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This article has been prepared in partial fulfillment of the NCEEER Fellowship Grant Agreement Number 814-17g, "Cross-border Migration, Corruption, and Interethnic Security in the Russian Far East," following the author’s research trip to Moscow and Vladivostok, May 7-June 3, 1999.¹
 
 

Cross-Border Travel and the Scale of Chinese Migration in Primorskii Krai

Since the Soviet Union and China signed the agreement on visa-free cross-border travel in 1988, the Russian Far East had to deal with the flow of the People’s Republic of China nationals coming into the region as migrant workers, traders, business people, tourists, poachers, and black marketers. Scarcity of publicly available official information on this issue has been accompanied by alarmist speculations in the media on the scale of Chinese migration. Viktor Larin, director of the Vladivostok institute of history, counted more than 150 articles in the local and national press in 1993-95 raising the specter of the "yellow peril," or massive Chinese migration into the Russian Far East as part of China’s territorial expansion. Some press articles in 1993 and 1994 claimed that up to 150,000 illegal immigrants were settling in Primor’e, as part of 400,000 to 2 million PRC migrants that infiltrated the Russian Far East.²

Chinese migrants must first make it to Primor’e. They can arrive on a visa, on a tourist permit (without a visa), and illegally (either directly from China or through neighboring regions of Russia). The data on the number of Chinese nationals that crossed the Russian border from 1994 to 1998 on visas and tourist permits was provided to me by Lt.-Col. Viktor Plotnikov, deputy director of the visa and immigration service (OVIR) for Primorskii krai (Table 1). This is the most comprehensive official data source on border crossings through checkpoints, since immigration officials physically check every visitor’s passport regardless of whether the entry requires a visa or not. As part of the interior ministry, OVIR is also in charge of enforcing visa regime and imposing sanctions on violators.

According to OVIR, 34 percent (or 27,530) of PRC visitors to Primor’e failed to return home in 1994 and 1995. Following the introduction by law enforcement agencies, starting in 1994, of tighter visa controls and spot checks in the streets, markets, and in the workplace (Operation Foreigner), the number of illegally overstaying visitors plummeted.

The data suggests that the flow of PRC nationals into Primorskii krai has been increasingly rule-based and controlled by the authorities. Visa-free travel—a putative cause of illegal immigration in the region—increased almost threefold from 1996 to 1998, with nearly 84 percent of all visitors to Primor’e coming on tourist permits. At the same time, however, only 0.4 percent of registered visitors in 1998 remained illegally in the krai. The number of administrative penalties (mostly fines), deportation orders, and forced deportations dropped after a 1995 surge, stabilized in absolute numbers, and decreased more than twofold from 1996 to 1998 relative to the total number of PRC visitors.

Assuming that all non-returnees from 1994 to the first quarter of 1999 stayed in Primorye, their total number would still be a fraction of the earlier cited panic estimates in the Russian media. Visual observations by this author in and around Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, and Nakhodka indicate that even close to the areas of concentrated (and temporary) settlement, the number of Chinese migrants is likely measured in dozens, perhaps hundreds, but by no means in thousands. The latter would have to be the case, if the number of Chinese migrants in Primor’e was indeed running into hundreds of thousands.

A July 1999 internal report on migration and sedentarization (osedanie) of foreign nationals in Primor’e by the head of the Pacific regional administration of the federal border service (TORU) corroborates the OVIR data. The border service report states that 80,622 PRC nationals entered Primor’e "through tourist exchange channels" from 1998 through June 1999. This border service report refers to these Chinese visitors as "tourist-businessmen," which fairly well reflects the reality of most Chinese nationals entering Primor’e on tourist visas to engage in business. TORU and OVIR numbers match closely. The TORU report also suggests the tendency toward legalization of Chinese visitations, with the number of attempted entries on forged passports declining from 230 in 1996 to 120 in 1997 and 107 in 1998.

As for entry outside border checkpoints, from November 1998 to March 1999, the border patrols intercepted 41 PRC nationals attempting to cross the Russian border illegally, a very small number relative even to sparsely populated borderline districts of Primorskii krai. TORU reported that in 1998 the border service intercepted and deported 1,600 illegal PRC migrants who entered Primor’e from the territories of Khabarovsk, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Amur, and Chita. This suggests that the overall number of PRC nationals migrating from other Russian Federation regions to Primor’e does not have a significant impact on the total number of PRC migrants in the krai.⁴  In a memorandum issued upon this author’s request in May 1999, TORU stated: "The situation on the border with the PRC in recent years has been stable and predictable. It reflects the mutual aspiration of China and Russia to develop the necessary political conditions for a constructive partnership."⁵

A more alarmist report by Primor’e’s internal affairs administration (UVD) in January 1996 claimed that from 1993 through 1995 415,000 PRC citizens had traveled to Primor’e, but that only 145,000 got registered, while the rest moved on to other parts of Russia.⁶ First, the alleged report was released for distribution in 1996 by the governor-controlled Vladivostok daily. Yet, the UVD public liaison office did not make the report available to the local Russian scholars and to this author. That puts into question the existence of the report. Second, it is unclear how the UVD physically counted nearly 300,000 unregistered Chinese migrants over three years. Third, if the police found and counted these illegal migrants it is unclear why they were not deported, given that Operation Foreigner was in effect since 1994. Fourthly, a substantial number of these migrants would have to be located in or around Primor’e’s largest cities of Vladivostok, Ussuriisk, and Nakhodka. These settlements would have to be much larger than the presently largest compact settlement area of Chinese migrants in Ussuriisk numbering around 2,000.⁷ One simply does not find anything approximating the Chinatowns of New York and San Francisco, or Seattle’s International District in Primor’e. Nor does one find evidence that such settlements existed in the early 1990s.

The number of legally employed PRC citizens in Primor’e, provided by the krai Goskomstat branch, was 7,895 in 1994, 8,349 in 1995, 8,292 in 1996, 6,968 in 1997, and 7,179 in 1998, also suggesting a stable and limited flow (See Addendum, Table A1). Between 63 and 69 percent of these migrant workers are concentrated in Primor’e’s cities of Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Nakhodka, Artem, Arsen’ev, and Partizansk. Approximately 30 percent are located in Primorye’s 13 borderline districts (raions).⁸ Since nearly 90 percent of these migrant laborers are employed in construction and agriculture, these migrant flows are seasonal with about one half of the total annual number present in Primor’e at any one time. In Ussuriisk, for example, I visited an enclosed area on the outskirts of the city where one is greeted by a sign, "China Town" (Kitaiskii gorodok), in Russian and Chinese on a pagoda-style gate with dragonheads. Designed to house some 1,300 Chinese laborers, the China Town was deserted during my visit in late May 1999.⁹ The gate was chained shut, with some mean-looking watchdogs, empty barracks in variable state of dilapidation, and no human beings greeting this author. Assuming that Chinese migrant workers and "tourist businessmen" spend half time in Russia and half in China during the year, around 15,000 PRC nationals in 1997 and 35,000 in 1998 were in Primor’e at any given time. Chief of the federal migration service in Primorskii krai, Sergei Pushkarev, estimated in May 1999 that no more than 5,000 Chinese nationals could be found in Primor’e on any given day.¹⁰ Thus, the number of Chinese nationals present in Primor’e at any given time is unlikely to have exceeded from 0.3 to 1.1 percent of the average krai population of 2.2 million mostly ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in 1996-1998. Primor’e statistics also suggests that precious few PRC nationals want to become permanent residents in Russia: at the beginning of 1995, for example, only 26 PRC citizens had that status, and five other visitors stayed on as "persons without citizenship."¹¹

The "Chinese Factor" in Primor’e: The Socioeconomic Impact

Visiting the Vladivostok GUM (central department store), one quickly takes note of numerous handwritten signs "Made in the PRC" stuck under items on display shelves. These signs suggest that Chinese consumer goods won a large market share in Primor’e and that the PRC migrants are part of a bigger picture of cross-border interactions between Russia and China. In other words, the socioeconomic impact associated in Primor’e with the PRC migrants—and by extension with the neighboring Chinese provinces and China at large—reaches far beyond the activities of PRC nationals within the krai.

I assume that in any given area of Primor’e, socioeconomic activities associated with the PRC nationals ("the Chinese factor") may give rise to both likes (positive incentives) and dislikes (negative incentives) among the local population. These incentives can be either strong (if more than average amount of money is generated by economic activities) or weak (if less than average amount is generated). Thus, cities and districts of Primor’e will differ on the strength of positive and negative incentives for accepting economic activities of the PRC migrants, on policy preferences, and on behavior toward the PRC nationals. This assessment is based on the assumption that Primor’e residents, for the most part, are rational actors.

Trade

Since the late 1980s, Chinese "shuttle" traders in Primor’e eased chronic food and consumer goods shortages endemic to the Soviet centrally planned economy. Later in the 1990s, this trade offset a sharp drop in output of Primor’e’s consumer goods producers. Supply from European Russia became too costly as a result of increased electricity and transportation tariffs. While most local residents complain that Chinese goods traded by "shuttlers" (chelnoki) are of low quality, these goods are superior to most formerly available Soviet-made products and come in a wider assortment. In addition, consumers in Primor’e now can buy fresh fruits and vegetables that were unavailable when Chinese nationals were not allowed to trade there. Even a xenophobic-minded chieftain of the Ussury Cossack Army grudgingly admitted to this author that Chinese traders deserve credit for supplying the krai with fresh vegetables. In the Soviet era even the special officer rations of the Pacific Fleet provided only dried onions and potatoes as fruit and vegetables. This explains why local residents still see economic miracle in colorful rows of fruits and vegetables at Chinese markets.¹²

The virtual collapse of the Soviet-era consumer goods’ and agricultural industries in Primor’e in the 1990s has created positive incentives for cross-border trade with China in two ways. While Chinese shuttle traders fill the gap in domestic supply, the laid-off employees of now idle factories have seized the opportunity to make a living through cross-border trade. In Vladivostok, Ussuriisk, Artem, and Arsen’ev, according to the krai statistics office, the decline of consumer goods production from 1990 to 1997 averaged 99 percent for shoes, garments, kitchenware, refrigerators, washing machines, and soap, thus increasing the economic incentives for cross-border trade and exchanges (Table A2). The production of milk, meat, and eggs—Primor’e’s key food staples—declined in all of the borderline raions and major cities except one (Table A3), raising incentives for supply from Chinese traders and growers.

Similarly, a decline in real wages in Primor’e since 1990 has driven people to outside sources of income and lowest possible prices. Between 1993 and 1997, wages measured in constant 1991 prices decreased on average by 16 percent throughout Primor’e and amounted only to 37 percent of the 1991 level. Differentiation among raions took place, ranging from Pozharskii district which posted a one percent decline to Khorol’skii district where wages dropped by 27 percent (Table A4). Cross-border trade provides an escape to local Russians from deteriorating conditions in the old economic sectors. The number of Russians from Primor’e visiting China (with most of these travelers engaging in cross-border trade) exceeded the number of Chinese tourists visiting Primor’e by about 10 times from 1992 to 1996.¹³ The "Chinese markets" sprang up in most of Primor’e’s cities. According to Yevgeniy Plaksen of the Vladivostok Institute of History who conducts opinion surveys at these markets and regularly shops there, prices are on average one third to one half lower than those in most shops and department stores in Primor’e’s cities.¹⁴

Investment

Assuming that the flow of the PRC capital in Primor’e creates job opportunities, increases the supply of goods, enables business leaders to turn a profit, and opens the prospects for extra revenues to government officials, the investment volume from PRC into Primor’e is the first indication of incentives for supporting Chinese presence. As Figure 1 shows, investments from China made in dollars into Primor’e’s economy declined after 1996 and they were displaced almost entirely by investment in rubles. This suggests that a lot of Chinese investors started to invest ruble revenues generated locally in Primor’e. At the same time, the total volume of investment has fluctuated widely, dropping from $48,000 and about 2.4 denominated billion rubles in 1997 to $15,000 and 644 denominated million rubles in 1998 (the Primor’e statistics committee keeps separate accounts of the ruble and dollar investments). In real terms this decline was even larger due to a sharp drop in the ruble exchange rate after the August 1998 financial crisis.
 

The investment data was not available by city and raion. Yet, the distribution of Russian-Chinese joints ventures across Primor’e (Table A5) suggests that the biggest drops in investment from PRC by 1998 were most likely in Vladivostok and Nakhodka.

These two largest cities in Primor’e have accounted for the majority of joint ventures with PRC capital. Overall, the number of Russian-Chinese JV’s rose from 12 in 1993 to 76 in 1996, dropping to 33 in 1998. This suggests that incentives from cross-border economic activities to Primor’e’s elites and the public diminished from 1996 to 1998.

Joint Ventures

The volume of goods produced and services rendered by Russian-Chinese joint ventures in Primor’e’s major cities and borderline districts rose from $400,000 in 1993 to $4.8 million in 1996, but then declined to $1.4 million in 1998 (Table 2). Only in Khankaiskii and Dal’nerechenskii districts the JV output increased during this time, whereas JV output fell to zero in four districts and declined most significantly in the big cities.

Significant, yet generally low output levels, even in Primor’e’s largest cities at peak time, also indicate that Russian-Chinese JV’s have contributed little in the 1990s to the production of goods and services in the krai, and hence provided few benefits to local consumers.

At the same time, however, these JV’s have generated a large volume of domestic and cross-border trade, in most cases exceeding local tax revenues (Tables 3 and 4). This gives local government elites strong incentives to support economic activities with China. The higher the trade-to-taxes ratio, the larger the resources that Russian-Chinese joint ventures have to pay off local officials, and the greater the incentive to local officials to seek rent for themselves. In this sense, this ratio is an unobtrusive indicator of corruption incentives by city and district. These incentives have stayed moderately high in Vladivostok and low in Partizanskii district; increased significantly in Ussuriisk, and phenomenally in Dalnerechenskii district; and fluctuated in Nakhodka and in Nadezhdinskii district.

Even in large cities with diverse economies Russian-Chinese joint ventures generated sales exceeding entire tax revenues (by 3.7 times in Vladivostok and by 8.2 times in Nakhodka in 1997). In areas with less diverse, underdeveloped economic base these joint ventures generated sales that outstripped locally collected tax revenues rapidly and by large margins (e.g., by 30.3 times in Nadezhdinskii district and by 64.3 times in Dal’nerechenskii district in 1996).

The rise of Russian-Chinese JV’s in such districts is usually associated with natural resource export to China, especially of timber and fish. Incentives for corruption are high in these districts both to government officials and to Russian and Chinese traders. At the same time, as Table 4 suggests in particular, these trade revenues have fluctuated significantly everywhere outside Vladivostok. This, in turn, suggests a high level of uncertainty about JV trade revenues. Rational actors under uncertainty maximize their short-term payoffs at the expense of long-term investment. They are also not interested in institution building, or in making business transactions both rule-based and transparent to the public. In post-communist, de-ideologized political environment where institutions enforcing the rules and norms of market behavior are weak to begin with, government officials are particularly likely to be such rational actors. Primor’e’s geographical remoteness from the Russian federal authorities only reinforces the incentive to abandon the rule-based behavior. In short, the higher the volatility of trade-over-taxes ratio over time in any given city or district, the more aggressively the local officials are likely to seek rent and illicit incomes from economic activities associated with Chinese nationals.

Tables 3 and 4 also show that economic incentives for cooperation with Chinese traders (and also for corruption) increased in Ussuriisk after 1996. This trend has been confirmed to this author in May 1999 by Mikhail Vetrik, the director of Primor’e’s largest Chinese market, located in Ussuriisk. Mr. Vetrik, notwithstanding his openly expressed dislike for ethnic Chinese "infiltration" into the region, spoke with pride that his Chinese trade center generated 10% of the budget revenues for the city of Ussuriisk (population 160,000)—a contribution estimated by Vetrik at $700,000 for 1998 and, prospectively, for 1999. With factories idle and salaries unpaid, this Slavic nationalist said: "Our back is against the wall. We’ve got to help these traders."¹⁸

Migrant Labor

At the same time, the dependency of local economies in Primor’e on Chinese migrant labor has been generally low (Table 5). However, since most Chinese migrant workers are employed in construction and vegetable growing—sectors in which Russian laborers have a reputation for incompetence—these numbers also reflect incentives for local business and government leaders

to cooperate with ethnic Chinese migrants. By this measure, these incentives have been the lowest in cities, except for Ussuriisk and Nakhodka (in 1996), and the highest in the border raions, especially in Oktiabr’skii, Partizanskii, and Pogranichnyi.

Differences in migrant labor changes across Primor’e have had some effect on vegetable output by all types of agricultural producers in 1996 and 1997 (the only two years for which data is available). Thus, an 18-percent decline from 1996 to 1997 of the number of Chinese migrant workers coincided with a 21-percent decline of vegetable production. Correlation analysis across 20 cities and districts in Primor’e (listed in Table 5) shows that vegetable production was more likely to rise or to resist decline in places where the number of Chinese migrant laborers increased from 1996 to 1997 (Table 6).²⁰ A stronger association of Chinese workers’ presence with smaller output decline than with output growth fits well with the post-Soviet economic situation in Primor’e. Given a massive general decline in production after 1990 and persistently small share in Primor’e’s workforce of Chinese migrant laborers, one is unlikely to find a strong positive correlation between Chinese migration levels and production growth. Chinese migrant laborers contribute to local economies, for the most part, by reducing production decline. It is, however, harder to discern benefits arising from slower decline than from growth.

If causality in this correlation model is reversed (i.e., if harvest size dictates how many migrant workers come to Primor’e) then positive economic incentives associated with Chinese migrant workers will be higher than Table 6 shows, suggesting that local Russians regulate the migrant inflow depending on labor demand. In other words, labor and production incentives would be mutually reinforcing. At the same time, economic statistics for Primor’e shows that Chinese migrant labor has had little, if any, effect on individual housing construction, and, by that indicator, local Russians in 1997 had few incentives to support Chinese presence (Table A9).

According to the chief of the Russian federal migration service for Primorskii krai, Sergei Pushkarev, Russian businesses hire Chinese migrant workers for three main reasons—quality, work discipline, and farming skills. PRC nationals are seen daily at main construction sites in Vladivostok. This author, for example, observed them working hard at around 7 p.m. in Vladivostok’s central square, renovating the monument in honor of the fighters for Soviet power next to the krai administration headquarters. (Few Russian construction workers are still sober and productive this late in the day.) Pushkarev also said that Chinese traders offer price incentives for local Russian shoppers. He admitted shopping at the Chinese market in Ussuriisk about every two weeks—under heavy pressure from his wife who finds good bargains there.²¹

Illicit Trade

According to Andrei Kopayev, a senior investigator at the "Tigr" department that deals with cross-border smuggling at the State Environmental Committee for Primorskii krai, Chinese smugglers reselling tiger parts provided by Russian poachers can expect to generate each year around $100,000. Chinese traders who buy illegally harvested ash-trees in Primor’e at $40 per cubic meter can resell this timber for $80-100 per cubic feet in China, generating, in Kopayev’s estimate, over $1,000,000 a year. The chief of the "Tigr" department, Sergei Zubov, estimates that in Krasnoarmeiskii district alone, 5,000 cubic meters of ash-trees were harvested in 1998 with Chinese traders turning up to $70 profit per cubic meter. And with approximately one ton of illegally harvested wild ginseng, Chinese resellers can expect to raise $2 million a year, at the going rate of $2 a gram.²² Overall, Kopayev estimates, that about 90 percent of demand for poaching and smuggling is generated from across the Chinese border. The "Tigr" department—funded primarily by the World Wildlife Fund with smaller contributions coming from Exxon and Coca-Cola—intercepts only a portion of this illicit trade (according to the departmental memo, its workers extracted $219,395 worth of ginseng roots, dried sea cucumbers, timber, and musk deer sex glands in 1998).

Even discounting the money received by smugglers for items such as fish, frogs, sea cucumbers (trepang), sea urchins, bear parts, musk deer glands, and others (see Table A10), Chinese traders make upwards of $3 million per year from smuggling operations (with a similar amount going to Russian poachers and sellers). This rise in illicit trade has coincided with decline in tax revenues collected by the Tax Service of the Russian Federation in the Primor’e’s largest cities and border districts. In dollar terms, these tax revenues fell from $2 billion in 1997 to $656 million in 1998, reflecting a sharp drop in the ruble-to-dollar exchange rate after the August 1998 currency devaluation.²³ Illicit traders have increased their financial resources (mostly in ready cash) against the background of declining has tax revenues, especially in remote disctricts, such as Dal’nerechenskii, (much of it on paper and in the form of promissory notes). This ready availability of increasing amounts of illegal cash combined with a decline in legally available resources establishes a strong foundation for corruption of government officials in Primor’e’.

Kopayev and Zubov, based on their experience on the ground, identified the city and district of Ussuriisk as the key transit hub for cross-border smuggling, followed by Lesozavodskii, Dal’nerechenskii, and Khasanskii district. Larger traders in these districts, according to Kopayev, pay protection money to police captains who ensure their business is safe from both police raids and petty criminals. He added, with anger and despondency: "If only these police officers knew for how little they sell their protection."²⁴

Demographic Insecurity

While the level of Chinese migration into Primor’e has stayed low and increasingly under control in recent years, these visitors do remind local Russians about a large demographic disparity in China’s favor. One of the themes recurring in street conversations and interviews with officials that this author conducted in Vladivostok, Ussuriisk, and Nakhodka in 1999 was that if Chinese nationals settle down in Primor’e, they would gradually take over. As one taxi driver said, using a racially charged description of ethnic Chinese that is common in Russia: "We will wake up one day and find out that every other person is squint-eyed [kosoglazyi]."

This perception of demographic insecurity arises first from disparity in population size, whereby Primor’e’s 2.2 million ethnic Russians and Ukrainians face 70 million ethnic Chinese in the neighboring Heilongjiang province.²⁵ The vice-chancellor of the Far Eastern government service academy has been alarmed that "the population of Khasan district of Primorskii Krai is 65,000, while 2 million people in North Korea and 20 million in China live on the territory of equal size across the border from Khasan."²⁶

One Russian scholar has quantified demographic pressure from China on the southern part of the Russian Far East (Primoskii and Khabarovskii krais, Amur region, and Jewish Autonomous District). By his indicators, this pressure amounts to 63,000 Chinese nationals per one Russian, per one kilometer of the Russian-Chinese border in the Far East. Population density pressure amounts to 380,000 Chinese per one Russian, per one kilometer of the border inside a one-kilometer band along the same border.²⁷

Assuming that Chinese nationals from the entire neighboring area may move into any of Primor’e’s borderline districts, demographic insecurity (and negative incentives for Chinese migration) will be highest in districts with lower population size and density. A decline in population size and density will also raise demographic insecurity. By these measures (Table A11), the strongest negative incentives could be associated with Chinese migration in Dal’nerechenskii, Kirovskii, Pogranichnyi, Spasskii, Khankaiskii, Shkotovskii, and Ussuriiski districts (excluding the city of Ussuriisk where these incentives are weak). For example, in Dal’nerechenskii district, population declined by 7.5 percent from 1993 to 1998 and population density in 1998 was 5 times below average for Primor’e’s borderline districts. Natural population growth in that district (8.2 per 1,000 in 1990) gave way to natural decline (-3.1 per 1,000 in 1997). During the same time period, 4.4 percent of mostly ethnic Slavs migrated out of the district (at a 2.5 times higher rate than the average for borderline districts). In Pozharskii, Lesozavodskii, and Khorol’skii districts, demographic factors are mixed, while in the cities these factors are mostly weak (Table A11).

Job Competition

From 1990 to 1996, according to a Moscow Carnegie Center study, Chinese migrants in the Russian Far East engaged primarily in vegetable growing and construction—activities in which job vacancies were available even amidst growing unemployment among local Russians.²⁸ Yet, few would deny that higher unemployment rates foment stronger dislike for migrant workers. Unemployment-to-job-vacancy ratios have increased throughout Primor’e’s major cities and border districts from 93 in 1995 to 162 in 1997 (Table 7). Job grievances are likely to be the strongest in Khankaiskii, Khasanskii, Kirovskii, Shkotovskii and Khorol’skii districts and in the city of Arseniev. No job vacancies were registered in Kirovskii district in 1995-97, in Khankaiskii district in 1996 and 1997, and in Khasanskii district in 1996. In Artem job competition increased sharply, from 17 job seekers (1995) to 77 (1997) per vacancy. At the same time, Spasski district and Partizansk posted large drops in job seekers-per-vacancy ratio. In all other districts the situation changed little, with the smallest number of job seekers per vacancy in Vladivostok, Nakhodka, and Ussuriisk, and in Nadezhdinskii and Pogranichnyi districts.

*Includes the raion capital. No data available for Spasski raion outside the capital for 1996; **No job vacancies announced, data is the number of job seekers. No job vacancies announced in 1996 and 1997 for Khankaiskii and in 1996 for Khasanskii r-n; ***Data available only for raion capital. For Lesozavodsk, 1996 data includes raion.

Environmental Grievances

While revenues from poaching and illicit trade make those who engage in these activities benefit from Chinese presence in Primor’e, the depletion of natural resources is perceived negatively by the rest of the local residents. Environmental grievances also create incentives for political elites to score quick publicity points by shifting the blame for this complex problem squarely onto Chinese citizens. The "Tigr" department data (Table A10) suggest that these grievances have increased throughout Primor’e from 1994 to 1998. Most bioresources affected by Chinese-driven poaching and illicit trading are located in Kirovskii, Khankaiskii and Khasanskii districts (Table 8), whereas environmental sensitivities are weakest in the cities. Few sensitive bioresources are located in Oktiabr’skii and Lesozavodskii districts.

Conclusion: Incentives, Corruption, and Interethnic Security in Primor’e

Chinese migrant activities in Primor’e around 1998 remained beneficial to the local Russian nationals in providing vegetables, affordable consumer goods, quality labor, and illicit payoffs from cross-border trade, domestic trade, and smuggling of bioresources. The capital generated by Russian-Chinese economic activities in Primor’e dwarfs the revenues that finance local government activities in the krai, suggesting ample opportunities for rent-seeking. At the same time, Chinese presence in Primor’e remains to be associated with "demographic pressure" from the neighboring provinces of China with overwhelmingly larger (and growing) population. The continuing out-migration from Primor’e and the prevalence of death over birth rates enhance this "demographic insecurity." While economic decline has been somewhat cushioned through increase in cross-border cooperation with Chinese nationals, this cooperation is yet to produce any significant improvement in Primor’e’s economy. The deteriorating jobs-per-vacancy ratios make Chinese migrant workers less welcome. The growing illicit trade in sensitive bioresources has raised the potential for environmental grievances against PRC nationals in Primor’e.

The interplay of these incentives produces a 2x2 typology of cities and districts in Primor’e suggesting four ideal types of elite and public orientation toward Chinese migrants.

Table 9. Socioeconomic Incentives and Orientation Toward PRC Nationals in Primor’e (Based on Table A12)

The findings summarized in Table 9 suggest that in most of Primor’e’s territory, both positive and negative socioeconomic incentives associated with Chinese activities in the krai are weak (Quadrant D). In these areas local Russians are likely to be apathetic to Chinese migration as a political issue. Positive incentives linked with Chinese migrants are weak in most borderline districts and in one major city, Nakhodka. In five districts weak positive incentives are combined with strong negative incentives (Quadrant B), which is likely to give rise to anti-Chinese activism and to make officials less likely to restrain such activism. Yet, in cities with about half of the krai population positive incentives prevail over negative ones. There, even xenophobic and Sinophobic officials are most likely to exercise restraint and promote cooperation with Chinese migrants (as exemplified by the head of the Chinese trade center in Ussuriisk). Finally, in two districts I found both positive and negative economic incentives to be strong, suggesting that latent ethnic tensions are likely. Officials in such districts can be expected to harbor latent hostility toward Chinese migrants, while neither cracking down on cross-border migration, nor promoting economic cross-border economic cooperation. The study also finds that in Vladivostok, Ussuriisk, and Dal’nerechenskii district, larger than average financial resources resulting from economic activities of PRC nationals have been available for corruption of government officials, potentially reducing their incentives for anti-Chinese activism.

Notes

¹ The author would like to thank the University Research Council, the College of Arts and Scienes, the International Studies Program and the Department of Political Science at the Appalachian State University, and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for providing additional financial support. The author thanks Professors Herbert Ellison and Stephen Hanson of the University of Washington for their helpful comments at the initial stages of the project, and to the National Bureau of National Research (and Bruce Acker, in particular) for its editorial assistance with the project proposal and for processing and submitting the initial application to NCEEER. The project was conducted in collaboration with Tamara Troyakova and Yevgenii Plaksen of the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The author thanks them for providing data, arranging meetings and field trips and for helping to conduct interviews during his research trip to Vladivostok, May 16-June 3, 1999.
²  Viktor Larin, Kitai I Dal’nii Vostok Rossii v pervoi polovine 90-kh: problemy regional’nogo vzaimodeistviia (Vladivostok: Dal’nauka, 1998), 72, 74-75.
³  Otdel viz i razreshenii Primorskogo kraya (OVIR), Spravka, Lt.-Col. Viktor M. Plotnikov, deputy head of the department, Vladivostok, June 2, 1999.
⁴  Lt.-Gen. P. Tarasenko, “Migratsionnye protsessy, ikh vliianie ne kriminogennuiu obstanovku v krae i o dopolnitel’nykh merakh po uporiadocheniiu prebyvaniia i osedaniia inostrannykh grazhdan na territorii Primorskogo kraia.” Report by the head of the Pacific Regional Administration of the Russian Border Service (TORU), Vladivostok, July 1999, pp. 1, 3, 4.
⁵  TORU Press Service, Spravka o migratsii grazhdan Kitaia v Rossiiu I tret’i strany cherez yeye terriroriiu v 1998-99 gg.
⁶  Vladivostok, January 6, 1996, quoted in Larin, Kitai I Dal’nii Vostok Rossii, 106.
⁷  Sergei Pushkarev, head of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation for Primorskii krai, interview, Vladivostok, May 20, 1999; Mikhail Vetrik, director, Chinese trade center, Ussuriisk, interview, Ussuriisk, May 26, 1999.
⁸  Confirmed in Tarasenko (TORU report), 1-2.
⁹  Mikhail Vetrik, interview, Ussuriisk, May 26, 1999.
¹⁰  Interview, Vladivostok, May 20, 1999.
¹¹  Primorskii krai v 1994 godu: statisticheskii yezhegodnik (Vladivostok, 1995), 16, quoted in Larin, Kitai I Dal’nii Vostok Rossii, 114.
¹²  Author’s interviews with Viktor Poluyanov, the cossack chieftain, Vladivostok, May 31, 1999; and with the former naval officer, Yevgeniy Plaksen, Vladivostok, May 22, 1999.
¹³  Larin, Kitai I Dal’nii Vostok Rossii, 113.
¹⁴  Yevgenii Plaksen, interview, Vladivostok, May 22, 1999.
¹⁵  Goskomstat Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Primorskii kraevoi komitet gosudarstvennoi statistiki, , No. 19sv-39, May 28, 1999. Output was measured in current rubles and converted into current dollars by the author at the average ruble-to-dollar annual exchange rate.
¹⁶  Ibid.
¹⁷  Ibid.
¹⁸  Interview, Ussuriisk, May 26, 1999.
¹⁹  Goskomstat Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Primorskii kraevoi komitet gosudarstvennoi statistiki, , No. 19sv-39, May 28, 1999 for the number of Chinese migrant laborers. For the number of registered employees see Goskomstat Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Primorskii kraevoi komitet gosudarstvennoi statistiki, Sotsial'naia sfera gorodov I raionov Primorskogo kraia (Vladivostok, 1998), 18 (1995-97 data); Idem, Sotsial'naia sfera gorodov I raionov Primorskogo kraia (Vladivostok, 1997), 18 (1994 data).
²⁰  Based on data in Table 5 and Goskomstat Rossii, Primorskii Krayevoi Komitet gosudarstvennoi statistiki, Sotsial'naia sfera gorodov I raionov Primorskogo Kraia (Vladivostok, 1998), 80-81.
²¹  Interview, Vladivostok, May 20, 1999.
²²  Interview, Vladivostok, May 25, 1999.
²³  Goskomstat Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Primorskii kraevoi komitet gosudarstvennoi statistiki, , No. 19sv-39, May 28, 1999.
²⁴  Interview, Vladivostok, May 25, 1999.
²⁵  Mikhail Nosov, Rossiiskii Dal’nii Vostok I Kitai: problemy segodniashnego dnia I perspektivy sotrudnichestva, Moscow Carnegie Center report, 1996, Internet version, p. 8 of 14.
²⁶  N.M. Baikov, Kitaitsi v obshchestvennom mnenii zhiteley Dal’nevostochnogo regiona, paper presented at the roundtable, “Prospects for the Far East Region: The Chinese Factor,” Institute of History, Archeology, and Ethnography of the Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok, July 9, 1999, p. 3.
²⁷  P. Ya. Baklanov, Geograficheskie, sotsial’no-ekonomicheskiye i geopoliticheskiye faktory migratsii kitaiiskogo naseleniye v raiony rossiiskogo Dal’nego vostoka, paper presented at the roundtable, “Prospects for the Far East Region: The Chinese Factor,” Institute of History, Archeology, and Ethnography of the Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok, July 9, 1999.
²⁸  Vladimir Portiakov, Migratsionnaia situatsiia na Dal’nem Vostoke Rossii, Moscow Carnegie Center report, 1996, Internet version, p. 11 of 13.
²⁹  Goskomstat Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Primorskii kraevoi komitet gosudarstvennoi statistiki, Sotsial'naia sfera gorodov I raionov Primorskogo kraia (Vladivostok, 1998), 19 (1996-97 data); Idem, Sotsial'naia sfera gorodov I raionov Primorskogo kraia (Vladivostok, 1997), 19 (1995 data).
³⁰  Rezul'taty kontrol'no-inspektsionnoi deiatel'nosti otdela "Tigr" Goskomekologii Primorskogo kraia za period s aprelia 1994 po dekabr' 1998 gg. Compiled by B.I. Litvinov, Deputy head of the "Tigr" deparment, 1999.