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A Half of Vladivostok may be Leased to China?

15:23, 21.09.2009

English version / Приморский край

At the end of the previous week the word got around that half of Vladivostok may be leased to China for 75 years.

VLADIVOSTOK. September 21. VOSTOK-MEDIA – At the end of the previous week the word got around that half of Vladivostok may be leased to China for 75 years.

The working group meeting on the Strategic Vladivostok 2020 Development Plan led by the city mayor Igor Pushkarev was held on September 16.

“Hai Shen Wei” conception proposed by the Leontief Centre was given an approval at the meeting. And now the city’s authorities should submit their proposal to Moscow.

The experts of the St. Petersburg-based Leontief Centre have proposed to divide the city into two parts. According to the project, the Pervomaysky district and part of the Leninsky district will be leased out to China. In this quarter of the city it is proposed to set up the Chinese Administration to be staffed by officials from Harbin in China. The communications with the other parts of the city will be carried out through customs and frontier posts.

The project developers hold that the annual lease payment will be 130-150 billion roubles, which is several times as much as the Primorsky Krai budget. The federal government could well spend this money on keeping the navy and army operational and making government authorities at local level more efficient. Incidentally, “Hai Shen Wei” in Chinese language means “Trepang Bay”. This text has already aroused much interest among the Internet users, reported Moskovskiy Komsomlets daily.

It seems that the residents of the city as well as the rest of Russia are against the lease of the city. So far the proposal has not been submitted to the government institutions. Interestingly, the proposal was made on the threshold of the 60th anniversary of establishing China-Russia diplomatic relations, which is celebrated on October 2, and the upcoming visit of the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to China, where he may hold talks on the issue. The majority of experts believe that the land-lease won’t happen this time, but the trial balloon has been already launched. And this pertains not only to Vladivostok but to the whole Russian Far East and Siberia.

Recently in the Chinese media there have appeared several articles written by the prominent Chinese figures, including the article of the former P.R.C.’s Ambassador to Russia Mr. Li Fenglin, in which he makes it clear that Russian Government is unable to make use of Siberia’s land and resources and the land should be leased to China. But China has never returned what it took on lease.

China's program to reclaim the former Chinese territories from Russia has been back in effect since 2008. In the Chinese school textbooks much is written about the Russia’s seizure of the Far East from China in the 1800s as well as about outrage upon the national dignity. A number of museums have appeared in China’s border towns, in which there are copies of treaties and agreements as well as the old maps and memorials implying that the Russian Far East is actually the Chinese territory. Recently China has launched a mass production of documental films with subtitles in Russian language on the issues relating to the Russian-Chinese border. To name just a few: The Hundred Years War Between Russia and China, The History of KVZhD…