The Treaty was signed in Moscow on July 16, 2001 during a visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin to Russia. For the first time in the history of Russian-Chinese relations it recorded no mutual territorial claims. The document also stipulated that negotiations to determine the Russian-Chinese border in the sections not yet agreed should continue. That specially applied to river islands in the Khabarovsk area and on the Argun River in the Chita Region.
Before any final settlement is reached the treaty prescribed observing the established status quo on these sections. They make up less than three per cent of the border line, whose total length between the two countries exceeds 4,000 kilometres.