An accident involving barrels of toxic chemicals is only likely to exacerbate long-standing Russian concerns over China.
When 7000 barrels of toxic chemicals from two damaged chemical plant warehouses in Jilin Province were swept into the Wende River, a tributary of the major Songhua River, emergency services in China leapt into action over concerns that the drinking water of millions of Chinese could be contaminated.
The accident happened during massive flooding in the north-east of the country that has claimed dozens of lives so far. But it’s not just Chinese officials who will have been keeping an eye on the clean-up efforts—the Songhua is also a tributary of Russia’s Amur River, which provides drinking water to numerous cities in the Russian Far East.
Although estimates vary over the volume of chemicals released, and when precisely they’ll reach eastern Russia, the incident is bound to reawaken anxieties Russians feel about the ecological policies of its rapidly industrializing southern neighbour—and exacerbate broader worries about the movement of its citizens.
Unlike with some previous spillages, the most recent discharge occurred sufficiently upstream that Chinese workers should be able to recover most of the containers before they reach the Amur. Nonetheless, authorities in Khabarovsk (the largest Russian city downstream of the latest chemical release) have announced preparations for a possible emergency water shutdown that includes storing enough supplies for the city’s hospitals and other vital facilities.
Such precautions seem only prudent in light of what happened in November 2005, when an explosion at a PetroChina chemical complex in Jilin spewed about 100 tonnes of toxic benzene into the Songhua. The poisonous discharge soon made its way into Russia, costing the Russian government and economy tens of millions of dollars. And, although the Chinese authorities made unprecedented efforts to cooperate with their Russian counterparts to minimize the spill’s impact, Khabarovsk’s 600,000 residents resorted to using bottled water and other liquids for drinking and cooking after the accident contaminated the Amur.
Since then, China and Russia have actually sought to work more harmoniously on ecological issues, with the two governments signing a protocol on bilateral environmental cooperation to protect their shared border rivers the following year. Other measures have included a January 2008 memorandum obliging China and Russia to inform each other in the event of ecological emergencies that could affect both countries.
Despite these measures, Chinese-Russian environmental cooperation lags far behind that of European countries as well as that of the United States and its North American neighbours. Yet even if more co-operation did exist, tensions would likely persist for one simple reason—the huge and steady flow of water and air pollution from China into Russia.
Photo Credit: Uniphoto Press
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Singh
You can’t blame the Russians (or anyone else) fearing that that parts of their land could eventually be taken over by another nationality who has it’s ultimate allegiance to another country. Russians living in the far east of their country are fast being outnumbered by the Chinese in their own land! The Russian government needs to fix this difficult problem, especially with the additional issue of falling Russian birth rates. The other reality is that eventually the Chinese will control the Russian far east. This is not a racist opinion since along with economic progress, the Chinese are becoming more belligerant by the day. Just ask all the countries that border China! The Russian government must act fast to solve this problem.
SE962582C
The same thing and THE SAME THING can be or could be said about the Ethnic Indians and Hindustanis in both Malaya-Malaysia and in Singapore, as well as in the Cities of the Shah Alam and of Kuala-Lumpur; together with that at the City of Suva, upon the Island of Fiji and upon the Fiji Islands.
SE962582C
To quote quote ” … . The Russian government must act fast to solve this problem.” and unquote.
The Malayan-Malaysian and the Singaporean “HINDRAF” Terrorists come to mind.
I and one would advise instead the Singaporean, the Malayan-Malaysian and the Fijian Islander States, Governments and Peoples to quote “to do the same as well” and unquote.
johnson
I think the article is arguing that economic concerns should take greater precedence than racial concerns. The writer seems to be aware that national character is a concern among Russians and Chinese, and is arguing that they have mis-prioritized.
John
“But the problems with reconciling the two sides also go deeper. Many Russians oppose allowing more Chinese to reside in Russia on nothing more than racial grounds, irrespective of economic considerations. ”
As both Russia and China, to some extent, define themselves nationally, in the classical sense of ‘a national people’, how are racial, meaning, ancestral, ethnic, or national grounds “nothing” of importance? Obviously if too many Han Chinese move to Russia, the national character will no longer be Russian, which is the concern.