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into signing a series of unequal treaties by which it seized vast stretches of Chinese territory.
In 1858, by the Treaty of Aigun, China ceded to Russia more than 600,000 square kilometres
of territory north of the Heilong [Amur] River, which forms the northern border of
present-day Heilongjiang Province. It also designated some 400,000 square kilometres of
territory east of the Wusuli River, which now forms the eastern border of the province, as
an area of “common jurisdiction”. In 1860, through the Additional Treaty of Beijing, this
area was incorporated into Russia’s territory. The Additional Treaty also determined the basic
position of the western boundary between the two countries. In 1864, on the basis of this
boundary, Russia compelled the Qing government to sign the Protocol of Chuguchak, ceding
more than 440,000 square kilometres of territory northwest of present-day Xinjiang Autono-
mous Region. From 1881 to 1884, by the Treaty of St. Petersburg and five additional
agreements, Russia acquired 70,000 more square kilometres in the West of China. Altogether,
Russia seized over 1.5 million square kilometres of Chinese territory. p. 286
104 The Yalta Agreement, or the Tripartite Agreement on Japan, was secretly signed by
Premier Stalin of the Soviet Union, President Roosevelt of the United States and Prime
Minister Churchill of Great Britain at Yalta (Crimea, USSR) on February 11, 1945. The main
element of the agreement was that within two or three months after the European war was
over the Soviet Union would intervene against Japan. In return for this, the other two parties
promised to maintain the status quo in Outer Mongolia, to return to the Soviet Union the
territories lost in the Russo-Japanese war of 1905, as well as the Kuril Islands, and to restore
Soviet rights and interests in China’s Northeast. The Soviet Union expressed its willingness
to sign a pact of friendship and alliance with China’s Kuomintang government. p. 286
105 Immediately after the outbreak of a civil war in Korea on June 25, 1950, the United
States, under the banner of the United Nations, sent troops to intervene and at the same time
sent its Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Straits. On September 15, U.S. troops landed at Inchon
on the west coast of Korea, then crossed the 38th Parallel, the provisional line of demarcation
between North and South Korea, and pushed north en masse, bombing and strafing the
frontier cities and villages of Northeast China and posing a serious threat to China’s security.
To resist the United States, aid Korea and safeguard the homeland, the Chinese people
organized the Chinese People’s Volunteers. On October 25 the Volunteers arrived at the
Korean battlefield and fought shoulder to shoulder with the Korean People’s Army. Under
the heavy blows of the Chinese and Korean people’s armies, the U.S. troops suffered one
defeat after another and on July 27, 1953, had to sign an armistice agreement. pp. 286,
319, 334
106 The Vietnam War was a war of national liberation in which the Vietnamese people
fought to resist U.S. aggression and to unify the country. In 1954, when Vietnam had won
the war of resistance against French aggression (1946-1954), North Vietnam was liberated.
The United States, which had replaced France, controlled South Vietnam, obstructing
unification of the country. Starting in 1959, Vietnamese people in the South waged armed
struggle against the U.S.-supported autocracy and U.S. interference. In August 1964 the
United States bombed North Vietnam, and in March 1965 it sent troops to the South.
Confronted with the firm resistance of the Vietnamese people, on January 27, 1973, the U.S.
had to sign the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam and withdraw
its troops from the South. On May 1, 1975, South Vietnam was liberated. p. 286
107 Li Xiannian (1909-1992), a native of Huang’an (now Hong’an) County, Hubei
Province, joined the Communist Party of China in 1927. He was a member of the Seventh
through Twelfth Central Committees, a member of the Political Bureau of the Eighth, Ninth
and Tenth Central Committees, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau
of the Eleventh and Twelfth Central Committees and Vice-Chairman of the Eleventh. During
the War of Liberation (1945-1949) he held the posts of Second Secretary of the Central Plains
Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Deputy Commander of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-