Anyway:
>
>John Gulick sez:
>
>The border patrol and the local police in the RFE make a pretty good living
>from allowing the Chinese to "do it anyway," from what I've heard and seen.
>And mafiosi construction contractors in Vladivostok
>are peachy keen about it: hard-working labor cowed by the prospect of
>deportation. In any event, a story repeated over much of the world.
>
It's the life led by legions of Ukranians, Moldovans, Armenians, Kazaks and Georgians in Russia, or propiska-less Russian citizens in Moscow. The elitism of Moscow is unbelievable. And Luzhkov rakes in a lot of cash with the propiska system (which is in total contradiction to teh Consitution, which guarantees freedom of travel and residence throughout the Russian Federation, but Moscow gets special exemption because it's the capital). The system is also very popular among snobby Muscovites, who seem to think you're subhuman if you come from Siberia.
>CD:
>
>>There's already a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment in the Russian Far >East.
>
>JG:
>
>My sense is that it peaked at least a half-decade ago, when Primorsky Krai
>guv Nazdratenko was at his race-baiting worst.
Me: Sacking Nazdratenko over the heating scandal in Winter 2000 was one of Putin's first populist moves. Admittedly, Nazdratenko was just transferred to a cushy, lucrative job in the Fishing Industry, but it was popular anyway. Though Nazdratenko was popular in Primorsky Krai, I've been told.
There were anti-Chinese protests in Vlad earlier this year.
The
>migration service stiffened their policy a bit, and the corrupt ranks of
>the border patrol were cleaned out to some degree. In my estimation, when
>Iowan corn and Brazilian soybeans hit the Chinese market full force and
>Northeast Chinese farmers take it on the chin, the rampant border crossing
>will return, and so will the "anti-Chinese sentiment."
>
>CD:
A guy I know from Baikal (a Buryat: they look kind of like Eskimos) told me that the population there is about 40% Russian, 40% Buryat and the rest Chinese. According to him, anyway, there's little conflict between the Russians and the Buryats, but quote a bit of animosity from both groups against the Chinese, who he also said will do work for pay no Russian or Buryat would ever stoop to.
>
>>That territory has been contested by China for a long time ...
>
>JG:
>
>Yep, despite official denials that Beijing has any designs on land
>north of the Amur River, because this territory was absorbed by the
>early Qing (like Tibet, like Taiwan) and then lost to Tsarist Russia
>in the 1850's, it is the garden variety Chinese opinion that demographic
>reconquest is thus fully justified (however indirectly this garden variety
>sentiment may be expressed). Justifying demographic reconquest, of course,
>is qualitatively different from claiming that the
>PRC should exercise sovereignty north of the Heilongjiang.
I've heard it claimed in Russia that swamping the Far East with ethnic Chinese is actually PRC policy in order to achieve eventual conquest-by-demographics, but this may just be Russian paranoia. (I know nothing about China).
>CD:
>
>>ethnic tensions are increased by the rapid decline of the ethnic >Russian
>>population there (mainly because of mass emigration of >Russians from the
>>Far East and Siberia to European Russia, where >living standards are an
>>order of magnitude higher unless you're lucky >enough to work for a big
>>natural-resource monopoly like Nikoil).
>
>Indeed. There is a section of the productive property-owning class and
>the remaining European Russian professional class which acknowledges that
>the salvation (from a conventional economic growth perspective) of the RFE
>must necessarily combine Japanese/South Korean capital and Chinese labor.
>(The Chinese capital for the most part is too fly-by-night and not oriented
>enough toward fixed investment for their tastes).
Oh yeah. There's also talk of reestablishing the incentives programs used by Catherine the Great and the Soviet Union (higher pay, priviliges) for people willing to remain in/relocate to the Far East or Siberia. (This would obviously require serious state intervention in the economy.)
>JG:
>
>Yes, I've taken a gander at some of what you've posted on this over the
>last several months. Tres interessante. The tango's being played out in
>the UN Security Council at the moment, and in the oilfields of Iraq all too
>soon. If Bush and company played their cards right, they could solidify
>their romance with Russia, an alliance that would come in handy when the
>U.S.' "strategic competitor," the PRC, cranks up its
>consumption of RFE natural resources.
Me: The interesting thing about all this is that when Putin and Ivanov started out, they were playing a version of the Eurasionist Primakov Doctrine and, even despite the new pro-US turn, THEY ARE STILL DOING IT. Putin's been using the window of oppotunity created by the "war on terror" to solidify Russia's position in the CIS (the US has basically butted out of Georgia, for one) because the US has I think recognized that stability in Central Asia and the Caucasus requires a strong Russian presence, and they can play the US and China against each other very nicely; they can sell arms to the PRC while still having the US help them keep Chinese influence out of the RFE (can't have the US' stable partner getting destabilized after all, especially when the destabilizer is the Chinese). (This is a record-long sentence for me.)
But they keep on high-hatting
>Pootie-Poot with this unilateral war in Iraq thingy and a dozen other
>thingies (forcing Putin to save face with the Kremlin et. al.).
I have to wonder what the H. Bush is thinking. Putin's pro-US term isn't exactly uncontroversial about Russian elites or public. If it weren't for his Godlike approval rating, he'd be in a very difficult position.
All of which about you have a far more knowledgeable and
>sophisticated angle than I.
Well, thanks, but you clearly know a hell of a lot more about China than I do.
>
>John Gulick
>
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