In Russia, Chinese workers have privilege to protest

Mark O'Neill August 25, 2026 10:18

These were scenes Russians could not imagine. More than 1,000 construction workers surrounded vehicles of the armed police and National Guard and forced them to release from a vehicle a worker they had detained.

Over 200 workers marched through the street of a city in Khabarovsk, in the Far East, demanding back payment and help from President Vladimir Putin.

How could they get away with it? The workers were Chinese, the largest single group of foreign workers outside those from the CIS, countries in the former Soviet Union.

Normally subject to no restraint, the Russian security forces did not want to arrest citizens of the country’s most important military and trading partner. In the first seven months of this year, trade reached US$159 billion, up 26 per cent on the same period in 2025. It is likely to set a new record for the full year. China is the most important supplier of materiel for Russia’s war effort.

Data from the Russian Ministry of the Interior shows that, in 2025, it issued 92,000 work permits to Chinese, up 50 per cent from the year before. In total, it issued 240,000 such permits, up 42 per cent, with India second to China with 56,500, up from 36,200 in 2024.

Russia faces a chronic labour shortage. More than 1.4 million have been killed, wounded or missing in the Ukraine war and an estimated one million have fled to avoid mobilisation. Economists put the nationwide shortage of workers at about 1.5 million.

The worst hit sectors are manufacturing, construction, agriculture, energy and logistics.

The first Chinese protest this year took place on April 12 at Komsomolk-na-Amure in Khabarovk. The workers are building a fuel-making unit at a Rosneft refinery and work for a Russo-Chinese joint venture Petro-Hehua.

They marched through the streets demanding back pay and help from Putin and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. In a statement, the regional government said that the Rosneft subsidiary and the mayor’s office “had established contact with the workers and promised to provide assistance.”

The second protest occurred on August 9 at a construction site of the Baltic Chemical Complex near Ust-Luga in the St Petersburg region. A Chinese worker was arguing with management over months of unpaid wages and was arrested by police.

More than 1,000 of his colleagues came out to support him and forced the security forces to release him by surrounding their vehicles and preventing them from leaving. They sang the Chinese national anthem. Some shouted: “hit the dog bitches”.

Li Qiang, executive director of China Labour Watch, said that, in 2025 and 2026, the workers at the Ust-Luga site had faced wage delays of three to eight months, confiscation of passports and restrictions on movements.

One blogger commented: “it seems the only people capable of protesting today are Chinese workers. Perhaps, when Chinese start electing the president of Russia, something will finally change.”

The Ust-Luga workers also face the risk of attack from Ukrainian drones. This year they have repeatedly attacked oil and port facilities in the area, Russia’s most important export hub on the Baltic. It handles about 700,00 barrels of crude oil a day.

The Chinese workers have another privilege often not extended to other foreign workers – they are not likely to be forced to sign military contracts and be sent to fight at the front in Ukraine.
Most at risk are those from the five countries of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Data published in April by the Ukrainian War Prisoners Co-ordination showed that more than 12,000 people from Central Asia had fought in the Russian army in the war, companied to 1,400 Africans and 200 Indians.

While some willingly signed a contract for the money, others were forced to sign as a condition to obtain Russian citizenship or escape punishment or prison for a crime the police chose to charge them with.

This is despite the fact that the governments of the five countries ban their citizens from fighting in foreign war.

In January 2024, Putin signed a decree, allowing certain foreigners to obtain Russian citizenship under the condition that they served the army, especially during the “special military operation”.

Tens of thousands of Central Asia live and work in Russia because of lack of job opportunities and low wages at home. Most speak Russian.

It seems that, despite Russia’s desperate need for more soldiers, Chinese have been spared from this forced mobilisation. The small number who have joined the army have done so as volunteers, in search of money, adventure or a Russian passport.

Like their compatriots at Ust-Luga and the Khabarovsk site, they are protected by Russia’s heavy reliance on China. If they were sent to the front, they would be killed, wounded or captured. Would the Chinese government and public agree to that?

Mark O'Neill

A Hong Kong-based writer, teacher and speaker.