as settled by the Nerchinsk Treaty, were maintained, and the frontier westwards from the sources of the Amur River to the Shabin-daba Mountain in the Upper Yenisei basin, just north of the junction of the Kemchik and the Ulukem, was established. The country south of this natural line was placed under Chinese influence, and the country to the north of it under Russian. Trade was allowed under restriction and supervision, and all promiscuous trading in Mongolia was stopped. Caravans sent to Peking were limited in number and provided with escorts, and Khiakta was assigned as a special place on the frontier, where Russians and Chinese merchants could meet and carry on their barter trade without restriction.
These last two treaties established the relations between Russia and China firmly for the rest of the eighteenth century, and were not seriously modified till the middle of the nineteenth century, when the relative weakening of Chinese influence in the Far East, and the consequent strengthening of Russian influence, enabled the latter to enlarge its privileges by a further series of treaties.
The treaties of 1851 and 1860 established the right of free interchange of commercial wares between Russian and Chinese subjects at specified posts along the frontier and at certain places in Outer China, including Urga, Uliassutai, Kobdo, Tarbagatai, Kuldja and Urumtsi. In 1881, by the "Ili" treaty, Russia secured further economic concessions and privileges in the provinces of China bordering Siberia and Turkestan. The provisions of this treaty are very complicated, obscure, and even contradictory, but in the main they admit certain general principles which can be set forth as follows:—
