Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [170]
In his first term Putin successfully pressurised Shevardnadze to the point where he, a Soviet oligarch who knew exactly how and why such black holes are needed, caved in and handed over a third of Georgia’s territory as an ask-no-questions zone for Russian dealings. Under the new President business slumped; Saakashvili almost immediately announced a policy of thawing out the frozen conflicts – for example between Georgia and Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia – and thereby became Russia’s Enemy No. 1. Putin let Saakashvili have Adjara back without too much fuss because it was in any case working more in the interests of its own Prince Abashidze than of Moscow, but for the black holes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia he decided to fight.
Russia’s Transcaucasian game calls for severe punishment of the Westernising President Saakashvili, by bombing him, for example, as he openly aligns himself with the USA and tells the old colonial power to “fuck off.” As a result, with every day and hour that passes, we Russians are losing Georgia as a good neighbour, when it is crucial that we should enjoy close and friendly relations with it.
The Putin regime’s current policy of trying to annex two Georgian territories is completely counter to the strategic or indeed any other sensible interests Russia has in the Caucasus.
Finally, a word about love. In the twenty-first century clever rulers do not incite citizens they love and respect to bloodshed. The problems begin if the citizens are unloved, and the rulers a bunch of hopeless dunces.
CHINA ON THE MOVE
July 4, 2005
In June, at an international conference on security in Paris, the well-known Russian sinologist, Professor Vilya Gelbras, read a sensational report about Chinese migration into Russia. Here he replies to questions from Novaya gazeta.
Vilya Gelbras, Professor of Economics, Doctor of Historical Sciences, one of Russia’s top sinologists, teaches at the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Moscow State University. He conducts research at the Institute of World Economics and World Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In recent years you have written two ground-breaking books about Chinese migration into Russia. What is their principal theme? People have been talking about Chinese migration, to the effect that China is virtually seeking to take over the whole of Russia, for a long time. With the aid of my students, I systematically conducted large-scale research into this issue. The first study was in 2001, and for it we selected Moscow, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, and also Ussuriysk, where the greatest numbers of Chinese shuttle traders get off the train, and from where they head for lucrative markets. This material provided the basis of the first book.
For the second book we selected Irkutsk and again the cities of Moscow, Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. Irkutsk interested us because migrants had already settled there. In addition, a Chinese plan came into our possession which had been considered worthy of the attention of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. In it, Irkutsk was allocated a special role. The plan proposed organised settlement of Chinese throughout the territory of Russia via Amur Province. Retaining control of their commodities, they would concentrate at junctions of the trans-Siberian railway all the way to Moscow, and thus radiate their influence outwards. Irkutsk is important to the Chinese because it is central to the movement both of goods and of people from Kazakhstan and into the Altai, including Buryatia. At the time of our research a Chinese consulate had already been opened in Irkutsk.
The resulting book painted a curious picture. We presented a panorama of the enterpreneurial activity of the Chinese in Russia, what they were doing with their money, how it was transferred to China, how goods came in from China and how, on Russian territory,