Paul Goble
Vienna, February 9 – Chinese businesses have invested about three billion US dollars in the Russian Far East over the past year, more than three times as much as Moscow has transferred to the budgets of the Amur oblast, Primorsky and Khabarovsk kray and the Jewish Autonomous District, “Nezavisimaya gazeta” reports today.
Picking up on a Xinhua news agency story, the editors of the leading independent Moscow paper argue that these Chinese investments “in Russian lands are not only the private initiative of enterprising neighbors … but are a clear state policy for the mastering of new territories” (www.ng.ru/editorial/2011-02-09/2_red.html).
And it quotes with apparent alarm Xinhua’s words that “with the permission of the governments of China and Russia, Chinese entrepreneurs can open in Russia industrial and agricultural zones including zones” for a variety of purposes on very favorable terms for the Chinese side.
“It is indicative,” the editors of “Nezavisimaya” say, “that the Chinese authorities are already creating on their own territory special organs for the administration of [these] zones in Russia. And what that means is that the development of the Russian Far East is now “controlled not so much from Moscow or Khabarovsk as from Harbin.”
Such arrangements are “completely justified,” the editors say, because “he who pays calls the shots, and investments of the amount of three billion US dollars – if one believes the calculations of the Chinese themselves – is an enormous financial resource which exceeds that transfers from Moscow to the local budgets.”
“It is not to be excluded,” the editors say, that this figure may be an exaggeration or that China will not do any more in the future. But “nevertheless, the official report of a government agency about multi-billion dollar investments in Russia means that the powers of the Heavenly Kingdom are underscoring their interest in our eastern territories ‘seriously and for a long time.’”
The paper quotes Sun Kui, a Chinese specialist, to the effect that “the opening by Chinese investors of zones in Russia is mutually profitable for both sides” because if increases the openness of the border regions, increases tax collections and eliminates the problem of a lack of labor for particular enterprises.
But what is not clear, “Nezavisimaya” says, is “why the initiator of investments in the Far East is not the Russian but the Chinese authorities who are capable of organizing investments in production facilities with a positive future and secure the production of goods which enjoy demand both in Russia and in China.”
Many Russian bloggers and nationalist media outlets have drawn the most alarmist of conclusions about Chinese investment activities in the Russian Far East. What makes this article important is that “Nezavisimaya gazeta” in the past has been extremely measured in its comments about those developments.
For its editors to put out such an article suggests that concern about what China is doing is spreading in Moscow from the more nationalistic groups to mainstream opinion, something that may force Moscow to try to restrict Chinese investment in the Russian Far East or come up with more money of its own to compete with China there.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Putin Loyalists Occupy 73 of 75 ‘Key’ State Jobs, Elite Specialist Says
Paul Goble
Vienna, February 9 – People loyal to Vladimir Putin occupy 73 of the 75 “key positions” in the Russian state, according to Russia’s leading specialist on elites, a number that means only two are primarily loyal to Dmitry Medvedev and a balance that gives Putin the whip hand in making arrangements for the future.
In an interview with “Svobodnaya pressa,” Olga Kryshtanovskaya, the head of the Center for the Study of Elites at the Academy of Sciences Institute of Sociology, says that Putin is thus likely to return “like a mafia don” but that if Medvedev is kept for a second term, he won’t be willing to continue to play “a pawn’s role” (svpressa.ru/politic/article/38451/).
Kryshtanovskaya’s comments come in the wake of the latest public disagreement between the two Russian leaders, this time over whether the Domodedovo terrorist attack has been solved, something that has contributed to the impression that “the Russian elite is divided into two teams: the ‘siloviki,’ and the ‘liberals.’”
A major reason that many people see Medvedev as being on the rise is that the public face of the Russian elite more broadly is far less dominated by the siloviki than it was when Medvedev came to office. Then, 47 percent of the elite broadly conceived consisted of siloviki. “Now, 22 percent” of this broader measure does.
Part of this trend began under Putin himself, Kryshtanovskaya says. “He could have made Sergey Ivanov president but he chose Medvedev,” a selection “which showed how Putin himself sees the development of the country” and one that makes the siloviki-liberal divide less one about Putin and Medvedev than about a broader trend.
Reminded by her interviewer that she had “compared the role of Medvedev to that of the legal advisor of the Mafia don in Mario Puzo’s “Godfather” novel, she responds that she still considers “the most likely path is the return of Putin, although many people in the Kremlin consider that Medvedev will remain” as president.
Although everything at the very top is secret and out of public view, she continues, “there certainly is an agreement between Putin and Medvedev about a division of responsibilities.” And she points to one important detail about how business is now being conducted that may say a lot about the future.
Under Boris Yeltsin, “the president directly led the siloviki, but now part of the functions of control of the force agencies have been transferred to Vice Prime Minister Ivanov. That is, they have been shifted “even not to Prime Minister Putin but still lower” down the power vertical.”
Putin’s people still run the siloviki, she says, but she adds that in her view, “Putin has decided to put them in the place which they occupied before his presidency – as commissars attached to a commander, people who play a second-level role in our political system. This is the position, by the way, they occupied in Soviet times.”
“There are still a sufficiently large number of siloviki” at the highest levels, Kryshtanovskaya points out, “but now they already do not occupy themselves directly with the leadership of the country as was the case under Putin, when there was a siloviki politburo.”
And finally, asked if there is “all the same” a conflict between Medvedev and Putin, the expert on Russian elites says that the recent public disagreements are “not serious.” Instead, one should recognize that “Medvedev and Putin are two different politicians” who “naturally treat one and the same event differently.”
There could be “a process of internal conflict,” Kryshtanovskaya concludes, “but we do not know aobut it. According to that information which appears in the media for public consumption, there is no basis to consider that between [the two senior officials in the country] there is any conflict” at all.
Vienna, February 9 – People loyal to Vladimir Putin occupy 73 of the 75 “key positions” in the Russian state, according to Russia’s leading specialist on elites, a number that means only two are primarily loyal to Dmitry Medvedev and a balance that gives Putin the whip hand in making arrangements for the future.
In an interview with “Svobodnaya pressa,” Olga Kryshtanovskaya, the head of the Center for the Study of Elites at the Academy of Sciences Institute of Sociology, says that Putin is thus likely to return “like a mafia don” but that if Medvedev is kept for a second term, he won’t be willing to continue to play “a pawn’s role” (svpressa.ru/politic/article/38451/).
Kryshtanovskaya’s comments come in the wake of the latest public disagreement between the two Russian leaders, this time over whether the Domodedovo terrorist attack has been solved, something that has contributed to the impression that “the Russian elite is divided into two teams: the ‘siloviki,’ and the ‘liberals.’”
A major reason that many people see Medvedev as being on the rise is that the public face of the Russian elite more broadly is far less dominated by the siloviki than it was when Medvedev came to office. Then, 47 percent of the elite broadly conceived consisted of siloviki. “Now, 22 percent” of this broader measure does.
Part of this trend began under Putin himself, Kryshtanovskaya says. “He could have made Sergey Ivanov president but he chose Medvedev,” a selection “which showed how Putin himself sees the development of the country” and one that makes the siloviki-liberal divide less one about Putin and Medvedev than about a broader trend.
Reminded by her interviewer that she had “compared the role of Medvedev to that of the legal advisor of the Mafia don in Mario Puzo’s “Godfather” novel, she responds that she still considers “the most likely path is the return of Putin, although many people in the Kremlin consider that Medvedev will remain” as president.
Although everything at the very top is secret and out of public view, she continues, “there certainly is an agreement between Putin and Medvedev about a division of responsibilities.” And she points to one important detail about how business is now being conducted that may say a lot about the future.
Under Boris Yeltsin, “the president directly led the siloviki, but now part of the functions of control of the force agencies have been transferred to Vice Prime Minister Ivanov. That is, they have been shifted “even not to Prime Minister Putin but still lower” down the power vertical.”
Putin’s people still run the siloviki, she says, but she adds that in her view, “Putin has decided to put them in the place which they occupied before his presidency – as commissars attached to a commander, people who play a second-level role in our political system. This is the position, by the way, they occupied in Soviet times.”
“There are still a sufficiently large number of siloviki” at the highest levels, Kryshtanovskaya points out, “but now they already do not occupy themselves directly with the leadership of the country as was the case under Putin, when there was a siloviki politburo.”
And finally, asked if there is “all the same” a conflict between Medvedev and Putin, the expert on Russian elites says that the recent public disagreements are “not serious.” Instead, one should recognize that “Medvedev and Putin are two different politicians” who “naturally treat one and the same event differently.”
There could be “a process of internal conflict,” Kryshtanovskaya concludes, “but we do not know aobut it. According to that information which appears in the media for public consumption, there is no basis to consider that between [the two senior officials in the country] there is any conflict” at all.
Window on Eurasia: Moscow’s Plan to Send North Caucasians to Work in Ethnic Russian Areas Recalls Stalin-Era Deportations, Balkar Elders Say
Paul Goble
Vienna, February 9 – A new Moscow plan to send unemployed North Caucasians to work in ethnic Russian regions, a measure that was intended to calm that troubled region, appears to be having the opposite effect with some non-Russians saying they don’t want to be gastarbeiters and others comparing this plan to the Stalin-era deportations of their peoples.
And what must have been most galling to the plan’s promoter, Aleksandr Khloponin, the presidential plenipotentiary for the North Caucasus Federal District, is that the complaint and comparison came not from marginal groups but from a council of elders leader, people that he has promoted as another means to improve the situation in the region.
Dmitry Treshchanin of “Svobodnaya pressa” reported yesterday that the Council of Elders of the Balkar People has spoken out against Khloponin’s plan to send unemployed North Caucasians to other parts of the Russian Federation, arguing that “it is completely possible” to find jobs for all within the republics involved (svpressa.ru/society/article/38614/).
The Balkars have been angry with Moscow for a long time, and that nationality’s elders council staged sit down demonstration in Moscow from the middle of July to the end of November 2010, demanding that land in their republic be restored to them and that senior officials meet with them. They have not achieved either of their goals.
As the Balkars point out, “the districts of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic populated by Balkars are rich” in vegetation, energy resources, minerals, and other facilities, “but up to now, Balkaria has been deprived of any industry and its agricultural basis and infrastructure have been intentionally destroyed.”
According to Balkar organizations, Treshchanin says, “the policy of the powers that be” is to force the Balkars into the role of gastarbeiters where they will be in competition with people from “the near abroad” or to work as “service personnel” in recreation centers in the area around Mount Elbrus.
Oyus Gurtuyev, the head of the executive committee of the Council of Elders of the Balkar People, was blunt. He told Treshchanin that Balkars view the plan to force them to leave their republic for jobs elsewhere in Russia as a contemporary equivalent of the deportation of their nation in March 1944, a deportation that lasted 13 years.
“This is a stupid program, especially in today’s conditions,” he said. “Balkaria is a lifestock raising area.” That industry was nearly destroyed when the Balkars were deported, but today “we have all the conditions for [its restoration and the production of] ecologically pure meat, milk products, cheeses, yoghurt” and the like.
Indeed, Gurtuyev said, “all this can be produced much more cheaply and in higher quality than imports from Argentina and New Zealand.” Moreover, the Balkars “love to work,” and all they ask is that the lands that were taken from them in violation of the Constitution and the law on local self-administration.
Yet another reason Balkars don’t want to move to other parts of Russia for work is that they know that “even [ethnic] Russians who have fled from the republics of Central Asia and returned to Russia are not very well received,” the Balkar elder said. And people from the North Caucasus face even more problems.
In another comment, Gurtuyev said that Khloponin had not invited his Council of Elders but instead had chosen an official he apparently felt he could control. “We are not against the powers, as they think,” he continued, “we only want that in Kabardino-Balkaria Russian laws will function and that the Constitution of Russia be extended to our republic too.”
A major reason that the Balkars are looking to Moscow is that they do not trust the local Kabardin leadership of their republic, a leadership that Gurtuyev said has transformed Kabardino-Balkaria from a peaceful place to one of the most unstable portions of the North Caucasus.
Vienna, February 9 – A new Moscow plan to send unemployed North Caucasians to work in ethnic Russian regions, a measure that was intended to calm that troubled region, appears to be having the opposite effect with some non-Russians saying they don’t want to be gastarbeiters and others comparing this plan to the Stalin-era deportations of their peoples.
And what must have been most galling to the plan’s promoter, Aleksandr Khloponin, the presidential plenipotentiary for the North Caucasus Federal District, is that the complaint and comparison came not from marginal groups but from a council of elders leader, people that he has promoted as another means to improve the situation in the region.
Dmitry Treshchanin of “Svobodnaya pressa” reported yesterday that the Council of Elders of the Balkar People has spoken out against Khloponin’s plan to send unemployed North Caucasians to other parts of the Russian Federation, arguing that “it is completely possible” to find jobs for all within the republics involved (svpressa.ru/society/article/38614/).
The Balkars have been angry with Moscow for a long time, and that nationality’s elders council staged sit down demonstration in Moscow from the middle of July to the end of November 2010, demanding that land in their republic be restored to them and that senior officials meet with them. They have not achieved either of their goals.
As the Balkars point out, “the districts of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic populated by Balkars are rich” in vegetation, energy resources, minerals, and other facilities, “but up to now, Balkaria has been deprived of any industry and its agricultural basis and infrastructure have been intentionally destroyed.”
According to Balkar organizations, Treshchanin says, “the policy of the powers that be” is to force the Balkars into the role of gastarbeiters where they will be in competition with people from “the near abroad” or to work as “service personnel” in recreation centers in the area around Mount Elbrus.
Oyus Gurtuyev, the head of the executive committee of the Council of Elders of the Balkar People, was blunt. He told Treshchanin that Balkars view the plan to force them to leave their republic for jobs elsewhere in Russia as a contemporary equivalent of the deportation of their nation in March 1944, a deportation that lasted 13 years.
“This is a stupid program, especially in today’s conditions,” he said. “Balkaria is a lifestock raising area.” That industry was nearly destroyed when the Balkars were deported, but today “we have all the conditions for [its restoration and the production of] ecologically pure meat, milk products, cheeses, yoghurt” and the like.
Indeed, Gurtuyev said, “all this can be produced much more cheaply and in higher quality than imports from Argentina and New Zealand.” Moreover, the Balkars “love to work,” and all they ask is that the lands that were taken from them in violation of the Constitution and the law on local self-administration.
Yet another reason Balkars don’t want to move to other parts of Russia for work is that they know that “even [ethnic] Russians who have fled from the republics of Central Asia and returned to Russia are not very well received,” the Balkar elder said. And people from the North Caucasus face even more problems.
In another comment, Gurtuyev said that Khloponin had not invited his Council of Elders but instead had chosen an official he apparently felt he could control. “We are not against the powers, as they think,” he continued, “we only want that in Kabardino-Balkaria Russian laws will function and that the Constitution of Russia be extended to our republic too.”
A major reason that the Balkars are looking to Moscow is that they do not trust the local Kabardin leadership of their republic, a leadership that Gurtuyev said has transformed Kabardino-Balkaria from a peaceful place to one of the most unstable portions of the North Caucasus.
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