page_title: Deportation of Chinese in the Soviet Union
section_title: Soviet governmental actions against the Chinese
hierarchical_section_title: Deportation of Chinese in the Soviet Union / Background / Soviet governmental actions against the Chinese
caption_attribution_description: English: "House of Lee Qi Zeen"(Utkinskaya St.,8)-part of former Millionka in Vladivostok, Russia. Historically, Millionka was the local china-town and the biggest center of crime activity. "House of Lee Qi Zeen" (named after owner) was a cheap doss-house, closed by the city government on May,16th,1936. Русский: "Дом Ли Ки Зина" (ул.Уткинская,8)-часть бывшей Миллионки в г.Владивостоке. Исторически Миллионка известна, как местный чайна-таун и центр криминальной активности. "Дом Ли Ки Зина"(по имени бывш.владельца) был дешевой ночлежкой, закрытой по распоряжению городских властей 16 мая 1936 г.
context_page_description: During the 1920s and 1930s in the Russian Far East, ethnic Chinese underwent forced migration and political repression by the Soviet Communist Party. These Chinese included both the citizens of the Republic of China and the Soviet citizens who were identified as ethnic Chinese.
  By the 1940s, Chinese had become almost extinct in the Russian Far East, although there were more than 200 thousands Chinese before the October Revolution in 1921. The detailed history of how the Chinese became distinct still needs to be uncovered and deciphered from the Soviet records. As local East Asians were forced to leave, Europeans were also forced to migrate to the Far East from Europe and Siberia, and eventually became dominant in the local population.
  Among the East Asian victims of the repression, there were at least 27,558 ethnic Chinese who were directly involved in the migration and repression. Most of them were citizens of the Republic of China, while as of 1937, there were only 26,607 ethnic Chinese Soviet citizens in the Russian Far East.
context_section_description: The closure of the Chinese community led to the repugnance of the Soviet Government and the local Russians. Millionka (百万庄/百万街 in Chinese, Миллионка in Russian) in District 18 of Vladivostok, which was densely populated by the Chinese, was free from governmental control except for taxation. The Chinese were spontaneously organized according to their origins in China, their gangs, and their religious groups, which were independent of Soviet society. Thus, the Soviet Government regarded the Chinese as a potential threat as the community could cover the Japanese espionages.
  Since the late 1920s, the Soviet Union tautened the control along the Sino-Soviet border with following measures: 1) stricter security check for entry into the Union; 2) taxing the outbound packages, whose worth should be less than 300 rubles, at a rate of 34%. When the Chinese were leaving the Soviet Union, they would need to pay an extra 14-ruble outbound fee and to be checked nakedly. Remittance of the Chinese was restricted. Extra taxation, including that of business license, business, income, profits, private debts, docks, poverty, school, etc., was assigned to the Chinese and their properties. The Chinese were forced to join the local workers' union, as a premise of their jobs.
caption: House of Lee Qi Zeen in former Millionka, Vladivostok.
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