1768年の「キャフタ條約追加條項」をめぐる淸とロシアの交渉について

Abstract

The history of relations between China and Russia from the Treaty of Kyakhta in 1728 and those of Aigun and Tianjin in 1858, remain something of lacunae in the historical record. However, in order to clarify the process of the formation of the new framework of the relationship between the two countries following the latter half of the nineteenth century, it would be best to turn our attention to this period as well. Examining the process of the negotiations between the two countries over the Addendum to the Treaty of Kyakhta, which was concluded in 1768, the fundamental structure of the contemporary relationship of the two countries is directly revealed in intriguing fashion. The series of negotiations began with cessation of trade following the Qing demand for removal of the Russian built fences near the border at Kyakhta and the end of the imposition of tariffs there. In dealing with the situation, Kropotov who had been dispatched from Russia with plenipotentiary powers, acquiesced to almost all the Qing demands, and trade was once again back on track. The most striking aspect of the process of negotiations was that while the Qing side maintained a high-pressure stance through out the negotiations, there was also a certain flexibility interwoven into the process that can be identified as the fundamental characteristic of the Qing stance in external relations. However, the Russian side's overwhelmingly superiority over the Qing in terms of the resolve and capacity to collect and analyze information which are the foundations of diplomatic decision making, prefigures the reversal in the position of the two countries that was to occur in the nineteenth century. This situation, which Yoshida Kin'ichi has called "China's pretense of superiority, " can already be detected at this point in time. Moreover, in the negotiations between the two countries in 1768, now that Leont'ev, who had learned the Manchu tongue while a student in Beijing, joined the Russian delegation, Manchurian became the principal language of the negotiations, and the notes exchanged in Manchurian should be understood as the official ones. The increasing importance of the Manchu can also be understood as one element characterizing the relationship between the two nations at the time.