Contested border: A historical investigation into the sino-korean border issue, 1950-1964

The contested Sino-Korean border issue has received very little study. Making use of presently available sources in the several different archives in China and Taiwan, as well as documents made public in South Korea, we examine in this article the historical background of the Sino-Korean border issue and border relations from 1950 to 1964. North Korea was dissatisfied with the Jiandao Treaty of 1909, but was uneasy about raising that dissatisfaction with the Chinese in the 1950s. When China was caught in a number of woeful domestic and international predicaments in 1962, Pyongyang seized the opportunity and proposed to Beijing that the border issue be settled. It took the two sides only six months to negotiate and sign a new boundary treaty. As a result, North Korea emerged with a larger share of Tianchi and other disputed areas.