China’s General Administration of Customs announced on May 4th, 2023 that “in order to implement the national strategic planning of rejuvenating the traditional industrial bases in the northeast,…it is decided to further expand the cross-border transportation of domestically-traded goods of Jilin Province,…Russia’s port of Vladivostok will be added as a transit port for cross-border transportation of domestically-traded goods.” The announcement will be effective on June 1st. The “cross-border transportation of domestically-traded goods” referred here means that traded goods will begin their shipment in a domestic port in China and then are transported to another Chinese port through overseas transit. Noticeably, Russia’s Vladivostok was originally named “Haishenwai,” which has been ceded to Russia for 163 years due to the Convention of Peking in 1860. Vladivostok in Russian means conquering the East. Vladivostok is the largest port along Russia’s Pacific coast and the headquarters of Russia’s Pacific Fleet. Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources issued new regulations on February 2023 requiring adding old Chinese names to the names of eight Russia places in Chinese maps. And thus Haishenwai must be added next to Vladivostok in parentheses.
Ostensibly, Jilin and Heilongjiang Provinces have long relied on Dalian Port in Liaoning Province for transshipment of sea cargoes due to their lack of sea port, and the distance of the route is more than 1,000 kilometers. Obtaining access to the sea via Russia will shorten land transportation to 200 kilometers and greatly reduce costs. Not to mention it is only the most basic benefit. This issue may be observed from a few more perspectives.
First, relations between China and Russia see another breakthrough. Bilateral trade has shown marked growth amid the Russia-Ukraine war. However, Moscow is still wary of Beijing despite the fact that China-Russia relations are alleged to be at their best point in history. Vladivostok is the most important strategic port in the Far Eastern region of Russia. Despite the fact that Russia at present only approves China to use Vladivostok for trade transshipment, granting China access to the port still has important symbolic meaning. Moreover, after the formal collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the succeeding Russia soon shifted the focus of its relations with China to economic issues. Russia proposed the Greater Vladivostok Free Economic Zone project (including three free economic zones in Vladivostok, Nakhodka and Khasansky) in 1992. China and Russia signed the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation and formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001. The two countries have further planned to establish cross-border economic zones in Hunchun and Khasansky in the Tumen River delta since 2002. The area has become a center of China-Russia cooperation after railway between Hunchun and Russia’s Камышовый started operation in 2011. Adding Vladivostok to the picture is definitely a plus.
The second issue worth noticing is economic cooperation and development surrounding the Sea of Japan. An official research paper published by the Japanese government in 1992 recommended setting a goal that hopefully would integrate Japan’s Tottori, Aomori, Niigata and Hokkaido, Russia’s Far Eastern region, the east coast of the Korean Peninsula and China’s northeastern region to combine Russia’s natural resources, China’s workforce, North Korea’s resources and ports, South Korea’s industrial ability and Japan’s capital and technology. A mechanism for the meeting of heads of local governments surrounding the Sea of Japan was established by China’s Jilin Province, Japan’s Tottori Prefecture, South Korea’s Gangwon Province and Russia’s Primorsky Krai in 1994. Mongolia’s Töv Province joined soon afterwards. Despite limited development so far, areas surrounding the Sea of Japan may have different future prospects once China obtains quasi-access to the sea and increases policy engagement.
An issue of greater concern is the official release of a white paper titled “China's Arctic Policy” by China’s State Council in 2018. Beijing not only proclaimed itself as a near-Arctic state in order to play a greater role in the governance of the Arctic but also sent survey teams to conduct mineral exploration projects. China’s actions are an extension of its Belt and Road Initiative and serve as a basis to propose the Ice Silk Road Initiative. It is generally believed that the transportation time will be shortened by seven to ten days via the Arctic route compared with the traditional one as ice melting in the Arctic has increasingly become a norm. Apart from a huge reduction of transportation costs, the resources and strategic value of the Arctic have also been fiercely competed in recent years. China-Russia joint fleet sailed through the Bering Sea and prompted serious concern from the U.S. in September 2022. Whether trade cooperation regarding Vladivostok will spill over to the military realm is also worth noticing as East Asia has witnessed increasingly frequent joint military activities between China and Russia in recent years.
(Tung-Chieh Tsai, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Institute of International Politics at National Chung-Hsing University)
(Translated to English by Cindy Li)