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Text: Doraemon
Edit| Doraemon
The day before yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to the DPRK for the first time in 24 years made Russian-DPRK relations that had been cold for more than 30 years rapidly warm.
Putin signed an important agreement with Kim Jong-un in North Korea.
The most striking of these is undoubtedly the re-establishment of a military alliance between North Korea and Russia, and if something happens to North Korea, Russia will send troops to help, and the angry United States and South Korea keep jumping.
South Korea also wants to sow discord between China and Russia and between China and North Korea, and demands that China "play a constructive role in peace and stability on the peninsula." However, they did not know that another purpose of Putin's visit to North Korea this time was to implement a previous commitment to China......
In 1886, when the Qing government and Tsarist Russia negotiated the border for the second time, although the Qing government failed to obtain the territory near the mouth of the Tumen River, it did obtain the right of navigation to enter the Sea of Japan through the mouth of the Tumen River. This right is also officially written into the "Sino-Russian Hunchun Eastern Section Boundary Treaty".
In other words, China already had an outlet to the sea on the Tumen River.
However, in 1950, the Soviet Union built a railway bridge on the Tumen River with a height of only 9 meters, which could only be passed by ships of 300 tons.
As a result, goods produced in the hinterland of northeastern China want to be shipped south, either south to Liaoning or north to Vladivostok.
In the more than 70 years since, the Soviet Union/Russia and North Korea have also maintained a "tacit understanding" on the issue of this bridge.
However, this is not the case.
In 2019, China and the United States fought a trade war. Putin said that he would sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight, and be a "smart monkey". As a result, the tariffs imposed by the United States on China were ultimately borne by the American consumers themselves, and China is still doing well. And pointing at the nose of the Americans at the Angelage Strategic Dialogue, tell them:
"You are not qualified to say in front of China that you are talking to China from a position of strength."
And Russia, the "smart monkey", fell headlong in the trap dug for it by the United States in 2022, and at first relied on the surprise to attack the Yellow Dragon, but it was driven out in an instant, and had to "turn in" all the way from Kyiv to the rear.
If it weren't for China's pressure to do business with Russia, with the sanctions and blockade imposed by the United States and the West on Russia, not to mention today's advantage, whether it could hold out for two years would be a big question.
At a time when Russia was in a predicament because of the Ukraine issue, China led the Iran-Saudi reconciliation with its backhand, mobilized the lifeblood of the United States in the Middle East, and successfully forced Israel to take risks and isolate itself from the world.
And it is precisely because of the accident in Israel that the pressure on Russia has suddenly lightened a lot.
In this case, Russia has completely recognized the reality.
In the past, Russia was "more defensive than cooperative" against China, and it is needless to say that the Tumen River is at the mouth of the sea, because it is worried that China's influence will enter Central Asia, and it has been interfering in the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway. There is also great nervousness about Chinese investment in the Far East, lest the Chinese want to reclaim their homeland.
But now it turns out that China's eyes are not limited to the gains and losses of one city and one place, but also a "community with a shared future for mankind". On the contrary, the United States and Europe are the ones who wish Russia to be divided into 17 pieces.
The Russian president's visit to China on May 16 and the signing of a joint statement with China mean that Russia has completely put aside all its scruples and is working with China to oppose US hegemony.
So we can see that Russia does not interfere in the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway; Even Siberia, Russia let go; The railway bridge at the mouth of the Tumen River, Russia also decided to dismantle it. And it was specifically written in the joint statement: "The two sides will engage in constructive dialogue with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on the issue of Chinese ships sailing through the lower reaches of the Tumen River." ”
One of the main purposes of Putin's current visit to the DPRK is to implement the joint statement on the issue of the Tumen River estuary.
According to the official website of the Kremlin, during Putin's visit to North Korea, he signed an "intergovernmental agreement on the construction of a cross-border highway bridge across the Tumen River."
Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit, when asked about the agreement, said: "The agreement provides for the construction of a road bridge near the existing railway in the area of the Hassan port. The total length of the bridge is about 850 meters. ”
Why build a new bridge specifically near the railway bridge?
Obviously, it is to replace the original bridge to Russia. Moreover, to build such a bridge, it is necessary to listen to China's opinions, and even invite China to participate in the construction.
Interestingly, this was originally a matter between China, Russia and North Korea, but other countries came out to express their opposition.
That country is Japan.
Japan's Nikkei Asia published a special article in which it said that if the mouth of the Tumen River is opened, then China will build a military port here and Russia, so that Chinese warships can go directly to the Sea of Japan, posing a "huge threat" to Japan.
This also shows how weak Japan's heart is, and it is clear that Russia's military ports are pressed on top of Japan's head, and there are even large and small US military bases in Japan, so how can it be so surprised that China has restored the Tumen River outlet to the sea?
Resources:
Sputnik: "The Kremlin: Russia and North Korea signed an agreement on the construction of a bridge across the Tumen River"