A cunning plan

Damned ingenious, these Chinese!

I have just read a fascinating article (well, no, it was mostly content-free near-gibberish, but this one passage attained a chilling coherence) which recommends - in deadly earnestness - that the Chinese government starts exporting its surplus population to Russia.

Russia, it is suggested, will be glad to receive anyone it can get, because it is suffering a catastrophic shrinkage of its own population (through economic migration and premature death caused by alcoholism and industrial pollution) and is struggling to find the manpower it needs for its economic reconstruction.

On the other hand, there is a widespread fear that as soon as significant Chinese communities are allowed to build up anywhere in Russia, they will start lobbying for "unification" with the motherland - "But Vladivostok has always been a part of China, Minsk has always been a part of China." (Oh yes, it's true: just about anywhere with a 'Genghis was here' sign was, is, and always will be 'historically' a part of China!)

Given that an awful lot of those migrating Russians end up in China (because it's less of a shithole than Russia has become in the past decade or so, and the economic opportunities here are perceived to be much greater), one wonders how easy it is going to be to persuade Chinese workers - particularly University graduates, who are supposed to be a key component of this programme - to move to Russia. From what I hear, it's pretty damned difficult to get graduates to move out to the less-developed western provinces of China (where at least they can still speak Chinese).

And given the dismally poor language-teaching methodology I have encountered in this country, and the generally low motivation of non-language specialists to study or use a foreign language, I am very sceptical as to whether large numbers of Chinese (and we are potentially talking in the 100,000s here), both peasants and professionals, are going to be willing to try to master Russian.

I suspect this plan will languish on the drawing-board.

Full marks for AMBITION, though.