Humans can be highly observant and analytical creatures. We are equally adept at ignoring what is directly in front of us, despite the imminent danger it presents. The allure of China’s newly opened, and potentially large, market sent businessmen from around the world scurrying to Beijing to befriend CCP officials. Others sought development funds to modernize their country’s infrastructure. In recent decades the United States, both the public and private sectors, has been drawn to and blinded by China’s mystique and money. The US is not the only country fatally attracted to China. Europe’s critical supply chain today is deeply embedded in and dependent on imports from China that in 2021 topped $557.8 billion. Russia and the developing South also beg for BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) funds to keep their economies afloat, while China reaps rewards in outsized influence and newly acquired wealth derived from its predatory practices. Xi Jinping recognizes he has a limited window of opportunity obtain the resources his country needs to complete his vision of a modern Chinese-style world order. Now entering an unprecedented third term in office, Xi isn’t wasting time in extending China’s reach into Russia’s once forbidden Far eastern territories.
Xi Jinping recognizes that for China to fully modernize it must buy or seize control of energy and the other critical natural resources required to support advanced technologies. Although the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960’s is healed out of convenience to both communist states, the fulcrum point in the relationship has moved to favor Beijing. Xi is using it to his advantage. Although Russia is occupied with its war in Ukraine, Chinese and Far Eastern Russian officials met in early March, in the northeastern city of Harbin. They quietly agreed China would finance the building of a railway north and well into the Russian resource-rich Sakha Republic. This region dominates the Russian Far East, according to Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation. He points out that it is “rather far from the Chinese border…[and] represents a potentially transformative event for the region, China, and the Russian Federation.”
Unlike the Trans-Siberian line or other infrastructure just over the border in Russia, this project is unprecedented in its reach into the Russian interior. Second, open-source intelligence appears to indicate that the deal was inked by Sakha and Chinese officials without involvement from Moscow. Last June 22, the Russian publication Vesma wrote that Putin did not consider the project a priority. Goble suggests this is another way of Moscow’s say it cost too much with resources devoted to the war in Ukraine. Third, concessions obtained by China in this deal will allow it to gain long-term access to critically-needed resources. Putin likes to talk about Russia’s “turn to the east.” What in the short-run will benefit Russia’s natural resources export market, may turn out in the long run to favor China. Historically, Sakha is already more closely linked to Beijing than Moscow. Goble argues that this raises the “specter in the minds of many Russians that China is becoming the paramount power in the region.”
And, he adds, “this could eventually be the case even if China does nothing to change the political borders between itself and the Russian Federation—a classic form of neo-colonialism that Moscow is accustomed to denouncing in others but often fails to see China is using that same approach within Russia’s current borders.” Economic warfare, in which China is the dominant player, is less costly for Xi than a kinetic military conflict. The territory in question once belonged to China. The people in the region speak Mandarin and are ethnically identical in look and tradition to the nearby Chinese population.
The area is sparsely populated and China will likely need to bring in “guest workers.” It is not an easy route to build and will take years to complete over permafrost ground. China, however, already has experience building a 900-mile Tibetan railway system through permafrost that is more advanced that any found in the West. The rewards will be timber, coal, and other minerals, as well as influence well beyond the reaches of Sakha. Xi is following the ancient Chinese warrior Sun Tzu’s directive to climb higher to see farther. Russia, however, may be ignoring the close by danger if China becomes the de facto power in Russia’s Far East.
Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.
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