Russia in Asia and Asians in Russia

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Map 1.

Figure 1.

Chinese Traders at a Khabarovsk Market

Discomfort with the presence of Asian migrants on Russian territory belies Russia’s commitment to play an active role in Asia. In 1992, Russian policymakers outlined a foreign policy with a dual emphasis on Asia and the West, yet this strategy has proved difficult to implement. Russia may be a power in the Pacific, but it is not yet a Pacific power because of self-imposed limitations on its integration in Asia. ¹

Russia’s vast easternmost regions, comprising the Russian Far East, ² constitute a predominantly European foothold in northeast Asia. Since the 1930s, a series of conflicts have resulted in the separation of the Russian Far East from the economic life of the rest of the Pacific Rim. Even with the improvement of Russian-Chinese relations and the end of the Cold War, political will to end Russia’s artificial separation from Asia proved no match for adverse economic and demographic trends in the Russian Far East. Economic decline and population outflow from Russia’s eastern peripheries compounded fears of an uncontrolled influx of Chinese economic migrants and of Koreans returning from exile in Central Asia. These changes led policymakers in Moscow and the Russian border regions to institute new visa rules and controls on the use of foreign workers, especially Chinese and Koreans.

Regional officials seek to promote the economic integration of the Russian Far East with the Pacific Rim but fear the social, economic, and political consequences of necessary steps in that direction, especially large-scale reliance on Asian migrant labor. More so than their Moscow counterparts, who view the expansion of Sino-Russian economic relations as a key component of their Asia policy, regional policymakers see a trade-off between a more open labor market and the possible loss of political and economic control over Russia’s peripheries to China. The resolution of this issue will have important implications for the economy of the Russian Far East as well as for Russia’s role in Asia in the next century. Although the lack of investment funds on both sides of the Sino-Russian border has proven to be the greatest obstacle to regional economic cooperation, ³ the concern in the Russian border regions about being dominated economically and demographically by China has complicated the efforts of policymakers in Moscow and Beijing to take advantage of existing opportunities in trade and labor exchanges.

Past Encounters and Contemporary Concerns

The history of Russian encounters with Asians in the last century has left a legacy of mistrust that continues to shape public attitudes. In particular, differing historical narratives regarding the Sino-Russian border have contributed to Russian suspicions about Chinese illegal immigration. In the Russian version of events, by signing the treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860), the Qing dynasty freely ceded territory north of the Amur River and east of the Ussuri River to the Russian empire. The Chinese assert that a weakened Qing regime had no choice but to accede to territorial demands by its stronger Russian neighbor. These territorial issues figured prominently in the Sino-Soviet dispute during the 1960s and, although Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev pledged to “close the past and open the future” in their 1989 summit meeting normalizing relations, the Chinese interpretation of border history leads some contemporary Russian analysts to fear that a stronger China would renew claims on Russia’s eastern territories. ⁴

Until the Stalin era, the lands bordering on Manchuria and Korea were host to thousands of Chinese and Koreans, as well as a less numerous Japanese population. ⁵ Despite an undercurrent of distrust of resident Asians, Russians tolerated their presence because of their predominant role in agriculture, retail trade, and small business. Stalin’s concern about the possibility of infiltration by Japanese spies led to the expulsion from the Russian Far East of some 19,000 of 25,000 Chinese and the exile of 135,000 of 165,000 Koreans to Central Asia in...