ИСТИНА

This paper compares two border zones of Russia bordering Heilongjiang province of China, Pogranichny–Suifenhe and Blagoveshchensk–Heihe, and discusses how the checkpoint arrangement configures the organization of shuttle trade and hence border-crossing to and fro China and Russia. Border checkpoint is a state institution common to all nation-states. In most instances it is highly securitized if not militarized. It is the prime establishment responsible for regulating trans-boundary movements and enforcing the selective permeability of borders. As border crossings are allowed only at sanctioned points of entry and exit, checkpoints are therefore the point of power negotiation among state and non-state actors in the maintenance and modification of borders as an institution of selective passage. Different types of border crossings are guarded by different state agencies such as customs, immigration, border police and military. Oftentimes, a significant difference can be found between the two sides of a border in terms of strictness of checkpoint control. At the local level, it is the immigration and customs officials who constantly negotiate the application of laws and exercise the discretion to decide on which kinds of goods/people to let go, in what quantities, by whom, at which checkpoints, and in what moments. In this sense, repeated negotiation of the licitness of social and commodity movements is a key activity revolve around the checkpoints. We examine in this paper the checkpoint regime and the co-existence of formal and informal border-crossers. We will discuss how the brokerage of shuttle (or carrier) trade is organized in accordance with different checkpoint settings, in this case, a land vs. river checkpoint. We argue that while the trade is informal to the extent that it is shadowy, the trade is indeed highly organized with complex division of labor, and we describe such a combination of organized competence and informal networks as “organized informality”.