If Russia is going to have real influence in the Asia-Pacific it needs to show that it’s interested in working with Asia, not against it. But is it an opportunity or a threat?
The Asia-Pacific region is seen by most as the world’s new center of gravity. But with the Eurasian giant’s significant presence in the Far East, the emerging new architecture among Asian powers has prompted questions about Russia’s role in the region.
The mutual threat perceptions between Russia and other Asian nations have certainly altered over the course of 20 years since the collapse of communism, and Russia is now widely recognized as a nonthreatening great power with global significance. However, regional analysts are still skeptical over the degree to which Russia’s vested interests lie in Asia, and whether these interests are compatible with those of other regional players.
For a start, Russian assessments from 1997 suggested that China, not the United States, posed the greatest threat to Russia’s interests and allies. Indeed, leading Russian scholars of international relations such as Alexei Arbatov predicted that over the next five to 20 years, Russia should carefully watch China’s expansionism toward Siberia and the Russian Far East, as well as Central Asia. Such anxieties have, however, largely dissipated in light of increased confidence-building efforts that led to the creation of a formal regional body, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001.
Still, a notable exception to the usually non-threatening views of China emerged in 2009, when Russian Army Gen. Nikolai Makarov suggested that China and NATO “are the most dangerous of our geopolitical rivals.”
After a period of decline, Russia has been fighting to prove that it doesn’t lack the capacity to change its foreign policy focus from the West to the East. One symbolic example – Vladivostok, the former capital of Russia’s Pacific Ocean Fleet, is hosting the 2012 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meeting. Vladivostok had previously experienced protests triggered by collapsing sea-faring and fishing companies, unemployment, poverty, and population decline. In addition, Moscow has extended the federal program for developing the Far East until 2013, raising Vladivostok’s development funds from 7.5 billion rubles ($241.2 million) to 426 billion rubles ($13.7 billion).
The intensive economic and social development of Siberia and Russia’s Far East are part of Russia’s key strategic priorities in the region. Speaking at the Singapore Global Dialogue in September, another prominent Russian scholar, Sergei Karaganov, presented Siberia as the new source to quench Asia’s thirst for resources; Siberia could attract foreign capital from investors as diverse as the United States, China, Indonesia, and Singapore.
Yet commentators the world over have expressed misgivings about the return of Vladimir Putin as presidential candidate next year, with The Economist going so far as to label Putin “Russia’s humiliator-in-chief.” Others, though, don’t find Putin’s comeback surprising. They note that Russia’s foreign policy under Putin was marked by a policy of “Asianization” from the very beginning, and Putin’s Russia increasingly saw NATO’s eastward enlargement as detrimental to its interests in the former USSR’s sphere of influence. The Kremlin thus engaged in a multidirectional foreign policy in order to create partnerships and integrate Russia within various multilateral structures, such as the leading emerging economies in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the SCO.
Photo Credit: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office
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Smiley G
According to the writer Alicia, East Asia ought to get its act together and once united should similarly seek a East Asia-Euro century as well as a East Asia-America century. In other words subjugate and make these regions outside of East Asia its colonies and vassals. This writer has ulterior motives. Why doesn’t she write that Europe, Eurasia, East Asia, Latin Ameria, Africa, and Arab League should seek to conquer and subjugate North America through the kind of “master plans” she advocate?
Alica Kizekova
I agree with Andor. Russia and China are looking for possible areas of cooperation. I had a chance to speak to the Russian representation at this week’s CSCAP conference in Hanoi and they were all in agreement that the amount of Sino-Russian discussions, meetings and seminars reached unprecedented levels. By the sounds of it, we’ll hear more about the SCO in the upcoming year.
pedrojin
Deym, they’re all creating spark for a war.
ozivan
@pedrojin. Many still cannot accept that Russia and China are at peace now with each other. They must make negative quips to comfort themselves.
BondJ.
Remember Sino-Russian alliance is just a marriage of convenience not based on any trust if any! The only way for Russia to save its Siberia & Far East is ally with all democracies in the Asia-Pacific not with China!And indeed, China is always its nightmarish obsession on its southern border!
Michael
Easy on the Western Freedom, democracy, and China Threat Theory! Just because you support war and revolution causing the death and destruction of countless innocent individual doesn’t mean others are as naive or BRAINWASHE by NeoCon Propaganda! You need to stop watching Jerry Springer, Nascar, Fox News, and CNN!!!
BondJ
I guess we should watch just Xinhua & CCTV instead?! Oh, How cheap & childish all your CCP bloggers are!!
Cam
I think your brrain is already fried by Washington’s hate machine and propaganda!
Temujin
China has violated every international laws (UNCLOS, WTO, Copy Rights, Nuclear Profiteration)and what make you think the Chinese will play by the rules under SCO. Don’t cry for help from the West when China invade Siberia and Russia Far East in the very near future like Hitler did to Russia during WWII. Chinese are very clever, greedy, cunning, and bend their will to achieve total world domination. They view U.S and Russia as obstacles to their ambitions.
a_canadian_observer
@Temujin: Ditto. Unfortunately a lot of us from the West are so naive. They haven’t learnt the lesson from the Nazi days (they did not believe the information presented about the coming Nazis.) This time it’s going to be much worse, because although the Nazis were cruel, they would fight face-to-face.
Andor
Temujin (a Mongolian?) and Canadian observer (Russian immigrant, judging by language),
what nasty comments, insulting two of the greatest nations, China and Russia!
Russia has co-existed with China for centuries. Even at the lowest point of our relationship in the 1960-th both nations were wise enough not to have major confrontation.
We don’t need your Western help, thank you. “Be aware of Greeks bringing gifts” Like vultures, American profiteers descended on the Yeltin’s Russia to teach us “democracy”. American professors, for crying out loud, were trading stock and getting rich when old and vulnerable in Russia were starving. We don’t need your help!
Regarding the Nazi fighting “face to face”, you must really be ignorant! The civilian population of the occupied region can testify that Nazi Army had no honor.
I appreciate the author’ analysis, her thesis at the Bond U. was “Soft Balancing in the Indo-Asia-Pacific: Complexity, threat and contending multilateral framework” and she, obviously, is well qualified to understand the intricacies of the multinational efforts to find common grounds for cooperation and mutual respect.
You two, on the other hand, are looking to sow the discord.
applesauce
you have no idea what your talking about do you?
just about everyone has broken the so called “laws” you listed at some point or another heck the US hasn’t even ratified UNCLOS, and china is a founding members of SCO it is one of two member who cakes the rules there.
ozivan
@Temujin. Chinese are very clever, greedy, cunning, and bend their will to achieve total world domination.
Very true, when Temujin aka Genghis Khan conquered China and made China her center of the world. Part of this great culture came from Temujin under the Yuan dynasty.
ozivan
Hard luck for those wishing discord between Russia & China. Try another trick because there aren’t any more disputes left between them on borders or politics.
Just sometimes commercial disagreements that don’t cause wars.
Nathan
What you meant to say is “The Westerners are very clever, greedy, cunning, and bend their will to achieve total world domination” That sounds much more like reality!