At a workshop on Law and Finance in Rising Powers, held at the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, Caroline Humphrey, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, and Sayana Namsaraeva, Research Associate Department of Anthropology, University of Cambridge, presented their insights into trade across the Chinese-Russian border. In a podcast interview following the presentation, they give an overview of their research findings.
Summarising her research on 'Cross-Border E-trade and is Vicissitudes', Humphrey said:
“My paper was called e-trade between
China and Russia and it was about the objective facts of how e-trade is
taking place these days. One the one hand it is greatly encouraged and
the relationships between China and Russia are getting much closer and
this is a lovely high tech thing that could develop but on the other, in
practice it has all sorts of problems.
“The problem is the big Chinese internet firms don’t accept payment
from Russian banks and cards, and also the cheapest and best sites are
in the Chinese language so they need interpreters to find out what the
information is on those sites. They use mediators, middle men firms that
have mushroomed up in Russia, and that helps them get access to the
goods but it means that it is much more expensive for them and rather
slow and cumbersome.
“I think there are some perils of trading. There are perils that the
goods may be incorrectly described or that they arrive in the wrong
quantity, that kind of thing, but there isn’t much come-back for the
Russian consumer, the legal situation is not good at all. Deliveries
from China to Russia have to go through several complicated ways of
crossing the border and they have to pay big customs duties.
“You can send goods back if they are absolutely wrong in relation to
what you ordered but if it is a minor issue, or it doesn’t look like it
did in the catalogue, you certainly couldn’t. There is a certain amount
of muddle, particularly in the Russian postal service that is coping
with a gigantic numbers of parcels from all over the place, and things
do often seem to get lost in there. Bribery is absolutely very common
indeed particularly when crossing the borders.
“At the moment it is a punt if you want to buy something online and
whether and how fast that will change is very difficult to say. But it
is also exciting, because with the internet you have access to this huge
range of goods and almost all of it produced in China.”
Namsaraeva described her work on 'The Effect of Exchange Rate Changes
Post-Ukraine on Trans-border Trade between China and Russia':
“My research is on women border
traders who do regular shuttle trade between Russia and China to buy
things cheap and to sell dear on the Russian side.
“I think this kind of shuttle trade is very important for the local
economies both for Russia and for China but at the same time, the border
economy exists in the shadow economy of both countries.
“Border traders work in the professions in the week, they may be
nurses, doctors, teachers but at the weekend they go to China and become
shuttle traders to resell it. This is how they survive and how they
support their families.
“The younger generation can go online and do this click and delivery
thing but the elder generation that is not familiar with the internet
still prefer to go to the real shop and touch and feel the real thing.
“Until recently border trade was also associated with tourism from
Asia because as well as buying things they also spent quite a lot of
time enjoying life in China, going shopping, eating out, visiting parks
and saloons, and learning more about Chinese culture.
“Now there is a growing economic disparity between Russia and China,
because once the Soviet Union was a very powerful regional super power
State, but recently with China’s economic growth, the power balance has
changed, and Russia has moved from being an older brother to the
position of the younger sister.
“Nowadays people are really in an uncertain financial situation and
with the devaluation of the Ruble they can’t plan their futures and
because of this 40 per cent devaluation crossing border points are half
empty. People need to save money in order to survive.“
Listen to the full interview with Caroline Humphrey and Sayana Namsaraeva
More podcasts from the workshop on Law and Finance in Rising Powers,
Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, December 9th 2014
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