The unraveling of Russia's Far Eastern power
I n the early hours of September 1, 1983, a Soviet Su-15 fighter intercepted and shot down a Korean Airlines Boeing 747 after it had flown over the Kamchatka Peninsula. All 269 passengers and crew perished. While the United Statescondemned the act as evident villainyand the Soviet Union upheld the act as frontier defense, the act itselfunderscored the militarystrength Moscow had assembled in its Far Eastern provinces. Even on the remote fringes of its empire, strong and responsive militaryforces stood ready. As has been the case for much of the twentieth century, East Asia respected the Soviet Union and Russia largely because of their militarymight-with the economics and politics of the Russian Far East (RFE) playing important but secondary roles. Hence, the precipitous decline in Russia's Far Eastern forces during the 1990s dealt a serious blow to the country's power and influence in East Asia. At the same time, the regional economy's abilityto support itsmilitaryinfrastructure dwindled. The strikes, blockades, and general lawlessness that have coursed through the RFE caused its foreign and domestic trade to plummet. Even natural resource extraction, still thought to be the region's potential savior, fell victim to bureaucratic, financial, and political obstacles. Worse still, food, heat, and electricityhave become scarce. In the midst of this economic winter, the soldiers and sailors of Russia's once-formidable Far East contingent now languish in their barracks and ports, members of a frozen force.1
Regional Tensions in the Russo-Chinese Rapprochement
One of the most significant recent developments in East Asia has been the rapprochement between Russia and China, a relationship that has broadened significantly since the reestablishment of official ties in 1989. Bilateral trade surged to a height of $7.8 billion in 1993, and some 2.5 million persons crossed this once heavily militarized border.1 This new relationship has brought about an unprecedented level of direct contacts between the Russian and Chinese populations-between individual traders, newly private companies, the respective militaries, state enterprises, and government bodies. But while there have been obvious benefits to these new ties, they have also placed considerable stresses on the social fabric of the Russian Far East, a region far less prepared for these dramatic changes than the relatively more marketized Chinese side. Chinese peasants and city traders have eagerly flooded into the territory of their northern neighbor in search of profits and, perhaps, a better life. From the Russian side, however, these developments have been viewed very differently, exacerbated by decades of SinoSoviet hostility and mutual isolation. As one Russian Far Easterner explains: "In short, after the long, drawn-out period of frozen relations between [our] two huge states, a thaw has been reached for which we seem to be unprepared. Neither economically, nor organizationally, nor psychologically."2
A Sino-Soviet Cultural Frontier: The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Chou
Abstract : The study is an attempt to assess the impact of Chinese Communist rule on one of China's national minority peoples, the Kazakhs. The author tried to illuminate Sino-Soviet relations as well as the national minority policy of the Chinese Communist Party, for by the winter of 1963-1964, when the basic research for the present monograph was undertaken, events in the Kazakh area of Sinkiang had made it an issue in the relations between the two states. To some extent, Soviet source materials on the area have provided a check against Chinese Communist sources, but it must be emphasized that the analysis has been based almost wholly upon official publications of the Peking government and is, therefore, subject to distortion.