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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China has now become the dominant partner in the Sino-Russian relationship |
| 2008-10-23 |
| Outside View: China's silent dominance Chairman Mao Zedong can finally rest easy in his grave. His country has now become the dominant partner in the Sino-Russian relationship, a complete reversal of the past. Since the 1930s Mao had a tense relationship with the Russians, largely because of their view that China and the Chinese Communist Party were in a subordinate position to their Soviet counterparts. Although Soviet leader Josef Stalin was partly successful in holding the reins on the Chinese, these slipped away entirely during the time of Nikita Khrushchev. The Leonid Brezhnev era saw China cozy up to the United States in Washington's bid to hobble Moscow. Much of the credit for the success of the U.S. policy of containment against the Soviet Union in the decades leading up to 1992 belongs to the full-blooded way in which the Chinese Communist Party acted as an accomplice of successive Republican and Democratic administrations in Washington -- of course, with substantial economic and other benefits. Credit for China's emergence as an economic superpower belongs to the U.S. policy of building up Beijing as a counter to Moscow, a partiality that continued for nearly a decade after the collapse of communism in Russia. Still today, the United States continues to be the primary provider of technology and markets to China, even though the country is suspected of being the ultimate source of the missile and nuclear capabilities of such problematic states as Pakistan, Iran and North Korea. It was no accident that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made Beijing his first port of call after taking office in May this year -- excluding Kazakhstan. In Beijing he faithfully stuck to the CCP line on all issues ranging from Tibet to Taiwan and gave fulsome assurances of fealty. In contrast, China was missing in action during Russia's recent hour of need in the U.N. Security Council, when the United States, France and the United Kingdom harshly opposed Russia's military action in Georgia. Again, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting convened in Tajikistan in late August, shortly after the incident, China ensured that any expression of support for Russia was expunged from the final document, allowing the passage of only an anodyne formulation that even Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili could not object to. The Russian propensity to volubly back the People's Republic of China has been met with the latter's reluctance to be seen taking the side of a country that is rapidly on the way toward becoming an Albania-style satellite. It was, after all, Tirana that stood by Beijing against Moscow for more than four decades of the Cold War, a conflict in which the PRC sided with the United States against Russia since the 1960s. Although official estimates say that less than 1 million Chinese are resident in Russia, those familiar with facts on the ground say there are as many as 6 million Chinese in Russia, 95 percent of who are there illegally. Thanks to corruption and huge geographic gaps in administrative coverage, reportedly as many as 20 Chinese use the passport of a single legal entrant to get work and other privileges in Russia. Some marry Russian women for short durations, thus winning the right to stay. By 2015 it is estimated that up to 20 million Chinese will reside in Russia, more than half of who will be in the unpopulated reaches of Siberia. What the Japanese failed to achieve in the last century may now be accomplished by the Chinese -- which is to take effective control of Siberia away from Moscow. Already, well-funded "indigenous" organizations sprouting in the territories are calling for the rollback of Moscow's control, while much of the real estate and many businesses on the Sino-Russian border are in Chinese hands, even on the Russian side. more at link |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #6 "hmmmm no GC comments?" Gott sei dank. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2008-10-23 23:23 |
| #5 hmmmm no GC comments? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-10-23 22:39 |
| #4 Maybe Putin's land grabs in the West are to compensate for future land losses in the East... |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2008-10-23 14:34 |
| #3 The Putin rationale for liberating 'Russians' in Georgia is going to come back and bite the bear's ass in the future. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-10-23 13:46 |
| #2 Russia has a lot of mid to long term problems to deal with. They should stow the bluster and put their house in order. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-10-23 10:25 |
| #1 By 2015 it is estimated that up to 20 million Chinese will reside in Russia, more than half of who will be in the unpopulated reaches of Siberia. For comparison, there are 20M in Siberia and dropping a few percent per year. How many of those are already Chinese? Who knows. So by 2020, Russia is looking at Siberia, over 50% of territory, that is majority Chinese with Chinese historical claims to it. The situation in the Far East Maritime territories is not much better. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-10-23 10:20 |