Russia has officially opened its port of Vladivostok in the Far East to China since June 1 this year. As soon as the news broke, the discussion about whether the old industrial area in Tohoku could usher in a revival became a hot topic again. There has been a lot of speculation about whether a port can really drive the revival of the Greater NortheastOr is this just the beginning of the great development of the Sino-Russian Far East?When it comes to the port of Vladivostok, the Chinese should not be unfamiliar, because it has a familiar Chinese name - Vladivostok.
In the 60s of the 19th century, China's internal and external troubles were frequent, and the great powers were eyeing each other, at a time when China was poor and weak. This provided an opportunity for the tsar**, who had been eyeing the Chinese territory all along. Taking advantage of the Taiping Rebellion and the invasion of Beijing by the Anglo-French forces, the Tsar** quickly moved into the outer northeast of China. Faced with internal and external difficulties at that time, the Qing had no choice but to cede land and seek peace. The Tsar** easily seized nearly 1.6 million square kilometers of land in our country, including Vladivostok, the first port in the Outer Northeast.
This treaty of land cession is different from the concession treaty, but a one-time transfer, so the area has become Russia's legal territory in accordance with international law. In view of the fact that China's strength at that time was simply unable to regain this land from the powerful Soviet Union, New China had to swallow this bitter fruit. However, the Chinese seem to have been reluctant to give up on the lost territory. To this day, China still stipulates that when drawing a map of the world, the name of the Outer Northeast Region is still in Chinese.
Although the port of Vladivostok is generally called by its Russian name all over the world, we in China still insist on calling it Vladivostok. This shows that we still have an inexplicable emotional bond with this place. Therefore, after Vladivostok reopened to China, the Chinese people placed high expectations on it. However, after the opening of this port, will it really be able to revitalize the economic decline of Northeast China as expected by the majority of netizens?Is there any resistance to the revitalization of the Northeast?While people are hailing that the revitalization of the Northeast is just around the horizon, there are also people who oppose it.
They raised two objective problems: Is the Northeast issue just an issue of access to the sea?Rewritten article: Northeast China was once the leader of China's industry, but since the reform and opening up, its position on China's economic map has begun to decline sharply. Compared with the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and other economic towns, the Northeast is not even as good as the southwest Sanbaoyun, Guichuan, such a gap is difficult for many people who have experienced that era to accept. Therefore, the topic of the revival of the Tohoku has not stopped to this day.
Many people believe that the economic slump in the Northeast is due to the lack of access to the sea. However, the two warm water ports of Lushun and Dalian in Northeast China are well-known ports in Asia and even the world. Russia's and Japan's neighbors have long coveted these two warm-water ports. Even if they could exchange ten Vladivostok for one Lushun and Dalian Wenshui Port, they believed they would be willing. If Lushun and Dalian are far away from Jilin and Heilongjiang, and the transportation cost is high, resulting in the inability to play a pulling role, then what about Liaoning Province?
Lushun and Dalian are on its doorstep, but after many years, Liaoning's economic development is still stagnant. It can be seen that the Northeast issue is not an issue of access to the sea. Since neither Lushun nor Dalian can achieve a pulling effect, how can we expect Vladivostok to be able to pull the entire Northeast?The return of Vladivostok will only provide some transportation convenience for the two provinces of Jilin and Harbin. After all, transporting goods from these two provinces to Port Arthur and Dalian requires long-distance overland transportation, which is very costly.
If you join the ranks of Vladivostok, you can naturally reduce some of the land transportation costs, making the products of these two places more competitive in the international market. However, that's all, and it is unrealistic to hope that the Tohoku economy will be revived by reducing some transportation costs. Secondly, there is still a long way to go before Vladivostok can be truly exploited and utilized. It is believed that in order for Vladivostok to be of substantial benefit to Jilin and Heilongjiang, several difficult problems must be solved.
First of all, there has always been a difference in railway standards between China and Russia, and the transfer from China to Russia requires a change of track, which will cause some wastage costs. Secondly, the infrastructure of the port of Vladivostok was originally designed according to the capacity of the Russian Far East, which is not even as economically level as our Heilongjiang and Jilin. Therefore, if Vladivostok is to play a role in the economic development of Harbin and Jilin, it must be expanded to its current size. To complete this expansion, we will have to negotiate with the Russians in a difficult way.
This article analyzes Russia's delay in opening the Sino-Russian border bridge and the reasons for the lack of political mutual trust between China and Russia. The author points out that although Vladivostok has some objective problems, if viewed from the perspective of development, it is still possible to lead the economic rebirth of Northeast China. Historically, the Northeast has always been a wild place, and during the Qing Dynasty, there was also a sense of excluding Han people from entering the Guanwai, until ** became a big enemy, and he realized that his own backyard was difficult to protect.
The political reasons are complicated: a few years ago, during the Crimean crisis, Russia promised to open the Sino-Russian border bridge, but in fact it was delayed until last year, when the Ukrainian crisis was reluctantly opened. This shows that China and Russia lack political mutual trust, and the opening of the Sino-Russian border bridge was forced to do so due to unfavorable circumstances. In the future, it remains to be a question whether the Russians will relapse. Vladivostok has the problem of limited shipping rights, but if you look at it from the perspective of development, the trend behind it may still lead to the rebirth of the Northeast economy.
Historically, the Northeast has always been a wild place, and during the Qing Dynasty, there was also a sense of excluding Han people from entering the Guanwai, until ** became a big enemy, and he realized that his own backyard was difficult to protect. The Manchu Qing dynasty abolished the ban and allowed Han Chinese to enter the Kwantung region, an event known as the "invasion of the Kwantung." This initiative has brought great opportunities to the Northeast region, attracting a large number of Han Chinese to explore. The arrival of these people has greatly promoted the economic development of the Northeast region and has become an important prerequisite for its modern rise. However, the Tohoku is no longer as prosperous as it once was.
The Northeast has become a stock cake, the temple is small and the wind is big, and the water is shallow. Except for some iron rice bowls in the system, young people have no hope at all, and there is a large loss of population. Without people, it is intolerable that the Northeast can rise. Secondly, Japan and Russia are also one of the contributors to the modern rise of Northeast China. Although these two countries are not good things, their love for the Northeast is genuine. During the decades of colonizing Northeast China, these two countries really managed Northeast China as their home.
In order to run the Northeast, they opened up the domestic market, and capital poured into the Northeast, building railways, mining minerals, and building factories. These objective factors have promoted the rise of Northeast China. Without the capital import and market opening of these colonizers, it would have been impossible to develop Northeast China to that extent with the foundation of China at that time. Due to the proximity to these two land markets, although the Northeast also had the disadvantage of having access to the sea in the past, it was still able to develop vigorously.
Goods produced in the Kanto region could be shipped directly to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Railway in Russia, and goods exported to Japan could be shipped to the port of Busan in South Korea through the Korean Peninsula, a Japanese colony, and then shipped to the Japanese mainland by sea. As a result, the Tohoku at that time was not too dependent on seaports. However, after World War II, the Korean Peninsula became independent, and the goods of the Northeast could only be exported to Japan by sea, and the Northeast could not fight the Yangtze River Delta by sea. At the same time, the former Soviet Union at that time practiced a planned economy, and there was no market at all, let alone the so-called export.
At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, reform and opening up had been going on for more than a decade. Although Russia began to implement a market economy at this time, the economy of the Northeast has lagged behind other regions a lot, and it is difficult to catch up. In addition, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian economy is also facing severe challenges, and the market consumption capacity is sluggish, which is difficult to drive the development of the economy in Northeast China. The root cause of the decline of Northeast China lies in the consolidation of resources and the lack of markets. Only by solving the problem of market and solidification can we once again trigger the situation of breaking through the eastern part of the Northeast, attract population and capital to flock to it, and realize the economic rejuvenation of the Northeast.
The opening of Vladivostok opened up the Japanese market, and the Russian market is self-evident. At present, the most important problem is that the economy of the Northeast needs to inject new increments and use new increments to break the solidification. The only way to solve the problem of solidification is undoubtedly to carry out the large-scale development of the Far East. As long as Russia's dormant economic potential in the Far East is activated, the potential of the Northeast will naturally become the economic hub of the Far East. Given China's achievements today, we are clearly capable of doing that.
This should have been done a long time ago, but in the past Russia had great doubts about us, and he was reluctant to let us into the Far East, even if we used the gold mountains as beggars. The main reason is that Russia's population base in this region is too small, and he is worried that after the Chinese enter, they will not be able to control the situation in the future. However, the international situation caused by the war in Ukraine has caused Russia's ice to begin to melt. And this trend will continue for a long time, and the previously feared issue of Russia's default is not worth worrying too much about. What is the basis for my argument?
Because in the future, there is likely to be a dragon and tiger struggle between China and the United States. And everything China and the United States are doing now is to prepare for the future contest. Considering the strength of the United States, if he wants to face China alone, the odds are not great. Even if he wins, he risks digging his own grave. Therefore, he must integrate Western forces in order to form a strategic advantage over China. What is the West?The United States plus Europe is the West. Therefore, the United States will never allow Europe to stay out of the situation, and it is delusional for Europe to want to maintain its so-called neutrality.
In order to pull Europe into the chariot, it is inevitable to cause trouble for Europe. So how to make trouble for Europe?The way is simple, isolate it from the Asian continent and make it an island. First of all, in the east, Europe is surrounded by the sea on three sides, and the connection with the Eurasian continent is only east and southeast. As long as war is started in Ukraine in the east and conflicts are created in Serbia in the southeast, Europe will become an isolated island. Looking at what the United States is doing today, isn't it just acting along this line?
Therefore, in order to carry out this strategy, he must push Russia to the opposite side. Suffice it to say that without even doing anything from us, the Americans will naturally push Russia into our arms. And with the strong pressure of the West, Russia has to deepen cooperation with China. Matters that were previously forbidden to be discussed are now open to discussion. Therefore, the opening of Vladivostok is not just a matter of a port. It represents the trend of the Far East re-breaking the ice after a century of mothballing. Once the Far East thaws, the most scarce incremental resources in the Northeast will follow.
Therefore, I believe that although Vladivostok cannot directly contribute to the economic development of the Northeast, this trend has great potential.