Chinese migration and Chinese diaspora in Russia

Abstract

Russian Federation is the closest Northern neighbour of China. Relations with Russia are thus in the center of Chinese geopolitical and economic interests are nowadays. In 1990-2010 socio-economic and political cooperation between the two countries got more dynamic and presented the following features: cross-border labor increased; the amount of investments and trade increased; new forms of migration appeared, and intercultural exchanges between the populations intensified. The transformation of socio-economic and political relations changed also the style of living and infrastructure of the border regions of Russia and China. The objective of the present paper is to probe the links between the Chinese investments and migration of the Chinese to Russia in the period 1990-2012. The paper proceeds thus in the following four steps: brief description of investments and trade exchange between Russia and China; analysis of migration flows between China and Russia in the new economic context; categorization of Chinese migration to Russia and of economic activities of Chinese diaspora and their links to investment; analysis of specificities of socio-economic adaptation of Chinese migrants in Russia.