Word: border
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Twenty years ago next March, China and the Soviet Union appeared to be on the brink of war after a series of skirmishes along their border. After nearly two decades of recurring tensions, trade has broken out across that 4,500-mile frontier -- a commercial boom that may be a prelude to a new rapprochement between the two Communist giants. The U.S. is following these developments with considerable interest. Ever since Richard Nixon made his historic opening to China in the wake of the 1969 border fighting, the American "strategic partnership" with China has been rooted largely in a shared...
...mayor of Mudanjiang, Wang Shubin, wants to talk not about the soldiers but about local merchants, who have their own interest these days in the Soviet Union. Beijing and Moscow have authorized the Chinese province of Heilongjiang and the Soviet Union's Maritime province to conduct direct cross- border trade. Chinese and Soviet officials travel back and forth, comparing wish lists, displaying wares and negotiating barter deals. Since both countries have nonconvertible currencies and neither wants to expend precious reserves of hard currency, no money changes hands. The Chinese supply vegetables, prefabricated plastic greenhouses and textiles; the Soviets send back...
Almost all the traffic is by rail, along a line that Czarist Russia helped build in the late 19th century from Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang, to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, more than 300 miles to the southeast. The principal border-crossing point for the region is Suifenhe, five hours by the daily milk train from Mudanjiang, near the Ussuri River, scene of some of the fiercest fighting in 1969. Here too there are plenty of reminders of potential trouble. Green military staff cars dart about the streets, their horns blowing at pedestrians and the occasional horse-drawn...
Officials on both sides agree that the volume of trade along the border has always been inversely proportional to the degree of military tension. Recently "both sides have been trying to improve conditions," says Zhao Zhonghuan, deputy chief of staff for the Heilongjiang Provincial Command. "The Soviets seem to have withdrawn their forces somewhat. They've also cut back on the amount of time that their helicopters are operating along the border. In the past, their aircraft have violated our airspace, and we've lodged formal protests, but there have been no penetrations this year." One of his Soviet counterparts...
John Cheever, in a lecture he delivered on Chekhov before his death, noted how often Chekhov crossed the border between life and art. "In reading a dozen stories of Chekhov," Cheever said...