Historians of South Ural State University have examined the features of Chinese migration to Russia over the past three decades. Based on the collected data, they identified the primary vectors of "Chinese" migration, identified the factors of changing the prevailing migrant groups and areas of their employment, and considered the reaction of the host society to the presence of migrants. The results of the study were published in the journal SOCIS (Q2).
Three waves of migration
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior researcher-NIL of Migration Studies Andrey Avdashkin conducted a recent study of the specifics of migration processes from China to Russia. Earlier on, the features of migration in the Asian part of Russia and the features of migration from China in the 20s of the twentieth century were studied.
Over the past thirty years, there have been three waves of migration, each with its characteristics. The first group of Chinese migrants that Russian society encountered in the first wave of migration in the late 90s and early 2000s were shuttles and traders. In the second half of the 2000s, after being forced out of the markets, Chinese migrants shifted to the construction and agricultural sectors of the economy. They demonstrated high mobility in the labor market and rapidly transformed the areas of employment: from road work to cultivating vegetables.
Due to the cultural distance and language barrier, those who arrived from China preferred not individual work, but to work in teams. This inevitably led to the manifestation of certain elements of ghettoization and contributed to the emergence of a new round of anxious expectations from Chinatowns with each new wave of migration. However, most of the workers were temporary migrants who were not interested in long-term stay or permanent residence in Russia.
In the second half of the 2010s, Russia witnessed a threefold increase in the flow of tourists from China (from 409,000 in 2014 to 1,275,000 in less than 2019), and by 2020, tourism has become the fastest-growing area of Russian-Chinese cooperation.
"The development of this sector provided tangible benefits to the budget: on average, every Chinese tourist spent about $ 500 in Russia. In total, only in January—March 2019, Chinese tourists "left" about 264 million dollars in our country. The rapid growth of the flow of tourists from China has led to the emergence of organized communities and infrastructure in large cities to serve guests from China (for example, the cluster on Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg). These communities work closely with Chinese tour operators: they arrange groups in their hotels, conduct excursions, and organize trips to souvenir shops and restaurants. The activities of Chinese tourist communities are transforming the urban space, provoking residents to have another "premonition" of the imminent appearance of" new Chinese localities, " says Andrey Avdashkin.
Thus, in the three decades since the collapse of the USSR and before the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly limited cross-country mobility around the world, "Chinese" migration to Russia has undergone a certain evolution.
The alternative direction of Russian-Chinese relations
By the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourist and educational migration had become predominant. Officially, Russian education in China is highly respected, but in practice, only some specialties are in demand. According to 2016 data from the authoritative Chinese consulting company New East, these are medicine, Russian language, painting, aviation and cosmonautics, oil industry, and music. The high competition for places in Chinese universities and the low (compared to European countries or the United States) cost of studying and living in Russia make our country attractive for young people from poor northwestern and northern provinces of China who are eligible for state loans. If in 2017-2018 the number of Chinese students in Russian universities was 30 thousand people, then in 2020, even against the background of large-scale mobility restrictions, 29.6 thousand students from China were enrolled, and their total number reached 48 thousand people.
South Ural State University is in line with the latest trends in international cooperation and creates all conditions for the training of foreign citizens. At the moment, more than 400 students from China are studying here.
The active growth of educational migration from China has been observed only in recent years, so it is premature to judge the life of Chinese student communities and their perception by the local population.
South Ural State University (SUSU) is a university of digital transformations, where innovative research is conducted in most priority areas of science and technology development. Following the strategy of scientific and technological development of the Russian Federation, the university focuses on the development of large scientific interdisciplinary projects in the field of the digital industry, materials science, and ecology. In the Year of Science and Technology, SUSU will participate in the competition under the Priority–2030 program. The University serves as the regional project office of the Ural Interregional World-class Scientific and Educational Center (UREC).