- Lucrative contract for otherwise unused idle land
- Significant investment in the infrastructure of the local economy to open up previously inaccessible areas
- Large foreign direct investment and spending massively raising local income and wealth levels
Sounds pretty terrible doesn't it?
The western press will bend over backwards to twist anything China does into a bad thing.
Although I would argue that the New Zealand deal and Russia deals are not directly comparable given the geographical differences. The idea that China will seek to annex land it leases in NZ is certainly far more ludicrous than the Russian fears about an area of land right on the Sino-Russian boarder.
However, I still think those fears are way overblown inside Russia and then vastly inflated by the Western media in terms of just how big of an issue it is to most Russians.
The Russian fears are largely stemming from semi-racist roots and augmented by the Russians projecting their own behaviour and methods onto the Chinese.
It is usually an insightful exercise to dissect the irrational fears of people, as that can often give you insights into how they themselves think, as people often project their own motivations and schemes onto others.
However, from a historical standpoint, China has been extremely principled and consistent in terms of its territorial claims.
Contrary to the propaganda of the western media about Chinese "expansionism", the PRC has never ever once revised up its territorial claims to include territory it first claimed upon the founding of the People's Republic.
The only changes to its territorial claims China has ever made has been to revise them down after reaching bilateral agreements with others.
In the face of that cast iron fact, a piece of Siberian wilderness seems like a pathetically poor prize for China to break such a long standing and important principle over.