Research On Russia's Immigration Policy

As a complex issue that plagues Russia's economic and social development,immigration has attracted widespread attention from the Russian government and even the international community.In the 20 th century,affected by war and social turmoil,Russia's population ecology was severely damaged.Since the end of the 1990 s,population decline has become a normal trend.Facing such crisis,the Russian government regards immigrants as an important means to make up for the decrease in population,and alleviate the labor shortage in economic development.This has caused a series of social,political and economic problems as well.To solve these problems,Russia formulates,introduces,and adjusts immigration policies based on the characteristics of immigrants at different times.After the disintegration of the Soviet Union,Russia's immigration policy has roughly gone through three stages: an adjustment period,an active governance period,and a new development as well as readjustment period.The goal of its immigration policy formulation is to start from the reality of population crisis,and strictly adhere to the Constitution,international treaties and other legal norms.In accordance with geopolitical and demographic economic principles,it aims to introduce more Russian residents from former Soviet republics,international high-tech talents,investment immigrants and immigrant students.Accordingly,it formulates immigration management measures,reforms immigration management mechanism,and promotes social integration of immigrants for creating favorable conditions for their permanent settlement.The positive interaction between immigrants and Russia's overall development has also brought multifaceted shocks.The positive interaction are reflected in the facts that immigrants make up for the shortage of labor force,improve the efficiency and flexibility of labor market,and stimulate the vitality of business development.Moreover,they help to promote Russian's political process,foreign relations as well as public diplomacy,inject new vitality into culture and enrich its multiculturalism.As a “double-edged sword”,immigration also causes a series of problems.Immigrants breed a “shadow economy” and impact the employment market as well as foreign exchange market order.It weakens the political identity of Russia's legitimacy,triggers ethnic issues,and “three forces” have together threatened the country's sovereignty.Worse still,it increases the burden on social public health and brings disadvantages to Russian culture.Based on the interaction between immigrants and Russia's overall development and its multi-dimensional impacts,Russia has stepped up efforts to adjust its immigration policy.After balance,it has worked out immigration policies suitable for its national conditions.Generally speaking,Russia's immigration policy has a clearer thinking,a more complete planning,a more explicit management focus,and good results have been achieved in immigrant governance.In the future,against the backdrop of domestic population crisis,Russia's general direction of strengthening the introduction of immigrants will not change.In terms of the category,Russia mainly focuses on attracting Russian residents from former Soviet republics,high-tech immigrants and investment immigrants.In addition,it creates a soft environment to promote the integration process of foreign immigrants and adjusts immigration policies dynamically according to domestic and foreign situations.Laws,regulations and supporting policies of immigrants are also improved in stages and steps to make up for deficiencies in social integration,information collection,special policies and illegal immigration governance.All these efforts aim to eventually realize the strategic concept of immigrant development.Since the economic reform and open up,the number of immigrants in China has increased significantly.Some of these immigrants are high-skilled personnel from developed countries.How to attract,retain and take good advantage of these immigrants is a test of the immigration policy.There are many imperfections at present.For example,the immigration policy lacks foresight,the social security system needs to be improved,and immigration admission as well as residence system are too strict,which is not operable.These disadvantages has strongly restricted the entry of high-level skilled immigrants and investment immigrants.Other countries' experience can provide a reference for improving China's immigration policies.As the world's second largest destination country for immigrants,Russia has a unique immigration structure.After nearly 30 years' development,its legal system has been continuously improved,the management level has been enhanced,and the social contribution rate of immigrants has increased.However,its public opinion orientation,information statistics system,and illegal immigration governance measures still need to be improved.Summarizing both the positive and negative experiences of Russia has provided important inspirations for the improvement of China's immigration policy.