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Winter 2021 Issue EN (Final) 23 icUJ research article Global Affairs Concerning the United States and China: Articles featured in this section focus more generally on global issues and foreign affairs as they pertain to the United States and China individually. Baikal Sinophobia: A Threat to the Russo-Chinese Strategic Partnership? Alexander Naumov[1] [1]Alexander is graduating from George Mason University in December 2020 with two bachelor’s degrees in Russian and Eur- asian studies and international politics. Born in Yoshkar-Ola, Russia, he is an aspiring graduate student with research interests in Russian security, diaspora issues, politics of history, and great power competition in Eurasia. Abstract This paper compares and contrasts Russo-Chinese strategic convergence since the Published online Ukraine crisis in 2014 with popular Russian perceptions of China, focusing on two explo- January 2021 sive local protests against Chinese-owned businesses near Lake Baikal in 2018 and 2019. While many Russians see the Chinese government as a political ally, public opinion data and Citation the protests demonstrate that bottom-up perceptions of China may interpose future Chinese Naumov, Alexander. 2020. investment in Russia. It is evident that converging strategic interests, shared semi-authori- “Baikal Sinophobia: A Threat tarian political values, and accomplishments in bilateral relations since 2001 neither cause to the Russo-Chinese Strategic nor correlate with improved Russian societal views of China, especially Chinese people and Partnership?” IUCJ 1, no. 1 businesses. (Winter 2021), 23-26. Keywords: sinophobia; Ukraine crisis; Russo-Chinese relations; Lake Baikal Introduction Strategic Convergence: The View from Mos- cow What’s good for a Chinese is bad for the Baikal,” read a “protest poster in Irkutsk, Siberia, in May 2018 (“V Irkutske Russian foreign policy accelerated into a strategic partnership 60 chelovek vyshli na miting” 2018). The demonstration called with China in the early 2010s. Putin initiated a ‘Pacifc Russia’ for federal restrictions on foreign development around Lake pivot shortly after re-assuming the presidency in May 2012 Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake, and was triggered (Calder 2019). This succeeded the 2001 Treaty of Good-Neigh- by a “resistance” movement in the lakeside settlement of borliness and Friendly Cooperation and the 2008 settlement of Listvyanka. The so-called war began in early 2018 when a the last Russo-Chinese border dispute, which left Cold War-era private Chinese-owned construction site threatened to block animosities frmly in the past (Charap 2017). According to a Russian-owned hotel’s view of the lake (Postnikova and Calder, the most important factor in the two powers’ conver- Luk’yanova 2019). An even larger scandal for China’s presence gence was the Ukraine crisis in 2013-2014, which resulted in around the Baikal occurred a year later, when over a million multiplied Western sanctions against Russian energy, defense, people, including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, called for and sovereign debt sectors, compelling Moscow to look east. and secured the suspension of a Chinese bottling factory in the Overall, Russia’s ruling elite has embraced the partnership with area (Telegina 2019). China, despite Russia’s acknowledged junior status, since Rus- sia’s prioritization of maintaining the domestic status quo and The two crises in Sino-Russian public relations are symbolic of regime survival is incompatible with goals in the West (Chase a wider degradation of Russian public opinion of China. This et al. 2017). trend is a stark contrast to the comprehensive and public em- brace of Moscow and Beijing elites. President Vladimir Putin Policymakers increasingly viewed converging interests with awarded President Xi Jinping the Order of St. Andrew, Russia’s China in national security, such as developing Eurasian land highest award, in 2017. The Chinese leader reciprocated by trade free of US Navy domination, and energy, where Russia awarding the Medal of Friendship, debuted just for Putin on has a comparative advantage as the world’s ffth top producer his visit to Beijing, during which Xi referred to him as “an old of natural gas, while China is the top energy consumer (Calder friend” and a “good friend” (Xinhua 2018). 2019). In addition, Russia sees foreign investment as critical for the development of the Far East, even as the region itself This paper will analyze the threat of Sinophobic protest in is more concerned with Moscow’s subsidies than with foreign southern Siberia and the Far East to the “Russia-China compre- investment (Zuenko 2020). hensive strategic partnership of cooperation” that Putin lauded on his June 2018 visit. It will frst discuss the Power of Siberia The most important tangible symbol of this partnership’s as- pipeline, the most overt, capital-intensive symbol of high-lev- pirations is the Power of Siberia, which was approved in 2014 el bilateral relations. Next, two Baikal-related scandals will with a price tag of (U.S.) $70 billion (Sassi 2019). The pipe- illustrate echoes of local opposition that has already damaged line’s activation ceremony in December 2019 was a bilateral, Chinese projects in Central Asia, signaling a need for Chinese nationally televised public event. Putin opened his speech investment in Russia’s east. with “你好,” Mandarin for “hello,” in Moscow and ordered research article IUCJ 24 Gazprom’s CEO on site to open the valves, before Xi gave the There are several explanations for poor attitudes toward command from Beijing to receive the gas. The largest pipeline China in Russia, with Irkutsk being the epicenter of anti-Chi- in the Far East, projected to pump 38 Billion cubic metres of nese protest in the last two years. The Listvyanka protestors natural gas per year to China, is critical for Russia’s state bud- expressed resentment at Chinese businesses and residents get, over 46% of which was comprised of natural gas profts in allegedly not paying taxes and sending “all money” to China 2018 (Sassi 2019). (Postnikova and Luk’yanova 2019). It is extremely diffcult to dodge taxes on such a scale given the mandatory registration of The current pipeline is not close to the Baikal, which has be- these businesses (the most controversial of which were hotels come the epicenter of anti-Chinese protest, but it will approach in 2018), even though Chinese registrations often appear as the cherished lake around the end of 2022. Therefore, the sharp Russian or Bahamian (Zuenko 2020). Illegal logging for the Sinophobic reactions of 2018-2019 might be a preview of what Chinese black market is another source of resentment (Telegina is to come. 2019). Members of the “resistance” are opposed to what they perceive as a general Chinese expansion, and the absence of a Bilateral Public Diplomacy: The View from purely economic rationale is evident in an interview with Yuri the Baikal Sharapov, the Listvyanka hotel owner who helped launch the 2018 protests. When asked about the proft value of hosting The growth in bilateral ties appears to correlate with Russia’s Chinese tourists, Sharapov replied: “I was offered a full load: public perception of China as an ally: In August 2020, a Levada 20 Chinese tourists, all year. I estimated that this is around 14 Center poll ranked China second in Russians’ list of closest million [rubles, or around (U.S.) $200,000]. Good money, but I friends and allies (after Belarus), at 40%. This was down 2% don’t need money like that (Postnikova and Luk’yanova 2019). from the previous year (Levada Center 2020a). Sinophobia, as opposed to economic competition, is at least partially to blame for this hostility. As the Power of Siberia pipeline was built, China and Russia engaged in a public diplomacy campaign to improve each The next year’s fashpoint over Lake Baikal is even more sig- other’s image. In 2015, Chinese and Russian media leaders met nifcant, as it entailed federal involvement. A social media cam- in St. Petersburg and signed cooperation agreements aimed to paign on Instagram and Change.org mobilized public opinion “reduce misinterpretation by Western media (People’s Daily against the AkvaSib bottling plant in Kultuk, 99% of which was 2015). Liu Qibao, head of the Publicity Department of the Chi- owned in Daqing (Telegina 2019). The half-built factory was nese Communist Party, called on both countries’ media to help closed by local court order and its lease was revoked. In a rare integrate China’s Silk Road Economic Belt with the Russia-led case for Russia, NTV, a state-controlled TV channel, fanned Eurasian Economic Union and to continue supporting “cooper- the fames of public protest, with Prime Minister Medvedev ation in the spirit of mutual trust.” vowing to investigate AkvaSib’s environmental compliance on Facebook (Dmitry Medvedev, March 12, 2019). AkvaSib was In addition, the conference designated 2016-2017 as the by far not the frst Baikal factory with questionable environ- China-Russia Media Exchange Year. This project connected mental standards. One reason it was noticed in spring 2019 was hundreds of Russian and Chinese business leaders, experts the result of the previous year’s Listvyanka protests, which led and scholars at forums in Rostov-on-Don, Moscow, and to tightened environmental controls, and its pollutive effect was Guangzhou, and was celebrated in a Beijing closing ceremony not clearly distinguishable from nearby Russian factories. attended by Premier Li Keqiang and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (State Council Information Offce
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