Russia and China exhibit harmony as part of what John Carlin has called "the axis of dictators." But it was not always like this. The two giants of the East never got along, and since the tsarist expansion into Siberia, they have been in heated conflict over their border (large today, huge then, as Outer Mongolia was part of the Asian empire). Little-known islands, islets and rivers have given rise to a succession of low-intensity conflicts.
But one of them, in 1969, was about to take them to war and there was even talk of a "third world war". With the end of the USSR, then President Boris Yeltsin put an end to the disputes by signing a treaty with his counterpart, Jiang Zemin, on November 10, 1997. Thus, a border of more than four thousand kilometers was pacified. It was the beginning of a good friendship.
