Chinese Presence Grows in Russian Far East

USSURIISK, Russia - In the mosquito-infested fields of Russia's Far East, Chinese pick tomatoes. In the markets, they sell cheap jeans and backpacks and fix shoes. At construction sites, they rebuild cities.

As China and Russia embark on a new stage of cooperation by holding joint military exercises launched from the Pacific port of Vladivostok, the Chinese presence is growing in this hardscrabble region thousands of miles from Moscow.

It's too early to talk of an imminent Chinese takeover, local experts say, despite such worries by some Russian politicians. Still, they acknowledge that China's hunger for resources and territory as its population and economy boom could eventually make the Far East an alluring target.

"Russia has 30 to 40 years to become an equal partner with China in Asia. ... If Russia doesn't, then China could start to have territorial pretensions," said Mikhail Shinkovskiy, director of the Institute of International Relations and Social Technologies at Vladivostok State University of Economics and Science.

Russia seized the Far East from China in the 1800s, back when Russian imperial ambitions were at their height and China was a weak country that could be pushed around. Now, the tables are turned. China's military is seeking to broaden its influence while Russian forces deteriorate to a shadow of their former Soviet might.

After years of hostility and a 1969 border war between China and the Soviet Union, Beijing and Moscow are now "strategic partners" who last year signed a treaty resolving disputes about how to draw their 2,700-mile-long frontier.

China is keen to buy Russian weapons to help bolster its arsenal, and this week's exercises serve to showcase key items such as Russia's strategic bombers, which can carry nuclear weapons.

In launching the exercises last week, top generals from both countries said the joint military drills were just the latest step in cooperation that extends across many spheres — and is most evident here in the Far East.

Sergei Sim, an independent journalist in Vladivostok who has specialized in interethnic issues, said the Chinese aren't seeking conflict and have a strong lobby in the local government. So far, their main goal appears to be in business.

Some 50,000 Chinese work legally in Russia's Primoriye region, along the Pacific coast, but their actual number is believed to be twice that, Shinkovskiy said. They earn an average of about $100 a month, half the regular Russian salary but far more than what they could get back home.

At the Ussuriisk bazaar, the region's largest, Russian and Chinese flags fly over the entrance and merchants wear name tags printed in both languages.

Cui Xian, or "Igor" as he's known here, waits for customers at an auto parts stall. The 20-year-old ethnic Korean came to Russia four years ago from China's Jilin province to study but wasn't granted a student visa. Eventually he managed to get a work visa and joined his parents, who immigrated here in 1996.

"I live better here, it's a good life," Cui said in Russian, adding that in China it's difficult to find work with the competition and bribes necessary to get jobs.

The Chinese trade also provides work for Russians such as Svetlana Kamogurtseva, 30, who helps negotiate sales of purses and backpacks for her Chinese boss from a storage container turned market stall. Unable to find work in her nearby hometown, she came to the bazaar 3 1/2 years ago. She makes $5.25 a day.

The bazaar provides work for those who don't have the residence permits required for most jobs, Kamogurtseva said. "If there were other jobs we would do them, but there are no other opportunities."

Still, relations between Russians and Chinese in the Far East are sometimes testy, with Russians exhibiting some dismay over having to serve their onetime poorer neighbors from the south.

"All Chinese are liars," pronounced Konstantin Drassav, a Chinese-speaking tour guide in the regional capital Vladivostok.

China has yet to make inroads here on a higher commercial level: Billboards hawk South Korean mobile phones and TVs, while the roads are filled with right-hand-drive Japanese cars.

In Vladivostok, Chinese tour groups roam dirty streets looking to buy Russian alcohol and chocolate and see the few sights this garrison city has to offer, such as a World War II submarine turned into a museum.

Other attractions include numerous casinos where Chinese can indulge in gambling, which is banned in China. Prostitution is also widespread, fueling sex tourism.

Drassav said every tour group that comes here asserts that the Far East should be assimilated back into China.

This is a big duh!

One of those things that’s obvious, a huge deal and yet nearly unreported in the MSM.

Russia and China fought a war before (about 30 years ago). Russia is militarily falling behind, while China is advancing by leaps and bounds. Russia is resource rich while China dependent with an unsatisfyable apatite. In just the last few years their demand for crude grew by 20-25%. China has an expansionistic mind set as evidenced by (Korean war, Vietnam, Khmer Rouge, Tibet, Taiwan.......) The "myth" of China being some pacifist introverted nation is perpetuated by them and accepted by those without a clue.

The next "Big Bang" (If one should occur) will be between China and Russia, although in the popular press all you hear is that US-Chinese relations are strained. In reality, a nation like China is opportunistic and goes after targets of opportunity. Russia is a high payoff target that is slowly loosing its power in a military sense. We are too much trouble and to little payoff.

Russia knows this too. They’re no idiots either. Yet like their corruption, it’s not an advertised topic of concern. However, if you look at the Russian force structure, size and equipment they still have you realize that China is a major perceived threat to Russia. Rightfully so,

Everyone knows that China is regionally a major power and flexes its muscle. China will use force to advance it’s national policy and economic agendas. Russia should be nervous. Is the inflow of Chinese ino Russia a pure coincidence? When you're dealing with China it's doubtful.

Red6

Your quotes are straight from the communist Chinese!

Here’s where you can find your ideas verbatim again:

http://www.centurychina.com/history/krwarfaq.html

Or if you want I can link you to a communist Chinese site that will tell you the same thing.

(much less trust worthy than a communist Chinese site I’ll quote Encarta bellow)

“North Korean and Chinese documents released or declassified in the 1980s and 1990s tell a different story. China did not enter the war purely to protect its border. Rather, Mao decided early in the war that should the North Koreans falter, China had an obligation to help them because many North Koreans had sacrificed their lives alongside Chinese—in the Chinese revolution that overthrew the imperial government in 1911 to 1912, in resistance to Japan’s decades of occupation, and in the Chinese civil war of 1946 to 1949. On August 4, 1950, Mao told the Chinese Politburo (the highest decision-making body of the Chinese Communist Party) that he intended to send troops to Korea "in the name of a volunteer army" should the Americans reverse the tide of battle. The day after UN troops crossed the 38th parallel, Mao informed Stalin of his decision to invade. In other words, it was not the approach of American troops on the Chinese border that prompted China’s attack; it was the American strategy to roll back North Korean Communism.”

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761559607_2/Korean_War.html#s9

China didn’t get involved in Korea because it saw a threat from the US. Use some common sense!

What, Macarthur with his few marry men are going to invade Manchuria? Are you insane?! I could claim that Russia feels threatened today because of some 12,000 troops in Afghanistan. While it’s a slap to their pride (Russia), our presence in Afghanistan is about as much of a threat to them as the forces Macarthur had in Korea to China. Next you’ll tell me that the Warsaw pact was a reaction to NATO aggression. The Warsaw pact was just afraid of us, that’s why they parked 30,000 tanks and APC’s on the boarder. By the way, these same idiotic arguments were actually made in the 70 and 80s against NATO. You make no sense to any rational mind.

Do you even know who the Khmer Rouge are? Probably not, all you know is that the only thing wrong in this world is the US.

“The Khmer Rouge was funded by Vietnam in the 1950s, supplied with small arms, explosives, military weapons and support from China in the 1980s and had approximately 8,000 guerillas.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge

The Khmer Rouge were backed and even financed by China. They invaded Laos and attacked Thailand; obviously these neighboring countries poised a huge threat.

A little read about the Indo-Chinese war.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/indo-prc_1962.htm

(Post WWII China tangled in)
War with India
Support to the Khmer Rouge
Support to N. Korea and even today they are N. Korea’s big daddy
Support to Vietnam
War with Russia
Invasion of Tibet
Threats to Taiwan

Even Miramar (Former Burma) is practically owned by China. China built a major highway right through that country running North South.

Why did that US P3 have to do an emergency landing?

http://ww2.pstripes.osd.mil/01/apr01/ed040401e.html

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/04/02/us.china.airmeetings/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1255815.stm

And of course the Russians keep a massive armored mechanized force in Asia to repel a massive US-European invasion? This must be the case in your opinion. Why would the Russians keep the forces structure the way they do? To fight in Chechnya? Again, use your brain.

China IS an aggressive nation, China IS expansionistic, China IS NOT a free society with private markets and ownership. China HAS proved itself to be an opportunistic nation that will use military force to push through its national economic and socio-political agendas whether external or internal. Need I remind you of Square (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989)? Of course you’ll excuse it and compare that to Kent state and state it’s all the same.

Everybody wants to make a buck off of China. Whether the US, Europeans or Russia we all want to do trade with them and HOPE that in the long run capitalism, free markets, the concept of freedom and private ownership run over them. However, those who are the policy makers in the US, Europe and Russia know that China is a threat.

That’s why even the Europeans, who really don’t loose much by selling arms to China, since they won’t suffer the consequences, abide to some resemblance of an arms embargo which China is fighting with all its might to have dropped. China has gone to the length of offering preffered sales agreements for the A380 if the EU drops its arms embargo! Think about that. The US won’t sell those weapons and even dual use technology is scrutinized. That’s why even Russia only sells China what they call “Monkey” models in weapon systems. China has to develop many of its subsystems for tanks, fighters, etc. by itself because Russia does see China as a threat and does NOT sell them whatever they want.

I don’t have time for your brainwashed America is bad debate. For people like you the only thing wrong in this world is the US. You’re typical for a European mind set. Vietnam was about tin, Iraq is “No blood for oil”, China is just defending itself by bringing down a plane over international airspace; compare the Holocaust to the Indians, the Manifest Destiny to Tibet. I don’t have the time or the energy to explain US history to you. May I ask if you are European?

Red6

May I ask if you are European?

You may. I'm not. Nor do I have a European or French mentality that rationalizes craveness. For example, I'm in favor of not selling arms to the PRC.

You attribute all sorts of sentiments to me from my simple argument that, as you said, China is a major, regional power. I agree with that. I'm putting forth the argument that today's China is not set about world conquest.

I accept your argument about China as the aggressor in the Korean War, but that was under Mao and eons ago in terms of how the Chinese world-view has changed.

Yeah, I would not want the PRC across the border from the U.S. But they are not, which makes them much less of a threat. I still view the evolution of China as more an opportunity for a free, capitalistic world than a threat to it. And that's a lot more than wanting to make a buck off of another people's oppression, it has a spiritual component. For example, some of the best Christians in the world are coming out of there. Maybe you'd prefer that China was still run by the Red Guards?

The people I work closest with, my blood brothers, are from families who suffered in the flesh from Red Chinese Communism. I take most of my cues from them on what is going on in China. The Chinese are mad at the Japanese. They are potentially mad at the Russians. Chinese and Indians are like oil and water on a personal level,not to mention the political. America and Americans appear to fit Chinese very well.

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