China Doesn’t Want to Occupy Russian Far East and Might Even Help Moscow to Hold It, Nemets Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 1 – For decades, some Russians have lived in fear that China wants to occupy the Russian Far East, a fear the Kremlin has played upon especially in recent years to justify the recentralization of the country and the imposition of various repressive measures. But that fear is without foundation, Aleksandr Nemets says.

            The US-based Russian analyst says that not only does China not want to occupy the Russian Far East but might be quite prepared to help Moscow retain control of it if there were to be uprisings or secessionist movements that threatened the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=63D7B93B58EE6).

            The reason for that is quite simple, Nemets says. China is getting everything it wants out of Russia’s Siberia and the Far East without having to absorb any social welfare costs or even paying for the infrastructure it needs to extract resources out of Russia or send its own products to Russia or Europe.

            Instead, he continues, over the last decade, Moscow has paid for all the infrastructure on the Russian side of the border China needs. Were Moscow to disappear as a factor in the region, then China would have to pick up the pieces and pay for any rail or port developments it may need.

            Consequently, Beijing is far better off with a weakened Russia prepared to pay for infrastructure China needs than annexing Siberia and the Russian Far East and being forced to pay for that itself, something that would add to its costs without increasing the returns it is now getting from using this route.