Well said, George

[rodneymackinnon]

Dr. W.,
While I don't agree with everything you said, thanks for the funny, informative post. (Nice cover-up of the secret Vladivostock to Lake Baikal submarine tunnel).
An Ignorant American,
RM

[Reza_Rahmani]

"Woland," I'm going to cease to call you "Woland," since the name is inappropriate. I dub you "Korov'ev," (one of Woland's henchmen; this is more fitting, and allows you to go on using a Bulgakov character).

Your effete hair-splitting is like a chipping at a cliff of granite. I think you are out of your depth in the viper's nest of Eurasia (as are most Americans as well, to their credit). But a pompous criticism of the article I posted is not the proper direction of this thread.

Let's look further into the "demographic crisis," which a more astute reader noticed as an item of importance. It's funny to think of US citizens worrying about the Mexicans; they have only to imagine themselves in the position of Russians to feel well off:

*****

Russian Far East Turning Chinese?

The Chinese are invading Russia, not with tanks but with suitcases, according to Alexander Shaikin, head of the border control at the Federal Border Guard Service. He stated June 29 that over the past 18 months 1.5 million Chinese have illegally entered Russia’s Far East, as reported by The Moscow Times.

While Shaikin’s claim is likely exaggerated, increased Chinese migration marks a return of Chinese influence to historically Chinese territories. Unlike Sino-Russian disagreements over Ukraine or India, a territorial dispute over the Russian Far East holds the potential to formally rupture relations between the two continental powers.

Yury Akhipov, head of the Russian immigration directorate, disputes Shaikin’s claims. He counters by stating that many Chinese are only temporarily in Russia on business, and that many shuttle traders are counted each time they cross the border. It is impossible to either confirm or disprove Shaikin’s 1.5 million figure; Russia has not undertaken a census since before the end of the Cold War.

According to the Moscow Carnegie Center, the only organization to launch an independent study of the issue, about 250,000 of the region’s population was Chinese in 1997. At that time the Interior Ministry claimed the number was two million. Other sporadic estimates place the Chinese population anywhere from 100,000 to five million. Still, even the Federal Migration Service, of which Akhipov is a representative, fears a Chinese flood.

The service has repeatedly warned that the Chinese could become the dominant ethnic group in the Russian Far East in 20 to 30 years. Such an occurrence would require an annual influx of about 250,000 to 300,000 Chinese; less than one-third the rate that Shaikin currently claims. Regardless of the specific numbers, there are many reasons as to why this flow would occur, and why Beijing would allow, perhaps even encourage, it to happen.

China’s demographics come into play. China has more than 1.2 billion people, more than eight times Russia’s population. Only 7.4 million Russians populate the entire Russian Far East, verses more than 70 million in northeast China. Furthermore, while Russia’s Far Eastern population decreased 8 percent since 1989, across the border China’s Manchurian population increased 13 percent over the same period.

The historical arguments are even stronger. Any Chinese expansion into the Russian Far East would in reality be a return to the region. Most of the border region, an area roughly the size of Iran, used to be Chinese. Russia seized the territory in 1858 and 1860 in the Treaties of Aigun and Peking, respectively. Of all of the unequal treaties forced upon the Qing dynasty by outside powers in the 19th century, these are the only two China has not managed to overcome.

While China and Russia signed a border agreement in 1999, China never explicitly accepted the Aigun and Peking treaties as inviolable.

Economically, the Russian Far East is rich in natural resources such as oil, gas and timber, which China increasingly needs. Transport costs also encourage economic links between the Russian Far East and Asian countries as opposed to 3,000-mile distant Moscow. Furthermore, due to Russia’s rapidly aging population, Russia’s work force is disappearing. China’s young, and growing, population is more than able to fill the gap. The combination of proximity and Russia’s looming labor shortage makes economic development of the Russian Far East dependent upon China.

Finally, there are strategic issues. The territory at stake comprises all of Russia’s temperate access to the Pacific. Vladivostok is Russia’s only Pacific warm water port. Nikolayevsk, at the mouth of the Amur River, processes most of Siberia’s remaining exports. Both are well within former Chinese territory. If China were to gain control of the region, particularly these two ports, Russia would lose sea access for nearly all of its Siberian trade along with the ability to ever project a Pacific fleet.

Such northern bases would also allow China to more directly threaten its primary regional rival: Japan. Local Russians are nervous about the alleged Sinoization of their region. Primoskiy Kray Governor Yevgenii Nazdratenko on June 1 called for relocating five million Russians from European Russia to the Far East in order to create population parity with China.

Such a transfer is impossible considering Russia’s demographic crisis; even with the relocation, Russians would still be outnumbered 6:1 by their neighbors across the border. As the cross border economic integration continues, Russians in the Far East are discovering just how exposed they are with Moscow seven time zones away.

As well, Russian police in urban areas have responded to public perception of an immigration flood with aggressive ethnic profiling. Law enforcement personnel are expected to check the documentation of foreigners, and they actively target ethnic Asians. The policy results from a widespread feeling from the Sino-Russian border to the western city of St. Petersburg that China is the source of undesirable immigration.
Public sentiment is especially inflamed by border merchants who smuggle goods to and from China and Russia in order to avoid taxation.

Tensions on the Sino-Russian border region are part of a wider, and expanding, Sino-Russian rivalry. Russia’s expanding military cooperation with India cast a dark shadow over Sino-Russian claims of partnership at the recent Shanghai Five meeting in Tajikistan. Putin’s meeting with his strategic partner, Chinese President Jiang Zemen, lasted less than an hour. Border issues were specifically excluded from the agenda, according to ITAR-Tass.

And China is pressuring Russia on other fronts. In Central Asia, China is attempting to secure some of the region’s petroleum resources. Further abroad, members of the Chinese leadership recently outflanked Russia with trips to Europe and former Soviet satellites and republics. Wrestling over influence in North Korea, Ukraine, and Vietnam continues as well.

Russia is far from helpless in dealing with Chinese encroachment, however. Russians, for now, remain in the majority within the Russian Far East. More importantly, Putin rose to power on a wave of nationalism; a wave he could easily divert toward Chinese immigrants in the Russian Far East. For its part, China has no reason to push the process; simply given demographic factors, the migration will proceed on its own. China can always choose to exploit the situation later. Until that happens China and Russia will continue to agree to disagree over a range of issues, but it is the looming territorial dispute in the Far East that will place them firmly at odds.

*****

Greetings,
I regret that an as..ole like George Will
gets the distinguished posters to this board
so riled up. He is nothing but a Socially
Retarded Hack, who preaches to a smaller
and smaller number of people in the CHOIR.
While the US is admittedly more conservative
than it should be, the last two elections
clearly gave evidence that we are turning away from conservatism and hate-mongering.
This November the consrevative *******s will
be burried for good. Not a minute too soon.

[This message has been edited by B.Ungaro (edited 05 September 2000).]

[Dr_Woland]

Hello Reza

You are welcome to call me whatever you like, of course, and
I'm well-aware who Korov'ev is/was, Messire :-) Just don't
try wearing any coats or dresses I give you :-)

I don't really regard my posting as either effete, or hair-
splitting. Getting facts as phenomenally wrong as submarines
going to Siberia (if *I* were to write about submarines
going to Utah here, I'd be pilloried for it, and rightly so!)
is reasonably illustrative of the information deficit which
was the background to Mr Wills piece. It seems Mr Wills
believes any old rubbish he's told! Worse, he repeats it in
print as fact, and draws conclusions from it!

What kind of hair, may I ask, is 1000km broad? It would really
take quite a lot of splitting :-) You say I am out of my
depth - yet mysteriously, you have no counter to the points
I've advanced. Are you, too, at the Shallow End of the pool?

As I prefaced my posting, I have few reasons to want to defend
Mr Putin. However, Mr Wills only does Putin a service by
writing such blather - empty sloganising, based on Cold-War
cliches. Lenin's mausoleum, indeed!! I suppose there are no
statues in the USA to leaders about whose acts there is now
retrospective unease? For certain, my own country (UK) has many
which might be better removed, but they remain in place.
Faced with empty arguments based on unreal facts, what better
response than to expose the flaws and follies can there be?
A man who talks about the "geographic crisis" (whatever that
may be?) but doesn't even know BASIC geography himself??

Well, you don't want to debate Will's piece any further, and
have turned to the Far East instead. This is perhaps a good idea -
there is nothing in Wills piece to detain informed minds further,
save to note with regret that many Americans may have used his
factual fallacies as a source of information :-(

So let's look at the Far East. Is this piece your own, or has
it come from somewhere? I presume that you endorse the views in
it, since you've posted it :-)

>> He stated June 29 that over the past 18 months 1.5 million Chinese
have illegally entered Russia’s Far East, as reported by The Moscow
Times. <<

I wouldn't use The Moscow Times as an information-source, personally.
They have no reporters in the Far East. More than half the publication
is assembled from news-wire sources, and without knowing the source
of this info, we should suspend judgement. It's a freesheet for
the ex-pat community living in Moscow, and not an authoratative
newspaper on the lines of Izvestia, Vedomosti, Komersant etc. It's
like getting your world news from the Wichita Weekly :-) Looks
nice, friendly style, but most of it's from AP, Reuters - or other
sources of more dubious nature (such as, for example - Govt Press
Agencies. Whose figure is 1.5 mill - TASS?? Do we BELIEVE TASS
to be immune from Kremlin pressure to report selectively?).

Nonetheless, the figures ring-true, more-or-less. There is a massive
Chinese presence in far-eastern Russia, which is substantially (but
by NO means as wholly-centred as you claim) based on suitcase-
trading.

>> Russia has not undertaken a census since before the end of the Cold War <<

When are you dating "the end of the cold war"? The last census was in
1989, as far as I remember - which is, I agree, within the "USSR" period.

>> He counters by stating that many Chinese are only temporarily in
Russia on business <<

Akhipov (surely "Arkhipov"?) sounds more realistic. These Chinese
traders have come to Russia to SELL, not to live. Maybe they stay
3-4 months, maybe longer, whilst their relatives shuttle back and
forth with more suitcases of goods.

What seems to be missing from your argument is... any consideration of
the causes? When I was last in the Far East (Sept 1999, for 3 months)
I can tell you that these factors were as plain as a pikestaff:

1) There are no Russian-produced consumer goods in the shops.
2) The population is reliant almost entirely on Chinese goods to clothe
itself, for footwear, and largely for foodstuffs too.
3) Whilst simultaneously, local Russian businessmen are complaining
that a 3-way pincer-movement of corrupt Local Govt demanding bribes,
the Mob demanding "protection" payments for factory and shop premises,
and a Federal Taxation System officially called "insane and
counter-productive" by a well-known Western accountancy practice.

In other words, domestic production of goods had been brought to a
standstill by corrupt officialdom, creating a vacuum into which cheap
Chinese goods have flooded. I spent a while in Blagoveschensk. Now
Bl. is on the River Amur, and on the opposite bank is China, and the
city of Heihei. The river crossing takes, errr, 12 minutes.

But is it really a "Chinese flood" as you write? If it is, then it's
a flood welcomed with open arms on the soon-to-be-deluged side. The City
Mayor of Blagoveschenk, together with the Regional Governor of the
Amurskaya Oblast', has approved plans for a road-bridge, and the foundations
have been built on both sides. Interestingly, Heihei was built with all
its streets lined-up to face the street-terminations on the Russian
river embankment - in other words, just waiting for the bridges to be built.
The people of Blagoveschensk rather like their Chinese neighbours. Heihei
has sponsored a Children's Play-Park, upgrades of the City Hospital, and
new buses for the City Transportation Dept. All welcomed by a City
Govt who have ceased to expect that cash-hungry Moscow (which taxes the
regions but rarely sends money back for projects) will ever do anything
to help the region - and allegiances have transferred to their more
generous neighbours. The Kremlin has only itself to blame, if people
in the Far East are more on-side with Beijing than with Moscow.

>> The historical arguments are even stronger. Any Chinese expansion
into the Russian Far East would in reality be a return to the region.<<

This is, at best, only partly true. You write as though Communist China
existed in the region before? Previously those regions were under the
loose control of Manchurian potentates so off-side with Beijing that they
actually *attacked* Beijing to impose the Manchu Dynasty on a very unwilling
nation. If, as you say, you want to look at "historical arguments".
You have accepted the Beijing Communist doctrine that there is "one
Chinese people". There is not. The Manchu are a completely different
group from the native population of the Beijing area, for example.

>> as opposed to 3,000-mile distant Moscow <<

Good point, I agree. In fact, Moscow is 9000 km away from Vladivostok,
which is more than double the distance you quote in miles. 3000 miles
from Moscow you'd be in Siberia, and not the Far East.

>> Furthermore, due to Russia’s rapidly aging population <<

Clang!! The Amur Region has the youngest population in the whole country.
This is what happens when you try to extrapolate from national data,
and assume it is uniformly valid across the country.

>> The combination of proximity and Russia’s looming labor shortage makes
economic development of the Russian Far East dependent upon China <<

Well, you are possibly right - but is it likely, though? So far, China
sees Russia only as a market for the sales of goods. I see no intentions
of building industrial centres across the border. Furthermore, the
Chinese would then hit EXACTLY the same problems the local companies already
in the Russian Far East have to grapple with - which they avoid by keeping
all their production within the PRC, and having it sold in market-places,
without any investment in premises which need heat, light, telephones and
security - none of which can be obtained reliably or cheaply in the Far East.

>> Vladivostok is Russia’s only Pacific warm water port. Nikolayevsk, at the
mouth of the Amur River, processes most of Siberia’s remaining exports. Both
are well within former Chinese territory. <<

This is historical nonsense. Vladivostok has never, in its whole existence,
been a Chinese possession. It was a "greenfield site" when settled by
the Russians. The native people in the region when the Russians arrived
were Koreans, not Chinese.

>> Russia would lose sea access for nearly all of its Siberian trade along
with the ability to ever project a Pacific fleet. <<

You're partly right, and partly wrong. For cargo purposes, you are right -
but so little freight goes into or out of Russia on this route (sadly)
that it would not be a critical loss of actual trade - merely a loss of a
potential future trade if Russia ever gets its act together? The main
trade into/out of Vladivostok is second-hand Japanese cars. By the way,
Mob control of Vladivostok is now so rife, that the Railways are now
reusing Nahodka instead - even closer to the border.

>> with Moscow seven time zones away <<

The Far East is up to ELEVEN time-zones away. Details matter. Why is this NOT
splitting hairs? Because... if it was seven, there would be at least
one working hour in common with Moscow, but there isn't. Which means
that communications become fax and telex-based (or email in some cases)
and Russians habitually ignore these media, preferring direct telephone
orders. It adds a day's delay to every single decision or question.

>> Russian police in urban areas have responded to public perception of an
immigration flood with aggressive ethnic profiling. Law enforcement personnel
are expected to check the documentation of foreigners, and they actively
target ethnic Asians. <<

Right info, wrong reasons. Most Russian police are corrupt, I fear. An
order which instructs them to "inspect" people, is giving them the means
to augment their (low) incomes by demanding bribes to ignore things.
It is, though, quite true that ethnic Asians are targetted. I had four
Singaporean clients stopped at Chita, dragged off the train, beaten-
up and robbed by the Chita Police, their documents and possessions and
money stolen, and slapped in jail for three days. After 3 days, they
were released and allowed to continue to Moscow. So it had nothing to do
with stopping them entering the country - it was just a great way to
rob foreign travellers. The Chita Police deny the incident even took
place, and no documentation exists for the receipt of the belongings that
were "confiscated" and never returned.

Dear Reza, I think you are out of your depth in the viper's nest of
Asian Russia :-)

>> Public sentiment is especially inflamed by border merchants who smuggle
goods to and from China and Russia in order to avoid taxation. <<

I partly agree, but it's not PUBLIC sentiment - the PUBLIC are damn pleased
to be able to buy cheap goods in the markets. It's the local businesses
who are mad as hell about it, because their own Govt has them in an
economic half-Nelson.

>> according to ITAR-Tass. <<

Aha, so you ARE quoting TASS!! And you were the one worried that Putin
is controlling things to secure a clampdown - yet you use his Press
Service as an undisputed source?

>> Wrestling over influence in North Korea <<

From what I noticed, this "wrestling" was a bit one-sided, since the
Chinese didn't turn-up to fight. Putin's influence in North Korea is
all-embracing, as he managed to prove to the G8 countries.

------------------------------------------------------

Once again, Reza, I largely agree with what you are saying, but for
an entirely different set of reasons.

You see an aggressive China pushing into a Federal Russia. I see a
weakened and divided Russia, in which local regions are so disenchanted
with Moscow's abysmal leadership, that they are more than happy to
build-up relationships with those better-placed to help THEIR region,
and to hell with economic allegiance to Moscow.

It has been Moscow's failure to help the Far East to develop, whilst
simultaneously bleeding it dry of resources through taxation and
appropriation, that have left the region in such a dire state.
Believe me, your prognosis of local opposition to Chinese intervention
is entirely wrong-footed. No-one is more welcome in the Far East,
than asians coming-in with money and resources to build-up the region.
Chinese, Koreans, Japanese - all are very welcome there, both
at street-level, and in City and Regional Administrations.

Please try to look at little further than what is going on in the Kremlin,
when trying to assess what might happen in Russia? As our Moscow Mayor
Yuri Luzhkov has adequately shown, the Kremlin can't always manage
to influence what happens on Manezhnaya Ploschad', 100m outside its
walls - where the Mayor Of Moscow is "Tsar i Bog", and Putin and Co
are just so-many Federal pen-pushers.

When they get Luzhkov to attend his Court Summons, I'll believe the
Kremlin has real influence in Russia. Until then.... :-)

Dr W.

[Reza_Rahmani]

Korov'ev,

You need someone like me to find stimulus for a spirited critique. I'll keep my eye out for other topics.

What is really going on here is my visceral response to Russian machinations, and my alliance with any power that will confound the flailings of that dinosaur. I supposed that I would find here exactly the apologists I oppose, and I was right.

You mentioned the IMF earlier, and how that clumsy organization was responsible for Russia's economic malaise. I don't agree with this, but do wish, along with you, that the IMF had just not done anything. Russia has no enemy equal to herself. Why any other country offered her a dime is beyond me; it was very stupid.

Thanks for your indulgence. By the way, the Far East Russians might welcome more oriental business at first, but the Chinese will suck them dry (while selling them opium).

Reza

[Dr_Woland]

Hello again, Reza!

My chequered assistant has passed me your latest...

>> I supposed that I would find here exactly the apologists I oppose, and I was right <<

Aha, then you have misread my posts. I am no apologist - but instead, a realist. You believe that nothing good is possible in Russia. I agree that Russia has many problems, but unlike your Mr Will, my spectrum of vision extends beyond a purely black/white contrast. Where tendencies towards positive change exist, they should be noted, and encouraged. You seem to see my attempts to report the truth (as opposed to the outdated cliches of Mr Will, who is working with information from 1987) as an attempt to "apologise". I agree that having current facts presented is very difficult for your arguments, but I'm afraid I'm going to carry on doing so. Your opinions are interesting and provocative, but when they are based on entirely incorrect or outdated information, you must expect to be challenged with this! Should I mention once again the location of Siberia, in relation to the sea? :-)

How strange that you feel the need to dismiss correction on factual issues as "apologism" - it's almost as if you are happier in your own little world of supposition and cliche? :-)

Now,down to your post! I'm fascinated that you don't agree that the IMF was responsible for the financial meltdown of Sept 1998 ? Considering that both the IMF and the Russian Govt agree on this point, along with the BBC, Arthur Andersen Consulting, Deloitte Touche and Ernst & Young, I am intrigued to know what YOU attribute it to? Please try to be a little more specific than "dinosaurs" when replying! Whom do you blame (which ministers or officials - by name?) and which of their actions caused it?

Because you strike me as someone rather like Mr Will - who already made up their mind before the investigation, that "communists" must have been responsible. Finger-pointing seems to be enough for you? You declare people guilty on the basis of your (faulty) perception of their ideology alone? A worryingly McCarthy-ist tendency! So can I trouble you, please, to concern yourself with the FACTS of this matter? Please tell us - based on your factual knowledge - WHY you choose to disagree with so many respected authorities on this matter?

We are all keen to know - along with millions of customers of Russian banks, who lost their pensions and life savings. Please tell us - who's responsible, and where can we find them?

Dr W.

[Dr_Woland]

by the way, I shall now be offline for about 10 days, as I'm going on a trip into small Russian villages and forest - a long way from any kind of internet connection!

Dr W.