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Chinese immigrants flood into the Russian Far East

A Chinese man sells goods in a market in the city of Vladivostok on Sunday. Russia's Chinese population has grown from just a few thousand in 1989 to 3.26 million, according to unpublished results of a 2002 census. PHOTO: AFP

The Golden Dragon Hotel, in Russia's main Pacific port and naval base Vladivostok, does not take Russians as guests.

"We accept only Chinese," said the manager Ma Chan Bai, who explained that the 150-room hotel owned by a businessman from the northern Chinese city of Harbin catered exclusively to Chinese groups.

As more than 2 million Russians have left Russia's Far East and Siberia over the past decade in search of better economic conditions in the western regions, Chinese have been flooding in.

Russia's Chinese population has grown from just a few thousand in 1989 to 3.26 million, according to unpublished results of a 2002 census.

Most live in the Russian Far East, where only 6.7 million Russians remain today, working in markets, construction and agriculture.

Cut off from Moscow, which is nine hours away by plane or a week by train, this outpost of Europe in Asia has turned its face towards neighboring China, Japan and Korea.

The governor of the region around Vladivostok, Sergei Darkin, says these new trade links have provided a lifeline after the collapse of Soviet-era industries, mainly defense plants.

"We have integrated deeply over the past 10 years with the APEC economies. We are isolated in terms of transport from the center as we don't have subsidies to make the costs cheaper," he said.

A fraction of the region's economic ties are with other Russian regions as sky-high rail and air tariffs have forced eastern provinces to turn to Asian neighbors for supplies.

Unlike the rest of Russia where people have left-hand-drive cars, in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and the Siberian city of Irkutsk, everyone drives right-hand-drive Japanese imports.

But it is China, which shares a gigantic 4,000km border with Russia, that has the biggest presence in this underpopulated area.

Under a visa-free tourist regime, Chinese from northern provinces bordering Russia come and work illegally.

"We need the labor force. There are sectors in which they work better than us, agriculture is one of them," conceded the governor.

"But we have to ensure that there is no large-scale assimilation. The Chinese who come here have to go back again," Darkin said.

Pointing to a map of his Primorye region and Chinese border areas, he said: "In these three provinces, 140 million people live, we have just 2 million. They are working actively on our doorstep."

Fears of Chinese expansion are uppermost in Russians' minds. China is fast developing but overpopulated, while the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia have immense natural resources and living space.

"The Chinese view this region historically as their territory," commented Asia expert Larisa Zabroskaya.

In the mid-19th century, a weakened China signed a treaty handing control to Russia of these far eastern territories, populated by tribes who paid tribute to the Chinese emperor.

Despite supposedly stringent border controls, Chinese migrants flow easily into the region.

One Chinese trader in his 40s who was selling towels, shower-curtains and other bath accessories at one of several Chinese markets in Vladivostok, said he had been in Russia for a year.

"I make money here for my wife and family in China," he said smiling.

The head of the Primorye region police's migration department, Viktor Plotnikov, said it was an uphill struggle to regulate Chinese immigration.

"If we gave them half a chance, they'd all stay, like salt into water," he said.

But Russian inhabitants are dependant on the flood of cheap Chinese goods.

"I am a pensioner and this is all I can afford. We used to make our own goods in the Soviet Union but now we have to rely on them," said one shopper, Marina, 60.

Chinese has become the second most popular foreign language after English at Vladivostok's main university. as young people seek skills to guarantee them a good career. Even so, they have mixed feelings.
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