BRIEFS

Moscow Sees a Major Surge in Chinese Real Estate Purchases

Chinese buyers are rapidly expanding their footprint in Moscow’s residential property market, particularly in the luxury suburban segment, where their share has risen from 0.5% to 7% over the past year, according to Russian real estate officials. Demand is concentrated in high-end country homes in the Moscow region, especially along the Novorizhskoye Highway, with price ranges typically around 350–400 million rubles ($3 to $4 million). Buyers are largely Chinese businessmen already living and operating in Russia, whose rising wealth has driven interest in country residences as symbols of success.

The shift marks a broader trend of growing Chinese participation in Russian real estate. Chinese buyers now account for an estimated 8–10% of all foreign transactions in Moscow. Purchases vary by demographic: wealthier clients tend to buy premium apartments in districts such as Khoroshevo-Mnevniki and Moscow-City, while students favor more affordable areas near universities. Cash transactions dominate, making up roughly 80–90% of purchases, partly due to banking and transfer constraints between Russia and China.

Preferences in housing design and location also reflect a mix of practical and cultural factors. Buyers tend to favor modern European-style architecture and turnkey properties in well-connected residential communities. RIA-Novosti noted that Feng shui principles subtly influence preferences, including orientation, entrance design, and the presence of water features such as ponds or streams.

Additional considerations include proximity to Chinese-language services, diaspora communities, and bilingual or international schools. Symbolic numerology also plays a role, with the number “8” viewed positively and “4” avoided by Chinese homebuyers. According to industry experts, Chinese citizens can purchase residential property in Russia on the same terms as Russian citizens, provided they have legal residency in the country and submit a basic set of required documents

Four Chinese Citizens Found Guilty of Organizing Illegal “Rally” in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Sentencing Remains Unclear

According to Mediazona, a Russian court in the Far Eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur has finally sentenced four Chinese citizens for organizing a public protest by Chinese workers over unpaid wages on April 12. The Central District Court of Komsomolsk-on-Amur reviewed the four cases under one of the “rally” statutes and, in a rare instance, found Chinese citizens: Jing Junpeng, Zhou Zhaodang, Guo Guanbei, and Feng Ao guilty of organizing a mass gathering of citizens in a public place, resulting in a disturbance of public order (Part 1 of Article 20.2.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).

Earlier, Chinese citizen Xing Qi, who works as the deputy director for administrative affairs at Petro-Hehua, a Chinese contractor used by Rosneft, was fined 50,000 rubles ($664.00) under the same article. He was held accountable for the company’s employee march held on April 12. The actual sentences imposed by the court are not yet known, but they are placing Moscow in a difficult position with Beijing (for more details on the two days of Chinese protests, see Paul Goble’s analysis below).

*Image: “Putin Help Us.” Chinese workers protesting in Komsomolsk on the Amur

Chinese Workers in Russian Far East Protest Over Wage Arrears Force Moscow into a Difficult Position

By Paul Goble

The failure of Russian companies to pay wages in a timely fashion in Russia not only has now reached the highest level in that country since the 2008 wage arrears crisis (which created a major downturn in the Russian economy as part of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis), but has also involved 200 Chinese workers in a refinery construction site in the Russian Far East.

On April 12 local time (April 11 in Moscow), in the city of Komsomolsk on the Amur more than 200 Chinese nationals employed at a Russian refinery construction site owned by Putin protégé Igor Sechin and his Russian oil company Rosneft took to the streets to protest the fact that their Russian employer had not paid them back wages. The action was quietly dispersed but continued the following day as a sit-down strike in the district where the Chinese workers live.

The local Russian militia did not engage in sweeping arrests on the first day, and Russian interior forces known as the Otryad Militsii Osobovo Naznacheniya (Special Purpose Police Detachment), or OMON, who were brought in on the second day of the protests. However, the OMON units did not attack or attempt to disrupt the protesting Chinese workers either. Instead, they simply blocked their way into the city lest the protests continue. Nonetheless, at least five individuals were arrested and fined, rather than given jail time that has typically followed strikes by Russian workers over back pay.

This mixed outcome reflects the unique dilemma Russian officials face. On the one hand, they need Chinese workers to carry out various projects, but are not allowed to challenge firms with close ties to Moscow elites including Putin’s close ally, Igor Sechin and even Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin also cannot afford to anger the Chinese government on whom the Russian government is increasingly dependent. But on the other hand, they cannot afford to suggest to ethnic Russians there and elsewhere that Moscow and its agents in the regions will treat Chinese workers differently and far more softly lest that spark Russian anger not just at the Chinese but at Moscow as well. This could potentially have explosive consequences not only in the run-up to the upcoming September 2026 Duma elections but even more generally for Russia’s “no-limits” partnership with China and its relations with its regions, especially those located east of the Urals.

It is much too early to say whether the compromise response of officials to this protest will satisfy both those who want to use Chinese workers and expand ties with China and those who are opposed to seeing an influx of Chinese migrants whom the Russian government will treat better than it treats its own citizens.

Image Above: Russian Omon Units Monitoring Chinese Protesters in Komsomolsk on the Amur during Easter Protests

Why Did Moscow Call in the OMON?

Because so many interests - Russian and Chinese - were involved, the events in the Russian border city of Komsomolsk on the Amur have received more attention than almost any other labor action in the Russian Federation in recent months. Another additional factor is that Chinese workers at the same plant owned by Sechin protested in 2019 about the same issue and were mollified only when the Russian authorities, working with Beijing, not only sought to have their back pay delivered but also to return to China. This has prompted speculation as to whether Moscow would act differently now than it did then, given its increasing dependence on China and its increasing need to avoid further angering Kremlin elites and ordinary Russians living in the Far East.

By the end of the first day of the Easter protests, all 200 plus of the demonstrators had gone home. While local police forces monitored the first day of protests, officials allowed the police to follow them but did not seek to disperse them with force, only encouraging them to return to their homes in the Chinese settlement there. The company involved said it did not owe the workers anything because it had torn up the contract with them and demanded that the police protect their facilities from any actions by the protesters.

The following morning, however, two things happened: On the one hand, many of those who had protested in the city’s center staged a sit-down strike in their own settlement over the same issues; and on the other, the authorities called in the OMON forces to block any further attempt by the protesters to march into the city, something it does not appear they tried to do and might be interpreted as a sign of distress or panic by the Kremlin. Nonetheless, five of the demonstrators who were arrested, have now been tried and let off with relatively small fines rather than being given jail sentences, which Russian courts routinely hand out in such cases.

Outlook

As Western analysts and Russian officials assess the Chinese protests, the real story behind these events is less about what the protesters wanted and did but how Russian and Chinese officials responded. Officials in the city initially sought to negotiate with the protesters, apparently with the support of the Chinese consulate there. However, they were rapidly overridden by Sechin and his Moscow allies, who did not want to give an inch on the question of back pay. That in turn could have presaged the kind of crackdown Russians are familiar with. But a closer analysis of the situation has shown that the Russian authorities, both in the region and in Moscow, while committed to defending Sechin and his allies, recognized that they could not afford to anger either the Chinese or the broader ethnic Russian community.

Hence, the intriguing compromise: only a few detentions and no jail sentences, and the promise to investigate the backpay issue while at the same time showing their willingness to use force in the form of the OMON to dissuade any repetition of the protests in an effort to suggest that the Chinese in Russia are not beyond the reach of Russian law. That combination reflects the difficulties Moscow faces as the Kitaizatsiya (Sinicization) of Russia continues both between the two countries and between Russians at the official level and in the population. As such, these Easter protests over back pay provide a remarkable window into just how serious those difficulties now are.

Locked In: Trade, Infrastructure, and China’s Expanding Influence in Amur Oblast

By Sergey Sukhankin

In early January 2026, Xinhua News Agency reported that Russia had expanded preferential investment regimes in the Far East, explicitly encouraging Chinese participation in the economies of the five Far Eastern regions. This is being pursued via long-term strategic projects in infrastructure, agriculture, and logistics – with Amur Oblast being named among them. Russia’s policy move reflects two interdependent trends. In a broader sense, it underscores once again the ongoing structural reorientation of Russia’s Far Eastern regions toward China as their primary economic partner. In the case of the Amur region, this shift is becoming nearly absolute: by 2025, between 65 to 76 percent of the region’s foreign trade was tied to China. This concentration creates a structural imbalance by deepening the region’s structural economic dependence on China, which is driven by three reinforcing dynamics: trade concentration, infrastructure lock-in, and production specialization. Together, these dynamics are fundamentally reshaping the region’s economic trajectory, limiting its long-term flexibility and rendering it overwhelmingly dependent on China.

*Map source above: BBC Russian Service

Trade: Growth Accompanied by Asymmetric Dependency

As mentioned earlier, based on regional data, the Chinese share in the foreign trade of the Amur region has reached an overwhelming proportion not only in absolute volume, but what is more critical in terms of year-on-year (y-o-y) growth. For example, in 2025 local authorities reported a 50 percent y-o-y growth which points to an astounding scope of increase both in terms of actual growth and the pace of transformation. This trend has three major implications.

First, growing strategic dependency. From a structural perspective, this indicates that Amur Oblast is not merely increasing trade with China but is becoming economically dependent on a single partner. In some sectors, this trend is rapidly approaching near-record levels. For instance, in agriculture (which accounts for over 5 percent of local GDP), China’s share as a trading partner stands at a staggering 86 percent. This growing imbalance has prompted the federal center to begin cautiously discussing the need to diversify exports toward “other friendly markets.” Similarly, in 2025, Russian media sources in the Far East expressed deep concern over the possibility of China reducing imports of Amur-produced soybeans. This reflects a clear local awareness of the region’s vulnerability to fluctuations in Chinese demand, as well as the lack of viable alternative markets.

Second, an imbalanced economic partnership. The sheer composition of trade itself reinforces this dependency. While exports from Amur Oblast consist primarily of (unprocessed) agricultural products and other raw materials imports from China, by contrast, include machinery, electronics, and consumer goods (high added value products). Among others, this asymmetry reflects a deeply rooted difference in the division of labor where the Russian region supplies low-value commodities while China focuses on higher-value industrial products. Consequently, this structure places the Russian side at a significant economic disadvantage, capturing far less value while remaining dependent on technologically advanced imports from China, thereby mirroring a classic core–periphery pattern.

Third, intra-Russian competition facilitates Chinese advances. The post-2022 interim has illustrated a very important trend, namely: Russia`s Far Eastern regions have embarked on an unspoken (but clearly visible) internal competition for the right to emerge as “Russia’s window to China.” The political leadership of Amur Oblast appears to have gone further than that of any other Russian region in advancing this cause, as regional authorities have proposed that the Russian government establish a pilot zone in Blagoveshchensk, where the mutual use of the Russian Mir payment system and China’s UnionPay cards would be permitted in order to attract Chinese tourists. To facilitate cross-border trade and tourism connectivity, the minister for external relations and tourism in Amur, Ekaterina Kireeva, has proposed integrating Chinese and Russian messaging platforms – WeChat and Max – as part of those efforts. She has also called for the organization of the first international unmanned cargo delivery from Amur Oblast to China in 2026. Taken together, these initiatives run the risk of opening the door to a significant expansion of Chinese influence – not only in intermodal trade, but also in critical domains such as digital commerce and emerging logistics and transportation systems.

             *Image above: The Blagoveshchensk–Heihe bridge

Dependency on China-Oriented Infrastructure Corridors

Given the spatial-geographic and demographic features of the Far East, infrastructure plays a critical role in the physical embeddedness of Amur Oblast within China-oriented economic corridors. For example, the Blagoveshchensk–Heihe bridge, which opened in 2022, represents the first permanent road connection across the Amur River. By 2024, it had facilitated more than 163,000 vehicle crossings, with passenger traffic between the two cities reaching approximately 760,000 crossings. This reflects a dramatic increase in cross-border mobility, which remains highly uneven in terms of the direction of regional movement.

Russian residents frequently travel to Heihe to purchase goods and services, while Chinese demand for Blagoveshchensk remains quite limited. Ultimately, this imbalance reflects broader structural differences: while Heihe functions as a production and logistics hub that is integrated into China’s domestic economy (a more advanced position in the value chain), and Blagoveshchensk operates primarily as a consumption and transit center.

Another notable infrastructure project is the Kani-Kurgan border checkpoint. It currently operates at a limited capacity of 190 trucks per day, but when fully completed, it is expected to handle up to 862 vehicles daily. Regional projections indicate that throughput could increase to 630 vehicles per day in the near term, with passenger traffic reaching up to 2 million people annually.

Finally, other additional projects being pursued are the construction of a “dry port” logistics hub in Blagoveshchensk, with additional plans for the creation of a cross-border cable car, which will further reinforce this infrastructure network. What is crucial to mention is that these infrastructural initiatives should not be seen as a random, selective project. Altogether, they form the core of the International Transport Corridor “Amur.” Inaugurated in 2024, the project is a major highway and logistics route that connects Siberia (Chita), the Russian Far East (Khabarovsk), and China (Heilongjiang Province).

These developments are transforming the region into a high-capacity transit corridor linking Russian production of raw materials and strategic commodities with Chinese markets, creating infrastructure lock-in. Regional transportation networks are become increasingly oriented toward one country – China, resulting in economic activity being channeled along specific routes. Over time, this reduces the feasibility of alternative trade patterns and reinforces dependence on Chinese supply chains. In practical terms, infrastructure is not merely facilitating trade, but rather structurally altering its strategic direction

*Chinese farmer developing Siberian land plot in the Russian Far East. Source: BBC.

The Tacit Sinicization of Siberian Agriculture

According to local authorities, by the end of 2024, China’s growing footprint in Amur Oblast had attracted over 950 billion rubles ($10.26 billion) in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), with a dominant part coming from China. This is another demonstration that economic integration is moving beyond the trajectory of simple import-export trade but is evolving into a more complex form of market entry. In this regard, the realm of agriculture presents, perhaps, the most notable case study. Chinese agricultural exporters – especially Heihe Fangshengyuan Trading Co. Ltd. (黑河方盛源贸易有限公司 / 黑河方盛源商贸有限公司), a firm which is almost exclusively focused on exports to Russia and cross-border trade, have expanded cross-border operations, supplying fruits and vegetables to Russian markets through Amur Oblast.

These companies have primarily benefited from reduced transport costs and improved logistics following the opening of the Blagoveshchensk–Heihe bridge. At the same time, Chinese firms are investing directly in the agriculture-focused sector of the local economy. In 2024, an unnamed Chinese company announced plans to build a 100,000 square-meter agricultural processing facility (specializing in soybeans) in Amur Oblast, aimed at processing locally produced crops for export. This manifests a clear shift toward localized production aligned with meeting Chinese demand.

Another extremely sensitive issue for Moscow is leasing land to China. This topic is virtually non-existent in coverage by Russian media sources, especially given the post-2022 changes by the Kremlin as part of its strategic “no-limits” partnership with China. It is highly sensitive to Moscow when it concerns relations between China and the Amur Oblast and Chinese control over the region’s local arable lands. Arguably, China’s expanding role in agriculture in Amur Oblast is less about outright land ownership than about informal (but durable) control over land use. Russian experts allege that Chinese farmers often clandestinely operate through subleasing, creating joint ventures, and Russian-registered intermediaries, while making their presence difficult to quantify but structurally significant. This creates a system of de facto control without legal ownership.

On a broader scale, pre-2022 reporting in Russia has revealed that Chinese companies already utilize “hundreds of thousands of hectares across the Far East,” often through leasing schemes, whereas individual projects could reportedly involve tens of thousands of hectares. The strategic implication for Russia is not outright direct territorial loss but growing economic dependency on China and gradual erosion of control over border areas, which could pose actual risks undermining Moscow’s long-term strategic control over the area, especially if Russia might one day be dramatically weakened as a result of internal upheaval.

Conclusion

The case of Russia’s Amur Oblast increasingly illustrates a strategic trap of Moscow’s own making. By prioritizing rapid integration with China under conditions of limited alternatives – created due to the Kremlin’s own choices – Russian authorities are inadvertently transferring structural leverage to Beijing at the regional level. The case of Russia’s Amur Oblast increasingly illustrates a strategic trap of Moscow’s own making. By prioritizing rapid integration with China under conditions of limited alternatives—created by the Kremlin’s own choices—Russian authorities are inadvertently transferring structural leverage to Beijing at the regional level. The cumulative effect of trade concentration, infrastructure alignment, and production restructuring is not merely economic asymmetry, but a gradual reorientation of regional decision-making.

Over time, key variables shaping Amur’s development – such as demand, pricing, logistics flows, and even technological standards – risk being determined externally rather than domestically. This dynamic creates a paradox that is not unique to the oblast but is evident across other parts of the Far East: the more successfully Amur Oblast integrates with China, the less capacity Moscow retains to recalibrate that relationship. In the absence of counterbalancing policies, the region is already on its way to evolving into a functionally subordinated economic space, constraining Russia’s broader strategic autonomy in the Far East.

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BRIEF

Sinicization of the Russian Economy Intensifies

As the Ukraine war enters its fifth year, the conflict continues to have a major impact on Russia-Chinese trade, fundamentally reordering the economic relationship between Moscow and Beijing. According to the Russian newspaper Vedomosti, citing recent data published by the Rusprofile analysis service, the Russian market is seeing a dramatic “Kitaizatsia”—or Sinicization —wave driven by developments related to the war.

The number of companies in Russia with Chinese founders or co-founders has increased tenfold since the start of the conflict in Ukraine. While there were only 1,434 such organizations in December 2021, that number has ballooned to 14,798 as of February 2026. This surge means that nearly a quarter of all foreign-participatory organizations in the Russian market are now Chinese-owned.

2025 marked a record high for this expansion, with over 4,300 new companies with Chinese participation opening their doors inside Russia. This growth persists despite the closure of over 2,600 Chinese-registered organizations between 2021 and 2026, suggesting a “survival of the fittest” evolution where more robust, strategically managed firms are taking center stage. Industry experts note that this is not merely a statistical anomaly but a systemic restructuring of business relations.

With Western suppliers vacating the Russian market and online trade exploding, Chinese entrepreneurs are moving beyond simple product delivery. They are now establishing deep roots by acquiring existing Russian firms and luring top local talent in engineering and sales to manage the market from the inside. Experts suggest that by registering legal entities directly within Russia, Chinese firms are gaining vital control over logistics and financial settlements—bypassing the risks currently plaguing international shipping routes in the Persian Gulf.

While the initial wave of growth has favored sectors requiring lower investment and faster scaling, the model is expected to expand into more complex industrial sectors soon. The result is a deepening structural reliance. As the Chinese business presence solidifies, the Russian economy is increasingly becoming tethered to Chinese technology, equipment, and consumer goods to maintain its domestic stability amid global upheaval.

Khabarovsk Buys Chinese Ships to Develop Amur Rather than Help Russian Shipbuilders

By Paul Goble

Khabarovsk officials are now buying Chinese ships to develop the Amur River valley, further undermining Russia’s own hard-pressed shipbuilding industry and setting a dangerous precedent in which Russia will purchase Chinese goods rather than manufacture its own, rendering Russia weaker and more dependent on China over time, according to Artyom Aleksandrov, an economics reporter for the Siberian Economist portal.

The Khabarovsk regional government is doing so, he says, because it can obtain the Chinese ships faster and cheaper and thus meet Moscow’s demands for the development of the Amur; but such an approach is dangerous because it ignores the long-term consequences of buying from China rather than investing in Russia. Over time, Aleksandrov suggests, this will mean that China will only grow stronger and Russia weaker, not only in comparison with each other but on what is now Russian territory.

China is making it easier for Khabarovsk officials to do this, the economics reporter says. The Chinese can provide the ships immediately and at a lower cost, thereby allowing the regional government to meet Moscow’s demands to achieve its goals quickly. But such decisions come at a serious cost, Aleksandrov says, because “they form a dependence on a foreign partner from the supply of parts to the standards of exploitation” and mean that “the industrial part of the project will remain abroad,” while plants and employment in the Russian Federation will continue to decline. This analyst suggests it will not be long until such short-term thinking has ever darker consequences for Russia. Indeed, the impact of this reliance on China is already hurting the shipbuilding industry in Khabarovsk, and the longer the China-first policy continues to ensure that regional officials can meet Moscow’s short-term demands, the more serious this will become.

Moreover, according to Aleksandrov, “such a start sets a risky precedent. If imported vessels become established as the standard solution for this international route, that model could easily be extended to other sectors as well, with those pushing for such an outcome justifying their positions by pointing to the advantages of standardization and cost-efficiency.” That could effectively lead to the closure of Russian plants or at least to the reduction of their size to the point that they would be dependent on Chinese firms for research and development, and thus would fall further and further behind until they would have no possibility of catching up, and China’s dominance in this and other areas will be permanently cemented.

This outcome contradicts Moscow’s stated goals of import substitution and technological sovereignty, the economics reporter says, because “relying on foreign-built vessels, even those from a friendly nation, entrenches external dependency within a sector that is officially designated as a priority and receives state support. Ultimately, the region has opted for immediate transportation benefits, effectively deferring the industrial development component to a later date. The Amur River route may indeed come to life—becoming faster, more convenient, and attracting a growing volume of passenger traffic. But the critical question remains: who, in this scenario, stands to benefit the most,” China and its tourists, “of the local manufacturing sector for whose sake the entire program of the development of the Amur was originally conceived?”

Aleksandrov is not the only person concerned about this. His fears are shared both by some Russian officials in Moscow and by regionalist activists who worry about what decisions like those of the Khabarovsk authorities may lead to, asking the question whether this will pave the way to Sibirizatsia (Siberification) or Kitaizatsia (Sinicization)? Moreover, there are signs that ever more people in Siberia have reached the conclusions that the Siberian Economist expert has as the war in Ukraine has continued.

Earlier this year, the leader of Khabarovsk Kray, recently appointed by the Kremlin, denounced Moscow’s plan to scrap older riverine ships before the country can purchase or build new ones, a move which Governor Dmitry Demeshin says will lead to economic “paralysis” and the isolation of population centers now supplied only by rivers. Late last year, officials in Moscow proposed scrapping riverine ships older than 40 years in order to boost the construction of new ones, a move they argued would help the country’s economy and improve efficiency. In fact, the governor of Khabarovsk expressed such concern that it forced Moscow to take public steps to reassure residents of the Russian Federation east of the Urals that their future is not being sold off to the Chinese because of Moscow’s current needs.

Outlook

Fighting over the purchase of a few passenger ships for Chinese tours to Siberia and the Russian Far East may seem far from the kind of geopolitical issue that it in fact is. Such debates and the willingness of officials and experts in Russia to challenge what are the outcomes of the Kremlin’s actual as opposed to declared policies demonstrate how far Chinese neo-colonialism has spread in the Russian Federation and how worried at least some Russians are about what Moscow is doing and what that will mean for the future of their country, however advantageous the current deals may appear now. The fact that articles are now appearing in the Russian press with the phrase Sinicization on a more frequent basis and that the governor of Khabarovsk has to reassure Siberians repeatedly over a six-month span speaks louder than words about the dangers of Chinese economic intrusion on the Russian Far East.

How Chinese Tourism is Reshaping Buryatia’s Economic Dependency on China

By Sergey Sukhankin

Sparsely populated with a population of less than a million, Buryatia is a republic in eastern Siberia within Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District, situated along the eastern and southeastern shores of Lake Baikal with a size just slightly less than that of Germany. Lake Baikal is the world’s deepest and oldest freshwater lake, holding about 20% of the planet’s unfrozen surface freshwater. Located in Siberia, it stretches over 600 kilometers and is renowned for its exceptional beauty, and it retains a unique status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Buryatia borders Mongolia to the south and is defined by mountainous terrain, river basins, and taiga forests. Buryatia’s geography is oriented around Lake Baikal, while the strategic Trans-Siberian Railroad skirts the Republic, linking it to broader Russian east-west transport networks.

Since 2022, the Russian Republic of Buryatia has become one of the best examples illustrating how China expands its influence in Siberia and the Far East. Chinese strategy is not through overt political control, but through expanding its soft social-economic presence reflected in Buryatia’s growing dependence on Chinese tourist flows, route planning, hospitality adaptation, transport connectivity, and selective labor participation. Despite its economic weakness, Buryatia is attractive to China for two strategic reasons:

First, Lake Baikal offers Beijing access to a major freshwater reserve and strengthens its economic presence in the macro-region through tourism and infrastructure.

Second, it occupies a key borderland position in the China–Mongolia–Russia transit space, where Buryatia’s importance is less pronounced in isolation, but regionally it serves more as a linchpin in a wider northern Eurasian network. Located at a key intersection of Eurasian transport routes such as the Trans-Siberian Railway, Buryatia strategically plays a critical role in connecting the European part of Russia with the Far East. It also serves as an important component of potential cargo routes using its position in Inner Siberia to bolster trade connectivity between China and Europe.

China’s growing interest in these two sectors of the local economy is understandable, given that regional development in the Russian Far East has long depended on support from the federal center, with up to 56 percent of the local budget coming from grants and subsidies from Moscow. However, this support has been marked by uneven investment, making tourism and logistics especially attractive as substitutes for deeper modernization. This structural vulnerability helps explain why local authorities welcome Chinese investment, even as portions of the public remain wary.

The logic is clear and follows a familiar exchange pattern: China provides visitors, financial flows, and potential air links and logistical solutions, while Buryatia offers beautiful scenery, cultural branding, and geographic access. However, this dynamic produces a visible asymmetry in China’s favor. The more the republic adapts to Chinese demand by integrating itself with Beijing, the more China gains quiet structural leverage without requiring formal ownership or a significant political footprint—a pattern consistent with Chinese strategy in other parts of the Russian Far East.

Tourism Drives Chinese Economic Penetration

Undoubtedly, one of the most visible channels of China’s presence in Buryatia is tourism. Its proximity to China makes it especially appealing in this regard since it is a relatively short 2.5- hour plane flight from Beijing. Chinese tourism is becoming a key driver for the development of the local economy, which has started attracting a notable and rapidly growing Chinese interest since at least 2011. In the post-2022 interim, the Chinese presence in the local tourism industry experienced rapid growth.

By 2024, the Republic began receiving an influx of Chinese tourists under a visa-free exchange agreement, bringing in 7,600 visitors— nearly double the previous year’s total. While the Russian side has yet to release tourism-related data on Buryatia, it is assumed that the number of Chinese tourists may have increased further. When discussing the rise of Chinese tourism in Buryatia, it is critical to recognize that post-2024 trends involve more than just increasing numbers, but the local tourism sector is actually being restructured to suit the specific needs of Chinese demand. For example, in a report by ITAR-TASS, it is stated that the local authorities prepared specific routes for travelers from China, including programs tied to the “Great Tea Route” and sacred Baikal branding. Other works on this topic also acknowledge a growing presence of Chinese tourists in Buryatia’s tourism sector as well. One such study published in 2025 argues that Chinese visitors already make up a significant share of hotel occupancy in Ulan-Ude and are reshaping the entire service sector throughout the Buryat capital.

Similarly, the local air logistical structure is in the process of being directly linked to China. Reports indicate local authorities are reportedly involved in talks, while local media are not even mentioning the fact that Moscow does not appear to be a part of these discussions. Moreover, once the Chinese launch direct flights between Buryatia and Beijing, it will likely result in the emergence of a regular Beijing–Ulan-Ude service. Should this new transportation channel become available, China will – without publicly promoting major projects – take another incremental step toward aligning regional infrastructure with Chinese mobility, and connectivity patterns in the Russian Far East.

Analysis of current trends in the local tourism sector suggests that Buryatia is not merely experiencing an increase in Chinese tourist arrivals. Rather, the region may be moving toward adapting its logistics and transportation infrastructure to accommodate these flows—indicating a qualitatively new stage in its relationship with China.

Key Indicators of Buryatia’s Growing Dependency on China

Buryatia’s deepening economic reliance on China is creating an overarching dependency that is of visible concern to local residents, which is manifesting itself in four main ways:

First: Tourism

As stated earlier, the economically depressed region has wholeheartedly embraced the growing number of Chinese tourists. While these visitors generate revenue, they also pose a risk by leaving a limited share of spending in local hands if Chinese-facing operators, guides, or booking chains dominate the tours.

These concerns are most visible in local media and information outlets. One local publication, for example, stated that Chinese tour firms form groups in China while accredited Buryat companies receive them locally, demonstrating an already segmented chain. In this regard, local criticism of growing Chinese interest was significantly more visible before 2022. For instance, another local publication from 2018 referred to “Chinese expansion” around Lake Baikal in explicitly alarmist terms.

Second: Trade

As early as 2019, when the Republic actively traded with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, among others, China reportedly accounted for about 49.4 percent of Buryatia’s exports. By 2023, imports from China to the Republic had surged. Analysts generally estimate that the Chinese share likely moved into the 50 percent range of Buryatia’s external trade (exports and imports combined), although official full-year percentages are no longer published in open sources. However, in comparison with other regions of the Far East—such as the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Irkutsk, Zabaykalsky Krai, and Amur, where the Chinese trade share varies from 70 to 90 percent—Buryatia’s reliance on China, while large, remains comparatively smaller.

Third: Labor Migration

Before 2022, Chinese temporary workers in small numbers were quite common in construction, logging, and agriculture. After 2022, neither local nor federal publications indicated any notable growth in the number of Chinese workers in the Republic. This said, two important emerging shifts can be identified. On the one hand, unlike in previous years, where Chinese laborers were primarily involved in small-scale, low-paid, labor-intensive operations, it was revealed in 2025 that Chinese workers actually were taking part in labor-intensive construction tied to the new “Baikal” theater building. This signifies that Chinese involvement is becoming more and more visible in prestigious urban construction projects in the Russian Far East.

Picture: Chinese laborers working in a downtown Ulan-Ude construction site

On the other hand, local media in Buryatia have started publishing investigative reports about shadow schemes that enable Chinese citizens to obtain legal permits to live and work in Russia, typically via illicit marriage certificates. Moreover, local news outlets report that Buryat law enforcement services are either unable or unwilling to address the growing problem. This is significant since—given the levels of local corruption and bribery—the number of Chinese nationals in the Republic and the purpose of their stay remain unclear.

Fourth: Electricity Imports

Recent discussion of potential electricity imports from China highlights an emerging structural vulnerability in Russia’s energy system in the Far East. For Buryatia, growing electricity deficits combined with slow domestic generation expansion may make Chinese power imports an attractive short-term solution. If implemented, such imports would deepen regional economic interdependence with China. Energy dependence would reinforce existing trade ties, as China is already the dominant external economic partner for Buryatia. Regular electricity imports could also strengthen China’s leverage in cross-border infrastructure and energy markets. Over time, reliance on Chinese power could bind regional industrial development, mining projects, and energy security more closely to Chinese supply conditions and pricing dynamics.

Local Reaction to Chinese Influence

China’s growing presence in Buryatia sometimes results in negative attitudes of the locals toward China and Chinese nationals. Yet, it is very important to underscore that these sentiments should not be viewed as an example of ethnic nationalism or ethnicity-driven xenophobia. Rather, they tend to be linked to economic and environmental concerns. The most frequent trigger points involve natural resources, tourism, and fears of unequal economic competition. One recurring theme in local media debates concerns Chinese participation in logging or other extractive activities, which can lead to overexploitation of regional resources. For example, public discussions on the subject triggered criticism and claims that the region was being “quietly handed over to the Chinese,” reflecting broader anxieties about natural resource governance and regional sovereignty. These narratives do not necessarily reflect actual Chinese control of resources but demonstrate how economic cooperation can be reframed through the lens of perceived vulnerability.

Environmental concerns are understandable: Lake Baikal occupies a unique cultural, spiritual, symbolic, and political position in the region. Pre-2022 reporting concerning the arrival of Chinese tourists to Baykal was referred to as the “Chinese threat.” This way of depicting the Chinese captures how environmental anxiety and anti-Chinese sentiment could merge into public discourse when development projects associated with Chinese investors or tourists expand. In such cases, concerns about environmental degradation often blend with broader geopolitical narratives about Chinese economic expansion. That said, available public materials indicate that these attitudes remain largely situational and are typically tied to concerns about environmental protection and resource governance rather than to everyday interethnic tensions. Importantly, the Chinese population permanently residing in Buryatia remains quite small. Consequently, local debates tend to focus less on Chinese residents themselves and more on the perceived impact of Chinese tourism, investment, or business activity in the region.

Conclusion

The case of Buryatia perfectly illustrates how Chinese influence in the Russian Far East can expand gradually through economic interaction rather than through overt political engagement. Tourism, trade, and selective labor participation form a pattern of incremental integration that strengthens China’s presence in the region without requiring formal ownership of assets. Buryatia’s structural economic weakness – reflected in heavy dependence on federal subsidies and limited domestic investment – creates conditions in which Chinese economic flows become increasingly attractive to local authorities seeking development opportunities. At the same time, this growing engagement produces a visible asymmetry.

As local infrastructure, tourism services, and logistics networks adapt to Chinese demand, the republic risks becoming progressively embedded in economic patterns shaped by external actors. In this sense, Buryatia may be evolving into a periphery within a broader China-centered economic space spanning northern Eurasia, or more correctly described as “China’s Near Abroad,” a term once used to describe the relationship between the post-Soviet states and Russia.

Public reactions to this process in the Far East remain complex and uneven. While concerns about environmental protection, resource governance, and economic competition (to a lesser extent) periodically generate critical narratives about Chinese presence and expansion, these sentiments are largely situational and linked to specific projects or sectors. Given the small number of permanent Chinese population in the region, local debates tend to focus not on ethnic tensions but on the broader implications of growing economic interdependence between Buryatia and China.

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Russian Tourists Flock to China as Blagovechensk Creates Cable Car Crossing to Heihe

The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta recently featured a candid discussion with Boris Beloborodov, the business ombudsman for the Amur Region, that sheds light on the lopsided tourism relations emerging between Russia and China in recent months in the key Siberian border city of Blagoveshchensk. One of the most striking revelations from the article is the dramatic surge in Russians flocking to China as tourists, while Chinese tourism is cooling.

According to the latest figures from 2025, outbound trips by Russians to China climbed by 33.6%, fueled largely by the introduction of a mutual visa-free regime. In the Amur Region specifically, the imbalance is stark; during the recent New Year holiday period, approximately 22,000 Russians crossed into China via Blagoveshchensk, while only about 8,000 Chinese visitors made the trip in the opposite direction. Despite the one-sided tourism flow, trade connectivity between Blagoveshchensk and the Chinese border city of Heihe remains a critical pillar of the regional economy. The cross-border highway bridge continues to ensure a steady flow of cargo even as personal travel patterns shift. Cross-border ties will be further inter-connected with the launching of the world’s first cross-border cable car, potentially transporting up to 2.5 million passengers a year.

Moscow Breaks Record with Largest Ever Chinese New Year Celebration

In February Moscow hosted its largest ever celebration of the Chinese (Lunar) New Year, drawing unprecedented numbers of Russian residents and visitors to the capital’s streets and public spaces. The annual “Chinese New Year in Moscow” festival — now in its third year — has rapidly expanded into a major international cultural event, featuring traditional performances, martial arts displays, tea ceremonies, street parades, and themed installations across dozens of venues throughout the city.

City officials reported that previous editions of the festival drew approximately 1.5 million attendees, roughly double the turnout from its inaugural year, making it one of Moscow’s most popular cultural gatherings. Residents and tourists alike embraced the vibrant festivities, while Russian diplomatic and cultural figures highlighted the event as a symbol of deepening ties between Russia and China. The celebration coincides with broader public interest in the Spring Festival; recent surveys indicate millions of Russians now engage with Chinese New Year traditions, reflecting growing cultural Sinicization of Russian elites.

Moscow’s VAT Reform Accelerates “Kitaizatsiya” of Siberia and the Far East

By Paul Goble

To extract more money from the Russian people to pay for Putin’s war in Ukraine, the Russian government announced at the end of last year that beginning in 2026, it would no longer allow small and mid-sized businesses to avoid paying Value Added Tax (VAT). This move caused many companies in Moscow and other large Russian cities to become unprofitable and even pushed some into bankruptcy, a development that sparked protests by the firms and their customers who could no longer go to their favorite restaurants or bakeries.

The new tax measure, however, has had a far more serious impact on Russian businesses east of the Urals because now they are being forced to pay VAT and must raise their prices. These businesses are increasingly being driven into bankruptcy by Chinese firms, who, being importers, are not subject to this tax. There have been some protests in that region as well, but these have received less attention than those in the capitals. The Kremlin has done nothing in response, something that ensures in the short term that Chinese firms will see their profits in Russia rise and over time will form an even larger share of the economy in Siberia and the Russian Far East, —an as yet unacknowledged and, in this case, rapid further Kitaizatsiya of Russia.

Under the new tax regime, many of the thousands of Russian entrepreneurs who operated under a simplified tax structure will now have to behave the way their larger counterparts have done up to now. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, that has led to closures and bankruptcies; but in Russia east of the Urals, it has had an even more dramatic consequence. Goods produced in China and then exported to the Russian Federation are not subject to VAT and thus can be priced well below what equivalent products of Russian outlets are. Both Russian businessmen and Russian consumers are upset and demanding that the government intervene to make the rules of the game fair.

According to the Nakanune portal, Russian officials are currently looking for a solution that will involve either imposing VAT on imports or modifying plans to require ever smaller Russian firms to pay this tax. However, imposing VAT on Chinese imports would be very unpopular with Beijing and thus threaten Moscow’s ties with China. Delaying the imposition of VAT on domestic firms would prevent the Kremlin from raising the money it needs for its military operations. Consequently, doing anything about this apparently unintended consequence of the change in Russian tax law is unlikely to happen anytime soon. And many Russian firms are likely to be replaced by Chinese ones in the period before Moscow can make a decision or even recognize what is happening.

This situation is only going to become worse for Russian firms and better for Chinese ones in the coming years unless the center changes its approach. That is because Moscow’s tax rules specify that the amount Russian firms have to earn will continue to decline, hitting more and more Russian small businesses, especially in the consumer area, where, as Russian officials in the region acknowledge, the Chinese have even more advantages. After all, they are service-oriented and operate on the basis of the principle that the customer is always right. That makes such Chinese firms even more welcome in Russian areas, even as it infuriates Russian businesses who see their market share shrink or even disappear altogether. Officials are trying to put the best face on things, saying that the influx of Chinese businesses has slowed; but what Moscow has done with VAT suggests that such propaganda efforts are unlikely to be believed, that Russian businesses are likely to be more alienated from the Kremlin over time, and that managing the influx of Chinese businesses into Russia is going to be an ever-increasing problem for both Moscow and Russian governments in the regions.

Conclusion

Russian firms in Siberia and the Russian Far East are especially outraged that the Chinese firms, who have been undercutting them in price are seeking to boost their sales in those regions by offering their sales representatives unprecedentedly high bonuses for acquiring new clients. Russian firms have never been in a position to match them, and with the new taxes in place, they are even less so. Consequently, what may have begun as part of a Kremlin plan to obtain more money for the war in Ukraine is rapidly developing into what many Russians may find undesirable, but that Moscow apparently cannot do anything about: the replacement of Russian firms by Chinese ones on what is today Russian territory. This is exactly the kind of Kitaizatsiya of a large swath of the Russian Federation that Moscow says it is against but is wittingly or unwittingly promoting through its policies.

Kamchatka: From “Pacific Bastion” to China’s Near Abroad

By Sergey Sukhankin

Kamchatka occupies a uniquely significant place in Russia’s strategic calculus. The peninsula anchors Russia’s eastern maritime frontier, serving as a gateway to Indo-Pacific markets and key Pacific sea-lanes vital for trade and resource access. Kamchatka’s fishing, maritime, and natural resource sectors remain core elements of the regional economy, underpinning Russia’s Far Eastern development agenda in the post-2022 period. Though remote, this highly strategic region in the Far East holds economic, logistical, and geopolitical importance for several reasons:

First, geostrategically, Kamchatka sits astride the Bering Strait–Pacific axis, which means that control over its adjacent waters enables Russia to oversee northern approaches to the Pacific and project influence between the Arctic and Asia-Pacific theaters. This positioning is critical for Moscow’s broader northern strategy, which integrates Arctic and Far Eastern defense priorities.

Second, from a military-security perspective, Kamchatka hosts critical installations of the Russian armed forces. The Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky naval base underpins Pacific Fleet operations, and the region’s remoteness has long made it an ideal site for strategic assets such as the Kura Missile Test Range. These facilities strengthen Russia’s second-strike capabilities and secure its eastern deterrent posture. Historical episodes of defense – such as resistance to Anglo-French forces (August–September 1854) during the Crimean War – underscore the peninsula’s enduring role in safeguarding national security and sovereignty.

Overall, Kamchatka’s significance for Russia derives from its economic resources, critical transit and maritime geography, and its embedded role within Moscow’s defense architecture, making it a linchpin of Russian strategic depth in the Far East.

Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in 2022 and the onset of Western sanctions, the Kamchatka region has emerged as a strategic linchpin in Russia’s Northern Sea Route (NSR) and an integral component of Moscow’s eastward pivot. At the same time, Chinese dominance in the region has become increasingly pronounced, as Beijing effectively assumes the role of an indispensable partner in several key economic sectors in Kamchatka.

Despite Russia’s apparent willingness to allow China to expand its footprint and deepen its involvement in the regional economic landscape, the nature of Chinese leverage over Moscow’s Pacific outpost is becoming increasingly complex. This raises a central question: is Chinese influence in Kamchatka strengthening to the point of creating strategic vulnerability for Russia — and, if so, what steps is Moscow taking to mitigate or counterbalance this emerging risk?

China’s Fishing Sector Pivot from the EU to Kamchatka

On January 15, China’s General Administration of Customs authorized thirteen additional Russian fishing companies to supply products to the Chinese market. Notably, three of these companies are based in Kamchatka. According to data from Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia exported more than 1.5 million tons of fish and seafood in 2025, with over half of that volume (843,000 tons) destined for China, resulting in a 13 percent y-o-y growth. At the same time, China has reduced its seafood imports from the European Union (EU) and the United States (US), citing tariff disputes and rising shipping costs driven by higher fuel prices.

What this emerging trend symbolizes is that China is starting to consolidate its position as Kamchatka’s dominant external market, logistical partner, and technological substitute. While Moscow retains formal ownership of strategic assets, Beijing is expanding its role across key economic sectors, which is evolving into tangible leverage. The following analysis below reveals the primary industries where Chinese involvement has intensified most notably and evaluates whether this growing footprint represents a form of managed collaboration or the development of a permanent structural dependency.

First, logistics – presence without ownership. After 2022, Kamchatka has increasingly been viewed as a potential transshipment and service hub for the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in the context of growing Chinese logistical interests. These interests primarily concern ship repair, cargo transshipment, and the use of its warehouses. A notable practical step in this direction was the signing of a memorandum on September 4, 2024, at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) between the Kamchatka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Kamchatka-based company Torsiotest, and China’s NewNew Shipping Line Co., Ltd.

The agreement envisions the development of ship repair facilities in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and the organization of cargo transshipment along NSR routes through Kamchatka. Despite the notable media attention surrounding the agreement, its practical significance appears to be quite limited. The document was explicitly framed as a “memorandum of intent”, which by definition does not entail binding strategic commitments from either side. Rather, it signals exploratory cooperation and a willingness to consider future projects, without formalizing investment obligations or operational timelines. Moreover, as of early 2026, there have been no widely reported follow-up announcements in the Russian media regarding the concrete implementation of the original Kamchatka–Torsiotest–NewNew Shipping Line agreement. In this context, the memorandum appears more indicative of political signaling and strategic positioning than of immediate structural change in Kamchatka’s maritime infrastructure landscape.

Another notable trend that may limit China’s ability to influence Kamchatka`s logistical capabilities is a clear trend in Moscow’s efforts to strengthen its control over the local port as part of a hedging strategy to prevent China from acquiring too much influence. To illustrate this point, Russian sources recently reported a number of cases when related port assets were transferred into state ownership, with several key facilities being placed under the direct management of Rosatom-affiliated structures in a pre-emptive move aimed at warding off Chinese economic encroachment. In 2025, for example, the FESCO transportation group assumed management of the Kamchatka Shipping Company and the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Commercial Sea Port. This suggests that Moscow’s strategic approach to the Chinese presence in Kamchatka’s logistical structure is governed by the principle of “participation minus legal authority.” Under this framework, Chinese involvement is strictly limited to service contracts, cargo handling, and joint logistical projects. This structure ensures that while Beijing provides essential operational support, it is prevented from acquiring formal authority or jurisdiction over critical regional infrastructure.

Second, fisheries: where dependence might become leverage. As noted earlier, Kamchatka is one of Russia’s most significant fisheries regions, and China is its top customer. In the post-2022 period, Russia has undertaken a major effort to further increase these exports, acting primarily through local officials. For instance, the governor of Kamchatka personally promoted regional fish products and potential investments during his 2023 trip to the China Fisheries & Seafood Expo in Qingdao.

The situation in this instance appears to resemble an elaborate chess game being played between Moscow and Beijing. China, on the one hand, appears intent on securing effective control over the value chain surrounding Kamchatka’s seafood exports, while Russia seeks to preserve its room for maneuver to prevent Beijing from deepening its structural presence in the region. Since 2022, Beijing has concentrated on consolidating the most critical elements of processing and logistics infrastructure on its own territory rather than on Kamchatka itself. This includes transportation nodes, customs corridors, and reception hubs—most notably in Hunchun and Shanghai—which have been specifically calibrated for the specific purpose of processing Kamchatka-originated seafood.

In effect, the higher value-added stages of processing, distribution, and re-export are increasingly anchored within China’s domestic infrastructure network. Kamchatka, by contrast, remains primarily a source of raw material. This configuration allows Beijing to exercise influence not through asset ownership in Russia, but through its command over downstream logistics, processing capacity, and market access. Notably, Russian language sources do not report any major new Chinese capital investments in Kamchatka-based fisheries logistics since 2022. Instead, China is concentrating its efforts on placing critical logistical nodes—such as the Hunchun checkpoint in Jilin Province—in other words, on Chinese territory.

Russia’s Upstream Sovereignty versus China’s Downstream Influence

While China has emerged as the largest buyer of Russian fish and crab products, Moscow seeks to retain the decisive lever of control: authority over the extraction of resources. Russia aims to prevent Chinese firms from establishing a direct foothold in this upstream segment, as control over production remains the cornerstone of its resource sovereignty. Yet, due to the fact that Moscow’s position vis-à-vis China has weakened, Beijing has been given a more potent form of leverage. By consolidating its position as the primary end market and the hub of downstream processing, Beijing has secured structural influence over the entire value chain, placing Moscow at a tremendous disadvantage.

This trajectory, however, is not predetermined. A hypothetical partial normalization of Russia’s relations with the United States and other Indo-Pacific actors could reopen alternative export channels to markets such as the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. Such a shift would dilute China’s current leverage and restore a degree of strategic flexibility to Kamchatka’s fisheries industry.

Third, energy resources and related infrastructure. Kamchatka does not have a significant amount of fossil fuels and hydrocarbons; yet, its potential role and place in China’s energy mix should be seen as very promising and is occasionally overlooked by experts in the West. In this regard, two types of opportunities should be examined more closely:

• Kamchatka’s elevation as a critical node in the Sino-Russian LNG trade. Following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, Russia reprioritized the idea of turning Bechevinskaya Bay into a major logistics “node” linking Arctic LNG with Indo-Pacific markets, with reported interest from China. Mid-2024 saw Russian sources claim that notable progress in the infrastructure buildup had been achieved. However, the following year, Russian information outlets pointed to an emerging gap between actual progress and intent. For instance, Russia’s Accounts Chamber warned of risks regarding revised deadlines, citing delays and documentation problems. As of early 2026, Russian experts claimed that while the export dimension has not lost its importance, key stakeholders (Gazprom and Novatek) agreed to focus more on Kamchatka’s internal gas infrastructure development. This means the LNG terminal’s operational logic is no longer fully concerned with export logistics—an issue of major domestic political sensitivity, especially in the face of upcoming elections.

• Geothermal energy. This is where Kamchatka has huge and largely unexplored potential. In late 2025, following the Russian-Chinese Energy Business Forum, several Chinese firms reportedly indicated interest in taking part in geothermal projects in Kamchatka. While there have not been any public confirmations of Chinese financial involvement, this idea matches broader patterns of overseas Chinese investment in projects related to green and renewable energy.

Conclusion: Is Kamchatka China’s New Near Abroad?

In the final analysis, three aspects regarding Kamchatka’s important role in Sino-Russian relations should be addressed:

First, Russia’s post-2022 trajectory creates the conditions for growing strategic asymmetry, which poses structural risks for the Russian Far East broadly and for Kamchatka in particular. As Moscow’s access to Western markets, capital, and technology has declined, its bargaining position vis-à-vis Beijing has correspondingly weakened. This has increased the likelihood of a lopsided partnership. Kremlin efforts to restrict formal Chinese ownership of strategic assets – while being a prudent hedging mechanism – do not eliminate this vulnerability. On the contrary, limiting equity participation while expanding trade, financial exposure, infrastructure integration, and technological dependence risks producing a de facto dependency without de jure control. Such an arrangement would constrain Russian autonomy while providing few enforceable safeguards against long-term leverage. In case Russia is unable to (at least partially) normalize or diversify economic and political ties with alternative centers of growth and trade, dependence on China is likely to assume more pronounced and potentially destabilizing forms. Under these conditions, Kamchatka could increasingly fall within China’s near abroad, functioning as part of Beijing’s expanding economic periphery, with significant demographic, political, and security repercussions for the Russian state.

Second, despite China’s growing role as the principal destination for goods produced in Kamchatka, so far, Russia has prevented economic dependence from evolving into formal institutional subordination, for now. Moscow has systematically constrained the depth of Chinese penetration by nationalizing critical infrastructure, tightening regulatory oversight, and maintaining state control over strategic assets. As a result, despite expanding trade asymmetries and Beijing’s increasing economic weight, Kamchatka has not emerged as an uncontested zone of Chinese influence. Instead, it is evolving into an economically dependent export appendage with limited diversification options and constrained access to alternative markets. While preserving nominal sovereignty and institutional control, this arrangement leaves the region structurally dependent on Chinese demand and pricing power—an asymmetry with enduring strategic consequences for Russia’s Far Eastern periphery.

Third, there are signs that Moscow is increasingly aware of the long-term risks of ceding economic space in Kamchatka to China. On January 4, Aleksey Chekunkov, Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, publicly invited international investors to “fully utilize the new investment-attraction mechanism of the International Advanced Development Zones (IADs).” This preferential regime, which came into effect on January 1, 2026, aims to diversify capital inflows and reduce dependence on a single external partner. The IAD framework covers Primorsky Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, Zabaykalsky Krai, and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Notably, however, Kamchatka was absent from this list—a deliberate omission with potentially significant strategic implications. On one hand, it may reflect Moscow’s desire to maintain tighter centralized control over a peninsula of high military and geopolitical value, particularly given its role in Russian posture in the Pacific. On the other hand, excluding Kamchatka from the preferential regime risks reinforcing its narrow export focus and continued reliance on Chinese demand. In effect, while the Kremlin signals awareness of the dangers of overdependence on Beijing, its selective application of diversification tools may inadvertently deepen the very structural imbalances it seeks to address.

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Chinese Trade with Russia Posts First Decline in 5 years

The downturn in the Russian economy is now affecting trade with China. China–Russia trade in 2025 fell for the first time in five years, signaling a slowdown in an economic relationship that had surged after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its isolation from Western markets. According to Chinese customs data, bilateral trade fell 6.5% year on year to 1.63 trillion yuan ($234 billion). Chinese exports to Russia dropped sharply, driven mainly by a collapse in car sales after Moscow raised recycling fees and borrowing costs, while imports from Russia also declined amid falling commodity prices.

Detailed data for January–November show China reduced purchases of most Russian natural resources: oil imports fell about 20%, oil products 16–40%, coal 29%, and LNG slightly. Only pipeline gas and certain raw materials increased, including ferrous metals, aluminum, nickel, and copper, reinforcing Russia’s growing role as a low–value–added supplier. Despite December showing tentative improvement, the slowdown has alarmed the Kremlin. While China remains Russia’s largest trading partner, the imbalance has deepened, with Beijing benefiting from steep discounts on Russian oil and gas and Moscow increasingly cast as a junior partner.

Chinese Portal 163.com: ‘China Must Secure the Russian Far East in the Event of a Russian Collapse’

Shortly before the end of last year, 163.com, one of the big four internet portals in China, published an article that went viral, generating thousands of views and comments by experts from around the world. The anonymous article explored a provocative contingency: whether Beijing must prepare for a worst-case scenario involving the total disintegration of the Russian state. The article highlighted what many in China might be thinking privately about the impact of the Ukraine war on the Russian economy and its overall stability. The author asks if Russia collapses, what would happen to the roughly 7 million square kilometers of the Russian Far East?” The conclusion is quite alarmist: 'it must not be lost'."

The author presents an interesting scenario that, should Moscow lose control, the Far East will not remain a neutral vacuum; instead, it would rapidly become a contested zone for outside powers unless China intervenes first through non-military means. To provide historical context, the article recalls the Treaties of Aigun (1858) and Beijing (1860), when Qing China—weakened and vulnerable—lost vast territories to Tsarist Russia. Today, the region is described as a “chicken rib” for Russia—vast and resource-rich, yet costly and difficult to manage—while simultaneously representing a “treasure” for China due to its timber, minerals, energy, and strategic depth.

Russia’s current position is also painted in dark economic terms. Russian GDP is described as “less than that of a single Chinese province.” In sheer strategic terms, the author refers to Russia as being militarily weak in the Russian Far East, in reference to the toll caused by the Ukraine war, and uses the term “hollowed out,” referring to the fact that “fewer than 50,000 troops remain” in the region, and represent an “empty shell”, implying in the event of a collapse Russia would not be able to defend it. The author explicitly notes that: if chaos erupts in Russia, the Far East would rapidly become a zone of instability that external forces—particularly the United States and Japan—would inevitably focus on, with South Korea also watching closely. The author notes that the region’s proximity to Alaska, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula makes it especially vulnerable to the possible deployment of foreign military forces, which directly affects the security of northeastern China.

What is particularly striking is that the author argues that “China has long been preparing for this scenario” and highlights the years of expanding Chinese economic and infrastructure presence through pipelines, bridges, ports, mining, agriculture, long-term energy contracts, and growing use of the renminbi. “If Russia really collapses, 7 million square kilometers of the Far East should not go to waste,” the author writes, arguing that China has already paid for weakness in the past and must not repeat that mistake.

At the same time, the article strongly rejects open territorial seizure, warning that force would trigger international isolation, as in Crimea. Instead, the author advocates a go “soft” strategy of sustained investment, support for pro-Chinese local forces, and tying them down with loans and contracts. The objective is made explicit—“nominally independent, actually dependent on China.” As the article bluntly asks, “Whose land is this? It is only a name—the life arteries are in our hands.”

Within this framework, the author concludes by pointing out that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is the best diplomatic shield to deter external interference and can provide political cover for deepening economic integration. The article concludes that China should act out of national interest. While Russian rhetoric celebrates “friendship,” China should be focusing on outcomes. If the Russian Far East is simply too much of “a burden” for Moscow to maintain, then China should treat the Russian Far East “as a treasure,” and if the political landscape changes, only those prepared in advance will shape what follows.

Russia Blocks Chinese Rail Ambitions With an Amur River Tradeoff

by Paul Goble

Since Tsarist times, Russian governments have laid railroad tracks 1520 millimeters apart and not the 1435 mm that is the standard gauge used almost everywhere else in the world, a difference Russian officials see as key to enhancing their national security in the case of invasion, but one that adds to the costs of moving cargo across Russian borders. Despite efforts by both Moscow and Beijing over the last five years and ambitious projects now on the table, the border crossing points between Russia and China remain a transportation bottleneck for the development of economic relations between the two countries.

Only nine crossing points exist along the more than 2,000-mile Sino-Russian border that handle trucks or railcars, although there are more than 150 that handle pedestrians or personal cars. Truck traffic has been growing rapidly in recent years, but increases in rail traffic have been limited by the fact that China and Russia use different rail gauges – the Russian gauge is slightly wider than the international gauge China uses. It is something that requires either intermodal transfers via trucks, shifting goods directly from the rail lines coming from one country to the gauge of another, or, in some cases, transferring cars from undercarriages built for one gauge to those constructed for another.

China, however, has called for radical changes, which almost certainly include installing within Russian-gauge railways in the border region Chinese-gauge tracks; but Russia has not responded positively to that. Unless that changes, Chinese-Russian trade and China’s ability to project additional power into even the Russian Far East are likely to be far less than Beijing and some in those regions want. (For a comprehensive discussion of both these challenges, see the Tearline survey on this topic published here).

China has invested heavily in the development of intermodal transfers and indeed is now a leader in that aspect of railway management, given its promotion of the “one belt, one route” project between Asia and Europe, where it has pushed for improved handling of transfers of cargo where necessary and even the expansion of double-tracked rail lines (Ibid.). Russia, in contrast, has faced serious problems in this area, not only due to the technical difficulties of implementing the necessary changes, but also because of a lack of funding, according to Kommersant. Most studies, including the Tearline survey, suggest that there is little chance for a major change in the next several years. However, in addition to China’s ongoing interest in expanding trade with and influence in Russia’s Far East and Siberia, three new developments suggest Moscow may be prepared to take steps it had previously avoided. Indeed, their coming together has already led the Russian government to announce major plans to address the border crossing problems it has with China and possibly to make concessions to Beijing that would transform the geopolitics of this part of the world.

First, problems at the border and also at Russian ports that might serve as an alternative route appear to be on the rise, prompting officials to think about what needs to be done to improve transportation in the border region. Putin seeks to create a Chinese-style transportation corridor from China north to the Northern Sea Route, something that makes sense if and only if trade with China takes off. And third, the Kremlin is desperate for Chinese economic and diplomatic support, given Russia’s deepening problems as Putin’s war in Ukraine continues. That these have now come together to produce a change in Moscow’s approach to the issue is suggested by the Russian government’s announcement of a five-year plan, projected to cost 180 billion rubles ($2 billion) to expand some existing border points to be able to handle heavy trucks and more trains, notes arctic.ru.

Moscow Offers Beijing Expanded Use of the Amur River

Not surprisingly, Moscow’s plan focuses on building more bridges and customs facilities; but most Russian experts acknowledge that will not be enough unless the transportation links are developed and unless it becomes easier for China and Russia to move goods from one country to another, with the most likely way being the double tracking of rail lines at least in the border portions of the Russian Far East. As Russian experts point out, however, to make the development of these crossings truly stable and effective will require not only the modernization of the industry of the Russian side of the border but the further integration of the two countries so that trade between them will continue to fit together. Otherwise, they say, “even the most up-to-date border crossing points and terminals ill remaining underused,” adding that “the scale of this project inspires optimism, but the real results of it will depend not on the number of automobiles crossing the border but on how many Russian regions and the Amur Oblast in articular will be able to fit in completely into these production and logistical processes.” Officials in Moscow and their counterparts in Beijing both remember that almost a decade ago, Moscow did approve dual-gauge tracking between the Chinese border and a Russian port, an event that China in fact celebrated.

Will Rail Gauges Determine the Balance of Power?

Because China is almost certain to continue pushing for double-gauge rail lines, and because it would likely be forced to pay for much or even all of the project, this precedent alone could shift the balance of power in Russia’s border regions away from Moscow and toward Beijing. This risk is a major reason Moscow is likely to resist for as long as it can, or to instead promote alternative cross-border trade routes, including expanded use of the Amur River, as it has already begun to do. Such collateral projects, while important, are not likely to be sufficient to draw China into major expansion in cross-border transit. Consequently, it seems increasingly likely that the Kremlin may soon be forced to think the unthinkable about a change in its approach to trade with China that could help Russia in the near term but put its dominance of much of the territory it now controls at risk.

Chinese Economic Encroachment Sparks Sincization Backlash in Primorye

by Sergey Sukhankin

On December 19, following a meeting with a Chinese delegation, Vitaly Altabayev, the Deputy Minister of the Russian Federation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, announced that a large-scale agro-industrial cluster is being planned for deployment within the territory of the first International Advanced Special Economic Zone (M-TOR) in the Russian Far Eastern province of Primorsky Krai, often referred to Primorye. This ambitious large-scale project envisions the construction of the following facilities: grain terminals; enterprises for deep processing of agricultural raw materials; plants producing agricultural machinery; production facilities for dairy and confectionery goods.

This news development illustrates the ongoing economic takeover by China in Russia’s remote and resource-rich Primorye, located in Russia’s Far East along the northwest edge of the Pacific Ocean. The resource-rich region borders the Sea of Japan and the Russian–Chinese frontier, and lies directly north of North Korea. Its capital, Vladivostok, sits on the Sea of Japan opposite Japan’s main islands and hosts Russia’s principal Pacific Fleet naval base, underscoring the region’s strategic maritime importance.

Since Russia’s large-scale, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Primorye – akin to other regions of the Russian Far East – has increasingly and irreversibly gravitated toward China’s economic sphere of influence. This said, the deeper analysis suggests that the situation in Primorye is far more complex than might appear on the surface, as trade data indicates that Russia’s Pacific outpost is deepening its dependence on China, which is giving rise to greater regional backlash in response to Chinese economic encroachment.

Primorye Spearheads Russian Pivot to China

Following 2022, Russian and Chinese sources began to describe Primorsky Krai as the focal point of Moscow’s ‘pivot to the East.’ Due to its exclusion from Western markets, Russia has become increasingly dependent on China as its sole provider of capital and industrial partnership in the Pacific. This overarching tendency, already clear by 2023, accelerated further after 2024.” According to Russian sources, by 2024, Chinese investments in Primorsky Krai totaled 5.5 billion rubles ($68.7 million), accounting for more than 40 percent of all foreign investments in the region, creating approximately 2,500 new jobs. In total, as of 2024, Chinese financial capital had implemented at least 40 regional projects: 36 of which were conducted in the scope of the Free Port of Vladivostok regime and 4 within the Advanced Development Territories (TORs). The sectors receiving the most attention from Chinese investors were shipbuilding and ship repair, transport and logistics, agriculture, and the extraction and processing of marine and forest resources.

While official Russian statistics have yet to provide consolidated – and independently verifiable – data on the extent of Chinese economic involvement in the region in 2025, fragmentary information, largely disseminated by local officials eager to highlight their role in promoting Sino-Russian cooperation, nevertheless sheds some light on recent developments. Eager to tout the results of 2025 investment, the governor of Primorsky Krai, Oleg Kozhemyako, for example, noted significant investment growth during the past year and pronounced the strengthening of Primorye’s position as one of the most attractive regions for business in Russia. Among other things, he stated that in 2025 the region attracted 300 billion rubles ($3.9 billion), an 8 percent year-on-year (YoY) increase—far exceeding both the national average (0.5 percent) and the Far Eastern Federal District average (1.6 percent). This, according to the governor, primarily resulted from the region “becoming the country’s leader in cooperation with China.”

Economic Dependency on China Accelerates

Based on Russian open sources, Primorye`s economic dependency on China has significantly grown in the past several years. If by 2024, China’s share in the region`s foreign trade reached 68 percent, by 2025, it had further climbed to an overwhelming 70 percent. At the current pace of encroachment, it could reach as high as 80 or 90 percent by 2035, especially if Russian isolation from the West continues. What this trend indicates is that the structure of bilateral trade remains markedly asymmetrical. Despite Moscow’s repeated emphasis on attracting Chinese investment into the localization of higher value-added production, trade patterns continue to reflect a similar pattern of dependence: Russia largely exports petroleum products, timber and wood-processing goods, fish, and agricultural commodities, while China supplies machinery and equipment, as well as consumer and light-industry goods.

This trade pattern ultimately constrains Russia’s ability to move up the value chain and reinforces its position as a supplier of raw materials and semi-processed products within an increasingly China-centric economic relationship. Below is a concise, domain-based analysis of four key areas that underscore the region’s accelerating economic dependence on China that highlights the strategic implications and emerging points of friction inherent in this trajectory.

First: Chinese domination of the local agro-industrial complex. Chinese farmers and firms expressed an avid interest in leasing Russian farmland in Primorye well before 2022 and Russia`s breakup with the West. In fact, such attempts date back at least two decades, starting in the 2010s. However, it was only after 2022 that Chinese offers and initiatives increasingly became more specific and much more strategic. For instance, the Chinese side repeatedly introduced more specific proposals featuring plans to create Russian-Chinese agro-industrial parks and processing clusters, oriented toward exports to China. Critically, in these cases, end markets, logistics, and quality standards are tied to Chinese buyers, de facto contributing to the gradual transformation of the local agricultural sector into an integral part of China`s domestic industry. Although no comprehensive official statistics exist for total Chinese agricultural investment in Primorye from 2024 to 2025, project-level data points to significant involvement. For example, the “LegendAgro/PrimAgro” initiative (2025) was backed by approximately 22.8 billion rubles ($286.8 million) for expanded crop production and processing, targeting export markets including China.

Second: the veneer of “import substitution.” Following the economic and political breakdown between Russia and the West (and its regional allies, such as Japan and South Korea), Russia embarked on the policy of import substitution. In this regard, Primorye was not an exception: local firms were encouraged to produce localization of production, which became particularly visible in such domains as agricultural machinery and equipment. On paper, local firms reported success; in reality, however, the majority of local producers were limited to assembly from imported components and technologies that arrive from China. It is also important to acknowledge that Russian sources openly note that import dependence includes critical reliance on foreign (Chinese) components, leaving the sector vulnerable, thereby creating a veneer of change. In reality, however, local technological advancement does not occur, which leaves domestic producers technologically dependent on China. Moreover, due to the financial challenges of the post-2022 period, the import of foreign components and spare parts has significantly increased costs and expenses, thereby reducing profit margins and threatening the long-term economic sustainability of production. Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the post-2022 period did not eliminate foreign dependence, but rather transformed it.

Third: logistics – Primorye as a “gateway” or infrastructure appendage? At the micro level, 2025 witnessed a qualitative shift, with the region evolving into a key logistical hub between Russia and China. Russian sources estimate that cargo turnover through Primorye’s road checkpoints with China increased by 36 percent in that year alone, with approximately 800 trucks crossing daily. Moreover, by early 2026, road traffic between China and Primorye is expected to quintuple as three additional checkpoints are expected to open.

At a macro-level, however, several strategic shifts are occurring as well. Chinese financial capital is playing a key part in major infrastructural projects on the territory of Primorye that are likely to dramatically increase cargo volume flow that will turn Primorye into a low-margin transit corridor serving Chinese trade strategies. Yet, even more telling is the example of the China-based dry port at Suifenhe – located in Heilongjiang Province on the border with Primorsky Krai – which is developing into a major logistical hub for Sino-Russian trade, but is concentrating the supply-chain management on the Chinese side of the border. This de facto places Primorye and the areas beyond it under the direct and overarching dependency on China. Not only in terms of cargo flow, but it also exposes the Russian border region to policy decisions made in China (including tariff changes and customs regulations). While undoubtedly enhancing trade and economic ties, completion of this and similar projects deeply embeds Primorye into China-dominated transport and logistics networks, resulting in the emergence of a structural asymmetry that strongly favors China economically, technologically, and above all, strategically.

Fourth: the domain of hydrocarbons. In this domain, the region has also strengthened structural reliance on Chinese energy requirements. Between 2024 and 2025, a new Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) export terminal – primarily oriented toward exports to China – with a capacity of 150,000 tons per year was launched in the Khasansky District (Lake Khasan is the site of the famous Soviet battle against Japan in 1938 when another Asian power was encroaching on the Russian Far East). Moreover, during the same time period, another Chinese company from Mishan began importing LPG from Primorye, planning up to 10,000 tons annually via the Mishan–Tury Rog crossing. Analysis conducted by The Moscow Times indicates that

Russian LPG exports to China are rapidly expanding, reinforcing structural reorientation toward meeting Chinese energy demand. Within this broader trend, one critically important dynamic stands out. An examination of China’s energy strategy toward the Primorye region reveals a clear pattern: Beijing appears to be prioritizing agreements in the LPG sector rather than LNG. This preference is strategic rather than incidental. Due to its cost structure and operational characteristics, LPG—unlike LNG—allows China to maximize leverage while minimizing long-term commitment. It does not require participation in capital-intensive infrastructure projects or binding, long-duration contracts. As a result, LPG offers China greater structural flexibility and lower capital exposure than LNG, enabling shorter commitments and reduced infrastructure lock-in, while simultaneously increasing the exporter’s dependence on the end user.

Regional Backlash to Sinicization

China`s growing presence and domination in selected areas of the local economy have traditionally sparked negative sentiment among the local population. For example, in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2017, local media reported negative sentiments expressed by local farmers leveled against “foreign” workers, i.e., Chinese workers involved in the local agricultural sector who use ecologically unsustainable practices in their ongoing operations. Chinese activity appears to be taking a heavy toll on the local environment and ecosystem. Importantly, in 2015, the issue went well beyond local media and information outlets: The Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, for example, came up with a legislative proposal urging restricting foreign access to farmland, stating that: “According to the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor), land plots provided to foreign persons – especially citizens of the People’s Republic of China – are being used in a predatory manner: they are littered with industrial waste, the fertile topsoil is mixed with polyethylene film, pesticides that are not registered for use in the Russian Federation are applied, or the regulations governing their use are violated.”

These sentiments were toned down later and completely disappeared in Russian public discourse between 2022 and 2023. After 2024, however, a new and most important development – apparently, with approval from the top (Moscow) – resurfaced. First, the former governor of the region, Sergei Darkin, spoke publicly about Russia’s “bad dependency” on China in certain sectors of the economy, particularly in the areas of agriculture and forestry. He also expressed concern about the increasingly adverse demographic situation in the Far East (an almost taboo topic for Russian officials since 2022), citing this factor as a clear “risk” in Sino-Russian relations. Later, Andrey Bronts, the Minister of Agriculture of Primorsky Krai, publicly stated that “Chinese dumping practices and credit policies were exerting significant pressure on local agricultural producers. The most controversial statements, however, came from the local governor, Oleg Kozhemyako, who claimed that “the region urgently needs to strengthen its historical identity,” a subtle hint that Chinese sources are increasingly presenting interpretations suggesting that these territories were originally Chinese.

Interestingly, Kozhemyako`s arguments have been supported by influential members of Russia`s academic community. For example, Director of the Center for the Study of Far Eastern Countries, Kirill Kotkov, stated that:

“According to the Chinese authorities, Northern Primorye and the Amur region have, since ancient times, been an integral part of the Chinese state. In Chinese historiography, the Treaties of Beijing and Aigun of 1858 and 1860 – under which these territories were peacefully transferred to Russia – are regarded as unequal treaties. China harbors latent claims to these territories, but for now, they are not voiced, as long as there is ‘peace, friendship, and chewing gum’. It would take just a snap of the fingers for the Chinese media to switch to openly articulating territorial claims; at present, however, voicing such claims is not advantageous for China.”

Conclusion

The post-2022 trajectory of Primorsky Krai illustrates how Russia’s economic isolation from the West can rapidly translate into structural dependency on China, especially in the Russian Far East. While official Russian narratives emphasize investment growth, infrastructure expansion, and Primorye’s role as a flagship of Russia’s “Pivot to the East,” the evidence points to a far more ambivalent outcome. Across agriculture, logistics, manufacturing, and energy, Chinese capital and demand have become not merely dominant but system-forming, reshaping production chains, trade patterns, and development priorities in ways that significantly constrain regional autonomy.

By early 2026, Primorye will have the makings of becoming almost completely subordinate to Chinese economic needs. At this juncture, however, it is important to trace the shifts in the discursive environment. The re-emergence of concerns by both the local public and concerns by the Russian elite is even more striking as local Russian officials are now openly lamenting about a once taboo topics in Putin’s Russia, ranging from China’s agricultural dumping to historical narratives and even latent Chinese territorial claims against the Russian Far East, which suggests that economic dependency due to Sinicization is beginning to spill over into the political domain.

Whether these signals reflect genuine local anxiety or a carefully calibrated message from Moscow remains unclear, but they do strongly underscore the emerging and possibly new fault lines within what is publicly framed as a “strategic partnership: between Russia and China. In this sense, Primorye is not merely a beneficiary of Sino-Russian strategic alignment, but a testing ground as to where the asymmetries, costs, and internal contradictions of that alignment are increasingly exposed—and where its durability may ultimately be tested.

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BRIEFS

Tuva Seeks Chinese Backing for Railway Linked to Rare Earth Deposits

Officials in Russia’s Tuva Republic, according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, are exploring the involvement of Mongolian and Chinese companies in building the long-planned Kuragino–Kyzyl railway, with a possible extension to the Mongolian border. In exchange, Chinese investors would gain access to Tuva’s rare and rare-earth metal deposits, reviving an “infrastructure for resources” model commonly used by China abroad. The railway is envisioned as part of the Central Eurasian Transport Corridor linking Russia, Mongolia, and China.

Tuvan officials argue that transport infrastructure is critical for developing nearby lithium, niobium, and tantalum deposits and for supporting a planned rare-earth processing cluster in southern Siberia. However, experts warn that Chinese partners are primarily interested in securing raw materials rather than supporting the creation of rare-earth mineral processing centers inside Russia. Given China’s dominance in rare-earth technologies and recent export controls, critics caution that such arrangements could leave Russia dependent on China while capturing limited value beyond infrastructure and raw material extraction. For an in-depth analysis of the Sinicization of Tuva, please see 👉 Sergey Sukhankin’s article in issue #4 of Kitaizatsia.

Moscow Borrows Chinese Yuan for First Time to Fill "Hole" in Russian Budget

For the first time, the Russian government will issue public debt in Chinese yuan to cover a federal budget deficit projected at 5.7 trillion rubles ($71 billion), nearly five times higher than the original plan. The Ministry of Finance plans to sell yuan-denominated bonds worth 300–400 billion rubles ($3.75-$5 billion) on the Moscow Exchange, with maturities of 3–10 years, potentially in three to four tranches of about 100 billion rubles ($1.25 billion) each. The move targets a wide range of investors, including individuals, banks, and management companies. Past attempts to issue yuan bonds in China failed due to restrictions on panda bonds, which cannot be repatriated. The issuance may allow state corporations with yuan revenues, such as Rosneft and Lukoil, to finance the deficit. The decision follows steep revenue shortfalls: oil and gas revenues dropped 20%, customs duties fell 19%, and tax collections lagged behind expectations. Yuan-denominated corporate bonds are already popular among Russian exporters, who increasingly rely on Chinese currency after Western sanctions limited their access to foreign capital.

Russian Expert Fears China is Building Transit Corridors to Bypass Russia

Forbes.ru published an extensive commentary criticizing Chinese efforts to bypass Russia, indicating Moscow is becoming increasingly concerned that Central Asian states, attracted by faster, cheaper, and more reliable routes, will shift their economic and political dependence toward Beijing. The author noted that this is leading to a loss of transit revenue as fewer cargoes go through the Trans-Siberian Railway, ports in the Far East, and Russian-Kazakh transport hubs. These reduced transit volumes, in turn, are weakening Russian leverage within the Eurasian Economic Union, limiting Moscow’s ability to use transportation as a geopolitical tool.

Despite these efforts, China’s systematic development of the Middle Corridor, Caspian Sea linkages, and southern bypass routes signals a structural long-term shift, potentially marginalizing Russia in Eurasian trade and undermining its historical role as the primary intermediary between China and Europe. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which began construction in December 2024 and is expected to be fully operational by 2028–2030, offers a 900-kilometer shorter route to Europe. According to the author, Russia views this as a direct economic threat, potentially reducing transit revenue from the Trans-Siberian Railway and Far Eastern ports and impacting rail-related industries and regional employment. The route strengthens China’s influence in Central Asia and challenges Russia’s ability to control regional logistics and trade.

*Map of the Suspended Northern Siberian Rail Line Magistrate (in Red)

Russia Puts China-Oriented Rail Projects to Europe on Hold as War Costs Mount

By Paul Goble

Putin’s expanded war not only helped power Russia’s turn toward China, a shift that has accelerated the Sinification of Russia, but Moscow’s need to raise money for that conflict has forced the Kremlin to postpone for some time major railway routes across Russia between China and Russia. Once that war is over, a prospect some currently believe is near, Moscow, with Beijing’s help, may well return to these two railway projects, and the Sinification of Russia will resume its earlier pace. For the time being, however, the postponement of these projects highlights the difficulties Russia faces, given its need to fund its Ukraine war and its shortage of key infrastructure, which is likely to force China to pursue even more vigorously its railway routes through the countries of Central Asia.

East of the Urals in particular, Russia has an extremely sparse rail network, with many places not connected by rail at all, and the two most important lines – the Trans-Siberian and the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) –are slow-moving because they are overloaded and in places have only single rather than double-tracked ways, not too mention have been subject to Ukrainian sabotage efforts to destroy those lines. Not surprisingly, since Stalin’s time, Russian leaders have been talking about expanding the network in particular to link it to the Arctic Ocean in the north and China in the south, specifically by constructing a rail line from Nizhevartovsk to Bely Yar northward (often referred to as the North-Siberian line) and from Tashtagol to China’s Urumchi southward.

But despite much hype from Putin on down over the last two decades, the difficulties of building these routes, given the difficult terrain in both and the melting of permafrost in the former, have slowed these plans. And now their combined costs, which Russian officials suggest may be as much as 50 trillion rubles ($600 billion), have forced Moscow to halt planning efforts to develop these projects.

Moscow’s suspension of both these projects throws a serious monkey wrench into the trade plans of both Russia and China, reducing Russia’s ability to export coal and other natural resources to China and limiting even more dramatically China’s ability to use Russia as a transit corridor westward. That is obvious in the case of the direct rail line between Urumchi and Tashtagol, but it is true of the northern rail line, which would allow China to move goods northward and put them on ships on the Northern Sea Route to the west of where the Arctic still ices up most of the year. Indeed, the suspension of plans for the construction of this northern rail route thus puts on hold Putin’s plans to create a Chinese-style “one belt, one route” corridor through Russia.

China, which could easily finance the construction and operation of a least the southern branch of Russia’s railway plans where the bottleneck most often mentioned is the lack of two tunnels in Russia’s Altai mountain region, has instead led to a reduction in trade through Russia to avoid sanctions and expanded its efforts to ensure that it can use railways through Central Asia to the West, including most recently the modernization and development of a railway and shipping hub in western Kazakhstan. And it has done so even though its moves have reduced its influence on Russian officials in regions east of the Urals and likely in Moscow as well.

These developments are especially noteworthy because they call into question what is an increasingly assumed assumption in many Western capitals. There, many leaders assume that Russia’s turn to the east is exclusively the result of Putin’s war in Ukraine and that when that war ends, Russia will not only again turn to the West but ally itself with the West against China. In reality, the situation is far more complicated than that, both now and likely in the future as well. Now, the costs of the war and the West’s sanctions regime against Russia are slowing the Sinicization of Russia on the ground. In the future, the removal of sanctions and the opening up of new rail and other transportation networks between Russia and China are almost certain to dramatically increase Chinese influence in Russia, precisely the opposite of what many in Western capitals think and expect.

*Map of Russian Federal Districts: Transbaikal #59. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica

China’s Gateway to Siberia: The Sinicization of Transbaikal and Russia’s Demographic Challenge

By Sergey Sukhankin

The fall of 2025 was marked by two notable developments in the Russian Far East that appear to signal a new phase in China’s expanding influence in Russia’s Transbaikal region, known by its administrative name as Transbaikal Krai in the Far Eastern province of Chita.[1] The first occurred on September 8, when the Chinese company Changsha Lanhu Chemical Co., Ltd, and the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic (KRDV) signed an agreement to launch a project in Transbaikal, involving the construction of a mining and processing plant. The initiative includes approximately 2.5 billion rubles (approximately $32.5 million) in declared investment and is expected to create around 100 jobs. Another Chinese agreement was signed in November, with regional authorities announcing the conclusion of a cooperation arrangement with two universities in the Chinese city of Xian (Shaanxi Province) to establish joint educational and exchange programs.

Together, these developments mark a new chapter in China’s increasingly diversified engagement in the Transbaikal region. While Chinese economic initiatives in the region were largely frozen before 2022, Beijing’s interests now extend into the cultural and educational spheres, thereby expanding both its economic footprint and soft-power influence. Despite the consistently optimistic tone in Russia’s official reporting, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine offers a much more sobering interpretation. The Ukrainian services argue that China’s growing economic and cultural involvement is far from being equally mutually beneficial. Instead, it primarily serves as a means for China to secure access to local resources at minimal cost – de facto fueling Sinicization – while local communities fail to receive the promised revenues and employment opportunities.

Sinicization of Transbaikal Before the Sino-Russian Honeymoon

The sensitive topic of the Sinicization of Transbaikal regularly resurfaces in the Russian media during expert discussions about the Far East. The term typically refers to a set of processes associated with the growing Chinese demographic, economic, and cultural presence in the region bordering the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Transbaikal Krai, hereafter referred to as Transbaikal, is one of the key segments of the Sino-Russian land border and represents an important link in the broader “Siberia – Far East – China” corridor. These discussions were particularly prominent between 2008 and 2019, when the Russian economy reached its highest level of development since 1991, and the country’s economic and political dependence on China was much less significant than after 2022.

During this period, Russian domestic discourse on the Sinicization of Transbaikalia coalesced around three principal themes. The first concerned demographic trends. The rapid increase in the number of Chinese nationals in the region not only expanded the presence of foreign labor but also contributed to what many Russian experts characterized as an “evolution of the ethnic structure of the population” in Russia’s border territories. While acknowledging the economic need for foreign labor, analysts also highlighted serious risks that could occur and undermine the region’s long-term socio-economic stability. One local source, writing in 2009, argued that an ongoing demographic collapse—driven by a mass exodus of local residents and persistently high mortality rates—was unfolding alongside a “creeping [Chinese] expansion” that might, under certain circumstances, lead to Russia’s gradual loss of these territories. The article claimed that in the first eight months of 2009, at least 6,500 Chinese nationals had officially registered in the region, while the unofficial number, it suggested, could be “25 to 30 times higher.” Although such unofficial estimates were likely exaggerated, the key takeaway from this reporting was the undeniable rapid rise in the number of Chinese nationals migrating to the region.

Second, Chinese economic expansion. While local analysts described Chinese involvement as an important stabilizing factor for regional markets, they also warned that the trajectory of such involvement carries significant risks. A 2019 article explicitly noted the danger of Transbaikal becoming a “raw-material appendage […] a peripheral supplier of unprocessed resources […] without gaining high-value industries of its own.” It also highlighted additional concerns: the environmental damage associated with Chinese extraction practices and “public concern about foreign influence,” which, if not properly managed, could impede cross-border cooperation. Earlier Russian studies already classified Transbaikal as a “border region” whose foreign-trade relations were heavily oriented toward China, reinforcing its structural dependency on its southern neighbor.

Third, risks posed by Chinese cultural influence. Prior to the current Sino-Russian honeymoon, Russian nationalists and some ultra-conservative groups frequently warned about the growing spread of Chinese cultural practices and Mandarin-language instruction in Russia’s border regions, particularly Transbaikal.

The complexity of Sino-Russian relations in and around Transbaikal before 2022 is illustrated by the controversy surrounding one episode that involved a proposed Chinese land lease initiative in Transbaikal Krai. This effort became perhaps the most prominent symbol of alleged Sinicization in the region. In June 2015, regional authorities signed a memorandum of intent with the Chinese company Huae Xinban (a subsidiary of Zoje Resources Investment). The document envisioned a 49-year lease of 115,000 hectares of fallow agricultural land and pasture across several districts, with the possibility of expanding the area to approximately 315,000 hectares if the first phase was successfully implemented. In public (extremely heated) discourse, this proposal was widely portrayed as the “sale of Transbaikal” and the creation of a “little China” in the region. The public outcry resulted in the regional administration having to come up with an official statement arguing that no formal lease agreement had ever been concluded and that the parties had signed only a memorandum of intent.

The Current Stage of Sinicization

To assess the post-2022 phase of Sinicization in the Transbaikal region, this section examines three principal lines of analysis.

First, demographic trends. As noted earlier, Russian experts observed that since the early 1990s, Transbaikal has been mired in a chronic demographic crisis—a condition that has further deepened since 2022. Persistent population decline and labor shortages have compelled local authorities to rely on foreign migrant labor across multiple sectors of the regional economy. According to official sources, China remains the principal non-CIS supplier of foreign labor in the Russian Far East. A study by the Institute for Demographic Research on International Labor Migration in the Far East found that, based on regional quota requests for 2022, Chinese workers accounted for nearly 99 percent of all non-CIS foreign laborers in both the Republic of Buryatia and Transbaikal Krai.

At the same time, Russian authorities have sought to curb excessive dependence on foreign labor —primarily Chinese— by gradually reducing overall quotas. According to the Ministry of Labor of Transbaikal Krai, the number of work permits issued declined from 3,806 in 2020 to 2,585 in 2023; for 2024, the quota was reduced further to 2,305 permits, representing a 10.8 percent decrease compared to the previous year.

A related development has been Russia’s deliberate effort, beginning in 2024 and continuing into 2025, to reduce its reliance on Chinese labor. In 2024, regional head Aleksandr Osipov reported that 56–60 percent of the region’s demand for construction workers was already being met by local specialists, whereas in 2018, no local residents were even employed on construction sites. He further noted that China’s COVID-related border restrictions made the importation of Chinese workers temporarily impossible, forcing the region to recruit labor from other Russian regions and neighboring countries.

By 2025, the Union of Builders of Transbaikal Krai reported that the monthly wage for a Chinese manual worker had reached approximately 250,000 rubles (about $3,200), rendering such labor economically unsustainable. As a result, the Union announced plans to recruit workers from Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar, where labor costs are significantly lower. Overall, Russian open-source analysis suggests that the primary demographic challenge facing Transbaikal is not “Chinese expansion,” but rather the continued out-migration of local residents. Nevertheless, from 2024 onward, regional authorities have—at least officially—sought to diversify foreign labor sources by increasing recruitment from Central and Southeast Asia. Unlike the pre-2022 period, however, local media coverage and public discourse on demographic Sinicization have remained relatively muted, aside from occasional warnings in the media about China’s expanding presence.

Second, economic trends. After 2022, Chinese economic penetration into both Buryatia and Transbaikal intensified sharply. Once viewed as Russia’s “remote periphery,” these regions have increasingly emerged as a central overland corridor for Sino-Russian trade. According to Albina Koreshkova, the Minister of Planning and Economic Development of Transbaikal Krai, by the end of 2024 more than 60 percent of all Russia–China overland trade was transiting through border crossing points in the region.

This transformation has translated into expanding Chinese influence across multiple segments of Transbaikal’s regional economy. Chinese economic predominance in the Siberian region can be broken down into four principal areas:

A. Logistics and transportation. This sector experienced rapid growth in cross-border cargo flows to and from China. At the Transbaikal road checkpoint alone, freight turnover reached 2.5 million tons in 2024. By 2025, large-scale reconstruction was underway, including the expansion of trucking lanes to 28 to accommodate rising volumes of Chinese and Russian cargo. At the same time, new road and rail infrastructure is being developed—an effort that regional authorities characterize as a strategic advantage. Exporters using the Transbaikal corridor save approximately 3,000 kilometers compared to routing goods through Russian Far Eastern ports, positioning Transbaikal as China’s primary overland gateway to Siberia and the Ural Mountains.

B. Grain-related mega-projects. This trend is best exemplified by the “New Russia–China Land Grain Corridor”, which was launched between 2022 and 2023 and is expected to supply China with a large quantity of soybeans and grain (up to 8 million tons per year) over the next 12-year period. Between 2023 and 2024 implementation of this project was supplemented by the construction of linear elevators along the Trans-Siberian Railway, further integrating Russia’s Far Eastern grain production with long-term Chinese demand.

C. Retail and trade. This area has become particularly visible in the consumer sector: one study showed that in the Far Eastern Federal District, the share of Chinese-made vehicles in the new-car market rose from 15 percent (2022) to 65 percent in early 2025. Transbaikal Krai – a territorial-administrative unit that comprises the Transbaikal region was identified as the “most loyal” region in Russia to Chinese automakers, while Buryatia ranked among the top four regions in terms of rising demand for Chinese brands. This indicates that Chinese firms now control a dominant portion of local markets for vehicles, services, spare parts, and auto financing, making the region overwhelmingly dependent on China. Transbaikal’s growing economic and trade dependency on China is visible in yet another way: by the end of 2024, the Buryat Ministry of Economics publicly advised entrepreneurs to adjust their procurement and logistics schedules to the Chinese New Year, explaining how the 2–3-week shutdown of factories in China affects supply chains in Buryatia. This clearly shows that the “China factor” is now embedded not only in raw-material exports but also in a broad range of commercial practices of Small and Medium-Sized (SMEs) businesses.

D. (Emerging) Digital dependence. In 2024, Ulan-Ude hosted the international forum “Online Trade — Access to Export,” organized by regional authorities. A key partner for the event was Alibaba e-commerce platform, through which Buryatia aims to promote exports to China. While this component of Transbaikal-China trade is relatively new and hard data on the region’s exact level of dependence on Chinese e-commerce platforms remains limited, it is clear that local businesses are increasingly pivoting toward these channels.

Third, the humanitarian dimension. In contrast to the demographic and economic spheres, Chinese influence in the humanitarian domain appears—at least for now—to be less pronounced. One reason is that both constituent regions of Transbaikalia have long maintained close cultural ties with China, dating back to the early 1990s. In Transbaikal Krai, several schools currently offer Mandarin-language instruction, although these programs remain limited in scope and largely niche in their impact.

Buryatia, by comparison, maintains significantly deeper cultural and educational ties with China. In addition to numerous joint initiatives and exchange programs, the republic hosts a Confucius Institute at Buryat State University (BSU). Established in 2007 as a joint project between BSU and the Changchun University of Science and Technology, the Institute serves as the primary institutional promoter of Mandarin in the republic and organizes the majority of China-related cultural, educational, and academic events in the region.

Conclusion

Following the scandal surrounding the “land lease” affair in 2015, Chinese engagement with Transbaikal largely receded from public and policy discourse inside Russia. However, developments after 2022—and particularly in 2025—indicate a renewed and more sustained Chinese interest in the region. This resurgence is occurring against the backdrop of Transbaikal’s continued demographic decline alongside its significant abundance of natural resources. Current evidence suggests that Beijing’s renewed focus on Transbaikal is primarily economic in nature. Rather than relying on transactional import–export arrangements, Chinese actors appear increasingly interested in embedding themselves more deeply into the regional economy. This shift points toward a strategy aimed at establishing a systemic, long-term economic footprint, potentially spanning resource extraction, infrastructure, logistics, and related services. At the same time, developments in the cultural and humanitarian sphere – though secondary to economic engagement – should not be overlooked.

Emerging initiatives and exchanges suggest a gradual expansion of China’s soft-power presence, indicating an interest in fostering closer societal and cultural linkages between Transbaikal and neighboring Chinese regions. Taken together, these trends indicate China is pursuing a more comprehensive and multidimensional strategy, where economic penetration is complemented by softer forms of influence aimed at anchoring China’s long-term presence in the region.

Notes

[1] The Transbaikal region is located east of Lake Baikal in southeastern Siberia. Geographically it consists of the following Russian territories: Transbaikal Krai and parts of the Republic of Buryatia.

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Moscow Asks Beijing for Access to Rare Earth Technology

According to the Moscow Times, Russia has asked China for access to rare earth technology as the Kremlin confronts a severe gap between its vast geological reserves and its minimal production capacity. Despite holding an estimated 28.5 million tons of rare earth metals, Russia extracts hardly any of the strategic commodity. Moscow relies heavily on foreign supplies of lithium, tungsten, niobium, and other critical minerals. Seeking partners—including the United States—Putin emphasized the need to develop deposits across Russia and occupied Ukraine. A new federal strategy aims to triple output by 2030, though dependence would still remain high. Earlier this year President Putin offered to sell rare earth minerals to the United States if the US agreed to improve relations even though Russia lacks the technology to process the strategic mineral.

…while Putin Orders Russian Industry to Produce a Roadmap for Rare Earth Development by December 1

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the government to produce a roadmap for developing Russia’s rare earth metals (RZM) industry by December 1, with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin responsible for implementation. Despite vast reserves—28.5 million tons of rare earth metals and over 650 million tons of rare metals—Russia extracts only about 50 tons annually, covering less than 2% of domestic demand. Imports supply more than half of Russia’s tungsten, molybdenum, zirconium, and tantalum needs, and nearly all lithium. Lacking its own extraction technologies, Moscow has sought Chinese assistance, but negotiations have made little progress.

China Initiates Restrictions on Machine Tool Exports to Russia

China has begun restricting exports to Russia of mid-tier precision machine tools needed to manufacture components with sub-10-micron tolerances, limiting Moscow’s ability to produce certain missiles, engines, and guided weapons. Russian firms report that equipment once easily purchased now requires special export licenses, making machines with 3–4-micron accuracy effectively inaccessible. Chinese customs data also show a broader downturn: exports to Russia fell 16.4% year-on-year in August 2025, and total trade dropped nearly 9% in the first eight months of the year.

Local Protests Erupt in Transbaikal Over Moscow’s Assistance for Chinese Backed-Projects

by Paul Goble

A clash between residents of the Transbaikal, on the one hand, and Russian officials and Chinese workers, on the other, is spreading from Russian courtrooms to villages where in at least one case a Russian has taken the law into his own hands and even used guns against Chinese workers brought in with Moscow’s help to develop industry and transport there. The situation is getting out of hand, prompting one resident of the region near Lake Baikal to exclaim “the Chinese have been saying for a long time, ‘Baikal is ours’ [and] soon they’ll say ‘And Crimea is ours too.’ I keep asking: what are our guys fighting for. So that these Chinese people can strut around here? Why?”

According to the Important Stories portal, eleven years ago, Oleg Deripaska and his En+ group signed an agreement with China’s Shenhua Group to expand the export of coal to China from the Transbaikal, something that requires the expansion of mining and the development of transportation networks. Because of the negative environmental impact of both the expanded mining and the routing of new railways and highways through areas that had been off limits lest they destroy the unique natural environment around one of Russia’s most storied lakes, the project has sparked protests and court cases by residents even though Russian officials welcome it.

In February 2025, a Russian court rejected a government ecological assessment and ordered the companies involved to cease work. The Russian coal company involved has appealed and new documentation is supported to be presented in a few months. But despite this decision, the companies involved have continued to build roads and railways, often harming what had been protected regions. Local people feel powerless to stop this. After all, they say, China is “a world power while we live in poverty.” And Russian officials are now welcoming in Chinese workers to do the job.

Russian officials have helped Chinese companies force Russians out of their homes so that there will be a place for Chinese workers to live. In response, one resident took out his gun and began “shooting out the window” at the Chinese. Others have not gone that far - at least not yet. But tensions are clearly escalating, and the readiness of some residents to compare what is going on in Putin’s war in Ukraine – where local men have died – with the war of Russian officials against their own people in the Transbaikal to help not Russians but the Chinese is telling. And if the courts vacate their original stop order early next year, an explosion in the coming months is likely.

This case highlights something that is all too often forgotten: officials and businessmen in Moscow view Chinese involvement in Siberia and the Russian Far East very differently than do the residents of these enormous and resource-rich regions. The former see the arrival of the Chinese as an opportunity to make money and cement ties between Moscow and Beijing. Indeed, many of the richest Russians in the capital gained their wealth by developing lands east of the Urals with the help of the Chinese. But the latter see the influx of Chinese as a more direct threat to their way of life and the pristine environment in which most of them take such pride, perhaps especially around Lake Baikal. Moscow-appointed officials in the region can generally be counted upon to carry out the Kremlin’s wishes, but the longer they pursue the line that Chinese development of the region is an unqualified good, they are going to alienate the population there which is going to be hostile not just to the Chinese but to the Russians from the center who are helping the Chinese to establish an even larger presence in the region.

Moscow’s promotion of the expansion of a Chinese presence in the region has been infuriating residents of these regions for more than a decade. And as the recent events in the Transbaikal show, the division that matters is not simply between Russia and China, as many are inclined to assume but rather between China with the backing of the distant Russian capital, on the one hand, and the residents, ethnic Russian as well as non-Russian, in the regions east of the Urals into which Moscow is helping the Chinese to move. In fact, in 2019, a group of protesters in Tomsk even staged a demonstration carrying signs stating: “Down with the Imperialism of Moscow and Beijing before the participants were rounded up.

At present, as in the Transbaikal, Moscow appears committed to doing whatever it takes to smooth the way for the Chinese. But that approach is costing it the support of residents in the Transbaikal and beyond. It may ultimately become a threat to the center, especially after Putin’s departure, when the political future not only of Siberia and the Russian Far East but also of the Moscow-centered state will be decided.

Bastion or Buffer? Tuva’s Emerging Role in Russian Strategy Toward China

by Sergey Sukhankin

Long overlooked and rarely discussed beyond specialist circles, the Russian Far Eastern republic of Tuva has reemerged as a strategically significant buffer within Russia’s evolving geopolitical posture toward China. Remote, ethnically distinct, economically stagnant, and historically peripheral to Moscow’s centers of power, Tuva is not an obvious candidate for heightened geopolitical significance. Yet recent developments—including the temporary suspension of operations by the Chinese-owned mining firm LLC Lunsin—have cast new light on Tuva’s role as a contested space where Russian anxieties over deepening dependence on China increasingly intersect with local identity, economic vulnerability, and historical memory.

The episode with the LLC Lunsin, initially framed as an unintended consequence of sanctions compliance, soon revealed a more complex dynamic: Russian law enforcement pressure, the swift intervention of regional authorities, and the political resonance of Chinese investment in a culturally unique borderland. Taken together, these events expose a deeper concern within parts of the Russian elite about Beijing’s expanding economic and cultural presence inside the Russian Federation, even as Moscow continues to portray its strategic partnership with China as stronger than ever.

Tuva’s significance, however, extends far beyond a single mining dispute. Russian scholars and policymakers have begun reinterpreting the republic through the lens of Vadim Tsymbursky’s “Great Limitroph” theory—seeing Tuva not merely as a marginal region, but as a historically fluid buffer zone positioned between Russian, Mongolian, and Chinese civilizational spheres. This framing carries profound implications. It suggests that Tuva may serve simultaneously as a symbolic bastion against perceived Sinicization, a cultural and religious frontier anchored in Buddhism rather than Orthodoxy, and a potential platform for projecting influence into Mongolia and Inner Asia. As Russia recalibrates its foreign policy amid war, sanctions, and increasing reliance on China, Tuva’s strategic position—once peripheral—now offers Moscow both an opportunity and a dilemma: how to leverage the region’s unique attributes without provoking the very geopolitical pressures it seeks to manage.

Courting Tuva: Zijin Mining Group’s Expanding Influence

In May 2025, the Republic of Tuva (Tyva) briefly drew attention in the Russian media after an announcement by LLC Lunsin, a Tuva-based subsidiary (established in 2005) of the Zijin Mining Group (紫金矿业集团有限公司) that it would be suspending its operations in Tuva due to a series of challenges affecting its regional activities. The Chinese mining group is regarded as one of China’s largest mining conglomerates specializing in the exploration, development, and production of gold, copper, and other minerals.

Initially, both Chinese and Russian representatives cited economic sanctions and the resulting inability to conduct financial transactions between Russian and Chinese banks as the principal obstacle. However, subsequent reports from Tuva-based sources suggested a different cause: an increasing number of inspections and interventions by Russian law enforcement agencies, which allegedly disrupted the subsidiary’s normal operations.

Following these developments, a meeting was convened between local Tuvan authorities – who emphasized the strategic importance of LLC Lunsin to the regional economy – and Zijin Mining Group President Zou Laichang. The talks reportedly resulted in an agreement to resume the company’s operations. While seemingly a minor episode, this incident can be interpreted within a broader geopolitical and domestic context. As Russia’s strategic dependence on China has expanded dramatically since 2022, parts of the Russian elite have become increasingly uneasy about Beijing’s growing economic and political footprint within the country. Against this backdrop, Moscow may seek to leverage ethnically non-Russian, Turkic-speaking, and predominantly Buddhist Tuva as a platform to reinforce its influence in the region and symbolically demonstrate control over areas where China’s economic presence is becoming more assertive.

Tuva’s Importance in Russian Strategic Thinking: “The Great Limitrophe”

In 1993, the Russian intellectual Vadim Tsymbursky published an article titled “Island Russia” (Ostrov Rossiya), in which he introduced the concept of the Great Limitrophe theory—a framework explaining how certain borderlands or buffer zones have historically played a critical role in geopolitical struggles among major powers. According to Tsymbursky, such regions are never entirely aligned with one side or the other; rather, they tend to shift allegiances over time and serve as zones of contention where civilizational and cultural boundaries blur, overlap, and interact. While Tsymbursky’s original analysis primarily referred to countries such as Ukraine, Poland, the Caucasus, the Baltic States, and the countries of Central Asia, contemporary Russian authors from Tuva have identified this republic as another example of a “buffer zone” or a territory belonging to the Great Limitrophe.

Experts in Tuva appear to have reached this conclusion based upon their perception of Tuva as “a territory that, on the one hand, lies between [Chinese and Russian] civilizations but has never truly become an integral and complete part of either of them.” It is also particularly noteworthy that Russian scholars specializing on Tuva—view it as part of the Great Limitrophe and have proposed leveraging the republic’s potential to strengthen Russia in two important ways.

First, ethnically non-Russian populations inhabiting Russia’s borderland territories are believed to possess unique advantages in terms of their regional defense potential. This argument rests on their deep knowledge of the local terrain—often harsh and geographically complex—as well as their ability to operate effectively in extreme climatic conditions and sparsely populated environments. Such attributes, according to Russian experts, make the local population a valuable asset in defending Russia’s periphery. Moreover, these experts assert that the people of Tuva would be particularly willing to defend Russia’s territorial integrity with determination. This thesis is rooted in local historical memory: in the early 20th century, for example, when Tuva became an object of interest for both China and Mongolia, it was Russia that helped the region defend its sovereignty—an event that, in the eyes of Russian commentators, should foster enduring gratitude among the local population.

Second, to expand Russian influence across adjacent territories—most notably Mongolia—Moscow might activate another facet of Tuva’s strategic potential. Russian experts suggest that Russia should “liberalize” contacts between the populations of Tuva and Mongolia, thereby turning the Tuvans into informal “envoys of Russian culture.” It is important to note that in earlier Russian publications—particularly before 2014, when Sino-Russian economic and political relations began to deepen—authors emphasized the need to strengthen ties between Tuvans residing in the Russian republic and ethnic Tuvans living in China (estimated to be approximately 2,500). However, the Russian side has long lamented Beijing’s explicit unwillingness to facilitate such contacts, reportedly obstructing the freedom of movement of China-based Tuvans and thereby limiting cross-border cultural exchange.

Insulating Tuva from Sinicization: The New Battleground?

Despite the fact that Tuvan authorities have clearly outlined foreign economic priorities of the republic – Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China – the Russian federal center has been cautious in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from these countries. Since the early 1990s, Tuva—alongside other ethnically non-Russian regions of the Russian Federation—has remained deliberately dependent on federal subsidies and financial transfers from Moscow. This system of engineered economic dependence, maintained through centralized control over fiscal resources, has effectively stifled local entrepreneurship and inhibited the emergence of a self-sustaining regional economy. From the Kremlin’s perspective, this policy served a clear strategic purpose: to prevent economic self-sufficiency from translating into political autonomy. Russian federal authorities have long viewed independent economic development and the expansion of foreign trade linkages in such regions as potential precursors to centrifugal dynamics, including social unrest or a weakening of local dependence on Moscow. As a result, policies ostensibly aimed at ensuring “stability” in Tuva and similar republics have, in practice, entrenched structural underdevelopment and reinforced the region’s fiscal and administrative subordination to the center.

This is particularly evident in the proposed Russia–Mongolia–China corridor—a route crossing Siberia via Tuva—which was first officially discussed in the early 2010s, yet still faces significant delays. However, in recent months the Siberian regions of Tuva, Krasnoyarsk Krai, and Khakassia – have intensified their calls for the project’s development and stressed its strategic importance. Meanwhile, Moscow’s response has remained notably reserved. Naturally, this could be based upon economic or environmental considerations, yet the Kremlin`s behavior might also be explained by other factors. For example, in the work of Chimiza K. Lamazhaa – a local scientist who backs the concept of Tuva being a part of Russia`s so-called Limitrophe zone – has pointed out that the local language, religion and identity could become a source of conflict.

Among other things, Lamazhaa argues that while the Chinese civilizational impact on Tuva is “minimal”, signs of proximity of the great nation are still visible in the republic. The author does not claim that Tuva will necessarily become a battleground between China and Russia, but she acknowledges that Tuva`s territorial and cultural specificities create a unique situation of “interregnum” (mezdutsartviye), which in turn could pose a dilemma about Tuva`s relevance to Russian civilization or Eastern (Chinese or Mongolian) cultural tradition.

To avoid the revival of local nationalism and the republic`s (potential) tilt toward China, the Russian side has pursued three policies to insulate Tuva from Sinicization: To prevent the revival of local nationalism and a potential tilt toward China, Russia has pursued three policies aimed at insulating Tuva from Sinicization. The first is the prioritization of Buddhism. It is worth recalling that in 2023 the consecration of Russia’s largest Buddhist monastery, Tubten Shedrub Ling, took place in Kyzyl. Importantly, the construction of this monastery was initiated by Sergei Shoigu—President of the Russian Geographical Society and, at the time, Minister of Defense—while the site itself had been personally consecrated and blessed in 1992 by the 14th Dalai Lama during his visit to Tuva. Notably, the 2023 event did not elicit any public reaction from Chinese officials.

Second, it has promoted a specific type of “neither China nor Mongolia” narrative. After 2022, pro-Kremlin media started posting articles about Tuva that not only highlighted Russia`s undisputed sovereignty over this ethnically non-Russian region, but juxtaposed Russia`s “beneficial” influence on the republic and its historic choice to be with Russia rather than Mongolia or China. Russian sources emphasize Tuva`s voluntary decision to join Russia, which was not done under any sort of coercion by Moscow and reiterates the Russian role as a security provider for the Far Eastern republic at a time of regional Sinicization.

Third, and perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this policy is related to Moscow`s (so far unsuccessful) attempt to utilize Tuva and its natural resources – notably its lithium deposits, which are critical for American automotive firms producing Electric Vehicles (EV`s). This has been one of the major tools Putin has used in trying to reset relations with the United States. Local authorities in 2023 announced the discovery of a massive lithium deposit in the Sangilen Highlands, which reportedly contains 596,000 tons of the strategic commodity as well as other rare earth metals. Putin publicly touted the strategic importance of the lithium deposits declaring that “Tuva ranks first in our country in lithium reserves, which is almost 30%. The production of this metal is, without exaggeration, a strategically important task, the solution of which largely determines the effectiveness of our import substitution programs and ensuring the technological independence of the country.”

Following Donald Trump’s re-election as U.S. President—and given his strong interest in securing access to critical and rare-earth metals, as well as U.S. dependence on China—Putin suggested that instead of seeking opportunities in Ukraine, American firms should participate in developing Tuva’s lithium deposits. The United States, however, did not respond to the Russian proposal.

Conclusion

Tuva is a small, ethnically non-Russian republic, remote, and sparsely populated region of the Russian Federation, with a population of approximately 338,000. However, Russian writings about the Far East indicate that it could become a new battleground between Russia and China due to Sinicization. The republic remains economically stagnant and heavily dependent on Russian federal subsidies, as its foreign economic ties are limited and its private sector remains underdeveloped. Yet despite these structural constraints, Tuva possesses enormous attributes that could elevate its strategic value within Moscow’s broader geopolitical ambitions — including its distinct ethno-religious identity, its geographical proximity to Mongolia and China, and its significant, though underutilized, natural resources.

In this context, the Kremlin may seek to turn Tuva into a geopolitical asset, using the region as a platform to project influence into neighboring Mongolia and, under favorable conditions, parts of Central Asia. Under this scenario — which is not entirely unrealistic — Tuva could shift from serving as a symbolic bridge between Moscow and Beijing, an image that aligns with post-2022 Sino-Russian cooperation, to functioning as a buffer (or even, under certain circumstances, a bastion) against China’s regional encroachment on the Russian Far East.

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Russian Security Services Arrest 2nd Chinese Spy

On September 22, Russian intelligence services detained a foreign national identified as Chizhen, accused of espionage, according to records from Moscow’s Lefortovsky District Court. The case, according to Moscow Times was marked top secret, and provided no details about the charges or the suspect’s location, though a hearing was scheduled for September 25th. Upon conviction under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code, Chizhen faces 10 to 20 years in prison, or potentially life imprisonment for offenses involving large-scale damage or collaboration.

This is the second espionage case in Russia reported during the month of September. The first instance was reported on September 15, by the Russian newspaper Kommersant involving a Chinese national, following the earlier arrest of Wang Yu.Ch. on similar charges. The unprecedented twin arrests - back to back - have drawn attention to growing Russian uneasiness about Chinese intelligence activity within Russia. According to CSIS’s ChinaPower report, China has engaged in extensive espionage and cyberattacks targeting Russian defense industries, particularly aerospace technologies, and has repeatedly violated licensing agreements by copying Russian weapons systems such as the Su-27 fighter and S-300 missile system.

China Creates Grain Corridor Between Amur and Sea of Japan

On September 23, 2025, China launched its first cargo ship, Xiang Yue Su Hang, to navigate Russia’s inland waterways along the Lower Amur River — a milestone in expanding Sino-Russian transport cooperation. According to Russia’s Ministry of Transport, the ship began its route in Taicang, southern China, passed through the Sea of Japan to Vanino, and continued upriver to Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, Khabarovsk, and China’s Fuyuan. The voyage, part of the joint “Northeast China–Russian Far East” intermodal transport corridor, aims to boost regional trade by moving technical fleet vessels to China and returning with grain cargo to southern Chinese ports.

To support this initiative, China is modernizing the deep-water port of Manjit in Fuyuan to handle container shipments within the “Jinliang” cross-border agricultural project, creating a so-called “grain corridor” between the Amur and the Sea of Japan. The development highlights Beijing’s growing logistical influence and Moscow’s increasing economic dependence on China. Last summer, it was reported that Russian-Chinese negotiations were underway regarding free passage for Chinese vessels through the Tumen River, which flows into the Sea of ​​Japan.

Beijing has repeatedly sought passage from Moscow along the Tumen route, but until recently has encountered strong Russian resistance to this initiative. However, amid Russia’s growing economic dependence on China, the issue was resolved back in 2024 China’s favor. The Tumen river runs along the border between China and North Korea, and then along the border between Russia and the DPRK. It is located in areas that previously belonged to China until the mid-19th century. Currently, Chinese ships can only navigate the river as far as the village of Fangchuan and are unable to access the lower reaches—a 15-kilometer stretch that allows them to sail out to sea.

Putin’s Multi-Path ‘One Belt, One Route’ Corridor Plan Marks New Phase in Russian Sinicization

By Paul Goble

For most of his time in power, Putin has made the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) with a single pathway his focus for the development of east-west trade, while over the same period, Chinese leaders have adopted their original “one belt, one road” approach (now known as the Belt and Road Initiative), to develop multiple pathways over land and sea to expand trade between Asia and Europe. In part, Putin’s approach up to now reflects the difficulties Moscow has faced in developing the kind of intermodal systems that multiple routes would require; and in part, it reflects the enormous difficulties for the Russian ruler in building rail lines and highways in the Russian North, where the melting of permafrost adds to the expense and difficulties of distance in doing so. But now, when the NSR has not lived up to expectations and when Russia and China are cooperating ever more closely, Putin is changing his approach and urging the adoption of what looks like a Russian analogue to what China has long been doing, clearly in the hope that Beijing will bail him out in this area.

In reporting the Kremlin leader’s words from last month, Moscow national security commentator Dmitry Nefyodov acknowledges that Putin specifically failed to use the Chinese term, limiting himself to rechristening the NSR the Trans-Arctic Corridor. But the analyst includes a reference to the Chinese “one belt, one road” approach in the title of his article and makes it clear that what Putin is now about is beyond any doubt a copy of what Beijing’s leaders have been doing in their pursuit of the development of east-west trade for some time.

According to Nefyodov, who provides numerous detailed maps showing the routes of these new “paths,” Putin plans to jump-start the use of the NSR by extending rail lines north from the Trans-Siberian and BAM railroads. This would allow shipments between Asia and Europe to use segments of the NSR, rather than being forced to rely on the sea route along its entire length — or avoid it altogether. The challenges of developing such a system are both numerous and large.

Not only would such a program require massive investment, something Putin clearly hopes the Chinese and perhaps others will supply, but it would necessitate Russia overcoming the problems it has suffered with the construction of rail lines in the North, something it has often failed at in the past, and in the handling of intermodal transit of cargo. The latter is especially difficult as shifting cargoes from trucks to trains to ships and from riverine ships to ocean-going vessels is not easy. Moscow has had extreme difficulties in overcoming them. As a result, Russian failures in this sector have reduced the overall speed of Russian routes, thus adding to their costs and reducing their attractiveness to potential users, particularly as Western sanctions have forced Moscow to lower its expectations by reducing the number of vessels it will build from 70 to 16 ice-class vessels to expand the Northern Sea Route.

Nefyodov describes these problems in great detail, and his tone suggests that this new Russian analogue to the Chinese approach is unlikely to work any better than the NSR has. Given that this year, the NSR is carrying less than half of the volume of trade Putin predicted for it as recently as two years ago, that may preclude both Chinese investment in the new rail lines and thus any chance that the multi-path trade corridor will ever be built. What that means, of course, is that perhaps the most important aspect of this new Moscow proposal is not that it will ever be built and achieve Putin’s goals, but that it reflects the Kremlin leader’s willingness to copy what the Chinese are doing and the readiness of Russian commentators to say what he is doing—something unimaginable only a few years ago. It is also a reflection of the increasing influence China is having on Russia and the willingness of Russians like Putin to swallow their pride and accept that Beijing, rather than Moscow, is the pathfinder on such issues.

But that psychological shift is the most important indication of the Kitaizatsiya (Sinicization) of Russia following Putin’s turn away from the West and toward China and Asia. It is a shift Russians may welcome in the abstract but may be outraged by when it comes down to specific steps—be they the purchase of Chinese cars rather than European ones, or the copying of Chinese state policies like Beijing’s original “one belt, one road” initiative rather than going it alone as the Kremlin has generally sought to do.

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**NOTE: Photo above is the signing of a cooperation and collaboration agreement between the Government of Yakutia and the Union of Chinese Entrepreneurs in the Russian Federation signed during the 10th Eastern Economic Forum, attended by the head of the republic, Aisen Nikolaev, and the Union’s chairperson, Zhou Liqun.

Chinese Inroads Into Sakha

By Sergey Sukhankin

During the recent Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok from September 3–6, 2025, the Government of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Union of Chinese Entrepreneurs in Russia (UCER) ) signed an agreement on cooperation and collaboration aimed at strengthening bilateral ties in trade, investment, logistics, and manufacturing. Local Sakha-based sources believe that this agreement will further enhance cooperation between China and the Republic — a partnership first launched in 2004, when Sakha signed an agreement with China’s Heilongjiang Province.

Since then, the scope of Sino-Sakha relations has expanded significantly: China has become one of the Republic’s top foreign trading partners, and 19 of Sakha’s municipalities have established “sworn brotherly” (pobratimy) relationships with 22 Chinese cities and counties – notably in Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces. Despite the apparent growth in bilateral trade and the seemingly positive trajectory of Sakha-China relations, China’s approach toward Yakutia since 2022 has been quite cautious — seeking to avoid major collaborative projects while switching its priorities toward soft power initiatives prioritizing engagement directly with local elites rather than with Moscow.

Chinese Economic Expansion Into Sakha

Chinese economic advancement in Sakha became evident even before the outbreak of the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022. As early as 2021, local sources reported that China was steadily increasing its presence and had become one of Sakha’s key foreign trade partners. At that time, China’s share in Sakha’s foreign economic cooperation stood at 27.5 percent, reflecting the Republic’s growing dependence on Chinese trade. By 2024, this share had surged to over 45 percent, with Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Shandong, and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region emerging as Sakha’s principal trading partners.

The foundation of this bilateral trade remains straightforward—an import-export relationship in which Sakha serves primarily as a supplier of commodities and raw materials for China. However, Russia aims to expand cooperation beyond these traditional sectors. Currently, Sakha plays a key role in the export of Russian natural gas to China through the Power of Siberia pipeline, which has been operational since 2019. Under this project, Russia plans to supply Chinese customers with one trillion cubic meters (tcm) of natural gas over the next thirty years.

The role of Sakha is crucial both in terms of its resource base (the Chayanda field) and transportation based upon its geographical proximity to China. Moscow plans to utilize this interdependence by engaging Beijing in other strategic infrastructural projects such as the Dzhalinda–Mohe railway bridge across the Amur River, which the Russian side sees as an integral part of the Neryungri-Skovorodino-Dzhalinda-Mohe transport corridor project that is to play a critical role in the social economic development of Russia’s Far East and Baikal regions. While rumors about construction began circulating in 2022, and accelerated in 2023, China now appears to be cautiously approaching this issue. According to Russian officials, Moscow desperately needs this transportation route as a means to increase its exports of coal, LNG, lumber, iron ore due to its inability to cope with the rapidly growing East-bound traffic since February 2022. It reflects a clear inability of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal–Amur Mainline (BAM) to cope with the growing volumes of cargo it is handling.

Analysis of Russian-language sources reveals an intriguing vision of how Moscow seeks to leverage Sakha—particularly its geography—in its efforts to deepen ties with China. According to Daryana Maximova, the Deputy Executive Director at the Secretariat of the Northern Forum international organization, “there is an agreement from the side of Moscow to transform Yakutia [Sakha] into a bridge between China and Russia.” Maximova emphasized that Russia is ready to satisfy Chinese interest in Sakha-based infrastructure by linking Chinese firms with the Northen Sea Route (NSR) through its territory. Based upon her statement, Russia is ready to grant China additional privileges in Sakha to turn it into a gateway to the Arctic.

Russia’s previous patterns of regionalism — exemplified by Kaliningrad and the Republic of Karelia, which formed part of the so-called Euro-regions (Evroregioni) before 2014 — are particularly telling. Cross-border cooperation in these areas was gradually strangled by Moscow’s obsession with combating alleged foreign malign influence. Against this backdrop, Russia’s apparent readiness to invite China into this distant and ethnically non-Russian territory is quite puzzling. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Moscow faces two key risks in doing so:

Risk #1: China’s White Elephant Projects in Sakha

Despite a growing volume of trade with Sakha—consisting primarily of commodity exports[1] —China has shown little enthusiasm for investing in strategic projects or committing significant financial resources to develop the Republic. Between 2006 and 2015, Russian sources enthusiastically touted Beijing’s “huge interest” in investment projects in Yakutia (Sakha) by Chinese firms and even at the state level. The reality, however, has proven to be quite different: most of the highly publicized ventures with expected Chinese participation turned out to be empty promises despite being hailed by the Russian media. For example, these include the following initiatives that never materialized:

· A major real estate developing project (400,000 square meters of apartment blocks) in the city of Yakutsk that was supposed to be carried out by a Chinese “Zhuoda Group,” but local authorities later dissolved the deal.

· A 2015 agreement between the Chinese side and authorities of the Sakha over the Tyrekhtyakh Creek tin deposit (the Ust-Yansky District) with estimated reserves about 68,000 tons.

· A 2015 bridge project through the Lena River signed with several Chinese companies, such as Hua Qin An Ju, Chzhundyan, Bo Chi Heilongjiang, Heilongjiang Main Company for Economic and Technological Development (translations are approximate given that the names come from Russian sources) and the China Development Bank.

· An investment project signed in 2018 to build a Hilton hotel in Yakutsk that was supposed to be carried out by China Overseas Holding Group Smarter City Fund Co. Ltd.

· A coke chemical plant in the Neryungri district, home to the Neryungri coal field, which is one of the largest coal-producing regions in Russia.

· An LNG-producing facility, which attracted interest from the Guangzhou-based Jovo Group, which would satisfy 30 percent of the province’s import of LNG. However, in 2019, following initial assessment, the company rejected an idea based on challenges with logistics and as claimed by Russian language sources, opted for imports from alternative projects in Southeast Asia.

Having listed some of the unfulfilled promises and expectations that the Russian side held regarding Chinese economic involvement in Sakha, it is important to note that these initiatives emerged during a period of relative economic and geopolitical stability. In light of current realities caused by the Ukraine war and international sanctions against Russia, the prospect of securing Chinese commitments to large and financially demanding projects in Sakha appear far less realistic than before. That said, despite these challenges, this does not imply that China has lost interest in Sakha or that Beijing’s engagement in the region is diminishing. On the contrary, China is building its influence inside Sakha by relying on soft power initiatives in order to strengthen its ties with Sakha.

Risk #2: China Turns to Soft Power

After the outbreak of the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022, Chinese involvement with Sakha switched to a different track to deepen its ties to Sakha by expanding its cultural influence in the Far Eastern Republic in several directions.

First, it adopted identity-related narratives to promulgate its influence. In the post-2022 period the number of joint Sino-Sakha cultural events underscoring the “brotherly” nature of the bilateral relations with a tacit emphasis on “similarity” between the two groups increased dramatically. One example of such events is the “China – Yakutia: friendship of peoples” festival (the most recent one took place in 2024). While this and similar events could be viewed as a mere symbol of friendship and growing ties between the two parties, the undertone is quite clear, namely to demonstrate that the Yakuts and Chinese share a great deal of similarities. At this juncture, a series of very interesting publications appeared on the Chinese Sohu.com platform. While these publications cannot be taken as a reflection of Chinese strategy, yet their appearance in the Chinese information space deserve special attention because this media outlet is primarily designed for domestic consumption. Several consistent themes emerge from these publications which are summarized below:

· Sakha is the world’s second largest (after China) territory populated by “representatives of the “yellow race”[2] and that the majority of Yakutia’s 950,000 population are “yellow people,” who are connected with China through multiple historical ties.

· Sakha (Yakutia) is exceptionally endowed with natural resources but due to a variety of factors, this territory is likely to become depopulated in the foreseeable future.

· Sino-Sakhan ties must be developed in as broad categories as possible due to the fact that, aside from a mutually beneficial economic partnership, over time, this would grant Sakha more independence, i.e., from Russia.

At this juncture it is important to mention that after 2022, Russian-language sources reacted quite negatively – if not alarmingly - to these postings articles taken from the Chinese media space by claiming how Sakha (and other parts of the Far East) should one day return to China using the headline: “How China Views the Russian Federation Constituent Entity Sakha.”

*Chinese map of Siberia depicting administrative divisions during the Yuan Dynasty

Second, education and language. After 2022 Sakha-based sources indicate China expanded its use of Chinese educational and language-related programs and initiatives inside Yakutia. For instance, it was reported that Mandarin has become the primary foreign language of instruction being offered to students in an estimated 33 schools. This number appears to be particularly impressive in light of the following factor: in 2023 the integration of Mandarin in Sakha was conducted on an experimental basis, and in one year the study of Mandarin skyrocketed throughout the secondary education system of the Republic. Perhaps, even more crucially, the Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU) and Changchun University of Science and Technology (Changchun, Jilin Province) sought to expand their strategic cooperation with Sakha which resulted in the emergence of the joint Sakha- Changchun Technological University. Moreover, China chose to locate the main campus on Chinese territory (Longjing) for the purpose of bringing students from Sakha directly to China for their education. Such a development would widely expose these students to Chinese culture and political influence.

Third, leisure and entertainment. After February 2022 there was a dramatic increase in the popularity of China as a tourist destination and as a source of inbound tourism. Russian sources reported two critical trends. On the one hand, in terms of outbound tourism, China has become the most desirable destination for the inhabitants of Sakha, beating such traditionally popular destinations as Turkey and Thailand. At the same time, the inbound tourism from China to Sakha grew by 50 percent. While the overall number of Chinese tourists remains meagre (official outlets reported only 223 Chinese nationals visiting the Republic in 2024), the overall dynamic appears impressive. Likely, this number is going to increase due to the growing interest (was explicitly articulated in 2025) among Chinese entertainment and movie-producing companies in launching production on the territory of Sakha.

Conclusion

The image of Chinese cooperation with Sakha in the post-2022 period presents one big optical illusion. On the surface, the scope of bilateral trade has grown – although, based on local sources, the monetary amount of bilateral trade, having soared first, is now declining – and other realms of cooperation are booming as well. Thus, one could erroneously view Sakha as becoming a sort of land“bridge” – just as Moscow wants it to look like – between Russia and China. A far deeper analysis, however, indicates that China is deliberately avoiding engagement in strategic cooperation with Moscow by purposefully limiting its bilateral trade to simple import-export ties, which transforms Sakha into a Chinese raw material appendage. Meanwhile, the Republic is increasingly falling under Chinese cultural influence. Given rapidly spreading poverty and mounting military losses in the Russo-Ukrainian war these trends could eventually translate into a far greater long-term strategic concern for Moscow.

Notes.

[1] Analysis of Russian sources reveals a notable discrepancy. While the overall volume of trade between Sakha and Chinese provinces has indeed increased since 2022, local sources highlight an interesting trend: in 2023, bilateral trade amounted to $2.5 billion, yet in 2024 Russian sources hailed an “impressive $1.8 billion.” Although still substantial, this figure actually represents a significant decline in trade value.

[2] The term “Mongolian race” is currently considered to be obsolete.

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Beijing Remains Silent on Power of Siberia 2 Agreement

Despite Moscow’s claims, Beijing has not confirmed any agreement on the long-discussed Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline. During Vladimir Putin’s September visit to China, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller announced that a “legally binding memorandum” had been signed, pledging to raise gas exports to China to over 100 billion cubic meters annually. This statement led to a flurry of Kremlin-echoed remarks, characterizing the Miller announcement as a breakthrough in Russo-Chinese energy cooperation.

China, however, has remained silent about the agreement to date. Xi Jinping, for example, made no public reference to the pipeline, nor has China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) issued any statement, while the Chinese state media has completely avoided making any mention of the deal. To add insult to injury, there was no photo opportunity of Putin and Xi signing the Power of Siberia 2 agreement, which would have made front-page news around the world. It seems, however, that only the Financial Times reported that the agreement was finalized although the newspaper noted that no gas pricing agreement was announced, which has been a key holdup to any go-ahead with the project. Upon closer scrutiny, some Western energy analysts are noting that Moscow’s announcements are premature (see Paul Goble’s article below exploring this announcement), noting the communique from the talks merely spoke of “cross-border infrastructure.” Experts stress that without agreed pricing or timelines, the project remains aspirational.

Russo-Chinese Trade Plummets by Nearly 20 Percent

Russian-Chinese trade is experiencing a sharp downturn in 2025, marking the first sustained decline since Russia’s war against Ukraine began three years ago. In August, Chinese imports from Russia fell 17.8% year-on-year, while its exports to Russia dropped 16.4%, nearly double July’s decline. Over the first eight months of 2025, bilateral trade fell nearly 9% to $145 billion, with Russian exports down 8.8% and Chinese exports down 8.2%. Customs data show steep reductions in Chinese purchases of Russian oil (-11%), petroleum products (-28%), LNG (-13%), coal and timber (-10%). The Chinese slowdown has alarmed the Kremlin, with insiders criticizing Beijing for exploiting Moscow rather than acting as an ally. During President Putin’s September visit to China, efforts to secure major new deals yielded little: modest increases in gas and oil contracts represent only fractions of Russian output, while the much-touted Power of Siberia 2 pipeline remains unconfirmed by China.

Chinese Companies Ignore Vladivostok Economic Summit

In the wake of President Putin’s successful trip to China and high-level meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, one would have expected that China would have reciprocated the ‘partnership with no limits’ relationship by sending dozens – or at least one - ranking Chinese company to participate in Russia’s premier Far Eastern economic investment conference - the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF). While the gathering of the EEF in Vladivostok – which opened on September 3 - is widely touted by the Kremlin as an “authoritative business platform” for Asia-Pacific cooperation and a cornerstone of Moscow’s pivot-to-Asia strategy, none of China’s top political and business leaders showed up.

Not a single senior representative from China’s Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Finance, Foreign Ministry, or Central Bank attended. In fact, the highest-ranking delegate who participated in the EEF was Li Hongzhong, Vice Chairman of China’s National People’s Congress, who was accompanied by some of his deputies and aides. By contrast, past forums have featured Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japan’s Shinzo Abe, and India’s Narendra Modi. This year, only Mongolia and Laos sent prime ministers, while India’s representation dropped to a deputy ambassador. No executives from China’s major corporations appeared on the guest list; instead, discussions were led by local officials such as the mayor of Fuyuan, a small Chinese border city. The muted turnout in Vladivostok suggests Beijing is in no rush to elevate the partnership, leaving Moscow increasingly reliant on China for its economic future.

China Eases Visa Controls for Russian Tourists, But Will Moscow Reciprocate?

During the Putin-Xi summit, China announced that it has plans to introduce a one-year visa-free regime for Russian citizens, while it remains unclear if Russia will reciprocate. Visa-free travel for Chinese visiting Russia began in 2020. The move is expected to significantly boost travel between the two countries. According to Meduza, in 2024 alone, over 1.6 million Russians visited China, while 1.2 million Chinese visited Russia. More than 50 percent of Chinese tourists travel to the Russian Far East, particularly to Primorsky Krai and Khabarovsk Krai, where Russian hotels are reportedly experiencing a major shortage of hotel space due to the influx of Chinese tourists.

Both Russia and China have a mutual visa-free travel program for large organized travel groups, but the duration for these visits is limited to 30 days. The new policy, effective from September 15, 2025, through September 14, 2026, will allow Russians to enter China visa-free for as long as 30 days for tourism, business, family visits, or cultural exchanges. China already ranks as Russia’s third most popular destination, with 1.04 million visits in the first half of 2025, up 31% year-on-year.

One key question raised by the Chinese announcement is whether Beijing’s easing of visa restrictions for Russians will prompt Moscow to reciprocate. On August 9, Moscow and Beijing agreed to expand the visa-free regime for Chinese tourist groups, and are in discussions about reducing the minimum group size from five to two people for stays of up to 30 days. Should this change occur, it would make it easier for more Chinese tourists to visit Russia. By lowering the threshold to just two travelers, Moscow appears to be yielding to Chinese pressure, as monitoring such small groups will be far more difficult for Russian officials to monitor, particularly in the vastness of the Russian Far East.

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Why Demographics Matter More Than Finance in Russia-China Relations

By Paul Goble

A week ago, after meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated agreements between the two to build a second gas pipeline between Russia and China and to allow Russians to visit China without having to obtain a visa. But it has now become obvious that the much-ballyhooed pipeline accord was only a declaration of intent because China refused to provide the upfront funding necessary to move the project forward, which the Russian side had demanded. Moreover, Beijing’s unilateral decision to lift visa requirements for Russian visitors was not followed, as many had expected, by a similar Russian gesture regarding Chinese visitors to the Russian Federation.

These twin outcomes are a clear sign that the problems the two sides face on both questions have to do with demography, not just financing, and that these demographic factors are likely to become even more important as bilateral trade between the two countries appears set to decline further after declining by nearly 20 percent just in the past year.

In recent times, China has sought to link any investment in the Russian Far East to having Chinese firms and workers involved, given that the Russian population there is already below 2.5 million and continuing to fall, according to one Russian observer. In fact, the problems are so severe that Kremlin officials are having great difficulty in coming up with the workers needed to carry out a long list of infrastructure-related projects, including a rail line to Sakha, bridges, and intermodal stations along the border. Moscow is repeatedly failing to complete promised sections of rail and highways in the Russian Federation after China had finished its portion of the work. Indeed, in some cases, the Russian government has organized the arrival there of workers from Central Asia to fill the gap.

At the same time and despite its desire to expand trade with China, Moscow is increasingly reluctant to agree to an influx of even more Chinese workers, given that their numbers have already grown to the point that the Chinese, when combined with the Central Asians who have come to the region, now form the majority of the population in some Russian cities. Moscow itself could be exacerbating this problem not only by allowing more Chinese in but also by shifting investments away from the Chinese border since Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine began, something that Beijing may hope to exploit but only on its own terms.

Exactly how large the Chinese community in the Russian Federation is not publicly known. While Moscow earlier played up the threat this group might play to the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation to keep the population of the Russian Far East in line, the central government has now played down their presence lest it spark anti-Chinese attitudes at a time of heightened Russian hostility to migrant workers and when the Kremlin is trying to cut deals with Beijing as Putin tried last week. The Chinese population in the Russian Far East is certainly far larger than the estimated 10,000 who lived there in 1991. Some observers claim that it could be as high as three million, down from the five million before Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine.

That figure, however, is almost certainly exaggerated in an upward direction just as much as Moscow’s official numbers have been exaggerated in a downward one; but there are certainly several hundred thousand Chinese living in the Russian Federation east of the Urals. In some cases, they dominate Russian cities and even whole regions in the Russian northeast, where they are more likely to threaten local non-Russian nationalities than ethnic Russians, particularly because many of these smaller nationalities have suffered extensively due to the Ukraine war. In some places, they have been given special, almost extraterritorial rights, something that the Chinese have demanded but that has alarmed many Russians.

Both Russian leaders and their Chinese counterparts are aware of all this, although they are seldom prepared to speak about the existence of such fears in public. Some of their subordinates, however, have and indicate that in both Russia and China, there are growing worries about the impact of the influx of more people from the other on their indigenous populations. But because China is so much larger than Russia and because Chinese regions near the border of the Russian Far East are even more disproportionately large, Beijing does not have nearly as much reason to be concerned and so is more ready to make concessions on visas but also to demand that its workers be allowed to go into Russia to complete key infrastructure projects.

Moscow certainly welcomes Beijing’s concessions on visas, but has compelling reasons not to respond quickly, and Beijing certainly has equally compelling reasons not to agree to send money to Russia for infrastructure projects that may never be used as intended and thus will demand that its workers do the job. That reality lies behind the outcome of the Putin-Xi talks, one far more significant than financial issues, not only now but in the years ahead.

Territorially Russia – Economically Chinese: How China is Reshaping the Jewish Autonomous Oblast

By Sergey Sukhankin

On August 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the acting head of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO), Maria Kostyuk. During their Kremlin meeting, Putin unexpectedly praised the economic performance of one of Russia’s smallest and most economically depressed regions. Frequently referred to as the “kingdom of permanent crisis” and “Russia’s bear corner,” the JAO’s economy achieved 4.4 percent growth in 2024. The JAO`s growing economy has virtually nothing to do with Moscow’s actions. Recent positive developments reversing the decades-long streak of stagnation in the remote Siberian outpost are attributed exclusively to the oblast’s growing economic integration with China’s bordering province of Heilongjiang, which has become particularly evident after Russia’s renewed war with Ukraine in February 2022.

China’s Creeping Encroachment on the JAO

China stepped up its economic and demographic expansion in the JAO in the mid-2000s. By 2006, local sources reported that no fewer than 5,000 Chinese nationals were economically active in the oblast. Often described in the Russian media as workaholics, the newly transplanted Chinese demonstrated an ability to effectively engage in hard labor – particularly in areas where Moscow experienced acute labor deficits. Chinese workers filled key areas such as agriculture and construction, which were industries that Russian locals were either unwilling or unable to engage in. By 2012, Chinese economic expansion had reached the point that the governor of the JAO, Alexander Vinnikov, de facto admitted that economically the JAO was much more connected with China than with Russia.

Citing the increase in bilateral trade between the JAO and Heilongjiang province, Vinnikov noted that it had increased twofold over the previous two years, with China’s share in the JAO’s economy reaching a staggering 95 percent. The governor specifically mentioned the presence of more than 150 Chinese Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) working in the JAO in agriculture, timber/lumber production, construction, natural resources extraction, and the production of consumer goods. By 2018, the level of Chinese trade with the JAO reached “over 95 percent” as its local economy became almost exclusively dependent on cross-border trade with China. This also signified continued growth of the Chinese presence in the local economy. After 2022, China`s share in the local economy reached a disproportionately new high of 98.6 percent, which reflects an almost unconditional domination of the local economy by neighboring China.

In interviews with the Russian media, key regional officials, such as former JAO governor Alexander Levintal, pointed out when asked about the sources of economic development and revitalization, the oblast’s proximity to China was a major factor contributing to local economic growth and the welfare of the JAO’s inhabitants.

Analysis of Russian sources identifies the following areas of the JAO`s economy, where the level of involvement of Chinese businesses is exceptionally high, and broken down into the following industries:

Agriculture (Arable Land)

• Reason: The JAO has an excellent quality of soil and a vast area of arable land — 2,000 square kilometers, compared to its total territory of 36,271. Despite being twenty times smaller than Khabarovsk Krai, the JAO has more farmland. Russian officials stopped publishing information about Chinese nationals’ ownership or use of land in the region before 2022. However, earlier investigations and statements by JAO officials suggested that Chinese nationals were cultivating or controlling more than half of the arable land.

• Notable Results: Russian official sources stopped publishing information related to Chinese nationals’ ownership (use) of arable lands in the JAO prior to 2022. As stated earlier, pre-2022 investigations and statements by the JAO`s highest officials suggested that Chinese nationals were owning or tilling more than half of the local arable land in the JAO.

Industrial land

• Reason: Control over infrastructure plays a major role in industrial land use.

• Notable Results: To date, there have been no notable results. Russian sources, however, report that Chinese investors show selective interest in Moscow-designated Territories for the Advancement of Development (TOR). For instance, parts of the Amur-Khangin TOR are located near key infrastructure, such as bridges, which have drawn Chinese attention. For example, Chinese investors are interested in becoming residents in parts of the Amur-Khangin TOR that are located near critical infrastructure, particularly bridges.

Infrastructure

• Reason: The JAO’s strategic location, with 570 kilometers of Sino-Russian border, makes it a focal point for transport links between the two countries.

• Notable Results: The most recent episode occurred during the 34^th Kharbin Industrial-Trade Fair (May 17-21, 2025), where the Chinese delegation expressed its readiness to invest 22 billion rubles ($273 million) in the construction of a major transportation hub in Nizhneleninskoye that connects China with the JAO. More importantly, the Chinese side not only voiced its readiness to finance the project, but also expressed a strong level of interest in doing all the construction work there (it is unclear whether the Chinese side is interested in cooperating with Russia or conducting all activities singlehandedly).

Natural Resources

• Reason: The JAO contains more than 20 types of natural resources, including ores, graphite, talc, zeolites, coal, and peat. Geological studies also suggest the possible presence of gold, hydrocarbons, phosphates, diamonds, and platinum. In 2023, China declared its readiness to fully fund the production and mining of taconite, a vital ingredient in steelmaking, at the Sutarskoye iron ore deposit.

• Notable Results: In 2023, the Chinese government declared its readiness to fully fund the production and mining of taconite (a key ingredient in steel production) at the Sutarskoye iron ore deposit in the JAO.

According to a 2024 study produced by the Russian-Chinese investment index, the JAO was listed as one of the top three destinations for Chinese business investment in Russia, with Moscow and Amur Oblast in Siberia as the other two highest attractions. Increasingly, China`s economic expansion in the JAO appears more and more like a takeover of Moscow’s Far Eastern outpost rather than an example of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI); there are several reasons for this.”

First, the case of the Amur-Khangin TOR clearly shows that Chinese investors are not interested in financially committing to the development of large joint projects with Russia. Rather, the simple import of raw materials and commodities, as well as the prospects of obtaining access to strategically important areas that are placed near critical infrastructure, such as bridges (primostovije territorii) on the territory of the JAO, are key themes that interest China.

Secondly, the case of the Nizhneleninskoye transportation hub is particularly revealing. Russian officials, pointing to Chinese financing for the project, hailed it as a vital initiative to “effectively handle transportation and cargo trafficking… with a particular focus on coal transportation”. Yet this narrative stands in stark contradiction to the broader reality of Russian-Chinese coal trade, which has not only collapsed[1] but, to Moscow’s embarrassment, has been further undermined by Beijing when it imposed an import duty on Russian-produced coal, restricting its export to China. This unexpected move baffled both federal officials and the leadership of Russia’s coal-producing regions, exposing the fragility of Moscow’s assumptions about Beijing’s reliability as a trade partner. Upon closer examination, Chinese investment in the Nizhneleninskoye transport hub appears to be less about facilitating coal exports and more about consolidating China’s foothold in the JAO, using the project as a form of leverage, or, for better words, blackmail, to extract broader concessions from Moscow on other critical infrastructure projects.

Culture, Education, and Public Opinion

In terms of cultural Sinicization, the results are, for obvious reasons, less visible than when it comes to the economics of trade. For example, a survey of Birobidzhan-based private language schools indicates that the study of English still appears to be the most sought-after language among Russian students. However, given Russia`s determination to reduce the exposure of young Russians to European languages (traditionally, the English language has been the most popular among Russian students), it would be interesting to see if this would have a direct spillover effect on Russian interest in learning Mandarin.

In light of the progressive restrictions imposed by the Kremlin on preventing any expression of anti-Chinese sentiment inside Russia, signs persist that local officials in the JAO remain uneasy about the presence of foreigners living in the country, particularly Chinese nationals. In a striking 2019 interview, the former governor of the JAO shockingly revealed that “the Chinese control 56 percent of our [JAO] arable land,” warning that once a Chinese farmer begins operations, he employs “his own people [Chinese]” rather than Russian locals. Since the publication of this interview, no member of the JAO leadership has spoken again in such direct terms, a strange silence that could be an indication of Kremlin retaliation against these officials for publicly speaking out given Beijing’s importance to Moscow, rather than the absence of public statement being a reflection of any substantive change in opinion. Similarly, two recent sociological studies conducted in the JAO examining local attitudes toward foreigners revealed noteworthy findings.

According to one 2019 study based upon surveys, interviews and secondary research, foreign nationals from three countries – China, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan – were viewed to be among the least desirable foreign workers in the oblast. Another study published in 2022 reflected the tremendous degree of uneasiness among the Russian locals regarding their stances on marriage to a foreign national, particularly the Chinese. One unnamed respondent cited in the study blatantly stated: “You see, there is growing more and more of them [Chinese]. It is clearly visible. In such a family the kids are not Russians, they are Chinese. We have calculated that it would be enough for 10,000 Chinese to acquire Russian citizenship in the JAO, so that in the next 10 – 12 years the Chinese would form the majority here. Do not get me wrong, this is not an urban legend. These are simple calculations,” he noted.

While the validity of such calculations is a separate issue, these opinions highlight an important trend: many Russian citizens living in the JAO continue to perceive the Chinese presence there as an implicit demographic threat. Although economic and trade partnerships are generally welcomed, a significant portion of the local population remain wary of the Chinese and their increased presence in the region. At the same time, Chinese efforts—through promotional events, educational initiatives, and investment projects—could potentially reshape this image. A glaring manifestation of this trend occurred in late May 2025 when a joint Russian-Chinese educational center was opened in Birobidzhan - the capital of the JAO. The extent to which such initiatives will either foster stronger pro-Chinese or anti-Moscow sentiments, however, remains a question for further study and research.

Conclusion

The territory that is known today as the JAO became a part of the Russian Empire in the 19^th century following the Russia-enforced Treaty of Aigun (1858) – which was widely hailed in Russia, but remains negatively viewed in China as an unjust treaty imposed by Tsarist Russia. Interestingly, in September 2024, the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Lai Ching-te, claimed that if Chinese claims on Taiwan are about territorial integrity, then the PRC should also take back land from Russia signed over by the last Chinese dynasty in the 19th century, mentioning the Treaty of Aigun.

Russia`s deepening economic and political dependency on China since the onset of the February 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine has had a major impact on the JAO. China`s share in the economy of the far-flung Russian region is likely to have reached approximately 100 percent due to its dependence on cross-border trade with China and the expansion of Chinese businesses there. From an economic perspective, it is safe to say that the JAO is now much more dependent on China than any other subject of the Russian Federation. However, from a demographic standpoint, while there is no clear data on the exact number of Chinese nationals permanently living there, many Chinese take employment on a rolling basis, not permanently residing there, but leaving after several months of stay due to Russian visa restrictions limiting their stay.

Luckily for Moscow, Chinese cultural intrusion into the JAO remains limited. From a cultural point of view, the JAO still seems to be far more oriented toward Russia than China, but the recent establishment of a Chinese cultural center in the JAO’s capital of Birobidzhan could mark a new stage of Chinese cultural encroachment in Moscow’s remote Siberian outpost. It is, however, hard to forecast how this dynamic will evolve if the Russian Far East’s dependency on China continues to deepen and the local Russian population continues to diminish.

[1] For the first seven months of 2025, Chinese imports of Russian coal fell by 17 percent (year-on-year compared with 2024). Although China cut back on Russian coal imports, it did not adopt the same approach toward other suppliers; for example, imports from Australia have increased.

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On October 17, 2023 Russia and China signed a trade agreement hailed as the “deal of the century”. The agreement aimed to end the decades-long stalemate in the Sino-Russian grain trade, revitalization of the Russian Far East as well as foster closer economic-political ties between Beijing and Moscow as part of China’s broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Yet nearly three years after the agreement was formally signed, the results have been underwhelming for Moscow. Publicly available data reveals that Chinese imports of Russian wheat—the key commodity Russia aimed to export—plummeted after an initial period of growth. Exports of other grains also experienced a significant decline. This trend is particularly puzzling given that all contractual terms had been agreed upon: China pledged to purchase 70 million tons of grain over 12 years, worth a cumulative $26.5 billion. In addition, logistical solutions—such as the full-cycle grain railway terminal in Zabaykalsk situated near the Chinese border—were established by Moscow for the purpose of facilitating the rapid transport of Russian grain to China. However, after securing access to a cheap and abundant grain source, China appears to have put its original grain plans with Moscow on hold.

Beijing Fails to Embrace Moscow’s Plans for Grain-OPEC

Within Russia, the signing of the grain deal with China was celebrated as a clear-cut economic and political victory — yet another sign of the country’s resilience to Western sanctions. Russian officials and analysts viewed the deal’s anticipated benefits as follows:

First, the agreement was seen as a key enabler of Russian ambitions to expand its influence within non-Western platforms and organizations. Since the end of 2019 — when Alexey Gordeyev, a top-ranking Russian official, proposed that Russia, the European Union (EU), the U.S., Canada, and Argentina unite to form a “grain OPEC” — Moscow has sought to weaponize the use of grain as a geopolitical instrument. Following February 2022, Russia’s political leadership abandoned the notion of cooperating with the West and its allies, pivoting instead to leveraging grain as a tool to bolster BRICS and enhance its standing within the group. In 2024, for instance, President Vladimir Putin endorsed the establishment of a “BRICS grain exchange” aimed at challenging the U.S.-dominated global agricultural trade system and, potentially, weakening the U.S. dollar as the world’s global reserve currency.

Second, the deal with China was (and still is) viewed in Russia as a means to economically revitalize its Far Eastern grain-producing regions, which currently account for 14 percent of the country’s total grain output. However, as noted by Russian Minister of Agriculture, Oksana Lut, the grain-rich Far East —whose production potential is expected to grow and possibly generate a surplus of 12 million tons—lacks viable export alternatives beyond China and the broader Indo-Pacific region. Moreover, it is economically unviable for Moscow to subsidize the transport of Siberian grain to ports on the Black Sea and the Baltic.

Third, the agreement was also seen as a strategic move to sideline Ukraine as Russia’s main competitor in the Chinese grain market. Russian experts and officials complained that during the “grain deal” period (August 2022 – July 2023), Ukraine emerged as China’s primary grain supplier, while Russia’s share declined significantly. Through both military and political means, Russia hoped to supplant Ukraine as China’s leading provider of wheat and other agricultural products.

Fourth, aware of the risks and challenges associated with overdependence on a single buyer (China), the Kremlin hoped to use the grain deal with Beijing as a way to access additional—and alternative—channels for exporting Siberian grain to other actors in the Indo-Pacific region. For example, Russian experts described the deal as the acquisition of a kind of “Chinese channel” that would enable Russia to showcase its grain potential to the rest of Asia and significantly boost exports throughout the Pacific. However, these ambitious and far-reaching plans were met with China’s evasive and difficult-to-interpret response.

China Opts for Far Eastern Integration

At first glance, one might assume that Chinese restrictions on Russian grain imports stems from a long-term strategy to avoid reliance on a single supplier—a pattern most evident in the hydrocarbon sector, where Beijing seeks to limit its energy dependence on Moscow. But according to top Russian grain officials, China’s approach is politically motivated. For instance, the President of the Russian Grain Union (RGU), Arkadi Zlochevsky, lamented that it is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—acting under the pretext of artificially constructed (and anti-Russian) phytosanitary regulations—that has effectively banned Russian grain imports. As a result, he noted, Russian exports have stalled, and infrastructure specifically developed to boost Sino-Russian grain is not functioning. While Zlochevsky did not offer a clear explanation for China’s behavior, one of his remarks stands out: although China generally ignores Russian wheat and reduces imports of other grains, it allows—and even encourages—grain imports from Russian regions near the Sino-Russian border. Though seemingly contradictory, this observation may be better understood in light of China’s broader activities in the Russian Far East.

An analysis of fragmented reports concerning China’s post-February 2022 activities in the Far East reveals a striking trend: China has rapidly and proactively pursued a “fusion” of its border regions with adjacent Russian territories. A glaring example of this trend is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO)[1]—Russia’s only autonomous oblast in the Far East. Rich in critical natural resources—Chinese inroads into the JAO clearly exemplifies this developmental trend, which is evident in three specific ways.

First, China is physically connecting its northeastern border areas in Manchuria with the JAO through a network of infrastructure projects focusing on regional transportation. For instance, the Chinese side has recently expressed its interest in creating and financing a transportation hub which will include, among others, construction of a bridge across the Amur River connecting China’s vastly populated border areas (more than 200 million people) with the sparsely populated JAO, which as of 2025 had a population of only 144,428. The official purpose of the bridge and related infrastructure is explained by the growing need for transportation of, among other things, grain and agricultural products.

Second, China acts proactively by offering to finance construction of factories and other production facilities on the territory of the JAO. For instance, the Chinese side has voiced its interest in financing the construction of a large agriculture-production facility (50 hectares) that would specialize in the production of and transportation of livestock, corn, oils, starch, and other types of agricultural products including, locally produced grains and soybeans. In addition, Chinese investors are willing to build factories specializing in the production of agricultural machinery, snowmobiles and motor vehicles.

Third, another method used by Beijing are cultural-educational exchanges. Here there are two main elements in its strategy: language exchanges between Russian and Chinese schoolchildren (this initiative is likely to take off shortly), which aims to popularize Russian and Mandarin among youth living on both sides of the border. Given the overwhelming difference in population[2] between the two provinces, this initiative appears to be much like a one-sided initiative aimed at the popularization of Mandarin. On the other hand, the leadership of the JAO volunteered to host Chinese performing artists from Jiamusi (佳木斯) in cultural events in Birobidzhan (the capitol of the JAO), whereas the Chinese side proposed to expand this initiative and deepen this cultural exchange adding sporting events, education and tourism to the Birobidzhan and its partner city in China, Jiamusi as part of their nascent partnership. On the one hand, this border exchange follows the principles of regionalism. However, it is worthwhile to mention that for the Kremlin it was the fear of regionalism and strengthening cross-border ties that de-facto led to the demise of the EU-backed Euroregion initiative in the Baltic Sea (Kaliningrad) and the Arctic (Karelia) regions. By comparison, the regional cooperation between the JOA and the Chinese province of Heilongjiang (黑龙江)[3] is taking place in a much more independent manner than Russia’s approach toward its Western regions.

Thus, while Chinese grain imports from Russia are decreasing in general, economic, cultural and other forms of cooperation between China’s and Russian border regions in the Far East have experienced a notable upsurge since 2022.

Conclusion:

On the surface, the Russian side welcomes the exponential growth of cross-border cooperation between Russian and Chinese regions and will continue to temporarily overlook difficulties in the grain trade, given China’s signed commitment to the so-called “deal of the century.” But Russian experts are increasingly concerned about Chinese behavior and possible ulterior motives in the Far East. Prior to the outbreak of the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022, such concerns were expressed more openly, while now Russians’ reservations are no longer publicly expressed. As early as 2017, for example, Russian sources reported that up to one-third of all the arable land in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO) was being cultivated by Chinese nationals—prompting some to note, with grim irony, that “there are many more Chinese [in the JAO] than Jews.”

High-ranking officials, such as Mikhail Shchapov—a lieutenant colonel in the Federal Security Service (FSB), and a deputy of the 7th and 8th State Dumas—went so far as to issue a public warning in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaia Gazeta to this effect about threat posed by Chinese migration. He claimed that Chinese nationals were present in Siberia and the Far East in significant and largely undocumented numbers, stating that this situation “does not look like the right thing to do, either from a market development or from a food security perspective.”

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow’s growing dependence on China, such criticisms largely disappeared from the Russian public discourse. Nonetheless, a handful of post-2022 publications continued to raise questions about China’s long-term intentions in the Far East. One such article, titled “The Chinese Future of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast,” while generally supportive of foreign direct investment (FDI), expressed concern over the nature of China’s entry model and operational practices in the Far East.

The Nezavisimaia Gazeta emphasized that China appeared primarily interested in using the territory as a resource base. It warned that, once Chinese enterprises establish a stronger foothold, they may sidestep local taxation, import their own labor force, and displace local Russian workers—an approach entirely consistent with Chinese investment behavior in other parts of the world.

These trends suggest that China will continue to capitalize on Russia’s weakened position following its near-total break with the West because of the Ukraine war. Yet, to avoid provoking Moscow during this period of vulnerability—which could risk further destabilization or even partial internal fragmentation—Beijing appears to be pursuing a dual-track strategy. Publicly, it presents Russia as an equal partner, exemplified by high-profile agreements like the “deal of the century.” Privately, however, it follows the cautious principle of “crossing the river by feeling for the stones” (摸著石頭過河), gradually and quietly integrating its border regions with the Russian Far East. This approach is particularly evident in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

Notes:

[1] The JAO is a federal subject of Russia in its Far Eastern region, bordering Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast and China’s Heilongjiang province. The JAO was created by a Soviet official decree in 1928 and officially established in 1934. Some Russian experts believe that the idea of creation of the JAO was primarily related to the Soviet Union’s desire to “solve the Jewish question” by on the one hand, distancing its Jewish population from the European part of the USSR (de-facto continuation of the Russian Imperial policy of systemic anti-semitism and created the JAO as an agricultural enclave as part of the USSR in its effort to resolve this issue.

[2] As of 2020, the population of Heilongjiang was 31,8 million which is 220 times more than the population of the JAO.

[3] It is worth mentioning that the Chinese province borders Russia’s Zabaykalsky Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, the JAO, and Primorye.

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Hello Everyone!

Welcome to the inaugural issue of our monthly update, Kitaizatsiya: China’s Expanding Role in Russia. The term Kitaizatsiya in Russian is a unique term that refers to Sinicization—the process of increasing Chinese cultural, economic, and political influence in Russia. In the first edition of our update, we explore a range of topics on China’s growing presence in the Russian Far East, as part of our new project, The Creeping Sinicization of Russia.

In our inaugural issue Senior Fellow Sergey Sukhankin writes about how China initially signed on to the Russian inspired Grain-OPEC initiative as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to develop the Siberian wheat market only to ditch the initiative and prioritize economic investment in the sparsely populated Jewish Autononomous Oblast situated near the border with China. Also featured in this issue is an article by Senior Fellow Emeritus Paul Goble who examines the strategic importance of Mongolia and how it serves as a sensitive barometer in the shifting balance of power between Moscow and Beijing in Eurasia. Chinese inroads into Mongolia is rapidly filling the economic and strategic void left by Russian influence as Moscow’s power east of the Urals continues to weaken.

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BRIEFS

Russian Law Enforcement Arrests Chinese Citizen for Exporting Dual use Military Goods to China

Russian law enforcement sources have told the Russian newspaper Izvestia, Chinese citizens have begun actively exporting Russian bulletproof vests, tactical backpacks, military uniforms and other equipment from Russia to study and further produce cheaper analogues. "The source noted that China is using various loopholes for this purpose, including in the work of Russian postal services for these illegal operations related to the export of military and dual-use goods."

In April, Russian law enforcement agencies detained a 1997-born citizen of the People’s Republic of China immediately after he mailed two unloading vests, including the "Ratnik" model with a patrol backpack 6sh117. Investigators later determined that he had previously transferred bulletproof vests, combat backpacks, and other military equipment to China, and he now faces possible charges under Paragraph 1.1, Article 226.1 of the Russian Criminal Code (illegal movement of strategically important goods and resources across the border of the Russian Federation and the EEC). The Russian newspaper also noted similar incident occurred in December 2024, when a 27-year-old Chinese student in Moscow was detained for smuggling military equipment, which included bulletproof vests, armor plates, and other gear in his university dormitory.

Attempts by Chinese citizens to take military equipment and equipment out of Russia have been recorded since the Russian army invaded Ukraine in 2022. In the fall of 2022, one of the first trials of a Chinese man who smuggled sensors for military equipment ended. The man was sentenced to three years in prison in a general regime correctional colony. According to Ruslan Shapiev, CEO of RUSARM, the export of military products from Russia can be carried out in the interests of foreign special services. "It is possible that we are talking about employees of certain special services. Or it's industrial espionage. China has been famous for this feature since the beginning of its economic growth," noted Shapiev.

Chinese Trucks Saturate Russian Market, Provoking Backlash

Chinese brand trucks have started dominating the Russian trucking market capturing nearly 70 percent of the vehicle sales after the exit of major Western manufacturers following the start of Russia’s re-invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russian truck production and sales have experienced a major decline in the first half of the year according to the Russian statistical agency Rosstat. Russia produced almost a quarter fewer trucks than a year earlier, and sales, according to Avtostat, fell by almost half. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war and the departure of leading Western vehicles, Chinese trucks have now captured two-thirds of the Russian market, and officials are expelling the most popular Russian and Western brands.

In the first half of the year, the Russian truck industry experienced a dramatic contraction, as reported by Rosstat and Avtostat. Domestic truck production dropped by nearly 25%, and sales fell by almost 50%. allowing Chinese brands to capture approximately two-thirds of the Russian truck market. Due to the influx of Chinese trucks Russian authorities have taken action, targeting the dominant Chinese brands by restricting their access to the Russian market.

Rosstandart, Russia’s technical standards agency, has started revoking approval certificates (OTTS) for several popular Chinese truck models and chassis, effectively banning their import and sale. Russian officials began limiting Chinese truck imports earlier this year. In February, Rosstandart revoked the OTTS of the Shacman SX3258, a top-selling Chinese dump truck, after an unscheduled inspection with the Prosecutor General’s Office. Despite this, Shacman remained highly ranked in Russian sales charts.

Russian officials and domestic manufacturers are concerned about what they view as an oversaturation of Chinese trucks. Anton Alikhanov of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, along with Sergey Chemezov of Rostec (KamAZ’s largest shareholder), have both expressed the need to shield the domestic market from what they characterize as low-quality imports. KamAZ CEO Sergey Kogogin estimated that dealer lots held around 40,000 Chinese trucks at the beginning of the year, nearly equivalent to the total forecast for annual truck sales in Russia (60,000–65,000 units).

China Shuns Russian Plans for Grain-OPEC to Prioritize Infrastructure Investment in Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russian Far East

by Sergey Sukhankin

On October 17, 2023 Russia and China signed a trade agreement hailed as the “deal of the century”. The agreement aimed to end the decades-long stalemate in the Sino-Russian grain trade, revitalization of the Russian Far East as well as foster closer economic-political ties between Beijing and Moscow as part of China’s broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Yet nearly three years after the agreement was formally signed, the results have been underwhelming for Moscow. Publicly available data reveals that Chinese imports of Russian wheat—the key commodity Russia aimed to export—plummeted after an initial period of growth. Exports of other grains also experienced a significant decline. This trend is particularly puzzling given that all contractual terms had been agreed upon: China pledged to purchase 70 million tons of grain over 12 years, worth a cumulative $26.5 billion. In addition, logistical solutions—such as the full-cycle grain railway terminal in Zabaykalsk situated near the Chinese border—were established by Moscow for the purpose of facilitating the rapid transport of Russian grain to China. However, after securing access to a cheap and abundant grain source, China appears to have put its original grain plans with Moscow on hold.

Beijing Fails to Embrace Moscow’s Plans for Grain-OPEC

Within Russia, the signing of the grain deal with China was celebrated as a clear-cut economic and political victory — yet another sign of the country’s resilience to Western sanctions. Russian officials and analysts viewed the deal’s anticipated benefits as follows:

First, the agreement was seen as a key enabler of Russian ambitions to expand its influence within non-Western platforms and organizations. Since the end of 2019 — when Alexey Gordeyev, a top-ranking Russian official, proposed that Russia, the European Union (EU), the U.S., Canada, and Argentina unite to form a “grain OPEC” — Moscow has sought to weaponize the use of grain as a geopolitical instrument. Following February 2022, Russia’s political leadership abandoned the notion of cooperating with the West and its allies, pivoting instead to leveraging grain as a tool to bolster BRICS and enhance its standing within the group. In 2024, for instance, President Vladimir Putin endorsed the establishment of a “BRICS grain exchange” aimed at challenging the U.S.-dominated global agricultural trade system and, potentially, weakening the U.S. dollar as the world’s global reserve currency.

Second, the deal with China was (and still is) viewed in Russia as a means to economically revitalize its Far Eastern grain-producing regions, which currently account for 14 percent of the country’s total grain output. However, as noted by Russian Minister of Agriculture, Oksana Lut, the grain-rich Far East —whose production potential is expected to grow and possibly generate a surplus of 12 million tons—lacks viable export alternatives beyond China and the broader Indo-Pacific region. Moreover, it is economically unviable for Moscow to subsidize the transport of Siberian grain to ports on the Black Sea and the Baltic.

Third, the agreement was also seen as a strategic move to sideline Ukraine as Russia’s main competitor in the Chinese grain market. Russian experts and officials complained that during the “grain deal” period (August 2022 – July 2023), Ukraine emerged as China’s primary grain supplier, while Russia’s share declined significantly. Through both military and political means, Russia hoped to supplant Ukraine as China’s leading provider of wheat and other agricultural products.

Fourth, aware of the risks and challenges associated with overdependence on a single buyer (China), the Kremlin hoped to use the grain deal with Beijing as a way to access additional—and alternative—channels for exporting Siberian grain to other actors in the Indo-Pacific region. For example, Russian experts described the deal as the acquisition of a kind of “Chinese channel” that would enable Russia to showcase its grain potential to the rest of Asia and significantly boost exports throughout the Pacific. However, these ambitious and far-reaching plans were met with China’s evasive and difficult-to-interpret response.

China Opts for Far Eastern Integration

At first glance, one might assume that Chinese restrictions on Russian grain imports stems from a long-term strategy to avoid reliance on a single supplier—a pattern most evident in the hydrocarbon sector, where Beijing seeks to limit its energy dependence on Moscow. But according to top Russian grain officials, China’s approach is politically motivated. For instance, the President of the Russian Grain Union (RGU), Arkadi Zlochevsky, lamented that it is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—acting under the pretext of artificially constructed (and anti-Russian) phytosanitary regulations—that has effectively banned Russian grain imports. As a result, he noted, Russian exports have stalled, and infrastructure specifically developed to boost Sino-Russian grain is not functioning. While Zlochevsky did not offer a clear explanation for China’s behavior, one of his remarks stands out: although China generally ignores Russian wheat and reduces imports of other grains, it allows—and even encourages—grain imports from Russian regions near the Sino-Russian border. Though seemingly contradictory, this observation may be better understood in light of China’s broader activities in the Russian Far East.

An analysis of fragmented reports concerning China’s post-February 2022 activities in the Far East reveals a striking trend: China has rapidly and proactively pursued a “fusion” of its border regions with adjacent Russian territories. A glaring example of this trend is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO)[1]—Russia’s only autonomous oblast in the Far East. Rich in critical natural resources—Chinese inroads into the JAO clearly exemplifies this developmental trend, which is evident in three specific ways.

First, China is physically connecting its northeastern border areas in Manchuria with the JAO through a network of infrastructure projects focusing on regional transportation. For instance, the Chinese side has recently expressed its interest in creating and financing a transportation hub which will include, among others, construction of a bridge across the Amur River connecting China’s vastly populated border areas (more than 200 million people) with the sparsely populated JAO, which as of 2025 had a population of only 144,428. The official purpose of the bridge and related infrastructure is explained by the growing need for transportation of, among other things, grain and agricultural products.

Second, China acts proactively by offering to finance construction of factories and other production facilities on the territory of the JAO. For instance, the Chinese side has voiced its interest in financing the construction of a large agriculture-production facility (50 hectares) that would specialize in the production of and transportation of livestock, corn, oils, starch, and other types of agricultural products including, locally produced grains and soybeans. In addition, Chinese investors are willing to build factories specializing in the production of agricultural machinery, snowmobiles and motor vehicles.

Third, another method used by Beijing are cultural-educational exchanges. Here there are two main elements in its strategy: language exchanges between Russian and Chinese schoolchildren (this initiative is likely to take off shortly), which aims to popularize Russian and Mandarin among youth living on both sides of the border. Given the overwhelming difference in population[2] between the two provinces, this initiative appears to be much like a one-sided initiative aimed at the popularization of Mandarin. On the other hand, the leadership of the JAO volunteered to host Chinese performing artists from Jiamusi (佳木斯) in cultural events in Birobidzhan (the capitol of the JAO), whereas the Chinese side proposed to expand this initiative and deepen this cultural exchange adding sporting events, education and tourism to the Birobidzhan and its partner city in China, Jiamusi as part of their nascent partnership. On the one hand, this border exchange follows the principles of regionalism. However, it is worthwhile to mention that for the Kremlin it was the fear of regionalism and strengthening cross-border ties that de-facto led to the demise of the EU-backed Euroregion initiative in the Baltic Sea (Kaliningrad) and the Arctic (Karelia) regions. By comparison, the regional cooperation between the JOA and the Chinese province of Heilongjiang (黑龙江)[3] is taking place in a much more independent manner than Russia’s approach toward its Western regions.

Thus, while Chinese grain imports from Russia are decreasing in general, economic, cultural and other forms of cooperation between China’s and Russian border regions in the Far East have experienced a notable upsurge since 2022.

Conclusion:

On the surface, the Russian side welcomes the exponential growth of cross-border cooperation between Russian and Chinese regions and will continue to temporarily overlook difficulties in the grain trade, given China’s signed commitment to the so-called “deal of the century.” But Russian experts are increasingly concerned about Chinese behavior and possible ulterior motives in the Far East. Prior to the outbreak of the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war in 2022, such concerns were expressed more openly, while now Russians’ reservations are no longer publicly expressed. As early as 2017, for example, Russian sources reported that up to one-third of all the arable land in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO) was being cultivated by Chinese nationals—prompting some to note, with grim irony, that “there are many more Chinese [in the JAO] than Jews.”

High-ranking officials, such as Mikhail Shchapov—a lieutenant colonel in the Federal Security Service (FSB), and a deputy of the 7th and 8th State Dumas—went so far as to issue a public warning in the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaia Gazeta to this effect about threat posed by Chinese migration. He claimed that Chinese nationals were present in Siberia and the Far East in significant and largely undocumented numbers, stating that this situation “does not look like the right thing to do, either from a market development or from a food security perspective.”

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow’s growing dependence on China, such criticisms largely disappeared from the Russian public discourse. Nonetheless, a handful of post-2022 publications continued to raise questions about China’s long-term intentions in the Far East. One such article, titled “The Chinese Future of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast,” while generally supportive of foreign direct investment (FDI), expressed concern over the nature of China’s entry model and operational practices in the Far East.

The Nezavisimaia Gazeta emphasized that China appeared primarily interested in using the territory as a resource base. It warned that, once Chinese enterprises establish a stronger foothold, they may sidestep local taxation, import their own labor force, and displace local Russian workers—an approach entirely consistent with Chinese investment behavior in other parts of the world.

These trends suggest that China will continue to capitalize on Russia’s weakened position following its near-total break with the West because of the Ukraine war. Yet, to avoid provoking Moscow during this period of vulnerability—which could risk further destabilization or even partial internal fragmentation—Beijing appears to be pursuing a dual-track strategy. Publicly, it presents Russia as an equal partner, exemplified by high-profile agreements like the “deal of the century.” Privately, however, it follows the cautious principle of “crossing the river by feeling for the stones” (摸著石頭過河), gradually and quietly integrating its border regions with the Russian Far East. This approach is particularly evident in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

Notes:

[1] The JAO is a federal subject of Russia in its Far Eastern region, bordering Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast and China’s Heilongjiang province. The JAO was created by a Soviet official decree in 1928 and officially established in 1934. Some Russian experts believe that the idea of creation of the JAO was primarily related to the Soviet Union’s desire to “solve the Jewish question” by on the one hand, distancing its Jewish population from the European part of the USSR (de-facto continuation of the Russian Imperial policy of systemic anti-semitism and created the JAO as an agricultural enclave as part of the USSR in its effort to resolve this issue.

[2] As of 2020, the population of Heilongjiang was 31,8 million which is 220 times more than the population of the JAO.

[3] It is worth mentioning that the Chinese province borders Russia’s Zabaykalsky Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, the JAO, and Primorye.

Mongolia Remains a Key Barometer of the Shifting Russian-Chinese Balance Power in Eurasia

by Paul Goble

Despite its enormous size, immense reserves of natural resources, and critical location between the Russian Federation and China, Mongolia seldom receives much attention by Western policy experts. That is unfortunate not only in terms of that country which deserves it for itself but also and even more so because what happens in Mongolia, both as the result of its own actions and the actions of others, provides one of the most sensitive barometers of the shifting balance between Moscow and Beijing in eastern Eurasia as a whole. When Moscow was dominant, Mongolia tilted toward the Russian state and was viewed by many in China as a dagger pointed at the heart of the latter; but now that China is growing in importance, Mongolia is increasingly tilting away from Russia and toward China, a shift many in Russia fear that its Sinicization threatens Russian control of what is currently the portion of the Russian Federation east of the Urals. Indeed, some commentators in the Russian Federation are even talking about the threat that pan-Mongolism poses to the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation and suggest Beijing is using this to advance its own interests. (On the revival of Pan Mongolism and China’s role, see burunen.ru/blogs/138379-kak-mongoly-sozrevali-do-myagkoy-sily/ and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscow-again-fighting-pan-mongolism.html).

Since 1991, Mongolia has been striking an increasingly independent pose with regard to Russia and has sought closer relations with China, although the level of cooperation Ulan Bator has with Beijing has been somewhat limited by the latter’s treatment of ethnic Mongolians in China’s Inner Mongolia. But talk about a serious revival of pan-Mongolism and even more suggesting that China is backing it to weaken Russia overstates what is happening at least for the present and should be treated with caution. Indeed, that may even be what Moscow intends because if arguments about Pan-Mongolism are dismissed, many will fail to note what Mongolia, with China’s help, is taking, steps that immediately threaten Russian interests.

Three of these are especially important: the construction of Chinese-financed dams in Mongolia that are blocking the flow of water into Russia’s Lake Baikal and, the construction of transportation infrastructure that will allow Beijing to expand its exploitation not only of Mongolia’s natural resources but also those of the Russian Federation just north of it, and Mongolia’s increased focus on developing relations both with the countries of Central Asia and the Buddhist republics of the Russian Federation, Buryatia, Tyva and Kalmykia. All three of these developments have alarmed Moscow which has not been able to come up with a means to counter them in ways that will not call into question its alliance of sorts with Beijing.

But for Putin, a fourth development may be even more emotionally troubling. The Mongolian government is rapidly moving away from the Cyrillic alphabet the Soviets imposed in what many of them called “the sixteenth republic of the USSR.” In its place, Ulan Bator is bringing back the Old Mongolian vertical script. From the Kremlin’s point of view, that is a double disaster. On the one hand, the Mongolian move marks yet another retreat of the expansion of Russian and its Cyrillic alphabet, something Putin views as unacceptable and has worked to block. And on the other hand, what Mongolia is doing is a model for the three Buddhist republics inside the current borders of the Russian Federation, all of whom had earlier scripts some in them would like to go back to. Mongolia’s success in restoring the old alphabet .

Lest China continues to steal a march on the Russian Federation in Mongolia and use such ties to weaken Russian control east of the Urals, Moscow has launched a five-year plan for expanding ties with Mongolia. But the three problems identified above as well as Mongolia’s own desire to be master of its own destiny and to use Beijing to further reduce Russian influence inside its borders make the progress Moscow hopes for less than certain. One piece of evidence for that conclusion is that so far the much-ballyhooed five year plan involves primarily joint meetings of parliamentarians and attacks on the West for questioning Russian-Mongolian friendship. Consequently, this five-year plan is unlikely to be any more successful for the Kremlin than other revenants from the Soviet past.

Obviously, the changing balance in power in the region east of the Urals is primarily a competition between China and Russia directly; but Mongolia by effectively having changed sides has helped China in important ways and is now the place to watch for determining just how far the balance will shift in the future. If Mongolia can help China become a dominant player not only in the historically Buddhist republics of the Russian Federation but also in the resource-rich area about Lake Baikal, then this will make Ulan Bator an even more important player in the future than it has been up to now, a rising power to watch as far as the future of Russia east of the Urals is concerned.

Thank you for your support! Please remember that The Saratoga Foundation is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization. Your donations are fully tax-deductible. If you seek to support The Saratoga Foundation you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the PayPal link below! Alternatively, you can also choose to subscribe on our website to support our work.

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Washington, D.C. — July 24, 2025 — The Saratoga Foundation is proud to announce the launch of a bold new research initiative entitled “The Creeping Sinicization of Russia”, led by Dr. Sergey Sukhankin, Senior Fellow at The Saratoga Foundation. This project will investigate China’s accelerating encroachment into the Russian Far East, focusing on the geopolitical, economic, demographic, and cultural dimensions of this growing phenomenon.

Russia’s strategic decline was evident even before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Now, after more than three years of war, the Kremlin’s vulnerabilities—economic, diplomatic, and demographic—have deepened significantly. Amid this deterioration, China has quietly but assertively positioned itself as a dominant force in the Russian Far East, leveraging access to underpriced resources and reviving historical territorial claims, such as the publication of a map by the Global Times depicting disputed territory with Russia as being within China's borders.

“Increasingly, Beijing is using both economic means and historical narratives to assert itself in the Russian Far East,” said Dr. Sukhankin. “This region has become a crucial case study in how a weakened Russia is being gradually absorbed into China’s long-term strategic ambitions.”

The project will draw from extensive Russian-language sources and offer original analysis on how China’s creeping absorption of this resource-rich and geopolitically strategic region could reshape global power dynamics. It will examine how the growing asymmetry between Moscow and Beijing may alter the trajectory of the Sino-Russian partnership, with wide-ranging consequences for U.S. strategic interests.

This initiative will assess how the United States can more effectively respond to this emerging geopolitical realignment. “In a time of close relations between Russia and China, it is imperative that US policymakers develop a clearer understanding of how and where friction exists between Russia and China,” noted Saratoga Foundation President, Glen E. Howard. “By identifying the hidden fault lines in this partnership, Washington can begin to craft more nuanced policies that prevent China from unilaterally dominating Eurasia.”

The Saratoga Foundation was established to deepen public awareness of the broader, dynamic landscape of the Eurasian chessboard, drawing on the writings and insights of some of the world’s leading strategic thinkers and experts. For media inquiries about our new initiative or to schedule an interview with Dr. Sukhankin, please contact: info@saratoga-foundation.org

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Thank you for your support! Please remember that The Saratoga Foundation is a non profit 501(c)(3) organization. Your donations are fully tax-deductible. If you seek to support The Saratoga Foundation you can make a one-time donation by clicking on the PayPal link below! Alternatively, you can also choose to subscribe on our website to support our work.

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=XFCZDX6YVTVKA