China's terrirotial loses and claims + Importance.

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legoboy

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Couple of months ago I heard that China had gained around 100km^2 from Tajikistan or something(One of the stans) and that got me thinking on all of China's territorial changes.

Does anybody know if China's claims were truely legit or not ? Because it said China only got less than 20% of what they were claiming. I'll assume they took the deal because it was either this or nothing. What was the strategic and economic importance of this land?

Also in 2004 China got back a fair amount of land from Russia along it's border. Was this deal fair for China ? or did once again China only regain a small % of what originally belonged to them.

Other Major "Disputed" Regions

-Outer Manchuria (Now belongs to Russia)
-Parcel Islands (Now belongs to China)
-Spratly Islands(Nobodies)
-Outer Mongolia(I heard it would have been China's if Russia had not intervened a long time ago.)
-Tibet(My dad tells me this area is of little economic value, but rather huge strategic importance as it acts as a buffer to India.)

What do you guys think will happen to the fate of these disputed area's in the future. Do you think China will ever get back it's territorial loses, and will it gain any of these disputed areas.

Taiwan is obviously another significant area but it is a different matter and there is no need to even discuss it as we all know it is part of China.

Feel free to bring to my attention any I haven't mentioned here.
 
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antiterror13

Brigadier
Tibet is extremely important economically ... water, mineral, timber, forest, oil and gas (soon will be discovered hugely) and God knows what else
 
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Lion

Senior Member
antiterror13 said:
Tibet is extremely important economically ... water, mineral, timber, forest, oil and gas (soon will be discovered hugely) and God knows what else
Click to expand...

Agree! Tibet has huge resources but anyway. Tibet is already under Chinese rule during the Ming dynasty.

Another to add on. Diaoyutai is also under dispute with Japan.
 
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delft

Brigadier
Tibet has been independent after the Ming. In that time a Mongolian army intervened in a civil war and ensured that the Dalai Lama would be the head of state and of the Buddhist "church". It lost its independence again in 1720 ( according to the Encyclopedia Britannica ) and never regained it. The US sponsored troubles in the 1950's were unsuccessful and can't be repeated.
But in general border areas have been of several countries in the past and it depends on the maps you chose were you might put the border. If you see Italy as the successor to the Roman Empire it might lay claim to all of the countries surrounding the Mediterranean and more.
I know the following is a bit off topic but it illustrates the complexity of such matters:
Some Israelis claim all of Palestine and Libanon and more because they say King David ruled it all. But long after King David, after the third Jewish insurrection against Roman rule known as the Bar Kochba war ( 132 -135 AD ), the Roman authorities introduced the name Palestine and drove the Jews out of Jerusalem which was then given a new, Roman, name. The Palestinians of that time were mostly Jews and a substantial minority of those Jews belonged a sect called Christians.
That was before the followers of St Paul became the majority among the Christians and Jews and Christians were split.
When the Roman Empire became Christian the Jews were not allowed back into Jerusalem " because they had murdered God". Some Jews became Christians for social or economic reasons in that period.
When the bishop (sic!) of Jerusalem surrendered the town to the Muslims he stipulated that they would not allow Jews to live there. But of course that was a stipulation that couldn't be kept and when the Crusaders took the place they murdered all, some ten thousand, Jews as well as most of the Muslims. The Jews were murdered in or fled from Palestine in the Crusader period.
Nowadays the Palestinians are for about a sixth Christians, probably mostly from families who have been Christian from before the Muslims took Jerusalem, and most of the others are Muslims and mostly descendants from people who were Jew or Christian Palestinians who converted. Who has the right to live in the country their ancestors lived in 2000 years ago?
 
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richardrli

New Member
Registered Member
So China recently gained territory? Some of you guys might know that it's disputed on which is the third largest country in area, this piece of news may settle that.
 
SampanViking

SampanViking

The Capitalist
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Super Moderator
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No not really. The PRC was already larger than the US in terms of land mass, but the US is officially larger than China because it has two very large Sea boards. An extra 100kms is not likely to change that.

Regarding the Tajik settlement, I am quite sure that it was settled on the basis of practicality. The area was extremely mountainous and I suspect that the reminder of the area would have had very poor communications with the rest of China and gain no benefit from being hived off from the rest of the Tajiks, to whom the physical connections were more natural and easy.
 
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nosh

Junior Member
I just want to remind everyone that Tibet has been part of China longer than Hawaii, Texas, Nebraska, and even Philadelphia being part of USA. If someone is implying that Tibet has the right of reverting into pre-1720 days, then British shall have the right of their pre-1720 territory, and Hawaiians and North American Indians should have the right to reclaim their home as well.

delft said:
Tibet has been independent after the Ming. In that time a Mongolian army intervened in a civil war and ensured that the Dalai Lama would be the head of state and of the Buddhist "church". It lost its independence again in 1720 ( according to the Encyclopedia Britannica ) and never regained it. The US sponsored troubles in the 1950's were unsuccessful and can't be repeated.
But in general border areas have been of several countries in the past and it depends on the maps you chose were you might put the border. If you see Italy as the successor to the Roman Empire it might lay claim to all of the countries surrounding the Mediterranean and more.
I know the following is a bit off topic but it illustrates the complexity of such matters:
Some Israelis claim all of Palestine and Libanon and more because they say King David ruled it all. But long after King David, after the third Jewish insurrection against Roman rule known as the Bar Kochba war ( 132 -135 AD ), the Roman authorities introduced the name Palestine and drove the Jews out of Jerusalem which was then given a new, Roman, name. The Palestinians of that time were mostly Jews and a substantial minority of those Jews belonged a sect called Christians.
That was before the followers of St Paul became the majority among the Christians and Jews and Christians were split.
When the Roman Empire became Christian the Jews were not allowed back into Jerusalem " because they had murdered God". Some Jews became Christians for social or economic reasons in that period.
When the bishop (sic!) of Jerusalem surrendered the town to the Muslims he stipulated that they would not allow Jews to live there. But of course that was a stipulation that couldn't be kept and when the Crusaders took the place they murdered all, some ten thousand, Jews as well as most of the Muslims. The Jews were murdered in or fled from Palestine in the Crusader period.
Nowadays the Palestinians are for about a sixth Christians, probably mostly from families who have been Christian from before the Muslims took Jerusalem, and most of the others are Muslims and mostly descendants from people who were Jew or Christian Palestinians who converted. Who has the right to live in the country their ancestors lived in 2000 years ago?
Click to expand...
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
nosh said:
I just want to remind everyone that Tibet has been part of China longer than Hawaii, Texas, Nebraska, and even Philadelphia being part of USA. If someone is implying that Tibet has the right of reverting into pre-1720 days, then British shall have the right of their pre-1720 territory, and Hawaiians and North American Indians should have the right to reclaim their home as well.
Click to expand...

In the end, none of that matters. Territoriality isn't settled by debates about "rights". It's settled by power. So long as China has her might, no one is going to split her up, no matter how much publicity they get.
 
S

Schumacher

Senior Member
nosh said:
I just want to remind everyone that Tibet has been part of China longer than Hawaii, Texas, Nebraska, and even Philadelphia being part of USA. If someone is implying that Tibet has the right of reverting into pre-1720 days, then British shall have the right of their pre-1720 territory, and Hawaiians and North American Indians should have the right to reclaim their home as well.
Click to expand...

Just a minor correction, Tibet is actually a part of China since at least the Yuan Dynasty. That's more than 1000 years ago. So going by the logic of reverting to historical territory, the entire North America should be returned to the Natives, not just Hawaii, Texas, Nebraska, Philadelphia. :)
Please continue.
 
Maggern

Maggern

Junior Member
Though this thread is on the verge of venturing into the much hated political sphere, I'll say this:

According to news reports, the area China gained from Tajikistan is mountaineous and contained few resources. Most of the Tajiks opposing the deal are doing so because of principle, not because Tajikistan lost some kind of valuables.

About Tibet, an Oxford professor once said that the notion that the Tibetans gain independence with the Dalai Lama at the helm today would be as outrageous as Hawaii, in its current modernized state, is fully returned to the hands of the current decendants of the last kings of the islands as a fully independent nation.

Tibet was, in fact, independent for most of the early 1900s, which I think is what many Americans refer to, when they think of Tibet as an independent nation invaded by China. During this period, many provinces and local warlords were de facto independent from Beijing and governed their own little "countries". Tibet was reclaimed along other warlords and separatists in the latter 40s. However, during their short run of full independence, Tibet also signed a deal with Great Britain to cede a large swathe of land in southern Tibet (known as Arunachal Pradesh in India) to the British Crown. China of course doesn't recognize this deal as it doesn't recognize Tibet's legitimacy to sign such a treaty, hence there is a large amount of disputed territory around Tibet today.
 
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