As of: April 5, 2024, 8:51 a.m
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Chinese soldiers during an exercise in Xinjiang province (archive photo): The country has been rearming for years. © Xinhua/AFP
Relations between Russia and China could be put to a serious test. Because Russia's Far East is being targeted by the People's Republic.
Russia's Far East is a region forgotten by the world. Only a few million people live on the very edge of Vladimir Putin's vast empire, and those who can move away from here - to the West, where there are more jobs and life is simpler. In China, on the other hand, the region has been arousing desire for years. Because the Russian southeast was once Chinese. And if some nationalist-minded Chinese have their way, the region should one day become part of the People's Republic again. Now that the Ukraine war is weakening Russia economically and the country has concentrated its military resources in the West, the opportunity could be right. At least on China's social media there are always calls for action to finally be taken.
The conflict dates back to the 19th century. At that time, Western countries, especially Great Britain, brought the economically and technologically completely underdeveloped Chinese Empire to its knees in several wars. The Qing dynasty had to cede several areas to the imperialist powers - for example, the region around what is now Hong Kong fell to the British. And the Russian Empire seized territory in China's northeast that was three times the size of Germany. There is also a town in the region that the Chinese once called “Haishenwai” - in English: Sea Cucumber Bay, named after the sea creatures that are considered a delicacy in Asia. Today the city is called Vladivostok and is the center of Russia's Far East.
China benefits from Russia's weakness
China and Russia share a border more than 4,000 kilometers long. There were always disputes about the exact course, and in 1969 both countries even fought a short war on the Ussuri border river. The border conflict currently appears to have been resolved. In July 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's then state and party leader Jiang Zemin signed a friendship treaty in which the waiver of any claims was expressly stated. Just two years later, however, China's Bureau of Surveying and Mapping determined that several Russian cities must be referred to by their Chinese names on official maps - for example, Haishenwai instead of Vladivostok. The order was repeated in a similar manner in 2022.
And this despite the fact that China and Russia are closer today than they have been for a long time. In the Ukraine war, state and party leader Xi Jinping demonstratively supports Russian President Putin; For example, China has not yet called for a withdrawal of Russian troops from the occupied Ukrainian territories, but has only spoken generally about the need for a ceasefire. According to observers, however, the alliance is more of an alliance of convenience. Xi Jinping needs the Russians as allies in the conflict with the USA. China also benefits from cheap oil and gas imports from Russia and supplies the Russians with goods that can be used for both military and civilian purposes. The Chinese are also happy to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of Western companies from Russia, for example by exporting more cars to the country than ever before. Trade between the two countries grew to a record high of more than $240 billion last year.
China creates facts - and secures access to Russia's infrastructure
Thanks to China's help, the Russian economy has so far been able to avert collapse. In the long term, however, the war and isolation by the West are likely to weaken Putin's empire. “Moscow is pledging its future to Beijing,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently said. So will the Chinese nationalists soon be calling for a return of Vladivostok to China? “If current trends continue, China can expect that its old territories will one day fall into its lap,” wrote security expert Jan Kallberg in an article for the US think tank Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in the first year of the war ). “For now, Vladivostok can continue to exist under the Russian flag, knowing that one day it will most likely become Haishenwai again.”
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Because China is already creating facts. On the one hand, military: the Chinese defense budget has been growing continuously for years, most recently by 7.2 percent. Last year, Beijing also secured further access to the port of Vladivostok to better ship products from its northeastern province of Jilin. A similar agreement has been in place with Heilongjiang Province, which borders Jilin to the north, for several years. Chinese farmers have also expanded into Russia's southeast, attracting fertile land that is scarce in China.
“Lately, hordes of Chinese farmers have emerged in the region seeking farmland, engaging in large-scale mechanized farming, and harvesting soybeans and other crops for export to China,” Japanese business daily
Nikkei Asia
recently wrote . In Russia, concerns about excessive influence are growing. A few years ago, the Kremlin-critical journalist Alexander Sotnik summed up what many of his compatriots secretly think: “Vladivostok is practically already Chinese.”
(sh)