Russia, With Chinese Characteristics

ancient cultures have long memories

You don’t have to know Russians to understand the map above.

For you, regular readers of CDRSalamander and listeners to the Midrats podcast, I expect you can almost write the rest of today’s post for yourself.

• Every Festivus the People’s Republic of China has a rather long airing of grievances…and we’re going to hear about it.

• It is only just beginning to make up for its Century of Humiliation.

• Taiwan will come to heel.

• India will accept what is offered.

• Japan will act in its interest.

• The “China” in “South China Sea” will become self-evident.

• Russia … well … yes, Russia will understand when the fruit is ripe.

Most of you use browsers that will automatically translate to English, so make sure and read the whole thing—but here’s a brief series of pull quotes to get you up to speed if needed:

In late August, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is expected to publish an updated version of its "standard map" to reflect its growing territorial claims. Its neighbors see it as an ominous sign of China's imperialist threat. But for the party, it is a near-sacred document that embodies China's historical claims and vision of which lost territories must be reclaimed. All of this is under the banner of "national rejuvenation" - a central concept of Xi Jinping that aims to restore the country as a dominant superpower by the People's Republic's centenary in 2049.

In the current version of the standard map, published last year, eight Russian cities along the Sino-Russian border were suddenly given their Chinese names. Vladivostok is called "Haishenwai." Khabarovsk, Russia's easternmost city, is called "Bólì." Bolshoi Ussuriysky - Hiexiazi Island in Chinese - which is supposedly used jointly by Moscow and Beijing, is described as purely Chinese. China's "national rejuvenation" would be incomplete without the territories once lost to Russia.

That is where the real game will be played … and … the conditions are being well set:

…for China's nationalists, who probably include Xi Jinping himself, the treaties through which Russia acquired the territories are considered " unequal ." The CCP's mapping supports this finding. In Chinese school textbooks, the territories acquired by Russia are still shown as Chinese territory. Within Chinese society, too, a growing neo-nationalist movement is demanding the return of these territories.

…

Driven by China's economic growth and the increasing demand for food, Chinese farmers have begun to move to the Russian Far East again. There they practice mechanized agriculture on a large scale and harvest grain for export to China. As early as 2013, Chinese agricultural companies leased or controlled around 600,000 hectares of land in the Far East - the area has increased even further under Xi.

…

In October, Beijing and Moscow signed a $25 billion grain deal in which Russia committed to supplying China with 70 million tons of grain, pulses and oilseeds over the next 12 years. The deal paves the way for the expansion of Chinese land leasing in the Far East, as well as joint infrastructure projects such as transit corridors in Siberia and the Far East for transporting large volumes of cargo and specialized terminals such as the $160 million Nizhneleninskoye-Tongjiang grain terminal that will link Vladivostok with China's Heilongjiang province. Beijing is gradually turning Russia into its pantry. China is also regaining territory it once controlled under the guise of agricultural cooperation.

Territorial claims: resources for rejuvenation

The Khabarovsk region across the border from Heilongjiang - which China ceded under the Treaty of Aigun and whose capital, Khabarovsk, calls it "Boli" - set a record for coal production last year. Most of it is exported to China. The region is also rich in natural gas, timber and tin. In 2022, China invested about $1.6 billion in 26 new projects in the region, including a gold mine in Tuguro-Chumikansky, a tin ore processing plant in Solnechnaya and the development of the Malmyzhsky copper deposit.

The Malmyzhsky deposit is considered one of the largest copper-gold projects in the world, with estimated copper reserves of around 8.32 million tonnes - a good third of annual global production. China is not only using its former imperial territories to feed its population, but is strategically exploiting their natural resources to bolster its military and economy on its path to "national rejuvenation".

As I said, read the whole thing.

As I’ve told people more than once: just as people would have looked at you funny 20 years ago if you’d told them that Ukrainian army forces would invade Russia riding in German Leopard II tanks and American Bradley IFVs behind a swarm of drones, don’t look at me funny when I tell you that the day may come when the US Army is riding Russian trains heading east toward the Urals to fight alongside their Russian allies, holding the line at Yekaterinburg as winter comes, after the Chinese push through the Russian defenses at the Yensey River one midsummer

History is sticky and takes the future to places it doesn’t expect to be.