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The Sino-Russian Rapprochement Through the Prism of the Development of the Russian Far East: Identity Contestations and Conflicting Representations of China in Russian Eastern Frontiers

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China in the Global South

Abstract

This chapter examines intersections between Russia’s China policy and the Far Eastern development strategy, with a focus on Primorye. Primorye is a particularly interesting venue for a case study of Sino-Russian interactions because it is both far from and important to Moscow. The distance between Vladivostok, the capital of Primorye, and Moscow spans seven time zones and 5,770 miles. China, on the other hand, is right on Primorye’s doorstep. In the mid-2000s, Primorye and, specifically its capital Vladivostok, became a showcase for Russia’s “turn to the East.” Drawing on the case of Primorye, the chapter illustrates contingencies, complexities, challenges, and paradoxes that underpin the development of Sino-Russian relations and identify the implications of closer ties between Beijing and Moscow for the development of the Far East. Drawing on interviews and extensive fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2021, we show that the “turn to the East” promotes political rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing but does not facilitate establishing harmonious relations between communities along the Sino-Russian border and hardly facilitates the modernization of the regional economy. Overall, Russia’s inconsistent attitudes towards China reveal the fragile foundation of Sino-Russian friendship as well as complex internal identity contradictions that prevents Russia’s Far Eastern provinces from fully embracing the opportunities that China’s rise might offer them.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The duty-free regime (the so-called porto franco) introduced in the 1860s brought to the region a new wave of settlers from Europe and Asia, stimulated the development of Russian and foreign businesses, and contributed to the thriving rise of Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, and Blagoveshchensk. The state abolished the duty-free regime (first in 1900–04 and ultimately in 1909), yet the regional development continued thanks to the Trans-Siberian Railway. During the tumultuous half-decade between 1917 and 1922, regional elites established a semi-autonomous polity that in 1920 institutionalized into a short-lived buffer-state, a nominally democratic and capitalist Far Eastern Republic.

  2. 2.

    Chelnoki (literally translates as a “shuttle”) travel backwards and forwards in and out of the country buying goods and then selling them within the country. Pomogaiki (translates as “helper”) are courier help traders for a small fee to mover goods across the border. Shuttle trade originated during the perestroika and spread across many border regions in the post-Soviet space.

  3. 3.

    In 2018, the Russian government simplified the procedure, reducing the minimum group size to three people and increasing the duration of the stay to 21 days. Chinese citizens are also eligible for electronic visas for visiting the territory of the special investment regime Free port Vladivostok.

  4. 4.

    Also referred to as “red tourism,” see Li et al. (2010) and Gao and Guo (2017).

  5. 5.

    The survey was supported by the European Regional Development Fund Project “Sinophone Borderlands - Interaction at the Edges,” CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/000079.

  6. 6.

    In Russian geopolitical imagination, China is the opposite of Russia. However, the Russians focus on China’s demographic and socio-cultural features and are less concerned with ideological and political differences. According to the Sinophone Survey, when asked about their first associations with China, Russians most often answer that it is a country with a large population. Respondents from countries with a strong Russian population—Latvia, Serbia, and Slovakia—give similar answers, whereas the most popular answer for residents of Western and Central European countries was COVID-19, while the large population featured only after dictatorship and communism.

Abbreviations

APEC:

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

FDI:

Foreign Direct Investment

NOCs:

National Oil Companies

US:

United States

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Iacopo Adda (Université de Genève) who took the time to read our first draft and gave many helpful suggestions for its improvements. Our work was supported by the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow) and the European Regional Development Fund Project “Sinophone Borderlands - Interaction at the Edges,” CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000791.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of International Regional Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

    Anna Kuteleva

  2. Palacký University Olomouc, Olomouc, Czechia

    Sergei Ivanov

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Correspondence to Anna Kuteleva .

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  1. Department of Political Science, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago

    Theodor Tudoroiu

  2. School of International Regional Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

    Anna Kuteleva

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Kuteleva, A., Ivanov, S. (2022). The Sino-Russian Rapprochement Through the Prism of the Development of the Russian Far East: Identity Contestations and Conflicting Representations of China in Russian Eastern Frontiers. In: Tudoroiu, T., Kuteleva, A. (eds) China in the Global South. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1344-0_11

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