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The Altai Road: Visions of Development across the Russian–Chinese Border
Author(s) -
Nyíri Pál,
Breidenbach Joana
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2008.00471.x
Subject(s) - vision , china , setback , political science , politics , economy , sociology , law , economics , anthropology
The Altai Republic is a poor mountainous region of Russia squeezed between Kazakstan, China and Mongolia. A project to build a road connecting Russia with China through the Altai has been conceived within a quadripartite regional co‐operation project, supported by Western development organizations. Yet while at the Chinese side of the border road construction went ahead, in Russia, a coalition of globally connected ecologists, romantic ‘Eurasianists’, nostalgic conservationists and anti‐Chinese xenophobes turned the road into a political hot potato. This case study, in which production and investment are the focus on the Chinese side and environmental protection is key on the Russian side of the border, shows the inadequacy of approaches that pit global capital/international (read: Western) organizations against local (read: non‐Western) resistance or adaptation. China's entry into the politics of international development may be a setback for development critics who have helped engineer a ‘cultural turn’ in institutions such as the World Bank.