Tense divide in Russia’s Far East

[dArKeR]

In one stall of the teeming marketplace, Chinese merchants with chopsticks pick at plastic containers of noodles. Across the way, a gaggle of aging Chinese men hunch over their mah-jongg game. A loudspeaker blares out announcements in Chinese as other Chinese sellers collect wads of rubles for plastic sandals, compact disc players and leopard-print bikinis.

OUTSIDE THE market’s entrance sits a different group of men who are playing cards and grousing. They are Russians working as gypsy cab drivers — men who once had it better. There is a former engineer, a former teacher and several former military men.
       Look at that Chinese with the fancy foreign car, grumbles one, who gives his name only as Sergei. “They’ll take over and invade our country without weapons. Eventually, they will kill us.”
       The tense divide between Russia and China is on display every day at the market here in Khabarovsk, the Russian Far East’s capital which overlooks the picturesque Amur River that for much of its course separates the two giant powers. The “River Love,” as one author called it, in fact bisects a region of hate — or at least suspicion, envy and fear.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/945375.asp?0cv=CB20

http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com/

The same thing is going to happen in America. We can educate our children better or we can spend our money on murdering people around the world and let our country collapse. Which one does a patriotic American chose? Which one does a Repuke chose?

[madrchsod]

1. it already has

benton harbor ,michigan

[izzie]

2. When we give in to the army and forget education our days are numbered.

n/t

[On the Road]

3. I Think This Area Used to be Part of China

When Russia conquered northeast Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, they took the area north of Manchuria. Lenin agreed to give it back at one point, but Stalin refused to follow through, which made Mao angry. That was one reason for the Sino-Soviet split in the 1950's.



One thing that makes the situation worse is that China is getting richer and Russian has gotten poorer. That always fuels ethnic tensions. Chinese men have even been ordering Russian mail order brides, which does not necessarily go over well with the locals.