Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches (50 page)

The aims of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are also understandable. They have nowhere else to go. South Ossetia makes no secret of the fact that it would like to be united with North Ossetia, which is impossible without Moscow’s involvement. For its part Abkhazia sees no possibility of returning to the bosom of Georgia and, since it needs someone to snuggle up to, turns to Moscow.

In practice, however, both these conflicts, frozen in Soviet times, have now turned into black holes, and although the political map of the world shows both territories as part of independent Georgia, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia are de facto zones without taxation, without transparent budgets, without legitimate government institutions, without budgetary resources and all the other things which fundamentally differentiate a law-governed territory from a lawless one.

Why does the Kremlin need black holes? For internal puposes, mainly; for a straightforward way of injecting covert funds where they are needed; to facilitate all kinds of plots. Russia’s claims to support the rule of law are just so much hot air. In reality there is still a policy
of supporting territories which can be used for injecting or extracting large amounts of money that don’t need to be accounted for. Such zones are needed for covert operations and missions where nobody is accountable to anybody else, or even has to sign a form.

Russian policy continues to be one of cash under the counter. Without it nothing happens. Cash under the counter is a cornerstone of every branch and institution of the Government. Externally supported chaos in place of order and defined norms is essential for such games to succeed.

To have black holes beyond your own borders is extremely convenient, far more convenient than offshore funds, where at any moment somebody may sniff you out and you have to devise elaborate multi-layered structures for purposes of concealment, only increasing the probability that information will leak out. In Abkhazia and South Ossetia nothing like that is needed.

In Soviet times, certain African regimes served this purpose. The Politburo presented them as centers of “national liberation,” pumped in Party funds, and got on with its dodgy financial operations. In Russia Chechnya provided a domestic black hole for a while. The failure to develop a normal banking system there was entirely deliberate, and Chechnya has none to this day. Chechnya, however, is within the Russian Federation and that was a snag. There was always the risk of official inspections, Audit Commissions, even an honest Prosecutor popping up. In any case the appetite of Ramzan Kadyrov and his comrades keeps growing.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia have so far operated without a hitch. You can do many things there which you can’t elsewhere. You can send in money, arms and drugs – and that does go on. You can also pull it back out, and that too occurs. There is no inventorising or stocktaking; you just have to feed the undemanding local regimes and spread a bit of propaganda around about “defending Russian citizens.” It’s as easy as that.

In his first term Putin successfully pressurised Shevardnadze to the point where he, a Soviet oligarch who knew exactly how and why such black holes are needed, caved in and handed over a third of
Georgia’s territory as an ask-no-questions zone for Russian dealings. Under the new President business slumped; Saakashvili almost immediately announced a policy of thawing out the frozen conflicts – for example between Georgia and Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia – and thereby became Russia’s Enemy No. 1. Putin let Saakashvili have Adjara back without too much fuss because it was in any case working more in the interests of its own Prince Abashidze than of Moscow, but for the black holes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia he decided to fight.

Russia’s Transcaucasian game calls for severe punishment of the Westernising President Saakashvili, by bombing him, for example, as he openly aligns himself with the USA and tells the old colonial power to “fuck off.” As a result, with every day and hour that passes, we Russians are losing Georgia as a good neighbour, when it is crucial that we should enjoy close and friendly relations with it.

The Putin regime’s current policy of trying to annex two Georgian territories is completely counter to the strategic or indeed any other sensible interests Russia has in the Caucasus.

Finally, a word about love. In the twenty-first century clever rulers do not incite citizens they love and respect to bloodshed. The problems begin if the citizens are unloved, and the rulers a bunch of hopeless dunces.

CHINA ON THE MOVE

July 4, 2005

In June, at an international conference on security in Paris, the well-known Russian sinologist, Professor Vilya Gelbras, read a sensational report about Chinese migration into Russia. Here he replies to questions from
Novaya gazeta
.

Vilya Gelbras, Professor of Economics, Doctor of Historical Sciences, one of Russia’s top sinologists, teaches at the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Moscow State University. He conducts research at the Institute of World Economics and World Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In recent years you have written two ground-breaking books about Chinese migration into Russia. What is their principal theme?
People have been talking about Chinese migration, to the effect that China is virtually seeking to take over the whole of Russia, for a long time. With the aid of my students, I systematically conducted large-scale research into this issue. The first study was in 2001, and for it we selected Moscow, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, and also Ussuriysk, where the greatest numbers of Chinese shuttle traders get off the train, and from where they head for lucrative markets. This material provided the basis of the first book.

For the second book we selected Irkutsk and again the cities of Moscow, Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. Irkutsk interested us because migrants had already settled there. In addition, a Chinese plan came into our possession which had been considered worthy of the attention of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. In it, Irkutsk was allocated a special role. The plan proposed organised settlement of Chinese throughout the territory of Russia via Amur Province. Retaining control of their commodities, they would concentrate at junctions of the trans-Siberian railway all the way to Moscow, and thus radiate their influence outwards. Irkutsk is important to the Chinese because it is central to the movement both of goods and of people from Kazakhstan and into the Altai, including Buryatia. At the time of our research a Chinese consulate had already been opened in Irkutsk.

The resulting book painted a curious picture. We presented a panorama of the enterpreneurial activity of the Chinese in Russia, what they were doing with their money, how it was transferred to China, how goods came in from China and how, on Russian territory, they were converted into money. We also wrote a more substantial special report for the United Nations.

How much money do you calculate we are today transferring to China in this way, and how much are we spending on purchases from the Chinese?
I don’t think we can say very accurately how much we are buying and selling. There is a massive black market, and blatant corruption.

On the part of the Chinese?

No, it is Russian corruption surrounding Chinese trade. For instance, Chinese delegations have recently turned up in the European part of Russia seeking contracts for lumbering timber. Is there no wood in Siberia? We discovered that along the railways in Siberia the Chinese have been allowed to fell the forests so completely that we are in danger of losing larch altogether.

Do the Chinese particularly prize larch?

It is an extremely precious wood. Larch emits a fragrance in perpetuity. It is a delight to live in a house built of larch.

It is surely not because of the fragrance that the Chinese are cutting it down here?

They use it in all kinds of ways, the oil, the seeds and the cones. Everything is processed. They are no longer felling their own forests. From an ecological viewpoint, if a territory has less than 12 per cent of forest cover, natural disasters are inevitable. China has barely 13 per cent, and that is why rarely a year goes by without torrential rain followed by flooding. It is a result of their having stripped their forests in the past.

Was the plan you spoke of approved by the Politburo?

That is unclear. Much is classified in China. My friends there tried to persuade me not to say anything on the subject. They were afraid of leaks, but now it is clear that there is a second similar plan to move via Heihe to Blagoveshchensk and via Suifenhe to Amur Province and beyond. Heihe and Suifenhe are major population centers. The plan provides for the inflow of both migrants and goods. If in 1998–9, even in 2000, these flows were spontaneous, today major Chinese companies have sprung up which give people precise instructions to sell particular goods.

So you’re saying this is already political?

It was political from the outset. Now, my Chinese sources tell me, if a man marries a Russian woman in Russia, he is paid for it.

Who pays him?

The Chinese Government, for putting down roots on our territory. With their policy of birth control (couples are allowed just one child, and preferably a boy) the Chinese have unbalanced the natural reproduction of the sexes. In some districts there is a huge bias in favor of men. Forty to fifty million of them have no prospect whatsoever of finding wives, and now their leaders are looking for palliatives.

What has been the increase in Chinese living permanently in Russia between 2001 and 2004?

It is impossible to say, because the Chinese immigration is forever ebbing and flowing. At present we are talking about half a million or more. Hotheads say two to three million, but that is premature.

What kind of person is the modern Chinese who has settled in Russia?

In the main it is town dwellers, because they are the most literate.

What do the Chinese understand by literacy?

Mostly a Chinese coming to Russia can sign his name. He can read and count, and he is shrewd, able to think quickly in the market. There are only a few peasants in the overall total, and they will have been invited specially. To grow vegetables, for example.

And are they completely illiterate?

It is difficult to say. The Chinese world is such that the foreman speaks for everyone.

And who is the foreman?

The person who assembled the brigade. Nobody will talk to you without his agreement. On many occasions we had to make great efforts to get people to fill in questionnaires themselves. The first surveys were useless because all the questionnaires were filled in by the brigade leader, so they were identical. In agriculture and construction the brigade leader is completely in charge. It is different in trade, where he is more of a supervisor. Very often now in Moscow and Nizhny
Novgorod a brigade leader will hire Ukrainian and Russian traders. If the goods are poor quality you find Ukrainians, if they are a bit better, Russians, but they are working under the supervision of a Chinese.

Are these senior figures mafiosi?

It would be wrong to say they are all mafiosi. Many are hard-working people who earn a living by the sweat of their brow. Mafiosi do not usually actually work. Under an ancient Chinese tradition, they protect the traders for a certain payment.

A kind of protection racket?

They negotiate with our militia and Customs officers. Their job is to shift goods across the border.

The Chinese use Russians for “patronage”?

Of course. The Chinese have nothing against militiamen. I have seen that myself. Let me offer one striking example: the Russian press is always publishing figures about the volume of trade between Russia and China based on – Chinese statistics. Do we not have our own? Of course we do, but the Chinese figures are higher. As soon as goods cross the frontier, there are more of them, by many billions of dollars each year. And that continues year in, year out.

Where does this difference come from?

The black market. Ours is a corrupt economy. Mr Vanin, the Head of our Customs Service, is starting to say we need to impose order. It’s not so much the Chinese mafia who are active as our own, and that is what makes it best to use Chinese statistics. The Chinese figures include both the grey economy and the black market. The second factor accounting for the differences is that in Russia the Chinese engage in forms of trade that would never occur to us. For example, they collect frogspawn. It is greatly valued, and they resourcefully collect kilograms of it at a time.

Where do they get licences for harvesting frogspawn?

Why, bless you, what licences?!

Well, what documents do the Chinese show at the border?

I have no idea, but in the forests of the taiga they live very much on their own, very secretively, busily milking frogs. It is a very gruelling form of poaching, and it will backfire on us.

Timber, frogs, marrying Russian women – are these the results of the new policy China calls “going out”?

Yes. This approach started in 1996–7. They came to it by thinking about conquering world markets. All the academic institutes were brought in, including natural science institutes. It was accepted that indigenous geological discoveries would be a long and very costly endeavour, and the Chinese wanted something quick that would change the situation in the country. They decided to break into world markets by producing cheap goods by the billion. And they have succeeded.

Why did the Chinese need to “go out”?

The majority of Chinese in China are peasants. In all ages they have served as a source of revenue, but 500 million Chinese peasants are not what is needed today. After the XVIth Party Congress, in 2000, when the leadership of China changed, they concluded that the economy had no internal mechanisms encouraging increased production. China has 20 per cent of the world’s population, but they account for very little in the way of production: about 80 per cent of peasants earn less than one US dollar a day; about 60 per cent, less than half a dollar a day. What can someone in that situation aspire to in the market? What interest does he have in innovation? No, it was calculated that they needed to leave 150–170 million peasants in the rural economy, and to take 250–300 million out of the villages. Where to? That is how the era of Chinese expansion came about, “going out.” The peasants were allowed to leave the villages. For China that was a revolution. All towns and provinces which produce goods for export now have mini-townships where peasants live and work. That is why they are so cheap. A new migratory phenomenon appeared: China began as it were to split into two parts, one moving towards our border, to Xinjiang, and the other towards the coast.