Chinese Colonization of Russia

Immigrants  -  Once imported, hard to send back home.
Chinese farmers shovel soybeans into a selector in Babstovo, Russia, on Jan. 15.  (Daisuke Nishimura)

As Russians are moving out of Siberia the Chinese are moving in

• Some 20% of Russians have left the Far East.
• Chinese companies and workers are now farming 347,000 hectares of land.
• South Korean companies, including Hyundai Heavy Industries, are working about 70,000 hectares of farmland in Primorsky Krai. 

There is a growing trend for Chinese and South Korean companies seeking greener pastures on Russian farmland, with Japanese companies about ready to join in.
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“Since I came to Russia, my income has increased five to 10 times,”  said Qi Liming, a 38-year-old Chinese man.
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In Qi's hometown in China, his family of three had only two hectares of farmland. Now, he and seven other people, including his relatives, are harvesting about 300 hectares of fields.

The area is part of 4,700 hectares of farmland operated by the Chinese company Baoefengshou, based in Baoqing county in Heilongjiang province, northeastern China. The company obtained the rights to work the farmland. Currently, about 60 Chinese farmers are mainly cultivating soybeans there.

In northeastern China, more than 100 million people are living in the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning. In the neighboring Far Eastern Federal District of Russia, only 6.3 million people are residing there, despite the district being seven times larger than the three Chinese provinces.

Long Lihua, a farmer from China, comes to Russia every spring to grow vegetables.

“If Chinese people harvest Russian land, it brings benefits to both (China and Russia),” said Baoefengshou President Wang Xinyou, 62.

This year, the company also obtained the rights to use an additional 4,000 hectares of farmland.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a large amount of land is not being farmed, about a quarter of the entire farmland in Russia. In the Russian Far East, subsidies and other favors were abolished. As a result, as much as 20 percent of the population there has moved to other areas.
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Today, local governments in the Far East are leasing this unused farmland to foreign capitals. For example, the government of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast concluded a contract with the Baoqing county government of China’s Heilongjiang province in 2005. Based on the contract, the county government has employed farmers through screening of their lifestyles and other factors, and sent them to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.
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In Russia, there is a strong criticism that leasing of farmland to other countries means encroachment of its native soil. In spite of that, however, Moscow supports leasing farmland to foreign companies and governments because it is expecting to benefit from their investments.

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According to the agricultural magazine Nongjing, which is affiliated with the Chinese government, companies in Heilongjiang province were operating about 347,000 hectares of farmland in Russia as of the end of 2009. That marked an increase of 23.8 percent from a year ago.

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(Asahi Shimbun News)