One of the Cold War’s strangest and least documented conflicts was fought in the frigid far northeast of China in 1969.
For months, troops from Chairman Mao’s People’s Liberation Army took on border guards from the Soviet Union over the Amur River.
It was hardly all-out war — even now, no one on either side admits exactly how many soldiers died, but the total was in the hundreds, not thousands. However, it confirmed an almost complete breakdown in the relationship between the two communist former allies.
Putin’s motorcade arrives in Harbin, known as China’s Little Moscow, which was built by Russia and became a haven for refugees after the 1917 revolution
ALEXANDER RYUMIN/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA
On Friday, President Putin of Russia made a highly symbolic visit to the border region, a scene of great power rivalry for centuries, to put enmity between Moscow and Beijing firmly in the past.
He was accompanied to the