Paul Goble
Staunton,
March 7 – Just how sensitive the issue of Chinese business activities in the Baikal
region in particular and Russia east of the Urals more generally is reflected
not only in commentaries attacking the Chinese and Russians who help them but
in a new petition that has garnered nearly one million signatures against any Chinese
role.
As more
details about Chinese activities in and around Lake Baikal have surfaced,
commentaries attacking them and complaining about the Russian government’s
cooperation with them have appeared (e.g., planeta.press/opinions/35826-aleksandr-kovalenko-okkupatsiya-dalnego-vostoka-kitaem/ and a discussion
by the author of these lines at jamestown.org/program/russian-elite-profiteering-enables-growing-chinese-control-of-baikal-region/).
But
most indicative of Russian attitudes is the result of an effort by film and
television stars in Russia to block Chinese plans to build a water bottling plant
on Russia’s most famous lake. They have already
collected more than 800,000 signatures on an online petition (mbk-news.appspot.com/region/kak-sergej-zverev/ and change.org/p/остановите-строительство-завода-по-розливу-воды-байкала-для-китая).
Obviously,
signing a petition in favor of protecting the environment and against foreign
involvement is a relatively easy choice for Russians, but this petition
provides the strongest indication yet of just how angry Russians are about
Chinese overreach in Russia east of the Urals.
Unless Moscow limits Chinese activities there, this movement will only
grow.
And
that in turn will create problems for the Kremlin both in its relations with
China and in its links to oligarchs and corrupt officials who corruption with Beijing
and its businesses and with ordinary Russians who have finally decided to
signal that they have had enough of officials who care only about money and
ignore the interests of the country and of the population.
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