Taking the 'Russia' out of Asia
By Stephen Blank
While traveling in Russia's Far East in 2000, President Vladimir Putin warned the region's leaders and peoples that if those provinces could not get their economic act together, they would soon be speaking either Korean, Chinese or Japanese. Even though Russia has since experienced substantial economic growth, the Russian population in the Far East has continued to fall as migrants leave a region of hardship and demoralizing climactic - as well as economic - conditions for better opportunities elsewhere.
Under conditions of economic growth, the resulting shortfall in population has produced a labor shortage. As a result, Moscow has had no choice but to accept the situation that Putin warned against, namely an influx of Asian gastarbeiters or guest workers.
In the first instance these immigrants to Russia have been Chinese, and throughout the 1990s the prospect of this migration, even more than its reality, whether legal or illegal, created a local picture of the "yellow peril" that was successfully employed to block cooperation with China and entrench local politicians in power. This perception vastly exaggerated the actual numbers of Chinese coming to settle in Russian Asia but, as is the case elsewhere, the prospect of illegal migration by disliked minorities or ethnic groups served a useful political purpose for local politicians.
However, by 2001-02 it became clear that there was no alternative to such migration and the government began to argue in favor of accepting this immigration, provided it could channel it by registering immigrants and as long as they came legally. Essentially, Moscow had to compromise by accepting that under freer economic conditions, labor migrates to places where opportunity exists.
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atimes.com |
