>>You’re kidding, right ? The 1.6B Chinese just south of Siberia which is, by the way, mostly empty and also happens to contain an absolute treasure chest in terms of natural resources ?
Only thing that *is* stopping the Chinese from invading is the fact that there wouldn’t be all that many Chinese left afterwards to move to Siberia.<<
Hold on a moment. I happen to live in an environment that is identical to Siberia. Same flora, same wildlife, same climate. Yeah, we have lots of resources. We also have mindboggling cold weather in the winter - it was -48 degrees last Tuesday night - and did I mention that it’s winter for eight months? Did I mention the paper-thin soil and waterlogged swampland which extends for miles in any direction? How about the lack of roads? And never believe the myths about mosquitoes up here - they rarely exceed eight pounds.
If this place was so doggone attractive, we’d already be filled up with Angelenos and New Yorkers eager to buy cheap land ($1,000 an acre) on any one of a 100,000 lakes and rivers. As it is, we’re losing population out here in the roadless areas of interior Alaska, and the only ones filling it up are moose, bears, and wolves.
Perhaps the Chinese would fill up Siberia if there was a forced migration, such as the one engineered by Stalin in the mid-20th century. I can’t see many Chinese willingly heading north, though. Take my word for it, this is one tough place to live. Folks tend to like things like warmth, other people, roads, cities, and a climate easy to grow rice and veggies. True here and true there.
Just my two cents, from America’s Icebox.
Fair enough, but think about it from the perspective of a starving Chinese peasant living in a hut offered food and employment by a Chinese state mining or oil company. People in LA and NY have it a bit better than that. And, if there was natural resources exploitation going on in Alaska, there’d be a *ton* of contractors out there, as there are in Alberta, Canada. You’re thinking free people living in a prosperous economy. Chinese peasantry is something quite different. And - fact - there’s estimated 50M Chinese already living illegaly within Russian northenr borders.