Where China and Russia Meet

The tightly controlled Sino-Soviet borderlands are about as easy for the ordinary traveler to visit as Middle Earth or Lower Slobbovia, and some of the terrain along the 4,500-mile common frontier displays characteristics of both those fabled lands. A few wanderers, including scholars, journalists and political analysts have managed to visit portions of the frontier. Their impressions, gathered by TIME correspondents around the world, of the lonely, alien and often lovely terrain where the modern empires of Moscow and Peking collide:

SOME 70 miles south of the site of the vicious four-hour battle between Soviet and Chinese border guards lies the enormous Chinese prison camp called Hsing Kai Hu, a complex of nine state farms and dozens of villages, all manned by penal' labor. A former prisoner there recalls the climate as terrible: temperatures hovering around 40DEG below zero in winter and soaring to a humid 95DEG in summer. During the warm seasons, mosquitoes from the myriad swamps of the area forced prisoners to wear long-sleeved jackets and full-length trousers despite the heat.

The soil of the area is enormously fertile. In 1960, the complex was able to produce enough food to feed a million people for a year--or so Chinese propagandists claimed. In summer, however, it is no place for combat. Veterans of Japan's 13-year occupation of Manchuria recall the Ussuri River border area as "the worst possible place for a battle for much of the year--so swampy that it could easily swallow up an army." The Chinese side of the Ussuri is heavily forested; timbered hills sweep down to the river swamps for most of its length. Through the forests on the Soviet side runs the easternmost segment of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which links the key Pacific port of Vladivostok with Khabarovsk, more than 400 miles to the north. Beside the railway runs what the Japanese occupiers used to call "the Stalin Highway," a road built in 1938 in imitation of Hitler's Autobahnen.

Khabarovsk itself is a garrison city. Soviet troopers throng the streets, and though it is only 20 miles from the Chinese border, no Soviet citizens of Chinese origin are to be seen. Westerners who have been there say the surrounding terrain is flat and bushy, broken by occasional birch forests. The soil is fertile: travelers describe the Amur River basin, in which Khabarovsk lies, as the "breadbasket of the Soviet Far East." For hundreds of miles, from Vladivostok on north, industry has been built up as well. Across the border, in the Chinese provinces of Heilungkiang and Kirin, industry is also thriving: the great manufacturing cities of Harbin (steel) and Changchun (trucks) play a vital role in the Chinese economy.

Until recently, the Amur-Ussuri area has been the site of the most spectacular provocations. On several occasions, the Chinese made a practice of marching prisoners to the center of the river, accusing them of being pro-Soviet traitors, and then beheading them. Another favorite habit was forming up on the river ice, sticking out tongues in unison at the Soviet troopers, and then turning and dropping trousers to the Russians in an ancient gesture of contempt. That tactic stopped when Soviet troops took refuge behind large portraits of Chairman Mao.

To the west, the border between Soviet Central Asia and the Chinese region of Sinkiang runs for much of the way along the majestic peaks of the Tien Shan range of mountains. Late last year, a Japanese tourist persuaded his Intourist guide to allow him a day close to the Soviet side of the border. He saw no troops, nor indeed any sign of unusual military activity, but he returned dazzled by the natural beauty of the area. "The Soviets called it a second Switzerland," he said later, "and it was--so lovely, peaceful and sparsely populated."

South of the Tien Shan on the Chinese side lies the Taklamakan Desert and the lake of Lop Nor, home of the Chinese nuclear tests. Beginning about 1960, the Peking government set out to transform the desert into a fertile area. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, party cadres, middle-school graduates and intellectuals thought to be in need of "reeducation" have been sent to Sinkiang to work for the cause, and their efforts have had some results. But for the most part, Sinkiang remains a wasteland, even less developed than the Soviet lands to the north.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.