G. DUDCHENKO

Candidate of Historical Sciences (Saint Petersburg)

At the end of the 20th century, migration processes significantly accelerated in the world. Their labor and educational forms were most actively developed, and various communities of newcomers and immigrants from abroad were created. Chinese migration has begun to take on a pronounced global scale.

The presence of the Chinese on Russian territory has a rather long history in the XIX-XX centuries. The Chinese settled in Russia mainly in the Far Eastern region, although they settled in other regions, including the capitals. However, between the late 1930s and the next half-century, when the USSR kept its borders "locked", Chinese migration stopped.

Migration processes resumed in the late 80's and early 90's of the XX century. Chinese citizens began to come to the Russian Far East as contract workers engaged in construction and agriculture, then as tourists, students, and entrepreneurs. This was met with mixed reactions from Russian public opinion. Following journalists and politicians, scientists turned to the topic of Chinese citizens ' stay in Russia. Economists, historians, geographers, sociologists, political scientists, and lawyers provided their own explanations of migration processes, and an interdisciplinary approach was also applied.

THE NUMBER OF CHINESE IS GROWING

Foreign researchers also showed no less interest in the topic of the Chinese staying in Russia. The fact is that by the end of the 1980s, Chinese migration had taken on a global scale. And in Russia, as well as in the post-Soviet space in general, it did not exist for many decades.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the number of Chinese in Russia and some former Soviet Central Asian republics began to grow rapidly.

Moreover, the scale of Chinese migration increased at a crucial moment for our society, when the party and political system collapsed, the deepest economic crisis broke out, and internal conflicts worsened.

This spurred the interest of foreign researchers in the events in Russia. In the West, the theory of "political transit" has emerged, and even a new direction has emerged - transitology. Proponents of this approach tried to answer the question: what impact do Chinese immigrants have on the transition economies of some post-Soviet states?

Chinese migration in Russia, and especially in the Far East, is being closely watched by neighboring countries, which is quite understandable and understandable. After all, there are quite a few research centers and individual researchers dealing with the problems of international cooperation and security in the Asia-Pacific region, the prospects of the international regional labor market.

The topic of Chinese people in Russia has also been studied in the People's Republic of China itself. It is carried out by the Academy of Social Sciences (AON) and scientific institutions attached to universities. In particular, the Institute for Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia of the People's Republic of China pays great attention to Chinese migration to Russia. Beijing researchers Li Jingjie, Zhang Shuhua, Dong Xiaoyang and many others have linked the issues of Chinese migration in Russia to the general outline of Russian-Chinese relations. At international scientific events, they drew attention to the acute aspects of Russian reality that their compatriots directly encountered.¹

The structure of the Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization of the People's Republic of China is such that along with the central institutes in Beijing, there are Academies of Social Sciences in every province and in most major cities.

Three Northeastern provinces - Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning-are particularly interested in this topic. The academies of these provinces had previously focused on Russian subjects, which was facilitated by the geographical location and international relations of the provinces. In addition, among Chinese migrants in Russia in the 1990s and early 21st century, there were quite a few immigrants from the Northeast of the PRC.²

At the Academy of Heilongjiang Province, research on Russian subjects is included in the work of almost all its departments. Professor Zhang Zonghai, Director of the Institute of History of the Heilongjiang Autonomous Region, addressed the topic of the Chinese in Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The academy also developed the topic of attracting Chinese workers to the border regions of Russia in our days3. At the anniversary conference dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, held in May 1999 at the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Vladivostok, Zhang Zonghai spoke about Chinese migration to Russia, the relationship between the past and the present. With the report " Seve-

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South-East China and the Russian Far East against the background of global economic integration " was presented by one of the leaders of the Academy of Social Sciences of Heilongjiang Province, Bu Ping, a well-known scholar and expert on the history of Sino-Japanese relations, who also had a deep knowledge of Russia. Both professors from Harbin considered the arrival, life and activities of Chinese people in Russia as a normal phenomenon.⁴

In late 2004 and early 2005, a group of researchers from the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Social Sciences of Heilongjiang Province worked in Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. She conducted a questionnaire survey of Chinese citizens working in the Russian Far East. The group was headed by the director of the Institute, Professor Zhao Ruizheng.

The Institute of Northeast Asia at Jilin University in Changchun, the Institute of Russia at Heilongjiang University in Harbin, and the Institute of Russia at Liaoning Normal University in Shenyang stand out among the university research centers of China in these studies.

THE VIEW OF CHINESE RESEARCHERS

Professor Wang Shengjin, one of the leaders of the Institute of Northeast Asia at Jilin Provincial University, as a specialist in Sino-Japanese relations, began to develop the topic of international economic cooperation in the Northeast Asian region. His research also dealt with the formation of the international regional labor market. Wang Shengjin considered the territories of each of the countries of the region from the point of view of labor security, actual cross-border movement of labor in the context of the socio-economic and political situation. His conclusions: "The difference is that economically developed Japan and South Korea are poor in natural resources, while China and the Russian Far East have abundant resources, but are economically lagging behind. The difference in labor resources is that China has a surplus labor force, while Japan, Korea, and the Russian Far East are experiencing a shortage of it to varying degrees. " ⁵ The researcher gives his recommendations on establishing multilateral cooperation in the region. "To make progress in the development of natural resources in the Far Eastern region, cross - border movement of labor should be carried out," Professor Wang suggests.

In general, there were few researchers of this phenomenon in China, as well as publications on the topic. In Russia, the topic of Chinese migration has become much more widespread. If we compare the number of authors and their publications, then the topic seems to be more popular and in demand among Russian researchers than among their colleagues from the PRC. There are several explanations.

The first reason lies in the fact that in China, people engaged in science, in particular humanitarians and economists, in the total mass of the huge population are an order of magnitude smaller. The structure of academies of social sciences is more rigid, and research areas and topics are distributed centrally.

Another reason is that Chinese researchers are forced to work on Russian material. They used official data from the State Statistics Committee, the results of sociological surveys conducted in Russia, that is, the same sources as Russian researchers who found themselves in a more favorable situation. Outside of Russia, in such cases, there are difficulties with collecting information, constantly updating it, searching for new sources, and the language barrier also affects. It is no coincidence that Chinese scientists generally came to the same conclusions as Russians; this is evident both in publications and in the course of discussions at international meetings.

CONJUNCTURE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

On the other hand, we have to admit that many publications turned out to be lightweight. Thus, the well-known scientist V. L. Larin notes that until 1999, Chinese problems were not popular among our Far Eastern researchers. But the prevailing market situation contributed to the appearance of such publications, which soon became numerous. In particular, to mark the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, various universities in the Far East held conferences on integration issues in Northeast Asia. "The desire of their organizers to stake out a "scientific niche" in modern Chinese studies has led to a low level of demand for the quality of the materials presented. It seems that absolutely everything was accepted and published in the collections"⁶. Authors of small articles and theses, as V. L. Larin notes, became anyone: novice scientists, employees of government agencies, migration, customs, quarantine and other services. In his opinion, not everything published in these publications is related to science.

Chinese researchers made attempts to analyze various aspects of their compatriots ' stay abroad, including in Russia, resorting not only to a cursory analysis of official data. In some works, the political aspect of the problem is considered - the international economic situation of countries and regions.⁷

Despite the abundance of international scientific conferences of various levels, which were attended by both Russian and Chinese researchers of Chinese migration in Russia, real cooperation between them in the late 90s. -

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in the first years of the XXI century, it turned out to be weak. This is evident from the fact that there are few references to each other's work in the publications, and large joint projects were practically absent. But the potential and prospects for this kind of cooperation have been preserved.

Researchers from Japan also worked on the problem. Their work was carried out in the context of specific research interests in the study of Russia and East Asia. Akihiro Iwasita, a professor at Yamaguchi University who later joined Hokkaido University, drew attention to the nature of Chinese migration in the Russian Far East, being a specialist in the field of bilateral Russian-Chinese relations and foreign policy activities of North-East Asian states. ⁸ Previously, in 1992-1996, A. Iwasita headed a group on the study of Russian-Chinese relations after the Cold War. This team worked within the framework of the project" Development of regional and international cooperation", implemented under the auspices of the Center for Slavic Studies of Hokkaido University. Scientists from China took part in the work. Based on publications in the Russian press, this international research group prepared the report " A View of China from the Russian Far East (1992-1996)", presented in the collection of current materials of the Center for Slavic Studies in Chinese and Japanese. Among a wide range of problems of regional cooperation (border demarcation, trade and economic relations, etc.), Chinese migration is one of the key places in ^the report9.

GUESTS FROM JAPAN

Kobe University Professor Sadayoshi Otsu studied these issues as a well-known specialist and foreign expert on labor markets in Russia. In the early 1990s, his book "The Soviet Labor Market" was published in Moscow in Russian, the original of which was written and published ten years earlier. This essay was an outsider's view, free from ideological support, official party and government installations, which was typical in those years for the works of the author's Soviet colleagues. It is no coincidence that Professor Otsu's book later aroused interest among Russian researchers, and not only economists, and became a new word in understanding Russian reality.

In the 90s. Sadayoshi Otsu turned to the analysis of the impact of legal labor migration on the Russian labor market. A prominent place in his research was occupied by the topic of attracting Chinese labor, mainly in the Far Eastern region. Like Akihiro Iwasita, Sadayoshi Otsu became a frequent visitor to the Russian Far East and participated in many international scientific events.

Probably, we should talk about the scientific school of Sadayoshi Otsu; his work on the study of labor markets in the former Soviet Union, and in this context - and Chinese migration, was picked up by other researchers from Japan, who became his close colleagues and to some extent students.

At the Center for Far Eastern Studies at Toyama University, such work was conducted by Norio Horie. Specializing in Russian regional issues, in particular, the issue of labor security in Western Siberia, he made inter-regional comparisons and, based on the material on the Far East, encountered questions about the arrival, life and activities of Chinese people.

Kazuhiro Kumo started similar research at Kagawa University in the 1990s. His works are also distinguished by addressing the regional aspect, the interrelationships of population movement with general economic development, the interaction of the center and regions, and the differences in the development of migration processes in the Soviet Union and former Soviet republics in different periods. In 2003, his monograph "Migration and Regional Development in the Soviet Union and Russia: a Geographical Approach"was published in Moscow in English. ¹¹ The work provides and analyzes a lot of statistical information, the author suggests a new periodization of population redistribution policies in the XX century, and pays great attention to transformations in post-Soviet Russia.

Kenjiro Nakamura, a researcher at Takamatsu University, has done a lot of work on the regulation of migration processes in Russia. His research is distinguished by a wide range of sources and a detailed, thorough analysis of the entire range of Russian regulatory documents.¹²

AMERICA AND EUROPE ARE ALSO INTERESTED

The phenomenon of Chinese migration in Russia has also aroused genuine interest in European countries. In the late 1990s and early 21st century, young researchers turned to this topic: in Paris-Sebastian Colin, in Vienna-Evelina Rainer, in Frankfurt an der Oder-Sorgen Urbanski. They considered Chinese migration mainly in the context of the regional and international situation. It was linked to issues of economic cooperation, border demarcation, the Tumangan project, etc. Occasionally, there are works devoted to migration issues separately. In 1996, at a conference in London, the French researcher A. Tingi presented a report "Chinese immigration to Russia: a variation on the old theme" ¹³. Both the fact of holding a special conference on Chinese migration in Europe and the participation of a specialist in Russia in it emphasize the peculiarity of geography.

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research. Namely , by this time, the topic had gained increased interest in countries located many thousands of kilometers away from both China and the Russian regions, where the arrival and activity of Chinese citizens were most noticeable against the general background of the economic, social and demographic situation.

The topic of Chinese migration in Russia has not been ignored in North America. Many researchers have considered it in the context of international relations, using the methodology of political science, which in the United States has acquired the widest development. In this regard, the new processes that emerged in Russia and on the Russian-Chinese border could arouse interest among researchers by the very fact that in many respects they were private manifestations of global problems.

In December 1994, the symposium "Chinese Immigration in the Russian Far East"was held in Atlanta. It was organized by the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. It was discussed that the situation on the Russian-Chinese border is similar to the situation on the US-Mexico border, when for economic reasons a large population of one of the countries rushes across the border to ^the north14. It is noteworthy that such a special scientific event in the United States is carried out quickly, despite the fact that they are remote in space from both Russia and China. Because of this, there are obvious difficulties in obtaining research material for American specialists. In Russia itself, the first conferences in which this topic appeared were held around the same time. For example, an international scientific conference "Migration Processes in East Asia" was held in Vladivostok in 1994, and"Population processes in the regional structure of Russia in the XVIII-XX centuries" was held in Novosibirsk in March 1996, which also raised, among other things, the issues of Chinese migration.

Cooperation between American and Russian colleagues has also emerged. Thus, two conferences were held under the general title "Siberia, the Russian Far East and Northeast Asia: Past and Present"with the participation of Professors S. Kotkin and D. Wolf of Princeton University. The first of them was held in December 1993 in Princeton, the second-in August 1995 in Khabarovsk ¹⁵.

In the last years of the 20th century, Mikhail Alekseev, an associate professor at the University of San Diego, made an attempt to link Chinese migration in Russia with well-known and proven theories of international relations at that time. These are the theories of essentialism, constructivism, and political realism ¹⁶. He did not deny the possibility of applying other theories, but also studied public opinion, conflicts, the behavior of the authorities, etc.

M. Alekseev's research on Chinese migration initially covered only Primorsky Krai. He drew parallels with the lives of Chinese people in other countries and regions. In many of them, the presence of Chinese immigrants has become more widespread: in California, Chinese communities and corresponding urban neighborhoods have existed for a long time, for many decades. However, according to M. Alekseev, Primorye is a very special case in this respect, since it borders on China, and, unlike the United States or Western Europe, Russia did not have such traditions of an assimilating society.

With the participation of M. Alekseev, large-scale sociological surveys were conducted in Russia in 2000 and 2005. Various aspects of the relationship between the local population, authorities, employers, etc., on the one hand, and newcomers from abroad, as well as new ethnic communities, on the other, were considered. Employees of the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography of the Peoples of the Far East of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, especially the Public Opinion Research Laboratory led by E. A. Plaksen, participated in the research.

In the publications of American researchers expressed a variety of assumptions and forecasts. So, Kim Won Bo touched upon the use of Chinese labor in the Russian Far East. In his opinion, for successful cooperation of the Far Eastern territories with neighboring countries of Northeast Asia, Russia's participation in international projects is promising, and for their implementation, the import of labor from the PRC is necessary.¹⁷

Based on a broader and more modern theoretical framework, American political scientists often came to the same conclusions as representatives of scientific and journalistic circles in Russia itself. Even the form of presentation of conclusions (words, equivalents of special terms, turns of speech) turned out to be the same. For example, Sherman Garnett expressed the controversial opinion that "the pressure of market forces and an open border can eventually lead to a deep "Sinicization" of the region, which, in turn, will change its face and transform its ties with both Moscow and Beijing."¹⁸

The forecasts of foreign researchers turned out to be too general or controversial because the research itself was carried out on a narrow source base. An exception in this regard is the work of M. Alekseev.

WE CAN'T DO WITHOUT MIGRANTS?

Presented review and analysis of foreign studies

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A number of conclusions can be drawn on the topic of Chinese migration in Russia.

The most obvious of them is that interest in this topic abroad was shown in a variety of countries. On a global spatial scale, the regions of North-East Asia, Western Europe, and North America are distinguished, where quite a large number of representatives of the scientific community viewed Chinese migration to Russia from different points of view on the basis of well-known and recognized research centers.

At the same time, both the research motivation of this interest and the approaches, priorities, forms of organization and presentation of results differed.

It is not difficult to explain the appeal to the topic not only in China, but also in Japan and other countries of Northeast Asia. This is facilitated by the proximity of the Russian Far East to them. Chinese migration affects international regional cooperation and affects the national interests of each State.

However, the remoteness from the region of such countries as the United States, France, and Germany shows that other factors also affected the emergence of research interest. Scientists have linked Chinese migration with the general socio-economic and socio-political situation in Russia, which was undergoing major changes at the end of the XX century. These changes chronologically coincided with the resumption of active Chinese migration, which itself was also considered a phenomenon that was not typical of Russia for a long time, unlike many other countries around the world.

Researchers in each of the countries showed their strengths. Thus, Russian sociologists, historians, geographers, political scientists, and economists had more access to diverse material - official statistics, publications in the press, both central, regional, and local. Russian scientists conducted questionnaires and interviews. Chinese scientists expressed their views on the work, study, life and problems of their compatriots abroad. To some extent, the work of researchers from the People's Republic of China can be used to judge the policy of the central and provincial authorities in this matter. Researchers from Japan, considering mostly the economic side of the phenomenon, presented a kind of view from the outside. American, Canadian, and Western European researchers tried to view Chinese migration in the context of general changes in Russia, applied theoretical innovations, but often lacked specific information on Russian regions.

In general, there is a pattern: Chinese migration in Russia was studied, as a rule, in the context of general or regional economic development of Russia, international cooperation, political or social processes, and public opinion.

Another conclusion: despite the fact that foreign researchers approached the topic of the Chinese presence in Russia from the outside, their work largely corresponded to the methods and conclusions of their Russian colleagues, as well as the discussion points that they touched upon. For example, whether labor migration from China is a necessary condition for further development of Siberia and the Far East.

In this regard, it seems appropriate to launch comprehensive migration studies and create international creative teams. This will improve the exchange of empirical and theoretical material, methods, and research results. Such cooperation is becoming increasingly relevant in connection with the development of global migration.

^{Zhang Shuhua.} Migration between Russia and China: Real scales and prospects / / Prospects of the Far Eastern region: the Chinese Factor, Moscow, 1999, pp. 98-99.

² Data on the composition of Chinese citizens in Russia regarding their arrival from certain provinces and cities are available in the publications: Gelbras V. G. Preliminary results of studying the problems of Chinese migration in Moscow, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok and Ussuriysk (results of questionnaire surveys); Prospects for the Far Eastern region: Chinese Factor, Moscow, 1999, pp. 9-36 Dudchenko G. B. The Chinese in Vladivostok: the realities of our time // Russia and the Asia-Pacific Region, 2002, No. 1, pp. 74-80.

³ Zhuanxingqi de elosa yuandong (Changes in the situation in the Russian Far East). Harbin, 1998; Gao Yuhai, Feng Pengfei, Deng Peng. Guanyu Heilongjiang sheng dui e laou hezode yanjiu (Study of cooperation between Heilongjiang province and Russia in the field of labor) / / Yanjiu Monopoly. 2002, No. 3, pp. 17-18.

⁴ Daily News (Vladivostok), May 20, 1999.

^{Wang Shengjin.} 5 Study Report on Northeast Asian Labor Force Resource // Far Eastern Studies. Vol. 1. March 2002. Center for Far Eastern Studies, Toyama University, p. 35.

^{Larin V. L.} 6 Russian-Chinese relations in regional dimensions (80 - ies of the XX - beginning of the XXI century). Moscow, 2005, pp. 327-328.

⁷ As an example: Ni Xiaoquan. China's Threat Perceptions and Policies toward the Russian Far East // Russia's Far East: A Region at Risk. Seattle and London, 2002, p. 375-395; Zhao Lizhi. On regional cooperation between China and Russia in the XXI century / / Problems of economic policy in the Far East. Khabarovsk, 2001, pp. 82-84.

^{Akihiro Iwasita.} 8 Moscow-Beijing: "Strategic Partnership" and border negotiations / / World Economy and International Relations. 2000, N 11, pp. 92-96.

^{9. Larin V. L.} 9 China and the Russian Far East in the First half of the 1990s: Problems of regional interaction. Vladivostok, 1998, pp. 17-18.

^{Sadayoshi Otsu.} 10 Soviet labor market. Analysis of a Japanese specialist, Moscow, 1992.

^{Кито К.} 11 Migration and Regional Development in the Soviet Union and Russia: A Geographical Approach. M., 2003, p. 216.

^{Nakamura Kenjiro.} 12 Some Materials on the Contemporary Problems of Migrant Control Policy in Russia. Research Bulletin of Takamatsu University. Vol. 42, p. 79-128 (main text in Japanese).

^{Tinguy A. De.} 13 Chinese Immigration to Russia: A Variation on an Old Theme // The Chinese in Europe. London, 1997, p. 650 - 685.

^{Larin V. L.} 14 China and the Russian Far East, p. 16.

¹⁵ Ibid., pp. 16-17.

^{Alekseev M.} 16 Is Chinese migration threatening? (Territorial security and interethnic relations in Primorsky Krai) / / World Economy and International Relations. 2000, N 11, pp. 97-103.

^{Kim Won Bae.} 17 Sino-Russian Relations and Chinese Workers in the Russian Far East // Asian Survey. Vol. XXXIV, N 12.

^{Garnett Sh. U.} 18 Limited Partnership: Russian-Chinese relations in a changing Asia. Report of the Group for the Study of Russian-Chinese Relations, Moscow, 1999, pp. 37-38.

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