in an attempt to escape relocation and punishment. The ambiguity in the original 1712 treaty gradually became official Joseon policy, but the issue itself did not come to a head until this time, when the Joseon Dynasty itself was in much turmoil and in no position to re-negotiate the boundary. By the early 20th century, with increasing Japanese intervention in Korea, more Koreans fled to Gando, where they were sometimes welcomed by local Qing authorities, as a source of labor and agricultural knowhow. Additionally, as a result of this consolidation of Japanese control over Korea (which would culminate with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, with which Japan annexed Korea and began the Japanese occupation of Korea that ended in 1945), Korea was not able to renegotiate the renewed boundary issues with the Qing, which was having its own problems with Japanese and Western imperialism. Japanese interventions By 1905, the Korean Empire was effectively a Japanese protectorate (see Eulsa Treaty). As a result of the Russo-Japanese War, which ended in the same year, Korea was fully surrounded and occupied by Japanese troops. The negotiations to end the war resulted in the Portsmouth Treaty, which stated, "Japan possesses in Korea paramount political, military, and economical interests" and with the Russian concessions to Japan effectively ensured a Japanese sphere of influence in northeast Asia. In 1907, Japanese forces infiltrated the rather porous border between Korea and China. A few months later, the Japanese called the border issue "unsettled" because the majority of the population there was still ethnically Korean; as effective overlords of Korea, they claimed that Japan's jurisdiction over Korean subjects should extend into Gando, and invaded Gando in force in August 1907, which resulted in the Qing administration of China issuing a 13-point refutation asserting its claim to Jiandao. As the Korean boundary dispute with China and the large population of ethnic Koreans in Gando was no secret to anyone in Northeast Asia, it is likely that the Japanese proposed the Gando Convention as a potential threat to continue pressing to claim Gando for Korea as a part of the Japanese Empire if the concessions by China to Japan listed in the Convention were not granted. Terms Treaties and agreements, while often lopsided in that era (see unequal treaties), often at least nominally included concessions for all parties signing such agreements. Japan agreed to recognize Gando as Chinese territory and to