To love the dragon

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the arms

In connection with the intention of the authorities of the Trans-Baikal Territory to lease more than 300 thousand hectares of agricultural land to China for 49 years, I think it is necessary to recall how much of its territory the USSR and then Russia gave to China over the past 25 years.

The agreement between the USSR and the PRC on the Soviet-Chinese state border on its eastern part was signed on May 16, 1991, and ratified by the RF Supreme Council on February 13, 1992. It was decided to draw the border along the fairway of navigable rivers and in the middle of non-navigable ones. Prior to that, the border mainly passed along the Chinese coast, in accordance with the previously concluded Soviet-Chinese agreements. In the fall of 1991, a demarcation commission was created, headed by Genrikh Kireev, Ambassador-at-Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. No comments were given to the Soviet people about changing the border on the Far Eastern borders. Everything went quietly, almost secretly. The commission worked for seven years. During this time, Russia gave China about 600 islands on the Amur and Ussuri rivers, as well as 10 square kilometers of land. Russia lost another 1,500 hectares of land in Primorye during the demarcation of the border in November 1995, implementing the 1994 Agreement between Russia and the PRC on the Russian-Chinese state border on its western part.

After Mikhail Gorbachev signed an agreement in 1991, according to which the border with China should pass along the Amur channel, the Chinese had the opportunity to challenge the ownership of the Bolshoi Ussuriisky and Tarabarov islands in the Khabarovsk region, as well as the Bolshoi island in the Amur region.

And then Boris Yeltsin announced that these islands had become a disputed territory. Meanwhile, these islands became controversial thanks to the long-term efforts of the Chinese side to change the course of the Amur

These efforts of the Chinese are described below.

We gave our …

Boris Tkachenko, a leading researcher at the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East, is sure that the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which was in force in February 1992, “did not allow making changes to the state border, and attributed the solution of issues entailing a change in the territory of the Russian Federation exclusively to the competence of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation. Consequently, the ratification of the agreement between the Soviet Union and China on changing the state border was carried out with violations. That is, there was no ratification. Because at that time there was a congress. The question had to be brought up to the congress. The Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation was the body that did not have the authority to do this. With the same success could be ratified at a meeting of the Moscow City Council, regional council, village council ….

According to the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Russian Federation of June 12, 1990, any changes in the territory of the Russian Federation could not occur without the expression of the will of the people, expressed through a referendum. “What have we got? We got the border change not in our favor, we just donated ours. We received an influx of low-quality Chinese goods, a stream of Chinese who live here as at home. As the Russian Federation weakened, the Chinese will pull all these treaties into the light of day and will prove that the Aigun and Beijing treaties of the 19th century were unequal, since they were concluded during the period of weakening China. China was forced to concede. And then the question will be posed - get out. And when there will be not 200 thousand of them here, but two million or 20 million, can you imagine what will happen ?! - says Tkachenko.

By the way, in the 90s, the spiritual leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, already spoke about contractual “injustice”: “In the second half of the 19th century, tsarist Russia forced the rulers of the Qing dynasty of China to conclude a number of unequal treaties. Thus, tsarist Russia captured a total of over one and a half million square meters.km of Chinese territory.

Not far from the city of Heihe, the Chinese have built a museum of their Chinese shame. It tells about the disadvantageous international treaties that China has ever entered into

This includes the Beijing (1860) and Aigun (1858) treaties. "Do not forget about the national shame, revive the spirit of the Chinese nation" - this is the message of the museum of dishonor. Foreigners are not allowed in this museum, as well as in the museum complex on the former Soviet island of Damansky, where in 69 there were fierce battles with the Chinese.

Then 58 Soviet border guards and more than 800 Chinese citizens were killed. In 1991, Damansky was given to China. On Zhenbao, or "Precious Island", as the Chinese call it, the area of which is only 0.74 square meters. km, an obelisk with the names of the national heroes of China who died at Damanskoye was erected. Here, the Chinese border guards are now taking the oath. And since 2009, in the former Damansky, there is also an officially approved national base for the education of patriotism.

By the way, in the 90s, the then governor of the Primorsky Territory, Yevgeny Nazdratenko, wanted, by analogy with the Chinese Museum of Shame, to put a pillar of shame in the center of Vladivostok as a sign of disagreement with the return of a part of the Primorsky Territory to China. But something went wrong. The post was never installed. But it should have been. At least in memory of the fact that

border guards from the Khasansky District of the Primorsky Territory themselves approached the government with the initiative to move the border towards Russia, arguing that it is difficult for them to serve some parts of the hard-to-reach terrain. And so they offered to give these lands to China. 300 hectares! It turned out patriotic

On a friendly basis

In 1991, the then Soviet Union agreed that one and a half thousand square meters. km of Soviet land will be developed jointly with China. That is, Soviet citizens and the Chinese could mow hay on equal terms, and fish in the waters of the rivers adjacent to the islands. In fact, these lands were used solely by the Chinese; Soviet and then Russian border guards did not allow their citizens to the islands. Five years later, the islands were ceded to China.

In 1999, being the prime minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin signed a government decree on the joint economic use of individual islands and adjacent waters of border rivers. By this resolution, Russia allowed the joint economic use of the Verkhnekonstantinovsky Island and the adjacent water area of the Amur (Heilongjiang) River, which are under the sovereignty of the Russian Federation, and allowed the border population of the People's Republic of China to engage in traditional economic activities in this area.

In turn, the Chinese side allowed Russian citizens living in the border area to conduct joint households on Mengksilizhouzhu Island and Island No. 1 of the Longzhandao group of islands and the adjacent waters of the Argun River.

The Chinese made full use of Russian land, and Russian border guards did not allow Russian citizens to enter the Chinese islands.

Separately, it should be said about two of our islands, which the Chinese seized without permission back in 1985. After that, Soviet and then Russian border guards did not even go there. These unnamed islands have a total area of 2.4 sq. km have serial numbers 1007 and 1008 and are located in the Khabarovsk Territory behind the fairway of the Kazakevich channel, that is, their belonging to Russia has always been indisputable. Nevertheless, the maps of Russian military intelligence officers say that "here the Chinese fish, graze cattle, in the winter 10-15 people, and in the summer 30-40 people."

Near these islands, the Chinese for several years covered the Kazakevich channel with soil, flooding a barge with stones in it. As a result, the Kazakevich canal became unnavigable

In the same way, the Chinese, in violation of international treaties, unilaterally fortified their bank of the Amur and erected about 600 kilometers of dams, which gradually led to a change in the river's fairway.

We continue to give

On October 15, 2004, in Beijing, Putin signed the "Supplementary Agreement on the Russian-Chinese State Border on its Eastern Part", which referred to the voluntary transfer to China of the Tarabarov Island, part of the Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island in the Khabarovsk Territory and the Bolshoi Island in the Chita Region. All these islands were of strategic importance to the state. A large fortified area and a frontier post were located on Bolshoy Ussuriysk, and over Tarabarov was the takeoff trajectory of military aircraft of the 11th Air Force and Air Defense Army (now the 3rd Air Force and Air Defense Command), which is stationed in Khabarovsk. In addition, on these islands there were dachas of Khabarovsk residents, hayfields … On the Bolshoy Island, with an area of 70 sq. km, the border post was located and drinking water was taken for part of the region.

Foreign Minister Lavrov then said: the interests of the residents of the Khabarovsk Territory did not suffer after the signing of the supplementary agreement to the bilateral agreement on the border.

“We have something to prove the unconditional profitability of this agreement, in it the interests of Russian citizens, primarily those living in Khabarovsk, are protected,” Lavrov said. Before saying this, Minister Lavrov should have gone to the Khabarovsk Territory and studied the mood of the people on the spot

Khabarovsk residents were actively indignant, protested, but the federal press was silent about this.

In those days, only two governors - Primorsky Krai Nazdratenko and Khabarovsk Ishaev - resisted the transfer of Russian territories to China. Nazdratenko wrote letters to Chernomyrdin with a request to revise the 1991 border agreement with China, and Viktor Ishaev even ordered the construction of a pontoon bridge connecting Khabarovsk with the island of Bolshoi Ussuriysky, where the chapel of the martyr-warrior Viktor was installed - in memory of those who died during the defense Far Eastern borders of Russia.

Ishaev also began excavation work to connect the Tarabarov and Bolshoi Ussuriisky islands, and he did not particularly let the Chinese into the Khabarovsk Territory. “The territory is ours, Russian. It was, is and will be,”Ishaev said. But all is in vain. In 2005, Russia gave China Tarabarov Island, half of Bolshoi Ussuriisky Island (half, apparently, only because the chapel built by Ishaev turned out to be on the island) and Bolshoi Island in the Chita Region. A total of 337 sq. km.

The method of "deferred dispute"

The "deferred dispute" method, developed in the PRC back in the 70s, has yielded results. This method boils down to taking border-territorial disputes beyond the framework of bilateral international relations and waiting until the "conditions are ripe" for resolving the issue on conditions acceptable to China, or even better, simply on Chinese terms. The Chinese did not wait long this time for a situation that would be beneficial for them. In 25 years, China has received from Russia as much land as it could not get in a century and a half. “Any concessions and hesitations on our part, as experience has shown, are understood by the Chinese as a manifestation of weakness and encourage them to further extortion,” wrote the Minister of War of Tsarist Russia Vladimir Sukhomlinov at the beginning of the last century.

Maps, atlases and school textbooks in China continue to be published describing the "temporarily abandoned by China" territories, where Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Amur Region, Buryatia and Sakhalin are designated by Chinese names. For example, on the maps in the history textbook for high school, part of the territory of Russia is marked as a former Chinese land with the following explanation:

“Thanks to the Aigun Treaty of 1858, Tsarist Russia cut off more than 600,000 sq. km of Chinese territory. Thanks to the Beijing Treaty of 1860, tsarist Russia cut off about 400,000 square meters.km of Chinese territory …

… Thanks to the Ili Treaty of 1881 and the subsequent five agreements on borders, tsarist Russia cut off more than 70,000 square meters. km of Chinese territory.

And the directory of the Heilongjiang province, which borders our Far East and Primorye, says: “The Chinese city of Heilunnao is located on the northern bank of the river. Heilongjiang, Aihoi County. In 1858, after tsarist Russia forced China to sign the Aigun Treaty, she seized it and renamed it the city of Blagoveshchensk."

The Concept of National Security of the Russian Federation, which was in effect from 2000 to 2009, among other things said: "Threats to national security and the interests of the Russian Federation in the border area are caused by the economic, demographic and cultural-religious expansion of neighboring states into Russian territory." The current concept of expansion, which is valid until 2020, does not say a word.

I must say that not only Russia, during the demarcation of the border, gave its lands to China, but also Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Thousands of kilometers of the former Soviet Union eventually crossed over to the PRC.

However, China still has territorial claims against India, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. Recently, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that work on the creation of artificial islands in the South China Sea on the reefs of the Nansha (Spratly) archipelago is almost completed. China has increased itself by 8 sq. km of land that will be used for the construction of military and civilian facilities. And this despite the fact that the Spratly archipelago is controversial. In addition to the PRC, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan and the Philippines are applying for it. Huang Jing, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the Lee Kuan Yew Institute for Public Policy in Singapore, told The Wall Street Journal: “China can now tell its people that it has achieved what it wanted. China thus shows that it has the initiative and can do whatever it considers to be in its interests."

Strategic partnership

Ravil Geniatulin, the former head of the Chita region, and then the entire Trans-Baikal Territory, spoke of his region this way: “The economic potential of forests allows harvesting timber for all types of use up to 50 million cubic meters, and the proximity of sales markets in China, Japan and other countries of the Pacific region makes it attractive and beneficial for international cooperation. For two decades now, active deforestation has been going on both in the Trans-Baikal Territory, and in Primorye, and in the Irkutsk Region. For example, in Primorye annually up to 1.5 million cubic meters of timber is illegally cut down, and in the Amur Region more than half of the regional forest fund is given for felling.

In 1998, the Chinese government completely banned commercial logging on its territory for 20 years. This program to protect forests is called the "Great Green Wall" by the Chinese. For many years, the Chinese have been purchasing roundwood, that is, untreated timber, from Malaysia, Gabon, Cameroon, North Korea and Russia. Russia leads this list.

Moreover, it is believed that 80 percent of the Russian forest going to China is stolen. Chita, Irkutsk - the largest illegal timber markets are located here. Acquiring a permit supposedly for sanitary felling, loggers cut down first-class sawlogs, moreover, they take only the lower, most valuable part of the trunk, and the rest is thrown at the felling site.

In a number of regions of the Far East and Transbaikalia, Chinese entrepreneurs are already absolute monopolists in the field of logging.

Joint Russian-Chinese timber processing enterprises often turn out to be just a fiction. The Chinese government even passed a law prohibiting the purchase of processed timber from Russia. Only untreated timber is bought. In a continuous stream, loaded trains with unprocessed timber are moving towards the Chinese border.

It should be noted that Chinese enterprises operating on Russian territory very often do not follow the norms of the legislation of the Russian Federation, but are actually Chinese colonies, where the laws of the People's Republic of China are in force.

It is fundamentally important that in all production areas the Chinese are trying to raise their national flag and place information signs in Chinese.

According to an officially undisclosed resolution of the State Council of the People's Republic of China "On measures to further stabilize the problem of employment and the distribution of labor resources," the main efforts should be aimed at expanding the export of labor from Northeast China to the sparsely populated agricultural regions of Russia adjacent to the state border. Chinese organizations are instructed to look for ways to transfer contracts of Chinese workers from seasonal to year-round employment. At the same time, great importance is attached to the lease of land and the creation of compact places for the residence of Chinese citizens. So the authorities of the Trans-Baikal Territory, wanting to lease hundreds of hectares of Russian land for 49 years, are simply fulfilling the decree of the State Council of the PRC.

Very indicative in the context of Russian-Chinese partnership economic relations was the speech of the Acting Governor of the Jewish Autonomous Region Alexander Levintal at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum: “I was recently appointed governor, and investors rushed to me. They say: "Let's develop agriculture." And it, it turns out, is practically nonexistent! Because all the land has been cut into shreds, and 80% of the territory is controlled by the Chinese - in various ways, legal and illegal. At the same time, 80% of the land is sown with soybeans, which kill the land."

The land is killed not only by soybeans, but also by Chinese pesticides, which are actively used by Chinese agricultural workers on rented land.

“China is our biggest neighbor, it’s a big, roughly speaking, fat pig, which lay in our underbelly of Siberia and the Far East. And it must be carefully studied - what global strategic goals they are setting for themselves. I do not at all believe in the strategic partnership between Russia and China. It seems to me that this is a far-fetched thing. In our country, it all comes down to declarations, so we seem to have proclaimed a partnership. Partnership should be expressed in concrete deeds. How did China help us? Yes, nothing. So far, they are interested in us as a supplier of the latest developments in the field of military technologies and equipment, as a source of raw materials. But the time will pass when everyone will be sucked out of here, and in this regard we will not be interesting for them,”says historian Boris Tkachenko.

The head of the Trans-Baikal Territory, Konstantin Ilkovsky, signing a protocol of intent with the Chinese company Huae Xingban to lease land within the framework of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, explained his decision by the low demand for agricultural land. Apparently, that's why the Chinese will get the land just for a penny. The rent will be only 250 rubles a year per hectare, that is, less than five dollars. This is really profitable! But obviously not for Russia. According to official information, the investor, the Chinese company Huae Xingban, plans to grow fodder, grain, oilseeds on the land leased for 49 years near the Trans-Baikal Territory (according to the protocol of intent, first 115 thousand hectares are leased, and then another 200 thousand). also medicinal herbs for pharmacology, to develop industrial livestock raising, poultry farming, and beef cattle breeding.

Actually, the Xingban Company is a well-known enterprise in the region. It has been “feeding” Transbaikalia with its projects for a long time. For example, since 2004, it has promised to build a large modern pulp and paper mill here. But so far it has not been built. But on the other hand, over the years, the most valuable forests between the Shilka and Argun rivers have been exported to China through the winter crossing Pokrovka-Logukhe, and a dam was illegally dumped for the construction of a 10-meter dam in the bed of the Amazar River, a large tributary of the Upper Amur.

The pulp and paper mill is to be erected on land that several Chinese companies have leased for 49 years: Zabaikalskaya Botai LPK LLC (founder - Heilongjiang Chzhunte Botai Ecology and Trade LLC), Express LLC (founder - Heilongjiang Investment Management Company LLC Fu Jin "), Rusles LLC (founder - Rongchengxinyuan Industrial Enterprise LLC, Argun city). The total area of land leased by the Chinese is 1,844,407 hectares, that is, almost the entire strip of forests adjacent to the state border with China has been given over to felling. "The felling is carried out by Chinese citizens, who simultaneously destroy the resources of hunting and game species of animals and fish resources, and not only in the felled areas, but also in the vast contiguous territories" areas of the Trans-Baikal Territory, prepared by the staff of the Trans-Baikal State University and the state natural biosphere reserve "Daursky".

And here is what Oleg Polyakov, Minister of Natural Resources of the region, said about the Chinese lease last fall: “This long-term lease agreement was concluded 14 years ago as part of the project for the construction of the Amazar pulp and paper mill. We cannot terminate it now, as the construction of the pulp and paper mill continues. Now such transactions are not taking place. Well, yes, it doesn’t happen! And less than a year after the statement of Minister Polyakov, the head of Transbaikalia Ilkovsky again offered the Chinese land on the cheap.

By the way, the authorities of the Trans-Baikal Territory want to lease land not only to the Chinese. The other day at a meeting of the cooperation groups of the Federation Council and the Great State Khural of Mongolia, First Deputy Prime Minister of the regional government Alexei Shemetov said that the authorities of the Trans-Baikal Territory are ready for any investor to come to the territory of Transbaikalia, including agreeing to lease land to Mongolian investors.

But the Mongols are still silent. Even at a price of five dollars per hectare. Maybe they are waiting for the Russians to agree to give three dollars each?

On December 31 last year, President Putin signed a decree on the creation of priority development territories (TOR) (Federal Law No. 473). And the other day, Prime Minister Medvedev proudly announced that the first three territories have been identified - in the Khabarovsk Territory and Primorye. The presidential decree, surprising in its "patriotism", was signed on the eve of the New Year. In fact, in the TORs, the effect of Russian legislation is limited, including the abolition of local self-government. According to the signed law, these territories for 70 years (with the right to prolongation) can be leased to foreigners, foreign workers do not need a work permit, there are no restrictive quotas for the import of foreign labor, a free customs zone is introduced, the seizure of land plots located on them of immovable property from Russian citizens at the request of the management company. In addition, foreigners are allowed to extract and export minerals, hydrocarbons, cut down forests, fish, shoot animals in any quantity and without compensation. ASEZ residents will pay reduced rates of insurance premiums (Pension Fund - 6%; Social Insurance Fund - 1.5%; Mandatory Medical Insurance Fund - 0.1%), and the lost income of residents will be compensated by inter-budget transfers provided from the federal budget. And all this is explained by the advanced economic development of the territories.

In fact, this means that the Chinese no longer have any restrictions on entering the territory of Russia and exporting our natural resources to the Celestial Empire. With this decree, Putin actually gave China our Far East. Probably, this gift was made in exchange for the "unusually profitable" contract for the supply of Russian gas to China.

"Russian and Chinese are brothers forever" … We remember this song of 1949, from the time of friendship between Stalin and Mao, and we know what happened then …