Russia's east warms to
China By Dmitry Shlapentokh
Recently, a contributor to Zavtra, one of
the best known of Russia's conservative
publications, noted an interesting fact. He stated
that not only are Russians from the Far Eastern
border provinces of the Russian Federation engaged
in active trade visits to China - a process
initiated a long time ago and well covered by the
press - but they are now buying houses there as
well.
While some are purchasing vacation
homes, others are planning for retirement. The
desire to move to China permanently has been
shared, according to the quoted author, by
hundreds of thousands
of
residents of the Russian Far East. They would have
moved to China immediately, the author claims, if
they could find good jobs. This information -
even if only part of it is true - is quite
important. For one thing, it's much different from
what's happening in other parts of Russia or the
rest of the post-Soviet world. No Muscovites are
relocating to the Caucasus, to the ethnic enclaves
of Chechnya, Dagestan or Ingushetia. And even
ethic Russians still living in those areas are
anxious to leave. The situation is essentially the
same in Central Asia.
Also, few Russians
from within the Russian Federation are willing to
move even to mostly mono-ethnic Uzbekistan or
Turkmenistan - or to Kazakhstan with its
considerable Russian-speaking community. And, of
course, it is extremely rare that a Russian would
decide to move permanently or retire to Siberia or
the Far East if he or she had a job and a home in
Moscow or St Petersburg.
The opposite is
happening: Russians are increasingly migrating to
other places from Russia's Far Eastern Federal
District - a huge area covering 6,215,900 square
kilometers and stretching from the Lena River
basin to the Bering Sea - as factories are closing
down and military installations have been
withdrawn. Siberia and the Far East lost a
considerable part of their populations during the
post-Soviet era, mostly due to migration to
western Russia.
From this perspective, the
desire of a considerable number of ethnic Russians
to move to China, or at least to consider such a
move, could be of great importance.
For
years, the Russian mass media have been full of
stories concerning the potential threat of China,
not because of imminent war, but because of
massive immigration and creeping annexation. The
potential influx of the Chinese, many Russians
feel, would dissolve national identity in an
oncoming sea of an alien race. As a rule, the
Chinese are also unfairly presented as being dirty
and uncivilized. And although there is paranoia of
being lost among the Asiatics, Russians,
especially increasing numbers of Russian
nationalists, have nothing against being part of
Europe, or the West in general.
In fact,
in November, in an annual march organized by
Russian nationalists, an American gave a speech in
which he emphasized that Russians and
Caucasian-Americans are brothers. The American
speaker continued by calling on all Caucasians to
defend Western civilization and protect the
Caucasian race from the influx of non-whites. But
whether this fear of the Chinese is irreversibly
ingrained in the Russian mindset remains to be
seen. The fear of non-Caucasian, non-Western
newcomers is not just a Russian or European fear,
but a global phenomenon.
In the United
States some reports suggest there is an increasing
dislike of Latin Americans. The underpinnings for
this racial mistrust are not so much cultural and
linguistic, but related to deeper difficulties in
American society - the lack of industrial jobs,
the plunging dollar, poor schools and an
inefficient health service.
The same
situation can be seen in Russia where, despite
economic improvement during Putin's tenure, large
segments of society and whole regions of Russia
have been left behind. For some poorer Russians,
the Chinese and non-European minorities have
become a symbol of poverty, instability and crime.
With hope, the perception will improve in the the
future. One possibility is that China's burgeoning
economy will be increasingly viewed as a symbol of
prosperity and stability. For Russians, China may
emerge as a land of opportunity - a far cry from
Central Asia or Siberia.
China may someday
be seen as a nation of stability and tolerance.
Again, quite different from the Northern Caucasus
where Russians are killed simply because they are
not Chechen, Ingushetian, or Dugestanian. The
acceptance of China's implicit influence over the
Far East and beyond may well be furthered by the
past policies of the Central Russian government.
For example, it is well known that the
considerable wealth accumulated during the Putin
administration has been mostly stashed in the
currency reserves of the Russian central bank or
spent for the improvement of a few big cities
mostly in the European part of the country,
especially Moscow. The Russian heartland, and
especially Siberia and the Far East, received just
pennies from the boom and the average resident of
the Far East has seen no visible improvement to
quality of life despite Moscow much-trumpeted
programs .
The contributor to Zavtra made
his point clearly: Moscow is increasingly seen as
an imperial predator that robs the resources of
the Far East without giving anything in exchange.
More practically, the contributor pointed out that
residents of the Far East, many of whom couldn't
even afford a ticket to the capital, find it much
easier to travel to a nearby Chinese city.
Finally, those Far Eastern Russians who
consider themselves the first line of defense for
Christian-European civilization might do well to
realize that their reinforcements are far away in
European Russia and would hardly provide much help
in the case of trouble.
Ultimately,
perhaps, the minds of Russians may change. China,
long painted as the home of horrific Asiatics,
poverty and danger, could well be re-imagined as a
nexus of security, tolerance and, above all,
wealth. Such gravitation towards China would
increase substantially if Chinese authorities
would engage in the same policies with the Russian
Far East that it has with other countries of Asia
and Africa, improving infrastructure with roads,
hospitals and schools.
If such engagement
occurs, and Moscow's policies continue to foster
alienation in the Far East, enormous and
irreversible changes could be ahead for a
considerable segment of the Russian population in
the Far East and elsewhere. In the case of a
serious crisis, and presented with waning
political and military power in Moscow, these
Russians may very prefer to Beijing to their own
government. In such a hypothetical situation, the
Russian Far East could become a Chinese province.
China, in the end, appears poised to
radically influence the Russian Far East, but not
in the way Moscow fears. It won't come from a
massive influx of Chinese immigrants, but rather a
from the unforeseen "Sino-ization" of ethnic
Russians themselves.
Dmitry
Shlapentokh, PhD, is associate professor of
history, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
Indiana University South Bend. He is author of
East Against West: The First Encounter - The Life
of Themistocles, 2005.
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2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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