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After the fall of the USSR, the newly established republics had to finish negotiating the bilateral border issue with China. These states chose to have the talks as a joint delegation of post-Soviet states. They also each experienced pressure from domestic constituencies. Viewing the entire negotiation process as a three-level game, the paper argues that in all four post-Soviet states the national governments believed the cost of 'no agreement' with China on the border issue to be so high that they chose to risk dealing with complex issues at home over passing up the opportunity to settle the border with their strongest neighbour. They did so with little regard for domestic opposition or the restrictions posed by the previous commitments on the supranational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union and China resurveyed their border in order to restart their long-stalemated border negotiations. These negotiations resulted in only a partial border settlement: the agreement was signed in 1991. By the end of 1989, nationalities openly expressing their wish to secede from the Soviet Union caused the Soviet government to slow down the negotiation process, and Moscow insisted on setting aside the most contentious sections. China's nationalities issue had the opposite effect on Zhongnanhai: Chinese leaders wished to settle the entire Sino-Soviet border as quickly as possible. However, once the collapse of the Soviet Union became imminent, the Chinese saw advantages of delaying the negotiations on the disputed sections of the border. They calculated that would allow for China to negotiate with weaker, newly independent countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]