The Status of the Russian Emigrants in China

Abstract

Among the nationalities having no diplomatic representation in China, only the Russian emigrants come strictly within the terms of “unrepresented foreigners.” The Russian emigrants, whose legal status has been defined by the League of Nations as citoyen sans patrie, form at present the majority of the foreign population (to be exact—of Western population) not only in the treaty ports open for foreign trade but also in the interior of China. According to a very modest estimate, the number of Russian emigrants in China, not including Manchuria and Chinese Turkestan, amounts to over 100,000. The Russian colony in Shanghai alone counts 20,000, while that of Tientsin is 10,000, both showing a tendency toward a continuous increase owing to the influx from Manchuria, where, since the Japanese occupation, the conditions of life have become extremely hard for the early Russian settlers.