The Making of an Overland Trading Port: Tarbagatay/Chuguchak, 1851–85

This paper examines the development of a new overland trade route between Qing and Russia in Central Asia, drawing on archival findings and rare book collections from Russia and China. Since 1719 the lucrative barter trade between the two Eurasian empires had been centered exclusively in Kyakhta, Outer Mongolia. The emergence of Tarbagatay (T’a-ch’eng, Chuguchak, Чугучак) as a commercial hub, transitioning from a military garrison town, marked a significant transformation in institutional structures, knowledge and methods of trade, and ultimately, frontier statecraft for Russia, China, and their entanglement with the world economy during the 19th-century globalization. Historians have focused on territorial sovereignty and boundary-making in multi-ethnic peripheries between the Qing and Russian empires. The thesis of Owen Lattimore remains influential, positing that "the expansion of Chinese long-range trade into Inner Asia was politically motivated, fostered by imperial policy to keep the oases bound to China, rather than an economic search for markets for China's surplus production.” This paper aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the Qing-Russian relationship from a commercial perspective. It argues that trade interests were a crucial factor in foreign policy-making for Qing governors and Russian diplomats. The paper demonstrates how the existing trade framework from Kyakhta was transplanted into Central Asia, its limitations, and how a new trading arrangement for tea was established from economic cores.