A long history runs through it

Heilongjiang River is the backdrop for author's exploration of the Sino-Russian relationship over the centuries

Dominic Ziegler believes major geographical features can be as responsible as people for shaping history.

This is one of the themes of his new book, Black Dragon River, about the 4,500-kilometer Heilonjiang River, which forms a large part of the border between Russia and China.

He believes it had a major role in defining the relationship between two neighbors that are culturally different.

"Before I began research on the book I hadn't been aware just how seminal the river and its terrain was in shaping the relationship between these two countries. Without being too deterministic about it, it was a case of how geography shaped geopolitics."

Ziegler, who was speaking at the central London offices of The Economist, where he is Asia editor, says despite being the ninth largest river in the world, few pay it much attention.

It is, in fact, longer than either the Congo or the Mekong and drains into a bigger basin than the Yangtze, China's largest river.

"For a time it was the longest river I had never heard of. When I was living in China in the 1990s I was constantly in search of wild places but never got there, although I had been up to Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province - just out of reach of it.

"It is only when I worked in Japan and flew over it a couple of hours before landing on a flight from London to Tokyo that I resolved to find out more."

This eventually involved taking a three-month sabbatical from work and starting his journey on horseback from the river's Mongolian source.

His actual trip, which was done in stages, covered a distance of about 10,400 km as part of the river is out of bounds (as a result of it being a border). He also had to make detours through wetlands and take the Trans-Siberian Railway.

"I rode up to the source by horse and wanted to follow the river into China, but there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease so I couldn't."

Ziegler says people make the mistake of thinking Russia always had its own far east, but this was largely a result of Cossack interlopers invading territory from the late 16th century onward.

"There was this extraordinary and rapid push east by Cossack trappers in the forests for valuable furs, which were known as soft gold.

"They had no idea they were moving through lands controlled by the Manchus and were knocking on the back door of the Chinese empire."

On his journey, Ziegler traveled to Nerchinsk, where in 1689 a treaty was agreed between Chinese emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynastry (1644-1911) and Peter the Great, the tsar who brought Russia into the modern world. The treaty defined the border between the two countries.

It was the first-ever treaty China signed with a Western power and, somewhat curiously, was written in Latin, an agreed neutral alternative to Russian and Manchu. This owed to the presence of Jesuit priests in the Chinese delegation.

"The town is still in the middle of nowhere, but at one point in history the two great gargantuan empires in Eurasia spun around each other in this spot," he says.

The journalist believes that even today China and Russia have a relatively stable relationship as a result of the treaty.

"The two sides negotiated on a basis of real strict equality, which is in contrast to all the later unequal treaties of the 19th century. I think personally, even if both sides are not aware, it still colors the relationship and gives it a grounding."

One major breach in the relationship did come in the 19th century. Muscovite Russians became obsessed with stories about the opening up of the American West and had an ambition to turn the Heilongjiang into the new Mississippi. They seized Chinese territory almost equivalent in size of France and Germany combined. They also thought they could bring French cognac and Hawaiian pineapples through the western mouth of the river.

"The Russians developed fantasies that their manifest destiny lay in the Pacific. This is a river that freezes half the year and is not navigable for all of its route and even at the mouth there are sandbanks," he says.

Ziegler, 54, went to Winchester College and read modern languages at Oxford University before eventually joining The Economist in 1984.

He has held various positions, including Washington and Tokyo correspondent as well as China correspondent, based in Hong Kong and then in Beijing, in the 1990s.

"It was a fascinating time because Zhu Rongji was premier and pushing through changes such as the first big reform of state-owned enterprises when there was much concern about how much exposure the banks had to those he let go. It was also when the private sector was taking off."

Ziegler will be returning to Hong Kong this year to take charge of the magazine's Banyan column on Asian affairs.

"I think it will be fascinating to be in China over the next few years, which I think will be critical.

"With the economy, there is a trade-off between long-term and short-term growth in pushing through difficult reforms. Slower growth in the short run may mean greater productivity in the long run. The question is whether you can afford to do this in the short run."

Back to the Helongjiang River, he believes there is still an awareness in the Russian far east that the real engine of their economy now comes from China in the south.

"I think there is a sense of Moscow being far away and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is just letting them swing, and the area is becoming depopulated."

He says the exchanges between the territories above the river and China are now not all economic.

"You often see these tall, blonde, long-legged Russian women marrying Chinese men because they see them as both hardworking and drinking less than their own men. They take a pragmatic approach," he laughs.

andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn

Bio

Dominic Ziegler

Journalist

Age: 54

Education

Winchester College, 1975-79

MA, modern languages (French and German), Oxford University, 1980-84

Career

Joined The Economist as financial reporter, 1986

Finance editor, 1990-91

Washington correspondent, 1991-94

China correspondent, 1994-2000, first in Hong Kong and then opening The Economist's first mainland bureau in Beijing

Finance and economics editor, 2001-03

Tokyo bureau chief, 2005-09

Founding Banyan columnist on Asian affairs, 2009-10

Asia editor, 2011-present

Hobby, "I sail a traditional working boat, a Bristol Channel pilot cutter built in 1889."

Book, Moby Dick by Herman Melville and, more recently, The Silk Road: A New History of The World by Peter Frankopan ("An outstanding and compelling history that made me think differently about the Mediterranean being the cradle of civilization.")

Film, Kaos (1984, dir. by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani)

Music, Late String Quartets (Opus 127-135) by Ludwig van Beethoven and Argentianin tango musician Anibal Troilo.

Food, A good Irish lamb stew and Colcannon with a hole on top for the golden flake.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/15/2016 page32)