Border conflict hits China-Russia relations be finalized within the next few months. already rendered the transport of many raw materials within Russia V By MATHIAS BRUEGGMANN 1 But there is growing resistance to it in Russia’s Primorye district unprofitable. : ARK clouds are gathering over the current flirt of in the far cast. The region has already tried a few fine-tuned legal China could cheaply transport large quantities of coal ; through the friendship between Russia and China in a growing tricks to oppose it, claiming that the ratification of the treaty by the new port, posing massive competition fd Rus- i sian pits in Partisansk D dispute over the demarcation of territory north of Ko- Supreme Soviet was anti- constitutional. and Artyon. rea. But since Moscow remained unmoved, the district is now taking As early as 1927 a Chinese officer declared: “If we get land on the The world’s geographically largest state and its most populous a political sledgehammer approach. There is already talk in the Tumen, we will easily force Russia to its knees.” one are edging more closely together towards strategic • partnership, region of a referendum against handing over the three disputed Yevgeny Nazdratyenko, the governor of Primorye and a \ man partly in answer to the eastward expansion of NATO. territories to the Chinese. notorious for his anti-Chinese statements, is noW in- -j sisting on China’s President Jiang Zemin’s visit to Moscow on April 22 is What sounds like just an irony in world history because it is making this own foreign policy in his region. He has even won over aimed at conjuring up a new “multi-polar world” against the getting in the way of plans by China and Russia to move closer North Korea as an ally against the handover of territory on the river. “dictates of the USA.” together against the West, is less foggy as far as people in the far Bur President Boris Yeltsin has now urgently called 'on him to But now a serious dispute has flared up over the 4,290- milimeter east of Russia are concerned. use “restraint in public statements on our relations with China,” border shared by the two countries. They would not have any difficulty handing over the 1,200 telling him to agree them with the Russian foreign ministry first. Although, as a gesture of trust, a treaty is due to be signed to hectares in the Ussuri and Chankaisski administrative districts, but But Nasdratyenko will not budge. reduce the amount of border troops here, there are now rumblings if the 300 hectares around the Tumen River were to turn “yellow,” it would give China direct access to the Sea of Japan Sea for the “The territories are not disputed,” he says. "They are ours -Russian.” on the border which come at a highly inconvenient time for the . leaders of both countries. first time. It would be a cornerstone in China’s geographical policy, But contrary to Yeltsin’s public embrace of the Chinese leader, The Moscow newsweekly Vek claims one of Russia’s biggest Russian democrats are also already warning: “Four people per foreign policy problems is the “loss of 1,500 hectares of according to Vek. For Beijing has already planned to build within three years the square kilometer live here, where most of our raw ’ materials are geostrategically important land to China." Port of Tumangan with a turnover capacity of 100 million tons a situated, as opposed to 127 Chinese,” Yabloko leader Grigori It was referring to the imminent handover of previously disputed year. China would have a short sea route to Japan; the Russian ports Yavlinski told .Die Welt. ‘ territory - mainly in the triangle between Russia, China and Korea of Vladivostock, Vostoshni and Na- chodka would lose out “It is becoming increasingly dangerous there because our state is no on the Tumen River — in the course of demarcation work. considerably. longer as strong as it once was, there is a growing appetite there.” *• > Under a border treaty between the Soviiet Union and the People’s The Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal Amur trunk route , .. / • Republic in May 1991, the demarcation was due to would become redundant - increased rail tariffs have The magazine Ogonyok is also worried: “The far east is going yellow before our eyes,” it wrote. (Die Welt/GNNS) °\ 9 SQ* !• al» p2? C Thursday, Boris Yeltsin and Tajikistan, Emomali Rakhmanov shake hands after the signing of the five JOIN HANDS: The presidents of (left to right) Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, China, Ji fe"a5-|2 ■■ 52. £ “ a g* § ® 15,3^50 AFP §'&|s 3 2 fills P HI 1 o’S^S * S* §' 3 5 d sv cr 2 " ° 3 O : w 3 era £ S'2. o Z & « fi> ~ 3 ® C9y sfo §*“1 ,3 OQ ~ o cr £ e 3 g S * g> a u vi S. 2/13 “ H2 -r* sao w 3 & Q CL 2? 2-M W O £ ^ ~ < ” — ET & 3 .?T JT5. 8 S'3 3 JJ O O =0Q C O O o 52.cS. a _ r“ C •Sf £| ?■?!'! fSiTBES ft 3“ C 3 3 OT3 — i 2 < o V> -* a VI 5L il 3' O 3 vo O O s £^~-OS!£S-£ « _ w*5' ° - 5 S |!S .B- S’8 I s-e- 3 O o » O’ O' w 0 0.^3 esrf s r~' § = 3 2 M' ^ rr- « 3 ^ r i-Sjl: &SS|:5 «a ^ 3 00 3 3 “ < ”1 - - nation border troop reduction treaty in the Kremlin °gf ago O Q. < O -0 2. 3 ® S 6ft >i 52.Q. 5*N 3 _ & gf o 3 *i o c rj o 3 w> c B9 ^>3 js. _o o g I H° a 3 -£Lg5'3 3a 3-1 I c/s o 2. o ^ 52. VJ 3-“C Crt 3 g§5 8O 3. Q.«3.3 &2. 3 -33- -»M° 0333D“ § *-< 0^ ° era °* 3 $• 2 -» 33 „ CO 09 « c 9 2.as 3 SL^.a^'c-o 3 £2. *"fra os _ O oo w X a M D3? £ 3 2? >| & --3 ~ a 3 *o ►•§ sf c’S n 2 o 5 * o 3 5 ’ a. s &s*t i£& N S 3(^ 3 3 3 ^ o 3* J§*i. ang Zemin, Russia, 3 3COC/i o 3 3 3 o^§ o S 8 g. § •— * g < IS3<£- w ° a a 5*g-8 5-S g 09 O r^i *i a~2:3 3 O a .o “ M-g O Z ~ - ” O Q. "r *1.09 o, a. 3 a V9 . IB2 o J2 Qg 09^§ §.Bg < -* -o.»3 C C 3* Hr* yp S'^ O° O° °3 ^ 2- o 3 *§ ^ COL _ i-* cr 3 52. crV)3 S Q. TJ *a 3 r 3 a.« *C 9—* </) i/iQC/J , 0 SC 3-3 2 o c? o> S&s:3 O B &8.On- t/i«- *i S . a| s I s ° ?? 09 ; Yellow River to \ end 'China's sorrow' By H. ASHER BOLANDE years. Scheduled to shift the river's course on HE Yellow River, dubbed “Chi- October 31, Xiaolangdi is second in scale na’s sorrow” for the disastrous only to its more famous Chinese sister, the floods it has unleashed on the mammoth Three Gorges project. North China Plain for centuries, has But Wang said the engineering complexity caused a different kind of misery in re- of the northern dam far outstrips that of the cent years. Yangtze river project. Parts of the river's lower reaches ran dry “Most experts at home and abroad say for 136 days last year, choking off vital water Xiaolangdi is one of the world's most supplies to downriver industry and some challenging projects,” he said, citing rocky three million hectares (7.4 million acres) of geological conditions that hamper the digging farmland. of 16 criss-crossed flow tunnels. But according to Chinese engineers, the Disaster prevention and water control top $4.17-billion Xiaolangdi dam will tame the its list of objectives, while the Three Gorges is Yellow River, ending both these seemingly geared to power generation, he said. contradictory problems at a stroke. Xiolangdi has one-tenth the planned power Seasonal extremes in the river's flow are capacity of its southern cousin, Wang said. behind the double threat of flood and Topping the list of technical difficulties is drought, said Wang Xianlu, the vice general the Yellow river's heavy siltation, which manager of the dam's developer, the Yellow gradually crippled a dam built upstream in the River Water Resource and Hydropower Development Corp. 1960s at Sammenxia. Only 8.9 percent of the annual flow is According to a report from the World used, as most of it rushes out to sea during Bank - which is financing Xiaolangdi to the the July-October flood season, he said. tune of one billion dollars - the Yellow River The dam in Henan province - with a transports more silt than any other river in the reservoir capacity of 12.65 billion cubic world. meters (16.4 billion cubic yards) - will “It carries three times the sediment load of simultaneously stave off floods and store (India's) Brahamputra Ganges, with only eight water to ensure year-round supplies, he said. percent of the annual flow,” the report said. It aims to raise protection to a level where As silt settles on the riverbed, the river a flood capable of overpowering defenses rises by one meter (3.3 feet) every 10 years in arises only once every 1,000 its lower reaches.-AFP /UV/3T- American corporate housing eyes China Ml ■■I By PETER HUMPHREY Oakwood International said in an interview talking China right now.