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Russian Vladivostok becomes transit port for Chinese domestic trade

China has added the Russian port of Vladivostok as a transit hub for domestic trade supplies. From June 1, Chinese goods will pass through it without customs procedures. Meanwhile, Putin says plantations in the Far East must be completely planted with “soybeans”

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According to China’s General Administration of Customs, products carried from the northeastern provinces to locations in southern China can be delivered through the port of Vladivostok beginning June 1.

Vladivostok was a Chinese region until 1860, when the Qing Dynasty gave it to the Russian Empire following the Treaty of Beijing. Currently, Vladivostok is the largest Russian port city on the Pacific coast, the Russian Far East’s marine transit hub, and the headquarters of the Russian Pacific Fleet. The Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin, which border Vladivostok, had no direct maritime access for 163 years. Goods had to be transported by land to the port of Dalian, more than 1,000 km away, and from there sent by ship to the south of the country. Chinese media point out that this decision will contribute to lower transport costs, as it means that road transport will be shortened to around 200 km, which will boost the development of these provinces.

The divident
Some analysts point out that this is a “dividend” for China from Russia due to the war in Ukraine.

Analysts speaking for the Chinese tabloid Global Times pointed out that the participation of the port of Vladivostok in the Chinese trade system is “a breakthrough in Sino-Russian economic and trade cooperation in the context of the Russian war, as well as a new breakthrough in Sino-Russian local cooperation”.

James Dorsey of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University assessed that the opening of the port is a “goodwill” gesture towards China. In an interview for the Singaporean daily “Lianhe Zaobao”, he said that after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the tide of Sino-Russian relations had tipped in China’s favor, and that Russia needs China more and was, therefore, more active in promoting economic cooperation between the two countries.

Dorsey noted, however, that while China will become the stronger party in Sino-Russian relations, the interpretation that Russia will become a vassal state of China is an oversimplification, as China also needs Russia’s support.
Siberian soy
Vladimir Putin said that plantations in the Far East should be completely planted with soybeans to ensure the Chinese market, The Moscow Times wrote. “Our friends in China are very friendly to our soybean producers, in this sense, they are ready to accept a very large number of supplies,” Putin said.

At the same time, he added that the trade is not only beneficial from the point of view “of a strategic nature”, but also convenient for China. “Russian supplies are cheap, because the transport route is very short,” Putin emphasized, adding that thanks to last year’s soybean harvest, Russia was able to “start building factories”.

As recently as 2019, despite the Russian-Chinese rapprochement, people in the Far East called China’s strategy towards its neighboring territories “expansion”. Although they added that without Chinese investors, the land would remain unused. “There is no one to work: if the Chinese go, everything here will be overgrown and, as before, it will burn with a blue flame,” BBC Russia quoted a local resident as saying.

In February, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources issued a regulation on the content of maps that requires old Chinese names to be added to the current Russian-language geographical names of eight places along the Russian-Chinese border. This means that Vladivostok, the administrative capital of the region, is now to bear the official Chinese name “Haishenwai”.

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