China's Encroachment Into Russia

Let us quote the article published at the end of May 2002 in the leftist "Sovetskaya Rossiya":

An especially disastrous and alarming situation is taking place in Siberia and the Far Eastern regions. For instance, the World Wildlife Fund is very worried about the cutting of forests in these regions. The fund is suggesting the introduction of government controls for cutting and transporting timber, as well as placing an absolute prohibition on the cutting of hardwood species. One of the directors of the fund said, "If we don't do it, our Primoriye [Maritime region, with the capital of Vladivostok] would be sized up by Chinese."

Moreover, if the Chinese continue to cut our forests, the Primoriye would be flooded, as the climate would be changed: Forests stop accumulating water and rivers overflow. By the way, representatives of the above-mentioned fund believe that last year the flood in Lensk [Sakha-Yakutia republic] was the result of illegal cutting of timber in this region.

About 1.5 million cubic meters are cut illegally annually [in Primorye alone]. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that the forest in Primorye could be exterminated – due to the illegal activity of Chinese and South Korean companies – within five years. Remarkably, Chinese companies working in Primorye (Maritime) region, in timber cutting and other areas, are directed and supported by the government of Heilongjiang province, in Harbin city.

As for the Russian government, it doesn't help its own people; in fact, it even stands in the way. China considers Russia a raw material supplier and a source of modern weaponry and technologies. (end of article excerpt)

At the end of July, President Putin signed "The law about the land," allowing the selling of agriculture and almost all other kinds of land in Russia. This law prohibits selling Russian land to foreigners – however, it is very easy to circumvent the laws in Russia! The Russian papers, anticipating the law, published in June a list of the approximate prices of agricultural lands in different regions of Russia, per square kilometer:

The price of land in the Moscow region is determined by the appetites of New Russians, purchasing the land for villas.

In the southern part of the Maritime region (evidently, the price is given just for this zone), conditions for agriculture are not much worse than in the Krasnodar region; however, population density is much lower than in the northern Caucasus and still falling. The price of agricultural land here is comparatively cheap, the price of non-agricultural land is even cheaper. The Chinese side – or, more exactly, Heilongjiang province – could become a major land purchaser here.

Let's look at the most probable directions of Chinese land purchase in the southern part of the Maritime region (Primorye):

1) The "transportation belt," along the railway and highway from the Suifenhe Special Border Economic Zone via Ussuriysk city and Artyom town to the seaport of Nakhodka. As shown in the recently published article "Chinese-Russian Economic Cooperation Takes Curious Forms," Heilongjiang province is extremely interested in increasing its influence or even establishing domination in this belt. The new Russian "land code" provides the perfect environment for this to occur.

Purchase of the 10,000 km

2) Heilongjiang is getting from Russia – mostly or entirely from the Maritime region, through official and unofficial channels – about 2.5 million to 3 million cubic meters of valuable timber annually. A joint Chinese-Russian "timber mafia" in Primorye is engaged in extremely predatory, environment-destroying timber cutting.

It is possible for Heilonjiang to purchase, for the price of 250,000-300,000 yuan per square kilometer, 10,000-15,000 km

3) In addition, Heilongjiang could purchase in Primorye 10,000-20,000 km

As a result, in several years, Heilongjiang could establish effective and non-shared control over a significant part of Primorye. Simultaneously, the number of Chinese inside this Russian region would increase, from about 100,000 at the end of 2001 to 200,000-300,000 or more. These Chinese would be engaged in agriculture, in wood cutting, the oil and gas industry, mining, transportation of all kinds, primary processing of locally produced raw materials and their delivery to China, etc.

Most of Primorye – not only its southern part, between Khanka lake and the North Korean border – would be absorbed into the economic enclave of Heilonjiang, ruled from Harbin city (capital of the province). This is not an alarmist forecast but a very real and objective one. And economic control from Harbin would mean, undoubtedly, geopolitical control from Beijing. In particular, the PLA could get broad access to the Sea of Japan.

By the way, on July 26, the Hong Kong media reported that during an international scientific conference in Hancanwei (the usual name of Vladivostok city in the media and on the maps of Greater China), Chinese and South Korean scientists proposed to change the name of the Sea of Japan to the "Eastern Sea." Probably, after Chinese control over the Maritime region was established, the capital would change its name from Vladivostok to Haicanwei (Bay of Sea Treasures, the name of the Chinese village located on the site before 1860).

Simultaneously, the present Sea of Japan could change its name to the Eastern Sea, thus reflecting the diminishing influence of Japan – as well as the U.S. – in this zone.

The price of agricultural and other land in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East is, generally, much less than in the "blessed" southern Primorye. In some remote districts it is as cheap as $1,000-$1,500 per square kilometer (see Magadan in the list above). Would China leave these areas alone? Very doubtful, in spite of the fact that Chinese "agricultural interest" in these cold regions is rather small. The Chinese interest here is concentrated in:

Purchasing or long-term leasing by the Chinese of huge forested zones in the Irkutsk, Chita, Amur and Khabarovsk regions and the Sakha republic is a probability.

On Aug. 6, the Moscow-based pro-government Nezavisimaya Gazeta published a panicky article in response to the new situation of free land trading and the rapid rise of Chinese economic-financial potential: "By 2010, Chinese Will Become the Second Ethnic Group, After Ethnic Russians, in Russia." The major theses of the article are as follows: