| The fear of the creeping expansion of the billion-strong Chinese population is alive among the Russian people to this day. And since the beginning of the 90s, when the borders of the homeland were opened to various kinds of international contacts, this fear took on concrete contours. China's population is increasing every year. And, as luck would have it, there are very few of us, especially where we need them. Today, less than a third of the country's population lives in the Far East and Siberia. The protracted economic crisis in the country does not allow the center to seriously invest in the development of Siberia and the Far East. No infrastructure, no population density, no normal borders protecting our citizens and land from Chinese encroachments. Meanwhile, the Chinese are increasingly settling in Russia every year. According to the Pacific Directorate of the Federal Border Service, in 2000, 2 million people crossed the border, in 2001 - already 2 million 238 thousand. There are no data for last year yet, but border guards believe that the upward trend has continued.
Chinese researchers Wu Guoguang and Wang Zhaojun, not without pride, declare that the solution to all Chinese problems - in “demographic expansion” and any country in the world is threatened with national collapse if at least 10% of the Chinese rush beyond the borders of their homeland. There was an example in history that confirmed the statements of Chinese scientists. On Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, the first Chinese traders settled in 1861, in 1897 there were 547 of them, and within a few years they dominated the local economy.
The Chinese today have not only flooded the market with their goods, but the Russian Far East with themselves. There is another very serious aspect, which is related to the fact that the Chinese companies that work with us have been very successful in developing various kinds of gray and black turnover schemes. Thanks to the work of underground Chinese banks, they have gained the opportunity to concentrate capital and, due to this, carry out illegal procurement of non-ferrous metals and deforestation on our territory. Gradually, this product is officially transported across the border to China through intermediate companies. The Chinese do not export dollars or rubles from Russia, they export products.
The Russian leadership at the highest level acknowledges the existence of unresolved problems in relations with China. “We must analyze everything that is happening in the PRC and seek acceptable solutions that meet our national interests,” Vladimir Putin said at the last State Council. But today, even if there is political will, solving the accumulated problems will not be easy.
However, it is possible that the Chinese threat is nothing more than a myth. “There are more Chinese here than flies. They will take the Amur away from us, there is no doubt about that,” Anton Chekhov wrote to his publisher in June 1890, when he stopped in Blagoveshchensk during his trip to the Far East. 112 years have passed. Amur is still Russian, and talk about Chinese expansion remains just talk. Marina SAIDUKOVA-ROMANOVA
|
