As Chinese Flock to Siberia’s Lake Baikal, Local Russians Growl

The Chinese are geniuses at exploiting loopholes and bribery... Third World countries, and much of Russia belongs to the Third World, don;t stand a chance.

Moscow doesn't care--Putin doesn't care unless there is money in it for him and the oligarch in charge of the Baikal region. Russia is underpopulated for the size of its land mass but still, the Russian people should be rising up in protest when their government is allowing a foreign country to take over 20% of the world's fresh water. That is a major resource. Unfortunately, the Russian people have been subjugated for a thousand years under some form of dictatorship and they don't believe they can stand up and fight. China is polluting the air along the Amur river - the border between Russia and China in the Russian Far East- by allowing unregulated field burning. I hear from friends that there are many days when the air in Khabarovsk is unbreatheable. But the Russian government doesn't care. I don't know why America is so afraid of Putin -- he says he's an avowed "nationalist" but won't even protect his own people from Chinese encroachment. He's more interested in disrupting US elections. It's tragic that so many millions of people on this planet can be cowed by a handful of dictators.

The Russians' traditional paranoia about their western border is still in full force, despite the fact that nobody is going to invade from that direction. Russia's western flank is the safest it has been in a thousand years. On the other hand, the Chinese are casting covetous eyes at sparsely-inhabited Siberia for "lebensraum". Once the Han start moving in, Siberia will go the same way as Tibet. It's doubtful if the Russians will wake up in time.

Countries throughout the world would be wise to ban the investments from China and Russia - or any communist country. The Chinese and Russians do not respect any host country and are in the business of buying water world-wide. The Chinese (a.k.a communist party) own vast land masses in the US for the purpose of harvesting water from aquifers. Time to do the same as this brave local Russian citizen.

This is a global concern. Chinese are taking over ports. Italy’s being the most recent. Predatory lending by China often results in countries defaulting on loans and forfeiting these valuable access points, which is of course the intention.

The local, regional and federal governments should make an effort to ensure that all investment, including from China, is vetted for quality, environment, esthetics, etc. But development of the region's tourism potential has to be a very good thing for the local economy. Everywhere in the world in such places, local old timers don't like it.

It is funny, people eager an influx of investment to revive a flagging - if not dying - region until they feel threatened. Then, they said the foreigners are taking over their good fortune. Chicken and eggs. This "Chinese invasion" is nothing new. People should dig through the news archives to look at the anti-Chinese fever in Indonesia more than half a century. The picture of seeing the mob hitting a lynched victim with a folding chair in the newspaper has burnt the image in my mind all these decades. But of course, China was weak then. Now, it is flexing its economic muscles and military prowess. True, more often than not it assumes the role of a bully these days. But whether it is some Russian border town or American midwest town with a dwindling population, when local colleges have to rely foreign students to stay a flow, it is always a symbiotic dynamic

At this small Midwestern college, Chinese undergrads are buying houses, paying with cash. If this happens here, it is likely to be the case elsewhere in the US. It is legal, of course, but it might also be a sign of a larger, probably ominous program, with Beijing's rulers behind it. Any chance the NYT will publish a report on this? One would hope so.

Not surprising at all. China is on the rise. They have oney to spend and they need resouces. WBut they need to be made to play by the rules and respect the environment. Local susceptibility to bribery and corruption doesn’t help the situation. But this is nothing compared to what China is doing all over Africa.

I love this story. Hopefully the Russians and Chinese will turn on each other and stop trying to bring down the USA.

The current population of the Russian Federation is less than 150 million. The current population of the People's Republic of China is over 1.4 billion with a "B." As someone else has noted in these comments, Russia likely does not have the wherewithal to retain its far eastern territory. It would behoove Mr. Putin to repair Russia's relations with its western neighbors. On its own it doesn't have a faint prayer against China if that country decides to expand into portions of Siberia.

By pivoting to China, Putin is making a deal with a devil that Russia will not be able to mange. As noted in the article, Russia’s Far East is China’s backyard. Moreover, the resources of Siberia are a powerful lure to the Chinese; tourism is a minor thing in this regard, but it is a leading indicator of where things are going. No, the People’s Army will not be swarming across the border. The Chinese don’t do it that way. They take what they want, salami slice at a time. They invest, they build, they bribe, they create dependence; they become rent-holders and use economic leverage to achieve political ends. Their ability to do this in Russia is enhanced by the rampant corruption of the mafia state that is Russia’s government. In 20 years, or much less, Russia will fully be a vassal state of China. This means, in effect, that China’s economic and political power will border the EU. Combined with the Belt and Road initiative, which is peeling off impoverished southern EU states (Greece and Italy), China will have neutered the EU as a political force, never mind military one. The net effect will be to isolate North American power and influence, which, after Trump’s destruction of the post WWII alliance system will mean the end of US dominance and the dollar’s status as reserved currency. Russia is the hinge upon which the future will swing.

I've visited Baikal a couple of times and I'll be there again next week. It's very beautiful. It also covers a very large area! This is definitely a moment when the Russian government can benefit everyone by getting ahead of the game and setting aside some specific areas for tourist development while declaring much larger areas protected wilderness with only extremely limited development. As the mayor of Listvyanka says, there also needs to be a development plan for sewage and waste management. Baikal needs that to happen independent of Chinese tourists, but maybe the tourists can stimulate the government into finally solving the problem!

'Highers-up' in Russia need to develop a plan, as the mayor says. It sounds as though there's no financial reason why development couldn't happen fairly and with limited disruption and job growth for the Russian citizens. But what that takes is will. Those who could make this happen apparently don't care to. It's hard to understand why Proud Putin doesn't see the advantage in keeping the lake from becoming filled with sewage and trash. Too busy trying to knock the U.S. and its (erstwhile) allies off of our democratic perch.

Suspected Chinese designs on Russian territory is even more evident in the Russian Far East, where China actually borders Russia. There the Chinese also have their own names for Russian locations. At one point, a governor of a Russian Far East province emboldened Cossacks to intimidate Chinese deemed to be encroaching on Russian territory. Moscow has since kept a tighter rein on RFE governors forging their own policies with respect to China, so Cossacks are not likely to enter into the equation around Lake Baikal.

Yellow Peril paranoid revival is gathering storm.

In 2012 I went on the Transmongolian railway and stayed on Olkhon Island in Lake Bakail. This is an underdeveloped tourist attraction that should bring in big money to the locals if done right. Rather than seeing tourism as a negative, it is a positive that brings in money for locals and promotes interaction of people from different cultures.

Xenophobia knows no boundaries. Yuk, yuk.

The photo of the young Chinese women in their white parkas walking along and peering into their phones,oblivious to their surroundings,says it all as to what's wrong with today's world. If you don't understand why I would say this,perhaps you should sit down and have a long talk with yourself. Good luck with that.

Sad. And sadly, typical. Communist China "may be seeking to revive territorial claims" to land around Lake Baikal. Really ? And should the World be shocked by this ?? The World should darn sure be aware of China's greed. The Chinese Communist Party, under Chairman Mao, took/stole the entire Nation of Tibet at gunpoint in 1959, "claiming" that the Nation of Tibet was actually their territory. Rubbish and lies !! Just like China's phony "Islands" (Military Bases) in the South China Sea, or China's "claiming" Islands directly off the Coast of Japan as their territory, too. That's not China's "land". It never was. The Chinese Communist Party locks up Ethnic Minorities in "Transformation Camps" (that's called Prison in normal language). The CCP murders its own Citizens while they were peacefully assembled, asking for Democratic reform, in Tiannamen Square. The CCP's blood list of greed is endless. I'm glad that Lake Baikal's local; Mr. Sukhanov, has some backbone and ethics. Good luck, Russia. You'll need it. There goes the neighborhood.

This is like the 1978 film "The Betsy." Tommy Lee Jones, the race car driving younger son of the head of a big auto company who is played by Laurence Olivier is secretly working on a car that is fast, safe and hyper fuel efficient. His older brother played by Robert Duvall finds out and shuts the project down. What to do? Jones turns to the mob for financing to buy out his brother and take over the car company. After all this is done, he looks out the window and the mob has arrived to discuss how it's going to be. Putin grabs Crimea. He gets adventurous in Syria. He looms over the old Soviet bloc countries like a shadow. But Russia is broke. And it's broken. Badly broken. What to do? Turn to China. Now - here they come. Comrade Vlad has no idea what he's done.

Time for Russia to build a wall and make China pay for it.

Talk about cutting out the middle man (along with a number of Chinese hotel structural supports). Instead of using a lawyer as an American would have, Andrei Sukhanov used a chain saw. But the nationalist tension in Siberia is no joke. The reality is that Russia doesn't have the money or the social organization to sustain its far east. This creates a vacuum the Chinese threaten to fill. This is a serious potential conflict which bears watching, current Sino-Russian cooperation to the contrary notwithstanding.

Didn't the US seize the northern two thirds of Mexico just before the Civil War? Didn't we kill about a million Filipinos when we appropriated their country from Spain? Why are we projecting onto the Chinese our own historical motivations and behavior? And, by the way, aren't we about to invade Venezuela, in a return to our old Monroe Doctrine/Manifest Destiny roots?

There may be legitimate historical claims by China to large parts of Siberia. Perhaps what is happening now is just a slow motion reacquisition by China, similar to what happened to Crimea recently.

Seems to me Russia’s realizing that using ethnic makeup as a claim to sovereignty (like they did in Crimea) isn’t such a good idea...

I say, "Good for you, Andrei. Keep at it". We need many more Andrei Sukhanovs to stop the tide of selfie-stick wielding zombies from flooding the last untouched places on Earth.

In the mid-2000s, I was visiting Beijing as an invited guest of the PRC. While there, I was invited to view a presentation of a planned proposal from the PRC to Russia to allow the PRC to tap into the water supply of that lake. Irrigation and fresh water for the PRC and money for the Russians. Luckily, the Russians did not sell at that time. What a disaster.

'The Chinese stand accused of not only running roughshod over local residents, but also of trying to siphon off the water itself. This winter, the construction of a new bottling plant to export water to China from a village near Listvyanka prompted more than 1.1 million Russians nationwide to sign an online petition denouncing it.' Just like Nestle here in Michigan. But the Republican Party is fine with it. As long as they continue the 'campaign contributions' support the GOP.