In a January 18 article in U.S. News and World Report on rising anti-Americanism in Russia, reporter Alastair Gee sites a poll by the state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) suggesting that “Russians consider the United States to be Russia’s greatest enemy (and China its greatest friend).”
That poll, released in August of 2007, found that 21 percent of respondents assume that Russia will be on best terms with China within the next 10 to 15 years. Next on the list were Belorussia and Germany tied at 12 percent.
Another poll released in September 2007 asked Russians about their opinion of employing Chinese nationals in Russian companies. Russians in the far east were more positive about this reality than their counterparts in western Russia, an area farther removed from China.
Russians are inclined to think that using the labor of Chinese hired workers may lead to: an increase in the level of unemployment for the local population (as 58% of respondents identify, 26% do not agree with them), worsening in the criminogenic situation (as 50% of respondents consider versus 29% who have a different point of view). As for the assertion that using the labor of Chinese workers makes up for the scarcity of work force in Russia, respondents’ opinions on this point were not unanimous (40% support this point of view, 38% do not). Respondents would rather not agree with the statement that hiring Chinese workers raises productivity of labor at Russian enterprises (28% agree with this opinion, whereas 46% oppose it).
Residents of the Far Eastern Federal District, who encounter Chinese hired workers more frequently in their every day life than other Russians do, treat them, as a rule, more positively than the rest of the respondents. They also are inclined to think that the use of Chinese workers’ labor leads to an increase in the unemployment rate among the local population (63% versus 31%), however, they also mention that this helps to make up for the scarcity of work force in Russia (52% versus 35%), as well as to increase productivity of labor (43% versus 33%). Furthermore, the residents of the Far East, as opposed to respondents from other regions of Russia, are not inclined to associate Chinese hired workers with the worsening in the criminogenic situation (33% assume that the presence of these workers leads to an increase in crime, however, 50% think that it does not).
