Speaking of Charshri, it is estimated that many people are at a loss, which is not surprising, this land, even in Xinjiang, is not known to many people. This is also very normal, after all, this beautiful land with an area of more than 220 square kilometers has been living in a foreign country for hundreds of years, until 1998, when it returned to the motherland. The recovery of Char xili must begin in the late Qing dynasty. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty's national strength declined, and there was no time to take care of the vast frontier. By forcing the Qing Dynasty to sign seven unequal treaties, the expanding Tsarist Empire seized millions of square kilometers of land and occupied it for a long time by virtue of its national strength. In 1991, the once-mighty Soviet Union collapsed, and the 15 republics of the former Soviet Union gained independence, four of which became neighbors with China: Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. At the beginning of independence, these new countries were in ruins, and one of the big problems they faced was to gain formal recognition from China and determine their land borders. After arduous negotiations, Kazakhstan finally returned 10 pieces of land to China, covering an area of about 1,100 square kilometers, and Charshiri, known as the Pure Land of the Border, was also among them.
The lost historical origins of Sharsiri
The vast area west of Ili has long been the land under the de facto control of the Qing Dynasty. However, Tsarist Russia continued to infiltrate Central Asia, dividing local rulers and ethnic groups, and gradually bringing most of Central Asia into the sphere of influence, which made Tsarist Russia have a strong interest in the Qing Dynasty's land in Central Asia. After the Opium War, the Qing Dynasty's national strength was declining day by day, which gave Tsarist Russia an opportunity to take advantage of it.
In October 1864, Tsarist Russia forced the Qing government to sign the "Sino-Russian Survey and Division of the Northwest Boundary Treaty", which cut off more than 440,000 square kilometers of territory east and south of Lake Balkhash in western China. After that, the Russian Empire took advantage of the opportunity of Xinjiang being invaded and occupied by the general Agubai of the Kokand Khanate in Central Asia, and seized the opportunity to invade the Ili region of Xinjiang territory of the Qing Dynasty. In 1875, Zuo Zongtang led an army into Xinjiang, defeated Agubai, and recovered the Xinjiang region except Ili. In order to recover Ili, the Qing court sent Yan Chonghou as a negotiator to go to Tsarist Russia for negotiations. Under the coercion of the Tsarist Empire, Chonghou signed the Treaty of Livachia, according to which the Qing Dynasty took back Ili, but cut off more than 70,000 square kilometers of territory west of Ili, and at the same time had to compensate 2.8 million taels of silver, allowing Tsarist Russia to set up a consulate in Ili. When the news reached China, there was an uproar in the government and the opposition, and the Qing court refused to ratify the treaty and decided to renegotiate. In 1880, the Qing court sent diplomat Zeng Jize to Moscow to negotiate, and after arduous negotiations, in 1881, Tsarist Russia forced the Qing government to sign the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty, and the Qing Dynasty recovered most of Ili, but still ceded more than 70,000 square kilometers, including Charshili.
After the end of World War I, the Tsarist Empire collapsed, the Soviet Regime headed by Lenin was established, in order to win over the Beiyang government, in July 1919, the Soviet Russia issued the "Galahan Declaration" to the world to renounce all unequal treaties signed between Tsarist Russia and China, including the 1.5 million square kilometers of land occupied by Tsarist Russia. In September 1920 and August 1923, in order to continue to win over China, Lenin instructed the Soviet government to issue two public declarations on China, reaffirming the oath to abolish all unequal treaties and privileges between China and Russia and to return Chinese territory. After Stalin came to power, before the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the Soviet Union, Stalin ignored the issue of returning Chinese territory and only talked about some innocuous issues, until the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Soviet Union was unwilling to return an inch of Chinese territory. Although after the founding of New China, the Soviet Union had a honeymoon period with China, and the two sides also negotiated on the border issue, it was very difficult to expect the Russians who were greedy for land to spit out the land, and in the first negotiations from February 25 to August 15, 1964, the only result of the negotiations between China and the Soviet Union was "the two sides recognized the existence of the disputed area", including "Charshiri". Since then, although China and the Soviet Union have also held two border negotiations, neither has been substantively returned.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of Kazakhstan, there was a good opportunity for the settlement of border disputes
At the end of 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and Kazakhstan soon declared independence. But without the protection of the big tree of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan had to choose the direction of national development alone. At the beginning of independence, Kazakhstan took the initiative to demand border negotiations with China, and the disputed land between China and Kazakhstan, including Sharshiri, ushered in the dawn of the return.
After six years of negotiations, on July 4, 1998, the Chinese and Kazakh governments officially signed the Supplementary Regulations on the Borders of China and Kazakhstan. According to the agreement, China and Kazakhstan entered the area from May 1999 to September 1999 to survey the boundaries of the area, and assigned 22,000 hectares of Charshri area and 5,800 hectares of territory in Alashankou to China. But Kazakhstan still controls 9,400 hectares of Shire-Sharif. In the second round of Negotiations between China and Kazakhstan, the Chinese government abandoned more than 100 square kilometers of the Gobi desert north of Alashankou, which had long been effectively controlled by the Soviet Union, in exchange for 9,400 hectares of Charhiri land that Kazakhstan itself actually controlled. At this point, the Chinese government has recovered all 31,400 hectares of land in Charshri, and since then Charshri has officially belonged to the territory of the People's Republic of China.
After the return, Charcili was listed as a nature reserve
After the return, Sharshiri maintained a good ecological environment, because for a long time, Sharshiri was a military control zone under Soviet control, except for a small number of garrisons, other personnel could not enter at all.
In order to better protect the area, in June 2006, the people's government of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region merged a 64 square kilometer piece of land in Alashankou with the original Charcili and approved Charcili as a nature reserve in the autonomous region. Charshiri Nature Reserve is located in the northern part of Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, the northern foothills of the Alatau Mountains, the west side of the AlashanKou, the northern boundary of the Alatau Mountain ridge, bordering Kazakhstan, the west and south of the reserve are adjacent to the Harituri River Forest Farm, the eastern boundary is directly connected to Alashankou City, the entire nature reserve is 66 kilometers long from east to west, and 25 kilometers wide from north to south. The newly built Charcili National Nature Reserve is divided into three parts, namely the Boulder River District in the west and the Jiangbas District in the east, with the central corridor connecting east and west in the middle.
Sharsiri scenery
Charshiri is a Mongolian language, meaning "yellow hillside", Charcili Reserve is a treasure trove of wild animals and plants, there are 1676 species of wild plants, including red door orchid, spotted leaf orchid, Mongolian astragalus, snow lotus, comfrey, shuttle, licorice, cistanche and other national key protected plants, as well as edible, medicinal, ornamental, aromatic, sand fixation, honey source, fiber plants and other plant resources. There are snow-capped mountains, alpine meadows, mountain forests, Gobi deserts and other landform types in the Charcili Nature Reserve, with a forest coverage rate of more than 97%, which is known as "China's last clean land and rare natural gene bank". At present, Charcili is listed as a nature reserve, which belongs to the military control area, is not officially open to tourists, and requires a border guard permit and undergoes three inspections before entering. But many photography enthusiasts come to record the beautiful scenery here with the camera in their hands. The beautiful Charcili has gone through the baptism of time and spent hundreds of years of wandering outside, and finally returned. Thankfully, it ran away for many years and returned as a teenager.