Russians, Not Americans Should be Afraid of Russia-China Alliance, Eidman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 14 – Moscow is trying to frighten the US with the idea that Russia will form an alliance with China, but the people who really ought to be frightened are the Russians who will thus be left “one on one” with the Chinese in a relationship that will not be in any way an equal one, according to Igor Eidman..

            “The strengths” of the two country are so unequal – China’s population and its economy are an order of magnitude larger than Russia’s – that either Russia will be swallowed up or the alliance between the two will break down, the Russian sociologist and Deutsche Welle commentator says (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5C3C3D9A25D69).

            He suggests that “China and Russia now recall the US and Mexico in the 19^th century when the Americans, having begun with the peaceful colonization of Texas in the end seized half of Mexico’s territory.”  That was because “a rapidly developing and powerful country which needed new resources bordered a stagnating and corrupt one.”

            “The result of such an arrangement between neighbors could only be the gradual colonization of the weak by the strong,” Eidman says. “Which is already taking place in [Russia’s] Far East.” 

            According to the commentator, Russians ought to remember the old Radio Armenia joke from Soviet times. The radio is asked, given that vodka cost five rubles in 1981, how much will it cost in 2000? Radio Armenia answers: 10 yuan – the Chinese currency that would then be money used in what had been Russia.

            There is a second Radio Armenia joke that makes the same point, although it is not one Eidman offers here. Radio Armenia is asked: What will life be like in the Soviet Union in 2020? Radio Armenia answers: We don’t know, but conditions along the Sino-Finnish border should be quiet.

            This week brings two stories which underscore why Russia should be worried: On the one hand, Chinese firms are now prepared to play one federal subject off against the other, something they can do because the Chinese have money to invest and the Russians desperately need that (idelreal.org/a/29707116.html).

            And on the other, the Rex news agency reports that “the first Chinese enclave may appear in Russia” in the near future because of the deals Chinese firms have made with one region that will give them a good chance of dominating that region because they will become the largest and most important force in Chuvashia (iarex.ru/news/63404.html).

            This comes on top of reports about Chinese immigration to the Far East, Russian intermarriage with Chinese, and Chinese destruction of the environment east of the Urals because of its demand for water and other natural resources (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/12/main-separatist-region-in-russian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/many-in-buryatia-transbaikal-fear.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/on-arctic-and-pacific-shelf-russia.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/10/illegal-russian-loggers-in-siberia-and.html, and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-most-devastating-attacks-putin-has.html).