Russian Reconquista?
02/21/2007
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Pat Buchanan wrote in The Death of the West that large sections of Siberia would be reclaimed by China in the next few decades.

Jonah Hull writes in Aljazeera:

The authorities in Blagoveschenck, a city in Russia's far east, are introducing immigration restrictions in the hope of curbing a rising tide of migration from China.

A Russian agriculture and gold mining outpost for 150 years, the city of Blagoveschenck is situated on the bank of the Amur river.

It is a year-round crossing point for Chinese coming into Russia.

With more than seven million Chinese nationals already living in three regions on the Russian side of the border and more than 100 million in the equivalent border regions on the Chinese side, some of the locals are concerned that the number of migrants into Russia could grow out of control.

Consequently new migration laws are being put into place to restrict the entry of Chinese migrants into Blagoveschenck.

Alexander Migulya, the city's mayor, told Al Jazeera that although the Chinese are welcomed in terms of tourism and cultural exchange, they are only "visitors" to Russia.

He said: "We have friendly relations with our very close neighbour, but I would like to underline that there is no integration..."

The article concludes:

"Our business is part Chinese, part Russian. Russians are more technically skilled, but when it comes to construction you need Chinese … they work from early morning until late at night," she said.

"And they don’t need days off."

Few in Blagoveschenck want the Chinese to leave and many believe they will find a way around the new restrictions.

This article is being discussed at Frontierist News.

The integration of Russia and China has some fundamental differences between the integration of the US and Mexico. Much evidence suggest the Chinese workforce clearly has a high tendency to acquire education when those opportunities are made available. Migrants are if anything likely to be more ambitious in that respect than the average Chinese-and more talented on the average. China has significant manufacturing capability that Russia lacks—and huge foreign exchange resources. In short, China has a lot more to offer Russia than Mexico has to offer the US. Perhaps, they will work out a mutually beneficially arrangement.

The big way I can imagine this working out is if Russia seriously ramps up—and commercializes— its space program with revenues obtained from this defacto sale of territory so that the resources available to the average Russian increase markedly. If they don't, I'd expect a significant reaction here.

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