Paul Goble
Vienna, September 21 – Residents in the Far Eastern Federal District – a region that adjoins China and where more Chinese workers are present than elsewhere in Russia -- are more positively inclined toward these guest workers than are Russians in other sections of the country, according to the results of a new poll.
Yesterday, the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion published the results of a poll conducted across the Russian Federation at the end of August concerning how much Russians know about Chinese guest workers and how they feel about them (http://wciom.ru, Press Release 773, September 20).
Among the most interesting findings concerned the fundamental difference in the attitudes of Russians living in the Far East next door to China where such workers from abroad are more numerous and of Russians living in other parts of the country where there are significantly fewer Chinese.
According to the poll, residents of the Far Eastern Federal District are “inclined toward them as a rule more positively than the rest of those questioned.” While the Far Easterners agree that Chinese labor increases unemployment among Russians (63 percent said yes, but 31 said no), they still viewed the Chinese as making a positive contribution.
First of all, in contrast to Russians elsewhere, those in the Far East said that the Chinese workers help make up the deficit of workers in Russia (52 percent said yes and 35 percent said no in the Far East, compared to 40 and 38 percent respectively in other parts of the country.
Second, the Far Easterners are less inclined than Russians elsewhere to believe that Chinese immigrants led to an increase in crime. In the Far Eastern district, 33 percent thought they did, while 50 percent said no, but in Russia as a whole, those figures were 50 percent and 29 percent.
And third, the Far Eastern residents also tend to believe that the Chinese guest workers help boost productivity in Russian factories, with 43 percent saying yes and only 33 percent saying no, compared to 28 percent and 42 percent in the Russian Federation as a whole.
These findings suggest that those Russians most familiar with Chinese workers – and there are far more of them in the Far Eastern Federal District than elsewhere – are the least prejudiced against them and conversely that those least familiar with the Chinese are the most antagonistic.
The poll results undercut claims by Russian nationalist politicians and xenophobic activist groups like the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI), and they indicate that the situation in the Russian Far East may not be as explosive as some have said – at the very least, not on account of Chinese immigration.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Window on Eurasia: Opposition to Putin’s Regional Amalgamation Plan Spreads
Paul Goble
Vienna, September 21 – Two exchanges in the Russian media this week, one in the Altai and another in Ingushetia, suggest that the leaders and people in Russia’s regions are increasingly opposed to President Vladimir Putin’s oft expressed desire to cut the number of federation subjects by combining smaller regions and republics.
The first of these involves the Altai Republic and the Altai Kray. Earlier this month, Aleksandr Berdinkov, the president of the Altai Republic took part in ceremonies commenorating the 70th anniversary of the creation of the neighboring Altai Kray and made a comment that sparked a firestorm at home.
Berdinkov, apparently speaking at large, said that he was “convinced that there cannot be two Altais. There will be one Altai, great and powerful,” a comment, Moscow’s “Kommersant” reported on September 17th that his listeners saw as an endorsement of amalgamation of the two but that he quickly backed away from.
Shortly after he made his remarks, Berdinkov’s own press secretary Galina Savina effectively disowned them, saying that these “possibly” off the cuff comments had not been “prepared” and thus suggesting that no one should read anything into what he had said (http://www.regrus.info/anounces/3/85.html).
Bur nationalist activists in Berdinkov’s home republic were not prepared to leave things at that. Vladimir Kylyev, the leader of the Ene Til Group, suggested that the Altai Republic leader had been carrying out the wishes of Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov, with whom he had met at the start of September.
On September 18th, Berdinkov acknowledged in a statement to the republic media that he had in fact met with Surkov and that the two had discussed the possibility of amalgamation. But the Altai Republic leader continued, “we came to the conclusion that as long as I am head of the Altai Republic,” nothing will come of this idea.
Berdinkov said that his comments at the Altai Krai jubilee were simply intended as a rhetorical flourish, one that reflected not a political but a “geographic” view of “a large and powerful Altai,” a region that includes not only these two federal units but also portions of two foreign countries.
Berdinkov’s latest remarks may have reassured some but clearly not all of his listeners in that distant republic, but meanwhile another case of possible amalgamation, this time between Chechnya and Ingushetia, showed just how sensitive this issue now is across the Russian Federation and why Putin has not been able to move forward on it.
Over the last few weeks, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has suggested that his government is prepared to come to the aid of the embattled leadership of neighboring Ingushetia and thereby restore order in that increasingly restive neighboring republic.
Because Chechnya and Ingushetia were part of a single republic almost up to the end of the Soviet period – the two broke apart after Chechnya declared its independence from the Soviet Union in early November 1991 – many commentators immediately assumed that Kadyrov, backed by Moscow, hoped to rule both areas.
Given the criticism Ingush President Murat Zyazikov has received for developments in his republic, such speculation was entirely natural, with some analysts arguing that it would be a step forward toward the complete pacification of the North Caucasus as a whole and others suggesting it would lead to a new explosion.
But however that might be in the future, Zyazikov is having none of it. In a statement picked up by RIA Novosti yesterday, he said that he had “said repeatedly that [he] would not accept any expansion, optimization of structural changes or any other configurations of political experiments of a territorial kind.”
The combination of the two republics, he suggested, might have been appropriate in the base, but now “we know that it had a very serious negative impact on [both] peoples – including the deprivation of particular individuals of their motherland and the deprivation at one time of their statehood in the 1920s.”
Because of that, he said, he “categorically” would not accept any union with Chechnya. The “multi-national people in Ingushetia do not need it.” And in words that seem to be a direct response both to Kadyrov and to Putin, “the Chechen people do not need it either” (http://www.rian.ru/politics/20070920/79928411.html).
Given the strength of these feelings, it is difficult to imagine that Putin will be in a position to make any significant progress on regional amalgamation during the rest of his term. And this policy, so much ballyhooed earlier as uniquely his, may finally collapse when he leaves office.
Vienna, September 21 – Two exchanges in the Russian media this week, one in the Altai and another in Ingushetia, suggest that the leaders and people in Russia’s regions are increasingly opposed to President Vladimir Putin’s oft expressed desire to cut the number of federation subjects by combining smaller regions and republics.
The first of these involves the Altai Republic and the Altai Kray. Earlier this month, Aleksandr Berdinkov, the president of the Altai Republic took part in ceremonies commenorating the 70th anniversary of the creation of the neighboring Altai Kray and made a comment that sparked a firestorm at home.
Berdinkov, apparently speaking at large, said that he was “convinced that there cannot be two Altais. There will be one Altai, great and powerful,” a comment, Moscow’s “Kommersant” reported on September 17th that his listeners saw as an endorsement of amalgamation of the two but that he quickly backed away from.
Shortly after he made his remarks, Berdinkov’s own press secretary Galina Savina effectively disowned them, saying that these “possibly” off the cuff comments had not been “prepared” and thus suggesting that no one should read anything into what he had said (http://www.regrus.info/anounces/3/85.html).
Bur nationalist activists in Berdinkov’s home republic were not prepared to leave things at that. Vladimir Kylyev, the leader of the Ene Til Group, suggested that the Altai Republic leader had been carrying out the wishes of Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov, with whom he had met at the start of September.
On September 18th, Berdinkov acknowledged in a statement to the republic media that he had in fact met with Surkov and that the two had discussed the possibility of amalgamation. But the Altai Republic leader continued, “we came to the conclusion that as long as I am head of the Altai Republic,” nothing will come of this idea.
Berdinkov said that his comments at the Altai Krai jubilee were simply intended as a rhetorical flourish, one that reflected not a political but a “geographic” view of “a large and powerful Altai,” a region that includes not only these two federal units but also portions of two foreign countries.
Berdinkov’s latest remarks may have reassured some but clearly not all of his listeners in that distant republic, but meanwhile another case of possible amalgamation, this time between Chechnya and Ingushetia, showed just how sensitive this issue now is across the Russian Federation and why Putin has not been able to move forward on it.
Over the last few weeks, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has suggested that his government is prepared to come to the aid of the embattled leadership of neighboring Ingushetia and thereby restore order in that increasingly restive neighboring republic.
Because Chechnya and Ingushetia were part of a single republic almost up to the end of the Soviet period – the two broke apart after Chechnya declared its independence from the Soviet Union in early November 1991 – many commentators immediately assumed that Kadyrov, backed by Moscow, hoped to rule both areas.
Given the criticism Ingush President Murat Zyazikov has received for developments in his republic, such speculation was entirely natural, with some analysts arguing that it would be a step forward toward the complete pacification of the North Caucasus as a whole and others suggesting it would lead to a new explosion.
But however that might be in the future, Zyazikov is having none of it. In a statement picked up by RIA Novosti yesterday, he said that he had “said repeatedly that [he] would not accept any expansion, optimization of structural changes or any other configurations of political experiments of a territorial kind.”
The combination of the two republics, he suggested, might have been appropriate in the base, but now “we know that it had a very serious negative impact on [both] peoples – including the deprivation of particular individuals of their motherland and the deprivation at one time of their statehood in the 1920s.”
Because of that, he said, he “categorically” would not accept any union with Chechnya. The “multi-national people in Ingushetia do not need it.” And in words that seem to be a direct response both to Kadyrov and to Putin, “the Chechen people do not need it either” (http://www.rian.ru/politics/20070920/79928411.html).
Given the strength of these feelings, it is difficult to imagine that Putin will be in a position to make any significant progress on regional amalgamation during the rest of his term. And this policy, so much ballyhooed earlier as uniquely his, may finally collapse when he leaves office.
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