Moscow-Beijing Alliance Directed Not Only Against the West but Against Russia East of the Urals, ‘Region.Expert’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 16 – Not surprisingly, commentators have focused on the ways in which Moscow’s burgeoning alliance with China is directed against the West; but they should also focus on the fact that this “alliance of dictators” is in fact directed “against the interests of the residents of the Far Eastern regions of the Russian Federation,” the Region.Expert portal says.

            According to the Tallinn-based regionalist site, “the Far East for a long time has been converted by Moscow into a raw material colony for ‘friendly’ China but China not only pays for raw materials from there but helps fill the treasury of the Russian government in Moscow at the region’s expense (region.expert/beijing-moscow/).

            And in order to support China’s goals in Russian areas east of the Urals, Moscow has suppressed the only avenues people there had to oppose them. Thus, in 2021, 90 percent of Khabarovsk voters rejected a Beijing plan to build a chemical plant in their region (dw.com/ru/kak-zhiteli-v-habarovskom-krae-pobedili-kitajskogo-gazovogo-giganta/a-57080437).

            But Moscow to curry favor with China and also to extend its authoritarian control responded by liquidating local self-administration and the right of local communities to hold referenda on plans like the Chinese. As a result, Beijing can build and Moscow can profit from the construction of such plants without local people being able to block such projects.