Leonid Gamza, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, RAS, Moscow, Russia. E-mail: leo.center.jp@mail.ru.
The paper is devoted to the analysis of characteristics of the development of China during last 70 years. The main stages of reforms, the dynamics and corrections of strategic development goals in different periods are considered. The main attention is paid to the current situation of the country, main characteristics of the achieved level of the development and the features of China’s transition into the category of leading world powers. The problems and main strategic goals of further development of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” during “the new era”, determined by the decisions of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China, are examined. The project “One Belt, One Road” is analyzed separately as a key component of the implementation of reforms at the present stage. Considerable attention is devoted to China’s position in the world, its confrontation with the United States and the struggle for leadership in an unstable international situation, increased protectionism and “trade wars”. It is noted that in the market economy environment, China’s confrontation with the United States is a manifestation of competition at the intergovernmental level, and counteraction to the progressive development of the PRC by the United States and Western countries covers all spheres including the project “One Belt, One Road”. The state and prospects of the development of the relations between China and Russia are analyzed as an alternative. In the situation of volatile international instability and strengthening of protectionism, it is extremely important for Russia to maintain and improve partnerships with China on the basis of comprehensive strategic cooperation in economy, humanitarian sphere and international stage. The author concludes that further changes in the balance of power and influence in the China-Russia-US triangle in favor of our country should be expected in the medium and long term due to Russian-Chinese economic relations, extension of cooperation as part of the project “One Belt, One Road’ and formation of the common Eurasian space.
Keywords: PRC, China, Russia, USA, 19th Congress of the CPC, reforms, “One Belt, One Road”, “trade war”, investments, Eurasia, interaction, cooperation.

Alexander Lomanov, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, RAS, Moscow, Russia. E-mail: a_lomanov@hotmail.com.
The paper examines ideological currents which appeared in China during the reforms. The emphasis is put on the differences from official ideology basing on new publications of Chinese social scientists. It is mentioned that the representatives of the “new left” contributed to criticism of the neoliberal model of reforms, they warned about the threats of globalization and analyzed social contradictions in the period of changes. Excessive criticism of negative consequences of market transformations prevented from fusion with party ideology. Widely spread on Chinese Internet populism grew against the backstage of aggravation of social contradictions although it lacks theoretical depth and consistency. The paper analyses “historical nihilism” which is seen as an attempt to “undo the socialist system” under the pretext of “rethinking history”. Ideas of “universal values” are criticized as a tool of de-ideologization. A constructive alternative to that are “common values” different from the ideals of the Western political system. With regard to the ideas of “civil society”, fears are associated with its neoliberal aspirations and inclinations toward individualism, pluralism and selfishness. Chinese scientific publications criticize the supporters of “constitutional democracy” who call for the reform of the political system according to the Western model in order to overcome corruption. A new ideological current was consumerism which had a serious impact on traditional ideas about consumption. The authorities seek to develop the economy by expanding domestic consumption, but the researchers warn that consumerism undermines the official ideology and national spirit of the Chinese people. It is concluded that strengthening of ideological propaganda brought to marginalization of “neoliberal” currents like constitutionalism and “universal values”. The struggle against “historical nihilism” increased significantly in order to protect historical legitimacy of the regime of the Communist Party of China.
Keywords: CPC, new left, populism, historical nihilism, universal values, civil society, constitutional democracy, consumerism.

Tat’yana Lomova, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: lomova_tatyana999@mail.ru.
The paper analyses the foreign cultural policy of Japan and China. Nowadays Japan and China are competing not only in the economic but also in cultural sphere. The governments of both countries consider foreign cultural policy the most significant factor of international impact significantly determining the role of the state in the world. The foreign cultural policy of Japan and China include several aspects: spread of national language and education abroad, dissemination of public information about achievements, support of Japanese Studies and Sinology, youth, scientific and art exchanges, humanitarian aid to developing countries. Despite the similarity, the strategies of foreign cultural policy of Tokyo and Beijing differ. Chinese foreign cultural policy represents the logical continuation of domestic cultural policy and is based on the idea of culture as a key factor of spiritual, socioeconomic and political development of the country and the most important component of “joint national power”. National (mainly traditional) culture is used as a tool for preserving cultural identity in the globalized world. In contrast to China, Japan has lately focused on popularization of its contemporary mass culture abroad and maximum economic profit from selling its production.
Keywords: cultural policy, cultural diplomacy, “soft power”, Japan Foundation, Confucius Institute.

Song Linlin, Institute of Northeast Asian Studies, Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciencies, Harbin, China. E-mail: songlinlin713@163.com
Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward new instructions during the official visit to Northeast China that three provinces (Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning) had to deepen the integration of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and to build an open border area. Heilongjiang Province has 25 national highly-developed ports and 2,981 kilometers of the Russian-Chinese border. In the last five years, Heilongjiang Province, using its advantageous geographical position in the core of Northeast Asia, has actively promoted the national strategy of the Belt and Road Initiative. It has deepened open cooperation with the countries in Northeast Asia and has focused on developing economic and trade cooperation, strategic interaction with Russia and building a new model of openness to the outside world in order to achieve significant results. The paper describes the progress of the participation of Heilongjiang Province in the Belt and Road Initiative, which was launched in 2013, in terms of the “five links” strategy. This strategy includes policy coordination, financial integration, infrastructure development, unimpeded trade and close relations between people. The feasible measures for the growth of thorough openness of Heilongjiang Province are proposed.
Keywords: Belt and Road Initiative, Heilongjiang Province, international cooperation, Northeast Asia, Russia, China, free trade, “five links” strategy.

Ildar Hamzin, Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia. E-mail: ildar.hamzin1991@mail.ru.
The paper considers the Russian trade with the port of Chefoo in the context of the East-Asian vector of the foreign policy of the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth century. In the 1880s—1890s, the “free” port of Chefoo was one of the main Chinese ports that traded with the Primorye region. However, trade relations were not in favor of the Russian Empire: the import from Chefoo to Primorye was much higher than the Russian export. Nevertheless, due to its proximity to the Russian Far East, Chefoo was a very promising port of China in terms of Russian sales. The analysts placed special hopes on the sale of Russian seaweed and the South Ussuri forest. However, for the implementation of full-fledged foreign trade relations, Primorye was in great need of expanding Russian long-distance shipping and communication with industrially developed Russian regions. At that time, Vladivostok’s trade with Chefoo was almost entirely based on foreign vessels that slowed the development of Russia’s trade with China. Analysing the trade of the port of Chefoo with Russian Primorye, the author believes that it was necessary to implement large-scale projects of the Far Eastern policy for Russia’s success on the Chinese market: the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway and the development of navigation of Russian Far Eastern ports. The relationship between these two projects was very important: the shipping had to complement the railway service linking the Trans-Siberian railway with the market of inner China by sea transportation. Thus, the paper carries out a consistent analysis of the specific difficulties of Russian trade in the port of Chefoo and the general problems of Russian policy in the Far East in the late nineteenth century.
Keywords: Chefoo, Primorye, Vladivostok, Russian-Chinese trade, Trans-Siberian railway, shipping.

Vladimir Datsyshen, Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia. E-mail: dazishen@mail.ru.
The paper is devoted to the problems of adaptation of Chinese migrants in Siberia in the early years of the Soviet system in connection with the history of the Union of Chinese Workers (UCW). Based on the first introduced documents from the funds of the central and regional archives, the historical picture of the creation and functioning of the Union of Chinese Workers in Siberia (UCWS) as a regional branch of the Union of Chinese Workers in Russia (UCWR) is restored. The Union of Chinese Workers in Siberia with its central office in Omsk was organized after the victory of the Soviet power in 1919—1920. In spring 1920, its local branches were created in all major cities of Siberia to the west of Lake Baikal. Then the offices of the executive committees of the UCWS appeared in some district centers. The Union of Chinese Workers in Siberia, as well as the Union of Chinese Workers in Russia, was not an organization uniting only workers; its leaders defended the interests of the entire Chinese population of Siberia, primarily traders. In Siberia, in contrast to metropolitan offices, the leadership of the Union of Chinese Workers turned out to be close to the Chinese criminal world. A small number and passivity of local executive committees of the Union of Chinese Workers in Siberia was due to both a relatively small number of Chinese migrants in Siberia and the tightening of the Bolsheviks’ policy on the national issue. The attempts of the Bolsheviks and the Chinese groups close to the criminal world to use the Union of Chinese Workers in their own interests were unsuccessful; as a result, the organization quickly and almost completely disappeared from the history of Siberia.
Keywords: Chinese migrants in Siberia, Union of Chinese Workers in Siberia, Chinese crime.

Zhou Tianhe, Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University, Blagoveshchensk, Russia. E-mail: nmqhwss@mail.ru.
The paper deals with the peculiarities of the economic activity of Chinese migrants in the border areas of the Russian Far East in the 1990s. The presence of Chinese entrepreneurs is highlighted as a continuation of more than 150-year history of close interaction between the representatives of Russian and Chinese civilizations on the frontier. It is noted that the geopolitical position of the border areas of the Far East determined the specificity of the international relations with China. The socio-political situation in the Russian Far East in the 1990s caused the mutual interest of two countries, but China and Russia implemented socio-economic policy in different ways. The connection between Chinese migration to Russia and the dynamics of cross-border trade is considered. The general characteristics of the economic activity of Chinese entrepreneurs and their vigorous integration into the Russian reality are described. Particular attention is paid to the representatives of small and medium-sized businesses. The main activities of commercial migrants in the Russian Far East are characterized: trade, provision of services, establishment of public catering enterprises, production and processing of agricultural products, construction, individual wholesale trade, transportation and sale of goods in Russia. By means of various methods of collecting information (including interviews), the author examines the peculiarities of the formation and development of the business of Chinese entrepreneurs in the Russian Far East in the 1990s as well as overall economic and political situation in Russia and in the Russian Far East in particular. The author concludes that the economic activity of Chinese entrepreneurs in the Russian Far East was determined by the accumulated historical experience of intercivilizational interaction and the prevailing socio-economic conditions in the Russian Far East in the 1990s.
Keywords: Chinese migrants, Russian Far East, economic activity, Chinese entrepreneurs, Russian-Chinese relations.

Sergey Lukonin, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, RAS, Moscow, Russia. E-mail: sergeylukonin@mail.ru
Evgeny Kanaev, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, RAS; National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. E-mail: e.a.kanaev@gmail.com
Anastasia Efremova, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia. E-mail: lozeras678@gmail.com
While the Belt and Road Initiative (the BRI) offers its participants plenty of unique opportunities, the gap between promising economic feedback and disturbing security implications is growing, which undermines the BRI prospects. As the BRI further proceeds, given its global reach and strategic orientation, contradictions between China and its partners will multiply. A case to substantiate this assessment is the BRI implementation in Southeast Asia, which mirrors the challenges this project encounters globally and which can be used as a testing ground for elaborating on effective solutions to tackle the emerging problems. The research question is why cooperation between China and Russia in Southeast Asia can narrow the afore-mentioned gap, which specific directions are the most promising, and which limiting factors Beijing and Moscow will have to take into consideration. The authors argue that cooperation between China and Russia in Southeast Asia in the BRI context can narrow the spectrum of challenges as well as decrease apprehensions of the ASEAN member states, the BRI generates. Cooperation between China and Russia, in case the latter increases its economic profile in Southeast Asia, has sufficient potential to form the international context conducive to keeping the present and prospective contradictions manageable. This practice, or its components, can be expanded to other regions of Eurasia to the best advantage of China and its BRI partners.
Keywords: Belt and Road Initiative, economy, infrastructure, security, China, Southeast Asia, ASEAN, Russia.

Alexander Korolev, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Institute of Far Eastern Studies, RAS, Moscow, Russia. E-mail: a.korolev@unsw.edu.au.
After Russia’s “turn to the East”, the deterioration of Russia-US relations against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis, as well as the new stage of China’s assertiveness in the South and East China Seas, there have been an increasingly active discussion of the strengthening Russia-China strategic partnership, even an “alliance”, that might balance against the American global hegemony. However, international relations literature lacks clearly defined concepts of such an “alliance” (as well as the definitions of “partnership” or “cooperation”). The problem is aggravated by the fact that in the literature on China-Russia relations there is also no consensus regarding the depth, scale, and prospects of military-strategic cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. Therefore, it is difficult to objectively assess the development and the extent of strategic cooperation between China and Russia. This creates difficulties for understanding the contemporary international politics because China and Russia are key regional and global players, and the degree of their strategic-military cooperation not only has a direct bearing on the regional politics but also affects the ways Moscow and Beijing develop their relations with the United States. This article attempts to identify a theory-grounded set of objective criteria of military-strategic cooperation and apply this set to assess Russia-China relations since the end of the Cold War. It shows the dynamics of Russia-China strategic cooperation and how well it fits with the military alliance criteria.
Keywords: military alliance, strategic partnership, Russia-China relations.

Angelina Vashchuk, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology of Peoples of the Far East, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: va_lina@mail.ru.
Ol’ga Shishkina, Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: shishkina.oe@dvfu.ru.
The modernization model of the development of the Far East of Russia is analyzed through the example of the creation of the free port of Vladivostok (FPV). Considering that the topic turned out to be so popular in the scientific and expert community, the authors identified the main characteristic features of the historiographical situation of the FPV. The novelty of the problem statement is in analyzing the project from the stage of the inception of scientific ideas to the development of the federal law and the first results of its implementation in certain historical conditions. The role of the new scientific platform (spatial economy), which became popular among the political community in the early twenty-first century during the registration of the development institutions, is shown. These institutions became the main “product” of the reform activities of the new generation of bureaucracy — the social base of the modern political elite. The analysis of the project’s history takes into account the specifics of incorporating foreign experience into Russian practice, including the peculiarities of the discussion and the development of law. It was concluded that the Russian “development bureaucracy” introduced patterns of behavior of high publicity, openness through the publication of its position and its documentation in the media and social networks. The paper analyzes the judgments of the expert community on the possible difficulties of implementing the law and the first results, real problems faced by residents and governing bodies. It is revealed that the effect of the formation of the system of institutions to support the FPV decreased as a result of excessive bureaucratic agreements. Some problems predicted by the experts during the discussion of the draft law appeared at the first stage of its implementation. The analysis of the sources made it possible to distinguish the two most serious problems in the realization of the Federal Law “On the Free Port of Vladivostok”. According to the authors, these are the introduction of innovations in the free customs zone and the practice of applying the provisions of law related to the allocation of land according to the new rules.
Keywords: Far East of Russia, intellectual history, Far Eastern policy, Free Port of Vladivostok, entrepreneurship, law enforcement practice, customs procedure of the free customs zone.