Sixty-Four Villages East of the Heilongjiang River

The Sixty-Four Villages East of the Heilongjiang River (zh-tsp|t=江東六十四屯|s=江东六十四屯|p=Jiāngdōng Liùshísì Tún) (literally "64 villages east of river") are located on the left bank (north bank) of the Amur River (known as Hēilóng Jiāng in Chinese) opposite of Heihe and on the east bank of Zeya River opposite of Blagoveshchensk. The area is 3600 km². In the Treaty of Aigun signed by Qing Dynasty China and Russian Empire, the north bank of the Amur was ceded to Russia. According to the treaty Manchu (Chinese) residents living north of Amur river were granted the right to stay on the Russian territory. This residents (not the territory itself) were designated in the treaty as administered by China.

During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, after the Russian ships, and the Russian bank of the river were fired upon by rebels from the Chinese side, Russian troops forced some of the Chinese residents of the north bank to cross the Amur themselves into China.

The Republic of China (ROC), the successor of the Qing Empire, has never recognized the Russian occupation as legitimate. In the 1991 Sino-Russian Border Agreement, the People's Republic of China (PRC) renounced sovereignty of the 64 Villages. However, the Republic of China now based in Taiwan never renounced sovereignty of the area nor does it recognize any border agreements signed by the People's Republic of China with any other countries due to the restrictions imposed by Article 4 of the Constitution of the Republic of China and Section 5 of Article 4 of the . Therefore, the area still appears as Chinese territory in many maps of China published in Taiwan even though it is now administered as a part of Amur Oblast, Russia.

ee also

*Tannu Uriankhai is another Russian territory claimed by the Republic of China now based in Taiwan.

External links

* [http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-8-17/31330.html Anything for Power: The Real Story of China’s Jiang Zemin (Chapter 14)] ( [http://www.dajiyuan.com/b5/5/6/13/n953631.htm Chinese version] ) - The Epoch Times criticism of the treaty mentioning the Sixty-four villages east of the Heilongjiang River