Russia's desolate Far East looms more enticing as a granary--a homegrown one--for crowded and hungry China.
Russia's external threat these days seems to be concentrated on its Muslim front, with Chechnya the worst rub. But a potentially deadlier conflict, though one with a longer fuse, could erupt on the land border between the civilizations of the East and the West.

A display in the history museum in the far eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk shows a typical residence of the inhabitants of the region 140 years ago. It features a giant wok over a cooking stove that sends its smoke under a bench that heats the next-door living room. A few miles out of town is a new village of uncannily similar houses. The former residents, Chinese peasants, are back, and now they mean to stay, setting the stage for what could be the biggest geopolitical problem of the 21st century.

History explains why. Russia took the region 140 years ago while China was too busy fighting the Opium Wars to object. Through pogroms, massacres and mass deportations between 1860 and 1937, the Russians ended a Chinese presence that dated back at least a thousand years.

And the Chinese haven't forgotten. Chinese maps still show the region as an illegally annexed part of China. Dozens of Chinese interviewed in the Russian Far East insisted they were still in China. They said they have begun to take their land back.

"The Russians have good reason to be scared because we Chinese are not afraid of anything," says Wei Dai Tong, a Chinese merchant in Vladivostok. "In the past Russia was strong and China was weak, but now China is strong and Russia is weak."

"The Far East is a Russian colony and all the empires lost their colonies," explains Igor Ilyushin, who, as a professor of journalism at the Far Eastern State University, has contact with all levels of Russian officialdom. "We are already in the middle of World War III. But we don't feel it yet, so we think it is in the distant future," he says.

"China will clearly--clearly--play a role in the future of this region, whether hostile or friendly depends on those in power now," says Pamela Spratlen, U.S. consul general in Vladivostok. So far the omens are not good.

Officially, Sino-Russian relations are friendly, and territorial disputes are limited to a few islands. Unofficially, the Russians are terrified and desperate to keep the Chinese out, while the increasingly confident and nationalistic Chinese view the return of their land as destiny.

The Russian Far East is larger than China, but with a population of only 6 million that has shrunk by 12% during the past decade. Since the fall of the Soviet Union regional GDP has fallen by 68% as Soviet-era subsidies have ground to a halt. Next door sit 1.3 billion Chinese, many newly prosperous, who could utterly dominate the local economy.

The Chinese have reasons other than pure revanchism for moving in. Even as much of their country prospers, environmental problems are so severe in the impoverished north and west (along the Russian border) that, in tandem with the collapse of state-owned enterprises, they've created at least 100 million economic and ecological refugees.

Call me a foolish 'Historian,' despite my Thermopylae/Vienna-esque thoughts; but, were in full-fledged retreat, Bubba.

Despite W's banter...

What's the URL?

Russians, despite their 'new media,' love, Patrick J. Buchanan.

Thanks again - for the Forbes article.

Vaughn (poor smuck, involved in U.S.Manufacturing)

I share your convictions regarding So. Cal real estate investments, yet I fear another cyclical movement, soon.

Pats' new book was supposed to be released this month, but I think we're looking at April - hopefully.

Russia is heading for a sharply declining population over the next 50 years while China encroaches in the east and muslims from the south.  At least for Russia's sake their muslims are not considered for the most part extremes like those in the rest of the muslim world but things could change.