Russian and Chinese border issues

[mendeleyev]

Quote from: mendeleyev on Yesterday at 11:59:19 PM

Upthread was the mention of Russia advertising/promoting ladies to have children, and payments for each child.

Yes, still ongoing. I was reminded of that with this Metro sign:
Sign says that Love of country begins with family.

Quote from: gator

Very much of a contrast with China and female infanticide.

What are the general opinions in Russia about bordering a country with 20,000,000 military-age men without women?   Meanwhile across the border are beautiful women and the world's largest proven reserves of oil.  

 

Holy smokes, Gator, when you bring up a topic you like to open Pandora's box, don't you?!  

Wow, where does one begin?

The two signed a new border demarcation of several Far East islands in 2008 with Russia giving up territory. That made Japan angry that China gained back some disputed territory but Russia continues to ignore Japanese claims.

There have been various treaties going back to the Qing Dynasty and the Russian Empire, such as the Treaty of Aigun and the Treaty of Beijing in which Russia gained over 1 million sq km from China. There was 400,000 sq km in Manchuria at China's expense, and another 500,000 sq km from western Chinese regions as a result of other treaties that have long been regarded by Chinese as unfair agreements.


Guys our age remember the Sino-Soviet split in which Russia and China went at it with division-scale military clashes along the border in 1969.

Does one start with highways that begin in China and then taper off to nothing near Russia's border?

Shall we begin with the illegal immigration issue of Chinese citizens who have flooded Russian border towns...some live permanently while others go back across the border at night or for the weekend?

Should we start with Medvedev and Putin's concern about Russia's military strength in the East...and with the loyality of Russian troops in the East?

How about the joint military exercises that are conducted with China? Is Russia using the strategy of "hold your friends close but your enemies even closer"?

How does Russia's alliance, especially the Border and Postal Union, and the joint military training with strategically located Kazakhstan play into this question?

What about concerns over time differences? At 10pm in Moscow it's already 6am out in Vladivostok. How do you manage to govern, especially in the event of a close border military conflict, with such dramatic time differences?

What does one do about troop and equipment movement over 11,000 kilometers in which, depending on road conditions, took an average of 25 days in 2003, and while improvements have been made in road conditions, it' still 8-10 days by road. Even 6 days by train is a long way for dependable reinforcements. If Russia cleared the railroads and ran only high speed military traffic, "high speed" for heavy mechanized equipment isn't that much faster than commercial passenger traffic.

How soon can/will Russia modernize airports and runways for the kind of materiel mentioned above needed to better protect her border?

How does Russia's foreign policy fit in what is called the "near abroad"...such as Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan each former Soviet states, as well as neighbors to both Russia and China?

Bottom line? Is Russia ready for a border war with China? No.

Is China ready for a border war with Russia? *No.
* For reasons of trade and international politics, no. But could China wage a border war if no other conditions existed? Yes.

 

[mendeleyev]

As you mentioned, China kills baby girls and keeps baby boys.

It reminds me of Canada's opening the first McDonald's in Moscow. McDonald's Canada trainers were in Moscow to train new Russian employees.

In one session after teaching the importance of smiling at the customer (Slavic culture suspects that you're up to something devious if smiling for no apparent reason), and how the McDonald's employee is nice to each customer, one young man raised his hand and asked this famous question: Why should we be nice to customers? After all, we're the one with the hamburgers!

Perhaps Medvedev should remind China's President Hu Jintao that we're the one with the girls!


(Potential problem: most Russians aren't big fans of those of Asian descent.)

Photo: President Medvedev in China, Sept. 2010. Courtesy of the Presidential Press Service & the Mendeleyev Journal.

[Rubicon]

I love that!!  WE'RE THE ONE WITH THE HAMBURGERS!!!   I suspect that if China tries to start some sort of war with Russia, they know that Russia might very quickly resort to tactical nuclear weapons.

I like the Russian attitude that they need to grow their population; makes perfect sense since they have a problem with radical muslims on their borders.  maybe you can write to Putin for us and solve the problem by him importing western christian men and giving them a one year subsidy to live in Russia and get married and get Russian women pregnant!! 

why does USA have most favored trade status with China but not trade more with Russia??

[mendeleyev]

why does USA have most favored trade status with China but not trade more with Russia?

Rubicon, that is an excellent question. Some reasons:

1- The USA still has in force the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a key Cold War-era legislation passed in 1974 to limit trade with the Soviet Union. It as originally intended to pressure the Soviet Union to allow emigration, especially of refuseniks, Jews, and other religious minorities.

The amendment was named for its major co-sponsors Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson (D) of Washington in the Senate and Charles Vanik (D) of Ohio in the House of Representatives, was part of the 1974 Trade Act. The amendment passed unanimously and was signed into law by President Gerald Ford.

Congress has yet to figure out that the Soviet Union no longer exists.

2- In the past we've had serious issues with Russia over industrial and intellectual theft. It's an issue also with China--knockoffs undercut the value of Western products.

3- But a more serious question is that even if scraped, and we already have energy exemptions to get around the Jackson-Vanik amendment, Russia offers little to trade for outside metals and energy.

All the stuff we need for living is at Walmart, coming from China.  
 
4- The USA has for all intents stopped producing things too.

[Gator]

Mendeleyev,

Thanks for answer.  I knew you would have a good sense of the undercurrent.  I did not know about the unfair territory agreements.  Sounds like Mexico and the US, with Mexicans now reoccupying their long lost territory.  Chinese could do the same. 

It just seems to me that while Russia can use energy to squeeze Europe, China can squeeze Russia.   20,000,000 horny soldiers would make a helluva army.  Rubicon suggested that Russia could use tactical nukes, but China is not Georgia.  China has its own arsenal of nukes. 

From the US perspective, I suppose we want China and Russia to continue as antagonists to each other, yet short of conflict.  OTOH, if the two became very friendly and decided to form a military alliance, America's military power would not seem so powerful.  Not in my lifetime I hope.

[acctBill]

Rubicon, that is an excellent question. Some reasons:

1- The USA still has in force the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a key Cold War-era legislation passed in 1974 to limit trade with the Soviet Union. It as originally intended to pressure the Soviet Union to allow emigration, especially of refuseniks, Jews, and other religious minorities.

The amendment was named for its major co-sponsors Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson (D) of Washington in the Senate and Charles Vanik (D) of Ohio in the House of Representatives, was part of the 1974 Trade Act. The amendment passed unanimously and was signed into law by President Gerald Ford.

Congress has yet to figure out that the Soviet Union no longer exists.

2- In the past we've had serious issues with Russia over industrial and intellectual theft. It's an issue also with China--knockoffs undercut the value of Western products.

3- But a more serious question is that even if scraped, and we already have energy exemptions to get around the Jackson-Vanik amendment, Russia offers little to trade for outside metals and energy.

All the stuff we need for living is at Walmart, coming from China.  
 
4- The USA has for all intents stopped producing things too.

Mendeleyev if I might add something to the reasons behind the lack of a most favored trade status with Russia.  Nixon opened up relations with China with his visit in 1972 while the USSR and the US were still in a cold war dispute. It took time but relations began to thaw between China and the US. Add to this the presence of large numbers of Chinese already in the US, who despite the cold war with China, maintained ties to family in China.  Once trade with China began, Chinese emigrated to the US in large numbers but still maintained family and business connections to China.  Of course the most obvious reason to any business person, the sheer size of China, the largest market in the world.

Relations with the USSR on the other hand were always rather cold, up until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even after the fall of the Wall the Russian attitude toward trade with the west was to get as much as possible from the US and Europe while giving very little.  I was in and out of Russia in the early 1990's and most of the time the business trips were a complete waste of time.  You couldn't believe anything that was said and verification of any product, such as natural resources, was almost impossible.  In short it survival of the fittest. In the UK there were very few people working in private industry who had business or government knowledge of Russia.  Professional translators and interpreters were available but certainly not in the quantity and quality of their Chinese counterparts. 

As for business in Russia, the economic miracle that transformed China from a 3rd world country to an economic super power will never happen in Russia.  The Russian government is far more corrupt than the Chinese government. Past Chinese governments were corrupt but they also realized that it was necessary to share the wealth and move the population to living standards approaching those of the west.  To accomplish this massive projects to build infrastructure were done to lift hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty and to keep a restless population busy so they wouldn't think of overthrowing the government.  In Russia the national revenue is mainly from natural resources and most of that is from oil and natural gas.  Money from oil and gas has rebuilt Moscow and St. Pete and to a lesser extent several other large cities in Russia.  The rest of Russia has been neglected or offered scraps. 

The Russian government is far too proud to open up Russia to the factories and manufacturing that has made China rich.  Most Russian business people I have spoken to would love to have the type of manufacturing plants in Russia that dot the Chinese landscape, but it will never happen in Russia.  The Russian business people say that a military and economic super power, as the Russian government sees itself, like Russia would never allow its people to work making cheap consumer goods for America and Europe.  Therefore the Russian government isn't going to ask or lobby for most favored trade status the way China did.

Mendeleyev what you say about China producing all the consumer goods needed is true, however prices for labour and materials are rising fast in China and finding another low wage country to produce those goods would help lower prices.  Russia has a large enough population to accomplish the task and with Pacific Ocean ports it could easily ship goods to North America by ship and to Europe by rail, in some ways it is better situated than China to supply the world with consumer goods.   

[Kuna]

I find this hard to believe....

Why should we be nice to customers? After all, we're the one with the hamburgers!

I'm pretty sure he would have said Gamburgers.   

[mendeleyev]

Kuna, of course!

One of my early experiences was in seeing billboards advertising Hamlet, spelled in Cyrillic with G--Gamlet, as of course there is no exact way to produce an H in Russian.

[Kuna]

Sorry for taking your thread Off-Topic... 

... but at least you guys in the US have Vacations - not Holidays.  My wife still slips out the odd G instead of an H and I try not to correct her... it sounds so cute!

[mendeleyev]

acctBill, agreed. Excellent analysis.

I think that like me, you must remember those days when oversized metal vending machines sold mineral water on Red Square, KBAC was served from a trailer tank in a tin cup that others drank from after you (and thousands before you had already sipped from the same tin cup before you arrived), and store clerks (if they bothered to answer the phone at all) would assure you over the telly that yes, their store had the item you needed in stock at that very moment. Of course after traveling on the Metro for an hour or more, you'd arrive at the store to discover that not only was the item not in stock--but this store had likely never carried that item in a million years and the clerk would pretend to know nothing about your prior telephone conversation.

[mendeleyev]

There are a few manufacturing plants who do business with the US and UK. An appliance plant in Kaluga, owned by a family friend, makes stoves and refrigeration appliances for Burger King in the South and Southeast USA. But Bill is right, too few and far between.

[mendeleyev]

When one considers the importance of the real estate Russia now holds that formerly belonged to the Chinese, you can feel more of the undercurrent as Gator termed it, on both sides of the Far East border.

Vladivostok as an example, while not the prettiest city on the planet (by far), is vital to Russia's military and shipping interests. And it's famous for more than just the military mishaps when a couple years ago a marine parade featuring some of Russia's finest warship cruisers were sailing into port while crowds watched from the shorelines. Thinking that only blanks had been loaded into their guns, the Russian gunners began "shelling" the apartment buildings built into the surrounding hillsides as part of the show. Well, today there is one fewer apartment building standing than when the parade began that morning. Even though no one was killed, President Medvedev was so angry that he made a personal inspection trip to the scene.

Vladivostok was built on land that belonged to China. It was sparsely populated by Chinese and indigenous peoples when the region was transferred to Russia in the Treaty of Aigun in 1858. Russia had already moved troops and settlers into the region and the very weak Qing Empire had no choice in the matter.

Can you imagine the impact if Russia lost this strategic port?

[Rubicon]

When one considers the importance of the real estate Russia now holds that formerly belonged to the Chinese, you can feel more of the undercurrent as Gator termed it, on both sides of the Far East border.

Vladivostok as an example, while not the prettiest city on the planet (by far), is vital to Russia's military and shipping interests. And it's famous for more than just the military mishaps when a couple years ago a marine parade featuring some of Russia's finest warship cruisers were sailing into port while crowds watched from the shorelines. Thinking that only blanks had been loaded into their guns, the Russian gunners began "shelling" the apartment buildings built into the surrounding hillsides as part of the show. Well, today there is one fewer apartment buildings that when the parade began that morning. Even though no one was killed, President Medvedev was so angry that he made a personal inspection trip to the scene.

Vladivostok was built on land that belonged to China. It was sparsely populated by Chinese and indigenous peoples when the region was transferred to Russia in the Treaty of Aigun in 1858. Russia had already moved troops and settlers into the region and the very weak Qing Empire had no choice in the matter.

Can you imagine the impact if Russia lost this strategic port?

fascinating stuff, Mendeleyev!!  I think I read somewhere that GM or some other US company is going to build an auto manufacturing plant in Russia, I hope that comes true.  Russian people are not murdering female babies, and they do not torture and murder animals, like the Chinese do  (google Chinese fur trade to see some hideous videos of animal torture by the Chinese).  I personally hope that eventually Russia and Ukraine become better friends with the USA and trade more with us.

[mendeleyev]

That would ultimately be important for both countries and for the auto industry. The Russian auto industry on the manufacturing side almost died in the financial crisis of 2008 and the government has invested a lot to retool and get it restarted. GM entering now, unless as a joint partner, might be premature.

Ford was in Russia for years before the war. My late Uncle Mikhail worked for Ford Russia for many years and he could name almost every make and model from the 50s thru the early 70s.

The story of Ford in Russia is sad, even sickening, and documented in at least two books and the British documentary film, "The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia." Some Americans truly thought that Communism was the hope of the future and other imported workers like many at the Ford plant in Nizhniy Novgorod (named "Gorky" during the Soviet period) had been lured by promises of a better life upon return to the USA after getting the plant built and established. Gorky was nicknamed as "Soviet Detroit" during that period.

The city was at one time home to the largest number of the estimated 10,000 Americans who died in Soviet Gulag camps between 1938 and the mid 1960s.

Approximately 2,000 Americans were recruited (450 workers and their wives & children) to the Gorky Ford Motor Company plant and were trapped by politics and then the outbreak of war. During the pre-war years there was an American school and cafes & shops which catered to the Ford employees and their families. As Russia drew near to WWII Stalin began to have adults and then later Ford employee children arrested and sent to the camps.

After the war ended the Ford Motor Company allegedly misled the government about the true number of trapped employees. When the numbers were discovered Ford was accused of filing lawsuits for years to keep any survivors from returning. Ford had supposedly promised employees a new home upon their return--worth about $3,000 in the 1930s, and a new car-- to each family who would help build and train workers at the Russian plant. Most of the workers were poor immigrants to America and already fluent in Eastern European languages.

Only 3 Americans are known to have survived Stalin's camps and 2 returned to the USA eventually. They were children at the time of their families' imprisonment. One of the survivors, son of immigrants to America, stayed in Europe and would become a minister of government in the new Czech Republic after the fall of Communism.

The last survivor, a female, was held in East Germany and then later West Germany while the lawsuits flew back and forth. Finally it was President Gerald Ford who ended the madness by issuing an executive order clearing the way for the last living survivor (1 of 3) to return to the United States.

Henry Ford I and II along with Edsel Ford were "Globalists" who played all sides in the war with manufacturing plants in the USA, Germany, South America and Russia. Ford received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, a Nazi award for businesses devoted to the ideals of the Nazi government.

If you want to get really angry about how these Americans were treated and then abandoned by everyone from Ford to Roosevelt, read Dancing Under the Red Star: The Extraordinary Story of Margaret Werner, the Only American Woman to Survive Stalin's Gulag by Karl Tobien.

[Rubicon]

wow!!  I did not know that Ford had sent workers to Russia.  I did know that Ford had plants in Nazi Germany.  you probably know that Mr. Ford was not very kind towards Jewish people.

I am going to look for the book you mentioned above.  I have seen a book about American baseball players who got stuck in communist Russia. 

[Kuna]

Top five people I would want to sit with at a dinner party:

- Mendeleyev
- ummmm...  my wife;
- errrr....  Give me some time to think on the rest of them.



Respect mate!  Fascinating stuff!

[mendeleyev]

Thanks to you both. I love dinner parties!

you probably know that Mr. Ford was not very kind towards Jewish people.

True. You are putting it mildly.

I have seen a book about American baseball players who got stuck in communist Russia.

 

Yes, there was a baseball team composed of players who worked at the Ford plant mentioned above. They were part of the public relations efforts to "brand" the Ford name in cities all over Russia.

Likely the very same team.

Sadly, it is said that once war began none of them survived the Gulags. Their story is featured in the documentary film listed above and a photo of the team is inside the front cover of the "Dancing Under the Red Star" book.

[SANDRO43]

...as of course there is no exact way to produce an H in Russian.

Wouldn't an X accomplish that as in, say, Xaмлет? I've often wondered about the origin of this Russian quirk about initial Hs . Any Russian linguists around ?

[mendeleyev]

Yes, me too sometimes. The X is a "kh" sound as in Kherson and Kharkiv, etc. Khamlet though might sound just as awkard as Khamburger, etc.

[mendeleyev]

The Far East of Russia is of vital importance to the government. Just two days ago, 21 April, President Medvedev and Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District (Medvedev's personal representative to regional governors) Viktor Ishayev met in Moscow to discuss issues of the Far East.

The Far Eastern Federal District (FEFD) encompasses nine constituent entities:
- The Amur Region
- The Chukotka Autonomous Area
- The Jewish Autonomous Region
- Kamchatka Territory
- Khabarovsk Territory
- Magadan Region
- Primorye Territory
- The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)
- The Sakhalin Region.

The capital of the FEFD is the city of Khabarovsk.

According to the Presidential Press Service, the FEFD is the largest-spanning federal district in Russia, with an area of 6.2159 million square kilometres or 36.4 percent of Russia’s entire territory. The district is home to more than seven million people or 4.9 percent of Russia’s population.

The FEFD is bordered by two oceans – the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean – and has the longest coastline of any other federal district of over 9,000 kilometres. The district contains Russia’s largest peninsula, Kamchatka of 350,000 square kilometres; Russia’s largest island, Sakhalin of 76,400 square kilometres; the archipelago with the greatest number of islands, the Kurils; and one of the world’s largest active volcanoes, Klyuchevskaya Sopka which is 4,750 metres high. Two of the district’s rivers – the Lena and the Amur – are among the longest rivers in the world.

The Far East is rich in natural resources, including gold, diamonds, oil, and natural gas. The district’s leading industries are the mining, forestry, woodworking and fishing industries, as well as non-ferrous metallurgy, maritime and railroad transportation, machine-building, and hydropower engineering. Reindeer herding, hunting, and fur farming are also traditional industries in the Far East.

Obviously losing some or much of this to China would be of significant impact to Russia's economy as the economic output extends far past the population density of the areas listed. Conversely, imagine what such an acquisition would do for the Chinese economy!

The Russian government projects that there will be demand for at least half a million skilled professionals in the region by 2025. The demand is expected to be generated by the development of transport infrastructure, shipbuilding and other industries.

Russia would obviously want these jobs to eventually end up in the hands of citizens, but given the recent openings for visa opportunities to those who bring specialized skills to Russia, would you be willing to work and live in the Far East?

[SANDRO43]

wow!!  I did not know that Ford had sent workers to Russia. 

IINM, a similar venture involved our FIAT in the 1970s for the Lada (Zhiguli) 

car plants in Толья́тти, named to commemorate the long-time Secretary of the Italian Communist Party Palmiro Togliatti (1893-1964)

[mendeleyev]

The Тольятти plant was close to being shut down in 2008 but PM Putin argued for a mass infusion of cash and it was retooled and still in production today.

Today, the plant is running and employees are still making cars.

Sandro, you've got to watch this video from Тольятти and especially watch what happens to the tires both mid video and near the end! http://autorodeo.livejournal.com/4192.html




(photo: varandej/live journal)

[SANDRO43]

Sandro, you've got to watch this video from Тольятти and especially watch what happens to the tires both mid video and near the end! http://autorodeo.livejournal.com/4192.html

Quite a gymnastic feat, but possibly a tad discouraging for perspective buyers - unless they're told that is NOT the only way of changing their car tyres .

[acctBill]

acctBill, agreed. Excellent analysis.

I think that like me, you must remember those days when oversized metal vending machines sold mineral water on Red Square, KBAC was served from a trailer tank in a tin cup that others drank from after you (and thousands before you had already sipped from the same tin cup before you arrived), and store clerks (if they bothered to answer the phone at all) would assure you over the telly that yes, their store had the item you needed in stock at that very moment. Of course after traveling on the Metro for an hour or more, you'd arrive at the store to discover that not only was the item not in stock--but this store had likely never carried that item in a million years and the clerk would pretend to know nothing about your prior telephone conversation.

Mendeleyev regarding store clerks telling phone callers that the item is in stock, that still happens even to Russians.  My inlaws live in Moscow and my MIL and BIL will tell you that it still happens even to Muscovites.  Of course now the Internet is widely available in Moscow there are stores that do have the items in stock and say so online so it's a little more difficult for some stores to use that excuse but it does happen. 

I think I tried KBAC half a dozen times, each time at the request of a inlaw or friend.  I would say that last time I tried it it tasted  :yech: and the friend/relative would say that this person sold the best tasting KBAC in Moscow.  To me it always tasted bad however I have met some foreigners who developed a taste for it.  It truly is an acquired taste.     

[Rubicon]

There are a few manufacturing plants who do business with the US and UK. An appliance plant in Kaluga, owned by a family friend, makes stoves and refrigeration appliances for Burger King in the South and Southeast USA. But Bill is right, too few and far between.

I am not sure how you missed this one:

ST. PETERSBURG, RUS. November 7, 2008: General Motors (GM) opened today a $300 million, flexible assembly plant in St. Petersburg, Russia, in presence of President Dmitry Medvedev. The plant will add 70,000 units of capacity to more than 100,000 already available to GM at joint venture and partner facilities in the country. It will build the Opel Antara and Chevrolet Captiva SUVs and, as of late 2009, the all-new Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan. The plant features a flexible, modern design that can accommodate a variety of different models.


“Today’s plant opening underlines GM’s strong commitment to Russia,” said GME President Carl-Peter Forster at today’s opening ceremony. “This new plant will cement our position as the number one non-domestic manufacturer in Russia, a high-volume growth market with outstanding potential.” The new GM plant in Shushary on the outskirts of St. Petersburg is the third manufacturing site to build GM vehicles in Russia. In Togliatti, the GM Avtovaz joint venture plant is manufacturing the Chevrolet Niva SUV, and in Kaliningrad GM’s partner, Avtotor, is assembling various Chevrolet, Cadillac and Hummer models for the Russian market.


“GM’s investment in this modern, flexible car plant is an investment in the future,” said Valentina Matvienko, Governor of the St. Petersburg region. “We are proud to be the home of the first General Motors plant to open in the company’s second century.”


GM sales boom in Russia

GM nearly doubled industry growth in Russia from January-September 2008 with sales up 44 percent to 256,765 cars and SUVs. GM reached a market share of 11 percent and was the leading international vehicle manufacturer in Europe’s second biggest market.


Chevrolet sales in Russia grew by 33.5 percent or 44,145 units in the first nine months of this year to 175,798. Opel is the fastest growing brand in the Russian vehicle market with sales rocketing to 78,051 in the January-September period, which corresponds to a growth rate of 73.3 percent.


Top quality through standardised manufacturing methods

“Our St. Petersburg plant will work to the same high standards that have recently resulted in major quality awards for our cars,” said Carl-Peter Forster. GM’s new employees in St. Petersburg have undergone intensive training in the company’s global manufacturing system which focuses on top quality in all processes, continuous improvement and involvement of the workforce.
source,autonews.com