Book Description

Northeast Asia (NEA) is a place where economic interdependence among the N A "troika"-China, Japan and South Korea-is growing. Moreover, intense interaction within that troika will determine the extent of further economic (and political) integration in the much wider region-Pacific Asia (which stretches from areas of Pacific Russia in the north to New-Zealand in the south). This is a very important fact for Russia, though an understanding of its significance for the country has come only very recently. The long-standing issue for Russia is the future of the Russian Far East (Pacific Russia or RFE), its social and economic development, and its security. Pacific Russia's future depends to a great extent on its involvement in the NEA regional economy. Yet Russia continues to maintain a low profile in NEA, despite new efforts made by the Russian government to move the center of gravity of the country's economy eastward, towards its vast, uninhabited territory with its huge potential resources. But the NEA still remains a rather small blip on the Russian foreign policy radar. For example, in the list of priorities announced by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in his 2009 interview regarding the country's foreign policy agenda, one finds the so-called reset in the relations with the United States, European security, the importance of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), etc. As usual, NEA and Russia's national interests in the Far East received short shrift. China was mentioned, viz., the importance of "developing multi-dimension relations with China and our other partners in BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, and China]."1 Granted, relations with China have great importance for Russia, but BRIC remains a phantom entity with quite an unclear future. In the 1990s, both negative and positive tendencies surfaced in the vast RFE and Eastern Siberia region. Negative tendencies included a shrinking population (which is still the case), disrupted economic ties with other parts of the country (often called the mainland), and deteriorating standards of living. On the positive side, changes in the country allowed for and encouraged population moves from the north of the region southward to areas with better climate and other conditions for human habitation. More importantly, after decades of insulation from its neighbors during the days of the Soviet Union, the Russian Far East was opened for developing direct ties in various fields with China, Japan, and other neighbors in the Asia Pacific without having to ask for permission from Moscow to make every trade deal. This was a great help to the Russian Far East in surviving economically through the hardship of the 1990s. It also elevated Pacific Russian trade volume with Asia Pacific countries, making it larger than trade volume between other parts of Russia and the Asia Pacific countries. Unfortunately, the levels of criminality and corruption in the RFE have not improved and may even have gotten worse.