subsequently signed with those two countries imposed heavy indemnities (4 million Hang to England, 2 million to France) and gave foreign traders freedom of movement throughout the country. British ships were to be allowed on the Yangtse, British goods were freed from internal tariffs and subjected instead to an export tariff increased by a mere 2.5 per cent, and finally, Britain was allowed to set up a permanent embassy in Peking and France a temporary representation.

p This humiliation infuriated all sectors of Chinese society. The Qing government refused to ratify any of the Tianjin Treaties, including that signed with Russia. England and France began to make hurried preparations for another attack on China.

p Major-General Ignatiev set out for China in March 1859, taking in his entourage training officers for the Chinese army. He had been commissioned to continue discussions on the points left undecided by the Putyatin mission: the demarcation of the frontier from the Ussuri to the sea, the revival of the caravan trade through Urga to Peking or to Kalgan (and the creation of a Russian trading facility there), and the establishment of Russian trading premises in Kashgar.

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p Ignatiev’s mission got off to a bad start. The Qing victory over an Anglo-French squadron near the Dagu forts had encouraged the government to believe that it could drive the foreigners away by main force. All current negotiations and existing agreements were annulled.

p This faith in military solutions soon foundered. The Manchus, with the bulk of their forces tied up against the Taiping rebels, were not able to pre-empt another Anglo-French intervention (the third Opium War), so that by August 1860 the foreigners were in Tianjin and rapidly advancing on Peking, looting and destroying as they went. They even sacked and torched Yuanminyuan, the magnificent Qing summer residence on the outskirts of Peking. The Emperor Xiangfeng and his court fled to Rehe province, and Peking seemed to be beyond help.

p Ignatiev, who had arrived in Shanghai ;n May 1860 and then moved to Tianjin, was meanwhile trying to dissuade the English and French from attacking Peking, forcing the transfer of the capital from Peking to Nanking, insisting on the establishment of permanent foreign embassies in the capital and so on. His overt stand against the atrocities of the interventionists and against British commercial expansionism distinguished him favourably from the western diplomats; it soon became clear to both the Chinese people and their rulers that he was the mouthpiece of a friendly country. Ignatiev also made adept use of the frictions that emerged as France began to chafe against her role of pawn in England’s colonial game.

p The Anglo-French forces were in the outskirts of Peking when Ignatiev arrived; he lodged with the religious mission in the capital. Qing officials asked for his mediation to end the hostilities, and he agreed. On 18 (6) October he received a letter from the Emperor’s step-brother, Prince Gong, the imperial proxy, which promised that once peace was made, all business with Russia would be promptly concluded.

p Ignatiev persuaded the British and French ambassadors not to proceed with the siege of Peking or the erection of a monument to allied soldiers killed in Tianjin, to cut down the entourages of envoys entering the Chinese capital in future and to modify certain other claims. Yet the allies stood firm on all other points contained in the annulled treaties and on the demands 192 made in the course of the third Opium War. On the night of 18 October, Ignatiev informed the English and French that the Chinese had discussed the conditions in his presence and agreed to them all; he extracted an allied promise to speed the withdrawal from Peking to Tianjin.

p The grateful Chinese were quick to admit that had Ignatiev not been present, there is no doubt that “the Europeans would not have missed the opportunity to sack the town”.

p Now Ignatiev was able to get on with his own task. He had brought maps prepared by Muravyov which showed a possible demarcation of the frontier from Lake Khanka to the sea. Muravyov had also reported that the area between the Ussuri and the sea was inhabited only by fugitive Chinese; the sole permanent Chinese settlement was at the confluence of the Hunchunhe and the Tumen, some 45 versts from the sea, “which proves that the Chinese government has accepted that these places are outside its domains”.

p Ignatiev and the Manchu plenipotentiaries agreed that representatives must be sent to study the area between Khanka and the sea before final agreement on the frontier there could be reached. The Russian side withdrew its request for a consulate in Qiqihar and accepted that the single Chinese adult males living around the Ussuri should be allowed to remain there and continue answerable to the Chinese authorities.

p On 2 November 1860 Ignatiev and Prince Gong (Yi Xin) signed a supplementary agreement later known as the Peking Treaty. Prior to the ceremony, which was held in the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking, they had received a copy of an imperial edict confirming that the Treaty had been drafted “with due attention" and that “all that is stipulated in [it should be] fulfilled”. The Treaty was then endorsed by the Russian Tsar and published in Peking on 20 December 1860 and in Russia four days later. Since both rulers had already expressed their approval, ratification procedures were waived.

p The first paragraph of the Peking Treaty established the eastern sector of the Russo-Chinese frontier: “From the confluence of the Shilka and Argun rivers, the frontier will run down the Amur River to the confluence of this latter river with the Ussuri River. The lands which lie on the left bank (northwards) of the 193 Amur River shall belong to the Russian state, while the lands on the right bank (southwards) to the estuary of the Ussuri River shall belong to the Chinese state. Thence, from the Ussuri estuary to Lake Khinkai (Khanka.—M.S.), the boundary line runs along the Ussuri and Sungacha rivers. The lands which lie on the eastern (right) bank ofi these rivers shall belong to the Russian state, while those on the western (left) bank shall belong to the Chinese state. Then the boundary line between the two states runs from the estuary of the Sungacha River, crosses Lake Khinkai, and proceeds to the Bailing He (River Tur), and from the estuary of this latter river along the mountain range to the issue of the Hubitu (Hubtu) River and thence along the mountains which lie between the Hunchunhe River and the sea to the Tumen. Here also the lands which lie to the east shall belong to the Russian state and those to the west, to the Chinese state.”

p Paragraph 2 defined the western sector of the frontier, which was to follow “the direction of the mountains, the flow of the large rivers and the lines of existing Chinese boundary markers from .. . the Shabin-dabaga beacon ... to the south-west to Lake Zaisang and thence to the mountains which lie to the south of Lake Issyk Kyi and are named Tianshannanlu and along those mountains to the domains of Kokand”.

p Once this lengthy frontier had been settled, the question arose of increasing the number of trading posts—not only to further centralised trade but also to serve the commercial needs of the frontier populations. The Peking Treaty opened new trading posts all along the frontier. Paragraph 7 allowed Russian subjects on Chinese territory and Chinese subjects on Russian territory equal rights to “engage in trading activities freely, without any constraint on the part of local officials”.

p The arrangement whereby no customs duties were levied on goods exchanged at Kuldja and Chuguchak was extended in paragraph 4 of the Peking Treaty to the new frontier along the Amur and Ussuri to the Tumen. The Manchus agreed to open Peking to Russian merchants again: they would enter Mongolia via Kyakhta and be permitted to trade in Urga and Kalgan en route. Russia reciprocated by inviting Chinese merchants “to set out and trade in Russia”.

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p “By way of experiment,” paragraph 6 added, “trade shall be allowed in Kashgar on the same basis as in Yili and Tarbagataj (Kuldja and Chuguchak.—M.S.).” The Peking Treaty’s provisions on overland trade resembled those of previous agreements in that they embodied the principles of mutual benefit, unlike the commercial treaties which China had concluded with the western powers. China hereby was accorded the right not only to trade on Russian soil but also to have “consuls in the capitals and other towns of the Russian Empire”.

The Tianjin and Peking Treaties also heralded the birth of Sino-Russian maritime trade. In accordance with the most– favoured-nation principle, Russia was to share all the advantages won by other foreign states. Yet, since the Russian navy was still under strength in the Far East and the Chinese navy was almost nonexistent, interest in the Tianjin and Peking Treaties continued to centre on overland commerce.