One of the ideas subject to ongoing discussion by Russian media is the threat of future Chinese aggression against Russia.
At this moment, the website www.popmech.ru features an article of Alexander Khromchikhin, the Deputy Director of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis entitled “China against Russia: the victory is not going to be ours.” The article starts from the statements: “If ever a large-scale military aggression in the “classical” form will be made against Russia, with a probability of 95% (if not 99.99%), the aggressor will be China. The question is not, whether China is going to attack Russia; in fact, the question is when it is going to happen.”
Mr. Khromchikhin writes: “Of course, China usually prefers peaceful forms of expansion (economic and demographic). But it does not rule out military actions also. Extremely significant is the fact that in recent years the Chinese army has been conducting exercises that simply can not be interpreted otherwise than as preparation for aggression against Russia, and the scale of the exercise (spatial scale and the number of troops involved) is constantly growing.”
Last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping at a dinner, where she presented to Xi a 1735 map of China printed back then by a German publishing house. The map was supposedly based on geographical surveys done by Jesuit missionaries in China and represented the “summation of European knowledge on China in the 18th-century.” A considerable part of the territory of the present Russian Far East is a part of China on this map.
Angela Merkel presents Chinese President Xi Jinping with an 18th century map of China. Photo: Getty
The German Chancellor’s act shocked Russians and was described by Russian media as extremely undiplomatic. But Chinese certainly haven’t discovered such map for the first time at this dinner. They have long believed the Russian Far East is historically Chinese territory.
The modern Chinese historical atlases expressly state that the northern boundary of the Yuan Dynasty (Mongol dynasty XIII-XIV centuries) extended to the Arctic Sea and, in the days of the Qing empire (from the XVII century), most of the Russian Far East and parts of Siberia were also part of China. It is believed in Beijing that in the past Russia has taken 1.6 million square kilometers of land, equal to one-sixth of China’s current territory.
Possibility of a war with its northern neighbor is quite often discussed in Chinese press. According to Russian website daokedao.ru, a pro-government Chinese newspaper Wenweipo published last year an article entitled “Six wars in which China must participate in the next 50 years”.
The article states that six wars should be arranged for the return of the territories, which imperial China lost as a result of past wars that led to the “centennial humiliation” of China. China should start wars with Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Japan, Mongolia and Russia. The first conflict, with Taiwan, scheduled, according to the article, between 2020-2025; the last one, with Russia, between 2055-2060.
But does China need a war in order to take over Russian territories? Starting from 1992, Chinese haven’t needed visas to get into Russia. It’s widely known that thousands of Chinese every year migrate to Siberia and Russian Far East. They create numerous businesses, which need more and more Chinese workers. According to the Russian Federal Migration Service not less than 300 thousand Chinese enter Russia annually; according to the FSB information – the number is twice as much. Only half go back to China.
The new Putin politics, which he demonstrated in Crimea, gives Chinese excellent precedent and they already are using it.
Asian Center in Russia site www.asia-centre.com just released information that Wang Han Sun, a deputy of National People’s Congress, has registered a draft law on annexation of foreign territories by China.
It would provide the People’s Republic of China with the right to annex parts of the territory of foreign states on a couple of simple conditions: First – the population of the territory in question should hold a referendum in which the majority of respondents voted to join China. Second – the population should appeal to the Government of China to be accepted as a part of the People’s Republic.
EDITOR: Vladimir Putin is setting precedents that will allow the Chinese to dismandle eastern Russia. How dumb.
