Primorye Regional Tourist Agency organized presentation of the new international touristic project “Tumen Way”. By the authors, nobody presented anything equal before: tourist boat will start from Fanchuang (Hunchun municipality, Jilin Province), go down by Tumen river from its Chinese to the Russian part, get out to Sea of Japan and return back. Further development of the project will include creation of new giant recreational complex at the South Khasan municipality with marinas, hotels for 3800 tourists, fish markets, aquatic park and ethnic village. This part of project, planned to be completed by 2031 in three stages, was discussed at the recent meeting of Primorye governor Kozhemyako and other governors with president Putin. Investment volume into this project is estimated as tens billions yuan. Resulting that, Chinese tourists should receive one more, water based way to enter Primorye besides existing gates. Experts evaluate touristic capacity of this project up to 3000 people a day.
Tumen river starts from the sacred Chinese and Korean Pektusan Mount and is a border between China and DPRK, besides lowest 17 km part of Russian-DPRK border. International project is worked out by the “Tumen Way” holding, which unites Russian, North Korean and Chinese companies and NGOs. During designated tour participants will get exotic information on the history and environment of neighbor regions, including State Marine Preserve with unique diving environment, Khasan Natural and Leopard National Parks, conflicts of 1938 and 1945 against Japanese invasion on the North Korea and Manchuria.
Broadly promoted motto of the project is – “3 countries - one river - one way - one win”. The project, initiated by NGO, was ordered by “Hunchun Construction Company of the Silk Road Board” and Russian company “Tumen Way”, and will be implemented by operating private company of A.Zakharov. Investors, which have to present 30 billion rubles, plan to get up to 500 K tours around a year. Guests will mainly be attracted by 1 km long sandy beach and birds rich wetlands in summer. Resort should have warm marine pools, medical center and other attractions, located on 150 ha of the coastal territory.
In the meanwhile, very few people in Primorye and over Far East now remember and even know the whole, extremely long and dramatic history of Tumen project since 1927. By that time Japanese prime minister Tanaka presented his secret Memorandum to emperor on the Manchurian access to the sea and Japanese access to invaded Manchuria via Tumen mouth. Later, since 1960-s Russian-Chinese relations had failed and enforced both countries to hardly block and militarize borders here, so Tumen project idea was forgotten for many years. But, at the end of 1980-s situation changed, and old model of the area economic development returned to international East Asian agenda in the form of “Tumen Golden Triangle” as a model of long time desired Chinese direct access to the Sea of Japan. It was declared in 1990 in Changchun by Dean Shichen, President of Asia-Pacific Institute at the conference, organized by “East-West” Center (Honolulu, USA) and UN Development Program (UNDP). China used political support of deeply reformed USSR and regional officials in Primorye, and launched a broad international discussion around the new UNDP initiative named “Tumen River Area Development Project – TRADP”. Basic idea of the project meant creation free economic zones in all 3 neighbor countries and unite them under entire management body.
The Second TRADP Working Group Meeting on Tourism was held in Hunchun City in August 1999. The meeting was organized by the UNDP-supported Tumen Secretariat, as part of TRADP. DPRK was not able to attend the meeting. Representative of WTO, Harsh Varma introduced completed study on The Tourism Resources, outlined the findings of tourism inventory work, while 125 sites had been identified, described and evaluated. Nonetheless, the study had found serious structural defects in the region’s tourism - hotels unsuitable for Japanese and North American markets, limited visitor information centres, limited number of multi-lingual guides and limited technical capabilities of local tour agencies. That lack of facilities is constraining the degree to which the region’s unique sites can be used for tourism.
Meanwhile, this global project in Primorye of early 1990-s met growing skeptical attitude and contradiction among environmental and civil society, since traditionally Khasan municipality remained the only access to the warm and clean sea coast for the whole Far East after long and cold winter. The more, Khasan area wetlands around Tumen river mouth were officially recognized by local scientists as the area of high global value, non compatible with any industrial and commercial activity. Lastly, process of demarcation of Russian-Chinese border along changeable riverbed, initiated in 1990-s by China, met serious public and official opposition in the region, which finally made TRADP an object of low or zero interest in Russia. Chinese dream of new HongKong port in Tumen mouth had gone, and China found much more easy access to Sea of Japan in the North Korean port Rajin, which attracted all cargo flows out of any other ports in the region, existing and designated.
Keeping all that in mind, new re-incarnation of Tumen initiative with started construction of trans-Tumen truck bridge now seems like some civil decoration of deep military cooperation between DPRK and Russia, with simultaneous promotion of constantly growing Chinese tourism to Primorye and demonstration of strong triangular political collaboration. And these goals, by some environmental experts, may overcome and destroy environmental and recreational restrictions on the area development and lead to the serious loss of unique local biodiversity, including set of traditional tourist attractions.
Tumen river starts from the sacred Chinese and Korean Pektusan Mount and is a border between China and DPRK, besides lowest 17 km part of Russian-DPRK border. International project is worked out by the “Tumen Way” holding, which unites Russian, North Korean and Chinese companies and NGOs. During designated tour participants will get exotic information on the history and environment of neighbor regions, including State Marine Preserve with unique diving environment, Khasan Natural and Leopard National Parks, conflicts of 1938 and 1945 against Japanese invasion on the North Korea and Manchuria.
Broadly promoted motto of the project is – “3 countries - one river - one way - one win”. The project, initiated by NGO, was ordered by “Hunchun Construction Company of the Silk Road Board” and Russian company “Tumen Way”, and will be implemented by operating private company of A.Zakharov. Investors, which have to present 30 billion rubles, plan to get up to 500 K tours around a year. Guests will mainly be attracted by 1 km long sandy beach and birds rich wetlands in summer. Resort should have warm marine pools, medical center and other attractions, located on 150 ha of the coastal territory.
In the meanwhile, very few people in Primorye and over Far East now remember and even know the whole, extremely long and dramatic history of Tumen project since 1927. By that time Japanese prime minister Tanaka presented his secret Memorandum to emperor on the Manchurian access to the sea and Japanese access to invaded Manchuria via Tumen mouth. Later, since 1960-s Russian-Chinese relations had failed and enforced both countries to hardly block and militarize borders here, so Tumen project idea was forgotten for many years. But, at the end of 1980-s situation changed, and old model of the area economic development returned to international East Asian agenda in the form of “Tumen Golden Triangle” as a model of long time desired Chinese direct access to the Sea of Japan. It was declared in 1990 in Changchun by Dean Shichen, President of Asia-Pacific Institute at the conference, organized by “East-West” Center (Honolulu, USA) and UN Development Program (UNDP). China used political support of deeply reformed USSR and regional officials in Primorye, and launched a broad international discussion around the new UNDP initiative named “Tumen River Area Development Project – TRADP”. Basic idea of the project meant creation free economic zones in all 3 neighbor countries and unite them under entire management body.
The Second TRADP Working Group Meeting on Tourism was held in Hunchun City in August 1999. The meeting was organized by the UNDP-supported Tumen Secretariat, as part of TRADP. DPRK was not able to attend the meeting. Representative of WTO, Harsh Varma introduced completed study on The Tourism Resources, outlined the findings of tourism inventory work, while 125 sites had been identified, described and evaluated. Nonetheless, the study had found serious structural defects in the region’s tourism - hotels unsuitable for Japanese and North American markets, limited visitor information centres, limited number of multi-lingual guides and limited technical capabilities of local tour agencies. That lack of facilities is constraining the degree to which the region’s unique sites can be used for tourism.
Meanwhile, this global project in Primorye of early 1990-s met growing skeptical attitude and contradiction among environmental and civil society, since traditionally Khasan municipality remained the only access to the warm and clean sea coast for the whole Far East after long and cold winter. The more, Khasan area wetlands around Tumen river mouth were officially recognized by local scientists as the area of high global value, non compatible with any industrial and commercial activity. Lastly, process of demarcation of Russian-Chinese border along changeable riverbed, initiated in 1990-s by China, met serious public and official opposition in the region, which finally made TRADP an object of low or zero interest in Russia. Chinese dream of new HongKong port in Tumen mouth had gone, and China found much more easy access to Sea of Japan in the North Korean port Rajin, which attracted all cargo flows out of any other ports in the region, existing and designated.
Keeping all that in mind, new re-incarnation of Tumen initiative with started construction of trans-Tumen truck bridge now seems like some civil decoration of deep military cooperation between DPRK and Russia, with simultaneous promotion of constantly growing Chinese tourism to Primorye and demonstration of strong triangular political collaboration. And these goals, by some environmental experts, may overcome and destroy environmental and recreational restrictions on the area development and lead to the serious loss of unique local biodiversity, including set of traditional tourist attractions.