It is only 490 kilometers away from China, and Russia invited our country to develop Sakhalin Island, so why is it hesitating now? During the period of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Russia suffered from very comprehensive economic, scientific and technological and industrial sanctions from Europe, and to be honest, Europe just wanted to cut off contacts with Russia and trap Russia, a huge polar bear. Therefore, at this time, on the basis of getting rid of the encirclement of Europe and the United States, Russia is actively looking for the leaders of developing countries, and China, India and other countries have taken the initiative to show favor and seek cooperation.
Russia, which originally disdained to look eastward, has uncharacteristically invited us, India, and other countries to carry out a large amount of economic and technological cooperation in the past two years. Of course, it is still the same old as India, all kinds of equipment and technology transfer and production lines that India wants to buy, and then send a wave of greatly discounted oil orders. As for China's cooperation, in addition to continuing to expand traditional energy exports, it is to invite China to carry out cooperative development of the Far East, and this proposal was indeed put forward by Russia on its own initiative. At the 2023 Far East Economic Cooperation Forum, Russia also said that it would lend the port of Zarubino to China for use, and hoped that China would extensively develop energy, minerals, food, and communications in the Far East, including the islands of withered leaves that are exceptionally rich in resources, with a total investment of more than 100 billion US dollars. Today, however, it is not difficult for us to find that whenever Russia talks a lot about its strategic concept, when it comes to actually pushing forward the operation, it immediately shows a state of hesitation and low enthusiasm. I used to say that I wanted us to cooperate in the development of Sakhalin, but now there is no movement. So what's going on here?
In fact, there are two main reasons: first, whether it is the Far East or Sakhalin Island, which is isolated overseas, it contains huge resource reserves, whether it is oil, natural gas, ores, and forests. Taking Sakhalin Island, a low-sized island in the Far East, as an example, the total area of Kuye Island exceeds 7At 60,000 square kilometers, it is larger than the two islands of Taiwan, but with a population of only 500,000, it is truly vast and sparsely populated. However, such a small island with a vast and sparse population, because it is located at the intersection of the Eurasian plate and the Pacific plate, the earth's crustal movement is very frequent, so that volcanoes are frequent, constantly bringing rare metals in the earth's sheath to the ground, such as gold, manganese, iron and other resources. After hundreds of millions of years of continuous accumulation, the reserves of Sakhalin Island are unusually rich, with **close to 2,000 tons and **10,000 tons. In addition to metal minerals, Kuye Island is also rich in coal resources, with about 100 million tons proven, which can be mined for 100 years at the current mining rate of 1 million tons per year.
What really makes Sakhalin famous is the Kuril Basin, which is adjacent to Kuye Island, which is considered to be one of the basins with the richest oil and gas reserves in the world, with proven oil reserves of more than 7 billion tons, nearly twice of China's total reserves, and natural gas has reached about 31 trillion cubic meters, also close to half of China's oil and gas reserves, accounting for 90% of the total in the Russian Far East, is one of the absolute main production areas of Russian oil and gas, can be described as rich in oil. In the face of such huge untapped resources, what Russia hopes for is multi-country participation and multi-country competition, which will not only give Russia a full initiative to choose, but also allow Russia to get higher interest chips in the active competition of participating countries. Russia originally planned to involve at least four countries, India, South Korea, Japan, and China, in the development of Sakhalin Island in the Far East, but for various reasons, the other three countries were unable to join.
Russia believes that it will also feel that if such a large treasure trove of resources is handed over to China for development, it will definitely not be able to maximize its own interests, so after no other country participates, Russia began to hesitate. Second, friends who are familiar with history must know that the vast Far Eastern territory of nearly 6 million square kilometers, including Vladivostok and Sakhalin Island, is actually China's inherent territory in modern times. This is not only the starting place of the Qing Dynasty, but also the territory of our country clearly stipulated after the Kangxi Emperor signed the Nebuchu Treaty with Tsarist Russia. It's just that Tsarist Russia has always had the heart of foundation, and after 1860, taking advantage of the turmoil of the Qin Dynasty in our country at that time, it took advantage of the danger of people to seize a large area of territory in our country.
In the nearly 100 years since then, neither the Soviet Union nor today's Russia has been able to develop the Far East, so that the Far East is still in a state of no man's land. Russia now does not have full control over the Far East, so in the face of a large country with a population of nearly 1.4 billion in China, Russia is also worried that if we pour a large number of investors into the Far East, it will instantly change the demographic structure of the Far East, and there must be more than 100 million people in Russia, and we are 14 times as much. Therefore, the biggest limit is to allow many countries to compete in the development of the Far East, to avoid a monopoly and to carry out in-depth cultivation of the Far East, which is the most fundamental reason. Sakhalin