Russia shrinks China Eyes East Russian
Globe and Mail ^
Russia needs the true Gospel preached more than ever. Christians
all over the world need to be fruitful and multiply as commanded by God in
Genesis in Gods first commandment. If the seed of the righteous will not
spring forth in this last hour there will be nothing to face the seed of the
serpent Islam and they shall enslave all nations and make disciples of them.
I am working on an article on this and should post at least part of it in the
next few weeks. I have seen that in
fear several nations in the EU will seek to be called only by Russias name (seven virgins shall seek a man) to save them
from Islam and many shall seek refuge in Russia in that day.
The World Bank
estimates that the number of Russians could decline from 143 million to 100
million within the next half-century, a trend line that if extended to its
logical, if highly unlikely, end point, would see the Russians die out within
five generations. The population has already dropped between 700,000 and
750,000 a year in the past decade, and the pace is accelerating with Russia's
unique mix of low birth rates, plunging life expectancy and low immigration
"The Chinese
thought the Russians were treating them well, because they didn't see any open
aggression," said Elena Li, a demographer at the Economic Research
Institute, a branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Khabarovsk.
"They didn't see what was underneath. The Russians don't trust them at
all. They're suspicious and afraid."
Part of the fear
comes from the Russian news media, largely controlled by the state, which
frequently reminds them that more than 120 million people live in the three
northeastern provinces of China, just across the border from Russia's Far
Eastern region, which has plenty of resources but a dwindling population of
about seven million. A near-panic rippled through Khabarovsk recently, when
people noticed that a Chinese-manufactured map on sale at a city market had
given the eastern provinces of Russia a yellow colour which the worried local
residents interpreted to mean that China was finally laying claim to their
territory.
(In an interview,
the Chinese consul offered a patient smile and assurances that China has no
plans to invade.)
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Muhyen, Russia The town of Muhyen was once a jewel in Russia's remote
wilderness. As the centre of the Soviet Union's biggest logging operation, this
tiny outpost about 6,200 kilometres east of Moscow was blessed with famous
mineral springs, well-stocked stores and even a gift shop.
But when the
Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s and the forestry business went
bankrupt, residents abandoned the town in droves, part of a mass exodus out of
Russia's eastern settlements after the lifeline of subsidies from Moscow was
severed.
People who
didn't escape Muhyen were left with little to do except drink and contemplate
the town's bleak scenery of empty shops and quiet factories.
Where Russians
saw only despair, the Chinese saw an opportunity. They injected millions into
the bankrupt forestry company, cleared debts, rebuilt the town's roads and
refurbished classrooms. These days, timber clatters and diesel engines rumble
as the town comes back to life.
But the local
residents aren't grateful instead, some have reacted violently toward those
responsible for Muhyen's revival. Troublemakers have started sabotaging company
equipment: breaking windows, setting fires and stealing the sparkplugs from
trucks.
Last summer, in
an apparent prank aimed at the Chinese, somebody photocopied a handwritten
advertisement in Russian and posted it on walls and doors. The sign said:
"Chinese man will buy Russian dogs, cats and girls." A price was
fixed for the animals, but the poster said the girls were "negotiable."
Why would the
people of Muhyen try to drive away the foreigners who are saving the town from
ruin? "I rack my brains about this every day," said Cai Guowei,
deputy general director of OOO Muhyen Forest. "Why aren't they
happy?"A great tide of Russians washed eastwards across the Asian
continent over the past 1,000 years, from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean,
settling the world's largest country. Now that historic migration has reversed
itself. The exodus from the snowy steppes of Siberia provides a troubling
metaphor for a profound change that's taking place in Russia: It is literally
shrinking.
Like the
decaying town of Muhyen, the entire country is losing population. As with
Muhyen, too, the fastest way to stop the decline would be to offer a warm
welcome to foreigners. But the people of Russia, like residents of the town
that lost everything except its pride, refuse to embrace this solution.
In a six-week
trek across Russia, from Moscow to the far eastern reaches of the country, the
fault lines caused by this demographic upheaval are clearly evident, revealing
powerful undercurrents of xenophobia and racism, driven by anxieties over an
uncertain future.
Russia needs
immigration, it seems, but most Russians don't want it.
Consider this
typical scene: A group of young professionals sitting around a dinner table in
the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. The hosts for the evening were Roman Zhabko,
34, a computer network administrator, and his wife, Olga Zhabko, 28, who
manages a small business. Like the majority of Russians, they're loyal to
President Vladimir Putin; a poster of Mr. Putin is the only decoration on their
living room walls, besides the colourful drawings their toddler has scrawled on
the wallpaper.
"Demographics
is an acute problem in Russia, and it's discussed by everybody," Ms.
Zhabko said as she put another dish of meats and cheeses on the table.
"More and
more immigrants will come to Russia and they will bring their own
culture," Ms. Zhabko continued. "Russian culture will disappear. This
is the most horrible vision I can imagine. We are one of the ancient, rich
cultures of the world, and we could just disappear."
At the moment,
times are good. Russia's resource-blessed economy is booming, even if the
wealth is shared by few. As a fitting symbol of its renaissance, Russia is
chairing the meeting of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations the
exclusive club of wealthy countries for the first time this year.
But the future
looks far less certain: The country's population can't keep shrinking without
provoking an economic disaster. Fewer people means stagnant growth and
productivity, threatening to make Russia's already suspect status as a G8
member increasingly tenuous.
The threat to
the vitality of the state and its global standing has not escaped the notice of
Russia's increasingly autocratic masters.
The World Bank
estimates that the number of Russians could decline from 143 million to 100
million within the next half-century, a trend line that if extended to its
logical, if highly unlikely, end point, would see the Russians die out within
five generations. The population has already dropped between 700,000 and
750,000 a year in the past decade, and the pace is accelerating with Russia's
unique mix of low birth rates, plunging life expectancy and low immigration.
The demographic
situation is especially acute in the Far Eastern region, where Muhyen is
located. This is a territory more than two-thirds the size of Canada, with less
than 5 per cent of Russia's population. It's depopulating quickly, having lost
almost 18 per cent of its people between 1990 and 2004.
Towns that
didn't disappear completely have ended up as quiet husks of their former
selves, where the bustling street life has been replaced by scenes of broken
windows, boarded doorways and midday drunks slipping off their chairs at the
town's only cafι.
Many Western
countries face a milder version of Russia's demographic problem, because most
industrialized societies have low birth rates. But the number of people who die
in Russia every year is roughly three times higher per capita than in other G8
countries, and unlike its counterparts, Russia isn't replacing its losses with
any system of large-scale immigration.
Among these
three problems few births, many deaths and not enough legal immigrants
experts say the problem of migration is easiest to solve. Persuading families
to have more children hasn't worked in any industrialized society with educated
women. Reducing the burden of illness, alcohol, violence, suicide, traffic
accidents and a host of other deadly problems in Russia would require an
overhaul of the entire culture.
Mr. Putin called
for such an overhaul in a speech last April, saying the government needs to
tackle the alcoholism, ill-health and other factors that give Russian men a
life expectancy of 58 years 16 years less than men in Western Europe and well
down from a modest peak of 65 in the 1960s.
"I am
deeply convinced that the success of our policy in all spheres of life is
closely linked to the solution of our most acute demographic problems,"
Mr. Putin said.
Russia is
wealthy enough to improve its health system. Strong energy prices have fuelled
a 65-per-cent increase in the country's GDP since 1999. But a huge portion of
that money goes into the bank accounts of Russian billionaires, who doubled
their net worth last year, while the health system remains miserably
inadequate.
Many analysts
are skeptical about whether the government will muster enough political will
for a massive public-health campaign, and whether such an effort could reverse
the population slump.
"We have to
accept more immigrants," said Anatoly Vishnevsky, director of the Centre
for Human Demography and Ecology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Mr.
Vishnevsky's forecasts suggest that Russia needs to attract roughly one million
immigrants each year to maintain a stable work force.
"It's the
only way to prevent a very serious problem," he said. After a pause, he
added: "Of course, you understand, this being Russia, when you bring
millions of immigrants into the country, you have some other problems."
That's a gentle
understatement by the distinguished academic. The Russian government has
already taken some cautious steps toward easing the rules on immigration,
suggesting amnesty for some of the millions of Caucasian and Asian migrants
already working illegally in the country. But polls show a majority of Russians
strongly oppose such openness: The respected Levada Centre recently found that
59 per cent of respondents want the government to tighten migration rules, rather
than ease them. That percentage has jumped from 45 per cent in 2002.
Immigration
statistics are notoriously unreliable in Russia, but government figures show
that net migration the number of people arriving, minus the number leaving
isn't nearly enough to replace the demographic losses. Canada's net migration
rate is 5.85 people per 1,000 every year, while Russia's amounts to only 1.03
per 1,000.
Even though
Russia welcomes comparatively fewer immigrants, Russians are increasingly
uncomfortable with the newcomers. In another poll last summer, 41 per cent of
Russians said ethnic relations are growing more tense and less tolerant in the
country, while 35 per cent didn't note any change and only 17 per cent said the
situation has improved.
These tensions
are fuelled by the fact that the demographic crisis has hit the so-called
ethnic Russians the hardest. These Slavic people, who often have pale skin,
blond hair and blue eyes, generally follow the Russian Orthodox faith and make
up an estimated 80 per cent of the Russian population.
The ethnic
Russians are watching their own people dying out, while all around them the
Muslim minority is flourishing. Muslims often have larger families and
healthier lifestyles than their ethnic Russian neighbours; one academic
estimates that the number of Muslims has grown 40 or 50 per cent since 1989,
and will surpass Russian Orthodoxy as the dominant majority within a
generation.
One reaction to
these shifts has been a rise in racist violence, as skinheads and other xenophobic
groups conduct deadly attacks against visible minorities.
In the previous
week alone, four Roma and a Vietnamese man have been killed, and several others
injured, in violence blamed on skinheads. Earlier this month, a Senegalese man
was shot dead in St. Petersburg with a shotgun decorated with a swastika.
A more subtle
transformation has been the changing tone of Russia's politics. Indicators of
the new mood are everywhere: Conversations with Russians in dozens of villages,
towns and cities found remarkable unanimity. Nearly everybody is deeply worried
about population decline, but not only because of the obvious economic threat;
they are also concerned about being overrun by foreigners, outnumbered by
people whom they believe can never really contribute to their idea of a
"Russian" culture.
The whole idea
of saving the country from disaster, for many Russians, involves preserving not
only the economy but also protecting their language, culture and dominance as
an ethnic group.
"We have to
shut out the immigrants and increase our birth rate," said Ilshad
Ibragimov, 23, a student wearing a New York Yankees pin on his winter tuque and
fashionable narrow-toed shoes. On a cold day in Ufa, a university town near the
Ural Mountains, Mr. Ibragimov shivered for 20 minutes on the street so he could
explain why he so vehemently opposes immigration.
"These
Tajiks, Uzbeks and the other migrants, they put pressure on us, they take our
jobs," he said. "Russia is for Russians."
That phrase
Russia for Russians is a political slogan with increasing power. About 3,000
ultra-nationalists from various political factions, some of them dressed like
skinheads, marched through downtown Moscow in November shouting "Russia
for Russians," making Nazi salutes, and carrying banners with
anti-immigrant slogans such as "Moscow Against Occupiers."
Such xenophobic
nationalism has recently spread into mainstream politics. The phrase
"Russia for Russians" was fully or partially supported by 53 per cent
of respondents in a recent Levada Centre poll. The Rodina party, whose name
means Motherland, is the fastest-growing political force in Russia. It recently
aired television ads showing dark-skinned men chewing watermelon and throwing
the rinds on the street.
"Let's
clean our city of trash," the advertisement said, with an implication that
clearly wasn't related to discarded fruit.
The governing
party, United Russia, presents itself as a somewhat more moderate voice,
preferring nostalgic patriotism to hard-edged nationalism. Some analysts suggest
that the Kremlin helped create Rodina so that the dominant party would seem
like the mainstream choice in next year's parliamentary election and the
presidential vote in 2008. Some say Rodina has surprised the Kremlin with its
quickly growing popularity.Troubling as they are, these undercurrents in a
shrinking Russia the fear, the xenophobia, the nationalism are only
beginning to fully emerge in the daily life of Russians.
In the city of
Khabarovsk, a cosmopolitan far eastern city on a riverbank overlooking the
Chinese border, a survey found that about half of residents wished their city
didn't have any Chinese migrants. Despite that, Chinese residents of the city
say they have few complaints about how they're treated by their reluctant
hosts.
"The
Chinese thought the Russians were treating them well, because they didn't see
any open aggression," said Elena Li, a demographer at the Economic
Research Institute, a branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Khabarovsk.
"They didn't see what was underneath. The Russians don't trust them at
all. They're suspicious and afraid."
Part of the fear
comes from the Russian news media, largely controlled by the state, which
frequently reminds them that more than 120 million people live in the three
northeastern provinces of China, just across the border from Russia's Far
Eastern region, which has plenty of resources but a dwindling population of
about seven million. A near-panic rippled through Khabarovsk recently, when
people noticed that a Chinese-manufactured map on sale at a city market had
given the eastern provinces of Russia a yellow colour which the worried local
residents interpreted to mean that China was finally laying claim to their
territory.
(In an
interview, the Chinese consul offered a patient smile and assurances that China
has no plans to invade.)
Chinese who have
lived in the city a long time say the situation remains peaceful, but they
sense a worrying trend.
Lang Hi, 36, a
native of northern China who works as an assistant manager at a restaurant in
Khabarovsk, was taking a train into Russia recently when she noticed police
officers pestering a Chinese man. The officers took $300 (U.S.) from him,
claiming that they needed to seize the cash because it's illegal to bring
foreign currency into the country. Ms. Lang, who speaks fluent Russian, argued
with the officers that no such law exists. They partially relented, keeping
only some of the money.
"Ten years
ago, the Russians were kinder to us," Ms. Lang said. "Life has made
them harder."
In most parts of
the Russian Far East, the prospect of a Chinese invasion is purely theoretical.
The number of legal Chinese migrants in the far eastern region has grown from
1,700 in 1989 to about 150,000 last year. Some estimates of illegal Chinese say
the real number is 10 times higher, but on the streets of Khabarovsk a
pedestrian is still unlikely to see many Asian faces.
The invasion has
already started in the town of Muhyen, however. About 400 Chinese workers moved
to the town of 5,000 people in the past two years, hired by the forestry
operation's new owners in Hangzhou.
Their arrival
has been hard for local residents to swallow. Muhyen once prided itself as a
bastion of the Soviet empire, a place where sawmill workers and loggers enjoyed
state-sponsored perks new shoes, fashionable clothes sometimes surpassing
the luxuries of a major city such as Khabarovsk.
In those days,
the forestry operation employed 3,500 Russians. Only 180 Russians have been
hired back, although the town administration hopes more will return to work as
lumber processing grows.
In the meantime,
about 200 residents remain unemployed, and they complain bitterly about the
Chinese importing labour and paying low wages. Rumours spread about how the
Chinese are eating local dogs, paying children $2 to catch snakes for food,
poaching rare species of deer and grabbing girls.
Company managers
have tried everything to mollify the Russians. They house their Chinese staff
in a dormitory in an industrial area to keep them away from trouble. The town's
roads turned into muddy tracks during years of neglect, so the Chinese bought
road-grading equipment and repaired them.
The company
supplies local homes with free firewood, finances cultural events, sponsors
sports teams and helped with a recent ceremony for war veterans.
Despite these
efforts, complaints keep arriving at the town administration building, a wooden
cottage with water dripping from the ceiling and a tattered Russian flag
hanging outside.
"Some
locals complain to me, asking me why are these Chinese walking our
streets?" said Yevgeny Kartashov, the town administrator. He called his
superiors to check and they confirmed his suspicion that walking down a street
isn't illegal in Russia. "I say, 'Why can't they have a walk in the
evening? We should allow them. We can't keep them penned up,'" he said.
Others aren't so
liberal; some residents say they're concerned that the Chinese are starting to
make themselves at home.
"They're
bringing their wives from China, so they plan to stay a long time. They behave
like they will become the native population here, and we will be the
visitors," said Vera Soroka, 55, a retired inventory manager.
Police say
they've noticed a surge in vandalism and petty theft targeting the Chinese. One
of the company's tractors was stolen and has never been recovered.
Sergei Ignatiff,
a police investigator, initially responded to questions about the crime wave by
blaming the Chinese for failing to lock up their property securely. Then he
made a small speech: "The locals want to show that the people who live
here are the hosts, not the Chinese," he said. "They don't like them.
We don't like the way they walk in crowds, we don't like how they buy boxes of
beer and cigarettes for their whole community; we don't like how they spit."
Mr. Ignatiff
stopped, seemingly aware that he'd slipped from saying "they" to
"we." Then he shrugged.
"There's a
clash of cultures."