The more intensive development of the Far East and Siberia in comparison with the previous period, the growing geopolitical importance of the region, together with the complication of international relations in the Far East at the beginning of the XX century —all this led to the revival of the activities of the special services of neighboring states with Russia, among which Chinese intelligence took a prominent place. The fight against Chinese intelligence has also developed in the border areas of Western Siberia.
There are no scientific papers dealing with this topic. There are only general works that examine the activities of Russian counterintelligence during the Russo-Japanese War [Pavlov, 1996], the general history of special services [Ronge, 1993] and military intelligence in Russia from ancient times to the era of Nicholas II [Alekseev, 1998]. One exception is the work of the Omsk historian N. V. Grekov [Grekov, 2000], which examines the activities of Russian counterintelligence in Siberia.
Keywords: Chinese intelligence, Chinese diaspora, Chinese migration, Chinese ethnic group, counterintelligence.
Tomsk province was part of Western Siberia. From the south, it was bordered by the Chinese region of Kobdo. It was adjacent to the Steppe General Government, which had a border with China (Troinitsky, 1904). The province conducted an active trade with Mongolia and China. With some frequency, the Tomsk provincial administration sent officials to China to check border signs [GATO, f. 3, op. 2, d. 3041, l. 5; d. 4516, l. 7].
Tomsk province had a rather diverse ethnic composition of the population. The Chinese also lived here. It is difficult to determine the exact number of Chinese who lived in Tomsk Province in the 19th century. According to the first general census of the Russian Empire in 1897, 91 Chinese (by place of birth) and 106 Chinese subjects lived in Tomsk Province. Most of them lived in Tomsk, Barnaul, and Biysk districts (Troinitsky, 1904). Temporary fo ...
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