Russia's east warms to China - RAT, you are wrong. There are white people who wants to migrate to China
- From: rst0wxyz <rst0wxyz@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:13:03 -0800 (PST)
Russia's east warms to China
By Dmitry Shlapentokh
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/IL15Ag01.html
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military installations have been withdrawn.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 ethnicRussians 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.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
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