China and Russia mark their boundaries

BEIJING -- China and Russia have jointly unveiled boundary markers in a final step toward resolving a territorial dispute along their eastern border. The two Cold War rivals battled over the frontier in the '60s and '70s, but have agreed to a settlement under which Russia will reportedly return 67 square miles (174 square kilometers) of territory to China. Tuesday's ceremony that included diplomats, the military, police and local officials followed an exchange of documents affirming the border agreement, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The tug-of-war over the eastern part of their 2,700-mile (4,300-kilometer) border reaches back centuries to their competition for territory as imperial China and Czarist Russia expanded toward each other.