13 JULY 1996, Page 25

A treaty too far

Sir: How happy the Chinese would be if it were true, as Michael Sheridan states, that the basic frontiers between China and Rus- sia were settled by the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk ('Entering the orbit of the star China', 6 July). That would put Siberia and the Russian maritime province within China; but as it happened China was forced to cede those vast tracts to Russia in the treaties of Aigun and Peking (1858 and 1860), leaving China's north-eastern boundaries on the Amur and Ussuri rivers. Neville Maxwell

University of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth House, International Development Centre, 21 St Giles, Oxford