Fángchuān — Where China, North Korea and Russia Converge

Map: Tumen River Joint Development Area (Arase, 1999).

BY BEN HABIB.

Some unusual places in the world are magnets for geopolitical intrigue. Fángchuān is one of these places, nestled at the convergence of the Chinese, Russian and North Korean borders on the Tumen River.

Fángchuān was a famous flashpoint area for conflict between the Soviet Far Eastern Army and the Japanese Kwantung Army in 1938. Tensions had been rising along the Manchuria-USSR frontier since the Japanese conquest of Manchuria in 1932, during which time nearly 200 border skirmishes occurred.

Tensions came to a head in July 1938 around Lake Khasan, which is located adjacent to the Fángchuān area where the borders of China, North Korea and Russia converge. The conflict centred on a dispute over the whether the Soviet-Manchurian border line ran along Lake Khasan, as the Japanese argued, or the adjacent Changkufeng Heights, as the Russians maintained. By the time of the ceasefire on 11th August 1938, Japanese and Russian troops had reached a stalemate occupying positions atop the Changkufeng Heights. Today, this conflict is commemorated by a small a small museum and a monument overlooking the Changkufeng Heights.

This area was contested territory well before the 1930s. In 1860, China’s Qing government ceded Fángchuān and other strategic coastal territories through the Treaty of Peking, in return for Russian assistance in ending an Anglo-French occupation of Beijing.

For China, the inability to access the Sea of Japan at the mouth of the Tumen River has been a factor in condemning its northeastern provinces as economic backwaters. The nearest port facilities are 2,000 kilometres to the south in Liaoning Province, on the Bohai Gulf.

In 1995 the governments of China, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and Mongolia had signed an agreement to develop the Tumen River area, featuring a $20 billion port and free economic zone located at Fángchuān. However for logistic and political reasons this project has never taken off and Fángchuān remains little more than a tourist curiosity.

: North Korean communications towers on the mountains overlooking the Tumen River at Fangchuan. Border security on North Korea’s Tumen River frontier is geared more toward keeping people in than deterring external threats.

Monument to Wu Dacheng, the imperial envoy of the Qing Dynasty, and the representative of tsarist Russia.

The Fangchuan sand dune park. The presence of shifting sand dunes above the ice and snow pack illustrates just how close Fangchuan is to the ocean.

Chinese border post and radio communication tower on the bank of the Tumen River.

An old well pump near Lake Khasan.

Khasan Heights (Zhanggu Peak as it is known in China) and the memorial to the Khasan War.

Shell fragments dug up from the nearby Khasan War battlefield, in display in the Khasan War museum.

Artifacts from the Khasan War battlefield, on display in th Khasan War museum.

Razor wire fence near the Tumen River bank.

Observation building at Fanghuan, overlooking the Tumen River and the tri-border convergence. This point is only 15 kilometres from the Sea of Japan. There is a metal plaque at the observation tower commemorating visits to this spot by Chinese President Jiang Zemin in 1991 and 1995.

Distant hills inside Russia’s Primorski Krai province.

The China-Russia border fence.

The village of Podgornaya, on the Russian side of the border fence.

Chinson railway bridge across the Tumen River, a mere fifteen kilometres upstream from the Sea of Japan.

The North Korean outpost of Tumangang and mountains beyond.

The Tumen River is heavily polluted by Chinese and North Korean factories along its length. It is also the easiest section of North Korea’s land frontiers for defectors to escape the Hermit Kingdom. South of Changbaishan, the Yalu River forms the China-North Korea border, however the Yalu is wide, fast-flowing and difficult to cross. On the North Korea-South Korea frontier, the heavily mined and fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) forms an almost impenetrable barrier for would-be North Korean escapees.

Observation tower at Fangchuan, with the Tumen River and North Korea in the background.

Gazing across the frozen Yalu River into North Korea. The day I visited this area it was windy and extremely cold. I was emotionally moved by the knowledge that there are known to be gulags in the adjacent mountains not far from the Tumen River, in which inmates are forced to work long hours of hard labour in these conditions. Defectors cross the Tumen River into China in these conditions. During the famine of the mid-1990s, North Koreans starved in these conditions. And soldiers of all stripes fought and died in these conditions during the Korean War. Being is this place was humbling, to say the least.

The Chinson rail bridge across the Tumen River between Podgornaya and Tumangang.

The archetypal Fangchuan photo: Russia and the village of Podgornaya on the left, the final sliver of Chinese territory in the foreground and the Chinson railway bridge across the Tumen River to North Korea on the right.

Looking north across the Russian border into Siberia.

Marker at the China-Russia-North Korea border convergence, erected in 1886 by Wu Dacheng, the imperial envoy of the Qing Dynasty, and the representative of tsarist Russia. The marker is a visual manifestation of the 1886 Sino-Russian border treaty, which continued to allow Chinese ships to enter the Sea of Japan from Hunchun on the Tumen River.

Harvested corn husks, dried and ready for use as a burning fuel. In the background one can see a cage full of corn cobs.

Rogue cows on the Hunchun-Fangchuan road.

Trucks lined up at the China-North Korea border crossing point at Qianhe. The queue of trucks stretch for half a kilometre.

Buildings in the North Korean border outpost at Tumangang, across the Tumen River from Fangchuan.

The North Korean border town of Wonjong.

Wonjong Bridge between Quanhe on the Chinese side and Wonjong-ri on the North Korean side. A busy border crossing point leading to the Norht Korean port of Rason.

As we retreated from Fangchuan on the road back to Hunchun, my taxi driver skidded the car to a halt on the side of the road and beckoned me over to this leafless bush bearing bright yellow berries. He beckoned me to eat and swallowed some himself, so I gave them a try. I don’t know what they were, but they were juicy and had a sour taste.

Looking west along the Tumen River. The Tumen River originates on the slopes of Changbaishan (Changbai Mountain, also known as Baektusan in Korean) and flows northeast into the Sea of Japan (or East Sea, as Koreans call it).

As this monument suggests, Fangchuan is a United Nations world heritage-listed site, due to its unique historical, geographical and ecological significance.