the 18th century map marks the first time the Manchurian (China) Empire demarcated with Russia. that was also the pinncle of the manchurian empire.

There are so many high quality posts out there at the moment, that I think I might just manage to get through a whole roundup without mentioning the election…
Popularity: unranked [?]……

We definitely want Russia’s landing to be softer rather than harder. Burn-outs in Afghanistan and Chechnya are acceptable. A leveling of Talinin, however, certainly wouldn’t be!

Alfred,

Definitely!

Curzon,

True, though Outer Manchuria (the part of Russia north-east of China) was in the Chinese Empire, if not China proper. (Then again, Inner Manchuria wasn’t either!)

von Kaufman-Turkestansky,

From the article:

Neo-Eurasianist anti-Westernism is almost wholly anti-American, as seen in much of the post-modern left’s critique of globalization. America, in this view, is both subjectively, or self-servingly, and objectively the purveyor of destructive globalization, leading the world down the road of unsustainable development, the destruction of national cultures and non-Western civilizations, and ultimately the death of mankind.

If so, good for us! European economic integration of the frontier is a far more direct threat to Moscow’s influence than American bombs or bombast.

I know you mention it in the text, but I couldn’t help but notice that Fort Ross was missing from the maps…

Where Russia ended wasn’t necessarily where China began. Much of Eurasia was the homeland of nomadic Mongol, Tatar or Turkic tribes where Chinese rule was weak at best.

One neat thing about this post: this is the first time I’ve seen where the old Chinese boundaries in Siberia were.

I assume you meant the Japanese…