Tsarist Russia played a crucial role in the ‘demolition of the old China-centred world order in East Asia’.18 Much of the Russian far east, including Vladivostok, was once Chinese and was only ceded to Russia through the treaties of Aigun and Peking in 1858 and 1860: two of the notorious ‘unequal treaties’ of the Qing era that now make up so much of the mythology of modern Chinese nationalism.
