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40 CHAPTER 1. PROGRAMS ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSBOUNDARY COOPERATION IN THE BORDER AREAS
1.3. The Russian-Chinese
Transboundary Cooperation
Programme — a Case of
“Business as Usual”
O. Yengoyan, E. Simonov
In September 2009, long before the approval of Russian
national development strategies for the regions of
Siberia and the Russian Far East, leaders of Russia and
China signed the Programme of Cooperation between
the Regions of the Far East and East Siberia of Russia
and Northeast China for the Period 2009—2018 (the
“2018 Cooperation Programme”) 1 . This document,
which has already sparked a storm of criticism in the
media and society, really resembles a cart put before the
horse.
The long history of relations between Russia and China
saw the development and implementation of a number
of “programmes” intended to manage and organise
integration processes in the border area. The best known
“programme” of such kind was the construction of the
Chinese Eastern Railway (“CER”), which had
extremely controversial political, socio-economic and
environmental consequences. To Russia, the CER project
was mainly a means of securing a foothold in the
Asia-Pacific region, and substantial economic benefits
were eventually gained by China, third countries, and
rich Russian entrepreneurs having good connections
in the government. Huge social and environmental costs
were also incurred by China, although what has been
preserved in the historical memory of Chinese people
are not these costs, but rather the national humiliation
associated with the project and resulting from the lack
of mutual understanding and sensitivity to the feelings
of the neighbours. The history knows no subjunctive
mood, but often helps develop a deeper perspective on
contemporary processes. Today the combined size of the
existing Russian initiatives on the infrastructure development
and natural resources harvesting/exporting ultimately
aimed at helping the nation establish itself politically
in the Asia-Pacific region considerably exceeds
the costs of the CER project.
Nevertheless, these initiatives much resemble the second
edition of the century-old railway project, and it is
important to learn the lessons of the first edition. It is
symptomatic that nowadays Russians often contemplate
a future national humiliation as something
inevitable, instead of undertaking a sober and comprehensive
assessment of political, socio-economic, and
environmental consequences of different integration
scenarios, when some choice between them is still possible.
The analysis shows that the 2018 Cooperation Programme
simply reinforces the status quo of border relations
between Russia and China. In fact, the 2018
Cooperation Programme clearly describes the most
probable scenario of cooperation — business as usual,
which works on its own regardless of any strategies,
programmes, or doctrines.
In this chapter, we will take a brief look at the content
of the 2018 Cooperation Programme; the completeness
of the description of technology chains and areas of
cooperation; Programme’s correspondence to the
development potential, problems, and needs of the
Russian Far East and Northeast China; and the planned
environmental and social security measures (or the lack
thereof).
“The trumpets of strategies”
The territory of Russia is huge and abundant in
resources. Virtually every Russian region has, at least to
some extent, sufficient natural and human resources,
and, in many cases, the necessary economic base for
tackling the existing social and economic problems in an
environmentally sound and economically beneficial
way. But due to the general disorganization Russia\s
economy and particularly Russian Eastern regions have
faced serious challenges caused by substantial weakening
or even complete disruption of economic connections
between the regions, and long-time neglect of
regional issues by the federal centre. Another key factor
limiting the development of the Russian Far East (and
Siberia as a whole) is the low level of diversification
and innovativeness of the regional economies which
are focused on natural resources yet lack of resource
processing capacities.
Eventually the Russian government focused on the Eastern
regions and formulated the strategic goals for two
thirds of Russia’s territory. Therein, the Russian President
and the RF Government officially named the economic
acceleration of Siberia and the Russian Far East
as a priority of State policy. The “Strategy of the Socio-
Economic Development of Siberia until 2020” (the
“Siberian Strategy 2020”) “considers not only the current
state of the economy of Siberian regions (particularly
the impact of the recent crisis on its development paths),
the national and global economy and its future development
trends, but also potential social consequences of the
implementation of local components of transnational,
national, interregional and regional projects…” 2 .
“The lack of a clear governmental strategy for the development
of the Russian Far East and the Baikal Region
leads to the risk of the area turning into a mere source of
energy and other resources for the countries of the Asia-
Pacific region. Thus, Russia will fail to realise its inte-
1 Approved by the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the Chinese President Hu Jintao on 23 September 2009, see http://minregion.ru/activities/international_relations/data_base/293.html
2 Draft as of 10 February 2010, see http://www.sibfo.ru/strategia/strdoc.php