Balancing between Legality and Illegality: Russian Import of Japanese Used Cars and Unauthorized Export of Russian Marine Bioresources to Japan

This article focuses on two main issues: the capability of informal cross-border entrepreneurs to resist penalization of their activities by a government, and governmental capability to win competition with informal entrepreneurs in the long-term. Two kinds of informal trade activities between Russia and Japan—import of used cars and trafficking of marine bioresources—are taken as case studies. I argue that in both considered cases informal cross-border traders have tried to exploit cross-border differences to their benefit, balancing between legal, low-punishable, and heavily punishable practices. Both kinds of informal trade proved to be highly resistant to suppressive government policies and highly capable of exploiting legal and law enforcement loopholes. Still, suppressive government policies proved to be at least partially successful in the long-term perspective.

在合法与非法之间保持平衡： 俄罗斯进口日本旧汽车与俄罗斯海洋生物资源未经授权出口日本

关键词： 边界研究；非正式跨边界贸易；合法与非法； 日-俄关系。

本文关注两个主要问题： 非正式的跨境企业家抵抗政府处罚他们活动的能力，以及政府在长期过程中取得与非正式企业家竞争中的胜利的能力。本文取俄罗斯与日本之间的两种非正式贸易活动——旧车进口和海洋生物资源非法贩运——为案例。我提出在此两个案例中非正式跨境贸易商都尝试了利用边界两方的差异为自己牟利，在合法的、惩罚性低以及惩罚性高的做法之间寻找平衡。本文发现，两种非正式贸易都高度抗拒政府的压制性政策，并且也非常善于利用法律和法律执行中的漏洞。但是，从长期来看， 政府的压制性政策也显示出至少取得了部分的成功。

Translated from English by Li Guo