Dr. Alexandr Nemets
Friday, Aug. 22, 2003

Chinese expansion in the Russian Far East (RFE) and Eastern Siberia is a topic of special interest to the author, who in January 1996 published the book "The Growth of China and the Fate of the Eastern Regions of the Former USSR" (Edwin Mellen Press) and continued researching the topic ever since.

NewsMax readers are familiar with some of my articles describing Chinese "penetration" into the Russian Maritime and Amur regions, the Yakutia Republic, the Trans-Baikal Zone, etc.

Lest the author be accused of overstating the problem, let's look at the most recent article from the Chita region of the Trans-Baikal Zone of Russia, published on July 24 in the Moscow-based Sovetskaya Rossiya newspaper, known as the "bastion of die-hard leftists." The author compressed this article to the maximum degree possible (comments in parentheses).

The 'Burnt Ground,' Vladimir Smirnov, Chita City

Since the beginning of April, Chita region residents have not seen the blue sky, traditional for this season, because pandemic forest fires have spread throughout the region.

For many decades, each spring local people have burned, in their fields and meadows, the grass remaining from the past year, in order to provide a good harvest for the current year. These fires sometimes caused small local timber fires.

However, the timber fires of 2003 are the worst in over 50 years. In Chita city itself on some days, visibility doesn't exceed 2-3 blocks. The sun has been reduced to a red disk and is incapable of warming the earth, its rays dissipated by smoke.

As a result, nighttime temperatures – in the summer! – often fall below 0 degrees Celsius (the freezing point), and there is no rain for many weeks. As a result, the grains, the grasses for husbandry, the potatoes aren't growing. This is a common phenomenon in many hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of theTrans-Baikal Zone (i.e., Chita region itself and its eastern neighbor, Buryatia republic) and the RFE, because the fires have embraced all these territories.

What's worse, mortality in Chita region has skyrocketed among the people suffering from cardiac disease and asthma. There is no place to hide from the smoke. One could travel for hundreds of kilometers over the region and the situation is the same: non-penetrable smoke and burned-out ground in the forests on both sides of the road. Local authorities take no measures and promise that everything will improve by itself, but this doesn't happen.

The fires of 2003 are occurring in remote taiga forest districts, along the highways and in suburban woods. No one is engaged in husbandry in these areas, so there has been no agricultural burning in these areas. Moreover, the fires began in June-July, after the grass-burning season. It is easy to understand that the timber fires are being caused by arson.

During the last decade (from 1992) the taiga forest in Chita region (as in other regions of East Siberia, the Trans-Baikal Zone and the RFE) is the object of large-scale poaching, "half-legal" and illegal timber cutting. Most of this timber goes to China as cheap round (unprocessed) timber. Moreover, the Chinese finally felt themselves the rulers in Chita region and became engaged in independent timber cutting.

The freshly burned timber, in the case of "earth-close fire" (embracing only lower parts of the trees), has for a time the same qualities as "live timber"; however, the price (to be paid to local authorities) for cutting such newly burned timber decreases many times. In the case of such a fire near a highway, transportation expenses are also very inexpensive.

Eventually, the timber could be obtained almost for free and brings fabulous profit. These "burnt-ground" profits go into the pockets of several local "timber oligarchs" and Chinese.

Yes, local fires are caused by arson, and the arsonists are drunkards, whose payment is no more than a bottle of Chinese-made alcohol, or children getting a little cash. Authorities take no measures against arsonists or even look for them.

The smuggled Chinese alcohol, which contains poisonous components, became an additional scourge of the Trans-Baikal zone. This alcohol costs 40 percent to 50 percent of the price of legal "shop vodka," already inexpensive. Alcoholism is rampant in the Trans-Baikal zone, East Siberia and the entire RFE, and is followed by a rise in the mortality rate. Working-age males become the major victims. In many villages all the males are alcoholics.

There are many "illegal lounges" selling the Chinese alcohol, but no measures are taken against them. Authorities receive their share from "Chinese vodka"-related profits, and they probably consider that drunken people are easygoing and cause no problems.

In any case, "burnt ground tactics" are probably related to the Chinese appetite for the Trans-Baikal lands. (End of the compressed article.)

The conclusions are evident, but first let's look at another report, published almost simultaneously, on July 7, 2003, by Xinhua, China's official news agency:

"Three Chinese enterprises decided to jointly invest 2.3 billion yuan (around $300 at the official exchange rate) in a lumber and wood processing project to be launched in Russia. Chinese foreign trade officials said this is the largest project of its kind invested by Chinese enterprises in the eastern regions of Russia.

Under an agreement signed at the beginning of July, Heilongjiang Star Paper Co., Zhuhai (a Special Economic Zone close to Macao, in southern Guangdong province) Zhenrong Company and Heilongjiang Huacheng International Economic &Technological Cooperation Co. will launch the project in Russia's Chita region in the second half of 2003.

The project, scheduled for completion in 2008, will have a lumber capacity of 2 million cubic meters per year. Some 1.5 million cubic meters of logs will undergo processing locally for the production of 300,000 cubic meters of quality timber and 400,000 tons of quality paper pulp.

Heilongjiang Province in northeast China is the major cooperative partner with Russia in developing forest resources. Last year, enterprises from Heilongjiang processed a total of 700,000 cubic meters of wood in the RFE (including the Trans-Baikal zone), and more than 300,000 cubic meters were processed locally. (End of message)

Now let's go to conclusions. First, let's speak about Chita region itself.

The status of Chinese in Chita region could be defined by the formula "Do whatever you want for free; take whatever you want for cheap." Now, by mid-2003, it won't be an exaggeration or overestimation to claim that Chita region of Russia – with an area of more than 300,000 square kilometers (equal in size at least to Italy), about 1.2 million people, with large deposits of gold, copper and other non-ferrous metals, rich timber resources, good conditions for agriculture, and a comparatively well-developed road network – is de-facto occupied by China or, more precisely, by the Heilongjiang province of China.

Not Beijing, but Harbin (capital of Heilongjing province) determines the economic life and, probably, also the political life in Chita region, which has been transformed into a raw-materials appendix of Heilongjiang. No one would dare to call this "overestimation"! Again, Chita region is de facto occupied by Heilongjiang.

The author had a chance to visit Chita region – Chita city itself, several small towns to the east of Chita city and the vast zone southeast of Chita city and the Chinese border – several times during April-July 1992, at the very beginning of so-called "radical reforms" in Russia. At that time Chita region definitely wasn't in its best shape; still it had the potential for recovery and development.

Evidently, the region has moved far along the road of degradation – human degradation, economic degradation, infrastructure degradation – between 1992 and 2003. The so-called "Putin prosperity" – if it really exists somewhere outside the Russian State Statistical Department – didn't touch Chita region at all.

In 2002, GDP per capita in Chita region – according to official data – was equal to 32,500 rubles (around $1,100), about half of the Russian average. By the author's estimation, the GDP per capita in Heilongjiang province was at least three times as much – about the Chinese average.

Total investment in capital funds stagnated at around 4 billion rubles (about $130 million) in the region; the above-described Chinese timber project would result in approximately a 2.5-3 times greater investment.

Official export of Chita region, almost entirely provided by timber, was around $120 million (estimated), with the Chinese share surpassing 95 percent; official import was around $60 million. Naturally, if smuggled timber and smuggled Chinese alcohol are taken into account, then both export and import would significantly inflate.

Shortly, Chita region, destroyed by poverty and alcoholism, barely surviving, forgotten or, more exactly, robbed and betrayed by Moscow, appeared to be eligible for Chinese invasion. And that's what took place in 2002-2003.

(To be continued)

Finally, the author has begun distributing the book "Chinese-Russian Alliance," written jointly with his friend Dr. Thomas Torda, with the support of NewsMax.com. The table of contents is given below. Purchasing information is at the Web site http://excelenterprises1.tripod.com

Part I: Chronicle of the Alliance Revival

Chapter 1: Beijing and Moscow Reestablish a Strategic Relationship

Chapter 2: Central Asia, Ukraine, and Belarus Join the Alliance: Importance of the "Shanghai Five"

Chapter 3: China's Strategic Interest in Defense Technology and Oil & Gas from Siberia and the Russian Far East

Part II: Emergence of the New Russia and New China

Chapter 4: Russia: Great Degradation Under Yeltsin and Emergence of the Putin Regime

Chapter 5: China's Emerging Economic Power

Chapter 6: The Russian Army � Still a Threat to the West

Chapter 7: China Upgrades Its Military Potential with Russian Aid

Chapter 8: Why China Demands Taiwan, and Russia's Interest in the Issue

Part III: The Future of the Russian-Chinese Alliance � What the U.S. Can Do

Chapter 9: War Warnings � Statements of Chinese Leaders on Forthcoming Conflict

Chapter 10: How the U.S. Can Defuse the Increasingly Threatening Russian-Chinese Alliance

Dr. Alexandr V. Nemets is co-author of "Chinese-Russian Military Relations, Fate of Taiwan and New Geopolitics" and the forthcoming "Russian-Chinese Alliance." Visit Dr. Nemets' Web site at http://excelenterprises1.tripod.com.

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