Dr. Alexandr Nemets
Monday, Oct. 21, 2002

Long-Term Program of Beijing in Russian Far East and Siberia

Chinese expansion in the Irkutsk region of Eastern Siberia has an irreversible character; the same is true for all other Russian regions to the east of Irkutsk, i.e., the entire huge zone between Lake Baikal and the Pacific Ocean. The number of Chinese citizens in bordering Russian administrative units – Khabarovsk region, Amur region, Chita region – increases on a daily basis. The same is true for the Irkutsk region, though it is more than 1,000 km from the Chinese border. By 2002, genuine Chinatowns have been established in the centers of these regions, particularly in Irkutsk city.

This process should be called the "crawling occupation." "Common people" and governors of the listed Russian territories – from Irkutsk to the Pacific Ocean – are frightened: They have to live side by side with the Tiger, and the Tiger is on the brink of a Great Leap. However, Moscow pays no attention to this phenomenon, let alone takes any countermeasures.

According to local observers and analysts, Beijing has a long-term program and far-reaching goals regarding Russia's eastern regions. China has been accomplishing this program, without noise and publicity, since 1989.

Concretely:

• In 1989, Beijing adopted a special "closed" (secret) program aimed at "exploration and development" of the Russian Far East (RFE) and RFE integration into China's sphere of economic and political influence (control).

• Around 1993, Chinese leaders took measures supporting the purchase of land lots and real estate, by Chinese citizens and companies, in the RFE, the Trans-Baikal zone (Chita region and Buryatia republic) and East Siberia (Krasnoyarsk region and Irkutsk region).

• New measures, aimed at accelerating Chinese demographic and economic expansion into Siberia, were introduced by Beijing in the second half of the 1990s.

The overseas economic strategy of Beijing is aimed at (a) providing China with a large quantity of raw materials of many kinds, (b) "borrowing" the advanced S&T know-how, and (c) getting new broad markets for Chinese goods. And East Russia has a high priority in the framework of this strategy.

Chinese communities in the Eastern regions of Russia spare no effort in carrying out the "Beijing strategy." In particular, they appear to be very successful in using "black schemes" in purchasing and exporting Russian timber, sea products, rare animal species, non-ferrous metals, and plants usable for medicine: Chinese traders buy all these goods cheaply and smuggle them to China without paying anything to Russian government structures (except for bribes). The scale of these operations is growing rapidly.

According to local Russian experts, the plans of Beijing for the near future (probably up to 2010) are tremendous: (a) a leap-like increase in the ethnic Chinese population in the RFE and Siberia, (b) establishment of "Chinese autonomous districts" in these regions of Russia, (c) the struggle for the formal merging of these districts with China.

What's Going On in Irkutsk

Every morning, many hundreds of Chinese shuttle traders rush to the "Shanghai of Irkutsk," the largest market of Chinese goods in the Irkutsk region. Several hundred Chinese use cars to move all over the Irkutsk region and purchase timber, non-ferrous metals, etc. An additional number of "top-rank" Chinese, in ties and suits, enter the offices of Chinese-Russian joint ventures and purely Chinese enterprises in Irkutsk city. And no Russian government organization can tell exactly how many Chinese of each group are staying in the Irkutsk region.

Russian official structures have lost control over Chinese expansion in the Irkutsk region and in all of Siberia. During 2001, 18,500 "Chinese tourists" registered in police stations and hotels in the Irkutsk region. A much greater number didn't register at all. Only 3,000 among them, mostly "small fish" without ties and money, have been deported to China.

A Chinese-Russian agreement on no-visa tourist exchanges between the two countries (signed, evidently, in 2000) provides unlimited opportunities for Chinese "illegal tourists." And about 60 percent of "Chinese tourists" – both registered and unregistered – don't return after 30 days of staying in Russia on the "no-visa tourist exchange agreement."

According to the experts from Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk is used by China as an important base of two kinds:

1. The major base for economic invasion in Eastern Siberia, from Lake Baikal to the Yenissei River.

2. An intermediate base for penetration into European Russia as well as European countries to the west of Russia.

In 1989, the number of ethnic Chinese in the Irkutsk region was no more than 500. However, their number had multiplied, due to a great influx of shuttle traders, by the mid-1990s; the Great Merchandise Way from China to Irkutsk had been laid by this time. Most of these Chinese traders have been divided into "brigades," with the brigadiers speaking fluent Russian. Moreover, some of the Chinese who arrived earlier accumulated "starting capital," bought cars and homes in Irkutsk, and became "middle-rank businessmen." Shortly thereafter, the Chinese economic infrastructure in this region was established.

This infrastructure, in the second half of the 1990s and especially after the 1998 default, became a hotbed for multiple short-lived Chinese companies, vanishing after successful export operations without paying taxes. These companies are sending to the Middle Kingdom many hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of timber and many thousands of tons of copper and aluminum. Russian central and local budgets receive nothing from this trade.

By 2000-2002, the Chinese infrastructure in Irkutsk became rather sophisticated. It includes:

• An unknown number of hotels and "boarding houses" for thousands of Chinese guests of varying ranks.

• Several underground banks. A Chinese shuttle trader, after selling his merchandise in the Irkutsk region, leaves money (rubles or dollars) in such a bank and crosses the border into China with "empty hands," thus escaping customs problems. He gets his money in China, in yuan equivalent, and underground bankers in Irkutsk get more money for real estate and whatever-you-want purchasing in Russia.

• Several "cultural societies," organizing both social and economic activity of the local Chinese. One such society is going to establish – or has established already – a Chinese paper and a Chinese school. Leaders of these societies get instructions directly from Beijing.

Also worth mentioning, in the case of conflict with "ordinary Russians," organized Russian crime or local officials, the Chinese community in Irkutsk ("distributed Chinatown") effectively defends itself. This community accumulated sufficient money reserves and other defense tools (probably including armed security structures). For example, Chinese traders respond by strikes when local authorities raise the rent for market facilities.

Conclusions

In November 1993, the author spoke with one of the leaders of the newly emerged Chinese business community in Moscow, the person receiving instructions from then-Premier Li Peng himself. The question: "What is the Chinese strategy regarding Siberia?" prompted the open-hearted response "Sibailia yiqing wod." (Siberia is ours already!)

At that moment, such a statement sounded like bragging. By 2002, it became close to the reality.

In the book "The growth of China and Eastern regions of former USSR" (compiled in Moscow in 1994, translated into English and upgraded in Minneapolis in 1995 and published by Edwin Mellen Press in New York in January 1996), the author gave maximal attention to Northeast China, RFE and the Trans-Baikal Zone. Just a page or two were devoted to the prospects – at this moment, considered as remote – of Chinese expansion into Eastern Siberia.

In autumn 2002, it is clear that the Tiger indeed made a 2,500-km leap from Beijing and Harbin and landed to the west of Lake Baikal. Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk are now the frontiers of the Tiger, while the RFE (particularly the Maritime region), the Trans-Baikal Zone and Mongolia are transforming into his rear base, supplying the Mainland with all kinds of rear materials and comparatively advanced weapon for the PLA Navy and Air Force.

Remarkably, China had established indirect though effective control over the entire route of the oil pipeline from Angarsk (close to Irkutsk city) to Daqing (200 km northwest to Harbin, capital of bordering Russia Heilongjiang province) to be put in use in 2005.

Dr. Alexandr V. Nemets is co-author of "Chinese-Russian Military Relations, Fate of Taiwan and New Geopolitics."

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