Ever More Russian Women Moving to China for a Better Life, ‘Baijiahao’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 31 – Russian women are moving to China in increasing numbers in order to have greater economic chances, live in a country where their rights are protected by law, and where they are viewed by the male half of the population as the epitome of female beauty, Beijing’s Baijiahoo journal says.

            It has long been known that one of the reasons Chinese men travel to Russia is in the hopes of finding a wife among Russians whom they view as especially beautiful and that some Russian women do marry them and move to China, a trend that many Russians find troubling (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/08/chinas-new-weapon-against-russia.html).

            But now this Chinese magazine has asked some of the Russian women who have moved to China married and unmarried why they have (baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1643075170322320359), and not surprisingly there has been a Russian translation of the article that has been republished many times (inosmi.ru/social/20190831/245728399.html).

            It turns out, Baijiahoo reports, Russian women view China as a country of unlimited economic opportunity and also one with a legal system in which the laws are enforced and their rights protected and where they can count on personal security and equal treatment in terms of property in case of divorce.

            In northern China, the magazine continues, the number of Russian women on the streets is now impressive; and those with whom the Chinese journalists spoke said that they came to work in order to earn higher salaries and thus “live better.”  Many work as models or on the Internet and make high salaries even by Chinese standards.

            In the past, most Russian women arriving in China came with husbands. Now, Baijiahoo says, they are coming on their own as well, although it suggests that in the future it is entirely possible that they will find a Chinese man to marry “and live a beautiful life in China” rather than returning home to Russia.

            The Chinese outlet gives no numbers, but its discussion of this new flow will only intensify Russian fears about the future of their own nation and the risk that many of them see that their people and its current territory will be swallowed up by the larger and more dynamic Chinese population.