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America: Universiti Field Sta THIS FIELDSTAFF REPORT is one of a continuing series The on international affairs and major global issues of our time. Fieldstaff Reports have for twenty-five years American reached a group of readers--both academic and non- academic--who find them a useful source of firsthand Unlverslt es observation of political, economic, and social trends in foreign countries. Reports in the series are prepared by F eld Staff writers who are full-time Associates of the American Universities Field Staff and occasionally by persons on P.O. Box 150, Hanover, NH 03755 leave from the organizations and universities that are the Field Staff's sponsors. Associates of the Field Staff are chosen for their ability to cut across the boundaries of the academic disciplines in order to study societies in their totality, and for their skill in collecting, reporting, and evaluating data. They combine long residence abroad with scholarly studies relating to their geographic areas of interest. Each Field Staff Associate returns to the United States periodically to lecture on the campuses of the consortium's member institutions. The American Universities Field Staff, inc., founded in 1951 as a nonprofit organizatior of American educational institutions, engages in various international activities both at home and in foreign areas. These activities have a wide range and include writing on social and political change in the modern world, the making of documentary films (Faces of Change), and the organizing of seminars and teaching of students at the Center for Mediterranean Studies in Rome and the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies in Singapore. In addition to Fieldstaff Reports, publications include the quarterly journal Common Ground, Fieldstaff Perspectives for secondary schools, and a wide range of books and collected essays. Fieldstaff Reports concerned with systems of education and their relations to values ate the product of a joint project of the American Universities Field Staff and Brown University, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Rockefeller Foundation. Publications under the imprint of the American Universities Field Staff are not selected to accord with an editorial policy and do not represent the views of the Field Staff membership. Respon- sibility for accuracy of facts and for opinions expressed in this Report and in all Fieldstaff Reports rests solely with the individual writer. ALAN W. HORTON Executive Director About the writer: STEPHEN UHALLEY, Jr. received his B.A. flom the University of California at Riverside (1956), his M.A. from Claremont Graduate School (1957)and his Ph.D. fi'om the University of California at Berkeley (1967). He is a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War (1950-52), and served for seven years as an officer of The Asia Foundation in San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (1960-67). He has taught at National Taiwan University (1966-67), University of Arizona (1967-68), Duke University (1968-70), and was a Senior Fellow at the East-West Center (1970-71). Dr Uhalley is a professor of history and for the past four years has been chairman of the Department of History at the University of Hawaii. He is also chairman of the UH Contemporary China Study Group, President of the Board of Governors of the Pacific and Asian Affairs Council, and a member of the National Committee for United States- China Relations. He has traveled extensively in Asia, visited the People's Republic of China for five weeks in 1972, and written numerous scholarly articles on China. He was editor of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (1965-66). His latest book is entitled Mao 7'e-tung: A Critical Biography (1975). He is currently writing a general history of the People's Republic of China. INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS: University of Alabama The Asia Society Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies Brown University Dartmouth College Indiana University Institute for the Study of World Politics University of Kansas Michigan State University Ramapo College of New Jersey University of Pittsburgh University of Wisconsin EAST ASIA SERIES Vol. XXIV Ni, THE SOVIET FAR EAST" GROWING PARTICIPATION IN THE PAClFIC by Stephen Uhalley, Jr. September 19'77 For the most part, Americans are scarcely whose ownerships remail Soviet but whose conscious of the Soviet Far East. It i a region that products are shared by the investors. is somehow beyond the ken. The main land mass is either in the far nwth or is otherwise shielded Similarly, Prenier Alexei Kosygin in spelling out from the Pacific directly by the islands of Japan. ls !he guidelines for the Telh Five Year Pla principal port city to date has been purposely kept (197-1980) indicated that a characteristic fiature off limits 1 !he t)w tk',reigners wto have cared of the new pla "will bc the greater involvement of enough to be curious, a symbolically inhospitable r national economy in the international division gesture whicl only brings about ftlrtber foreign in- of laborer and the further transt?r of exzernal eco.. difference. Therefore when and if h., extremity of nomic cooperatiot o a long-term basis." He said the Soviet territorial reach is considered at all, it is that under "the conditions of ddtente new qalita- more often in negative terms. It is tle base for the tire aspects are being acquired by our econonic powerful Soviel navy, which is increasing its relations with the developed capitalist cou,ttges" presence in the Pacific Ocean. It is the base, too, of and that "the practice of signing large-scale agree- one of he world's two largest remaining wlafing enls on co,operation in the building of industrial fleets, which despite the best efforts of valiant projects" in the U.S.S.R. would be contined. Greenpeace volunteers t( intercept and harass ii, Kosygin reaffirned that "Compensation agree- continues, as of 1977, to destroy lhe Pacific Ocean's ncnts, especially those covering prjects with a dwindling whale population. short recoupment period, various fbrms of indus- trial cooperation and jfint research and develop-. ment are pronising forms of cooperations. '' In recenl years, however, the Soviet Union has been trying t(.> counter the negative image atd to Siberia and the Soviet Far East (the Far East promote a grealer role for the Soviet Far East in the Economic Region of the U.S.S.R.)continue to economic life of the Pacific region. It is doing this receive special attention in the Tenlh Five Year by calling attentim to the enormous resources and Plan. Kosygin poi,,ted out: "As you know, an economic poteatial of Siberia and the Soviel Far eltensive progranme of work is nv:,aged on tte East. II is clearly desirous of ai:tracting investment Baikal-Amur Railway projecl, some sections of capital and technological assistance from abroad which are to be put into operatior during this order to tap these resources effectively and develop period. We attach special importance to this the area. These goals are in line, of course, with the project, because it is designed to become a powerful general policy of the U.S.S.R. Party General Sec-. lever of economic growth for our Far Eastern retary Leonid Brezhnev nade clear in his report of areas. ''a He added: February 24, 1976 n lhc immediate [tsks 1" tile Soviet Party that it was inportant to promote "ew The eastern reg.ions, especially Siberia, forms of foreign ecoomic ties lwith lhe capialis where industrial production is to be raised world] that go beyond the framework of conve. by nearly 50 percent, will develop at priority tional trade" ad "greatly enlarge our possibilities rates. Energy-itensive industries, the fuel and, as a rule, yield the greatest effect. '' He was industry and agriculture, and simltane.. referring to compensation agreements whereby ously the entire social infrastructure, foreign capital is invested in Soviet enterprises eluding housing, public utilities, cultural C0pyright ,@ 1977, American Universities Fieht Staff, Into [SU-1-'771 SU-1-'77 -2- and community institutions, and urban 1727 the Manchus conceded some 40,000 squar transport, will be expanded at especially miles of territory along the boundary of pt'e'senl." high rates in Siberia and the Soviet Far day Mongolia7 East.4 T,he weakening Manchu dynasty in the nine The Soviet Far East is a vast territory; it is in teenth century, however, invited encroachmea fact, the largest region in the Soviet Union. Its from the interior just as it was being pressured 6,216,000 square kilometers constitute almost 28 Western maritime powers along the coast of China percent of the U.S.S.R. But its population of In 1850 the Russians defied the 1689 Treaty am 6,168,000 represents less than 2.5 percent of the sent an expedition to explore the Amur basin anti country's total population. There is an average to establish a post at the mouth of the Amur River density of less than one person per square kilo- This was soon followed by additional military posts meter, and most of this sparse population is con- extending as far eastward as Sakhalin Island, centrated along a narrow southern fringe of the Taking full advantage of China's distress in th region. Settlements are highly urbanized (about 73 1850s Russia imposed the Treaty of Argun in 1858, percent of the population, which is 14 percent which established a new boundary along the Amu above the national average) reflecting the poor agri- to the Pacific, and placed the territory south of the cultural possibilities of its countryside,s Amur and east of the Ussuri rivers under join: Sino-Russian occupation.

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