Putin's "turn to the East" in the Xi Jinping Era 1032478225, 9781032478227

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PUTIN’S “TURN TO THE EAST” IN THE XI JINPING ERA

Rozman, Christoffersen, and a team of expert contributors analyze the evolution of Vladimir Putin’s reorientation to Asia since 2012. When Putin announced a “Turn to the East” in Russian foreign policy upon his return to the presidency, this was to be strategic reorientation emphasizing multilateralism. As the years have passed, however, this has turned into a tight reliance on the bilateral relationship with China. Rozman, Christoffersen, and their team explore how the “Turn” proceeded and developed over the course of a decade, ending by examining the impact of the Ukraine war on Sino-Russian relations. Their analysis focuses on Russia’s perspective, taking into account an extensive range of Russian publications to look at how priorities shifted. While affirming the continued strengthening of ties between Beijing and Moscow, they identify many tensions between them, noting especially Russia’s illusions about the relationship. A comprehensive review of Russian policy toward the Indo-Pacific, which is essential reading for courses on Russian foreign policy and international relations in East Asia. Gilbert Rozman is the Emeritus Musgrave Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, USA, and Editor-in-chief of The Asan Forum. Gaye Christoffersen is a former Professor of International Politics, Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, Hopkins-Nanjing Center.

PUTIN’S “TURN TO THE EAST” IN THE XI JINPING ERA

Edited by Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christoffersen

Designed cover image: © Getty Images First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christoffersen; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christoffersen to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 9781032478227 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032478210 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003386148 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148 Typeset in Bembo Std by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

CONTENTS

List of Contributors

vii

Introduction1 Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christoffersen PART I

Conceptualizing the Big Picture17 1 Tracking Russia’s “Turn to the East” Gilbert Rozman

19

2 Debating Russia’s “Turn to the East” Gilbert Rozman

37

3 The Illusion that Realism Is Driving Sino-Russian Relations Katie Stallard and Gilbert Rozman

55

PART II

Turning in Multiple Directions

67

4 The Russian Far East and China’s Northeast: A Decade in the Shadow of the Belt and Road Initiative Gaye Christoffersen

69

vi Contents

5 Central Asia over a Decade: The Shifting Balance between Russia and China Gaye Christoffersen

91

6 Russian Thinking about the Korean Peninsula and the US Role There over a Decade Gilbert Rozman

119

7 Russia “Turns to the East” yet away from Japan James D. J. Brown

138

8 Mongolia: Russia’s Best Friend in Asia? Sergey Radchenko and Mendee Jargalsaikhan

160

9 Conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific in Russia’s “Turn to the East” Gilbert Rozman PART III

Reconciling the Ukraine War and the “Turn to the East”

172

187

10 Russian Thinking about CSTO Peacekeeping: Central Asia, China, and the Ukraine War Gaye Christoffersen

189

11 The Ukraine War in the Context of Russian Thinking about China Gilbert Rozman

211

Index

235

CONTRIBUTORS

James D. J. Brown is the professor of Political Science at Temple University, Japan Campus. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of York and postgraduate degrees from the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. His main area of research is Japan-Russia relations. His work has been published in several academic journals, including International Affairs, Asia Policy, Asian Perspective, International Politics, Post-Soviet Affairs, Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of PostCommunism, and The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. His books include Japan, Russia and their Territorial Dispute: The Northern Delusion (Routledge 2017) and Japan’s Foreign Relations in Asia, edited with Jeff Kingston (Routledge 2018). Gaye Christoffersen has taught at Johns Hopkins University, SAIS, Nanjing

Center (2012–21), the Naval Postgraduate School, the University of Hawaii, and Eastern Mediterranean University. She was the first Fulbright Professor at Far Eastern Federal University (1992–93) and was also a Fulbright Professor at Chinese Foreign Affairs University (1998–2000). She is the editor of Russia in the Indo-Pacific: New Approaches to Russian Foreign Policy (2022). She is an editorial board member of the Chinese Journal of Slavic Studies and Comparative Politics Russia, a journal of the Center of Comprehensive Chinese Studies and Regional Projects, Moscow State University of International Relations. Mendee Jargalsaikhan is the deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Stud-

ies of Mongolia. He graduated from the Mongolian National Defense University and received MAs from the US Naval Postgraduate School and the University of British Columbia. He obtained his PhD in political science from the University of British Columbia. Mendee served as political science and language instructor at

viii Contributors

the National Defense University, chief of the Foreign Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Defense, defense attaché at the Embassy of Mongolia in Washington, DC, senior expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies, and deputy director of the Institute for Defense Analysis. Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns

Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics. Radchenko has written extensively on the Cold War, nuclear history, and Russian and Chinese foreign and security policies. He served as a Global Fellow and a Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre and as the Zi Jiang Distinguished Professor at East China Normal University (Shanghai). Gilbert Rozman is the editor in chief of The Asan Forum, a bimonthly, online

journal on international relations in the Indo-Pacific. He is also the Emeritus Musgrave Professor of Sociology of Princeton University. Rozman graduated from Carleton College with a major in Chinese and Russian studies after attending the Critical Languages Program at Princeton University. He returned to Princeton as a graduate student before joining the faculty, on which he served for 43 years. Since 2012, he has annually organized three or four panels for the Korean Economic Institute, either at national conventions or at universities. He specializes on Northeast Asia. Katie Stallard is a senior editor, China and Global Affairs, of the New Statesman

and a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. She is the author of Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia, and North Korea, published by Oxford University Press in 2022. She was previously based in Moscow and Beijing as a foreign correspondent for Sky News, leading coverage of the Russian annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power. She is a graduate of University College London and King’s College London.

INTRODUCTION Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christoffersen

Vladimir Putin has exited the West with a bang, going to war in Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 and declaring that the US-led world order is being replaced. He has rested his hopes on the “Turn to the East,” launched in 2012, while claiming that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and other groupings jointly led with China are poised to forge a new order. The story of Putin’s “Turn to the East” over a decade is first and foremost an account of far-reaching hopes for Xi Jinping’s China. It is also a narrative of grandiose plans to pursue multipolarity through a new regional architecture capable of transforming the bulk of Asia. Putin’s ambitions have rested on his war in Europe and, no less, on securing Xi’s support for an idealized reconstruction of Asia. This book assesses Russia’s “Turn” over a decade with emphasis on thinking and policies toward China. It accepts the prevailing narrative of deepening rejection of the West and of increasing reliance on China. Observers are correct to highlight an ever-closer relationship. The Ukraine war reinforces that narrative. The main contribution here, however, is to point to inadequacies in this narrative. We delve into how relations have evolved, how Russians have conceptualized the “Turn,” how the Ukraine war matters, and how recent plans for the “Turn to the East” may fare. Striving to alter the trajectory of Sino-Russian relations, Russia has deepened its dilemma. Vladimir Putin reclaimed the presidency of the Russian Federation, after a four-year stint as prime minister, planning an audacious foreign policy agenda. Outrage at the United States and aggression against Ukraine drew the most attention, but insistence that he was turning away from the West focused also on his signature “Turn to the East.” Central to this initiative was a reconceptualization of Russia’s relationship with China, capitalizing on Xi Jinping’s accession as

DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-1

2  Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christoffersen

general secretary. More than Sino-Russian relations were at stake. Putin foresaw reconstruction of the continental Asian landmass driven by Russia’s security, economic, and national identity ambitions, gaining a pivotal role for Moscow in the shadow of Xi’s own restructuring agenda. The word “Turn” is reminiscent of the Obama era talk of a “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia. What Putin had in mind has been much more far-reaching. While Obama would build on the maritime orientation of Asia and the existing US alliances in what became known as the US “Indo-Pacific” strategy. Putin saw a need to transform Asia into Eurasia—a far more fundamental shift toward continentalism—and to reorient Russia away from Europe—a monumental task shaking up bilateral relations not only with China but with many other Asian states. Security, economics, and identity would be massively transformed in what was more an “about-face” than a “Turn.” In the face of clashing views of the geography of Asia, Russia struggled to define the meaning of the “East.” Was it narrowly conceived as an affirmation of Siberia and the Russian Far East as the new centers of Russian dynamism, extending their ties to adjoining areas in Northeast and Central Asia, perhaps with the pizzazz of the “Arctic-Pacific” as new waterways emerged through global warming? Or was it broadly interpreted as encompassing Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and South Asia, leaving only Southwest Asia on the margins and perhaps even imagining that Europe could eventually be folded into Eurasia? Over a decade, the “Turn” grew ever grander in its sweep and the “East” expanded ever farther from Russia’s borders. There was no shortage of hubris in Putin’s aims. The “Turn to the East” gave Russia renewed confidence in its power, gave a huge boost to its resource-based economy, and fueled optimism about Eurasianism, as both identity and a force for Asian reorganization. Yet, in each of its iterations, over a decade, failure to achieve stated goals overshadowed these sources of confidence. Frustration grew that Russia had to find a way to alter the ongoing trajectory. Instead of salvaging the “Turn,” Putin left it at an impasse. The “Turn to the East” aimed to resolve at least five perceived problems but exacerbated them all. One goal was to secure the Russian Far East as a dynamic part of Asia rather than a Russian backwater. Its vulnerability to China’s influence and possible irredentism, however, has grown after three decades of struggle to win China’s acquiescence to Russia’s successive proposals. A second goal was to stabilize a division of labor in Central Asia favorable to Russia. However, the balance keeps shifting in China’s direction with no sign of any stable accommodation. The third objective has been to reach agreement with China on regional architecture, leaving room for Sinocentrism in some arenas but boosting Russocentrism, reflected in designs for Eurasianism. Yet, by the early 2020s Russian plans were in disarray after many attempts to claim an accord had been reached. Fourth, among Russia’s expectations, was to forge a relationship of equals; instead, an increasingly asymmetrical relationship took shape, reflected in perceived Chinese arrogance.

Introduction  3

Finally, the “Turn” promised Russian leverage in the Grand Strategic Triangle of Russia-United States-China, before rising bipolarity left Russia in danger of marginalization. Then the Ukraine war rendered Russia even more dependent on China, contrary to Putin’s intentions. Envisioned throughout the decade was a duopoly with China across a broad expanse of Asia called Eurasia, backed by an organizational framework they would lead together. Any designs for China-centered regionalism—such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) inclusive of Russia, economic integration between Northeast China and the Russian Far East, the Polar Sea Route, or a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Central Asia—had to be stopped in their tracks. The possibility of cooperating closely with the United States, Japan, or South Korea remained a non-starter, given Russia’s emphasis on military assertiveness and hostility to the US-led order. Only an agenda for a Eurasian civilization standing obsessively alone and a Grand Strategic Triangle in which Moscow and Beijing both aggressively resisted the West could satisfy Russia’s grandiose aspirations. Apart from Russian shortsightedness about how to achieve its goals in the East, the problem arose of how to get China to act in tandem. After all, Russia was playing a weak hand and had no choice but to count on China. Arguably, the evolution of the “Turn to the East” was more a function of China’s decisions than Russia’s strategies. Illusions about what Russian moves could accomplish faced the reality of how China’s greater clout would keep steering the outcome. Analyzing the “Turn to the East” across a decade opens a window on many questions central to Russian foreign policy at a critical juncture. Five in particular are examined closely in the eleven chapters that follow. One, what is the connection between the “Turn” and Russian aggression in the West? These two directions of Russian foreign policy are usually viewed separately, but we focus on the strong linkage between them. Two, what is the connection between thinking in Russia about the “Grand Strategic Triangle” of RussiaUnited States-China and the “Turn to the East?” An obsession with the United States casts a dark shadow on policy toward both China and Asia. Three, how can we make sense of the multitude of explanations offered in Russia for what the “Turn to the East” is? We trace the evolution of thinking across a decade over four stages. Four, how do the Russian Far East and Central Asia figure into strategies for boosting Russia in Asia? It is in these areas where Moscow feels especially vulnerable where wariness of China is greatest. Finally, what is the national identity foundation for insisting that Russia is a major player in the East? Under Gorbachev, Russia’s place in the “common European home” was ballyhooed; now its Eurasian identity is showcased, seeking to satisfy the ongoing search for the “Russian Idea.” The multiplicity of goals for the “Turn to the East” belied the priorities Russia held dear. Sure, it was advertised as a program to “modernize” the Russian Far East through foreign investment, but openness to Japan and South Korea or even

4  Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christoffersen

to China did not stand a chance in light of the real priority of military prowess to make Russia a country with which others had to reckon. In reasoning about the strategic triangle with the United States and China, hopes to gain leverage faded before determination to use China to pressure the US. It became clear that boosting the development of the Russian Far East was a secondary concern and capitalizing on dynamism in the richest countries of the region took a back seat to expanding exports to China at a furious pace. Relying heavily on China while keeping it at some distance served claims of “Eurasianism,” which were foremost among Russia’s objectives for restructuring the landscape of the “East.” Over the decade, Russian writings on the “Turn to the East” essentially split into two camps. On the mainstream side, triumphalism reigns. Whatever the adjustment being made, it reflected a continuous record of forward momentum. Relations with China only kept drawing closer and serving Russian interests more. Worsening relations with some states only resulted from their hostility, not any mistakes on Russia’s behalf. In contrast, from the critical side came references to problems that needed to be addressed without direct acknowledgment of the responsibility that Russia or even China bore. Suggestions sometimes followed of how the Russian state could improve the situation, taking care to avoid any call for better relations with the United States. If the problems were understood even in mainstream circles, which did not wish to acknowledge them, the solutions defied published debate because each required a sharp change of course. Of the three alternatives—accept China’s leadership, reverse course in cooperating with the US and its allies, or find a way to be taken more seriously by China— only the third was consistent with the claims Russia had been making. Critics had flagged the problem, and the mainstream was more satisfied with the solution: Russia could prove itself in the West for clout in the East. As much as a debate about China could have guided Moscow toward sounder decisions on both the “Turn to the East,” as it evolved, and on the impact of the decision to go to war in Ukraine, no such debate was possible under tightening censorship. Critics raised questions around the edges with no opportunity to address fundamental questions. Policy drifted in one direction, never challenging key assumptions about China, Sino-Russian relations, or the Grand Strategic Triangle. A Transformative Decade, 2012–22

Intense Russian interest in the architecture of Asia spans centuries, ranging from narrow plans to secure far-flung territories to wide-ranging designs for establishing a Russocentric regional order. Leaders found themselves perpetually frustrated at the strategic vulnerability of cities on Russia’s periphery and at the limited economic clout Russia could bring to bear, given the stark demographic realities. Extreme remedies were tried, one after the other: interventions and war with Korea and Japan; mass expulsions of Asians; communist revolutions

Introduction  5

in China and Korea; concentration camp labor; and in the post-Stalin decades vast resettlement utilizing incentives. The Sino-Soviet dispute of the 1960–80s exposed the huge costs of selecting a flawed strategy. In the 1990s–2000s, the stakes were raised by persistent warnings of becoming marginalized. In 2012, a resurgent Putin, bursting with confidence, devised the most comprehensive plan yet to turn Russia to the East. Over ten years of adjustments, Putin showed his serious determination. Over a decade from the December 2012 Vladivostok Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Russia sought to clarify what it called its “Turn to the East.” Doubts were raised at every stage. Calling for multipolarity, was it not prioritizing China too much? If its focus was just on the East, why did Putin annex Crimea, plunging further into an assault on Donetsk and Luhansk? When hope of “docking” the Eurasian Economic Union’s (EEU) economy with China’s fell flat along with infrastructure appeals for China to fund railroads to Europe through Russia, what was left of the economic agenda for a Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP)? The geopolitical agenda for the GEP likewise was put under a cloud by China’s aggression against India on their border, leaving critics to ask if asymmetrical relations with China allowed it to ignore Russian interests. Tensions over history and territorial memories led also to questions about the long-term prospects for mutual trust. Finally, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 cast doubt on how Russia balanced between East and West. Here we note four stages in the “Turn.” Prior to the 2014 Crimean invasion, multipolarity was highlighted, promising diverse successes and working with a wide array of partners. In the second stage, “docking” stood in the forefront, claiming that linkage of the EEU (dominated by Russia) with China’s new plan for a Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) would establish a framework for bilateral and regional relations. By 2017, failures in “docking” and China’s shift to a broad regional framework in the BRI led Russia to counter with the GEP, which Beijing was said to endorse. This was the focus to 2021 despite its vague substance and dubious assumptions about the influence of Russia in India and ASEAN countries. In Chapters 1 and 2, we explore a stage from 2019, but with the Ukraine war, we recognize that this was secondary to the transformation from 2022. With the “Turn to the East” at an impasse, the only solution for Moscow to avoid irrelevance was to act in the West to put itself on a new footing in the East. The Ukraine war was less a game changer than an accelerator: applying muscle to gain more equal footing with China; reclaiming an historical identity to show that Russia is not in the West and can expand the meaning of Eurasianism, sanctifying the post-WWII split order as the only internationally legitimate one versus the US-led order. In this fourth stage, Russia would affirm its place in the Grand Strategic Triangle, build a second front helping China to retake Taiwan, and solidify ties to China in a power dyad. Yet, it would also pursue multipolarity ostensibly at odds with a dyad.

6  Gilbert Rozman and Gaye Christoffersen

Three problems stood out in the initial period of Putin’s pursuit of the “Turn to the East.” First, there were worries about the cost to modernization of Russia casting the West aside and joining China, not prioritizing domestic economic reform. Second, there was fear that multipolarity was under threat, given the heavy reorientation toward China. Third, suspicions ran deep of China’s intentions in Central Asia, especially after X Jinping unilaterally launched the SREB. These were just reservations prior to 2014 since Putin’s policies were still unclear. The mainstream insisted that this “Turn” would ensure the future by hitching the Russian Far East and Siberia to the dynamism of Asia, which was refuted by warnings that plans to develop this part of Russia keep failing with little sign of foreign investments or the launching of industries. Resting the argument for this reorientation heavily on its impact on economic transformation left an opening for rebuttals. The APEC summit saw critics decry that Vladivostok had only superficially changed, and the real problems of Russia and the Far East’s economies were not being addressed. Criticisms of failures in multipolarity due to prioritizing only China highlighted wariness of China’s economic penetration, either in Asiatic Russia or Central Asia. Going to war in Ukraine in 2014, Moscow determined to prioritize China even more, while broadening the agenda across Eurasia. When the “Turn to the East” was still new and the break with the West uncertain, resistance was generally seen as old thinking by Europhiles, who had stood in the way of earlier efforts. There was some willingness to give Putin the benefit of the doubt for good intentions. Skepticism was visible in a wait-and-see attitude since the Soviet and post-Soviet habit of big programs with little funding was hard to erase from people’s minds. Putin heralded summits with regional leaders. From 2014, however, concentration on China grew clearer along with rejection of the West and US Asian allies. In his “triumphant” May 2014 summit in China, Putin made a strong case that massive Chinese funding would boost Russia as an energy superpower with powerful spillover effects. The critics charged that China was now taking advantage of Russia and not becoming the partner Putin had sought, and they warned that the “Turn to the East” was losing multipolarity. By late 2014, China’s failure to step up was hard to conceal, but Putin doubled down on China and on North Korean ties. In Russian foreign policy thinking, the ability to advance big geopolitical and geo-economic projects is proof of being a great power. Vying within a rarified Grand Strategic Triangle, putting Russia at the center of a vision of a new regional and global order, and summitry with grandiose promises all sustained the “Turn to the East.” Russia approached China in search of acceptance as a co-leader with its own autonomous model. China responded with soothing words about leadership but quite stringent conditions for cooperation. A cat and mouse game followed of rival agendas across Asia.

Introduction  7

Economics had dominated the rhetoric on the “Turn to the East” to 2016, shifting from 2014 to Sino-Russian plans on a continental scale. The “Turn to the East” seemed to be exclusively with China, counted on to build infrastructure for exporting resources. But projects that rely on Chinese loans and provide China with new markets for its technology and work force drew criticism for how few Russian jobs would be created and how much they would increase Russia’s foreign debt. Divided over the meaning of little progress in joining the EEU and SREB ( just a transit corridor or a geo-economic, geopolitical rearrangement), Russians were asked to widen their horizons to Greater Eurasia. A geographical construct was given as reason for hope, but some saw it as a diversion. China prioritized a transport corridor via Central Asia, bypassing the Russian Far East to Russian chagrin. Eager to showcase compatibility, the two identified the SCO as the coordinating arena. Putin’s appeal turned to “Greater Eurasia” including the SCO and ASEAN, while desperately denying signs of a Sinocentric vision across Asia. The GEP was the new watchword. In the late 2010s, Putin welcomed signs of a New Cold War: the Trump-Xi trade war, the failure of diplomacy over North Korea, and, above all, signs of greater Chinese assertiveness, as over Taiwan. If critics looked through the prism of more asymmetrical Sino-Russian relations, Putin focused on a growing SinoRussian convergence in the Grand Strategic Triangle. Geopolitics clearly stood in the forefront. With Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un rocking the world order and Putin eager to put the spotlight on security, a new era had dawned, obscuring the need to pay close attention to complications of coordinating with China in the East. The mainstream took the New Cold War as reason for optimism—Sino-Russian ties were better than ever, the US position had weakened, Russia was primed to exercise more influence, the Russian Far East was poised to boom with Sino-Russian cooperation on the Northern Sea Route, etc. If critics were turning more pessimistic about Russia’s prospects—overdependent on an aroused China that is likely to turn on Russia, bereft of hope for multipolarity, without a strategy for technological autonomy, in danger of falling prey to China’s disrespect for Russian sovereignty in the Arctic, etc.—Putin dismissed all such warnings. More difficult to dismiss was growing pressure from China to put the relationship on stronger footing, inconsistent with Putin’s designs. China sought to resolve problems such as neutralizing Russian actors who do not welcome stronger relations (or who point to problems); building trust, as if Russians of late had shown too little trust; orienting the relationship toward the progress of humanity and the development of civilizations; respecting one another as forces for this common good (praising China more and downplaying problems); and improving mutual images based on contacts. China sought a closer relationship on its terms, but critics feared the effect of yielding to its demands. Putin could see where China’s appeals led, and he looked for some path forward.

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The “Turn to the East” began in 2012–14 with developing the Russian Far East and pursuing wide-ranging multipolarity in the forefront. Although China eclipsed the other targets of Putin’s outreach, even Japan and South Korea drew proposals for cooperation. In 2014–16, the shadow of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and attacks in eastern Ukraine spread to Asia. Although Tokyo and Seoul limited their implementation of sanctions, Putin showed less interest in relying on them and turned more decisively to China, refocusing on cooperation in Central Asia. Through a third stage of conceptualization of the “Turn,” the scope widened further to India and ASEAN, as part of the GEP. China was taking the initiative in regional plans, and Putin both strove to ride its coattails, aggrandizing Russia’s position as co-architect, and to counter Sinocentric implications of its designs by insisting on Russocentric proposals. An impasse was increasingly apparent. In 2020–21, China’s worsening relationship with the United States drew more attention to the Grand Strategic Triangle, lessening talk of Greater Eurasia and multipolarity. Assuming that China needed Russia more, the mainstream dismissed talk of undue dependence on it. Yet, critics saw more signs of Chinese arrogance toward Russia—“wolf warrior” rhetoric was not limited to clear adversaries. Pushback against growing talk of an alliance warned that China is disrespectful of Russian interests and its sphere of influence, that Russia would become entangled in Sino-US conflicts in which it has no stake, that it would be pressured to follow China’s policies on India and Vietnam and in disputes in Northeast Asia, that China would dictate one-sided terms of trade, and eventually China would impose its view of history and revive the territorial dispute. Above all, the message was conveyed that China views Russia as a secondrate country. The impression spread that China’s assertiveness was beginning to be directed more blatantly at Russia. The unwritten contract of leaving the past behind and respecting each other’s domestic narratives could soon be broken. Second, China’s foreign policy behavior in Asia had undercut the Russian agenda, most seriously with India. Russian assumptions about how the two would work together were being shattered. Moreover, the image of China’s domestic trajectory raised doubts among observers, as it reverted to authoritarianism and aggressiveness. The case against Putin’s authoritarian drift and foreign policy obsessions may have been on critics’ minds when they challenged the mainstream version of the “Turn to the East.” As some took satisfaction from China’s “victory of socialism” against capitalism, a backlash was growing against the threat of Russia also reasserting socialism. Warnings that the “Turn to the East” was not going according to plan did not, however, dissuade Putin from doubling down on his initiative. Instead, he found one more cause for optimism, not in Asia itself but in Europe, where he intended to transform the Grand Strategic Triangle. Putin never acknowledged the setbacks to his plans in earlier stages of the “Turn to the East,” and in 2022 he insisted that his “special military operation” in Ukraine would both strengthen ties to China

Introduction  9

and accelerate the establishment of a new international and Asian order. With one, bold stroke, he could rapidly advance his goals for the “Turn,” overcoming problems others detected. China’s shift from “peace and development” to perceived support for a New Cold War emboldened Putin. The breakdown of diplomacy over North Korea with China taking the same stance as Russia may have energized Putin too. Most appealing to him was the downward spiral in Sino-US ties. If optimism about China’s readiness to challenge the US was an overreach, it had a potent impact. The Ukraine War and the “Turn to the East”

Having opted for war in Europe, Russia counted even more on Asia, especially on China but also on the promise of reorganization centered, first of all, on the SCO. Bilateral trade skyrocketed with China; oil sold at a discount was diverted from Europe. Yet, refusing to sell arms to Russia or to risk secondary US sanctions for exports of certain goods, China failed to satisfy Russia’s needs. After the 20th Party Congress bolstered authoritarianism and economic centralization, applause from Russia resounded, but censorship was not so tight as to exclude warnings that China’s ascent was not guaranteed or a gerontocratic drift of the sort seen in the late Brezhnev era could follow. Talk of a new world order just around the corner soothed Russian concerns, but not everyone echoed the claims that China was ready to challenge the existing order, which had benefited it greatly, or that the SCO could achieve the unanimity needed to lead the way. Such doubts left the “Turn to the East” in limbo rather than on a fast track to quenching the thirst for an idealistic outcome from the total alienation from the West. Assumptions that the “Turn to the East” was still advancing, full speed ahead, met lingering realist reservations. At war in Europe, Russia sees Asia in a new light. The mainstream has grown more dominant, and dissent, if that word were used liberally, has narrowed much further. Attention to China overwhelms other themes. Does that mean that debate has disappeared entirely on themes associated with the “Turn to the East?” No, there still is an indirect debate under way between the mainstream, proChina optimists, who see a chance for a knock-out blow against others as “proAmerican,” and those struggling to convey concerns about China and argue for realism in opposition to urgent calls to forge a new world order with China and the SCO, as if in reach. To the anger of the mainstream, an alternative reality is still present. It sees China in a quite different light. Rather than continuing its charge forward, China has growing troubles, even to the point of being equated with the late Brezhnev era, at least for its gerontocracy. Likewise, instead of sharing Russia’s enthusiasm for abandoning the old world order and plunging into a new one, China is largely operating within the existing order and intends to hold its ground. In this

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skeptical outlook on Russia’s designs for radical change, the SCO is recognized as diverse with no prospects for acquiring a transformative role in the near future. The alternative logic is left vague, and its implications are not spelled out, but hardliners express hostility to its views. The mainstream has doubled down on China. To doubt it is now equated with putting Russia in jeopardy. Praise for the SCO has reached extraordinary levels. It is foremost in the assertions that a new world order is rapidly emerging. North Korean missile launches draw no greater concern than South Korean and US military exercises. A bipolar lens is fully in view in Russia. In the shadow of the Ukraine war, oft unmentioned, the “Turn to the East” is leaping forward. Russian Far East

Vladimir Putin’s “Turn to the East,” announced in 2012, was seen as benefiting primarily the Far East region of Russia. The 2012 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting was held in Vladivostok to highlight the Russian Far East’s role as Russia’s window on the Asia-Pacific. The “Turn” should have been able to work out the relationship between the Russian Far East and the Chinese Northeast, especially along their common border, but it was not written locally. Many analysts in Moscow worked on developing what it meant to “Turn to the East” at the doctrinal level, which found expression in six reports compiled into a book Towards the Great Ocean: A Chronicle of Russia’s Turn to the East and discussed at the 2019 Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. The volume was meant to be the definitive statement of what “Turn to the East” entailed. Vladivostok commentators noted the “Turn” had begun in Moscow and only much later did it involve Russians who actually live in Asia and who had not seen significant changes in the Russian Far East under the “Turn.” One referred to the “Turn” as a concept using ritual words that only seemed real to Kremlin dreamers but not to Russians on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Center-local differences were prominent as Putin’s Turn to the East was understood differently in the Russian Far East compared to Moscow. Russian Far East analysts were more concerned with how concretely the “Turn” would impact their economic development given the gap between declaring Primorye at its forefront and actual implementation due to a tendency for Moscow to only pay sporadic attention to the Russian Far East and the Asia-Pacific while it was preoccupied with Europe. Vladivostok had a sense that Moscow’s vociferous declarations lacked a genuine pivot to Asia. The Russian Far East remained skeptical that Putin’s rhetoric on the “Turn to the East” would concretely benefit the RFE with increased resources, investments, and development. Moscow had often drawn up plans, spoken of projects, claimed the RFE was Russia’s window on the Asia-Pacific, only to lose interest. Chinese were also skeptical as the “Turn” was based on Russian ideologies of Eurasianism which view Russia as independent and distinct from both Europe

Introduction  11

and Asia. It disadvantages the Russian Far East at the local level as it works with the Chinese Northeast devising plans for development of their border areas. The Chinese side is more consistent with planning and implementation, building a much stronger state along its border than what exists on the Russian side. The Russian side has less autonomy than the Chinese side to determine its development priorities. Chinese are intent on economic integration of the Russian Far East and Chinese Northeast, and extending this regional integration into the Arctic. The Russian Far East is uncertain if linking its development to the Arctic will undermine or enhance allocation of resources to itself. Central Asia and Mongolia

In the past decade, Russia’s “Turn to the East” rested on Central Asia as its base, giving Moscow a sphere of influence and creating a Russian-led hegemonic order in Central Asia which would be the core of a Greater Eurasia region. This goal eluded Moscow as China’s BRI created a competing order in the region. Despite efforts since 2015 to link the regional projects and to adapt to each other’s strategies, Sino-Russian rivalry in Central Asia provided opportunities for Central Asian states to maneuver between them and to practice multivector diplomacy. Putin’s Greater Eurasia vision had expected Central Asian countries to passively adapt to Russian leadership in the region. However, under conditions of great power rivalry, smaller secondary states have a wide array of tactical strategies including hard/soft balancing, blackmail, leash-slipping, neutrality, binding, and bandwagoning. Multivector diplomacy is a broad term that may incorporate several of these tactical strategies that are much more complex than simply balancing among major powers. Kazakhstan, as the largest Central Asian state, has demonstrated the greatest agency in its diplomatic outreach to Europe, the United States, the Middle East, Turkey as well as China. Kazakhstan has sufficient state capacity to think of itself as a Middle Power defined as a state that is not a great power but still has sufficient influence and international recognition to impact the international system. Middle Powers seek their security through multilateral solutions within international institutions and avoid subordination to a major power. Kazakhstan pursues multivector diplomacy within the SCO and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA). Russian analysts claim that Central Asian multivectorism prevents Russia from establishing a hegemonic order in Central Asia and that countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan cannot successfully adopt Middle Power diplomacy on their own as they lack sufficient state capacity to do so. They argue that Central Asian states hedging and multivectorism among several major powers will not lead them to Middle Power status. They further argue that Central Asian states should instead align with Moscow in a Russian-led hegemonic order, where Russia can assist these states to transition to Middle Power status. These Russian arguments

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intensified after Putin sent Russian peacekeepers to Kazakhstan to quell the riots in January 2022 but have not persuaded Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan. Not all smaller, secondary states have chosen multivector diplomacy. Tajikistan has indicated its preference for a more traditional patron-client relationship with Moscow rather than diversifying its relations with other major powers. Mongolia has also chosen to bandwagon with Russia rather than seek multivector foreign relations. In 2019, Mongolia even signed a treaty that would end its famed “third neighbor policy” of reaching out to numerous countries to balance against Russia and China. Mongolia’s acceptance of its client status with Moscow has resulted in abundant Russian patronage as the country chose a different path than Kazakhstan. As Kazakhstan has sought ways to escape Russian dominance over its exports, Russia has sought ways to reassert its control over Kazakh and Central Asian energy. Putin has proposed a trilateral gas union with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan seeking to transport Russian gas to these Central Asian states. Moscow proposed creating a unified EEU common electricity market that would span Central Asia and be under Moscow’s control. If a Eurasian common hydrocarbon and electricity market gave Moscow greater control over Central Asia, it would discourage them from multivector energy relations with outside powers. To maintain independence, Uzbekistan prefers energy relations on a commercial basis. Putin has proposed hydrocarbon unions with Central Asia for two decades but has not yet succeeded. Regional organizations have been the arenas for Middle Power diplomacy and multivectorism. In several multilateral organizations with Central Asian membership, Putin has been slighted in ways that demonstrated a loss of Russian influence in Central Asia. At the 2022 SCO, Putin tried to assert leadership of the organization but without significant affect. At the 2022 CICA, Putin tried to hijack the meeting’s agenda but did not. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) members have refused to participate in Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine. Putin has tried to form Eurasian integrated hydrocarbon and electricity markets with Central Asian countries as a means of forming an Eurasian union. He also tried to prevent Kazakhstan’s multivector energy relations with the European Union as Astana replaced banned Russian oil exports to Europe with its own exports. Russia had lost its identity as an energy superpower and would increasingly need to rely on the secretive “dark fleet” of very old tankers without EU/G7 companies’ insurance, the same dark fleet that Iran and Venezuela use. As Russia’s troubles in Central Asia mount, despite the aspirations of its “Turn to the East,” China has gained ground in the region. If its image is not conducive to soft power and talk of its deference to Russia still has a limiting effect, the impact on Putin’s agenda for Central Asia is incontrovertible. Russian pressure tactics are thwarted by the rise of a formidable power.

Introduction  13

Northeast Asia

Following the Cold War, Northeast Asia appeared poised to spearhead global dynamism, as Tokyo, Seoul, and even Washington aired ideas for the transformation of backwaters in North Korea, China, and Russia. Moscow had its own designs, rejecting the plans of others and then voicing its own with increasing urgency in the 2000s. Cross-border plans with China fared badly, trilateral proposals with South Korea met resistance from North Korea, and ideas for bridges or pipelines to Hokkaido went nowhere. By 2012, Putin had decided to proceed more ambitiously. In the 1990s, Russia was narrowly focused on Northeast Asia, responding to Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean diplomacy with scant indication of its own regional aspirations. Acceptance into APEC was sought as evidence that it belonged in Asian deliberations. Marginalization over North Korea was taken as proof of exclusion. Putin’s stop in 2000 in Pyongyang reversed this situation, and Russia’s place in the Six-Party Talks from 2003 confirmed its diplomatic revival. As ties with China intensified in the 2000s, Putin foresaw an active role in regional transformation. Yet, as Putin grew more hostile to Tokyo and Seoul and warmed up to Pyongyang, aspirations for Northeast Asia centered increasingly on security and on maritime transport to the Arctic. The “Turn to the East” juggled different proposals for security, energy, economic development, transportation, and regional identity inclusive of China, Japan, and the two Koreas. However, the security dimension overwhelmed the others as China largely satisfied the energy needs. By 2020, Russians saw Northeast Asia through the lens of a New Cold War. In place of economic integration proposed to it in the 1990s came military pressure from Russia and anticipation of benefit from North Korean provocations. The Ukraine war brought sanctions against Moscow, warnings from it against “unfriendly countries,” and the revival of polarization in the region. Insisting that a New Cold War exists and glorifying the results of WWII and even the Korean War, Moscow sought in the mid-2010s to align itself more closely with Pyongyang, when Beijing’s relations with it had frayed, and in 2022 obtained weapons from it to fill a depleted arsenal. If China’s limited support for North Korea sought to incorporate it into a Sinocentric order, the Russian objective focused more directly on using it to undermine the US-led regional order. India

After Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov promoted a troika among Russia, China, and India in the late 1990s, this configuration remained fixed as a critical element of what became the “Turn to the East.” Over time, as the Northeast Asia quadrant in the “Turn” lost appeal, India gained a more vital role as the anchor of

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the GEP. Unfortunately for Putin, the more important India became for regional architecture, the more problematic was its inclusion. Moscow expected Beijing to defer to it on India as it had on Central Asia. After all, Delhi long had closer ties to Moscow than any other major capital, and Xi Jinping had agreed to Putin’s Eurasian plan in return for Putin accepting the Chinese framework, including the SREB. India remained heavily dependent on Russian arms. Also, it still claimed to adhere to “strategic autonomy.” As SinoIndian trade boomed, Moscow anticipated closer relations. Three problems put Putin’s aspirations at risk. First, Russia had little to offer its old partner besides arms. Second, rather than be deferential to Russia, China provoked India, especially in the border skirmish of 2020. Finally, India turned to the United States in ways that confounded Russian plans. The “Turn” appeared to have rotated from maritime to continental and from close at hand to far-flung, but India remained elusive. Having shifted its focus from Northeast Asia in 2014 and responded to difficulties in “docking” with China in Central Asia by 2017, Russia rested its hopes largely on India for making the “Turn to the East” multipolar. The GEP had an ASEAN component, but only India satisfied the quest for great power balancing central to the Russia worldview. Second only to the Grand Strategic Triangle was the idea of multipolarity in the “East,” which rested heavily on India. China had accepted the GEP formulation, paid lip service to multipolarity, and held the key to Russia’s aspirations. India’s entry into the SCO in 2017 raised Russian expectations. Yet, a sharp deterioration in Sino-Indian relations as India drew closer to the United States and Japan as well as other US allies punctured Russian hopes. Failure of the GEP left only the option of the Grand Strategic Triangle as a mechanism to impact China and, thus, the “Turn to the East.” Balancing China reached an impasse by 2021. The debate in Russia on India revealed frustration at how little Moscow could count on Beijing. All along, the “Turn to the East” has assumed that China would accept Russia as a co-architect of a new regional framework, dismissing indications that Sinocentrism took precedence. Disagreement over Northeast Asia, including the Arctic Sea route, and over Central Asia, including how to “dock” the two sides’ plans in 2014–16, shifted the focus to the biggest arena of all—the Eurasian heartland extending to India. It was here that Moscow’s tolerance was tested to the limit. Finding it inconceivable to backtrack on the bet on China, Moscow no longer sought an answer in Asia. Its Hail Mary pass switched to Ukraine. In stage 3, the “Turn to the East” raised the stakes for India’s involvement. Not only did the GEP consider India a vital component, the fact that India had entered the SCO drew further upbeat commentary. In 2018, optimism rose with claims that Indians are resisting Western intrigues to use India to contain China and that Russia would have vital importance in forging the regional architecture and rules

Introduction  15

of the game. When Sino-Indian differences were noted, as in Indian opposition to the BRI, many insisted that reconciliation could be achieved. In 2020–21, there were subtle signs of a backlash against China for its disruption of the GEP through aggression against India. Constantly supporting China, Russia was seen as risking its key triangle, critics suggested. The Ukraine war may have reassured India that Russia is not just an adjunct to China but an autonomous power. India is not interested in Russia joining a USled coalition but prefers it to become a force for multipolarity in Asia. Yet, Modi’s appeal for an end to war at the 2022 SCO summit suggests that he was alarmed at the consequences, such as polarization. Russians feared that India would join the American camp if that were to proceed. If oil sales, at a discount, rose precipitously in 2022, Russia’s economic appeal was cratering. After all, total trade had hovered around $10 billion before 2022, and even Russia’s share of Indian arms purchases was slipping. For Moscow, claims to a special role for India in the “Turn to the East” rest on national identity arguments more than security or economics. It is assumed that Modi’s defiance of liberal norms, insistence on “strategic autonomy” and “multipolarity,” and affirmation of India’s traditional interest in Russia signify a continuing rejection of the West. The tensions between India and the United States over war sanctions in 2022 reinforce this narrative. However, the US has been wary of alienating India, and Russia’s even closer identification with China make identity arguments about Eurasia even less plausible. The war is not drawing Russia and India closer despite the absence of a sharp breach. On security, an agreement in September 2022 to pull back both Chinese and Indian forces from the border line where a skirmish had erupted in 2020 gave some hope to Moscow, as did the joint participation in Vostok 22 war games of Indian and Chinese troops. Yet, the Indian role in the Quad overshadowed these developments. On economics, India’s huge increase in oil imports from Russia was welcome in Moscow, but when India was asked to pay in rubles, avoiding dollars as China had agreed to do, that was a bridge too far. Prospects for the “Turn to the East”

Pretenses that the “Turn” was a crowning success and Sino-Russian relations had “no limits” gave Russia the green light to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Concealed concern that the “Turn” left Russia vulnerable to China’s designs for the “East” contributed to the risky mission to expand Eurasianism to the West. Stymied in Ukraine, Putin faced a more ominous situation in the East. Putin’s plans have failed, one after the other. Russia has a more asymmetrical relationship with China, less leverage over the Russian Far East and Central Asia, and weaker prospects for Asian multipolarity. Its ties to Japan and South Korea are deeply strained, and as Russia defers more to China ties to India are loosened.

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The road ahead is unmistakable: to depend increasingly on China and double down on ties to North Korea. Eurasianism keeps losing meaning as Sinocentrism gains momentum and Russia’s civilizational claims to be a vibrant global center lose all credibility. Moscow will continue to seek autonomous influence in the “East,” but its options are limited due to the growing necessity to defer to Beijing. It has some room to work separately with Delhi, but that space is narrowing. North Korean belligerence could be encouraged even if Beijing is wary. As China presses its advantage, the “Turn to the East” will be shaped mostly by it, reducing the cat and mouse dynamics of the first decade of the “Turn.” Moscow’s options have greatly narrowed.

PART I

Conceptualizing the Big Picture

1 TRACKING RUSSIA’S “TURN TO THE EAST” Gilbert Rozman

Over four stages we can discern significant changes in how Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, sought to transform its standing in East Asia. From the time Putin reclaimed the presidency to the early 2020s, Russian publications explained the country’s thinking while, at times, acknowledging challenges that lay in wake. Sino-Russian relations were always in the forefront, while the images of the US were never far from sight. Criticism of Putin is absent, but some opinions did not fully correspond with his unreserved optimism. The next chapter will examine this debate. This one traces the mainstream perspective over the decade. Key events over this decade influenced the evolution of Russian thinking. In 2012–13, the drivers in discussions of regional policy were the Vladivostok APEC summit hosted by Russia and the impetus by an ascendent Putin to challenge the US more vigorously. In 2014–16, the fallout from Russia’s seizure of Crimea and proxy war in Eastern Ukraine leading to sanctions from the West was followed by Putin’s sharp tilt toward China in agreements to cooperate on economic integrationist plans. The years 2017–19 saw Putin respond to new initiatives by three leaders: Xi Jinping’s “wolf warrior” assertiveness; Kim Jong-un’s nuclear weapons gambit and diplomatic forays; and Donald Trump’s “America First” policies in Asia. Finally, from 2020, China’s closures over the pandemic and its resurgent socialist autonomy accompanied the toughening of Trump’s “trade war” and the start of Joe Biden’s grand strategy prioritizing China and galvanizing the Quad (with Japan, Australia, and India). Through all four stages in the “Turn to the East,” Putin sought to boost ties to China, struggled to find a path to multipolarity, and held aloft the banner of Russia as a pole atop a new world order and of Eurasianism as a separate civilization rooted in an unending, intense historical

DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-3

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struggle with Western civilization. His Ukraine invasion made 2022 a further turning point discussed in Parts II and III of this book with that year treated as the final stage in coverage. Repeatedly, Putin pointed to the closer relationship being built with China and the success of his “Turn to the East.” Indeed, over the decade the momentum kept growing, but there were ups and downs with doubts raised in Russia over whether the relationship with the PRC was unequal and whether the overall turn eastward had descended into a lone, one-sided partnership. The mainstream narrative overwhelmingly affirmed that Putin had made the correct choice in boosting Russia as a global great power and in aligning with China as the foundation of Russia’s revival as an Asian power. 2012–13: The Import of Vladivostok Hosting the APEC Summit

If in the mid-90s Russia pleaded to join APEC in order to gain recognition as an actor in the Asia-Pacific region, in the 2000s it awaited an opportunity to assert itself as a consequential player by hosting APEC as well as other moves. The challenge was for Russia both to set a course for a full advance into the region and to choose among offers from other countries. In 2009, the US beckoned with a “reset”; in 2012 South Korea proposed its “Eurasian Initiative”; and at the end of 2012, a new prime minister in Japan committed to wooing Putin. All were heartened by Russian talk of “modernization” and “multipolarity” as it sought investments in the Russian Far East and promised to make Vladivostok the gateway to Asia, an echo of the establishment of Petersburg three centuries earlier as the “window to the West.” Yet three far-reaching questions remained as Putin took the reins back: (1) how would Russia deal with the US and the international community it led? (2) how would Russia deal with China at a time of slowing momentum in a burgeoning partnership? and (3) how would it treat North Korea, whose nuclear weapons defiance had destabilized the region and whose new leader was untested? Vladivostok became a symbol of three things: (1) Russia belongs in Asia and boasts a major city to share in its dynamism; (2) the Russian Far East is a dynamic force within Russia, integrating into the boom to the south in China, South Korea, and Japan; and (3) modernization is poised to supplant natural resources in spearheading Russia’s advance in Northeast Asia. The one-time burst of funds to host the summit created an oasis of modernity in a run-down city but achieved none of these goals. Except for casinos luring Chinese tours and annual Eastern Economic Forums at which Putin proclaimed lofty ambitions, the city stayed a backwater, the region continued to drain population, and Medvedev’s talk of modernization faded as Putin set his eyes on great power glory through a military buildup and doubling down on energy pipelines. Despite warnings that the Russian Far East was viewed by other Asia-Pacific powers as a resource-abundant, depopulated territory and that diversification of investment by foreigners accompanied

Tracking Russia’s “Turn to the East”  21

by political and economic reform continued to be urgently needed, that was not Putin’s strategy. Prior to 2014, Putin was pressing for demonization of the US as censorship tightened of domestic critics labeled “foreign agents.” He had successfully suppressed criticism of China, beyond a brief mention of some problems in the relationship and of overreach in its other relations, and stifled the wide-ranging debate prevalent a decade or so earlier on regional geopolitics. Even so, it was widely assumed that Russia could simultaneously enjoy diverse options in its “Turn to the East.” As China took a harder line toward its neighbors, Russia could draw closer to it and build ties to the others. As North Korea’s relations hardened with South Korea and others, Russia could both achieve a breakthrough with it and boost ties to South Korea. And as those neighbors tighten ties to the US, they will also be amenable to improved ties with Russia in a New Cold War struggle with the US. These illusions and that of multipolarity overrode signs that Russia’s options had been closing. Major signs of Russian priorities included (1) annual military sales to China reviving after accusations of unauthorized copying and weapons exports, (2) the sale of weapons superior to those sent to India, and larger joint military exercises; (3) a reversal of energy policy to build an oil pipeline to China alone; (4) a tilt to North Korea including accusations by some against the US of using force not diplomacy; (5) an avoidance of criticism of China in publications except for in rare, indirect comments; and (6) the spread of Cold War metaphors. As for the Russo-Sino-US triangle, China was seen dragging its feet in the hope of a G2 deal with the US, which it pursued in the June 2013 Xi-Obama Sunnylands summit. Of the three discernable schools of thought, the Cold War one was gaining, the multipolar one was still predominant but no longer in direct contradiction with the Cold War group, and the international community school had lost all optimism and barely registered in published exchanges, even those on Japan and South Korea. Many from the “Cold War school” had the edge, owing to their obsession with the US as the enemy and reasoning that China is the natural partner for Russia. They also benefited from the logic that for multipolarity Moscow needs to stick closely to Beijing, even as that thinking appeared increasingly out of touch. They were further encouraged by the prevailing stifling of criticism of China and the ongoing shift in writings about North Korea toward giving it the benefit of the doubt for being besieged by the US. This school insisted that a New Cold War was beginning, in which the US faced China and Russia. Even before 2013, Russia had been turning more to China after years of caution. The uptick in arms sales had begun, Russia’s liquidity crisis in 2009 had driven Rossneft and Transnet to secure a $25 billion loan from the Bank of China, and in 2013 CNPC was allowed to take a stake in the Yamal natural gas development. Instead of the APEC summit giving impetus to “modernization” deals and Russo-US relations, Putin had shown his more adamant hostility to the US and the West.

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Prior to 2014, it was easier to make the case for multipolarity through optimism about bilateral ties to countries other than China. Japan was a prime target. Just before taking the presidency, Putin in an interview said he wanted to greatly improve relations with Japan by substantially strengthening economic relations and resolving the territorial issue based on a “draw” (hikiwake). Abe Shinzo’s positive response led to his upbeat visit to Moscow in April 2013. One report noted that although the US is Japan’s first priority, it does not suffice. Developing closer ties with Asian neighbors has been Japan’s goal since the postwar era. Another called Japan’s demand for natural gas after the Fukushima nuclear disaster and shutdowns of 2011 and Russia’s supplies a “perfect symbiosis” for energy trade. Agreement on a 2 + 2 mechanism of consultations between foreign ministers and defense ministers, it was said, put Russia on a par with only the US and Australia in Japan’s plans. The case for multipolarity then rested heavily on Japan and the Korean Peninsula as well as India. With the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) serving as a buffer in Central Asia between Russia and China, the area had not been a source of serious tensions, but a new factor appeared in 2013. China tested the arrangement, which had upheld political stability, safeguarded secular regimes, and given it access to energy, by calling for a Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB). Dissatisfied with Russian attempts to exclude China from certain political, security, and especially economic domains, Xi Jinping had decided to pursue integration in a manner still unclear but worrisome to Putin’s plans for the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)—a customs union viewed as a counterweight to China’s already growing presence. Putin had blocked China’s proposal for an FTA within the SCO framework twice, and China was trying an end run. As his response was awaited, he kept a positive tone about bilateral relations. 2014–16: Crimea’s Impact and Xi’s Challenge

Absent criticism of Putin’s leadership, his tilt to the Cold War school put multilateralists further on the defensive. Explanations for the conflict in Ukraine centered on the West causing it, obliging Russia to act. The narrative shifted further to the demonization of the US, including in Asia, with concomitant warmth toward China. Yet there was also a message that Asia welcomes Russia while Europe repels it. This posed an economic challenge since in 2013 Russia’s exports to the EU were at $256 billion in contrast to only $36 billion to China, with investments made in Russia even more skewed. Economic ties with other major countries in East Asia clearly trailed far behind. Arguing that the future rests with the East, publications all insisted that the shift was necessary. The crisis over Ukraine impacted Sino-Russian relations, but it was not clear how at first. For some, it raised the urgency of strengthening ties to the level of an alliance. After all, the West attacked the rights and interests in Russia by its role in Ukraine, causing a New Cold War with no end in sight and obliging Russia

Tracking Russia’s “Turn to the East”  23

to turn to China. To others, it had the potential to leave Russia exposed, as Xi Jinping appeared to be intent on pursuing a G2 with Obama and had to deal with an economy so intertwined with the US that he could not take a strong stance against it. Concerns were raised about the ambivalence of China’s response to the annexation of Crimea; it had been preoccupied with Taiwan claiming independence and separatism in Xinjiang and Tibet. Yet, the mainstream view held that China was giving implicit support to Russia, seeing what had occurred as another, despised “color revolution” and refusing to support the US since its aim in Ukraine was to preserve its domination. The Sino-Russian May 2014 agreement on a long-awaited gas deal was heralded as proof of a growing economic partnership with China. Unbounded optimism proclaimed that Russia had found a way to compensate for its isolation in the West by turning to Asia. Putin had solidified ties with Xi Jinping, who was supportive of closer security relations, and had successfully secured a massive boost to economic ties. This message was reinforced by talk of Chinese assistance with a high-speed railway between Moscow and Kazan and of good prospects of Chinese capital being made available for the modernization of the Trans-Siberian railway. Putin had made sure that Western sanctions were not perceived as the isolation of Russia but as an opportunity to join in Asian dynamism. Russia agreed to link the EEU and the SREB, changing the framework for Central Asia, giving Xi a victory but pretending otherwise. Through 2014, at least, this was called a big success for the objective of integrating Russia as the main force in the EEU with China’s economy. It was also treated as proof China and Russia were working together closely and harmoniously. The Russian narrative celebrated Putin’s defiance of the West and his close comradery with Xi Jinping. Two debates ensued in 2014–15: (1) was China taking advantage of Russia— not proving to be the partner Putin had sought? and (2) was the “Turn to the East” failing to shape multipolarity that Russia desires? At a July 2014 meeting of ambassadors, Putin insisted that China is staunchly against the US due to encirclement, small and middle powers refuse to take sides in the Sino-US clash, and Russia enjoys a favorable environment to become the geopolitical balancer in a fast-changing region. Quashing worries about China, Putin treated it as a benign, close partner, whose rise enhances Russia’s security and boosts its position with others in the region. In order to build an Asian order exclusive of the US, Xi needs closer political and economic ties with Russia, so one-sided dependence is not a problem. Thus, leaving Europe and entering Asia is desirable. Skeptics of China’s treatment of Russia and of the costs to multipolarity were stifled by this emphatic endorsement, reinforcing the hoopla of the May 2014 Putin-Xi summit. Multipolarity had dropped the US as a factor and refocused on Eurasianism rather than the Asia-Pacific in the narratives from 2014. Yet, Putin insisted that South Korea and Japan value improved ties to Russia—despite US pressure—and drew a sharp contrast between the anti-Russian West and the East, which seeks economic cooperation and regional stability. While the US strives to contain

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Russia in Asia, as elsewhere, and is pressuring its allies to do so, discussions of South Korea and Japan mainly stressed their defiance. Even as two themes garnered the most attention—closer ties to China as a lifesaver and transformation of the Korean Peninsula into a partner giving Russia clout—Japan helped to raise hope as did India, Vietnam, and others. In 2012, Putin had spoken of Russia’s chance to catch the “Chinese wind” in its sails, but Russian officials and business distrusted their Chinese partners. If earlier many viewed China as pushing Russia to take a harder line toward the US, the image has now shifted to Russia urging China to do so—this narrative depicts China and Russia as in the same boat, both victims of US hegemonism and intolerance for their sovereignty. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) leaves Russia as well as China out, it was said, as Obama pressed for this initiative. Yet more serious were doubts about China’s will to join Russia in a New Cold War against the US. The high hopes invested in Sino-Russian collaboration, in direct opposition to the US-led international community, seemed to be contradicted by a series of Xi-Obama talks. In contrast, at the November 2014 East Asian Summit, Putin, who had just gone to Beijing for APEC and would go to Brisbane for the G20, was absent. In Beijing, he had little to say about multilateralism but made three points on economic regionalism: the importance of bilateral Sino-Russian relations, the linkage between the EEU and SREB, and the urgency for the Russian Far East to become a manufacturing hub for the Asia-Pacific region. He was doubling down on the China connection, not denying multilateralism. When bilateral trade dipped in 2015 due to the fall in oil prices and the devaluation of the ruble, the focus shifted to geopolitics and identity, marked by the dual commemorative parades on May 9 and September 3, when Putin and Xi stood side by side on the reviewing stand. China’s intentions were mostly spared criticism, given that investing in Russia was difficult for all, it joined in the pursuit of a multipolar world, and it was working with Russia in the SCO and BRICS to establish that world. If strategic partnership did not trump commercial logic, it served to mend the wounds of failed promises from Putin’s “triumphal” visit to Shanghai in May 2014 in defiance of the West. After this summit, the slogan “lean to the north” was said to have spread in China, as its relationship with Russia turned more from energy to geopolitics. Agreement spread on a military-political alliance, without taking a legal form, as Russians praised strengthening of mutual support related to core interests, maintenance of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and not least, security. If in late 2014 and 2015, there were wobbles in public confidence that the “Turn to the East” was going well, leaders heralded repeated Putin-Xi summits, closer military ties, and the reliability of China’s hostility to the West. They reconceptualized geography to transform Eurasianism into a geopolitical and community identity symbol, giving the impression that China was cooperating in Russia’s desired reconstruction of the region rather than Russia being left on the margins in the SREB and its broadening to the super-project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

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Stressed were (1) the eagerness of Asian states other than China to draw closer to Russia in pursuit of great power balance; (2) China’s need for Russia given US containment of it and Russia’s security and resource assets; and (3) the weakness of the US position in Asia compared to Europe. Russian articles on Russia’s “Turn to the East” during this period brimmed with confidence, concentrated on the big picture, and constantly repeated assumptions hardened in 2014. Rather than reflect on Russia’s isolation, they insisted that the West is isolated in the international community. Instead of identifying difficulties in the acceptance of Russia into East Asia, they emphasized failures in US pressure tactics to attract support in Asia for sanctions. China appeared in the most favorable light. The “Turn to the East” was seen as a panacea to Russia’s troubles in the West, amid claims that it could avoid becoming a weak supplicant ready to make any concessions that China was seeking. A grandiose case asserted: the development of Siberia and the Russian Far East offers a unique chance to countries in the region, the modernized transportation routes of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) and Trans-Siberian railways would become the main trans-continental arteries, a new window to Europe across the Arctic Sea would transform maritime ties for at least four months each year, and Japan and India, where the need for energy is high, would turn to Russian supplies. In urgent need of natural resources, the East would not lose the chance to join with Russia, allowing it to establish industrial and technological clusters in the Russian Far East and to entrench its companies in the Chinese market. Economic aspirations accompanied political ones, of becoming the third regional power after China and the US— even emerging as a balancer in the Asia-Pacific between the two powers with its own sphere of influence. If in 2014 propaganda trumpeting the “Turn to the East” raised exaggerated hopes about progress in bilateral relations, and in 2015 charges were made that no progress was occurring in Sino-Russian relations, the mood in 2016 was to be patient for long-term transformation. Russia could still count on support from the world’s second economic power—China—after economic ties with the West were fractured; infrastructure continued to be modernized by using Chinese money and the EEU and SREB joined as the two sides recognized each other’s sphere of influence. China was seen as securing its northern flank at a time of competition with the US. It was eager to find use for surpluses to increase connectivity between China and Europe and to “buy itself friends” in Eurasia as well as actively preparing for confrontations with the US by developing continental supply routes. This gave Russia a unique opportunity to resolve its traditional infrastructure problems. By April 2016, the stage of preparing the new routes was declared, drawing on the concrete proposals of the EEU countries. The year 2016 saw efforts to revive multipolarity: a Sochi summit with the members of ASEAN, the entry of India and Pakistan into the SCO nearing the “finish line,” the second Eastern Economic Forum in September in Vladivostok, where Abe Shinzo and Park Geun-hye brought their countries closer to realizing

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large-scale projects in the Russian Far East; progress toward Greater Eurasia with the EEU, SCO, and ASEAN all touted as involved. While mention was made of a Sino-Russian agreement in November, more stress seemed to be placed on the rising Russo-Indo-Chinese troika. But by the end of 2016, the “Turn to the East” was in limbo. The muchanticipated December Putin-Abe summit failed to meet expectations, leaving in doubt what comes next. The Putin-Xi summit of late November was perfunctory, coming amid continued talk of a relationship that could soar to another level qualified by sober awareness that China and Russia differ on what that next level is, while the high hopes for economic integration were not being realized. Meanwhile, Russians awaited a new president in Seoul, wishing for a sharp shift in policy toward North Korea, complaining of the THAAD deployment plans, and sensing that poor ROK relations with neighbors may lead to an opportunity for Russia. Above all, anticipation centered on the hard-to-predict US transition to the Trump era. Having earlier focused on Siberia and the Russian Far East, Russia saw a unique chance to propose a regional plan, but it had to do so patiently as conditions evolved. The Sino-US 1972 pact was in doubt, leaders in Tokyo and Seoul could aspire to big regional changes, and anticipation mounted that the post-Cold War era was ending and something called Greater Eurasia was emerging. More important than China’s rise was the US decline. Russia foresaw gaining a major say in shaping the newly emerging regional framework. China joined in calling for construction of an overall Eurasian partnership, broadening the scale of regionalism. Russia accepted the core status of BRI while self-assuredly claiming that, at last recognized as an influential player across Asia, it was entering a promising new era in 2017. 2017–19: The Challenge of Three Assertive Leaders

In 2017, changes were underway. Donald Trump began his disruption of the international environment, Kim Jong-un took to provocations to shake up the diplomatic lethargy, and Xi Jinping went much further toward his “China Dream” objectives. Instead of Putin scrambling to shake up the situation in East Asia, he was now reacting to others. Disappointment about Sino-Russian relations after euphoria in 2014–15 gave way to new grandiose claims for Greater Eurasia and the SCO or even the BRICS. India’s refusal to attend the BRI summit and Russia’s marginality in spite of Putin being honored signaled unilateral Chinese leadership, at odds with Russia’s agenda. Putin had to decide if bilateralism with minimal multipolarity was acceptable, even as he insisted that the EEU, SCO, and ASEAN could draw together apart from China’s domination. Rather than admit that China was on a path to regional hegemony or that Russia’s ties were not diversifying, the Russian mainstream narrative blithely

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predicted triangularity with China and the US and a balanced Eurasia in which Russia need not defer to China and still leads its own geo-economic, geostrategic, and geo-cultural sphere. The shift to Greater Eurasia in Russian foreign policy had followed Putin’s December 2015 call for a broader rubric. It swung between a reaffirmation of multipolarity and an assertion of Russia and China as two centers of a widening process. In essence, this appeal raised Russia’s status at a time it was being overshadowed by the asymmetrical power of China. In defense of multipolarity, there was some talk of India or ASEAN as a center, but the US was excluded, and Japan and South Korea had declined to become objects of contestation rather than potential poles. Within this rubric were the EEU as Russia’s sphere and the SCO as a joint Russia-China steering group, leaving room for the SREB but not as China’s sphere. Unclear was how China’s broader BRI meshed with Greater Eurasia or if these were two competing conceptions. Clearer was the attempt to counter TPP, which Obama had advanced as an organizing concept. Assuming the spread of regionalization and fearing Russia’s marginalization, it had reconstructed space to give it centrality. Aware of its economic weakness, Russia also countered various schemes with stress on other dimensions of power. To add substance, it gave great weight to the SCO as the incubator of a new world order based on sovereign equality. Formed in 2015, the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) is where Russia regularly reports the results of its “Turn to the East.” Notice is taken of which foreign leaders attend, the size of delegations, and the projects showcased. In its first years, the buzz centered on Japanese and South Korean leaders more than on Chinese ones. Xi Jinping rarely attended, although he met Putin often at other locales. The imagery and the many “contracts” signed suggested three things: (1) Vladivostok, the host city, and the Russian Far East were being prioritized as dynamic drivers in Asia, when there was in fact little happening; (2) multipolarity was proceeding well as countries clamored for invitations, but Abe, Park/Moon, and Modi had specific aims rooted in geopolitics while offering Putin little; and (3) these forums were a kind of show with scant serious discussion of the challenges Russia faced in Asia or how Putin’s policies needed to change. If Putin was in denial, Trump, Kim, and Xi were growing bolder. Trump was targeting China, and at APEC in 2017, he embraced the concept of the IndoPacific, pointing to new US ties to India, ASEAN, and Australia, posing a further challenge to Greater Eurasia. Putin’s shift away from Northeast Asia was clearer at the 2017 EEF with Modi’s presence, but India was drifting away. Abe returned that year but without the buzz of a year earlier, as relations stalled and Abe was focusing on Trump. Despite the dearth of Asian investors and the skepticism about Greater Eurasia, hope was reignited based on new signs of US decline signaled by Trump, and revival of economic confidence in Russia from trade with China. Above all, worsening Sino-US ties prompted more triangular thinking.

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Xi Jinping was newly assertive in 2017, but after the 19th Party Congress, no great impact on bilateral relations was seen in Russia. Optimism prevailed at the implications for more strained Sino-US relations. If occasional comments indicated worry about excess centralization, the habit of not finding fault with Chinese politics or identity persisted. The US response, faulting “state capitalism” and worsening human rights policies, was music to Russian ears. If some in Russia were concerned about the military and national identity implications of Xi’s new bravado, most were heartened by the anti-American thrust of his orientation. As China strengthens, it could facilitate the peaceful transition to a more just international order. The biggest worry for many was the fear Xi aroused in some of China’s neighbors, making it harder for Russia to navigate among Asian states in order not to be left alone in China’s embrace. It was recognized that China had changed—the end of the “post-Mao era.” Xi’s reforms were equated in significance to Deng’s with the added dimension that they are aimed at changing the world order, i.e., “re-globalization on the Chinese model.” Since Russia also strives for the end of the existing world order, those who worried that it would fall victim were in the minority. Likewise, Chinese were seen as warming more to Putin. The Xi era has been welcomed by Putin, giving a big boost to Sino-Russian relations. It is more authoritarian, more anti-American, and more disruptive of the regional and global orders, which Putin seeks to replace. If there are potential drawbacks or warning signs, they are not serious ones, given Putin’s short-term goals. Indeed, relations keep growing closer, and an alliance could follow if Xi turns even more hostile to the US (e.g., in a war scenario over North Korea or Taiwan) and goes to Putin as Putin went to him in 2014. Kim Jong-un’s belligerence in 2017 was little criticized, although Moscow felt pressured by Beijing to vote for tough Security Council sanctions. His turn along with Trump to diplomacy in 2018 drew great praise, although Russia was concerned about marginalization. The stalemate reached in 2019 after Kim had met with Putin in Vladivostok was blamed on the US, even as Russia’s hopes rose for a multilateral security dialogue in which it would have a major voice. Even greater emphasis was now put on Korea’s salience in the “Turn to the East,” joining with China but with its own voice. The latest twist in the narrative about Russian equality with China was the argument by 2019 that US policy toward China left Beijing so under siege it had no choice but to forge a relationship of equals with Russia. Increased bilateral trade in 2018 and agreement on a list of projects indicated that the economic doldrums were over. A new May 2018 agreement on docking was heralded as were big contracts on air defenses and plane engines. As the Sino-US “trade war” heated up, it was said that China needed Russia more, making it possible for Russia to obtain investments on more favorable terms. The situation began to change in 2018 with the Sino-US technological conflict—Russia and China drew closer not only geopolitically but economically, involving major Chinese firms. Finally, China is

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freed of illusions about the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the US, fully recognizing the value of Russia and substantially upgrading their cooperation, it was argued. In 2019, Putin heralded a breakthrough in relations with China, through financing linked to BRI and support for the Northern Sea Route. Due to rising protectionism, China was expected to turn more to Russia. If diplomacy over North Korea was failing without any boost to Russia, talks with Japan were fruitless since it is adamant against signing a peace treaty without a deal over the islands, and India was moving away from Russia; but at least China was becoming the partner Moscow had sought. The keys were Putin’s strong leadership, Xi’s break with Deng Xiaoping toward a more “socialist” China, and Trump’s intention to block China’s rise, including its 2025 strategy. Yet, concerns were raised by some that China was forging a regional environment, leaving no room for a multidirectional Asian policy. Russians did not find this a propitious time to warn about China, seek leverage against it from the US or Asian states, or oppose the momentum of the BRI or even Sino-Central Asian relations. Complaints about China’s dearth of investment in Russia and bypassing of Russia in transit plans to Europe seemed less noticeable. Instead, there was more trumpeting of the many reasons why relations had boomed over more than a quarter century and would continue to prosper as a new world order took shape. Xi has turned to the region, seeking many partners for the BRI, while Trump has turned to threatening China. Reassuring Russians was the jump in trade to $110 billion, as energy comprised 70% of Russian exports and higher oil prices helped while the eastern gas pipeline was soon to begin operations. The goal of $200 billion in trade was in sight. The big picture interested Russian writers. The prevalent assumption was that the West is in rapid decline and a new world order of some kind is just over the horizon. The positive forces for that include Putin’s assertive foreign policy, China’s rise and close relationship with Russia, and North Korea’s demands for how to resolve the problems on the Korean Peninsula. The notion that Russia is now in a favorable position in Asia was supported by satisfaction that countries are stepping up diplomacy with it because of uncertain US ties and Russia’s promise for their national interests. Yet, there was palpable concern about how to capitalize on the new opportunities: double down on close ties to China, develop a more autonomous project for Russia’s ascent in Asia, or seize the chance offered by North Korea. The world was entering a New Cold War with Russia firmly on China’s side, fully capable of managing Western sanctions and gaining acceptance in the East. Putin’s announcement of Russia transferring its missile defense apparatus to China set the tone for optimistic pronouncements of an upgrading of strategic relations, even if the term “alliance” was not in the official lexicon. Some foresaw an alliance, even an integrated missile defense system taking shape.

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2020–21: The Promise of a New World Order

The groundwork was laid by 2020 for a Sino-Russian strategic partnership approaching the level of an alliance. A New Cold War was anticipated, as China finally abandoned its illusions about the US and endorsed Russia’s vision. Indeed, an aura of bravado pervaded Russian publications at the end of 2019. Putin had succeeded in diplomacy around the world, reestablishing Moscow as a decisive voice in world affairs. The relationship with China was solid and that with the US was indefinitely on the rocks. Strategic stability had again risen to the top of the global agenda, resuscitating an environment in which Washington had to deal with Moscow as an equal, this time with Beijing as a third force. Completion of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline gave new reason to boast of ties with China, just as the Sino-US trade war reassured authors that this relationship would remain confrontational to Russia’s advantage. Moscow and Beijing were taking charge on North Korea, siding with Pyongyang on the need to ease sanctions and awaiting Trump’s next move. The China-Japan-ROK summit in late December had positive implications for Moscow in weakening the US position in the region. There was no sign of dark clouds on the horizon, as both the US and China appeared unidimensional in such narratives. Indeed, claims were repeated that “Russia is changing the world,” tracing Putin’s impact from first restoring Russia as a sovereign great power, then strengthening its international position, and finally going on the initiative to advance the country’s global authority. In the course of less than a decade, Russia stopped the expansion of Western alliances, forged a de facto alliance with China, and became the center of a Greater Eurasian space with Russian Eurasian identity. Thus, it was destroying the foundation of five centuries of Western domination. Along with the Soviet Union earlier, it had stopped being part of the West and led the charge against the West, changing the fate of human history. Zero-sum reasoning prevailed in Russian writings in this period. The US was the enemy, and it had to be weakened. A contradictory approach to Trump was apparent: he was fighting valiantly against vested US interests, but his actions contributed to a rapid decline in US influence. Trump led his country into retreat in alliances and into unilateral pursuit of “America First.” Optimism for Russia centered on prospects for filling some of the vacuum as the US presence in Asia waned, especially in North Korea as part of a process of slow denuclearization requiring substantial security and economic incentives and a sharply transformed environment in Northeast Asia. With US alliances on the ropes, North Korea opening the door to diplomatic vigor in transforming geopolitics in Northeast Asia, the SCO expansion promising a broader institutional framework for reorganizing Asia, and a close personal connection between Putin and Xi Jinping, it was time to reassert the primacy of Sino-Russian strategic partnership, Russians reasoned in 2020. Although Russians had long accused the US of having a policy of containing China, it was only in 2018 that they doubled down on that charge with Trump’s

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trade war, and only in 2019 that they saw US demonization of China as predominant. Treating this as a shock to China, they perceived a sharp shift in Chinese rhetoric as well as a clear boost to Sino-Russian relations. The final push to an irreversible break between China and the US came with Joe Biden’s systematic anti-Chinese platform and pressure on allies to join forces. If in 2019 China was still striving to drive a wedge between the US and its allies, using economic relations as a lure, in 2020, it had swung into full battle mode against them as well as the US. The Russian mainstream salivated at this outcome. The pandemic’s impact on Sino-US relations was welcomed in Moscow, which reasoned that China was the subject of an information war, as the US politicizes responsibility for the pandemic. There was reason to expect further strengthening of the Russo-Chinese “consensus” on an anti-American axis. They saw the Sino-US relationship turning into a full confrontation—economic, technological, geopolitical, military, and even ideological. The pandemic had accelerated it into a new bipolarity. What had been a trade war in 2020 turned into a “virus war,” as Trump blamed China for many US troubles and raised the stakes with an ideological clash, drawing an outpouring of “wolf warrior” responses. Russia, in turn, supported China in the struggle against “politicization of the pandemic.” Russian commentaries about the virus war sided with China and went so far as to blame the US failures in 2020 on capitalism, which stripped the state of the responsibility to protect society in contrast to China’s authoritarian state. China’s claims of superiority were not always echoed, but the contrast was clear. The role of the pandemic in the battle for world domination drew responses such as that the impact of 2020 was similar to the crisis of 2014, accelerating Russia’s dependence on China’s economy and technological development, which influenced other areas of cooperation. Two popular themes in 2021 were the Russo-China-US triangle and the geopolitics of the Korean Peninsula. There was little on multipolarity. The mood was upbeat for three main reasons: (1) Sino-Russian relations were strong and growing stronger; (2) the Biden administration was seen as having poor prospects on all fronts in the region, notably with China and North Korea; and (3) the North Korean challenge was not going to be managed without Russia achieving an inclusive regional security framework. Rather than cite Chinese instances of aggressive behavior, Russians blamed the New Cold War on US containment of China, which began under Obama, was accelerated by Trump, and made systematic under Biden. Trump was not interested in ideological pressure on China or a broad anti-China coalition. Thus, Biden was seen as posing the greater problem. The prevailing opinion in Russian sources was that China was being dragged into a Cold War, as Russia had been years earlier. The US side intensified pressure for nefarious reasons, and China reluctantly struck back. If Russia’s counterattacks came first, trust was high that China’s would not wait long. By 2020, relief was palpable that this new era had dawned.

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Many signs appeared of closer Sino-Russian relations: after years of resistance, China’s companies found it easier to invest in both the energy and the technology sector. Cooperation in space was trumpeted. New, advanced weapons systems were now allowed to be sold to China along with cooperation in building a Chinese missile defense system. The two were joining to create advanced fighters, hypersonic technology, highly effective radars, inter-service communications systems in combat, nuclear power plants for submarines, and night vision devices. Optimism prevailed, as if talk of a New Cold War, marked by an intensifying war of narratives, was what Moscow had sought. Confrontation over Taiwan was considered more likely. Sino-Russian relations were closer—in space, as Sino-US competition there intensifies, and in energy, where the opening of the “Power of Siberia” pipeline in December 2019 was heralded as an “historic project.” Charging the US with starting another Cold War, Russians welcomed the joint flight of Russian and Chinese bombers carrying nuclear weapons past Japan and South Korea, where US bases are located. Putin’s approval of the sale to China of the technology of Russia’s early warning missile defense system was heralded as further sign of close strategic cooperation. The US, it was argued, had left the INF treaty not due to Russian violations but in order to threaten China with missiles nearby—a reason why Chinese, concerned about a major military confrontation, were beefing up ties to Russia. Russians warned that the US was provoking a military crisis over Taiwan as part of its Cold War campaign against China, supporting Taiwan’s declarations of sovereignty. New measures were, thus, taken on the Chinese side. Raising the chances of a confrontation was the anti-China mood in the US, destroying the basis of its relationship with China and of international peace. The logic of polarization had become incontrovertible, backed by the conviction that the US was the enemy and China was a dependable partner. Little was said about multipolarity. However, a new way to showcase Russia’s centrality in the face of marginalization was discourse about the Arctic-Pacific region, including cooperation on the Northern Sea Route or what China calls the “Ice Belt of the Silk Road.” In February 2020, Putin transferred the function of developing the Arctic to the Ministry of Developing the East. In June of the same year, Putin and Xi then agreed to widen the scale of jointly developing and utilizing Arctic shipping routes. China’s interest in extracting resources, transport, and scientific research was palpable when it declared itself in January 2018 a “nearArctic” country. Earlier wary of China’s advance there, Russia may be relenting to gain investments or solidify ties. If the Northern Sea Route was more expensive for transport, a tense security atmosphere boosted its value for security, given the superiority of the US navy along southern transport routes. Relying on this logic, Russian writers insisted that Russia could get other countries to abide by its interests and not conduct freedom of navigation operations or in other ways violate Russia’s sovereignty. In this way, they believed Russia could meet the challenge of attracting investments

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while ensuring unconditional sovereignty. This insistence appeared to be mostly directed at China, but concerns were muted. The concept of the Arctic-Pacific allows Russia to supplement the purely land construct of Greater Eurasia with a maritime component in its pursuit of centrality at a time of growing marginality. The pandemic added depth to geopolitical shocks, but as long as downward pressure on the global commodity market due to China’s slowdown was shortlived, Moscow saw little downside to the trade war turning into a full-scale confrontation. Russians wrote of the number of Chinese-European trains passing through Russia increasing by almost 40%; scientific, technical, and innovative cooperation in 2020–21 would allow them to significantly advance interactions in new areas such as artificial intelligence, 5G, and cloud technologies, and farreaching plans for joint exploration of the moon and the creation of alternative energy sources. China’s share in Russia’s foreign trade increased from 10% in 2013 to 18% in 2020 against a decline in the EU’s share from 49% to 38%. Energy links keep expanding amid talk of going beyond the capacity of “Power of Siberia” of 38 billion cubic meters per year by 2024 with a Strength Siberia-2 pipeline via Mongolia to deliver gas from Yamal and Western Siberia. Given the decoupling under way with the US and Beijing’s large-scale import substitution program for critical technologies, Russia was hopeful it would become the alternative supplier and also draw Chinese investments to boost its production. Yet it remained wary of supply chains on its territory as a threat to its companies and likely to cut into monopolies that service its economy. One reason for a sobering retreat from leadership claims was awareness that the new competition requires one’s own techno-economic platform, but Russia had no alternative but to join China’s. Recognizing the new era as a struggle between techno-economic blocs, many assumed that Russia was already committed to China’s bloc, including 5G technology, leading to an “authoritarian digital alliance.” Some wary of losing sovereignty in an unequal alliance were holding out hope, however, for Russian technological advances or a muchimproved relationship with certain countries in the West to reduce one-sided dependency on China. There was no sign of that happening in 2021. The only straw left to grasp is that China’s new-found interest in Russia will result in Russian leverage. Space is another arena in which Moscow seeks to reclaim its great power status by riding China’s tail in an announced plan for a joint lunar base. Short on resources, Russia showcases its relevance through this initiative, suggesting the importance of what Russia has learned from decades as a world leader in space while promoting this pairing as an antidote to warnings of bipolarity. An Alliance?

Biden’s June 2021 summit with Putin was treated as a revival of the old strategic triangle. His aim was to prevent escalation of tensions with Russia, unlike

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his preparations for worsening relations with China. US efforts to not fight on two fronts, however, will fail since the Biden administration views Russia as a problem, not as a strategic opportunity. It offers little to beckon a great power. By 2021, China had seized the initiative in defining the relationship in bilateral documents. Xi had broadened his penchant for defining China’s future to looking beyond China to leadership defining regional, global, and, in the case of Russia, bilateral relations. Now Putin was endorsing Xi’s terminology, such as a “community of common destiny” and a “new era of Russian-Chinese relations” to echo Xi Jinping’s “new era of building socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Every step in 2021 toward rebuilding US alliances and partnerships confirmed Russian thinking that China and Russia need each other much more than they did when they signed the treaty in 2001, when cooperation was perceived by both Chinese and Russian experts as “friendship in reserve.” Now the Chinese elite have a deeper understanding of the problems facing Russia. China needs reliable partners. Therefore, the value of Russian-Chinese trust now outweighs any problems that experts point out. Sino-American trade has ceased to be a “ballast.” China had held back Sino-Russian relations based on illusions; it now sees that Russia has been right, Russians are saying. Just before the US elections, Putin opened the door to an alliance, saying, “We are not setting ourselves such a task now, but in principle, we are not going to rule it out.” This followed China’s newfound interest in talk of an alliance and the sense that China was willing to do more for Russia given its confrontation with the US. As Russia grew more dependent on China’s new technologies, it needed to bolster ties to secure a place in China’s camp. After Putin raised the prospect of a military alliance—abandoning the multipolarity quest—Russians talked much more about this. Already in June 2019, the addition of the “new era” to the formula of “strategic partnership” was taken as a sign of formalization of military-political relations. Discussion followed about signing a new treaty in place of the 2001 one, whose 20-year duration would be automatically renewed for a five-year period. Whether by concluding a “Treaty of a New Era” or signing an addendum to the existing treaty, signs were that a major step was on its way. On October 22, 2020, Putin said he was “thinking out loud” about the possibility of forming an alliance: “We have always assumed that our relations have reached such a degree of interaction and trust that we do not need it, but theoretically it is quite possible to imagine such a thing. We conduct regular military events jointly. […] it is not only about the exchange of products or the purchase and sale of military products, but about the exchange of technologies. And there are very sensitive things here. I will not speak about it publicly now, but our Chinese friends know about it. Our cooperation with China, without any doubt, enhances the defense capability of the Chinese People’s Army.”

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Beijing responded that there were no limits or forbidden zones for broadening bilateral relations. Wang Yi in January 2021 did not repeat the standard language with Russia “not to join an alliance, not to arrange confrontation, and not to target third countries,” but referred to a relationship in which there is no upper limit. Russians took note, too, of Wang Yi’s statement at the March 2021 parliamentary meetings: “In a strong tandem, China and Russia play a stabilizing role in ensuring peace and stability throughout the world. The more turbulence and upheaval in the world, the more important it is to move China-Russia cooperation forward. China and Russia, as a strategic pillar for each other, mutually provide opportunities for development and act as real partners on pressing issues on the world agenda …. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty on Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation between China and Russia.  My Russian friends and I agreed to extend the Treaty and fill it with new content. This will be another historic milestone and a new start for Sino-Russian relations.” The new term, “Russian-Chinese tandem” means that China has joined Russia in abandoning hope in constructive relations with the West. It no longer has illusions of the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the West. Developments in 2022 are covered in subsequent chapters. The turning point in 2020 proved to be a prelude to more far-reaching transformation in the wake of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine. This accelerated existing trends, stifled skeptics about China, and left the “Turn to the East” centered on China to an even greater degree. The mainstream narrative evolved; dissent became impossible. Conclusion

Russia’s “Turn to the East” began with Putin’s pre-election appeals in 2012. The goals included dynamism in Russia’s Asian areas, a return to Soviet-era greatness in identity and the revival of the “Great Strategic Triangle,” and a sharp turn away from the West toward the emerging locomotive of world change. Russians insisted that even as they totally rejected the US-led order they were not signing up for a China-led order—harder to explain when China advanced the BRI as the mechanism for that and openly embraced the goal of forging a new order, while Russian plans collapsed, one by one. Early aspirations centered on the Russian Far East and supplementing ties to Europe. From 2014, the focus shifted to breaking from Europe and forging multipolarity in Asia while leaning to China. Yet, what began as Putin’s initiatives soon turned to reacting to Xi Jinping’s moves—ever broader in scope. Russia’s responses switched from controlling Central Asia by docking the EEU with SREB, to countering the BRI by advancing Greater Eurasia in an effort to salvage multipolarity, to agreeing to enlist in China’s pursuit

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of a “community of common destiny,” to banging the drums of a New Cold War while signing on to bipolarity. The momentum kept building for a SinoRussian alliance. The case against doing so also was building, as discussed in the next chapter. This chapter is drawn from summaries of Russian articles and synopses in “Country Report: Russia” of The Asan Forum. There, sources/authors are cited for each viewpoint covered.

2 DEBATING RUSSIA’S “TURN TO THE EAST” Gilbert Rozman

Mainstream coverage of Russia’s decade-long reorientation to the East consistently found wisdom in Vladimir Putin’s decisions and progress on all dimensions of foreign policy. The country was marching from one success to another, although it had to adjust in light of changing circumstances over what I have identified as four stages in ten years.1 Yet doubters seized opportunities to ask questions, raise concerns, and present an alternative narrative prior to 2022. This chapter seeks to tie together the strands of a case for changing course. Compared to the alternative narrative of the 1970s–early 1980s in criticism of Soviet foreign policy toward China and East Asia, this is more out in the open and forthright.2 Yet, authors were still necessarily circumspect. Critics of the mainstream narrative are a diverse lot, whose views do not necessarily overlap or remain consistent over time. Raising questions, of course, does not equate to offering any clear alternative. Fundamental problems are only hinted at in mainstream writings. Why has the Russian Far East fallen short on one developmental program after another? What does Xi Jinping’s switch to “wolf warrior” foreign policy mean for Russia? Why had Abe’s quest for a breakthrough with Putin failed? What could Russia do to manage the growing rift between China and India? The one focus of far-reaching significance was Sino-US relations, but US thinking was poorly conveyed. Alternative arguments broached these issues cautiously, not directly confronting the mainstream positions. Yet, they planted the seeds of a far-reaching rebuke of policies and a quest for change. In the fall of 2021, Alexander Lukin asked if the peak of Sino-Russian rapprochement has passed.3 If ties had advanced in 2014–16 with Russia pressing for it, China’s subsequent sharper turn against the US was accompanied by a rise in assertiveness that only intensified during the pandemic and has not spared Russia, DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-4

38  Gilbert Rozman

Lukin argues. This is suggestive of the backlash in Russia against closer ties to China, but, in my opinion, it understates the continued momentum toward an alliance and tells only part of the story of troubles in the relationship and why a backlash was building. Below I trace concerns about drawing closer to China from 2012 as the debate over this issue intensified. This chapter is organized chronologically. As Russia’s turn eastward and rejection of the West grew more pronounced, doubts were more openly aired, despite tightening censorship. They pointed to unmet expectations, contradictions in Russian objectives, and possible dangers. In 2020–21, the resistance reached an unprecedented level, fearing a point of no return ahead. It came against the background of unprecedented mainstream interest in an alliance with China. 2012–13

Three problems stood out in this initial period of Putin’s pursuit of the “Turn to the East.” First, there were worries about the cost to modernization of Russia casting the West aside and joining China, not prioritizing domestic economic reform. Second, there was fear that multipolarity was under threat, given the heavy reorientation toward China. Third, suspicions ran deep of China’s intentions in Central Asia, especially after Xi Jinping unilaterally launched the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB).4 These were just reservations prior to 2014 since Putin’s policies were still unclear. The case for prioritizing the fight against internal Russian problems was voiced often in this initial period, warning that with its “Turn to the East,” Russia was ignoring domestic modernization. If the mainstream insisted that this “Turn” would ensure the future by hitching the Russian Far East and Siberia to the dynamism of Asia, that was refuted by warnings that plans to develop this part of Russia keep failing with little sign of foreign investments or the launching of industries. Resting the argument for this reorientation heavily on its impact on economic transformation left an opening for rebuttals. The APEC summit saw critics decry that Vladivostok had only superficially changed, and the real problems of Russia and the Far East’s economies were not being addressed.5 This area was being perceived as a resource-abundant, depopulated territory while diversification of investments was not occurring due to an unaddressed lack of political and economic reforms. Supporters of multipolarity argued that Russia must not support any one side in conflicts but keep good relations with all and press for an effective regional security system. How such acts would be viewed in China went unmentioned as did rebuttals of the Cold War school’s arguments. It was hard to challenge those who see China solely through the lens of confrontation with the US, but, indirectly, criticisms of failures in multipolarity due to prioritizing only China had that effect.6

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The agenda for multipolarity continued to be aired. It was wary about Russia becoming a pawn of China, drawn into its conflicts and other processes destructive of multipolarity and now obliged to transfer military technology and weapons that Russia had hesitated to do. Concern for attracting foreign investments from the West included keeping China at a distance in Asiatic Russia, as Russia gave attention to breakthroughs with Japan and South Korea as well as balancing ties to India and ASEAN. On occasion, there were warnings that Xi’s arousal of national identity emotions could eventually put Russia in the crosshairs in pursuit of what he considered historical justice. It follows that Russia should stay on the sidelines as tigers fight it out, eventually competing to win Russia to one side. As Russia focused primarily on China, it remained wary of China’s economic penetration, either in Asiatic Russia or Central Asia. Critics recognized Russia’s resistance and asked how was that in line with talk of opening the door to China and others. Indeed, the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) mainly with Central Asian partners was viewed by some as an effort to block the growing weight of China’s ties there, after the SCO no longer was perceived as sufficient for that.7 Worried about Xi’s call for the SREB after China had been excluded from economic domains in Central Asia, one commentary asserted that the sooner China clarifies what the SREB is, the quicker it will be possible to dispel unstated disagreements or speculation about it. In 2013, this and other strains in bilateral ties remained unresolved, as writers obliquely questioned Putin’s unbridled optimism.8 2014–16

In the second stage of the “Turn to the East,” the situation was different because Putin had upped the stakes, breaking sharply with the West and embracing China tightly—albeit with uncertain results. When the “Turn to the East” was still new and the break with the West uncertain, resistance was generally seen as old thinking by Europhiles, who had stood in the way of earlier efforts. There was some willingness to give Putin the benefit of the doubt for good intentions. Skepticism was visible in a wait-and-see attitude since the Soviet and post-Soviet habit of big programs with little funding was hard to erase from people’s minds. Putin heralded summits with regional leaders, but critics did not credit his high-sounding proclamations with turning the corner on Russia’s regional status. Vladimir Putin in his “triumphant” May 2014 summit in China made a strong case that massive Chinese funding would boost Russia as an energy superpower with powerful spillover effects. However, some detected show projects of meager commercial benefit to Russia, asserting that China signs memoranda short of binding contracts, dangling dazzling amounts of money with no actual promises, and taking advantage of a monopsony position to dictate conditions.9 China drove a hard bargain on the big gas deal of 2014, after crudely forcing a price adjustment in 2011 in an oil pipeline deal, exposing growing asymmetries

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in the relationship after the split with the West. Critics charged that China was taking advantage of Russia and not becoming the partner Putin had sought, and they warned that the “Turn to the East” was losing multipolarity.10 By late 2014, China’s failure to step up was noted in a few forthright sources. One blamed the recent anti-corruption purge in China, including of Zhou Yonggang and others from the energy sector—some who had dealt with Rosneft, which had instilled great caution in Chinese banks—and reforms that make state-owned enterprises subject to punishment for unprofitable investment. But there was also mention of private visitors from China giving a very cold reception to proposals; this generated the impression that there was little prospect of Chinese capital replacing the losses from the West, dashing hopes for development of the Arctic and for the technology required for the extraction of oil offshore and shale gas.11 In Russian foreign policy thinking, the ability to advance big geopolitical and geo-economic projects is proof of being a great power. Vying within a rarified Great Strategic Triangle, putting Russia at the center of a vision of a new regional and global order, and summitry with grandiose promises all sustained the “Turn to the East.” Russia approached China in search of acceptance as a co-leader with its own autonomous model. China responded with soothing words about leadership but stringent conditions for cooperation. The case of the 770-km railroad from Moscow to Kazan, where a Chinese bank would provide credit requiring the import of technology and equipment from China and for payment of Chinese specialists, revealed how cooperation was floundering. Russia wanted Chinese money to buy high-quality equipment, not necessarily from China, with Russians handling the construction, local technology, and labor. China would not work on the basis of such Russian conditions. Yet, it was noted, Chinese had reason to blame Russia for the failure of declared projects, given protectionism, red tape, and corruption.12 Disappointment inside Russia was palpable when this high-profile project and others stayed unbuilt despite geopolitical claims. After November 2014 summits in East Asia, one Russian noted that China is the motor and Russia should free itself of illusions on the speed with which China was advancing in Central Asia, the weak prospects of the BRICS, and the lack of Russian leverage on China.13 A crisis in the Russian economy was felt from the dire news in December 2014 and January 2015 of a collapse in energy prices. Some saw the door closing for Russia’s leverage in the Asia-Pacific region or for developing the Russian Far East as anything but a resource appendage for China.14 The emptiness of claims to be finding a home in Asia to compensate for its estrangement in Europe was exposed, while the outline of another gas pipeline deal with China was perceived as not providing the right answer. Writings on Sino-Russian relations refuted charges that they had failed to meet expectations, and those on multipolarity praised Russia’s ability to remain aloof from the major disputes in the Asia-Pacific while maintaining its great power role. Yet, divided over the meaning of little progress in joining the EEU and SREB ( just a transit corridor or a geo-economic, geopolitical rearrangement), Russians

Debating Russia’s “Turn to the East”  41

were asked to widen their horizons to Greater Eurasia. A geographical construct was given as reason for hope, but some saw it as a diversion. China’s priority for SREB was a transport corridor via Central Asia, bypassing the Russian Far East to Russian chagrin.15 The most important document for China may have been the joint declaration on the establishment of the EEU and the SREB. Chinese experts had been concerned that the September 2013 initiative of Xi would be seen as a threat to Russia’s position in Central Asia and to Putin’s main geo-economic project, the EEU. Eager to find compatibility, the two identified the SCO as the coordinating arena. This failed to impress those doubtful of the SCO’s promise and of the EEU as posing little restraint on the SREB.16 Russia had argued that the West was declining as Russia engaged in a crusade against the world order. Only China took this seriously, but economic complementarity was limited. Then came the illusions of 2014–15 that China was interested in helping Russia, exposed by the disheartening trade and investment figures of 2015. Political statements had little economic meaning, as Chinese firms exploited the sanctions to raise the prices for Russia and to make new demands, blaming a lack of understanding of each other’s business culture. Visions of regional architecture diverged. Economic results suggested that the “Turn to the East” was at an impasse. The Russian Far East languished, and transportation routes bypassed it for Central Asia. Some warned that the “Turn to the East” had stalled, noting the continued stagnation of the Russian Far East.17 If it was customary to credit progress at the federal level of a geopolitical or a civilizational nature, the situation in the priority areas of the “Turn” was not easy to conceal. One warning feared Potemkin villages, used for impressing visiting bosses and theft.18 The results in this corner of Russia were a litmus test in this period. Putin had rested his hopes on China for a miracle rescue from the consequences of quarrels with the West, but questions arose when the results proved disappointing. Russians had counted on demand for Siberian natural resources, provision of capital in place of the West, and Chinese know-how to make a smooth transition from the interruption in technology. The “Turn to the East” seemed to be exclusively with China, counted on to build infrastructure for exporting resources. But projects that rely on Chinese loans and provide China with new markets for its technology and work force drew criticism for how few Russian jobs would be created and how much they would increase Russia’s debt. Capital and technology for Siberia and the Russia Far East, leading to production for markets to the south, was not forthcoming.19 In 2015 with the ruble weakened, export of Russian nonnatural resources to China became more competitive, but the results were disappointing. Firms faced more infrastructure issues and delays and excessive costs in transportation. Russia overestimated the desire of China to help in Russian import substitution. China looked at Russia for oil and gas projects, but it did not seek the rebirth of Russia’s industry. On this, arguments abound: (1) expectations that Asian partners could almost fully replace Western ones were not met; (2) Asian partners, notably China, are

42  Gilbert Rozman

tough negotiators, using Russia’s situation to extract more favorable terms; (3) Chinese partners are only interested in Russian natural resources, the sale of Chinese goods to Russia, and the use of Chinese labor, not in helping Russia to develop its own production and import substitution; (4) afraid of US sanctions, Chinese banks do not provide enough credit; and (5) trade with China and other Asian states fell sharply in 2015. If some hinted that Russia must compromise with the West, the mainstream called for more decisively shifting to Asia, accommodating China. Worsening Sino-US relations in 2015–16 encouraged Russians to anticipate greater influence. They hoped to avoid involvement in the disputes in the South China Sea, leaning to China but avoiding entrapment by it. Instead of the Russian Far East and the EEU-SREB docking, geopolitics reigned. In these adjustments in mainstream thinking, critics discretely warned of further wishful thinking.20 The Great Eurasian Partnership (GEP), introduced by Putin, could be called a pipe dream—a distraction from China’s BRI to set the rules of the game. Whereas the SREB was a narrow regional initiative—where Chinese provinces claimed to be renewing historical, external ties and establishing mutual connections with the outside—the BRI was ideologically connected to the “China Dream” and a far-reaching effort to reshape Asia. In turn, Putin’s appeal was no longer confined to the integration of the EEU and SREB, but now on “Greater Eurasia” including the SCO and ASEAN, while desperately denying a Sinocentric vision of Asia without openly acknowledging that a problem even existed.21 2017–19

If economics had dominated the rhetoric on the “Turn to the East” to 2016, geopolitics stood in the forefront from 2017. There was always a mix of the two, but with Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un rocking the world order and Putin eager to put the spotlight on security, a new era had dawned. Critics of the mainstream narrative warned even more of overreliance on China. If the mainstream stressed the growing need to respond to danger from the US, critics pointed to changes in China disruptive to Russian plans. The disconnect widened in Russian commentaries. One critic argued that escalation of the Soviet matrix was felt more strongly, leading to foreign policy problems.22 This matrix is counterproductive in dealing with the rapidly changing world, having a backward effect on how Russia is perceived. The effect at home is to steer Russia’s political elite to strategic dreams oriented to the geographical parameters of Stalinist USSR after the war—for which resources do not exist and neighbors are resistant. Abroad, it arouses others to perceive a New Cold War. Xi Jinping’s foreign policy in 2017 was seen as a challenge to Russia for its intention to more actively and unilaterally shape the world order. Chinese triumphalism in the media and on the Internet has been conspicuous since the second half of the 2000s, spurred by those seeking a new,

Debating Russia’s “Turn to the East”  43

hawkish foreign policy and ideology fighting for core interests. Hawks saw their suggestions come to fruition such as in economic sanctions on Mongolia in 2016 and South Korea in 2017. Territorial disputes heated up with Japan, India, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Russia was now marginalized. It was suggested that reverting to Deng’s modesty would be positive.23 A less self-assured China could be much more convenient for Russia, downplaying the perceived territorial debt owed to China, making China aware it cannot get by without partners, and respecting Russia’s interests. Moscow and Beijing were not in lockstep about what to do, as Chinese warnings made clear. On one occasion, Dai Bingguo praised relations but urged raising them to an even higher level and limit the impact of obstacles, resolving problems such as (1) neutralizing Russian actors who do not welcome stronger relations (as if this would be serious and hard to reverse); (2) building trust, given the longterm nature of the relationship (as if Russians of late have shown too little trust); (3) orienting the relationship toward the progress of humanity and the development of civilizations, respecting one another as forces for this common good even when problems arise; and (4) improving mutual images based on contacts. This shows that China sought a closer relationship on its terms, but critics feared the effect of yielding to its demands.24 Dreams did not overlap. Stressing economic ties beyond natural resources, Russians perceived scant partnership in machine-technical and innovative production, and projects to make the two countries world leaders for machinery, high-speed railroads, wide-body aircraft, and robots. The projects exist, but where is Chinese capital? This illustrated how far Russia aspirations were from reality. China sought to forge a Sinocentric system of regional economies and security. Russia sought the rise of Siberia and the Russian Far East, diversification of its raw material markets, and incoming investments. China has more territorial conflicts, not corresponding to the interests of Russia, which, it was claimed, seeks good relations with all sides in these disputes. These critiques exposed the gap between those sticking to multipolarity and the mainstream clinging to China. 25 Two dangers stood out: China could challenge Russian sovereignty with no country left to come to Russia’s side; and infrastructure could become so Sinocentric that China could dictate the terms of trade. One critic warned of the impact of Russian and Chinese disinformation, leaving no state inclined to reinforce Russian sovereignty, and of the danger of infrastructure in the Russian Far East concentrated on China’s border, rather than coordinated for balance.26 As its economy grew, China was seen as looking down on Russians, whose material existence has fallen behind. At the same time, concern about China turning instruments of economic coercion against Russia was growing. A review indicated it started using them in the mid-90s, made them a regular practice in the mid2000s, and expanded their frequency, the reasons for using them, and the range of targets in the 2010s. Among the targets listed are Vietnam, the Philippines,

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Mongolia, South Korea, and Japan. A decision not to use Chinese products, such as from Huawei, could lead to retaliation, it is said.27 Beginning in 2018, after Trump launched a trade war, China’s tone had shifted, including through undiplomatic diplomats, such as those in Kazakhstan angrily reacting to any criticism of China and in Russia demanding the removal from Nezavisimaya Gazeta of wording on the slowing of China’s economy with threats of never being allowed into China.28 In the West, this is called “wolf warrior” diplomacy. Diplomats demonstrated their ideological fealty and intolerance of China’s enemies. Pointing to “wolf warrior” diplomacy as the new style of Chinese assertive foreign policy, which mainly concerns countries considered opponents in Beijing and in which China is itself subjected to harsh and open criticism, a source noted that it has begun to touch upon Russia. The first sign may have been a July 2016 article in Global Times, which asserted: “The constant Russian accusations of the United States of hegemony and interference in the internal affairs of other countries are true, but overshadowed by hidden factors. Russia really wants to do what it accuses the United States of itself.”29 This new tone of Chinese assertiveness was viewed as not just for hostile states and as supported by a significant share of the Chinese elite—a matter of serious Russian concern. Going over to the side of China is not in the interests of Russia as a country trying to become an independent center of influence in Eurasia. Instead of recognizing Russia’s perspectives, China was demanding more complete support for its policies.30 Long having charged the US with forcing its “client-states” to adhere to its thinking, Russia now saw China making such demands on others and coming closer to doing the same with Russia. There were calls to draw closer to third parties in Asia to deflect China’s agenda for the region, but it was unclear who should be targeted and what price Russia would be willing to pay with China. No forthright discussion of alternatives is in sight. The “Turn to the East” has stalled; elites in Central Asia fear losing their positions and do not understand its benefits, and compared to the end of the 2000s, external conditions for integration into Asia have become more difficult. Just by military-political interaction and export of raw materials, Russia will not be successful. A colonial approach that economically exploits the area (as perceived by locals) or a Soviet-style paternalistic approach that distributes benefits for defense goals (or now export ones) is not the answer.31 A modern, attractive business is required, according to one critic. 2020–21

The first decade of the “Turn to the East” was ending with a sharp clash between the mainstream and the critics. The former took the New Cold War as reason for optimism—Sino-Russian ties better than ever, the US position weakened, Russia primed to exercise greater influence, the Russian Far East poised to boom

Debating Russia’s “Turn to the East”  45

with Sino-Russian cooperation on the Northern Sea Route, etc. The latter had turned markedly more pessimistic about Russia’s prospects—overdependent on an aroused China that is likely to turn on Russia, bereft of hope for multipolarity, without a strategy for technological autonomy, in danger of falling prey to China’s disrespect for Russian sovereignty in the Arctic, etc.32 The critics were careful to say nothing positive about the US and not to challenge the merits of close SinoRussian relations, but they painted a gloomy picture of Russia’s options. Biden will intensify anti-Russian behavior. A vindictive China will use its economic clout to punish countries that defy it. The North Korean powder keg will grow more dangerous because the US will not take the right policy and South Korea lacks the autonomy to do so. And Russia is stuck with no domestic economic agenda and empty regional rhetoric. The feel-good themes of the 2010s about Russia’s rise, Eurasia, the Sino-Russian regional docking, Russian diplomatic advances in Japan and India, and plans for the Russian Far East had faded. This critical rhetoric of the early 2020s drew a far more pessimistic conclusion than in prior times but not in open opposition to the mainstream. The stark choice posed by what Russians recognized as the onset of a New Cold War led to sharper pushback in 2020–21. If Russian hopes to create a third center of the world and Asia had been dashed, as some stated, did this deal a death blow to the “Turn to the East,” premised on multipolarity? Last-ditch efforts are needed to boost the institutions of Greater Eurasia, it was argued, even if China resists. Critics saw a huge challenge for Moscow from the deterioration of relations between China and India, given the summer 2020 clash along their border in the Himalayas.33 As host of the SCO and Russia-China-India trilateral meetings of defense and foreign ministers just afterward, Moscow found itself helpless to assuage tensions. They were not blamed on India; charges against China were oblique. Russians claimed to know what the New Cold War would be like—and how it would differ from the old Cold War—but, mostly, that meant benign assumptions about China and its need for Russia. In response to assurances from people in responsible posts that Russia does not want to get dragged into a confrontation, some asked how it could stay aloof, given its weakness and animosity to the West as well as Putin’s dreams of restoring great power status. Despite its isolation in the pandemic and troubled economy, Russia was upbeat. Saying less about Greater Eurasia and multipolarity, it stressed the strategic triangle, assuming that close relations with China would avoid excess dependency and troubled relations with the US would leave room to maneuver. Bipolarity would replace multipolarity, but Russia still retained some autonomy. Unlike the Cold War era, there are no longer two parallel worlds, enabling Russia to hold firm. In response to the mainstream optimism, critics cast doubt on China and called for multipolarity. The Sino-US rivalry in Asia means a clash of two concepts of international order based on different values. The BRI has merged into a broader Chinese strategy. An existential choice loomed. In these urgent circumstances, opposition

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to joining with Xi’s China intensified and grew more open. It was noted that “wolf warrior” rhetoric has been radicalized with an obsessive demonstration of China’s successes and the advantages of the CCP-led political system.34 Among the negative effects listed are the anger aroused in various countries and from such actions as India-China border clashes in June 2020, leading to an apparent drift of India toward partnership with the US and undermining Sino-Indian cooperation. Recent damage to the prestige of the US was seen as contributing to the acceleration of even more aggressive international behavior by China. As talk of a Sino-Russian alliance intensified, the pushback in writings about China grew louder as well. More details about what is troubling this relationship came to the surface amid warnings that things could get worse. “Wolf warrior” diplomacy, seen as directed at Russia too, was blamed for a worsening image of China and China’s aggression against India.35 A divergence in viewpoints was more evident than at any point in recent years, but the warnings appeared to be too little, too late given the rapidly building momentum to take the relationship to unprecedented heights. After all, China has become a 21st-century superpower alongside the US, while Russia is next in the world hierarchy of powers and has to focus on strategic triangle jockeying, which cannot be pursued with the US because Russia is so completely demonized, especially under the Biden administration. Left aside by most was the threat of “wolf warrior” diplomacy being turned against Russia, but that was seen by 2020, as in the July spat over Vladivostok in regard to the territorial issue.36 It seemed to come as a surprise to Russians that China’s assertiveness could be directed at Russia, not only at China’s enemies. As Russian leaders heralded the closest relations ever, even on the verge of an alliance, doubters warned of a relationship that has peaked as China seizes on Russia’s dependency. While some took satisfaction that in the New Cold War China needs Russia more, others warned that its reasons for taking Russian interests into account could be ephemeral. Already, some saw, China’s style of diplomacy had changed, as it crudely dictated terms and started keeping blacklists of those in Russia as elsewhere whom it was prepared to punish. A stronger China is less inhibited and is now behaving in a manner contrary to Russian interests. Attempts by Chinese diplomats in the EU countries to switch to personal threats against the most active critics destroyed social capital that China has been building for many years. The ratification of the investment agreement with the EU, which China had been seeking for seven years, was put in jeopardy. Beijing has virtually no allies, and “wolf warrior” diplomacy is getting worse.37 Public opinion toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has fallen sharply in almost all parts of the world. It needs to understand other countries and their interests and work with them not by shouts and orders, as the US does, but by cooperating through mutual compromises, demonstrating sincerity and understanding. The complex of “lost territories” is constantly being fed in China, as in the summer of 2020 criticism of the celebration of the 160th anniversary of Vladivostok in Russia.

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Russians were reminded of a recent Weibo attack on the name of Vladivostok,38 harking back to China’s historical humiliation. Anti-Russian emotions were raised by a Chinese diplomat in Pakistan, as spillover from the Sino-Indian border clash. This was seen as a sign that while China’s leaders did not intend at this time to get in a dispute with Russia, they are artificially arousing emotions over history. Thus, once the world becomes bipolar, Russia would be left in a difficult position. As talks began in 2021 between Nikolai Patrushev and Yang Jiechi on new contents for the renewal of the 2001 treaty, some Russians urged that the territorial issue be closed once and for all.39 They noted that even after the 2004 supplementary agreement on the border, mass media and blogs in China repeat pretenses for Russian territory. Chinese tourists visiting the Russian Far East make statements in this spirit, leaving notes in books for visitors to museums. The border issue must be finalized in a single document, putting an end to speculation about history, some insisted.40 They cautioned about proceeding without clarifying Chinese thinking on Russian territory and called for a border agreement in a renewed bilateral treaty as insurance against what China might later do. Cooperation over the pandemic was far from indicative of a close partnership, it was observed.41 Despite declared cooperation in that fight, China did not respond to Russia’s request to provide strains of the virus, which Russia had to request from another country.42 Russian epidemiologists who went to China were not given direct access to patients.43 Chinese propagandists exaggerated China’s successes while contrasting them to failures elsewhere, even in Russia. It unilaterally closed borders and cut back ties, pointing more to unilateralism than coordination. One author said that the living and working conditions for foreigners in China are constantly becoming more difficult. The borders are closed, and no one knows when they will open, although a Russian can fly to the US with a valid visa any day. Both countries are introducing more and more trade barriers; business is going bankrupt. It is not just the pandemic. This only accelerated a process growing over the past five to six years with new negative issues, e.g., China’s recent closure of ports under the pretext of fighting the spread of the coronavirus. If criticism was muted in comparison to that abroad, it may have been a contributing factor to the overall backlash seen in 2020–21.44 Breaking with the West and hitching Russia’s cart to China drew concerns that Russia would not be able to navigate a course that left it with technological clout and without excessive dependency.45 This theme was raised by doubters in many ways over the course of the decade. In 2020–21 with the polarization of cyber and technological platforms, worries were aired about how Russia with its weak economy could create its own platform and avoid becoming overly dependent on China’s. Related to this, technical cooperation was viewed as skewed with China importing more advanced Russian technology and Russia importing just components and equipment. Talk of joint techno-parks did not mean commercialization of Russian work in China or Chinese investment in Russia.

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In spite of a high-sounding agreement on building a joint space station on the moon, Russians were nervous about having only a peripheral role. Why China needs such cooperation, one wondered. If it is access to Russian technology, that is precisely why, in the work on the future lunar station, it is important to immediately determine the “rules of the game” and clearly describe all legal and economic aspects of such cooperation.46 The signed memorandum was solely a statement of good intentions, not a real plan. Russia cannot afford one-sided dependence on the Chinese manned space program, which would destroy the still high status of Russia and the legitimacy of the internal political order. It has nothing to offer China in space technology but would be ready to consider deepening ties if China made part of its civil space program dependent on Russia and formalized this agreement. In 2011, the Russian probe to Mars was lost along with the Chinese probe, which increased Beijing’s skepticism about the possibility of deeper cooperation. And Moscow, under sanctions and without legal access to European and American space electronics, is distrustful of imports from China. This fear applied also to other cooperation agreements. The reorientation of a significant part of Russian companies to predominantly Chinese technologies would lead to a gradual drift toward Pax Sinica—a China-centric geo-economic space, where the PRC will be the main trading partner for all, the main investor, creditor, and issuer of currency for settlements and savings, as well as source of advanced technologies and legislator of technological standards.47 Preventing the concept of Greater Eurasia from going beyond Russian internal official and expert discussions is Russia’s fault—it has little to sell in the region and its initiatives are not in demand—and China’s too, including policies to countries such as India driving them elsewhere. Talk of the EEU signing FTAs as a pathway forward was countered by data showing that its 2016 FTA with Vietnam lifted Russian exports by only $1 billion to $2.4 billion in 2018, which then collapsed to $1.1 billion in 2019,48 while the only other FTA with Singapore was not yet in force. There has been a shift in Russia’s attitude to BRI. In 2017 and 2019, Putin was the main guest at the BRI forums; however, in January 2021, Russia’s representative to BRI publicly noted risks in this cooperation. An article noted that Russia only signs bilateral documents on cooperation with China within the framework of the BRI initiative as a member of the EEU, interacting with just the SREB. In turn, Beijing prefers to do business with smaller members of the EEU on a bilateral basis.49 Wary of the BRI, some call for diversification to countries on the outside, e.g., Japan and South Korea, which have refrained from escalating sanctions, as well as India. Closer ties to Japan would help to avoid a Chinese economic monopoly in the Russian Far East and stay aloof from the region’s most serious problems. BRI, in contrast, serves Chinese economic dominance, marginalizing Russia.50 On Central Asia, China’s penetration grew more worrisome, as many acknowledged that Russia’s economy could not provide the credits or investments found in China or appeal much as a market. Russia has the EEU, but that does not suffice. With the president of Kirgizstan, after the toppling of his predecessor,

Debating Russia’s “Turn to the East”  49

having close ties to China, it was suggested this may be the first move by China to establish a friendly regime in its sphere. China was also perceived as using access to Central Asian states to breach holes in the fence to send goods into the Russian market. The old division of labor, leaving military matters to Russia, was also seen as lapsing, as China sells weapons and countries start to send their officers to China. A border base was opened in Tajikistan without Dushanbe or Beijing informing Moscow. For protection of Chinese assets, private military companies will form, and China will try to prevent reactions to its concentration camps and extreme assimilation tactics against the Uyghurs. The only way for Russia is to strengthen the sovereignty of the Central Asian states, precisely what it sought to undermine earlier to put each under its sphere of influence. If not, China is said to have the long-term goal of an exclusive sphere with Russia a junior partner.51 Beijing’s strategy toward some Central Asian republics has changed. Anti-Chinese protests have spread—in 2019–20 more than 40 from solidarity with the persecuted Uyghurs in China to protests against the transfer of land to Chinese companies on long-term leases—as the rhetoric now criticizes not only China but also local elites, which, it is said, have sold out to Beijing.52 In response, leaders talk of punishing everyone whose activities would threaten bilateral relations, and call on citizens to be grateful to Beijing, which demands more support from its local partners. Commenting on the delicate line between China’s economic, technological sphere in Central Asia and Russia’s security and political sphere of influence, one commentator fears the line is changing. The situation has grown more problematic, as seen in the challenge of docking the EEU with BRI, exposing the idea of Greater Eurasia as propaganda.53 Lacking a strategy to protect its interests in Central Asia as China’s influence grows, Russia must stop treating states as “younger brothers” and show respect to lead a coalition of states weaker than China to establish rules of the game. Criticisms ranged widely: over China’s handling of the pandemic; over economic dependency in an era of technological polarization; over “wolf warrior” diplomacy alienating countries from China and from Russia, too; over the bilateral territorial dispute not yet being resolved in Chinese thinking; over the implications of the BRI for Russian foreign relations, whether in Central Asia or within the rubric of Greater Eurasia; and over the impact of a New Cold War on Russia’s quest for autonomy. These warnings about Russian policies added to a telling indictment. Why must Moscow eschew an alliance with Beijing? As many as ten answers can be discerned: 1 China is disrespectful of Russia’s interests and sphere of influence, as seen not only in Central Asia but also in the sale of a missile system to Serbia; 2 Russia would become entangled in Sino-US conflicts and territorial disputes in which it has no stake—a parallel was even drawn with Russia’s fatal decision to take sides in WWI;

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3 Beijing will push Moscow to stop selling arms to Vietnam and India, obliging it to cross a red line of political subordination to China; 4 An alliance would turn a triangle into an axis of two against one, undermining Russia’s model of development and autonomy and obliging it to side more solidly with China in conflicts in the East and South Chinese seas and against India, Japan, and both Koreas; 5 The dominant partner—China—would hold sway over foreign policy, ideology, and even budget expenses; 6 A boycott of Russia in Western financial, trade, and commodity markets could follow; 7 Beijing has learned to use economic instruments such as sanctions, embargoes, and tariffs to put pressure on other countries, as in the trade war with Australia, which until recently was considered a success in symbiosis with China’s economy, offering a lesson to Russia; 8 Historical memory in China has left remnants of distrust and might lead to use of the “history card,” in the form of threats to revive territorial demands to keep Russia in line; 9 In economic deals, China will use its clout and Russia’s dependency to extract favorable terms; and 10 Whereas before Russia countered the BRI with its own regional frameworks, the choice has narrowed to joining the China-led framework or resisting it in uncomfortable association with the US—if multipolarity is no longer an option, Russians will be forced to make a binary choice. A hallmark of Russian thinking is that worsening Sino-US relations is in Russia’s interest, but some demurred, saying Russia faced multiple risks from strategic instability and economic spillover.54 The opinion was spreading that China views Russia as a second-rate country, even more so after China’s resurgence in 2020–21 as others faced prolonged troubles. As China and the US struggle for domination, Russia should not participate; it must stake an independent position, critics argued. In one article, focus was on reviving RussoJapanese talks on security, and a telling comment was that Russia is attentive to its own sovereignty and strives for balance with an added appeal for avoiding incidents.55 This clearly goes against the Cold War narrative while offering a way to avoid bipolarity. China’s strategic arsenal drew interest by 2020, as it dug a massive number of silos for ICBMs. It was recognized that there is no sense of the limits and goals of China’s build-up.56 China says it will not enter talks, and the US has left the INF treaty, in large part, to counter China’s build-up of missiles, which could affect Russian security in Asia through the deployment of intermediate-range ones. In the absence of writings on a Chinese military threat, coverage of strategic weapons is a new twist.

Debating Russia’s “Turn to the East”  51

Conclusion

Having thrown in Russia’s lot with China, Putin kept shifting his reasons for optimism. Successive setbacks—in Central Asia with BRI circumventing Russia’s veto in the SCO; in South Asia with China alienating India despite yielding to Russia in admitting it (with Pakistan) to the SCO; and also in Southeast Asia with Russia forced to back down in plans with Vietnam due to Chinese pressure—did not add up to acknowledgment that the EEU was not “docking” with the SREB, the SCO could no longer check China’s ambitions, or ASEAN was a shell of what was claimed. Talk of “Greater Eurasia” and Korean diplomacy leading to a regional security system obscured the impact of China. Playing the “North Korean card” versus South Korea and the “history card” versus Japan leaves just China. In the 2020s, Russia is facing a more polarized regional environment and a changing Chinese economic model. How can Russia duplicate Putin’s success in the 2010s in “catching the Chinese wind in its sails?” With an expanded SCO and a fragmented BRICS, what organization offers promise for reaching beyond bilateral relations in Asia? Will Sino-Russian coordination work in a new round of diplomacy over the Korean Peninsula? Will a strengthened Quad or even QuadPlus shatter Russian illusions about India and then Vietnam? Is it safe to assume that China will need Russia more or will it use new bilateral integration or greater assertiveness as a weapon against the heir to Tsarism? These questions are raised by those wary of how China may behave in the new era. The crux of the criticisms against Putin’s “Turn to the East”—though never expounded clearly or fully—is the following: (1) the policy has become the “turn to China” but it is being mischaracterized; (2) this imposes a big cost on the declared goal of multipolarity, which has not been acknowledged; (3) the strategy for the development of the Russian Far East and Russia as a whole is misguided despite pretenses to the contrary; (4) talk of Greater Eurasia has become hollow as its pillars, one by one, are proven not to exist; (5) China has failed to deliver on what was assumed, notably on an equal relationship; (6) by turning to China, Russia has put itself in an increasingly dangerous asymmetrical relationship; (7) “wolf warrior” diplomacy in China is a threat to Russia’s multipolar plans and even to Russia itself; (8) the shadow of history hangs ominously over Sino-Russian relations; (9) dependence only on China amid technological polarization strips Russia of autonomy with dire consequences; and (10) China’s growing authoritarianism reinforces the most negative forces in Russian politics. As telling as this litany of criticisms is—however disguised—they omit another array of charges on how Putin’s “Turn to the East” has misinterpreted the landscape of Eurasia. One should have no difficulty listing five failings: (1) blatant mischaracterization of the US role in Asia and the greater opportunity for Russo-US cooperation here than in other regions without loss of autonomy; (2) assumptions about Europe that repudiate Russia’s place in it and potential for cooperation in Asia as elsewhere; (3) notions of the “West” and its values that unduly dismiss

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any “universal values”; (4) honesty about Russian politics despite some qualms about the Russian economy and the lack of its expertise in decision-making about China; and (5) Soviet-type neglect of Western publications and their main arguments as well as those in Chinese and other Asian publications that contradict Russian logic. The critiques of the “Turn to the East” stand, side-by-side, with the mainstream literature, couched in language that renders them less forthright or missing direct refutations of what is disagreeable. Compared to the extreme subterfuges, which were needed four decades earlier to challenge the mainstream on China, these succeed in exposing a substantial array of problems in official policy. The quality of writing is far superior, revealing that the gap in scholarship with the West is far narrower today. In fact, on what is going wrong in the “Turn to the East” Russian analysis is far more detailed. Would Russia’s reality of becoming a junior partner to China start to eclipse the obsession with not being respected by the US? Prospects of closer Sino-Russian ties raised deep concerns in some circles by 2021. Yet publications stopped short of crossing what appeared to be three red lines: (1) criticism of Putin for his foreign policy choices; (2) suggestions for steps Russia should take to ameliorate the relationship with the US; and (3) direct challenges to the wisdom of close ties to China. Thus, there was little open challenge to Putin’s continued drive to boost bilateral relations. What had turned the tide to such strong criticisms? Three factors deserve emphasis with a fourth out of sight but not necessarily out of mind. First, China’s assertiveness had begun to be directed more blatantly at Russia. The unwritten contract of leaving the past behind and respecting each other’s domestic narratives had been broken. Second, China’s foreign policy behavior in Asia had undercut the Russian agenda, most seriously with India. Russian assumptions about how the two would work together had been shattered. Third, the image of China’s domestic trajectory could not be sustained. If the West had soured on a prior image of Chinese convergence with sustained reforms, many Russians were also growing concerned about an image of China reverting to past authoritarianism and foreign policy aggressiveness, which reminded them of the China that stood as an enemy and a threat to the Soviet Union. A fourth factor may have parallels to the rhetoric of critics of Soviet “stagnation” and inflexibility in relations to East Asia prior to Gorbachev. Then, it was, at times, possible to couch criticisms of their country in writings about China and, later, other East Asian countries. The case against Putin’s authoritarian drift and foreign policy obsessions may also be on people’s minds when they challenge the mainstream version of the “Turn to the East.” Indeed, as some took satisfaction from China’s “victory of socialism” against capitalism, a backlash was growing against the threat of Russia also reasserting socialism in a “tandem” relationship. In 2022, criticisms, however obliquely, of China and Sino-Russian relations ceased. The mainstream responded to the Ukraine war by stifling the debate

Debating Russia’s “Turn to the East”  53

on China, as indicated in later chapters. Unlike the debate on China of the late 1970s and early 1980s, which gained momentum—after a three-year halt—under Gorbachev, the decade-long debate to 2021 came to an abrupt halt. Notes 1 Whereas Chapter 1 omitted notes, presuming that all sources can be found in Country Report: Russia, this chapter is documented with citations drawn from that bi-monthly resource, reflecting the diversity of Russian critical commentaries. 2 Gilbert Rozman, “Moscow’s China-Watchers in the Post-Mao Era: The Response to a Changing China,” The China Quarterly 94 ( June 1983), 215–41; Gilbert Rozman, A Mirror for Socialism: Soviet Criticisms of China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). 3 Alexander Lukin, “Have We Passed the Peak of Sino-Russian Rapprochement?” The Washington Quarterly 44, No. 3 (2021), 155–73. 4 Alexander Gabuev, Vedemosti, September 4, 2018. 5 Gilbert Rozman, “China’s National Identity and the Sino-U.S. National Identity Gap: The View from Russia,” in Gilbert Rozman, ed., Joint U.S. Korea Academic Studies, Asia’s Uncertain Future, Vol. 24 (Washington, DC: Korean Economic Institute, 2013). 6 Gilbert Rozman, “The Russian Pivot to Asia,” The Asan Forum, December 1, 2014. 7 Alexander Khramchikin, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, November 7, 2014. 8 Timofei Bordachev, “Novoe Evraziistvo,” Rossiia v Global’noi Politike, No. 5, 2015. 9 Alexander Gabuev, “Povorot v nikuda: Itogi Aziatskoi politike Rossii v 2015 godu,” Carnegie.ru, December 29, 2015. 10 Alexander Gabuev, “Pax Sinica: Decoding Chinese Inroads in Russia and Eurasia,” Carnegie.ru, March 19, 2021. 11 “Country Report: Russia,” The Asan Forum, September 2014. 12 Timofei Bordachev, “Novoe Evraziistvo.” 13 Gilbert Rozman, “The Russian Pivot to Asia.” 14 Andrei Ivanov, “Itogi 2015: Rossia i Kitai druzhat bez torgovli,” Svobodnaya Pressa, December 26, 2015. 15 Andrei Ivanov, Svobodnaya Pressa, January 5, 2016. 16 Vestnik Mezhdunarodnykh Organizatsii, No. 3, 2016. 17 Mikhail Korostikov, “Nedovorot na Vostok,” Kommersant, December 25, 2015. 18 Sergey Karaganov and Anastasia Likhacheva, Profil’, September 29, 2020. 19 Ivan Zuenko, Lenta.ru, November 24, 2015; Aleksandr Gabuev, “Pravila Igry,” Kommersant, May 5, 2017. 20 Mikhail Korostikov, Kommersant, May 9, 2016. 21 Alexander Gabuev, Kommersant, February 9, 2017. 22 Vladimir Lukin, Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’, No. 1, 2017. 23 Sergey Tsyplakov, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 29, 2019. 24 Rossiiskii Sovet po Mezhdunarodnym Delam, May 30–31, 2016. 25 Aleksei Verkhoiantsev, Svobodnaya Pressa, July 13, 2016. 26 Gilbert Rozman, “Russia’s Revived Debate on China: Historical Perspective and Implicit Significance,” The Asan Forum, October 18, 2018. 27 Anastasiya Piatachkova, Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, August 26, 2020. 28 Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 4, 2019. 29 Alexander Lukin, Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, July 1, 2021. 30 Alexander Gabuev, Rossiiskii Sovet po Mezhdunarodnym Delam, May 30–31, 2016. 31 Sergey Karaganov and Anastasiia Likhacheva, Profil’, September 29, 2020. 32 Alexei Kupriyanov, Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, November 9, 2020. 33 Kommersant, September 10, 2020.

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3 4 Alexander Lukin, Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, March 23, 2021. 35 Aleksander Lukin, Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, July 1, 2021. 36 Vladimir Skosyrev, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 5, 2020; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 15, 2020. 37 Aleksander Lukin, Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, March 23, 2021. 38 Ibid.; Gilbert Rozman, “Multipolarity versus Sinocentrism: Chinese and Russian Worldviews and Relations,” The Asan Forum, August 27, 2020. 39 Iury Tavrovsky, Perspektiv, 1, 2, June 2021. 40 Vladimir Skosyrev, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 20, 2021. 41 Ivan Zuenko, Profil’, April 23, 2020. 42 Ivan Zuenko, “Russia-China Partnership Proves Immune to Coronavirus,” Carnegie Moscow Center, May 25, 2020. 43 Vasilii Kashin, Valdai Club, May 5, 2020. 4 4 Ivan Zuenko, RIA Novosti, March 28, 2021. Also see Ivan Zuenko, “The Balance between Sinophobia and Discourse on Cooperation: Expert Opinion on China in Russia and Kazakhstan,” The Asan Forum, October 16, 2018. 45 Aleksander Gabuev, “Soiuznicheskaia Demonstratsiia: Zachem Putin zagovoril o voennom al’ianse s Kitaem,” Carnegie Moscow Center, November 30, 2020. 46 Mikhail Kotov, Izvestia, March 14, 2021. 47 Alexander Gabuev, Carnegie Moscow Center, March 19, 2021. 48 Alexander Korolev, Profil’, November 19, 2020. 49 Aleksander Lukin, Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, July 1, 2021. 50 Anatolii Komrakov, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 22, 2019. 51 Aleksander Gabuev, Kommersant, February 29, 2021. 52 Lenta.ru, May 3, 2021. “Ten’ drakona: Kitai nachal aktivno vmeshivat’sia v dela byvshikh sovetskikh respublik,” 53 Sergey Trush, Вестник – Российская академия наук, No. 11, 2020. 54 Aleksander Gabuev, Carnegie Moscow Center, November 30, 2020. 55 Dmitry Trenin, “Ne tol’ko Kurily: Kak sokhranit’ sotrudnichestvo s Iaponiei pri novom pravitel’stvo,” Carnegie Moscow Center, October 15, 2021. 56 “Akademik Arbatov,” Novaya Gazeta, July 30, 2021.

3 THE ILLUSION THAT REALISM IS DRIVING SINO-RUSSIAN RELATIONS Katie Stallard and Gilbert Rozman

Accurately assessing the prospects of relations between Moscow and Beijing has been of great importance for seven decades and a persistent test for officials making policy, especially in Washington, and for analysts seeking to clarify the driving forces in international relations. As Sino-Russian relations draw closer once again and also face new strains, it is essential to understand the complex factors underpinning this relationship and their implications for its future trajectory and Western policy options. From the 1960s to the 1990s, observers were preoccupied with a set of forces supposedly driving Sino-Soviet relations that proved misleading in predicting the future of the relationship. Thus, their rapid rapprochement came as a shock, as the territorial dispute and other “hot-button” issues of mutual accusations were sidelined. Then, in the 2000s many commentators were enamored of the idea that tightening Sino-Russian relations were a mere “axis of convenience,” overlooking the importance of historical memory and other national identity issues in the relationship and assessing that it therefore rested on shallow and brittle foundations. Accompanying President Biden’s June 2021 summit with President Putin in Geneva, there was an upsurge in assertions of Russian receptivity to US overtures aimed at splitting this “axis of convenience” and persuading Moscow to tilt back toward the West. But such arguments misjudge the nature of contemporary relations between Moscow and Beijing and fail to learn the lessons of the past. In fact, such an approach may only serve to reinforce Sino-Russian ties and weaken the resolve of allies versus Russia. Below, we begin with the case for Russian receptivity to a US initiative to “split” it from China, then we consider the factors such arguments overlook, both analyzing historical memories in Russia and China for both overlap and

DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-5

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divergence and comparing the impact of national identity on Russia’s relations with China and the US, and finally this article draws conclusions about what policy options are advisable in such conditions. The Case for Russian Receptivity

In Foreign Affairs, on August 4, 2021, Charles Kupchan authored “The Right Way to Split China and Russia: Washington Should Help Moscow Leave a Bad Marriage.”1 Arguing that while “Beijing and Moscow have forged a relationship that is ‘alliance-like,’” the relationship only appears to be strong, he finds that there are cracks beneath the surface mainly because it is asymmetrical, leaving Russia with misgivings as a junior partner. Since the relationship is held to be grounded in a realist view of the world, Russia is likely to be amenable to arguments that “it would be better off geopolitically and economically if it hedged against China and tilted toward the West.” Kupchan insists that the relationship “rests on a fragile base and lacks a foundation of mutual trust—as did the Chinese-Soviet partnership of the early Cold War,” and the US has an opening by helping “reduce Russia’s growing economic dependence on China” and working to strengthen Russia’s strategic autonomy, e.g., by waiving sanctions on India for purchasing the S-400 air defense system. Citing some evidence of investment and infrastructure ties that failed to meet expectations and of strains in Central Asia, Kupchan concludes that ties are now fragile and underlying tensions between the two could soon resurface. As he writes, “nationalism and ethnocentrism run deep in both political cultures and could reignite long-standing territorial disputes.” The US should therefore drop its “democracy versus autocracy” framing in order to avoid pushing Russia and China closer together and initiate a “candid” conversation with Moscow as to the areas where their long-term national interests overlap, especially regarding China, with a view to encouraging a Russian exit from this unhappy union. But this argument largely overlooks how Russian leaders see China and says little about their perceptions of the US and the history of this triangle. Dropping the democracy/autocracy framing will not alter Russian and Chinese assessments of US intentions. Moreover, this logic suggests that the US can vigorously pursue its values agenda while Russia would abandon its own. As Kupchan writes, “Splitting Russia from China would check both countries’ ambitions, making it easier for the United States and its democratic partners to defend their liberal values and institutions and to shape a peaceful international system in an increasingly multipolar and ideologically diverse world.” In fact, their opposition to those values and the liberal international order is one of the crucial areas in which Moscow and Beijing see their interests as being aligned. And besides the inherent contradiction in the argument that nationalism and ethnocentralism will on the one hand rupture Sino-Russian ties, while on the other, a pragmatic realist assessment of Russian interests will see Moscow shift back toward the West, such an assertion belies the historical record since 1992.

The Illusion that Realism Is Driving Sino-Russian Relations  57

History

Both Putin and Xi came to power confronting perceived political crises. For Putin, it was the chaos, economic turmoil, and violence of the post-Soviet transition with a second war underway in Chechnya, salaries and pensions going unpaid, and life-savings wiped out after Russia devalued its currency and defaulted on its debt. Xi, meanwhile, assumed the leadership of a party that was riven with corruption, failing discipline, and ideological malaise, with the country’s previously dizzying annual GDP growth rates starting to slow. “Winning or losing public support is an issue that concerns the Communist Party’s survival or extinction,” Xi warned in his first months in office, while an internal party document warned of a “complicated, intense struggle” in the ideological sphere.2 For his part, Putin told frontline troops in Chechnya shortly after becoming president that their mission was not only about “restoring the honor and dignity of the country,” but “putting an end to the disintegration of Russia.”3 From the outset, both men portrayed themselves as leaders on an historic mission to restore national greatness and reclaim their nations’ rightful place in the world, which they claimed rested on restoring strong central leadership and rebuilding their military strength. They both wielded formidable security forces and displayed no qualms about crushing opposition to their rule and dismantling civil society, but they also made a concerted effort to rally public support behind these narratives by stoking historical grievances and appealing to a sense of national identity rooted in a distorted rendering of the past. According to the version of history that Putin and Xi advance and enforce, they are the leaders of great nations and unique civilizations that have always been destined to be great powers. Each has suffered at the hands of foreign aggressors—Russia was invaded by Napoleon and Hitler (although the contemporary focus is on Hitler) and China was subjected to a “century of humiliation,” starting with the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century and culminating in the Japanese invasion at the start of World War II, or as it is officially known, the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and World Anti-Fascist War. They repelled those attacks and reclaimed their dignity and security by uniting behind necessarily strong rulers and putting national interests above personal preferences. Past conflicts play a crucial role in these narratives, especially the Second World War or Great Patriotic War as it is called in Russia, and increasingly including the Korean War as well as World War II in China. And both leaders have built on foundations previous generations laid. Putin built on the Brezhnev architecture of the cult of the Great Patriotic War; Xi reinvigorated the post-Tiananmen Patriotic Education Campaign as he put a final stop to Hu Jintao’s “New Thinking” toward Japan and built on achievements Mao had claimed, including in his 70th anniversary speech on the “War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea,” which Xi presented as a victory against US aggression that “smashed the myth that the

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American military was invincible” and a warning against contemporary US attempts to bully or intimidate China.4 While commemoration of the conflict has ebbed and flowed over the decades, it has returned to prominence in recent years as tensions with Washington have increased,5 with China’s state broadcaster interrupting its scheduled programming to screen black and white Korean War movies in 2019 as the trade war between the two countries escalated.6 The prior 70th anniversary commemorations of the end of WWII in 2015 transformed what had been separate if potentially largely overlapping narratives of history into joint recognition of victory for Russia and China over not just the enemies of the day, but an unjust world order. While Western leaders largely stayed away from these Victory Day celebrations and bombastic military parades, Putin and Xi attended each other’s events as guests of honor, reinforcing both their status as respected global leaders for their domestic audiences and their shared acknowledgment of the other’s version of history.7 While both depict victories over Nazi Germany and Japan in their respective theaters, the greater lesson they draw from the conflict is their resistance to foreign aggression and imperialist ambitions more broadly, with the clear contemporary parallels against US hegemony, and the moral authority these wars confer on them as joint founders of the modern international order. Accordingly, WWII is presented as the “first complete victory” in China’s century of humiliation, with the country coming together under the leadership of the Communist Party and embarking on the road to national rejuvenation and the China Dream that is at the heart of Xi’s public messaging, and the event that “reestablished China as a major country and won the Chinese people the respect of all peace-loving people around the world.”8 Putin insists the conflict should be remembered as an “epic, crushing victory over Nazism” when the Soviet Union “saved the entire world.”9 There are elements of truth in these narratives and legitimate complaints about the degree to which Russian and Chinese suffering and sacrifice during the conflict has been forgotten in the West, but they are also highly selective and deeply distorted, intended to serve the political needs of those currently in power rather than to preserve the historical record. And while the temptation to rewrite the past to suit the present is not unique to Putin and Xi, or indeed to autocrats, they have each moved to seal off their version of history from scrutiny, ensuring that theirs is increasingly the only acceptable rendering, with those who disagree cast as “falsifiers of history” and “historical nihilists.” Crucially, the two countries’ present narratives are not in opposition. The Chinese leadership can get behind the idea that Russia fought all but alone against Hitler in Europe and has been unfairly deprived of its share of the credit, and the Kremlin can certainly support the idea that it was China’s long struggle with Japan that laid the groundwork for their eventual joint victory in the Pacific War, rather than US actions. In 2020, the Russian parliament approved a bill to move the official end date of the war from September 2 to September 3, bringing it in line with the initial Soviet holiday and the Chinese chronology.10

The Illusion that Realism Is Driving Sino-Russian Relations  59

But while these complementary narratives are paramount in current SinoRussian relations, historical memory is also one dimension that could derail the amity both sides advertise. They are careful to put the vitriol of the Sino-Soviet split history wars aside because they know that they have not really put it behind them. This silence obscures lingering Sino-Russian differences in historical thinking, as on what Chinese continue to call “tsarist imperialism” and Russians fear is “Chinese revanchism.”11 Behind the floodgates of censorship lies, at least on the Chinese side, waves of Chinese accusations of historical humiliations. Yet as long as the focus of both is kept on the shared image of historical injustices by the West and Japan, the floodgates are likely to hold. As a group of four Chinese marshals reported to premier Zhou Enlai in 1969 ahead of the rapprochement with the US, it was sometimes necessary to ally “with the less dangerous enemy in order to confront the more dangerous enemy.”12 Thus, while this episode has not been forgotten on either side, for the time being it has been sublimated to more pressing concerns and a shared assessment of the current most dangerous enemy. The historical narratives espoused today are not limited to Putin and Xi. Whoever comes next in Russia and China is likely to depend on them even more as they face the same search for unifying ideas, useful history, and credible enemies as the current leaders. Putin and Xi guard these narratives closely because they understand their potency and thus perceive external attempts to challenge them and to promote alternative views of history as an attempt to undercut their claims to rule. At risk is not only a story about the past but the essence of national pride, the key to national development, the foundation of moral values, and therefore national security. Identity

The same realpolitik argument has been dangled before Putin for fully two decades without acknowledging what is driving Moscow’s political elite to Beijing. Close examination of Russian narratives about international relations indicates consistent elements of national identity, which can be encapsulated in five clear symbols. First, lingering superpower identity focused on equality with the US is indelibly entrenched in the Russian political establishment. Rather than thinking of balancing China in Asia as just a regional power, this outlook harks back to the strategic triangle of balancing the superpower of the US, leading Russia to China as the only available partner. Second, the pull of glorification of achievements long celebrated in the Soviet Union puts Russia on a collision course with the US rather than China, which, despite the invectives of the Sino-Soviet split, is largely laudatory toward Stalin and has no wish to excavate the Soviet Union’s record on human rights. Third, Putin’s authoritarianism and rejection of the US political model is incompatible with US democracy promotion but welcomed in China, a reality which is unlikely to be tempered by simply dropping the “democracy versus autocracy” framing. Fourth, opting for a restricted society antagonistic to

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independent media, civil society, and foreign NGOs puts Moscow at odds with the US, but in agreement with China. Finally, insisting on a sphere of influence coterminous with the former Soviet Union and beyond may have raised longterm challenges with China, but provokes more immediate frictions with the West and concerns about US and European interference on Russia’s borders and in its internal affairs. If communism is no longer associated with Moscow’s agenda, that is not reason enough to deny ideology a place in its foreign policy. After all, class struggle faded as a theme in favor of a troika of ideological mainstays long before the collapse of the Soviet Union. As ugly as the invectives against China were for a quarter century, they remained rooted in an anachronistic reading of communist tropes much more than in the revitalized troika: socialism stripped to its essence; Russocentric thought versus Western civilization; and anti-imperialism obsessed with the US.13 Communist heresy could no longer be leveled against China once Gorbachev had introduced “new thinking,” and Putin in defending socialism at its core opened the door wide to accepting China as a fellow socialist state. If Russocentrism still left room to arouse anti-Chinese demagoguery in the 1990s, this proved to primarily have appeal in the Russian Far East—a pale echo of Soviet hysteria in comparison to intensifying anti-US and anti-Western ideology. Little-challenged assumptions drove a revival of ideology rooted in Soviet times. Soviet and Chinese narratives had battled over the history of the communist movement, of building socialism, and of tsarist imperialism. Yet Russians quickly lost interest in the details of internecine communist struggle, aided by the Chinese strategy to end polemics over the history of communism and to put emotions about the tsarist humiliation of China out of sight. Chinese sources led the way in demonizing the history of the West and soon found eager receptivity in Russia, where the Kremlin has doubled down on amplifying history in opposition to the West, putting it more in sync with portions of China’s narrative. The fact that Moscow had only cared about Chinese history to legitimate its dogmatic version of communist orthodoxy meant that interest waned abruptly, while Western history gained even greater salience for Russia as it reconnected with its tsarist past and refocused on one, all-consuming identity target. A key identity challenge for Putin was to reconstruct Russia as a distinct civilization. For this China mattered little; only the West was seen as threatening to overwhelm Russia as the “common European home” and the exporter of a liberal, international order steeped in assumptions of a universal civilization. China’s call for multipolarity was interpreted as recognition of multiple, distinct civilizations. The struggle against encroachments on Russian state-society relations—NGOs, religious activism, media, law, certain oligarchs, and so on—intensified over Putin’s two decades. If sensitivity also existed toward Chinese immigration and businesses, suggesting xenophobia, China exercised restraint, expounding noninterference in internal affairs and limiting cross-border movement. By contrast, the US was accused of attempting to eradicate other civilizations as well as political

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models, adding to a national identity gap. Both Moscow and Beijing identified Western “universal values” and democracy promotion initiatives as cover for attempts to intervene in their respective political systems. Huang Kunming, head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Propaganda Department, for instance, has warned that “so-called ‘universal values’” are “trying to seduce people into … being compliant with the West, weakening or even abandoning their identification with their own spiritual culture.”14 The Russian president, with the support of parliament, meanwhile, claims to be defending “traditional values” against Western immorality, passing bans on same-sex marriage, “homosexual propaganda,” and claiming that some European countries are considering legalizing pedophilia.15 A frequent refrain from the West is that China is encroaching into Central Asia, but this is a far less central concern for Russian national identity than the loss of Ukraine to the West, or perhaps in the future, Belarus. A “color revolution” in the former Soviet republics resonates much more than the economic ties China espouses. Even Chinese inroads into security in Central Asia, violating the informal division of labor behind the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, matters much less than NATO expansion and Western military capabilities to the west when refracted through this lens. While the Kremlin would undoubtedly prefer that it remained the primary player in Central Asia, both Beijing and Moscow can agree that a stable region with the status quo of authoritarian leaders in place is preferable to any option that allows extremist groups to flourish or the US to get more involved. Thus, here too, China represents the less dangerous enemy for Russia than the alternatives. Policy Options

If realism were the driving force behind Russia’s pivot to China as the centerpiece in its “Turn to the East,” then the US could weigh the costs economically and militarily to making a counteroffer. They would undoubtedly be much greater than advocates of overtures to Putin have acknowledged. After all, China would not step aside in a bidding war, and it has carrots of great value and sticks very painful for Russia to weather. The idea that currying the favor of Russia would come cheaply is contradictory to a purely realist case for Russia’s choices. The realist argument often rests mainly on the notion that Russians will awaken to the threat from China, and the US will not have to pay much of a price. Yet as long as China is preoccupied with regaining Taiwan, strengthening its military capabilities, defending its territorial claims, and securing its energy needs, it is hardly inclined to arouse Russian anxieties or to scupper the relationship prematurely by flaunting its asymmetries. The case for Russia’s receptivity to a split also rests on the flawed assumption that the Kremlin can be persuaded that its role in international affairs has now been reduced to that of a junior partner and that it can be tempted to choose an asymmetric relationship with Washington over Beijing. This misjudges the extent to which the current relationship with

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China reinforces Russian national identity narratives and shores up Putin’s claim to be the leader of a great power. Many have Nixon’s overtures to Mao in the early 1970s in mind when they propose contemporary US moves toward Russia. But besides the fact that tensions between China and the Soviet Union at the time had escalated to the point of deadly military clashes along their border, the other crucial difference between the current Russia-China relationship and the conditions that preceded the SinoSoviet split is that the leaders of the two countries now promote world views that complement and actively reinforce each other. Where Mao and Khrushchev, then Brezhnev, disputed the pace and direction of socialist development and nurtured resentments and rivalries over the leadership of the global movement, Xi and Putin offer mutually acceptable diagnoses of the greatest threats to their own and broader regional development and security, namely US hegemony and Western overreach. To drive a wedge between them is not a matter of dangling economic carrots before Putin or insisting that China eventually will pose a security threat, but of undercutting Russia’s threat perceptions rooted in identity. At least three glimmers of recent concern in Russia about China deserve further scrutiny, even if they may have been voiced by only a few observers, not likely reflecting the thinking of the top leaders. First, despite the declarations of intimate friendship between Putin and Xi and largely positive coverage of China in Russian state media, there are signs of unease about Chinese intelligence gathering among Russian security officials with a “law enforcement source” revealing details of a counter-espionage case to the government-run TASS news agency in 2021, contrary to the recent pattern of reporting.16 Similarly, the involvement of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei in Russian mobile networks has reportedly raised concerns, even if senior officials have pressed ahead and presented their embrace of the Chinese firm as part of their shared pushback against the West.17 Second, there was the 160th anniversary commemoration of the founding of Vladivostok in 2020, when the Russian Embassy in Beijing posted on its social media account that “Vladivostok” meant “ruling the orient,” triggering a nationalist backlash on Chinese social media and claims that the territory actually belonged to China, proving that historical fault lines between the two countries, though currently buried, are never far below the surface.18 Third, China’s 2020 border skirmish with India struck a blow against Russian hopes for Greater Eurasia and multipolarity—two staples of national identity in foreign policy. Further possible sources of tension include Russian oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea with Vietnam, a rival claimant to China in the disputed waters, China’s Arctic aspirations, and its non-recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. These issues are mentioned in passing, but they have yet to be encapsulated into a national identity critique. In 1975–83, reform-minded Soviet writers found an accepted outlet in criticisms of China to denounce the excesses of a communist-led country with parallels in the Soviet Union. This was a delicate endeavor to stay on the right side

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of the censors with a focus on history.19 Today it is, of course, much harder to criticize China, given close ties, but mention of Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and certain authoritarian currents has crept into some writings without any mention of comparisons with Russia. The idea that some developments in China could cast a shadow on Sino-Russian relations is sometimes broached, albeit with circumspection. Fear of Russia slipping back into Soviet habits—often linked to advocates of an alliance with China—gives us the first signs that contestation over Russian national identity could lead to divisions over the relationship with China. But this is a long way from a real, top-level debate over China’s national identity that would be likely to alter Russia’s calculus. Strains in Sino-Russian relations have, it is true, persisted over three decades of improving relations, and Russian articles had briefly recently recognized that they were deepening.20 If this creates an opening sufficient for the US to test, that should be done not based on an illusion, but on a clear-eyed assessment of Russian thinking. Putin is firmly in charge, and there is scant evidence that the bulk of the political elite does not share his views of national identity. Signs of rethinking the identity symbols that favor China over the US, such as had emanated from Beijing by 1971, would need to precede any such overtures with any prospect of success. It is also essential that policy makers proceed on the understanding that Russia is unlikely to be lured into making a binary choice between closer ties with China and with the US, but rather that Moscow will attempt to extract what it can from both relationships. Therefore, any suggestion of lifting sanctions or declining to impose further consequences for future Russian aggression should be considered separately from the issue of whether it is possible to influence the direction of Sino-Russian relations, which as this article has shown are based on more than purely realist assumptions. Conclusion

Both Putin and Xi have removed the formal limits that would have required them to leave office at the end of their current terms, signaling clearly that they intend to wield power in some form well into the future. Thus, the apparent strength of their personal relationship augurs the continued deepening of ties rather than their inherent fragility. Both men have based their claim to that power not just on security or economic concerns, but on appeals to historical memory and national identity—both claim to be restoring their countries to their rightful status, reclaiming prestige, power, and respect—and their respective, highly selective narratives complement and reinforce one another. These two leaders conjure past great victories over foreign aggressors as ideological ballast in the contemporary battle they claim to be fighting against US hegemony and attempts to undermine their respective development, security, and traditional values. To understand the nature of the current relationship between China and Russia, it is important to bear in mind that China does not just offer Russia a market for

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its energy exports and its military technology, but a joint partner in its rejection of the liberal international order and democratic ideals, and political and diplomatic cover, if not always full-throated support, for its foreign policy moves. The idea that Moscow is likely to be lured away from an asymmetric relationship with Beijing for an asymmetric relationship with Washington that offers much less support for these national identity narratives is therefore difficult to foresee, and realist arguments for a grand bargain with Putin must be tempered by a clear understanding of this reality. (This chapter from 2021 predates the Ukraine war, when some in the US saw hope for splitting Russia from China.) Notes 1 Charles A. Kupchan, “The Right Way to Split China and Russia: Washington Should Help Moscow Leave a Bad Marriage,” Foreign Affairs, August 4, 2021. 2 Chung-yue-Chang, “Study History, be Close to the People,” China Daily, July 9, 2013, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2013-07/09/content_16749701.htm, “Document 9: A ChinaFile Translation,” ChinaFile, November 8, 2013, https:// www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation 3 Arkady Ostrovsky, The Invention of Russia: The Journey from Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War (London: Atlantic Books, 2015), 284. 4 “Imperialist invaders brought the flames of war burning to the doorway of the new China,” Xi claimed. “The victory in the war to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea was a victory of justice, a victory of peace and a victory of the people.” Doug Bandow, “Xi Jinping Doubles Down on Korean War Propaganda: China’s New Nationalism Is Alienating Its Neighbors and Distorting History,” Foreign Policy, November 18, 2020. 5 Katie Stallard, “Who Controls the Past Controls the Future: The Political Use of WWII History in Russia and China,” September 9, 2019, The Asan Forum (September– October 2019), http://www.theasanforum.org/who-controls-the-past-controls-thefuture-the-political-use-of-wwii-history-in-russia-china/ 6 “Amid Trade Tensions with America, China Is Showing Old War Films,” The Economist, May 23, 2019, https://www.economist.com/china/2019/05/23/amid-trade-tensionswith-america-china-is-showing-old-war-films 7 See “Country Report: Russia,” posted in late 2015 and early 2016 in The Asan Forum for discussion of these commemorations. 8 Xinhua, “Full Text: Xi’s Speech at Commemoration of 70th Anniversary of War Victory,” China Daily, September 3, 2015, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/20 15victoryanniv/2015-09/03/content_21783362.htm 9 Vladimir Putin, “The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II,” The National Interest, June 18, 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/vladimirputin-real-lessons-75th-anniversary-world-war-ii-162982 10 “Russian Parliament Approves Law on Moving End of WWII date to September 3,” TASS, April 14, 2020, https://tass.com/society/1144775 11 For Russian concerns about Chinese thinking regarding territorial claims, see “Country Report: Russia,” int The Asan Forum, July 2021. 12 Yang Kuisong, “The Sino-Soviet Border Clash of 1969: From Zhenbao Island to Sino-American Rapprochement,” Cold War History 1, No. 1 (2000), 21–52. DOI: 10.1080/713999906 13 Gilbert Rozman, The Sino-Russian Challenge to the World Order: National Identities, Bilateral Relations, and East vs. West in the 2010s (Washington, DC, and Stanford, CA: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 2014).

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14 “China Minister Warns Against Seduction of Values by Western Nations,” Reuters, November 16, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-culture/chinaminister-warns-against-seduction-of-values-by-western-nations-idUSKBN1DH0AU 15 Shaun Walker, “Vladimir Putin: Gay People at Winter Olympics must ‘Leave Children Alone,’” The Guardian, January 17, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ jan/17/vladimir-putin-gay-winter-olympics-children 16 Alexander Gabuev and Leonid Kovachich, “Comrades in Tweets? The Contours and Limits of China-Russia Cooperation on Digital Propaganda,” Carnegie Moscow Center, June 3, 2021, https://carnegie.ru/2021/06/03/comrades-in-tweets-contoursand-limits-of-china-russia-cooperation-on-digital-propaganda-pub-84673 17 Andrei Soldatov, “Security First, Technology Second: Putin Tightens his Grip on Russia’s Internet – with China’s Help,” DGAP Policy Brief, March 7, 2019, https://dgap. org/en/research/publications/security-first-technology-second; Leon Aron, “Are Russia and China Really Forming an Alliance?” Foreign Affairs, April 4, 2019, https:// www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2019-04-04/are-russia-and-china-reallyforming-alliance 18 Eduardo Baptista, “Why Russia’s Vladivostok Celebration Prompted a Nationalist Backlash in China,” South China Morning Post, July 2, 2020, https://www. scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/ar ticle/3091611/why-r ussias-vladivostokcelebration-prompted-nationalist 19 Gilbert Rozman, “Moscow’s China-Watchers in the Post-Mao Era: The Response to a Changing China,” The China Quarterly 94 ( June 1983), 215–41. 20 Compare articles in the bi-monthly Country Report: China, The Asan Forum in 2020–21 with those in 2013–19.

PART II

Turning in Multiple Directions

4 THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST AND CHINA’S NORTHEAST A Decade in the Shadow of the Belt and Road Initiative Gaye Christoffersen

In 2013, the same year the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB)—soon to be rolled into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—was unveiled, Vladimir Putin proclaimed that promoting economic development in the Russian Far East is the “national priority of the entire 21st century.” His “Turn to the East,” announced in 2012, was seen as benefiting, first of all, the Far East region of Russia. It was in 2012 that Putin hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Vladivostok. For over two decades already, the development of this area had been closely linked to Northeast China—just across the border—pointing to the need for taking a close look at the interrelationship of thinking on both the Russian and Chinese sides. In parallel, Xi Jinping and Putin announced their plans, and through 2021, they jockeyed to adjust to each other’s initiatives toward cross-border interaction. Many analysts in Moscow worked on developing what it meant to “Turn to the East.” The Moscow-based Valdai Discussion Club produced six reports on different dimensions of “Towards the Great Ocean,” the first in 2012 and the sixth in 2019. These reports were compiled into a book Towards the Great Ocean: A Chronicle of Russia’s Turn to the East, presented at the 2019 Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok with a seminar on its contents. The volume was meant to be the definitive statement of what “Turn to the East” entailed. A question was raised about whether the “Turn” was voluntary or forced. The answer was part of the elite in Moscow forced another part of Moscow’s elite to “Turn to the East.” A professor from Vladivostok, Artyom Lukin, noted he had not seen significant changes in the Russian Far East under the “Turn.” Others noted the “Turn” had begun in Moscow and only much later did it involve Russians who actually live in Asia.1

DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-7

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Putin’s “Turn to the East” was understood differently in the Russian Far East compared to Moscow. Russian analysts in Primorye examined concretely how the “Turn” would impact budgetary requirements, administrative procedures, legislation, and policy adaptation. The “Turn” initially brought massive investment but was followed later by funding cuts. Local implementation was assessed by Moscow as insufficient. There was a gap between declaring Primorye at the forefront of the “Turn to the East” and its actual implementation.2 Another Primorye analyst thought the Kremlin was preoccupied with Europe and the Middle East, giving less priority to the Russian Far East and the Asia-Pacific.3 Victor Larin noted in 2018 the concept of “Turn to the East” as applied to the Russian Far East might seem real to Kremlin dreamers; but here, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, these ideas are taken as simply another experiment using ritual words not accompanied by economic development.4 The local Primorye perspective reflected a long history of Moscow’s pivots to Asia since Peter the Great that had varying levels of success.5 Chinese analyst, Zhao Huasheng, noted that Russia’s “Turn to the East” only had diplomatic and economic dimensions, but not civilizational and cultural dimensions. The “Turn” was based on Russian ideologies of Eurasianism which view Russia as independent and distinct from both Europe and Asia, although the purpose of the “Turn” was to improve Russia’s status in Asia, and it was not really leaving Europe. Russian Eurasianists had not adopted Asian ideologies. Zhao thought the “Turn” would be a long process and not necessarily successful.6 A Russian analyst from Novosibirsk argues that mistakes were made in the “Turn to the East,” which lacked consistent actions, and lacked a carefully thought through roadmap. He proposed the Russian Foreign Ministry devise a comprehensive and practical Asia-Pacific strategy that would articulate what Russia could offer to the region and how the Asia-Pacific would benefit Russia. This was needed to overcome the inertia of bureaucracy that had impeded the “Turn to the East” up to the present. He criticized Moscow’s vociferous declarations on the turn away from the West without a genuine pivot to Asia.7 In this chapter, I start with the evolution of China’s thinking because it has had a greater impact on Russian policy than the other way around. Chinese analysts frame the seventy-year history of the PRC in the border areas as having had five stages with the latest stage placing all projects of border integration under the BRI: border free trade zones, infrastructure construction along the border, and a going-out strategy of Chinese FDI.8 In Russian analysis, we can detect at least three stages in thinking about this corner of Russia: (1) 2012–16, high expectations in Moscow for large, but controlled, Chinese investments in the Far East; (2) 2017–19, Russia agreeing to joining the Far East into the BRI as many noted failed earlier plans and doubted new ones; and (3) 2020–21, combining the Far East with the Arctic in a maritime partnership with support for the Northern Sea Route against the shadow of pandemic border closings. (Here I merge the first two stages in other chapters into one.) In the first stage, Russia did not fulfill its promises, scuttling Chinese plans. In the second, Russia agreed to new joint

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plans, but China saw scant progress. Plans then centered on the Polar Silk Route, but China sought to bring them into the BRI, while Russia countered with an “Arctic-Pacific” region affirming its sovereign control. In late 2021, borders remain largely closed, the Northern Sea Route awaited more climate change, and geopolitical, maritime ties offered more hope. The Chinese and Russian sides have differed on how to design cooperation. China focused on infrastructural projects useful for importing Russian natural resources, while Russia focused on developing industries in resource processing. The two sides failed to reach a consensus. Later, China insisted, as a Near-Arctic state, on equal partnership in developing the Northern Sea Route, while Russia demanded respect for its sovereignty and rejected China’s Arctic claims. They are still in disagreement despite joint efforts. Beginning with a pre-BRI stage, there have been at least three phases in how China conceptualized Chinese Northeast-Russian Far East (hereafter NortheastFar East) integration since the 1980s. Reconceptualization over two stages during the past decade portrays BRI as the driver of that integration: the years 2012–16 witnessed efforts by Heilongjiang province to make Northeast-Far East integration the core of Russia’s participation in the BRI; and in 2017–21, Beijing promoted a Polar Silk Road which went through the Russian Northern Sea Route (NSR). Heilongjiang put Northeast-Far East integration at the center of this Polar Silk Road, conceiving of itself as the logistics hub of this road although it lacked seaports. Russian-Chinese joint construction of the Polar Silk Road in the Arctic led to discussion about creating a maritime partnership. The years 2020–21 saw efforts at intensifying Northeast-Far East integration while dealing with problems such as center-local relations in both countries and Covid-19’s impact on a crossborder economic downturn. China’s Northeast State-Building: Ministries and Border Planning

Han Enze has argued that state-building in one country can influence the same process in neighboring states in a process that is asymmetrical for most countries on China’s periphery. China has greater resources and a larger capacity for continuously planning and building the state.9 The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Commerce serve as the BRI’s core planning organizations, issuing numerous directives for the border area. The State Council issues directives meant to clarify basic principles of opening up border areas. Chinese center-local planning appears well coordinated although Heilongjiang is considered to be overly assertive in its approach to the Russian Far East, and at times has been reined in by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The two SinoRussian Northeast-Far East integration programs of 2009–18 and 2018–24 should be viewed as nested in this continuous border planning process, which includes

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NDRC planning and Heilongjiang planning. A time-line indicates extensive Chinese effort at state-building and infrastructure building on the Sino-Russian border. Russian planning appears to be parallel planning loosely coordinated with the Chinese plans. Below, all plans listed are Chinese, except where indicated as Russian or Sino-Russian bilateral (Table 4.1). For every Five-Year Plan that the NDRC created for the nation as a whole, there was a corresponding border plan. The large number of directives in the past decade was indicative of a continuous Chinese process of building border infrastructure, and an elevation of local border trade to the level of a national strategy, especially Heilongjiang’s plan. After the BRI was announced, Beijing financially incentivized provinces to create local provincial BRI plans that would support the national-level BRI. Despite extensive central planning for Heilongjiang, the province sought ways to minimize center-local differences. There are three potential mechanisms for exercising provincial influence—trailblazing, carpetbagging, and resisting.10 When Heilongjiang is trailblazing, it is getting out ahead of Beijing, promoting policies toward the Far East, that have local benefits. It lobbies Beijing, as every province has done, and can also present it with a fait accompli. When Heilongjiang is carpetbagging, it is implementing Beijing’s policies in a way that promotes local interests by slipping in local policies under the rubric of central policies. When it is resisting, it is failing to implement Beijing’s policies by shirking and stalling because they hurt local interests. Whatever presidents Putin and Xi agree to, it is modified at the local level. These behaviors occur because the central government is viewed locally as being inefficient at managing border issues. Encouraged by Heilongjiang, Beijing designated Northeast-Far East integration a priority project of Russia’s participation in the BRI. Chinese views of relations with Russia under the BRI think of it as the latest mechanism to promote Chinese Northeast and Russian Far East regional cooperation, and try once again to link the Revitalization of the Northeast’s Old Industrial Base Strategy with the Russian Far East Development Strategy, an effort of several decades, now focused on jointly building the Polar Silk Road. Chinese hoped that construction of the Northern Sea Route would promote international transportation corridors, Primorye-1 and Primorye-2 high-speed railways, that would connect the Northeast with the Northern Sea Route and facilitate integration of Northeast China and the Russian Far East. Heilongjiang analysts claim this would make Northeast China a transportation hub on the Polar Silk Road.11 In June 2017, China and Russia signed a Memorandum of Cooperation for the development of two international transport corridors: “Primorye-1” (Harbin-MudanjiangSuifenhe-Pogranichny-Ussuriysk-Vladivostok/Nakhodka) giving Heilongjiang’s exports access to Asia-Pacific markets; and “Primorye-2” (Changchun-JilinHunchun-Zarubino port) to benefit Jilin province and finally give Hunchun access to the Asia-Pacific. Some Chinese analysts thought these projects were key for implementation of Northeast-Far East regional integration.12

The Russian Far East and China’s Northeast  73 TABLE 4.1  Overview of Plans for the Sino-Russian Border

Year

Plans

2003 Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Implementing the Revitalization Strategy of Old Industrial Bases in Northeast China 2005 Report of the State Council on Revitalizing the Northeast Old Industrial Base 2007 11th Five-Year Plan for Making the Border Prosperous and Enriching the People (2005–10) 2008 Master Plan for the Revitalization of Old Industrial Bases in Heilongjiang Province. Plan formulated by Heilongjiang determined the goals and tasks for developing cooperation with the Russian Far East 2009 Program of Cooperation between the Northeast of the People’s Republic of China and the Far East and Eastern Siberia of the Russian Federation (2009–18) (Sino-Russian bilateral) 2011 12th Five-Year Plan for Making the Border Prosperous and Enriching the People 2012 12th Five-Year Plan for the Revitalization of Northeast China. This plan was meant to be the basis for implementing the Sino-Russian Plan for Cooperation between Northeast China and the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia (2009–18) 2013 Plan for Development and Opening up of Border Regions. Central government plan to build 120 open border ports and massive infrastructure investment 2013 Heilongjiang and Northeastern Inner Mongolia Border Development and Opening Plan. NDRC formulated a provincial plan for Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia 2015 Opinions of the State Council on Several Policy Measures Supporting the Development and Opening up of Key Border Areas 2015 Leading Small Group on Advancing the Construction of the Belt and Road created; oversees and coordinates implementation of BRI; the LSG’s Office is situated in the NDRC 2016 Opinions on Several Policies and Measures to Support the Development and Opening up of Key Border Regions 2016 Central Committee of the CCP and the State Council formulated “Several Opinions on the Comprehensive Revitalization of Old Industrial Bases in Northeast China” 2016 13th Five-Year Plan for the Revitalization of Northeast China 2016 13th Five-Year Plan for Prospering the Border and Enriching the People 2017 One Belt One Road Initiative Maritime Cooperation Plan 2018 Program for development of Russian-Chinese cooperation in trade, economic and investment spheres in the Far East of the Russian Federation (2018–24) (SinoRussian bilateral) 2020 National Plan for Social and Economic Development in the Far East by 2024 and Prospects for 2035 (Russian) 2020 Strategy for Developing the Russian Arctic Zone and Ensuring National Security through 2035 (Russian) 2021 14th Five-Year Plan for Making the Border Prosperous and Enriching the People. The 14th Five-Year Plan includes improving border cities Manzhouli, Suifenhe, and Hunchun, building border airports, constructing river ports in Heihe, Tongjiang, and Heixiazi, and building infrastructure for border villages—roads, electricity, and communications 2021 14th Five-Year Plan for the Comprehensive Revitalization of Northeast China

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As the BRI progressed, foreign analysts viewed it as Beijing’s geopolitical strategy for a Sinocentric order. Despite the extent of central planning, Beijing instructed all Chinese who wrote on the BRI to describe the drivers of BRI as provincial initiatives, forbidding calling the BRI a “strategy.” Beijing required that all BRI topics were top-down delegated to researchers with no independent studies of the BRI, no critical inquiry, no domestic criticism allowed on the BRI, and no debates on how developing countries can pay back their loans. The international debate over the nature of the BRI, whether it was Beijing’s geopolitical strategy or the result of provincial initiatives, is germane to Heilongjiang’s participation in it and efforts to pull the Russian Far East into it. Baogang He emphasized the domestic sources of the BRI, intending to counter Western analysts who focus on it as a geopolitical strategy.13 Min Ye also focused on the domestic sources, arguing that the BRI is not simply a “personalistic ‘vision’ of an autocratic leader.”14 Jones and Zeng have argued that the “BRI is an extremely loose, indeterminate scheme, driven primarily by competing domestic interests, particularly state capitalist interests, whose struggle for power and resources are already shaping BRI’s design and implementation.”15 After 2012, Beijing developed increasing confidence in its capacity to more actively manage its periphery, using concepts of hierarchy and asymmetrical power relations. Smith argues that the BRI is Beijing’s peripheral strategy meant to build institutions that will integrate neighboring states under its leadership and eventually construct a regional order that respected China’s core interests.16 Calabrese argues that China’s BRI-related activities involve a complex, heterogeneous mix of national and sub-national actors. Despite the BRI being a CCP-driven top-down design, its implementation depends on loose cooperation between provincial governments and central agencies.17 This need for BRI center-local coordination reproduces all the problems of center-local governance (条-快) that the PRC has encountered for seven decades. Russian Far East State-Building: Ministries and Organizations

The presence of Chinese border state-building has always influenced border statebuilding on the Russian side. This was true in the early 1990s when Heilongjiang had approximately 24 border ports well-staffed and equipped while Primorye on the Russian side had minimal staff and equipment to the extent of contracting out border control to local Russian business, mafia groups, and the paramilitary Cossacks. Heilongjiang now claims it has opened 25 first-class ports to Russia, which accounts for 70% of the country’s border ports with Russia, and includes 15 river ports, 4 highway ports, 4 air ports, and 2 railway ports. The Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East (Министерство по развитию Дальнего Востока России) was established on May 21, 2012 as a federal body that coordinates state programs in the Russian Far East drawing from a list approved by the central government. Overseeing local governments in

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their implementation of the center’s programs, it is responsible for attracting foreign investment and is empowered to designate priority development areas available for foreign investment, the Territories of Priority Development (Территории опережающего развития). There are now 18 such advanced special economic zones (ASEZ), which should provide infrastructure, preferential tax regimes, and skilled labor. The Far East and Arctic Development Corporation operates preferential regimes for the ASEZ; the Free Port Vladivostok (FPV); the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation (AZRF); the Special Administrative Region (SAR) on Russky Island; and the Kuril Islands. Chinese companies are attracted to these zones due to provision of infrastructure and preferential policies, but the laws governing the zones are reported to be constantly changing, creating investor uncertainty. Problems include lack of coordination between different branches of government and the new institutions created to manage the advanced zones. Bureaucracies have proliferated rather than deregulating. A Russian analyst noted that if federal and regional governments could coordinate, the investment climate would improve.18 The EEF, held annually in Vladivostok to attract foreign investment, is managed by the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic with minimal input from the local community. Ivan Zuenko argues the EEF has become an exhibition of the achievements of the ministry, a report to primarily Putin rather than foreign investors. He further argues the EEF is: a forum for large-scale federal business with a federal agenda, on which local participants feel as if they are guests. The moderators and speakers in the sessions are practically always Moscow experts, who often have a very sketchy understanding of the realities in the Russian Far East.19 According to a 2016, report by the Institute of History, Ethnography, and Archeology on Chinese investment in the Russian Far East, in 2012 the central government began to cut back on domestic financing for development of the Russian Far East, and instead hoped for China’s investment for the region. The Territories of Priority Development and the FPV were created to attract this foreign investment.20 The EEF has had an additional purpose of furthering Putin’s geopolitical strategies and emphasizing Russia’s military presence in Northeast Asia. As an investment forum, some foreign analysts assessed it as losing relevance due to a deficit in governance and rule of law, corruption, and ever-changing rules for the Russian market.21 In 2016, Artyom Lukin acknowledged that the Far East was lacking in interagency coordination and necessary infrastructure, although he held out hope for structural reforms.22 There was further institutionalization in the creation of the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, the Far Eastern Development Fund, and the Far East Investment and Export Agency—all responsible for attracting investments—but

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a boom in foreign investment failed to materialize due to lack of infrastructure and human capital, and bureaucratic inertia. The Russia-China Investment Cooperation Committee was created as a mechanism within the Russia-China Investment Cooperation Forum. In 2021, rather than meet during the EEF, it met in Xiamen on September 8 on the sidelines of the China International Investment and Trade Fair (CIFIT). The Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, created in February 2019 to replace the Ministry for Development of the Russian Far East, coordinates implementation of federal programs in the Far Eastern Federal District, including the Arctic to improve the efficiency of developing the Arctic zone. Its head regularly reports to the Kremlin. Alexander Kozlov, the minister from 2018 to 2020, in April 2020 with Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev, met with Putin to report on progress building social infrastructure facilities in Buryatia and the Trans-Baikal Territory, which were integrated into the Far Eastern Federal District in 2018. Trutnev reported that 2,283 projects were being implemented in the Far East with government budgetary support. He claimed private investment far exceeded government expenditures and that the industrial growth rate in 2019 was 6%, much higher than in Russia as a whole. Kozlov and Trutnev were working on a draft law for a system of incentives for the Arctic zone.23 Alexei Chekunkov replaced Kozlov in November 2020, while also chairing the board of directors at the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (FEDC). As director and board member of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) from 2011 to 2013, he supervised the inauguration of the joint Russia-China Investment Fund with the China Investment Corporation (CIC). From 2014 to 2020, he was director general of the Far East and Arctic Region Development Fund (VEB.RF), which Artyom Dovlatov now heads. The two represent the linking of the Arctic with the Russian Far East. According to Dovlatov, “The ongoing reform of the Far East and Arctic development institutions is aimed at creating a single management mechanism, enhancing development efficiency and highlighting the achievement of national goals. VEB.RF will finance our priority projects in the Far East and Arctic.”24 In October 2020, Putin’s “Strategy for Developing the Russian Arctic Zone and Ensuring National Security through 2035” laid out policies for Arctic development, replacing the 2013 Arctic strategy, which had emphasized civil society organizations as partners on environmental issues, with one dominated by energy companies and the military. In February 2021, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved six major state-supported investment projects in the Arctic region, focusing on Murmansk Oblast, Novaya Zemlya archipelago, and Taymyr Peninsula. Chekunkov noted that private businesses were expected to invest ten times more than the Russian government in these, logical since the Arctic region involves oil, natural gas, and LNG, which attract

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foreign investment. The federal government would partially compensate (20%) Russian companies for infrastructure-related expenditures in construction of transportation, energy, and electricity in the Arctic—all related to developing the Northern Sea Route. One observer noted: “Local elites of neighboring regions—less endowed with strategic natural resources and/or less important for the NSR—feel frustrated at being excluded. There was no mention of the Russian Far East in the Arctic investment projects.”25 Did the creation of a new institution combining the Russian Far East and the Arctic into one ministry shift the priority away from Russian Far East development, or did linking the Far East to the Arctic enhance the Far East’s possibilities for greater foreign investment? Would the Far East indirectly benefit from its proximity to the Northern Sea Route? How would this impact Chinese views of the Far East? Would this change Primorye’s potential identity from Pacific Russia to Arctic Russia? In 2021, Pavel Minakir stated: There is a ministry for the development of the region, and it should regularly report that development is taking place…what is “advanced development,” what do we want? Do we want to develop the Vladivostok region? Khabarovsk? So let’s develop them in a targeted manner. So far, it’s not working out very well. 26 His point was that the ministry focused on economic growth, increasing the GDP for the region rather than economic development. The GDP growth was driven by foreign investment in extractive industries and was controlled by large state enterprises Gazprom, Rosneft, Novatech, Sibur, which did not contribute to a more broad-based, diversified development of the Far East. Minakir argued that the “Turn to the East” implied greater federal government investment in the Far East, but in fact, it was not happening. For example, in 2020, the Far East generated 1.2 trillion rubles in tax and non-tax fees. Of that, 300 billion rubles went to the federal budget. 450 billion rubles were returned to the Far East from the federal budget, which seems like it invested 150 billion rubles, but this is only 10% of the 1.2 trillion rubles. Benefits of GDP growth accrue to large state enterprises from Moscow. According to Minakir, genuine development would depend on giving the Far East freedom rather than subsidies: “Let the people here develop everything themselves.”27 A Chinese analyst would agree with Minakir that the local government lacks authority over the direction of regional development, noting “the Far East policy at the federal level is continuous, stable, clear and sober; however, it squeezes out the space of the local government. This is the problem.” 28 Chinese analysis finds Russian center-local relations problematic, undermining economic development of the Far East and also bordering Chinese provinces. It is felt that Russian Far East governors are actively advocating for expanding economic and trade relations with China, which is already significant. In 2018,

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China accounted for 83.5% of the total foreign trade of the Amur Region, 52.7% in Primorsky Krai, and 59.6% in Khabarovsk Krai, making China the largest trading partner for each. 29 Minakir has noted that a majority of Sino-Russian trade and investment is controlled by state corporations and government ministries, and are in the “old” economy of energy, arms trade, and infrastructure construction. This had simplified the decision-making process between Moscow and Beijing, but it had not nurtured cooperation between small- and medium-sized firms. Smaller firms have developed the “new” economy such as cross-border e-commerce and tourism. Reducing regulations and providing tax incentives would generate real economic growth in Russo-Chinese cooperation drawing on the capabilities of small- and medium-sized firms. Free Trade Zones (FTZ) would give the production of these smaller firms greater access to the Chinese market.30 Xi Jinping has promoted planning and policymaking coordination between countries in the BRI, but for Russia it is not clear that it will closely coordinate despite Sino-Russian parallel planning. Some Chinese analysts claim there is not yet mutually beneficial Northeast-Far East planning cooperation.31 Russian law does not give regional authorities the legal authority or the finances to pursue joint projects with foreign companies. Their proposals must first be approved by Moscow. Chinese investors have successfully negotiated with Far East governors and thought they had agreement only to see the project evaporate because the governor did not have the authority. According to Anatoli Buryi, chairman of the Far Eastern Chamber of Commerce and Industry, this has left Chinese investors frustrated. Moscow has the authority but is reluctant to allow Chinese investment to take a controlling interest in Far East projects. Artyom Lukin reflects ambivalent local sentiment that Russia was different from China’s other BRI partners, and was “not willing to sacrifice its sovereignty in exchange for greater Chinese investment in the Far East.”32 Yet just two years before, Lukin had noted that “China’s control over one or two ports in the Far East is unlikely to undermine Russia’s national security.”33 In July 2021, the ministry reported that Chinese investors were funding 58 regional projects worth US$11.6 billion, and that Chinese investment made up 73% of foreign investment. It is more optimistic than some Russian analysts who find a pattern of Russian high expectations of rapid and easily obtained Chinese investments followed by disillusionment when Chinese balk, or the conditions are not favorable enough to overcome a Russian fear of dependency on China or a loss of territory. Russians then conclude “Better to be poor and without the Chinese than to be rich with unavoidable changes that result in Chinese expansion.”34 After the 2021 EEF, there were reported to be 380 agreements signed worth 3.6 trillion rubles with Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, Canadian, and Kazakhstan representatives. Alexander Sergunin has argued that Arctic Russian sub-national actors have been transformed in the last three decades from passive policy-takers to active

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policy-makers in both domestic and foreign policy. They have attracted foreign investment, worked with international organizations, and cooperated with foreign counterparts in areas such as education and environmental issues.35 The situation of the Russian Far East challenges Sergunin’s argument. Heilongjiang’s Role in the Polar Silk Road

To establish Heilongjiang’s Arctic identity, Beiji Village, Heilongjiang, is called China’s Arctic Village, the northern most village in China which is on the Amur River but not within the Arctic Circle. Its houses are wooden Russian style cabins. Villagers hunt and fish. Beiji Village brands itself as integrating Chinese, Russian, and Oroqen people, the Siberian minority that spans the Sino-Russian border. Many people along the border are of mixed ethnicity. There is a Northern Nationality Garden which contains a Russia Garden and an Oroqen Garden, with the Oroqen Museum, Orthodox Church, and the Russian Bar. Beijing assigned Heilongjiang to the Russian Far East at the beginning of economic reforms during the regional pairing scheme for border provinces when Liaoning was paired with Japan, Jilin was paired with North Korea, and Shandong lobbied to be paired with South Korea. This could undermine the central ministries’ monopoly over foreign trade, but it did not appear problematic until the Xi Jinping era. It was not until October 2013 that the CCP Central Committee convened a Central Work Conference on diplomacy for the periphery, the first work forum to consider peripheral diplomacy. Prior to the forum, there were several Politburo study sessions attempting to define China’s diplomatic strategy on the periphery. At the conference, at the same time Xi introduced the BRI, he changed the order of the general framework for foreign relations and made the periphery China’s top strategic priority for the first time. Deng Xiaoping in 1979 had put the periphery as secondary to major power relations. Beijing analysts debated the wisdom of this shift. In 2015, Yan Xuetong argued for prioritizing periphery diplomacy, which could lead to countries on China’s periphery bandwagoning with Beijing.36 Russia was included in this periphery. This expectation is reflected in Xi Jinping’s statements on BRI countries coordinating their policies with Beijing. China sees the Russian Far East and Siberia as an essential part of the NSR, and views the NSR as a positive factor contributing to Far East development that would lead to infrastructure support for the NSR in the Far East. China views its road to the Arctic as running through the Russian Far East.37 Russia had limited its participation in the BRI although Putin always publicly stated his support for it. At the May 2017 Belt and Road Forum, he changed his position, stating his hope that China would connect the NSR with the BRI and indicating greater involvement in the BRI. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on May 26, 2017, gave an interview to Russian media indicating Chinese interest in Putin’s proposal to work together with each other and other countries willing

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to participate in the Polar Silk Road—the first official discussion of Sino-Russian cooperation in the Arctic.38 On June 20, 2017, the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Oceanic Administration jointly issued the “One Belt and One Road Maritime Cooperation Plan,” proposing to actively promote the construction of a Blue Economic Corridor connecting with Europe via the Arctic Ocean, incorporating the Arctic into China’s BRI initiative. On July 4, 2017, Xi visited Russia and discussed with Putin joint construction of the Polar Silk Road in the Arctic. On January 26, 2018, the State Council Information Office published the white paper “China’s Arctic Policy,” mentioning the Polar Silk Road and calling China a Near-Arctic country that would participate in Arctic governance. Chinese situated the Polar Silk Road along the Northern Sea Route and spoke of SinoRussian joint construction of this addition to the BRI. Russians did not accept China’s Near-Arctic status, believing there were only two kinds of states, either Arctic or non-Arctic.39 Chinese called it an extension of China and Russia’s “Belt and Road Alliance,” and expected the Polar Silk Road would have a significant positive effect on the comprehensive revitalization of Heilongjiang. Some even claimed that Heilongjiang is a logistics hub, the “bridgehead,” that forms a threedimensional transportation network with Harbin as the center and the border ports of Suifenhe, Tongjiang, and Heihe as nodes, which includes railway, highway, aviation, river-sea combined transportation, cargo on ice, and pipelines.40 Chinese analysts in 2021 reiterated what was said in the 1980s, that Heilongjiang geographically is at the core of the Northeast Asian economic circle that includes Russia, China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan.41 But this could only become a reality if it integrated with the Russian Far East and developed transport links that gave it access to the Sea of Japan, the Asia-Pacific, and the NSR. Provincial hope was placed on the BRI as the latest effort to connect Heilongjiang. The Polar Silk Road would organically integrate Russia’s Far East Development plan with China’s “Revitalize the Northeast Old Industrial Base.”42 Some at the Harbin Engineering University argued that Heilongjiang should become “China’s outpost for the implementation of the national Arctic policy,” hoping they could turn it into a logistics hub for transportation between Northeast Asia, Europe, and North America when China participates in the Arctic Blue Economic Corridor (ABEC). In 2018, the university established the Arctic Blue Economy Research Center in collaboration with Russia’s Northern Arctic Federal University (NarFU) to carry out research on industrial collaboration, trade, investment, finance, and regional economic development between China, Russia, and the Nordic countries. It has become part of the University of the Arctic (UArctic), a cooperative network of universities and research institutes working on Arctic issues. During 2014–15, Heilongjiang developed its own BRI initiative that would connect with the central government’s BRI. During 2016–20, it worked on transit networks with Europe. The “Eastern Longjiang River Land and Maritime Silk Road Economic Belt initiative” included networks

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by rail, air, car, and river that would link seaports of Vladivostok and Nakhodka to Suifenfe and Harbin, Manzhouli and Birobidzhan, then linked to Dalian by rail, and cross-border power transmission. This network basically builds on the China Eastern Railroad and the South Manchurian Railroad built long ago by Russia and Japan. Heilongjiang planned a trans-border transport network through China’s Northeast and Russia linking Northeast Asia and Europe.43 Others recognized that China’s Northeast is not yet connected to the Polar Silk Road due to: high operating costs of the route; poor logistics capacity of related ports; lack of judicial cooperation between China and Russia; and no mutually beneficial development plan between China and Russia. They recognized that the Northeast is geographically close but not connected to the Arctic and therefore needed a strategy for connecting with the Polar Silk Road.44 It would be easier for Liaoning’s ports Dalian and Yingkou than it would be for Harbin or Jilin’s Hunchun. They would have to rely on the strategy of “borrowing ports to go to sea,” i.e., Primorye-1 and Primorye-2 railways. Sino-Russian Dialogue on the Way Forward in Northeast-Far East Integration

The year 2019 appeared to be a time of critically assessing failures in the Programme of Cooperation Between Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia and Chinese Northeastern Regions (2009–18). In 2019, Feng Shaolei, in a talk to the Valdai Discussion Club, acknowledged that China and Russia were exploring a more effective and sustainable pattern of Northeast-Far East border cooperation than had been practiced during 2009–18. He mentioned debates in China regarding developing the Russian Far East, and he was not optimistic.45 According to Feng, the Russian Far East only attracts 2% of total foreign investment in Russia, leaving it dependent on federal government subsidies, 300 million rubles/year, a burden on the central government. Far East problems include monolithic market structure, heavy reliance on raw materials, low regional budget revenues, weak attraction for foreign investment, increasing dependence on Asian countries, and limited influence on the national economy. Feng thought the Far East is a drag on post-Soviet state-building, and it is holding Russia back from becoming a modern global power. He outlined how China’s view of the Far East has evolved through several stages. The first was a stage of “spontaneous” interaction, mainly focused on border trade and lacking government regulation, producing negative images on both sides. The second stage focused on integrating China’s Northeast Area Revitalization Plan and Russia’s Socioeconomic Development of the Russian Far East and the Baikal Region through a Programme of Cooperation Between Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia and Chinese Northeastern Regions (2009–18). This stage had large-scale projects. Russian and Chinese provincial-level units submitted their applications for the proposed 208 key projects, 70 of which were for trans-border infrastructure. Twenty involved joint construction by the Chinese and Russian sides. The Chinese side

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had a 62% success rate in implementing its projects, while the Russian side only had a 28% success rate by 2016. These projects used domestic investment on both sides with minimal cross-border investment, thus undermining the goal of crossborder economic integration.46 The third stage involved connecting the BRI and the Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) with an agreement signed in May 2015, which had not yet been implemented, to expand investment and trade, implement large-scale investment projects in infrastructure, jointly establish industrial parks and trans-border economic cooperation zones, and strengthen transportation infrastructure. Among the impediments: business communities in China and Russia lacked mutual understanding and trust, and Chinese companies felt they were prohibited from entering the downstream sectors in the Russian energy industry. Feng suggested that Far East development should be in the context of connecting China’s BRI and Russia’s GEP, as China’s proposed Polar Silk Road integrated coastal Far East and Siberia into the strategic coordination framework. Russia should further open the Russian Far East, and change its view of the region, giving up “the phantom concept of the so-called ‘strategic backyard’ in its competition against the West or the ‘strategic frontier’ in the competition with China.”47 Victoria Denisenko quoted Feng Shaolei’s speech to the Valdai Discussion Club, echoing his pessimism, and claiming the high point of Russian-Chinese interaction may already be in the past. Feng had complained that the low level of openness of the Russian Far East market is the main deterrent for Chinese entrepreneurs. Denisenko indicated that the same problem persisted for Russian companies in China.48 China’s 14th Five-Year Plan mentioned raising the level of Harbin’s opening up to Russia as part of the revitalization of the Northeast that would increase prosperity and stability of the border, furthering urbanization in towns and villages along the border and construction of border ports. It promised increasing support for the development of key border areas, providing road access, electricity, postal services, communications, border airports, and radio and television in villages along the border. It also mentioned establishing a negative list management system for cross-border investment. In June 2020, the NDRC and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced the “Negative List for Foreign Investment Access in Pilot Free Trade Zones 2020,” which reduced the number of industries in which foreigners could not invest, indicating greater liberalization in the fourth year of FTZ investment liberalization. Russia’s “National Program for the Development of the Far East by 2035” had forecast that the economy of the Far East would maintain an annual growth rate of nearly 6%. However, the 2017–19 rate was 3%. Then the Covid-19 pandemic slowed all economic activity. In January 2020, China and Russia closed the border between the two countries, to block the spread of the pandemic, but it was impossible because of numerous informal border openings that led to Chinese illegally fleeing Russia through them. Harbin resorted to bounty hunters to search for

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Chinese who had crossed illegally and might be Covid-19 carriers. There were huge economic losses in 2020 due to the border closure, the decline in exports and foreign market demand, the reduction in resource extraction, production decline, decrease in enterprise income, and shrinking domestic demand. According to Pavel Minakir, federal annual investment must increase by about 4% to return to previous growth rates. Due to reduced demand, two-thirds of Far Eastern industries had lost income. In the Far East, the first wave of Covid-19 was from April to August 2020 and the second wave began in October 2020, where the infection rate in the Far East was higher than for Russia as a whole, at more than 20 per 10,000 people.49 The pandemic shutdown revealed the extent to which the Far East depended on Chinese companies and labor. In 2019, Artyom Lukin had noted the serious impediments to Far East development: the Far East could not rapidly develop when the Russian economy as a whole had anemic growth, US sanctions on Russia scared foreign investors from the Far East, minerals and energy exports faced declining demand in Japan and South Korea, and the Russian Far East had not yet built an effective model for cooperation with China. It is this lack of an effective cooperation mechanism that reveals the BRI’s limitations.50 When Putin issued the September 2020 National Plan for Social and Economic Development in the Far East by 2024 and Prospects for 2035, Chinese scrutinized it to determine how it would further Northeast-Far East integration and support implementation of the “Program for development of RussianChinese cooperation in trade, economic and investment spheres in the Far East of the Russian Federation (2018–2024).” Heilongjiang found many unprecedented opportunities for itself in the 2018–24 plan to invest in the Russian Far East responding to preferential investment policies and tax incentives in the 18 Territories of Priority Development and the FPV. It planned to concentrate on linking Harbin, Heihe, and Suifenhe Free Trade Zones with some of the 18 territories. Previous practices of importing Chinese labor into the Russian Far East would be replaced with hiring local Russian workers, which would promote local economic development and win the favor of local residents. Harbin would concentrate on the construction of the Primorye-1 railway and other transport infrastructure.51 Trade with China accounts for 34% of the Far East’s total foreign trade, and China has become the largest investor and trading partner in the Far East. In 2021, Primorye’s foreign trade totaled $10 billion with China accounting for $5 billion. There were high expectations that joint investment funds would smooth development of various cooperation projects, referring to the Sino-Russian Investment Fund, Sino-Russian Agricultural Investment Fund, Sino-Russian Development Fund, and the Russia-China Regional Cooperation and Development Investment Fund. In December 2020, the seventh meeting of the Russian-Chinese Intergovernmental Investment Cooperation Committee was held as part of the ongoing dialogue on the investment cooperation agenda.52 It would appear that both sides

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are willing to work through these mechanisms to continue to try to create a more successful model of cooperation. The EEF, held in Vladivostok every year since 2015, is an important representation of Russia’s “Turn to the East.” It was inaugurated after Putin’s invasion of Crimea to demonstrate that Russia was not isolated despite sanctions. The EEF’s purpose is to attract Asian foreign investment into the Russian Far East. In past EEF meetings, Putin has focused on one potential investor country and played it off others, e.g., Japan off against China, South Korea against China and Japan. However, the seventh EEF, which met September 5–8, 2022 in Vladivostok, had fewer international participants than previous years due to Russia’s war with Ukraine and subsequent sanctions by the West. There was no apparent effort to play one off against the others. Putin’s speech to the EEF expressed his view that the West was declining, which would result in a global power shift. He claimed that Russia had gained, not lost, from the conflict in Ukraine. He criticized the damaging impact of sanctions on the world’s economies. Outside observers characterized Putin’s speech as bellicose and defiant. At the 2022 EEF, Alexei Chekunkov, Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, spoke on Pacific Russia that could become a frontier, a territory for experiments, perhaps suggesting Pacific Russia had a better business environment than the rest of Russia.53 Chinese ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui, spoke on how to improve the investment climate and business conditions in the Russian Far East. It is an issue Chinese officials raise frequently. Some of Putin’s allies in the Russian Far East have died under mysterious circumstances. On September 10, 2022, just after the 2022 EEF, a managing director of the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation, Ivan Pechorin, a close ally of Putin, fell overboard while out on a boat near Russky Island. His body was found the next day. Igor Nosov, the corporation’s director, had died a few months before of what was reported to be a stroke although he was only 43. Another Putin ally, Colonel Vadim Boyko, deputy head of the Makarov Pacific Higher Naval School in Vladivostok, and in charge in Vladivostok of Putin’s mobilization for the Ukraine War, was mysteriously shot five times in his boss’s office on November 16, 2022. This was officially designated a suicide despite the large number of shots. In November 2022, the fourth meeting of the Russia-China Intergovernmental Commission on Cooperation and Development of the Far East and Baikal Region of Russia and of Northeast China was held via videoconference, chaired by Yury Trutnev and Hu Chunhua, vice premier of the PRC. The meeting discussed the 53 projects involving Chinese capital with a total investment of $13.2 billion in the priority development areas and in the FPV. Hu emphasized that the committee’s task was to implement the agreements reached by the countries’ leaders, implying Sino-Russian implementation was still a problem. Hu wanted to create a plan for further cooperation. Trutnev claimed he had proposed to Moscow to make all of the Russian Far East a priority development area, which would open

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up more opportunities for Chinese investment, and thought this proposal might be adopted. Trutnev’s proposal indicated that the Russian Far East continued to seek greater autonomy in its foreign economic relations.54 Infrastructure projects, long delayed but now open, will facilitate increased trade in the future. The Blagoveshchensk-Heihe road bridge had finally opened in June 2022, and the Nizhneleninskoye-Tongjiang railway bridge was opened just before their November 2022 meeting. The railway bridge was finished in 2021 but flooding on the Amur River delayed its opening. Evolving Maritime Partnership

Russia has resisted involvement in China’s territorial maritime disputes in the East China Sea and South China Sea. The Chinese push for a Sino-Russian maritime partnership was meant to get Moscow aligned with Beijing in these disputes. Russian-Chinese joint construction of the Polar Silk Road in the Arctic eventually became a discussion about a maritime partnership. Primorye’s concept of a Pacific Russia was always a maritime orientation focused on the AsiaPacific rather than a continental orientation toward China. The Chinese push for a Sino-Russian maritime strategic partnership, evident in the 2012–13 Senkaku crisis,55 was more emphatically stated in 2021. Primorye’s Pacific Russia concept and Beijing’s Sino-Russian maritime partnership seemed compatible. There were several factors driving an emerging discussion of a Sino-Russian maritime partnership: “Joint Sea” naval exercises since 2012; China’s first official Arctic policy document, the white paper “China’s Arctic Policy,” which mentioned the Polar Silk Road and conflated it with the Northern Sea Route; and the Sino-Russian first joint long-range air patrol that flew over Japanese and South Korean air space, over the Sea of Japan and Dokdo Island, in July 2019. The patrol included two Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers, a Russian A-50 early warning plane, and a Chinese KJ-2000. Japan and South Korea both scrambled jets to intercept this patrol, with South Korea firing hundreds of warning shots. Both China and Russia denied entering either South Korean or Japanese air space. Dmitri Trenin promoted shifting the continental land-based Sino-Russian partnership to a maritime partnership, arguing that Moscow’s geopolitical discussions need a maritime dimension, and Greater Eurasia needs a sea connection around it. The melting of the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route should motivate Moscow “to think strategically in terms of the waterways, in large part along Russia’s Arctic and Pacific coasts.”56 In August 2021, Zhao Huasheng noted that a Sino-Russian maritime partnership had not yet formed but should be created. Their partnership had been a Eurasian continental partnership even though they both are becoming great oceanic powers. They had jointly conducted military exercises in several oceans—the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic, and Mediterranean—and jointly flown aircraft over the

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Sea of Japan and Dokdo Island. The idea of maritime partnership has been floated in Sino-Russian academic circles but there was no governmental agreement. Both countries are facing serious security challenges from the sea. China is the main target of the US Indo-Pacific strategy, while Russia feels alienated and negatively impacted by the Indo-Pacific strategy but is not the target. Zhao argued that China and Russia should form a joint response to the US Indo-Pacific strategy.57 Given the tentative nature of the Sino-Russian discussion on a maritime partnership, it appears that it is not yet well-institutionalized and still at a stage of floating ideas unofficially. Conclusion

China and Russia are pursuing state-building on the border between the Chinese Northeast and Russian Far East and are influencing each other, but they are building a very different state. The consequence of different state-building on the border is an asymmetry of state capacity. During the past decade, Beijing has continuously promoted greater state institutionalization in border areas, allocating resources, building infrastructure, and strengthening governance. The Russian side has a strong border presence in the form of border guards but has not been continuously investing in building infrastructure, roads, electricity, communications, and ports on rivers. Each side is engaged in a different kind of state-building. The Chinese side is building infrastructure that would facilitate populating the border area where Chinese will live, work, and do cross-border trade. The Russian side perceives itself as maintaining a strong state presence along the border with border guards but is not successfully addressing the problem of population decline. Historically, Cossacks were settled along the Russian Far East border with the expectation they would fiercely guard it. The Amur Cossack Army was created in 1858 and the Ussuri Cossack Army in 1889. Under the Soviet Union, Cossacks were disbanded. In the post-Soviet 1990s, Cossacks were employed as vigilantes by local governments and recruited by the FSB.58 Moscow in 2005 passed a law resurrecting the Cossack Army as a paramilitary group that allowed Cossacks to patrol the Russian Far East’s border, seizing illegal immigrants and poachers. The Russian side’s emphasis on security creates jobs for border guards and Cossacks, but not economic growth. Russians argue there is a balance between national security and economic development. Chinese argue Russians have over-emphasized military security and need to put more emphasis on non-traditional security issues such as economic security and population security which they feel Russians are now gradually doing.59 Chinese expect to see less government regulatory control in the Russian Far East, while Russians such as Victor Larin call for greater regulation and a new regulatory cooperation framework for Russia and China that would include protection of national security.60

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Moscow focuses on the Russian Far East every September during the EEF, and throughout the year the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic is Moscow’s representative in the region although its attention and resources have shifted to the Arctic. In 2021, Victor Larin noted that although Moscow is the central player and dominant influence in development of the Russian Far East, it still lacks a clear strategy for the region and does not have sustained interest in it.61 The Chinese goal of Northeast-Far East economic integration has existed for more than three decades. The BRI was expected to be the framework in which this goal would be realized, but that has not yet happened amid parallel planning loosely coordinating Russian plans with Chinese plans. Heilongjiang has been much more active modifying and adapting the center’s policies than localities in the Russian Far East are able to do. Integration under the BRI has shifted to connecting the Chinese Northeast with the Arctic and the Polar Silk Road through the Russian Far East, which reveals ideas for creating a Sino-Russian maritime strategic partnership, but it has not formed yet. Xi Jinping anticipates that the BRI will progress to the point that member countries align their policies and planning with one another. In practice, this would end up with member countries aligning their domestic and foreign policies with Beijing’s, leading to smaller countries in the BRI with asymmetric border relations with China adopting Beijing’s policies. Russia, however, is more likely to continue to emphasize national security and its own policy preferences despite the existence of asymmetrical state capacities. Russians appear unlikely to heed Feng Shaolei’s call for Russia to further open the Russian Far East, and to give up the Russian notion of the Northeast-Far East border being a “‘strategic frontier’ in the competition with China.”62 Notes 1 “Turn, U-Turn or Pivot? Valdai Club Experts on the Path of Russia to the Great Ocean,” Eastern Economic Forum, Vladivostok, September 5, 2019, valdaiclub.com/ events/posts/articles/turn-u-turn-or-pivot/ 2 Tamara Troyakova, “Primorskii Krai and Russia’s ‘Turn to the East’: A Regional View,” in Helge Blakkisrud and Elana Wilson Rowe, eds., Russia’s Turn to the East: Domestic Policymaking and Regional Cooperation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 31–49. 3 Artyom Lukin, “China in Russia’s Turn to the East,” East-West Center, Asia Pacific Bulletin no. 477 (May 6, 2019), https://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/ china-in-russias-turn-the-east 4 Виктор Ларин, “Новая геополитика для Восточной Евразии,” Россия в глобальной политике №5 (2018 Сентябрь/Октябрь), https://globalaffairs.ru/ articles/novaya-geopolitika-dlya-vostochnoj-evrazii/ 5 Chris Miller, We Shall Be Masters: Russian Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021). 6 Zhao Huasheng, “Discussions about Russia’s Turn to the East,” Russian, East European & Central Asian Studies, vol. 4 (2016): 1–16.

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7 Gleb Toropchin, “Taking (Another) Turn to the East: Making Sense of Russia’s Stance in the Asia-Pacific,” Russian International Affairs Council, June 2, 2022, https://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/columns/asia-pacific/takinganother-turn-to-the-east-making-sense-of-russia-s-stance-in-the-asia-pacific/ 8 Sun Jiuwen and Jiang Zhi, “沿边地区对外开放70 年的回顾与展望,” 经济地理, vol. 39, no. 11 (November 2019): 1–8. 9 Han Enze, Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 10 Audrye Wong, “More than Peripheral: How Provinces Influence China’s Foreign Policy,” The China Quarterly, no. 235 (September 2018): 735–757. 11 Liu Qingcai and Qi Xin, “一带一路”框架下中国东北地区与 俄罗斯远东地区发展 战略对接与合作,” 东北亚论坛, no. 2 (2018): 34–51. 12 Yang Yang, Suocheng Dong, Tamir Boldanov, Fujia Li, Hao Cheng, Qian Liu, Yu Li, and LZehong Li, “Construction of the Primorsky No. 1 and No. 2 International Transport Corridors: Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Policies,” Sustainability, vol. 13, no. 4 (February 2021), https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042120. 13 Baogang He, “The Domestic Politics of the Belt and Road Initiative and its Implications,” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 28, no. 116 (2018): 180–195. 14 Min Ye, “Domestic Politics of China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” The Asan Forum, June 17, 2019, http://www.theasanforum.org/domestic-politics-of-chinas-belt-androad-initiative/#a38 15 Lee Jones and Jinghan Zeng, “Understanding China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’: Beyond ‘Grand Strategy’ to a State Transformation Analysis,” Third World Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 8 (2019): 1415–1439. 16 Stephen N. Smith, “Harmonizing the Periphery: China’s Neighborhood Strategy under Xi Jinping,” The Pacific Review, vol. 34, no. 1 (2021): 56–84. 17 John Calabrese, “Positioning the Provinces Along China’s Maritime Silk Road,” Middle East Institute, July 21, 2020, https://mei.edu/publications/positioningprovinces-along-chinas-maritime-silk-road 18 Tamara Troyakova, “Primorskii Krai and Russia’s ‘Turn to the East’: A Regional View,” in Helge Blakkisrud and Elana Wilson Rowe, eds., Russia’s Turn to the East: Domestic Policymaking and Regional Cooperation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 31–49. 19 Ivan Zuenko, “A Russian Perspective,” The Asan Forum, November 4, 2019, https:// theasanforum.org/a-russian-perspective-2/ 20 “Country Report: Russia,” The Asan Forum, March 2017, http://old.theasanforum. org/country-report-russia-march-2017/?dat=&country=RUSSIA 21 Gilbert Rozman, “The Eastern Economic Forum: A US Perspective,” The Asan Forum, November 4, 2019, https://theasanforum.org/a-us-perspective-10/ 22 Artyom Lukin, “Russian Far East, Positive Scenario II,” The Asan Forum, March 2016, https://theasanforum.org/the-russian-far-east-2/ 23 “Meeting with Yury Trutnev and Alexander Kozlov,” Kremlin.ru, April 6, 2020, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/63157 24 “Artyom Dovlatov appointed head of Far East and Arctic Region Development Fund,” The Arctic, January 15, 2021, https://arctic.ru/economics/20210115/990065. html 25 Sergey Sukhankin, “Russia’s New ‘Arctic Offensive’: Do the Benefits Outweigh the Costs? (Part One),” Eurasia Daily Monitor, vol. 18, no. 27 (February 17, 2021), https:// jamestown.org/program/russias-new-arctic-offensive-do-the-benefits-outweighthe-costs-part-one/ 26 Pavel A. Minakir, “The Key to the Development of the Far East is not Handouts, but Freedom,” East Russia, February 7, 2021, https://en.eastrussia.ru/material/ pavel-minakir-klyuch-k-razvitiyu-dalnego-vostoka-ne-podachki-a-svoboda 27 Ibid.

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28 Xiao Huizhong, “中央—地方关系视角下的俄罗斯远东政策,” 俄罗斯东欧中亚研究, no. 4 (2021): 116–142, 165–166. 29 Ibid. 30 Pavel A. Minakir and D.V. Suslov, “Prospects and Limitations of Russo-Chinese Economic Relations,” The Asan Forum, October 23, 2017. 31 Zhou Lianyi and Wen Chuyuan, “中国东北地区对接‘冰上丝绸之路’对策研究,” 沈阳农业大学学报(社会科学版), vol. 22, no. 05 (2020): 537–545. 32 Dimitri Simes, Jr. and Tatiana Simes, “Moscow’s Pivot to China Falls Short in the Russian Far East,” South China Morning Post, August 29, 2021, https://www.scmp.com/ week-asia/politics/article/3146505/moscows-pivot-china-falls-short-russian-far-east 33 Artyom Lukin, “Russia’s ‘Turn to Asia’ Has Yet to Bring Prosperity to the Far East,” Valdai Discussion Club, Eastern Economic Forum, September 4, 2019, https://valdaiclub. com/a/highlights/russia-s-turn-to-asia-has-yet-to-bring-prosperity/ 34 Ivan Zuenko, “The Balance between Sinophobia and Discourse on Cooperation: Expert Opinion on China in Russia and Kazakhstan,” The Asan Forum, October 16, 2018, https://theasanforum.org/the-balance-between-sinophobia-and-discourse-oncooperation-expert-opinion-on-china-in-russia-and-kazakhstan/ 35 Alexander Sergunin, “Center-Periphery Relations in Shaping Russia’s Arctic Policies,” in Emily Tsui et al., eds., Lessons from The Arctic: The Role of Regional Governments in International Affairs (Oakville, ON: Mosaic Press, 2020), pp. 159–183. 36 Yan Xuetong, “Diplomacy Should Focus on Neighbors,” China Daily, January 27, 2015, http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2015-01/27/content_19414396.htm 37 Marc Lanteigne, “The Russian Far East and the Northern Sea Route in Evolving Sino-Russian Strategic Relations,” in Jing Huang and Alexander Korolev, eds., The Political Economy of Pacific Russia: Regional Developments in East Asia (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature, 2017), pp. 181–201. 38 Xie Xiaoguang and Cheng Xinbo, “俄罗斯北极政策调整背景下的 ‘冰上丝绸之路’,” 辽宁大学学报 (哲学社会科学版), vol. 47, no. 1 (2019): 184–192. 39 Elizabeth Wishnick, “Will Russia Put China’s Arctic Ambitions on Ice?” The Diplomat, June 5, 2021, https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/will-russia-put-chinas-arcticambitions-on-ice/. 40 Zhang Fenglin, “黑龙江省在 ‘冰上丝绸之路’建设中的定位及作用研究,” 商业经济, no. 2 (2019): 1–4, 7. 41 Gaye Christoffersen, “Nesting the Sino-Russian Border and the Tumen Project in the Asia-Pacific: Heilongjiang’s Regional Relations,” Asian Perspective, vol. 20, no. 2 (fall–winter 1996): 265–299. 42 Zhang Fenglin, “黑龙江省在 ‘冰上丝绸之路’建设中的定位及作用研究”. 43 Zhang Xiuhua, “Regional Aspects of the Arctic Ice Silk Road: Case of Heilongjiang Province, China,” in Vasilii Erokhin, Gao Tianming, and Zhang Xiuhua, eds., Handbook of Research on International Collaboration, Economic Development, and Sustainability in the Arctic (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2019). 4 4 Zhou Lianyi and Wen Chuyuan, “中国东北地区对接‘冰上丝绸之路’对策研究. 45 Feng Shaolei and Cui Heng, “Developing the Far East and Chinese-Russian Relations: New Perceptions and New Practices,” Valdai Papers no. 107 (September 2019), https:// valdaiclub.com/a/valdai-papers/developing-the-far-east-and-chinese-russian-relati/ 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Victoria A. Denisenko, “China and the Development of the Russian Far Eastern Districts: Expectations and Reality,” Society: Politics, Economics, Law, no. 11 (2020): 15–18. 49 Pavel A. Minakir and Zhong Jianping, “The Economy of the Pandemic: A Far Eastern Russian Aspect,” Siberian Studies, vol. 48, no. 01 (2021): 5–13. 50 Artyom Lukin, “Russia’s ‘Turn to Asia’ Has Yet to Bring Prosperity to the Far East”. 51 Li Tao, “‘中俄远东发展规划’实施带来的兴哈机遇及对策,” 边疆经济与文化,no. 10 (2020): 13–15.

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52 Sheng Haiyan, “俄罗斯远东新国家规划与中俄地区经贸投资合作,” 黑河学院学报, vol. 12, no. 8 (2021): 9–11. 53 Alexei Chekunkov: “The Russian Pacific Could Become a New Frontier – A Place of Experimentation,” August 31, 2022, materials prepared for the 2022 EEF, https:// roscongress.org/en/materials/aleksey-chekunkov-tikhookeanskaya-rossiya-mozhetstat-frontirom-territoriey-eksperimentov/ 54 Government of the Russian Federation, “Yury Trutnev takes Part in Fourth Meeting of Russian-Chinese Intergovernmental Commission,” November 17, 2022, http:// government.ru/en/news/47070/ 55 Gaye Christoffersen, “Российско-китайское партнерство в АТР,” Российский Совет pо Международным Делам, September 19, 2013, http://russiancouncil.ru/ blogs/dvfu/?id_4=694, accessed October 10, 2021. 56 Dmitri Trenin, “Vladimir Putin’s Strategic Framework for Northeast Asia,” in Gilbert Rozman, ed., Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies 2020 Volume 31 (Washington, DC: Korea Economic Institute of America, 2020), pp. 51–62. 57 Zhao Huasheng, “China-Russia Strategic Partnership: from Continental to Marine,” Russian International Affairs Council, August 9, 2021, https://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/china-russian-strategic-partnershipfrom-continental-to-marine/ 58 Caroline Humphrey, “Concepts of ‘Russia’ and their Relation to the Border with China,” in Bill Franck, Gregory Delaplace, and Caroline Humphrey, eds., Knowledge and Practice at the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian Border (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2012), pp. 55–70. 59 Xiao Huizhong, “中央—地方关系视角下的俄罗斯远东政策,” 俄罗斯东欧中亚研究.” 60 RIAC and CASS Conference “Russia and China: Cooperation in a New Era,” Concludes its Work, June 3, 2021, https://russiancouncil.ru/en/news/riac-and-cass-conferencerussia-and-china-cooperation-in-a-new-era-concludes-its-work 61 Aleksandr Turbin, “The Russian Far East. Regional and Transnational Perspectives (19th–21st Centuries),” www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-9012. 62 Feng Shaolei and Cui Heng, “Developing the Far East and Chinese-Russian Relations.”

5 CENTRAL ASIA OVER A DECADE The Shifting Balance between Russia and China Gaye Christoffersen

Over a decade, Central Asia has tested whether Sinocentrism pressed by Xi Jinping can coexist with Russocentrism espoused by Vladimir Putin. Each side has launched initiatives to forge a region to its advantage. Despite claims to be working harmoniously together, each has repeatedly sought an advantage over the other. Meanwhile, Central Asian states have maneuvered between the two for their own advantage. Kazakhstan, by virtue of its size, location, resources, and population, is the key state in the initiatives and maneuvering under way. The special focus below is on how it has managed the two powers, including multivector diplomacy within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA). The energy dimension draws the closest attention in this triangular framework. In the past decade, China’s economic presence in Central Asia expanded within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Xi Jinping introduced the BRI in Kazakhstan in 2013. Russian President Putin in 2014 announced the “Eurasian Economic Union” (EEU) as a means to prevent Central Asia being absorbed into a Chinese sphere. The fact that the EEU has not been as dynamic as the BRI in the region has shifted the balance of power in China’s favor due to extensive Chinese investment in hydrocarbons and infrastructure. In response, Russia created the Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) to hedge Chinese influence. Sino-Russian competition in Central Asia is managed through a process of adaptation as both aim to create a stable Eurasian regional order. All of Central Asia is affected. Kazakhstan, with its resource abundance, is particularly important to the region-building projects of China and Russia. In the context of nervousness over Russia’s expansionism in the Ukraine war, in September 2022 Xi Jinping pledged support for territorial integrity in a stop in Kazakhstan, leaving no doubt of China’s support for it in this competition. DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-8

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Russia’s “Turn to the East” rests on Central Asia as its base and the GEP as its framework that would extend from Europe to East Asia with Moscow as the leader. Russian analysts helped to construct this image, claiming China and Russia are leaders in the project to integrate Europe and Asia into one large Greater Eurasian region. Glenn Diesen and Alexander Lukin construct a usable past that supports returning to a previous Eurasian empire, rather than thinking of it as a new project that emerged out of Putin’s ambition.1 Diesen argues that Europe is merely the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia, integrating with Russia through economic connectivity.2 In fact, Europe has not indicated any interest in being part of a regional project led by Russia. Putin had viewed Central Asia as an arena in which great powers would contend for influence, a revival of a 19th-century Great Game especially in relation to China’s expanding influence in Central Asia. Putin’s Greater Eurasia vision assumes little agency for Central Asian countries even though these states have pursued multivector diplomacy since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan, as the largest Central Asian state, has demonstrated the greatest agency in its diplomatic outreach to Europe, the US, the Middle East, and Turkey as well as to China. Sino-Russian great power rivalry is managed by a concept China constructed, the Central Asian division of labor. The formula worked out by Beijing, to avoid major power competition, was that Russia assumed leadership in the region in security matters while China led in economic relations. For the past decade, many analysts noted the avoidance of overt competition through this Sino-Russian division of labor.3 This was constructed to placate Moscow’s concerns that Beijing was encroaching on Russia’s sphere of influence in Central Asia. Central Asian states were expected to compliantly adapt to it, and not expected to have any meaningful agency. Beijing was confident that relying on the BRI would further its influence because Chinese ideas of power rely on the concept of “comprehensive power” which combines military, diplomatic, discourse, and economic power. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chinese have assumed Russia’s lack of emphasis on economic power, and narrow focus on military power, made it a weak competitor. To prevent Sino-Russian rivalry, the BRI and the EEU were officially linked during the May 8–9, 2015, visit by Xi Jinping to Moscow. The Chinese called this docking “对接” the two projects, and the new framework created by this docking was called “一带一盟” [one belt, one union]. The following month, in June 2015, the Moscow-based Valdai Discussion Club issued a report on how to link the BRI and EEU within a larger Eurasian framework. The purpose was to maintain stability in Central Asia and avoid Sino-Russian rivalries.4 Given that Russia and China were each creating spheres of influence within Central Asia, it was necessary for both countries to work out how their separate spheres would create a regional order. Since 2015, there have been numerous Sino-Russian dialogues discussing how that could be accomplished.

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This seemingly harmonious division of labor presented opportunities for secondary states to pursue their wide array of strategies, even while Beijing and Moscow assume secondary states should have little agency in their diplomacy. Kazakhstan has taken the lead in Central Asia pursuing what it calls a multivector diplomacy since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under conditions of great power rivalry, smaller secondary states have a wide array of tactical strategies including hard/soft balancing, blackmail, leash slipping, neutrality, binding, and bandwagoning.5 Multivector diplomacy is a broad term that incorporates several of these tactical strategies, which are proving to be much more complex than is usually understood. In Central Asia, Kazakhstan is the strongest advocate of multivector diplomacy, and Tajikistan is the weakest. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan joined and enmeshed itself in numerous international organizations, which have provided the space for multivectorism for the past 30 years. In 2022, it is still Kazakhstan’s strategy. According to a Kazakh researcher, “an exclusive foreign policy orientation toward only one country ultimately does not meet Kazakhstan’s national interests, critically limiting the freedom for strategic maneuvering.”6 Kazakhstan has the state capacity to pursue Middle Power diplomacy defined as a state that is not a great power, but still has sufficient influence and international recognition to impact the international system. Middle Powers have a tendency to favor multilateral solutions within international institutions that stabilizes the international order, and to avoid subordination to a major power. Russian analysts argue Central Asian states, especially Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, cannot successfully adopt Middle Power diplomacy as they lack sufficient state capacity to do so. Instead, they posit that Central Asian states must subordinate themselves to, and align with, a single great power from whom they would receive material support needed for them to transition to Middle Power status. These analysts claim alignment with Russia will accomplish this, whereas hedging and multivectorism among several major powers will not. They argue that Central Asian states’ multivectorism has prevented Russia from establishing a hegemonic order in Central Asia.7 Tajikistan has been more hesitant. The author spoke with a Tajik economist in August 2015. She mentioned that Tajikistan was divided over participation in China’s BRI. She herself wasn’t sure if it should, and asked whether I thought Tajikistan should join the BRI. Drawing on my limited knowledge, I suggested that Tajikistan draw up its own national plan, as Kazakhstan had done, and then determine where there are areas of complementarity with China’s BRI. That was preferable to letting Beijing determine Tajik priorities. In 2016, Tajikistan did create a National Development Strategy 2030 (NDS) with assistance from the World Bank. According to a World Bank study, Tajikistan has benefited from the BRI in terms of infrastructure and development.8 Tajikistan is in fact practicing multivectorism, but in foreign policy discourse, it is not as overtly multivector as Kazakhstan.

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By 2022, Tajikistan owed $3.3 billion to international creditors, 60% of which was owed to the Export-Import Bank of China. Buildings in the capitol were constructed with Chinese money and companies, posting signs that state “Assistance from China for a common future.” The Tajik government has given Chinese companies concessions in its gold and silver mines to help repay the debt. Tajik political scientist Parviz Mullojanov is concerned that the massive debt “could serve as a pretext for political and geopolitical expansion” of the Chinese presence.9 Central Asian strategies are pursued bilaterally and within multilateral regimes. Because Beijing and Moscow continually compete in multilateral regimes and reconfigure them to their own advantage, secondary states are given many opportunities to maneuver. Kazakhstan’s foreign policy is said to be in constant rebalancing between traditional ties to Russia and economic opportunities of China, but some analysts argue its multivector strategy will eventually have diminishing returns because there are only two realistic vectors—either alignment with Moscow or Beijing. Other outside powers have less interest in being hegemonic in Central Asia.10 Additionally, analysts argue Moscow’s tense relations with the US and Europe narrow Astana’s options, assuming Astana could not slip out of Moscow’s leash, and thus it will end up more reactive to Russian and Chinese behavior and not as proactive as it would want to be.11 In any case, Kazakhstan must manage two larger neighboring countries, each of which is attempting to establish a sphere of influence in Central Asia, trying to incorporate Kazakhstan into regional integration projects it controls, and has questioned Kazakhstan sovereignty and statehood.12 This chapter examines Russian and Chinese initiatives in Central Asia since the formation of the BRI and EEU a decade ago, and studies how Central Asian states managed these initiatives with a special focus on how Kazakhstan managed them given that it is a key state in the BRI and the EEU. It then analyzes the energy dimension in Kazakhstan’s relations with China and Russia. And finally, it examines multivector diplomacy within the SCO and the CICA. Russian Sphere of Influence

In 2007, Putin declared Moscow’s right to a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space despite numerous agreements pledging to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the former Soviet republics. Putin’s project was to reclaim Russia’s identity as a great power within the post-Soviet space as a provider of security with cultural influence based on Russian as a common language and a belief in “Russkiy Mir” (the Russian World).13 Since Putin’s Munich speech, he has attempted to establish a Russian sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space. This included an invasion of Georgia in August 2008, recognition of Abkhazia and North Ossetia as “independent states,” closer integration with Belarus, peacekeeping in Kazakhstan, and a military buildup along the Russian border

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with Ukraine to discourage Ukraine from integrating with Europe and joining NATO, accompanied by invasions and annexations in 2014 and 2022.14 Of all these actions in the post-Soviet space, the only nonviolent one was the recent dispatch of Russian peacekeepers to Kazakhstan, but there too wariness of Russia has been growing. Russia is challenged by the transformation of Central Asian countries as they develop ties with other major powers, and when their citizens study Chinese, English and use their own language rather than Russian.15 Russian analysis has worried that the “near abroad” would forget the Russian language and forget that it was ever a part of the Soviet Union and “Russkiy Mir.” In 2021, the Kazakh government stated it would shift away from the Russian Cyrillic alphabet and would use a Latin-based alphabet for the written Kazakh language, confirming these fears. Putin’s promotion of “Russkiy Mir” has led to denial of Kazakhstan statehood, given the Russian belief that Kazakhstan did not exist as a country in the past until the Soviet Union created it, and Kazakhstan did not form a coherent nation but rather was composed of separate territories and clans. Russian statements that northern Kazakhstan is really part of Russia are generating concern that Russia will seize it. In September 2014, Putin had described Kazakhstan as an artificial creation and noted that Kazakhs had a profound desire for closer ties with Russia.16 Following so closely on Moscow’s seizure of Crimea in February 2014, Kazakhstan worried that it would be next. After all, Putin’s pretext for annexing Crimea and defending the separatists in eastern Ukraine was to protect the rights of Russian speakers. In 2014, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, fearing a similar fate, stated on Kazakh TV that “Kazakhstan has a right to withdraw from the Eurasian Economic Union … Kazakhstan will not be part of organizations that pose a threat to our independence.”17 The Eurasian Customs Union became the EEU on January 1, 2015, an integrated single market among Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Armenia joined the next day and Kyrgyzstan at the end of the year. The EEU was meant to be the foundation of a post-Soviet sphere of influence for Russia. Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia were offered EEU membership but chose instead to affiliate with the European Union. Each country has had separatist regions that sought membership in the EEU—Moldova’s Transnistria region, Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Ukraine’s refusal to join the EEU left a large hole and undermined its economic viability. In 2016, Putin redefined the Eurasian regional order when he introduced his vision of a broader Eurasian partnership, the GEP. Putin proposed this project prior to the SCO summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on June 23–24, 2016, when the SCO would expand to include India and Pakistan as members. He suggested that GEP economic relations and trade entail a network of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements between all the members and organizations. Putin could not block Chinese economic penetration of Central Asia, the original purpose of

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the EEU, as Beijing had treated the EEU as a corridor for the BRI. The GEP was meant to show Russia as taking the initiative in the Eurasian region, an effort to conceal the increasing asymmetry in Sino-Russian economic capacity.18 The GEP would help Putin reestablish Russian spheres of influence in the post-Soviet states and reconstruct the Soviet Union.19 Yet, China viewed it as a geopolitical strategy, concerned with how it would link with its own BRI. Putin needed the support of external economic partners such as China because the EEU had limited market size and little potential to expand. Russia both was wary of China’s project and feared being left out of this and other regional integration projects in Europe and Asia.20 In December 2020, Russian State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov declared that when the Soviet Union was established, Kazakhstan did not exist as a country, and Kazakhstan territory was a great gift from Russia and the Soviet Union. Another State Duma deputy, Yevgeny Fedorov, stated that Kazakhstan must return these territories to Russia.21 Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev responded in January 2021, that “Kazakhstan is a single state. Our country is not divided into southern, northern, western, and eastern … our sacred land inherited from our ancestors, is our main wealth. Nobody from the outside gave this vast territory to the Kazakhs.”22 Tokayev strongly defended the use of the Kazakh language as the state language. Russia used its Russian TV networks in Kazakhstan in the summer of 2021 to carry out a series of informational strikes on Kazakh governmental policies for nationalism and nation-building, which Moscow views as Russophobic. TV programs claimed central and northern Kazakhstan were loyal to Russia.23 In August 2021, Russian media even carried out intensive informational attacks on Kazakhstan’s nation-building policies on language, using Kazakh instead of Russian, as incidents of Russophobia. Cultural soft power in Central Asia contributes to maintaining a sphere of influence, which, media argued, is being undermined by Russophobia—discrimination against ethnic Russians residing in Kazakhstan. Kazakhs were stunned since Moscow had not criticized Kazakhstan so intensely in 30 years, worrying that, under the guise of protecting ethnic Russians, it could expand territorially into Northern Kazakhstan where ethnic Russians are concentrated, employing the concept of “Russian World” to justify the expansion.24 Russia intended to keep post-Soviet states within a Russian sphere of influence, emphasizing Russia’s influence in security and culture. China had expected Central Asia to go through a process of de-Russification that would reduce Russian cultural influence and allow for a larger Chinese economic influence in the country.25 However, as a Kazakh analyst noted, “China cannot compete with Russia’s institutional, cultural, and legal legacy in the region.” Russian influence is deeply rooted.26 Nevertheless, Central Asians and Russians were concerned that China would expand its institutions and norms into Central Asia through the deepening of the BRI. Xi Jinping has explicitly promoted shared norms and policies within the BRI.

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Zhao Huasheng noted in 2021 that although Russian officials have said that Moscow does not want to create spheres of influence in the “near abroad,” the presence of another great power there arouses a Russian reaction, indicating how sensitive an issue it is for Russia. Russian diplomacy is focused on restoring a special relationship in all dimensions—political, military, economic, and cultural—promoting regional integration through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the EEU. This goal faces continuous challenges with numerous hot spots, sovereign states’ resistant to political integration with Russia, and limitations on the EEU’s development.27 In September 2020, Wang Yi and Sergey Lavrov issued a joint statement declaring their commitment to promoting the BRI and GEP in “parallel and coordinated development,” i.e., the two projects would coexist but not necessarily “dock.” Kazakhstan is in both projects as an indispensable partner for both China’s BRI and Russia’s EEU. In 2021, Chinese were aware that Russia’s sphere of influence in Central Asia was declining. Zhao Huasheng’s assessment of Russia and its near abroad found that Central Asia had a significant role in influencing Russian foreign policy, determining its goals, and acting as a point of confrontation between Russia and the West. Zhao argued that although Russia continued to play an indispensable role in the post-Soviet space, Russia’s influence there was in decline and had lost its attractiveness as post-Soviet countries shifted toward the West. The younger generation in particular had lost its post-Soviet consciousness. Zhao noted that “cohesion around Moscow as a center is in relative decline, while the attractiveness of external centers of power, in particular Europe and the United States, is relatively increasing.”28 Zhao’s proposed remedy was for Russia to focus on its own development to make it more attractive, and to form an inclusive development community consisting of the “near abroad” with China in the BRI, allowing more diversified development linkages with neighboring countries, which could be construed as China’s links with the “near abroad” should be more welcomed by Moscow. Such appeals suggest that Russia still has a sphere of influence in Central Asia, but the claim is misleading that it is balancing or hedging Chinese influence, leading to more cooperation than competition through a process of adaptation.29 Some suggest that this ongoing adaptation enables the two countries to create order between themselves and within the region through carefully managed interactions that are orderly despite being competitive, as each seeks to establish the concepts and norms that would define the Eurasian region.30 The prevailing view in Russia and China was that the two were adapting to each other in Central Asia. Indeed, each side appeared to be accommodating and coexisting with the other’s project. China does not criticize Russian military interventions in the post-Soviet space, and Russia appeared to accept China’s growing economic dominance in Central Asia. At the end of 2021, after almost a decade of adaptation, Russian analysts such as Alexander Gabuev continued to discuss how China and Russia were

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adapting to each other in Central Asia. A Chinese analyst Guan Guihai agreed with him that Sino-Russian adaptation continued in Central Asia.31 Yet Clarke and Rice argue that there is a lack of concrete Sino-Russian cooperation projects in Kazakhstan, which, they contend, demonstrates that Russia and China pursue hedging strategies against one another in Central Asia, even if Central Asian perceptions of Moscow as the guarantor of regional security still serve to buttress the image of a lingering Russian sphere of influence across the region.32 Chinese Sphere of Influence

Although China has not overtly claimed a sphere of influence in Central Asia, in the late 1980s Chinese analysts discussed economic circles that stretched from China’s Xinjiang through Central Asia to the oil-producing countries of the Middle East.33 By the 1990s, this vision was referred to as a revival of the ancient Silk Road, constructing a Eurasian Landbridge through Central Asia. In 2010, an outspoken PLA general, Liu Yazhou, is said to have written that Central Asia is “the thickest piece of cake given to Chinese by the heavens.”34 It is indicative of a Chinese view of Central Asia teeming with raw materials needed for China’s development. In 2013, when the Belt and Road was introduced in Kazakhstan, many of these older visions were incorporated into a more explicit strategy. In March 2015, a Chinese blueprint was presented at the Boao Forum, when the Chinese foreign ministry issued an action plan, the Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. Central Asia would link China with the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea through a China-Central AsiaWest Asia corridor, the Eurasian Landbridge. Two months later, Xi Jinping visited Moscow and suggested that the BRI and EEU could be docked, thereby avoiding a competitive struggle over Central Asia. Kazakhstan was always the center of Chinese interest in Central Asia due to its oil resources and its geographic location as a transportation hub linking China to Europe. The Kazakh state that joined the BRI was a kleptocracy with the Nazarbayev family members benefiting from economic ties to China. The BRI attracted strong support from the Kazakh business elite, while alienating average Kazakh citizens. In 2014, Kazakhstan created a national plan, Bright Path (Nurly Zhol), to build domestic infrastructure in transportation, industry, and energy. It was created to be compatible with China’s BRI and became part of the BRI in 2016 with more than 50 projects that would transfer industrial capacity from China to Kazakhstan. There was widespread public interest in the BRI and how it would link to Nurly Zhol. However, according to an analyst in 2017, “there is no publicly available detailed information about the contents of the list, project descriptions, and financial arrangements.”35 Kazakh political and economic elites promote and benefit from cooperation with Beijing, but there is a gap between them and civil

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society’s enduring Sinophobia, which has continued for decades, exacerbated by a lack of transparency in China-Kazakh deal-making. In December 2019, Kazakh experts on China met to discuss China in Central Asia, comparing China before Xi Jinping with contemporary China under Xi. They noted how China had changed its foreign policy behavior in the past decade becoming more assertive. The Kazakh analysis defined relations with China as evolving in stages. The 1990s had commodities trade. From 2000 to 2013, China invested in Kazakh oil and gas enterprises. From 2013 to the present under the BRI, focus was on transport and industrial infrastructure.36 The trend of increasing Sino-Kazakh economic integration was accompanied by increasing Chinese assertiveness. Protests against Chinese companies, workers, and goods have continued since the 1990s. In 2009 and 2016, protests focused on the Kazakh government allowing China to lease land for agricultural purposes. The BRI triggered renewed Sinophobic protests. Concern continues over Chinese expansion. The Chinese treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang is also a trigger. Since the 1990s, Kazakhstan has become more dependent on China. The government gives refugee status to ethnic Kazakhs who flee China, crossing the border from Xinjiang. China has retaliated by blocking exports from Kazakh entrepreneurs. In March 2021, thousands of Kazakh railcars sat idle, and trucks lined up at the border. From January to September 2021, Kazakh food exports to China dropped 78%.37 When Beijing blocks exports, exporters lose money as freight cars loaded with grain, non-ferrous metals, fertilizers, construction materials sit idle. The grain rots, leaving exporters losing hundreds of millions of dollars. The Chinese did not explicitly link the two issues of Kazakh refugees and Kazakh exports in 2021, but the timing was clear. After the power transition from Nazarbayev to Tokayev in March 2019, external powers had requested clarification of Kazakhstan’s direction. In March 2020, the Concept of Foreign Policy of Kazakhstan for 2020–30 outlined foreign policy principles, goals, and priorities. It reaffirmed a multivector and well-balanced foreign policy, committed to protecting the rights of Kazakh citizens and ethnic Kazakhs living abroad, declared that Kazakhstan would promote its status to be the leading country of Central Asia, and clarified the country’s foreign policy to the general public. To 2014, the Kazakh foreign policy concept had not been publicly available. Since 2013, Beijing has expressed expectations that it would have an exclusive relationship with Kazakhstan under the BRI. In 2021, Beijing appeared to pressure Astana even harder. In May 2021, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for Kazakhstan and China to work toward strategic coordination of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–25) and Kazakhstan’s 2025 Development Plan to deepen and diversify their joint cooperation under the framework of the BRI. Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi expressed hope the two countries would sign their proposed trade and economic cooperation

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plan but did not seem as enthusiastic as Wang Yi.38 The Kazakh government is concerned with China infiltrating the government. In 2019, it leaked information that a senior government advisor had been spying for China and was subsequently arrested.39 It was clear something had blocked implementation of Sino-Kazakh cooperation in the BRI, but it was not Sinophobia among the Kazakh political elite. Tokayev speaks Mandarin and is said to be a Sinophile. He was a diplomat in China in the late 1980s to early 90s. He had studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in the early 1970s, and at the Beijing Language Institute in 1983 (now called the Beijing Language and Culture University). Tokayev has cultivated China relations, but also relations with India, Turkey, the EU, and the US, which demonstrates his multivector approach to foreign relations. In November 2021, at a meeting of the Kazakh foreign ministry, Tokayev reaffirmed his commitment to a balanced foreign policy based on pragmatism, but also indicated that balancing external powers and multivectorism had undermined Kazakh foreign policy coherence. Tokayev noted that Kazakhstan foreign relations lacked a “truly unified national strategy,” and that this was a systemic problem requiring different government departments to better coordinate.40 This implied that some government agencies leaned toward Russia while others leaned toward China and other countries. On November 26, 2021, at the 10th meeting of the China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Committee, Han Zheng, vice premier and Chinese head of the committee, called for better outcomes in China-Kazakh cooperation. Han stated that the cooperation plan needed implementation. Although the committee is well-organized with 12 subcommittees in security, customs, transport, railway, trade and economic, water management, energy, scientific and technical, financial, cultural, humanitarian, and environmental and geological cooperation, implementation had been slow. Alikhan Smailov, first deputy prime minister and Kazakh head of the China-Kazakhstan Cooperation Committee, replied that Kazakhstan was ready to cooperate in security, economy and trade, and energy to achieve more fruitful outcomes.41 Approximately 10 days after the China-Kazakh meeting, Kazakhstan held its fourth Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable (KGIR), an investment forum to attract a diversity of multinational corporations. Over $2 billion worth of deals were signed with European, Qatari, Turkish, Chinese, and Indian corporations. The meeting celebrated Kazakhstan’s 30 years of independence, which was mentioned several times in the meeting.42 It appeared that Astana would not agree to an exclusive relationship with Beijing. Kazakhs claim Kazakhstan seeks economic benefits from neighboring countries while it safeguards its independence and protects its sovereignty from Russian and Chinese dominance. To the extent Kazakh-China economic cooperation contributes to the Kazakh government’s political legitimacy, it receives support. However, the Chinese request to coordinate Kazakh domestic planning with

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China’s policies, in accord with Xi Jinping’s call, under the BRI, for other countries to align their policies with China’s, is seen as slowly chipping away at sovereignty and multivector diplomacy. Additionally, Chinese publications and the Internet often refer to other countries as actually being a part of China. This has happened with the Russian Far East, Bhutan, Nepal, and then in 2020, Kazakhstan. A Chinese website, sohu. com, published an article titled, “Why Kazakhstan is eager to return to China,” which claimed Kazakhstan had not minded being invaded by Chinese and had historically been part of China’s territory. It claimed the majority of Kazakhs wanted to rejoin China. Although the Chinese government tries to distance itself from these claims, Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry felt compelled to summon the Chinese ambassador to protest this article.43 This incident was viewed as an assault on Kazakh sovereignty. Kazakh state media publicized this pushback against Chinese claims to territory, which fueled Sinophobia among the people. In March 2021, Kazakh protests held in several large cities demanded the government abolish the construction of 55 Chinese factories, referring to the plan to transfer Chinese factories to Kazakhstan. This transfer was part of the coordination of the BRI and Kazakhstan’s “Bright Path” development plan.44 Protests over foreign ownership of land led to legal clarification. In May 2021, Tokayev signed a bill which bans the sale or lease of Kazakh land to foreigners, stating “Land is a foundation and a sacred symbol of Kazakhstan’s statehood. I have repeatedly said that Kazakh land cannot be sold to foreigners.”45 Despite outbursts of Sinophobia, Beijing has a campaign to increase Chinese soft power in Kazakhstan. Some analysts view China’s campaign as an effort at Sinification, to “socialize” Central Asia into gradually accepting Chinese practices as normal and China as benevolent, increasing Chinese influence.46 Analysts accused the Kazakh government of forming an alliance with the Chinese Embassy and the Kazakh media in order to shape public opinion in a more positive direction, encouraging a more accommodating view of the Chinese presence in the country. It is claimed that this alliance was highly successful in socializing Kazakh elites to acceptance of the BRI.47 China has invested over $22 billion in Kazakhstan in the past 15 years. China behaves differently in each Central Asian country depending on the host country’s capacity to manage its own development plans. While Kazakhstan successfully implemented BRI projects and had its own “Nurly Zhol” strategy, Kyrgyzstan in 2019 had not yet conceived of its own design for BRI cooperation. A Kyrgyz analyst declared that the BRI caused concern and anxiety in his country, and up to that point Kyrgyz had not implemented any project within the BRI due to corruption and lack of transparency. Nevertheless, China accounted for 40% of Kyrgyzstan’s total foreign debt, leaving some worrying Kyrgyzstan was in a debt trap causing strong anti-China sentiment in Kyrgyz society.48 Critics of Beijing’s approach to the Central Asian region argue it is becoming increasingly geopolitical, encroaching on Russia’s sphere, and had become

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less concerned with Russian sensitivity regarding its sphere of influence being displaced in Central Asia. Despite this eclipse of Russia by China, both countries could agree they should build a Central Asian exclusion zone that blocks the West from the region.49 The problem remains of managing rising tides of Russocentrism and Sinocentrism. The Energy Dimension

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has maintained its sphere of influence through control of Central Asian oil export infrastructure, pipelines, and ports, which weigh most heavily on Central Asian hydrocarbon exporters, especially Kazakhstan. Dependence on Russian energy infrastructure has been a major driver in Kazakhstan’s multivector diplomacy. It was the China-Kazakh oil pipeline that allowed Astana to break free of Moscow’s domination of Kazakh export pipelines for the first time. The first section of the pipeline was completed in 2003, and by 2006 began commercial operation. The pipeline is developed and owned by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and the Kazakh oil company KazMunayGas. As Kazakhstan has sought ways to escape Russian dominance over its exports, Russia has sought ways to reassert its control over Kazakh and Central Asian energy, e.g., a recent Russian proposal is to create a unified EEU common electricity market that would span Central Asia and be under Moscow’s control.50 The Eurasian Intergovernmental Council met in Yerevan on October 21, 2022. Belarus politician Mikhail Myasnikovich, chairman of the board of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), announced that the SCO was interested in closer ties with the EEU as part of Eurasian integration. Myasnikovich revealed that decisions had been made regarding a common market for gas, oil, and petroleum products. Creating a common hydrocarbon market might give Moscow greater control over Central Asian hydrocarbons and discourage these countries from multivector energy relations with outside powers. Putin has proposed a trilateral gas union with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan seeking to transport Russian gas to these Central Asian states. He has proposed natural gas as the basis of a union for two decades. Putin planned to create a coordination mechanism for this cooperation which implicitly would be under Moscow’s direction. Kazakhstan President Tokayev responded positively as it would save his country billions of dollars to import Siberian natural gas rather than source it domestically and the gas pipelines already existed. Uzbekistan was concerned about what the term “union” implied. The Uzbek Energy Minister noted that Tashkent would not risk its independence and would only cooperate on a commercial sales contract basis without political conditions.51 Kazakhstan’s foreign energy relations impact its domestic energy conditions. In January 2022, for the purpose of exporting more liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), the government ended domestic price controls for LPG, a widely used, affordable

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fuel, which doubled the price. In effect, Kazakh citizens lost the subsidies that had made it affordable. It is a global phenomenon as governments remove subsidies, which then triggers societal unrest. It is often international oil companies working in an energy-exporting country that lobby for raising domestic prices or shifting greater oil and gas production to export, where prices are higher on the world market. In contrast, the Chinese government, a much stronger state, has hesitated to remove domestic hydrocarbon subsidies and has moved cautiously, fearing it would undermine social stability. Kazakhstan civil society protests started as peaceful protests objecting to the LPG price hike but then escalated into a battle among oligarchs, which drew in outside actors. The protestors were angry about Kazakh elites’ corruption in general and wanted former president Nazarbayev to give up behind-the-scenes political power. When protests turned into riots, and government officials failed or refused to manage the riots, Tokayev asked the Kremlin for assistance from the CSTO. Russian troops were dispatched within days. On January 19, 2022, the CSTO announced that the peacekeeping operation was over, and it was said that all Russian troops had left Kazakhstan although it was later revealed that 1000 still remained. Russian analysts after the peacekeeping intervention noted that they expected Kazakhstan’s multivector diplomacy would change to a more pro-Russian position and away from closer relations with China, the EU, and the US. Moscow would no longer tolerate Central Asian states’ multivector diplomacy and planned to reestablish itself as the leading great power in the post-Soviet space.52 These Russian views reflect an overemphasis on military interventions and an underappreciation of economic ties. After the January 2022 Kazakhstan crisis, the Kazakh government asked the international oil companies to supply its domestic market so that Kazakh refineries could expand output of petroleum products and thereby decrease prices for products such as LPG. The international oil companies operating the Tengiz, Kashagan, and Karachaganak oilfields had been exporting all of their crude oil output. Since export prices are two to three times more than domestic prices, it was uncertain whether oil companies would comply. The Kazakh energy ministry plan to divert some of the oil companies output to domestic refineries was part of the new social contract promised by Tokayev, addressing the issue that set off the Kazakh people’s protests.53 In response to the protests, the government reversed its decision to end energy price controls. Protestors had focused on Kazakh oligarchs who had become wealthy through economic dealings with China. The protestors demanded “Nazarbayev leave the country.” Tokayev moved quickly to divest the Nazarbayev family of their positions that had allowed them to accumulate immense wealth. Tokayev promised a new type of state-society relationship, a new social contract than that which had existed under Nazarbayev, and an end to the kleptocracy controlled by the oligarchs and the Nazarbayev family. There would be greater distribution of the

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hydrocarbon wealth. The anti-corruption campaign would impact BRI relations with Kazakhstan as the family was involved in numerous Chinese projects riddled with corruption. Rampant smuggling in the six border ports on the SinoKazakh border had deprived the Kazakh state of billions of dollars of taxes and fees. Many companies involved in smuggling were connected to the Nazarbayev family. Tokayev’s directives to clean up the smuggling were in line with his plan for a less corrupt economy.54 Learning from the crisis in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan decided not to raise fuel prices domestically, and to stop all gas exports to China. For several years, Uzbek society resented domestic gas shortages while exporting to China. The original plan was to end gas exports in 2025, but the Kazakh crisis motivated Uzbekistan to abruptly halt exports to China.55 At the June 2022, St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin publicly pressed Tokayev to show support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, declaring that the entire former Soviet Union was part of “historical Russia,” his effort at legitimizing the invasion of Ukraine. However, Tokayev, one of the few leaders who attended the event, stated unequivocally that Kazakhstan does not recognize the Russian annexation of Luhansk and Donetsk. It was an unexpected pushback for Putin as he had thought he had greater control over Kazakhstan after sending peacekeepers to assist in riot control. On live Russian TV, Tokayev noted that Kazakhstan would not help Russia evade sanctions. Putin was reported to be visibly shaken and stumbled in his response to Tokayev, who seemed to have discarded Kazakhstan’s client state identity.56 Tokayev’s statement was viewed as a snub of Putin, who retaliated by halting Kazakh oil exports from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium that ship through the Russian port of Novorossiysk destined for European markets. On July 6, there was an explosion at Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field which may not have been an accident. Astana began considering alternative oil export routes such as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, or TTITR, created through an agreement among Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan, and coordinated with China, Turkey, and Ukraine, all of whom needed a route that circumvented Russia.57 In August 2022, Kazakh oil exports through Novorossiysk were again halted, the fourth time in 2022. Oil revenues accounted for approximately 44% of Kazakhstan’s budget in 2021, leaving the country vulnerable to Moscow’s manipulations.58 In June 2022, Astana changed the name of the oil it exports that traverse Russian ports to avoid sanctions risks. About 20% of Kazakh oil exports go through Russian ports and are sometimes mistaken for Russian oil which makes it difficult to open letters of credit for the shipment. Kazakh oil is now called Kazakhstan Export Blend Crude Oil (KEBCO) to distinguish it from Russian oil exported out of the same port (REBCO). Because of Western sanctions and European companies cutting back on Russian oil, Moscow is thought to have tried to disguise Russian oil as Kazakh thereby evading sanctions.

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Astana pursued multivector energy relations. The EU banned Russian crude oil imports in December 2022, and will ban Russian petroleum product imports in February 2023, giving Kazakhstan new market opportunities in Europe. In October 2022, the EU met with leaders of the five Central Asian countries to discuss economic cooperation, the transfer of European manufacturing companies to Central Asia, and especially increasing energy exports to Europe. Europe has developed an investment strategy called Global Gateway for investment in infrastructure in Central Asia that will rival China’s BRI.59 In November 2022, the EU-Central Asia Connectivity Conference mentioned energy cooperation frequently in its Joint Declaration.60 In December 2022, the US and Kazakhstan held their annual US-Kazakhstan Enhanced Strategic Partnership Dialogue, and discussed security cooperation, diversification of energy and trade infrastructure, human rights, environment, educational exchange, and counter-terrorism. The US reaffirmed its support for Kazakhstan’s independence, territorial integrity, and sovereignty.61 At the 2022 meeting of CICA, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi decided to resume oil swaps between Kazakhstan and Iran, which gives Kazakhstan an alternative route for oil exports not controlled by Moscow. The two countries had oil swaps since the late 1990s, but this was halted by Iran in 2010 because it felt it was not benefiting proportionately to oil price increases. Iran also has crude oil swaps with Russia, and in November 2022 agreed to start oil product swaps. Both Iran and Russia are under sanctions but have managed to find markets for oil exports on the black market. Moscow has expanded its dark tanker fleet. In 2022, sanctions impacted 2–3 million barrels per day of Russian crude oil and product. China, India, and other markets imported the discounted Russian oil. At the end of 2022, strengthened sanctions would lead to Russia’s oil trade going dark with shadowy, illicit transactions undermining Russia’s image of an energy superpower.62 By the end of 2022, Russia had less control over Kazakhstan’s multivector oil exports than before and was more dependent on the Chinese market to buy its oil exports than it had planned to be. Russia’s grip over Central Asia, notably Kazakhstan, was also slipping faster than most had expected, as control over energy exports was diminishing in response to the new war. Central Asian Regional Organizations

Central Asian regional organizations provide an arena for Moscow and Beijing to assert their leadership of the region as they pursue their spheres of influence. These multilateral organizations also provide space for Central Asian states to engage in their repertoire of multivector diplomacy using various strategies of balancing, blackmail, neutrality, binding, and bandwagoning, some of which were demonstrated in the 2022 meetings of the SCO and CICA.

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SCO

The SCO, a forum for Eurasian political, economic, and security issues, was founded in 2001, emerging from the Shanghai Five (1996–2000). Its original purpose was to combat terrorism, separatism, extremism, and organized crime that transcended Eurasia’s borders. It rapidly expanded. Member states are China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. Iran plans to join. Observer states are Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia. Dialogue partners include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. Expansion is meant to form a new Eurasian regional order but overlooks a fundamental rule of regime formation—rapid widening of a regime before it has deepened its integration will undermine its viability. The SCO balances Russian and Chinese interests. The two regional powers consider it an arena for joint leadership, but it is contested terrain as they seek different functions for the organization, and Central Asian states resist both hegemons’ efforts. Since the formation of the SCO, Russia has tried to merge the SCO with the CSTO to form a security alliance that functioned as a counterpart to NATO. All other member states resisted. In July 2015, Moscow had hosted the 7th BRICS summit, combining it with the 15th SCO summit and the EEU. It was a maneuver to incorporate the BRICS and the SCO into the EEU, promoting Eurasian integration under an organization where Russia had a clear leadership role. For Putin, the SCO is the core of his GEP, and offers an alternative model of world order and regional governance, anti-Western in its outlook. However, the Central Asian states are not as anti-Western, and they seek greater foreign policy independence from Putin’s directives. These smaller states have supported widening the geographic scope of the SCO since this would increase opportunities for them to balance Russian and Chinese influence with multivector diplomacy as they reach out to India, Iran, and Turkey. Putin and Xi, in their June 15, 2022 phone conversation, had pledged to coordinate their positions at the SCO to be held in September 2022. This would present to the SCO members a unified SinoRussian leadership of the organization, making it more difficult for secondary states to maneuver between them or to act more autonomously. Russian media portrayed the SCO meeting as a venue for Putin to meet with SCO member states, and to assume a leadership role in the organization. The Russian account claimed Putin met with “like-minded” individuals, implying that SCO states supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.63 In fact, the SCO was divided over the Ukraine war. Central Asian leaders refused to support Putin’s invasion, and worried about whether their country would be next in Putin’s effort to create a Russian sphere of influence. China’s position was carefully balanced. Zhao Huasheng explained that China’s position was not neutrality, which would support neither side, but rather one of “constructive involvement,” which meant China supports both Ukraine’s struggle to protect its territorial integrity and Russia’s struggle against NATO eastward expansion.64

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Central Asians’ agenda for SCO was to promote economic cooperation that will benefit their development. At the 22nd Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO, hosted by Uzbekistan in Samarkand, Central Asians worked on transforming the SCO into an organization promoting economic and infrastructure projects such as new transportation routes. Their agenda was to change the SCO’s identity to an organization that promoted economic development.65 Their concerns were energy, food, and climate security. This goal fit better with China’s role in the BRI rather than the Russian focus on security. However, in 2022 both China and Russia suffered domestic economic challenges and thus failed to commit the financing Central Asians sought. Prior to attending the SCO meeting, while visiting Kazakhstan, the key state in China’s BRI in Central Asia and a transit corridor for the BRI to Europe, Xi issued a statement supporting Kazakhstan’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and opposed interference by any forces in the internal affairs of the country. The statement was a warning to Putin not to intervene in Central Asian countries. It also presented China as a protector of Central Asian sovereignty.66 Putin’s attendance at the 2022 SCO summit was meant to demonstrate that Russia was not isolated despite the West’s sanctions on the country. Putin had hoped the SCO meeting would enhance Russia’s leadership image in its yearned for sphere of influence. However, Central Asia had no sympathy for his failing invasion of Ukraine, concerned as they were that Russia might invade them.67 Russia’s diminished stature in Central Asia was apparent. Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev personally greeted Xi Jinping at the airport, while Putin was met by his second in command. A former Russian lawmaker, Igor Yakovenko, noted, “What we’ve seen in Samarkand was Putin’s nullification and self-destruction …. Putin arrived having lost [in Ukraine], and losers are disliked.”68 All Central Asian leaders are concerned about the precedent set by Moscow’s attack on Ukraine in order to extend Moscow’s sphere of influence. During several bilateral side meetings, Putin was left waiting awkwardly in front of cameras for an unusually long time by leaders from Turkey, Azerbaijan, India, and Kyrgyzstan. In the past, it was Putin who kept other leaders waiting. A Bishkek researcher, Emil Dzhuraev, noted that “Putin is no longer the great invincible leader that everyone wants to meet.” Asel Doolotkeldieva commented that the previous Sino-Russian division of labor in Central Asia with Russian leadership in security and Chinese leadership in economics had faded away, “Russia is not doing its job anymore. It has shown that it is unable, or unwilling, to protect the region.”69 Prime Minister Modi of India, scolded Putin, stating that “today’s era is not of war.” 70 Putin acknowledged in his meeting with Xi Jinping that there were Chinese questions and concerns over the military invasion of Ukraine. Turkey’s President Erdogan urged Putin to return Ukraine territory his military was occupying. Xi Jinping at the SCO urged the organization to expand security cooperation and build a security architecture. He indicated his intent to increase China’s

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security involvement in Central Asia with a greater security leadership role for China in the region while maintaining a Sino-Russian partnership in the region. He stated, “China is willing to work with Russia, display the responsibilities of the major powers, and play a leading role to inject stability and positive energy to a world in chaos.” 71 Xi promoted China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) and linked it to the concept of “indivisible security,” i.e., one country’s pursuit of its own security should not come at the cost of others’ security. Putin had previously said that Russia supported Xi’s GSI because it overlapped with Russia’s version of “indivisible security.” The concept of indivisible security did not originate with Putin or Xi Jinping. It was first established by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Russia uses the concept of indivisible security when it assigns blame for the Ukraine war to NATO expansion, i.e., NATO’s interactions with Ukraine had created a security dilemma for Russia. Xi’s mention of indivisible security appeared to demonstrate close Xi-Putin coordination at the SCO. However, the extent to which Xi promoted China’s security leadership in Central Asia challenged the old Central Asian division of labor that assigned security leadership to Moscow. In April 2022, Xi introduced his GSI at the Boao Forum, meant to be a counterpart to NATO, in the eyes of many. Xi also called for “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable” security, borrowing from the ASEAN Regional Forum’s promotion of “common, comprehensive and cooperative security.” Xi had added “sustainable” to make it his own. Xi announced China would promote capacity-building for SCO member states to counter security threats and called for SCO collaboration on non-traditional security issues. He planned to create a China-SCO base for training counter-terrorism personnel, and train 2,000 police in five years.72 The month before on August 24, 2022, during the 19th meeting of SCO defense ministers in Tashkent, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe had also encouraged SCO member states to deepen security partnerships and develop a SCO security community using Xi’s GSI.73 Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, at the meeting, suggested that the SCO hold a joint meeting of defense ministers with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) member states in December 2022.74 Neither China nor Central Asia has agreed to Russia’s long-standing position that the SCO should be folded into the CIS and CSTO on security issues, which would give Moscow a stronger security leadership role in Central Asia. The Samarkand Declaration, issued at the end of the SCO meeting, stated that member states considered Central Asia the core of the SCO, challenging the presumed dominant role of China and Russia. It contained clauses that sounded like a rebuke of Putin as it noted that member states affirm “the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of states, equality, mutual benefit, non-interference in internal affairs, and non-use or threat of use of force are the basis for sustainable development of international relations.” 75 The 2022 SCO meeting revealed growing friction between Moscow and Central

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Asian elites, a loss of Russian influence in the region, and a reduced role in maintaining security. Central Asian leaders were left uneasy by Xi’s failure to criticize Putin for the Ukraine invasion. Central Asia left the SCO with the sense that China and Russia as leaders in the organization had failed. Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA)

In October 1992, Nazarbayev first proposed CICA at the 47th session of the UN General Assembly as a Eurasian collective security structure, a counterpart to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). When he initiated CICA, it was intended for the Central Asian states to interact with Russia as a united front rather than Moscow’s preferred bilateral interactions with individual states. CICA would also allow Central Asian states to carry out multivector diplomacy with outside powers and to balance these powers so that no one country, such as Russia or China, could dominate the region. In the early 1990s, 16 states joined, and by 2022, 27 states had joined. Tokayev, as Kazakh deputy foreign minister, had helped in 1992 to envision a Central Asian collective security regime after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and as foreign minister in 2002 organized the first CICA summit. In 2014 when Xi Jinping hosted CICA in Shanghai, he placed it as an equal to APEC, a more established and respected multilateral organization. Xi called for a “new regional security cooperation architecture” for Asian countries that would replace US-led military alliances. Xi planned defense consultations with member states, capacity-building, and institutionalizing a security regime. Xi’s theme was “Asia for Asians” which would have Asian problems “solved by Asians themselves.” This would distinguish CICA from APEC which had Western members. Putin was made an honored guest at this CICA meeting which did not fit with the theme. Although appearing to be an honor, it served to emphasize that Putin was an outside guest visiting Asia. It appeared that Xi had taken an organization that originated with Kazakhstan and tried to turn it into a China-led organization. In October 2021, Wang Yi furthered this strategy, claiming that China had always been both “participant and propellent of the CICA process” and implying that China was not an outside power in CICA. Wang called for CICA members to join and actively support the China-led Global Development Initiative and develop the BRI in the region.76 In 2022, there were multiple issues for CICA to manage, e.g., ongoing threats to security between Armenia and Azerbaijan and between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, both in need of confidence-building measures. Central Asian states were critical of Moscow’s mobilization for the Ukraine war that disproportionately recruited Central Asian minorities in Russia. Putin had threatened to revoke the Russian passports of Central Asian naturalized citizens in Russia if they tried to evade his mobilization of recruits for the war.77 Kazakhstan hosted the sixth

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meeting of CICA on October 13, 2022, where Tokayev intended to elevate the stature of CICA as a viable international organization capable of promoting Asian security, an Asian OSCE. Twenty-seven member states attended. Side meetings were numerous, especially in the 5+1 format where five Central Asian countries meet with outside powers. Putin’s address to the CICA tried to hijack the summit in several ways. He presented his three-decade old “Golden Billion” conspiracy theory regarding the US, stating CICA should avoid the Western-dominated global financial system, which exploits the global system at the expense of others.78 Putin warned that energy market instability undermines food security in many CICA member countries, making oil sanctions the source of food insecurity rather than the Ukraine war. He asked countries to ignore sanctions placed on Russian oil exports, stating “We call to eliminate all the artificial, illegitimate barriers preventing the restoration of the normal functioning of global chains of supplies, to resolve urgent tasks in the field of food security.” 79 Putin claimed that CICA was part of integration processes that would join CICA with the SCO, EEU, and ASEAN, implying it was a part of the GEP. He promoted formation of a regional security system, implying Russian leadership. Putin also mentioned that Russia with China had drafted a statement on security, which they expected CICA members to approve.80 It is unclear what happened to Putin’s statement on security that China supported and other CICA members were expected to sign. Putin was attempting to establish a Russian leadership position in CICA and discourage Central Asian countries from their multivector foreign policies, but this effort seemed irrelevant to the summit. He found little evidence that CICA member states were within Russia’s sphere of influence. Tokayev focused on CBMs and celebrated Kazakhstan’s leadership of CICA. A Kazakh newspaper claimed the eyes of the world were on Astana as the leader of Central Asian collective security.81 CICA adopted the Astana Statement with priority areas promoted by Tokayev: transform CICA from a conference into a full-fledged international organization; transform the CICA Financial Summit, originally initiated by China, into a permanent platform for financial cooperation; decarbonize the region’s economy; create a mechanism for ensuring food security; and form a partnership network of universities in CICA member states.82 The Astana Statement reflected Tokayev’s focus on economic development. The Russia-Central Asia 5+1 meeting was held on October 14, 2022, the first time this format had been used. Putin offered Russian assistance, and greater Russian control, in restoring a unified energy system in Central Asia, which included oil transportation routes for export to Asia and joint development of Caspian Sea energy resources. Kazakhstan had recently discussed supplying oil to European buyers to replace disruption of Russian oil exports to Europe. Outside of multilateral meetings, Tokayev had no bilateral meeting with Putin. Tokayev preferred the 5+1 format. However, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov met with Putin and discussed their border

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security issues. At the Russia-Central Asia meeting, Rahmon appeared to be trying to humiliate Putin, scolding him for not being respectful enough to Tajikistan and for not personally attending meetings in Rahmon’s country. Rahmon demanded that Putin not treat Central Asia as if it were still part of the former Soviet Union.83 A seven-minute video recorded Rahmon’s rant, which could be interpreted as an attack, while Putin sat there stone-faced.84 However, numerous alternative interpretations viewed Rahmon as blackmailing Putin, demanding more resources from Moscow, more investment, and more Russian language schools rather than asserting Tajikistan’s autonomy from Russia. Rahmon was, in fact, demonstrating his political loyalty to Putin and Russia as the only “viable strategic partner” for Central Asia in contrast to other Central Asian countries holding 5+1 meetings with the US, South Korea, China, India, and Japan. Rahmon did not support this strategy of multivector diplomacy to achieve greater autonomy as Kazakhstan had. Instead, he called for greater patronage from Russia for Tajikistan as a Russian client state. Tajikistan is more dependent on Russia with millions of Tajiks working and studying in Russia, sending back remittances vital to the Tajik economy. Rahmon appeared to be demanding that Putin reward him for his political loyalty.85 The 2022 SCO and CICA meetings revealed that most Central Asian states sought greater agency over Central Asia’s relations with the world and rejected the Sino-Russian joint hegemony over the region. Kazakhstan had pursued multivector diplomacy since 1992. CICA has been a vehicle to achieve greater autonomy from the Sino-Russian partnership. Kazakhstan’s chairmanship of CICA (2020–24) is intended to revitalize and institutionalize the organization, making it a viable actor in regional and global politics.86 Conclusion

As Russia and China each discursively construct a Eurasian regional order inclusive of Central Asia, expanding its boundaries and shaping its identity, they are also redefining the nature of their respective states. Putin constructs Russia as a Eurasian state at the center of a Eurasian regional bloc. Xi Jinping constructs China as a rejuvenated, rising power whose sphere of influence has boundaries that stretch across Central Asia. All of Central Asia is affected, and in particular the largest Central Asian state, Kazakhstan, due to its geographic location and resource abundance, is particularly important to the region-building projects of both powers. In the past decade, China’s economic presence in Central Asia expanded under the BRI. Russia responded defensively, organizing the former Soviet Union Central Asian states into the EEU and the GEP to hedge Chinese influence and establish Russia’s identity as a great power with geopolitical influence. Beijing and Moscow have held a continuous dialogue since 2015 on how to connect these different projects, but that has proven difficult because the essence of each is

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single-country centrality, either Sinocentrism or Russocentrism. At every stage through the ten years of Russia’s “Turn to the East,” the effort to find common ground has barely obscured the fundamental divide over spheres of influence and national identity and the irreconcilable gap with the states of Central Asia, most poignantly with Kazakhstan, over regional architecture. Sino-Russian competition in Central Asia is managed through an agreed upon division of labor as they aim to create a stable Eurasian regional order, but in 2022 this arrangement became more at risk. In January 2022, Moscow assumed that its security role was expanding due to the Russian-led CSTO intervention in Kazakhstan, which it expected would reduce Beijing’s influence in the country and quash Kazakhstan’s multivector diplomacy. However, Putin was surprised by the Central Asian states’ assertion of their autonomy in February 2022 when all Central Asian states practiced leash slipping as they rejected his efforts to pull them into the Ukraine war. The energy dimension of Central Asian relations also shifted after sanctions were imposed on Russia. Moscow expected Astana’s help to bypass the sanctions on its oil and gas exports, but Tokayev refused. Meeting domestic energy demand became a priority in Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan reduced the amount of oil and gas available for export to China. Russia began losing its identity as an energy superpower. The Sino-Russian division of labor was further changed in 2022 by Beijing expanding its security role in the Central Asian region while Moscow was distracted with the Ukraine invasion. Beijing offered security capacity-building to the region and encouraged the formation of a security community using Xi Jinping’s GSI. Regional multilateral organizations have provided the arena for an array of Central Asian strategies. Kazakhstan had initiated CICA, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to create space for multivector diplomacy. This affects how Central Asian states interact with Moscow. In bilateral negotiations with Russia, they appear to choose compliance. But when meeting with Russia in the SCO and CICA, these states are more likely to push back on Russian leadership and policy preferences. The 5+1 format of CICA was created for that purpose, to confront Russia collectively. However, individual states have their own unique approach. Tajikistan’s president used blackmail on Putin at the CICA summit but also appeared to bandwagon with him while requesting that a traditional relationship of patron-client ties be maintained. Kazakhstan’s multivector diplomacy has practiced leash slipping to avoid Russian domination, but it is not an anti-Russian position, and when assistance from Moscow was needed, as in January 2022, Tokayev contacted Putin. The dispatch of CSTO peacekeepers, primarily Russian, to Kazakhstan caught many outside observers by surprise as Moscow seemingly violated Kazakhstan’s sovereignty. However, we need to recognize that smaller secondary states such as Kazakhstan have a wide array of tactical strategies and are not always in opposition to Moscow

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when they need to call on it for assistance. A multivector foreign policy seems to have wide support in Kazakhstan. When Tokayev was campaigning for re-election, he made multivector diplomacy part of his campaign promises. Although there may be opposition to his position in the ethnic Russian region of Northern Kazakhstan, Tokayev was re-elected president of Kazakhstan in November 2022. Multivector diplomacy is tricky amid a transition in the power balance between the power long dominant in the area and the rising power intent on establishing its own dominance. Russia’s loss of influence in the region does not simply equate to Beijing’s progress toward a Chinese sphere of influence there. The year 2022 proved most interesting for exposing Russian hubris in failed efforts to rally support, but it also demonstrated deepening challenges for Moscow and Beijing to find common ground. If Beijing still anticipates that its position in the region should strengthen, Moscow must acknowledge that its failed plans in Central Asia, particularly in the shadow of the Ukraine war, are seriously jeopardizing its agenda for the “Turn to the East.” Notes 1 Glenn Diesen and Alexander Lukin. The Return of Eurasia: Continuity and Change (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). 2 Glen Diesen. Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia: Geoeconomic Regions in a Multipolar World (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2021). 3 Morena Skalamera, “Russia’s Lasting Influence in Central Asia,” Survival, vol. 59, no. 6 (2017): 123–142. 4 “Toward the Great Ocean-3: Creating Central Eurasia,” Valdai Discussion Club June 2015, https://valdaiclub.com/a/reports/toward_the_great_ocean_3_creating_ central_eurasia/?sphrase_id=154472 5 Kristen P. Williams, Steven E. Lobell, and Neal G. Jesse, eds., Beyond Great Powers and Hegemons: Why Secondary States Support, Follow, or Challenge (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012). 6 Aiman Zhussupova, “Peace Through Engagement: The Multi-Vector Direction of Kazakhstan’s Foreign Policy,” The Astana Times, October 28, 2022, https://astanatimes.com/2021/03/peace-through-engagement-the-multi-vector-direction-ofkazakhstans-foreign-policy/ 7 Ivan Safranchuk, Vera Zhornist, Alexander Nesmashnyi, and Daniil N. Chernov, “The Dilemma of Middlepowermanship in Central Asia: Prospects for Hegemony,” Russia in Global Affairs no. 3 ( July/September 2022), https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/ articles/dilemma-of-middlepowermanship/ 8 South Caucasus and Central Asia - The Belt and Road Initiative: Tajikistan Country Case Study. World Bank, 2020. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34119 9 “Tajikistan: The Cost of Chinese Debt, What Is Tajikistan Prepared to Give China as It Struggles to Settle Its Liabilities?” Eurasianet, July 21, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/ tajikistan-the-cost-of-chinese-debt 10 Michael E. Clarke, “Kazakhstan’s Multi-vector Foreign Policy: Diminishing Returns in an Era of Great Power ‘Pivots?’” The Asan Forum, April 9, 2015, https://theasanforum.org/kazakhstans-multi-vector-foreign-policy-diminishing-returns-in-an-eraof-great-power-pivots/ 11 Charles J. Sullivan, “End of an Era? Kazakhstan and the Fate of Multivectorism,” in Jean-François Caron, ed., Kazakhstan and the Soviet Legacy (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 31–50.

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12 Sebastien Peyrouse, “Caught Between Two Big Powers? Central Asia Under the Weight of Russian and Chinese Influence,” The Asan Forum, December 16, 2016. 13 Pavel Baev, “Putin’s Journey from the Munich Speech to the Brink of War with Ukraine,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, February 14, 2022, https://jamestown.org/program/ putins-journey-from-the-munich-speech-to-the-brink-of-war-with-ukraine/ 14 Ibid. 15 Alexander Iskandaryan, “Former Post-USSR,” Valdai Discussion Club, January 20, 2022, https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/former-post-ussr; Timofei Bordachev, “Asia and Eurasia in a Multipolar World,” Valdai Discussion Club, January 3, 2022, https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/asia-and-eurasia-in-a-multipolar-world 16 Anna Dolgov, “Kazakhs Worried After Putin Questions History of Country’s Independence,” The Moscow Times, September 1, 2014, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/09/01/kazakhs-worried-after-putin-questions-history-of-countrysindependence-a38907 17 Ibid. 18 Marcin Kaczmarski and Witold Rodkiewicz. “Russia’s Greater Eurasia and China’s New Silk Road: Adaptation Instead of Competition,” OSW Commentary, July 21, 2016, www.osw.waw.pl 19 Anna Kuznetsova, “Greater Eurasia: Perceptions from Russia, the European Union, and China,” Russian International Affairs Council, September 1, 2017, http://russiancouncil.ru 20 Zhang, Ning, “‘Greater Eurasian Partnership’ Interpretation,” Overseas Investment and Export Credits, vol. 2 (2017): 38–41. 21 Aakriti Sharma, “Kazakhstan ‘Highly Apprehensive’ of Russia & China as Kazakh President Vows to Protect Its Territorial Integrity,” The Eurasian Times, January 13, 2021, https://eurasiantimes.com/kazakhstan-highly-apprehensive-of-russia-china-askazakh-president-vows-to-protect-its-territorial-integrity/ 22 Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, “Independence—A Most Precious Thing,” cited in Kazakhstan Today, “Tokayev published an article on the independence of Kazakhstan,” Kazakhstan Today, January 5, 2021, https://www.kt.kz/rus/state/tokaev_opublikoval_ statyu_o_nezavisimosti_kazahstana_1377909770.html 23 Akhas Tazhutov, “Kazakhstan: The Burden of Being Russia’s Neighbor – Analysis,” Eurasia Review, September 23, 2021, https://www.eurasiareview.com/23092021kazakhstan-the-burden-of-being-russias-neighbor-analysis/ 24 Ibid. 25 Wu Airong, “An Analysis of the Process of De-Russification in Uzbekistan,” Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies, no. 1 (2017): 133–146. 26 Roza Nurgozhayeva, “How Is China’s Belt and Road Changing Central Asia?” The Diplomat, July 9, 2020, 27 “Zhao Huasheng: Russia and Its Near Abroad: Challenges and Prospects,” Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University, March 11, 2021, http://ciss. tsinghua.edu.cn/info/OpinionsandInterviews/3263 28 Ibid. 29 Marcin Kaczmarski, “Russia-China Relations in Central Asia: Why Is There a Surprising Absence of Rivalry?” The Asan Forum, August 19, 2019, https://theasanforum.org/ russia-china-relations-in-central-asia-why-is-there-a-surprising-absence-ofrivalry/ 30 Gaye Christoffersen, “Sino-Russian Accommodation and Adaptation in Eurasian Regional Order Formation,” in Gaye Christoffersen, ed., Russia in the Indo-Pacific: New Approaches to Russian Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 2021). 31 This discussion took place in a virtual meeting “The Future of the China-Russia Partnership,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 7, 2021, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=ajXlZ5YvpQk

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32 Michael Clarke and Dana Rice, “Kazakhstan in Sino-Russian Relations: Cooperation and Competition between the EEU and BRI,” The Asan Forum, October 19, 2020, https://theasanforum.org/kazakhstan-in-sino-russian-relations-cooperation-andcompetition-between-the-eeu-and-bri/ 33 Gaye Christoffersen, “Xinjiang and The Great Islamic Circle: The Impact of Transnational Forces on Chinese Regional Economic Planning,” China Quarterly, no. 133 (March 1993): 130–151. 34 Ming-Te Hung and Fanie Herman, “China in Central Asia: Harmonizing Mackinder’s Heartland,” Education About Asia: Online Archives, vol. 18, no. 3 (Winter 2013), https://www.asianstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/china-in-central-asia-harmonizing-mackinders-heartland.pdf. 35 Nargis Kassenova, “China’s Silk Road and Kazakhstan’s Bright Path: Linking Dreams of Prosperity,” Asia Policy, vol. 24 (2017): 110–116. 36 “A Perspective from The Region: Experts Met in Nur-Sultan to Discuss the Cooperation of Central Asian Countries with China,” Central Asian Bureau for Analytical Reporting, December 19, 2019, https://cabar.asia/en/a-perspective-from-the-regionexperts-met-in-nur-sultan-to-discuss-the-cooperation-of-central-asian-countrieswith-china 37 Raffaello Pantucci, “Ties that Bind Kazakhstan to China Are Starting to Unravel,” Nikkei Asia, December 7, 2021, https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Ties-that-bindKazakhstan-to-China-are-starting-to-unravel 38 “China Eyes High-Quality BRI Cooperation with Kazakhstan,” CGTN, May 12, 2021, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-05-12/China-eyes-high-quality-BRI-cooperationwith-Kazakhstan-10d5YpUNqqQ/index.html 39 Daniela Žuvela, “China-Kazakhstan Relations: Setting a Standard for Central Asian States,” Future Directions Institute, February 10, 2021, https://www.futuredirections.org.au/ publication/china-kazakhstan-relations-setting-a-standard-for-central-asian-states/ 40 Assel Satubaldina, “Tokayev Stresses Kazakhstan’s Special Role in Central Asia, Plans to Create Unified Foreign Policy Strategy Going Forward,” The Astana Times, November 19, 2021, https://astanatimes.com/2021/11/tokayev-stresses-kazakhstans-special-role-incentral-asia-plans-to-create-unified-foreign-policy-strategy-going-forward/ 41 “Chinese Vice Premier Calls for more Outcomes from Cooperation with Kazakhstan,” Xinhua, November 27, 2021. 42 “Kazakhstan Holds Investment Forum to Win over Multinationals,” Euronews, December 20, 2021, https://www.euronews.com/2021/12/20/kazakhstan-holdsinvestment-forum-to-win-over-multinationals 43 “Kazakhstan Summons Chinese Ambassador in Protest Over Article,” Reuters, April 14, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kazakhstan-china/kazakhstan-summonschinese-ambassador-in-protest-over-article-idUSKCN21W1AH 4 4 Yevgeniya Plakhina, “How Sinophobia Is Instrumentalized in Kazakhstan as a Form of Oppositional Politics,” Global Voices, June 15, 2021, https://globalvoices. org/2021/06/15/how-sinophobia-is-instrumentalized-in-kazakhstan-as-a-form-ofoppositional-politics/ 45 Ibid. 46 Emilian Kavalski, “Partnership or Rivalry between the EU, China and India in Central Asia: The Normative Power of Regional Actors with Global Aspirations,” European Law Journal, vol. 13, no. 6 (2007): 839–856. 47 Gaziza Shakhanova and Jeremy Garlick, “China’s Faltering Normative Power Drive in Kazakhstan,” in Alfred Gerstl and Ute Wallenböck, eds., China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Strategic and Economic Impacts on Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Eastern Europe, (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2020), p. 98. 48 “A Perspective from The Region: Experts Met in Nur-Sultan to Discuss the Cooperation of Central Asian Countries with China.”

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49 Emil Avdaliani, “China and Russia Build a Central Asian Exclusion Zone,” Center for European Policy Analysis, June 15, 2021, https://cepa.org/china-and-russia-builda-central-asian-exclusion-zone/ 50 Larissa Steblyakova, Elena Vechkinzova, Zhibek S. Khussainova, and Zhanibek Zhartay, “Green Energy: New Opportunities or Challenges to Energy Security for the Common Electricity Market of the Eurasian Economic Union Countries,” Energies, vol. 15, no. 14 (2022), https://doi.org/10.3390/en15145091 51 Katherine Putz, “Why So Much Attention on Russia’s Vague Proposal for a ‘Gas Union’ With Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan?” The Diplomat, December 9, 2022, https:// thediplomat.com/2022/12/why-so-much-attention-on-russias-vague-proposal-fora-gas-union-with-kazakhstan-and-uzbekistan/ 52 Dmitri Trenin, “Russia Takes a Gamble in Kazakhstan,” Carnegie Moscow Center, January 24, 2022, https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/86241; Dmitri Trenin, “Mapping Russia’s New Approach to the Post-Soviet Space,” Carnegie Moscow Center, February 15, 2022, https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/86438; Igor Denisov, “After Kazakhstan Crisis, China Will Reassess Its Influence in Central Asia Despite Its Economic Clout in Kazakhstan, Beijing Has Had Far Less Political Leverage than Moscow,” The Diplomat, January 18, 2022, https://thediplomat.com/2022/01/ after-kazakhstan-crisis-china-will-reassess-its-influence-in-central-asia. 53 Alla Afanasyeva and Olga Yagova, “Kazakhstan Wants More Oil Output to Stay at Home to Tackle Fuel Problems,” Reuters, February 4, 2022, https://www.reuters. com/business/energy/kazakhstan-wants-more-oil-output-stay-home-tackle-fuelproblems-2022-02-04/ 54 Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan Promises to Smash Smuggling Rings on Chinese Border,” Eurasianet.org, February 2, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-promisesto-smash-smuggling-rings-on-chinese-border 55 “Uzbekistan Ends Gas Exports to China and Abandons Price Increases at Home,” Eurasianet News, January 10, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/uzbekistan-ends-gas-exportsto-china-abandons-price-increases-at-home 56 Olga Lautman, “Kazakhstan Thumbs its Nose at Putin,” CEPA, July 11, 2022, https:// cepa.org/kazakhstan-thumbs-its-nose-at-putin. 57 “Kazakhstan is Exploring Export Routes to Circumvent Russia,” Eurasianet, March 8, 2022, https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Kazakhstan-Is-ExploringExport-Routes-To-Circumvent-Russia.html 58 Almaz Kumenov, “Kazakh Oil Exports Across Russia Interrupted for Fourth Time this Year,” Eurasianet, August 23, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/ kazakh-oil-exports-across-russia-interrupted-for-fourth-time-this-year 59 “In Kazakhstan, EU and Central Asian Leaders Tout Closer Cooperation,” Euractiv, October 27, 2022, https://www.euractiv.com/section/central-asia/news/inkazakhstan-eu-and-central-asian-leaders-tout-closer-cooperation. 60 European Union, “Joint Declaration: EU-Central Asia Connectivity Conference: Global Gateway,” November 18, 2022, https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/ joint-declaration-eu-central-asia-connectivity-conference-global-gateway_en 61 US Department of State, “Joint Statement on the United States-Kazakhstan Enhanced Strategic Partnership Dialogue,” December 6, 2022, https://www.state.gov/jointstatement-on-the-united-states-kazakhstan-enhanced-strategic-partnership-dialogue 62 Ben Cahill, “Sanctions Drive Russian Oil into the Shadows,” CSIS, March 25, 2022, www.csis.org/analysis/sanctions-drive-russian-oil-shadows 63 “Vedomosti: SCO Leaders Discuss World Entering Times of Turbulence,” TASS, September 19, 2022, https://tass.com/pressreview/1509573 64 Zhao Huasheng, “Why Do You Say that China’s Position in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict is Constructive Intervention?” The Paper (Shanghai), n.d., https://m.thepaper.cn/ newsDetail_forward_18619484. China’s balancing discussed in Yu Bin, “Embracing

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a Longer and/or Wider Conflict,” Comparative Connections, vol. 24, no. 2 (September 2022): 159–170. 65 Timur Dadabaev, “In Search of a New Identity for SCO,” East Asia Forum, September 20, 2022, https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/09/20/in-search-of-anew-identity-for-sco/ 66 Joanna Lillis, “China Warns Against Meddling in Kazakhstan Ahead of Putin Meeting,” Eurasianet, September 14, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/chinawarns-against-meddling-in-kazakhstan-ahead-of-putin-meeting 67 Richard Pomfret, “Russia’s Setback in Samarkand,” East Asia Forum, October 17, 2022, https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/10/17/russias-setback-in-samarkand 68 Nurbek Savitahunov, “Central Asia Drifts Out of Russia’s Orbit as Ukraine War Rages,” Moscow Times, September 24, 2022, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/09/24/ central-asia-drifts-out-of-russias-orbit-as-ukraine-war-rages-a78842 69 Andrew Higgins, “A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere,” New York Times, October 8, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/08/world/ asia/russia-putin-soviet.html 70 Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov, “India’s Modi Assails Putin over Ukraine War,” Reuters, September 16, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/putin-xi-speaksummit-uzbekistan-2022-09-16 71 “How to Limit Putin and Xi’s ‘No Limits’ Friendship, as Russia’s Military Failures in Ukraine Mount, the US and Its Allies Should Remind China of How Much It also Stands to Lose,” Bloomberg editorial, September 15, 2022, https://www.bloomberg. com/opinion/articles/2022-09-15/xi-putin-meeting-china-russia-wartime-allianceis-more-fragile-than-it-seems#xj4y7vzkg 72 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, “President Xi Jinping Attends the 22nd Meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State and Delivers Important Remarks,” September 16, 2022, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/ zxxx_662805/202209/t20220916_10767162.html 73 Ministry of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China, “Chinese Defense Chief Delivers Video Speech at SCO Defense Ministers Meeting,” August 24, 2022, http://eng.mod.gov.cn/news/2022-08/24/content_4919270.htm 74 “Shoigu Suggests Holding Meeting of SCO, CIS Defense Ministers in Dec,” TASS, August 24, 2022, https://tass.com/defense/1497613 75 Samarkand Declaration of the Council of Heads of State of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, September 16, 2022, http://eng.sectsco.org/documents 76 “Chinese FM: China has Always Been ‘Participant and Propellent’ of CICA Process,” CGTN, October 12, 2022, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-10-12/China-hasalways-been-participant-and-propellent-of-CICA-process-14iGoVLIscU/index.html 77 “Russia Threatens Denaturalization for Draft-Defying Central Asians,” Moscow Times, September 23, 2022, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/09/23/ russia-threatens-denaturalization-for-draft-defying-central-asians-a78873 78 Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan: Russian Conspiracy Theory Meets Asian Ambition in Astana,” Eurasianet, October 13, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstanrussian-conspiracy-theory-meets-asian-ambition-in-astana 79 “Russia’s Putin Warns of Volatile Energy Market Threat of Hunger at CICA Summit,” Alarabiya News, October 13, 2022, https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2022/10/13/ Russia-s-Putin-warns-of-volatile-energy-market-threat-of-hunger-at-CICA-summit 80 “Putin’s Speech at the CICA Summit, Kazakhstan, Astana,” October 13, 2022, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJLGJbzPp0s 81 Dmitry Babich, “The Most Successful Summit of ‘Asian OSCE’: How Astana Became the Diplomatic Capital of Asia Thanks to CICA,” Astana Times, October 14, 2022, https://astanatimes.com/2022/10/the-most-successful-summit-of-asian-osce-howastana-became-the-diplomatic-capital-of-asia-thanks-to-cica/

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82 Aida Haidar, “President Tokayev Outlines Five Priority Areas of Kazakhstan’s Upcoming Two-Year CICA Chairmanship,” Astana Times, October 13, 2022, https://astanatimes.com/2022/10/president-tokayev-outlines-five-priority-areas-ofkazakhstans-upcoming-two-year-cica-chairmanship/ 83 Thomas Kika, “Putin Confronted by Frustrated Tajik President Demanding Respect: Video,” Newsweek, October 15, 2022, https://www.newsweek.com/putin-confrontedfrustrated-tajik-president-demanding-respect-video-1752171 84 “Rahmon Tells Putin: We Want to Be Respected,” AKIpress, October 14, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0plRt5-eUE 85 “Was Tajik Leader’s Rant at Putin Defiance or a Plea for Greater Dependence?” Eurasianet, October 17, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/was-tajik-leaders-rant-at-putindefiance-or-a-plea-for-greater-dependence 86 Wilder Alejandro Sanchez, “Can Kazakhstan Bring New Life To CICA? – Analysis,” Eurasia Review, October 26, 2022, https://www.eurasiareview.com/26102022can-kazakhstan-bring-new-life-to-cica-analysis

6 RUSSIAN THINKING ABOUT THE KOREAN PENINSULA AND THE US ROLE THERE OVER A DECADE Gilbert Rozman

The Korean Peninsula is arguably the bellwether for Russia’s post-Cold War thinking on East Asia and the US role there. Moscow watched aghast in the 1990s after it had been marginalized in North Korea, where it had established and supported the regime for more than four decades. It struggled in the 2000s with a secondary role in the Six-Party Talks aimed at resolving the issues critical to the North’s future. Only after the breakdown of those talks did the debate begin in earnest on how the peninsula fits into Russia’s regional strategy. Second only to China, Putin’s “Turn to the East” rests on raising his country’s voice there in security, economics, and even identity. North Korea was a critical part of the Soviet sphere of influence, and it has regained centrality in the designs for Russia’s revival in Asia.1 The context for Russian thinking about the Korean Peninsula changed abruptly in February 2022 when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, but it had shifted already in stages over a decade. Three factors were decisive: first, Putin’s ideological drift toward Soviet-era thinking about history, empire, and authoritarianism meant that affinity with North Korea grew stronger; second, Putin’s antipathy toward the US and the West put South Korea, as a US ally, in a more negative light; and third, Putin’s growing affinity with China led to disregard for multilateralism in Asia in favor of joint or parallel efforts to transform the region, including, first and foremost, the Korean Peninsula. The Ukraine war reinforced these earlier decisions. On May 15, 2000, Putin declared, “Historically and geopolitically, the Korean Peninsula has always has been within Russia’s sphere of national interests.”2 Throughout the 2000s, Moscow continued seeking a multilateral process for establishing a mechanism for “peace and security” centered around the full peninsula.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-9

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The Six-Party Talks boosted hope for this, especially when Russia was chosen in 2007 to host the working group to develop such a mechanism. Yet after the collapse of the talks, Russia did not envision any other pathway to reassert its relevance but through North Korea, highlighted in a summit with Kim Jong-il in 2011. Along with China, it continued to call for the early resumption of the Six-Party Talks, less for actual denuclearization than for transformation of the regional architecture. Indeed, in 2000–03, prior to the Six-Party Talks, Putin had sought to forge a special bond with Kim Jong-il, including Putin’s quick trip to Pyongyang in 2000, Kim’s lengthy visit to Russia in 2001, and a failed deputy foreign minister’s preemptive trip to Pyongyang prior to plans for the Six-Party Talks. In 2012–15, Putin launched another initiative to North Korea, again treating it as a key gateway. The breakdown in US-North Korean diplomacy in 2019 raised hopes anew, but the pandemic lockdown in North Korea put ties on hold at least until 2022. Early in Putin’s “Turn to the East,” there was talk of South Korea along with Japan becoming a kind of pole in the multipolar architecture to emerge. Russia would not have to depend just on China as it capitalized on active initiatives from Seoul and Tokyo to improve relations, offering economic incentives. Yet such talk was soon replaced by references to the Korean Peninsula as one of the vectors of Russian policy, dismissing South Korea alone as a partner with real potential. In diverting from Seoul and reaching out to Pyongyang, Moscow placed its hopes on regional transformation. It was no longer focused on just reentering Asia; it set its sights on recreating a sphere of influence. If balancing with China would be tricky, standing firm against US influence would remain Putin’s unwavering priority in Asia, too. As much as Park Geun-hye’s Eurasian Initiative and Moon Jae-in’s New Northern Policy tried to keep Putin focused on the benefits of cooperating with Seoul, their imagery of long-term corridors across the Korean Peninsula had no assured payoff, while Putin strove for regional transformation. The message from Moscow to Seoul was mixed. Park Geun-hye’s trustpolitik is better than Lee Myung-bak’s fruitless North Korean policy, but much more is needed, especially through joint economic projects involving Russia. Not only did economic policy have to change, so too did geopolitical priorities and pro-Western illusions that had only served Barack Obama’s policy of isolating the North. The barely concealed warning to Seoul was that if it did not change, Moscow would tilt further to Pyongyang. Indeed, Seoul did seek to keep Moscow’s interest in a North-South corridor alive and did not directly apply sanctions in 2014, unlike Tokyo as part of the G7, but that did not satisfy Putin. The pressure on Seoul kept mounting through the 2010s.3 As Putin’s “Turn to the East” evolved over a decade, his attitudes toward South and North Korea were changing too, although underlying continuity can be detected. In the first years, he kept edging closer to Pyongyang, but the image of multipolarity endured along with an image of Park Geun-hye as interested

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in improving relations. In the next years, Park’s deployment of Terminal HighAltitude Area Defense (THAAD) was taken as an unfriendly act and pursuit of Kim Jong-un (despite a setback owing to Russia’s agreement to Security Council resolutions) continued. At the end of the 2010s, Russia took both the breakdown of US-DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) talks at Hanoi and the onset of what it calls a New Cold War as reason to tilt further against South Korea and to defend North Korea, although the pandemic and lingering UN sanctions hindered this agenda. Russian sources over a decade suggest that Putin’s deepening embrace of China and intensified hostility to the US reverberated in warming ties to Pyongyang and growing wariness of Seoul. The timeline was affected by upbeat moods under new South Korean presidents and by setbacks in ties with North Korea when its new president held back from diplomacy and after, having outsourced to China Russia’s approach to Security Council sanctions, it angered Kim Jong-un in 2017. Yet by the end of the 2010s, Moscow had found an approach in accord with the trend of its earlier thinking: a meeting of the minds with Beijing, maximum opposition to the US position on the Korean Peninsula, support for Pyongyang while waiting for an opening to bypass sanctions, and increasingly overt pressure on Seoul, no longer trying to drive a wedge between it and Washington. The situation in 2022 aggravated the divide between Moscow and Seoul and held promise for Pyongyang. No matter how provocative North Korea’s new missile tests were seen in Seoul and Washington, Moscow, along with Beijing, refused to take action at the Security Council for violations of past resolutions. The North’s votes in the General Assembly and elsewhere were among the few supportive of Russia, unlike China’s abstentions. South Korea’s sanctions were deemed “unfriendly.” If to 2022 a semblance of optimism prevailed, RussianROK (Republic of Korea) ties were in freefall at the time Yoon Suk-yeol assumed the presidency in May 2022 with policy promises derided in Russia.4 Russian Thinking about the Korean Peninsula in 2013–15

Prior to Park Geun-hye’s tenure as president, Moscow had soured on relations with Lee Myung-bak, refusing to condemn the North Korean attacks of 2010 and faulting Lee for not following through on Roh Moo-hyun’s support for the Six-Party Talks, overtures to North Korea, and signs of cooperation on economic projects bridging Russia and the Korean Peninsula. Yet Lee began his tenure with a vision for a “New Northeast Asia Economic Community,” backed by plans for massive natural gas imports and then an automobile assembly plant. When results fell far short of the expectations raised at summits, Russia’s tone darkened noticeably. Casting a shadow on ROK-Russian relations was Russia’s interpretation of its talks with Seoul prior to the breakdown of the Six-Party Talks. As Georgy Toloraya wrote, Russians blamed Lee Myung-bak for both worse Russo-South

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Korean relations and sanctions against North Korea that damaged North-South relations, brushing aside the North Korean aggression in 2010 that prompted those sanctions. Scuttling plans for three-way cooperation, he claimed, were Seoul’s negative policies, especially putting denuclearization in the forefront and not supporting the resumption of the Six-Party Talks.5 In Park Geun-hye’s first year as president, there was palpable optimism that ROK relations with Russia would improve. After the 2012 Vladivostok APEC summit convened close by with an upbeat message about Russia’s interest in becoming more active in East Asia, Putin’s announced “Turn to the East” appeared to have an important place for Seoul. Park declared her “Eurasian Initiative” not only to capitalize on Russia’s signals but also in the expectation that a joint strategy could follow to entice North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, including new economic infrastructure joining Russia to the entire Korean Peninsula. When Vladimir Putin visited Seoul in November 2013, hopes were invigorated that Park had found a winning strategy. In 2008, Russia had commenced the reconstruction of the railway from Khasan to Rajin, which Park endorsed as a step to the trans-Korean rail corridor. The high point across a decade of relations came in this visit. Park highlighted her proposal of a Silk Road Express between Busan and Europe, winning Putin’s endorsement, treating Rajin port modernization as the first step. A memorandum of understanding stipulated that South Korean companies could participate in this despite the severe sanctions imposed by Seoul on North-South trade in 2010. Meanwhile, ROK-Russian trade had risen to $27 billion in 2014. An especially positive sign to Russia was the abolition of visas for each other’s citizens from January 2014. In these circumstances, the fact that in 2012 Moscow wrote off 90 percent of North Korea’s $11 billion debt with the remainder to be invested in educational, medical, and energy projects and in 2013 tripled the quota for North Korean laborers working in Russia to 50,000 did not arouse substantial alarm in the ROK. Enticing Kim Jong-un, the new leader, was viewed as a joint objective. The mood in 2013 was upbeat that Moscow could impact inter-Korean ties.6 As Ambassador Gleb Ivashentsov explained, Seoul had failed to stick to the script of triangularity, on which Russian hopes had rested. Unlike Lee, Park appeared to favor reviving trilateral economic projects, giving Russia reason to press for more.7 Yet, Ivashentsov was clear in his criticism that she did not go nearly far enough. Even before the events in Ukraine of 2014 set back relations, there was no mistaking the gap in optimism between the two sides. Moscow’s tilt toward Pyongyang was beginning to pick up momentum. In 2014, not only did Putin’s “Turn to the East” accelerate with China in the forefront but it also gave more weight to North Korea. If 2013 seemed to be a year of upbeat Russian-ROK ties, the following year was much more about improving Russo-DPRK relations. This began before the March invasion of Crimea, reflected in the presence of Kim Yong-nam, the nominal head of state, at the

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Sochi Olympics, which Park did not attend, although her country would host the next winter Olympics. Accelerating the process was Kim Jong-un’s decision after the Crimean invasion and his execution of his uncle, who had ties to China, to encourage Putin. North Korea was one of just 11 countries to vote against the General Assembly resolution condemning his move into Crimea. In October, North Korea’s foreign minister visited Russia for 11 days amid optimism that the Khasan-Rajin rail line would transport Russian coal to South Korea. Yet because Russia insisted that the North pay for purchases or investments with such items as coal, rare earth elements, and other minerals, trade stayed at a low level and did not satisfy the North’s appeal for long-term bilateral agricultural projects, as well as investments in infrastructure. Moscow sought Seoul’s help, but sanctions limited what Seoul would do. Russia’s rising dissatisfaction with South Korea was unmistakable. Russo-DPRK negotiations on economic projects started, responding to North Korea’s upbeat mood. More than a dozen agreements were signed, while Russian investors were promised to benefit from exclusive terms. Russia extended food aid and developed cultural cooperation. All of this build-up seemed headed to a visit by Kim to the May 9, 2015, 70th anniversary victory parade in Moscow, an invitation he even accepted before changing his mind. While Moscow sought Kim’s first visit abroad to showcase its clout in East Asia and the peninsula, Pyongyang sought Putin’s support for their common struggle for a new world order, while stirring Beijing’s ire in order to renew its competition with Moscow over the North. Putin had to take the response of China or others into account, refusing to give Kim much of what he had sought. Pyongyang could demonstrate closeness to Russia to make China nervous and to take advantage of the Russo-US clash. Yet, when Moscow focused on a visit by Kim Jong-un to the February Winter Olympics in Sochi or a year later for the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, Kim Jong-un saw little payoff. As Kim’s first visit abroad, it would showcase Russia’s role on the peninsula, but Russia failed to promise military cooperation or a major economic payoff. Pyongyang’s main aim seemed to be to make Beijing envious to extract concessions. Kim chose not to visit, but Moscow kept showing its sympathy toward the North as in the August 2015 shooting at the demilitarized zone (DMZ). The symbolism of closer ties worked for both sides to a degree. High-sounding deals to invest billions over decades, modernizing North Korean railways and power grids in return for access to vast deposits of coal and metals, were a breakthrough, it was said. They agreed to use Russian rubles for mutual settlement and to establish the Asian Trading House in October 2015 for direct bilateral business contacts without Chinese intermediaries, who had been perceived as re-exporting Russian goods on a large scale. The more ambitious Russia’s plans with North Korea, the more Russia needed the financial resources and markets of South Korea. The fact that Seoul had not joined in 2014 sanctions despite US pressure kept alive the appearance of such cooperation.

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Yet abiding by the sanctions and failing to deliver much to support the Khasan line when Russia was eager to advance trilateral projects—even to join the Kaesong Industrial Park—left a bad aftertaste. Moscow had even sought to organize a meeting between Park and Kim Jong-un at the 2015 victory parade. The atmosphere was shifting already in 2014, as Russia started criticizing the US military presence in South Korea and joint military exercises, as if they were provocations against the North. Another problem was the economic trouble Russia faced in the second half of 2014, as oil and gas prices fell sharply and the ruble was devalued. Bilateral trade in 2015 was down by a third. Efforts to secure funds for Putin’s Russian Far East and Arctic plans fizzled too with Seoul blamed. If some assumed that Russia was prioritizing economic ties, the rhetoric coming from Moscow belied that. It called for a shared system of security for Northeast Asia and assumed that North Korea would agree. As in 2000–03, Moscow sought to woo Pyongyang, dangling triangular ties to Seoul too, treating coal exports from Rajin to Busan as the economic opening and security cooperation as the real goal. Russians spoke of the need for a new regional order, based on a network of three-way partnerships in energy, transport, and security. At this time, it even suggested that both it and Seoul were threatened by growing Sino-US confrontation and could autonomously respond more easily by joining hands for a balanced region—able to reassure North Korea. Praising the policies of South Korean progressives, however, was not a convincing way to win the confidence of a conservative president or deal with the heightened sense of risk in Seoul. Praising Park too for defying US pressure both misjudged the strength of the alliance and offered nothing to put in its stead. Soon, the message would shift to criticism of Seoul for being just a pawn in the US global containment system, serving a strategy to reaffirm US hegemony more than to counter North Korea. If Seoul were to lead in the unification of the peninsula, Russian security would be endangered, unlike the present situation with North Korea, it was said. Russians blame South Korean conservatives for bad inter-Korean and RussoSouth Korean relations. Lee Myung-bak, not Kim Jong-il, was the villain in 2008–10. He damaged ties with his response to Russia’s war with Georgia; he abandoned three-way cooperation by putting denuclearization in the forefront and his supposed role in raising tensions with sanctions on the North and rejection of further Six-Party Talks. Park Geun-hye did not fare much better in Russian assessments despite using the term “Eurasia,” boosting ties with no-visa travel, and winning support for her Northeast Peace and Cooperation Initiative. She resisted Six-Party Talks without preconditions and backed away from three-way projects with the North. If it appeared that Seoul did not join Western sanctions against Russia in 2014 despite intense US pressure, its less overt manner deepened contradictions. Even before warnings against the deployment of THAAD intensified in 2015, the thrust of Russia’s rhetoric was not that Seoul is a promising economic partner

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or a pole for the multipolarity promised in Putin’s “Turn to Asia” but a vulnerable target because security is in the forefront, enabling Russia to play its strong suit. As for Pyongyang, its promise was not that it would build trust with Seoul but that it is suspicious of China, giving Russia a partner without obliging it to challenge China or fearing Pyongyang would drop its antipathy toward South Korea. Both geography and history were seen as favoring Russia’s involvement in an environment ideally positioned for great power maneuvering, but Seoul was deemed prone to misjudge this logic. In the shadow of Park’s “honeymoon” with Xi Jinping in 2013–15, her reset with Putin did not grab headlines. For Putin, it was convenient as evidence of success in the “Turn to the East,” multipolarity in Asia, a peninsular-wide economic strategy to entice Pyongyang, and the failure of the US sanctions effort in Asia. Yet returns were limited, and Putin’s impatience showed as he wooed Kim Jong-un eagerly and increasingly soured on Park Geun-hye. Russian Thinking about the Korean Peninsula in 2016–18

In 2016, Russia turned sharply against Park for her February decision to deploy THAAD, its actual deployment in July, and the sanctions on North Korea that stymied transit trade on which Russia had counted. Although Moscow voted for the Security Council resolution in March imposing more sanctions, it carved out an exemption for transit coal trade as well as for Russian fuel exports if they were supposedly not for military use. Yet Seoul’s decision days later to prevent participation in the Khasan-Rajin rail line and ships from there to South Korea nullified Moscow’s plans. Less vitriol was directed against Pyongyang than against Seoul and against joint US-ROK military exercises as if they were what is provoking Pyongyang. If Moscow had anticipated a binding contract to stabilize coal deliveries, that was now off the table. Having delegated the negotiations at the UN to China, as usual, Russia was stunned by the resolution reached, managing to insert exceptions only at the last minute, but not salvaging the rare-earth and other mineral deals it had made. After this wrinkle in Sino-Russian coordination, regularized diplomatic channels made sure that the two better consulted and agreed in advance. This both denied Pyongyang an opening to play one off against the other and reinforced their ever-closer ties. A permanent deputy-minister-level strategic “Dialogue on security in Northeast Asia” centered on issues related to Korea was initiated, meeting several times a year, at least. Almost a dozen rounds of consultations took place in 2018 year alone. Of significance was the roadmap Putin and Xi unfolded in their July 4, 2017 summit: suspension of nuclear and missile tests for a moratorium on joint exercises; a joint document of the US, the DPRK, and the ROK setting forth principles such as no use of force; and of special importance to Moscow, resumption of the Six-Party Talks, now seen as directed primarily at establishing a Northeast Asian security framework.

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In 2016–17, Moscow was at an impasse in its policy toward the peninsula. Although it kept maintaining that North Korea was behaving defensively and that the response to it was not proportional—whether THAAD, military exercises, or even military preparations—its votes for new UN sanctions and limited economic ties left North Korea with little interest in boosting ties. Meanwhile, Moscow’s harsh rhetoric toward Park left ties with South Korea in limbo, as it could only warn of severe consequences.8 Earlier intensified contacts were not sustained. Yet even as Moscow held open the door to Kim Jong-un, it still left a slight opening for Park’s successor to renew ties. Much was written about Russia’s improved opportunity with North Korea.9 Russian commentaries in 2017 welcomed the departure of Park, insisting that she had been much too tough on North Korea and had cost Russia its coal exports. Not only was the purpose of THAAD described as to contain China, accusations faulted the entire specter of policies by Washington, supported by Seoul, as a pretext for the continuation of the US hegemonic presence in Asia. Having dismissed Park as if her overtures to Putin had been meaningless, Russians approved of Moon’s arrival as if this would split the ROK from Washington, boost North-South ties, and give Moscow the opening it had sought for its peninsular and regional agenda. Backing Moon’s efforts to mend ties with Beijing, Russia kept giving him high marks. Moon’s Russia policy also drew praise. At the September 2017 Eastern Economic Forum, he announced “9 bridges of development,” through which over three years $2 billion would be invested in projects jointly with Russia. The bridges were well chosen to cover the range of needs in the Russian Far East from shipbuilding to fish farming to port infrastructure to the Northern Sea Route with new LNG supplies beyond the 7 percent of Korea’s market already reached. Moreover, calling for moves to encourage the North, Moon was seen as ready to back Russia’s projects there. Yet security was in the forefront, Putin never losing sight of Moon’s support for US military bases.10 Russian expectations in the fall of 2017, at a time of intense North Korean provocations, were premised on Moon breaking with the US, as if Trump’s “fire and fury” rhetoric and unprecedented pressure on South Korea would be decisive along with a progressive president, as earlier sought. Yet both China’s decision to support tougher sanctions in December, with Russia again unhappily in tow, and Moon’s aim to draw Trump into talks with Kim Jong-un left Moscow feeling that it was marginal. For this and other reasons, it redoubled its efforts to coordinate with China, despite the fact that well into 2018 Moscow considered China to be too tough on the North. Indeed, the North Korean problem appeared to be intra-camp: China vs. Russia and the US vs. the ROK until things settled down through the second half of 2018. The new Sino-Russian understanding on the Korean Peninsula came at a critical time, just before diplomacy heated up. It was one sign of a tightened relationship, more hostile to the US. If Xi Jinping wavered in late 2017 and Putin felt

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more aggrieved at being bypassed in 2018, the overall bond held. They both sought to capitalize on Kim Jong-un’s interest in talks and Moon Jae-in’s tensions with the US, agreeing that Kim should stand firm in negotiations and, eventually, that the US caused the Hanoi summit failure. A year of diplomacy from the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics to the Singapore summit to the Hanoi summit drew an ambivalent response from Moscow. On the one hand, the “double freeze” and shift to diplomacy were what it had sought. On the other, it “helplessly saw its influence dwindle.” In May, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went to Pyongyang, offering assurances that Moscow has its interests in mind. Yet the sanctions took a heavy toll on economic relations; bank ties were severed, workers were sent home, and trade fell sharply. Two developments, however, were taken as promising for Moscow, both involving China. With Kim Jong-un’s May visit to Dalian, Moscow was reassured that China’s influence would be substantial, giving it one more reason to expect the US talks to fail. Also, the sharp deterioration in Sino-US relations heartened Moscow, which had been disappointed that Beijing did not take as hard a line as it did. Meanwhile, Moon visited Russia again in June, showing respect for its role in the diplomacy and its interests. No longer was he trying to get Russia to pressure the North, while he even explored an FTA, albeit one which could have flooded Russia with South Korean cars. While there was little substance, Russia hoped in September at the Eastern Economic Forum Putin could host both Moon and Kim Jong-un. When China supported “maximum pressure,” although it succeeded in limiting the humanitarian damage, Russia won an exception for the Khasan-Rajin transit for coal trade and an air route. DPRK leaders were not sanctioned, and some oil and petroleum products could still be sent there. When Seoul balked, Pyongyang blamed Moscow too for supporting the UN resolution. Russians calculated that Seoul had turned in 2018 to direct dialogue with Washington, discarding the “Russian card” as worth little. Viewing this as a repetition of failed diplomacy in the 1990s–2000s, when Moscow was marginalized due to weak ties with Pyongyang, it strove to get back in the game through a Putin-Kim Jong-un summit, which finally occurred in April 2019. More important in reviving Russia’s clout was its strengthening coordination with China over North Korea. In July 2017, proposing the dual freeze with China of nuclear and ICBM tests for joint military exercises, Russia sought to remind North Korea of its support. With the 2018 détente, Russia strove harder to boost relations and not to be marginalized. When Kim Jong-un met Putin in Vladivostok, it signaled opposition to US policies and showed that after the failure at Hanoi, Putin was an important card for Kim. It was said that Russia was also playing the “Korean card” in dialogue with Beijing. Anticipating a battle between Seoul and Beijing for advancing relations with Pyongyang, the Russians saw an opening for their country, but first needed to go around sanctions without getting ahead of China. They also needed to wait until North Korea expressed some interest in Six-Party Talks, which Russians insisted

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was the only way to manage a breakdown in regional security. Just as Moscow viewed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion as the loss of a balanced, regional security framework in Europe, it saw Pyongyang justifiably reacting to a breakdown in Northeast Asia’s balance. If in the Cold War Moscow had guaranteed the North’s security, a pathway to that should reemerge. THAAD and ROK-Japan security ties were now equated with a “mini-NATO” in Asia. Russian Thinking about the Korean Peninsula in 2019–21

As nervous as Moscow was in 2017 and early 2018 by China’s tougher line on North Korea and the North’s focus on diplomacy with the US, it foresaw that these were temporary developments. Thus, Russians were quick to evaluate the summit between Kim and Xi in Dalian as more significant than the Singapore summit of Kim and Trump that same month, which was judged a US failure. China assured Kim, as Russia had done, that he had no need to yield to Trump, in the Russian assessment. Eventually, Washington would have to change its posture toward what Russians call “conditional, reciprocal, incremental denuclearization,” concentrating on the threat to itself and leaving the South to cut a deal leading to a multilateral security architecture—a six-sided format being optimal. Washington would consult with its two allies and Pyongyang with Beijing and Moscow. Until then, Moscow was more interested in weakening the US than in resolving the nuclear question, and it credited Beijing with similar thinking, although China’s desire in 2017–18 to prevent Trump’s “fire and fury” and to salvage Sino-US ties led to a hiccup. After the Hanoi summit failure, the battlelines were fixed, although Moon sent mixed signals on his intentions. Moscow, along with Beijing, openly called for relaxing what Russians call “anti-North Korean sanctions,” e.g., on December 16, 2018 at the Security Council. It denounced sanctions. Denuclearization, it insisted, would follow only from strengthening confidence-building measures. More critical coverage of South Korea also was evident in 2019, even if Moon continued to receive some praise for struggling against the US hard line.11 The pandemic closed borders in Northeast Asia more firmly than anywhere else, but Russia only redoubled its support for North Korea and for Sino-Russian security ties. Talk of using gaps in sanctions, e.g., humanitarian assistance, hinted at a more lenient attitude toward them, but closed borders overshadowed other plans. Having lost hope in Moon “escaping from foreign dictates,” the prospect of the next president being a conservative was even less palatable. “Disrespect” from the West, including in management of the Korean Peninsula, continued to drive the Russians. Disregard for Seoul as well as Tokyo further dampened interest in active diplomacy. Moon is faulted for failing to meet his obligations to Moscow and Pyongyang, such as the three-way infrastructure projects he had proposed—a “deficit of sovereignty.” Deterioration in North-South relations in 2020 was not blamed on the North, and worsening Sino-US relations were seen as

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bad for denuclearization. Yet, Putin welcomed the hardening lines of polarization in Asia as in Europe, too. Distortions abounded in Russian coverage of US policy toward North Korea, as if it is all about regime change and containment of China and Russia. South Korea’s reasoning was dismissed, too; little credit was given to Park or Moon’s overtures to Russia, distorted by a zero-sum attitude toward the US vs. Russia, and to the paltry investment in the Russian Far East—less than 5 percent of FDI there. As one writer put it, “Despite all the loud words about friendship and ‘blood kinship,’ Moon has unequivocally decided that because of North Korea, Seoul will not go into a real conflict with the United States. Since everything is decided in the end in the United States, why waste time on South Korea?”12 This hardened thinking was echoed in many writings. Summaries of articles by Alexander Zhebin, Alexander Vorontsov, and Gleb Ivashentsov in Country Report: Russia, March and September, 2021 conveyed the flavor of increasingly hardline attitudes toward the peninsula. They frame issues in historical national identities and Russia-US rivalry. On August 12, Alexander Zhebin wrote about how the two Koreas celebrate their August 15 liberation day, pointing to differences in their views of the role of the USSR. He asserts that the Red Army played a decisive role in the defeat of the Japanese Army on the territory of Manchuria and North Korea. Kim Jong-un sent a telegram to Putin, honoring the memory of the soldiers of the Red Army who died in “the sacred great cause of the liberation of Korea.” In contrast, South Koreans consider Americans their liberators and struggle with the legacy of collaboration, distorting or belittling the role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Japan and liberation of Korea. Newspapers and politicians attack the historical truth, responding to the remarks of a leader of a small political party that the Soviet army came as a liberator and the US as occupiers. Claims that the Soviet Union only entered the war after it had turned into a defeat for Japan are denounced, asserting that only Soviet troops fought the Japanese on Korean territory. On March 1 in the March/April issue of Rossiia v Global’noi Politike, Zhebin blames the impasse in 2020 on US policy, holding to “maximum pressure,” and Moon Jae-in as incapable of pursuing a more autonomous course from the US in inter-Korean relations. Moon’s policy contrasts with his obligations in the inter-Korean summits of 2018 and declarations to join in three-way infrastructure projects with Russian participation. Putin called this a “deficit of sovereignty.” Given these failures, the DPRK began to view possession of nuclear weapons as the “only guarantee of the security and independence of the country.” It will hold onto then “until the unlikely event it is fully assured of the absence of hostile intentions of its opponents and can count on real assistance for development.” Zhebin stresses that US-DPRK talks cannot succeed; a regional architecture for security is essential. In Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’, No. 1, Aleksandr Vorontsov finds Lee Myung-bak’s “conservative revenge” ruining progress since North Korea remained “enemy

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number one,” while the US was still under the illusion that “the Pyongyang regime was about to collapse.” Vorontsov agrees that the “six-party format” of negotiations remains optimal today. He approves of calling the approach an “equilibrium of stability” or the “Great North Pacific Project.” In such a regional approach, the root causes of the proliferation would be removed while resolving other severe regional problems. “The six-sided format could theoretically even be considered as the embryo” of the North Pacific project. As for Russia’s role, the upward trend in Korean affairs is still far from being consolidated. Gleb Ivashentsov asked whether the Korean War ended. He praised Trump’s diplomacy with Kim Jong-un, but adds that the deep state thwarted it. His recommendation is for “making practical progress,” but faults Biden’s strategy as more like “strategic patience 2.0” than equidistant between Obama and Trump’s approaches. Further he insists that China will not “surrender” the DPRK due to the geopolitical damage that would cause, including China’s loss of a buffer. Given North Korean determination to find a balance between Beijing and Washington, in order to extract dividends from both as it did from Moscow and Beijing during the Cold War, the US will have to find a formula for coexistence, which could be met with strong Chinese opposition. The current situation is in the interest of both China and Russia. The idea is now floating in Washington for arms control on the peninsula. Ivashentsov suggests that Russia should take the role of organizer in the Six-Party Talks framework and help forge a regional security framework. An authoritative Russian book links the US treatment of Russia elsewhere— ignoring equal dialogue, respect for Russia’s sovereignty, and consideration for its core interests—with how the US behaves toward the peninsula. If not specified as a core interest, the peninsula is treated as a testing ground for whether Russian interests in the Asia-Pacific are respected.13 The argument is unmistakable: Russia has a justified grievance. Washington and Seoul are both guilty of marginalizing a power which once held great sway over issues on the peninsula. Respect, as in the case of Russia’s role in Ukraine and the eastern part of Europe, is denied. The shock of being bypassed in the 1990s in diplomacy on North Korea has parallels to the anger over the expansion of NATO and US intervention in the former Yugoslavia. Putin, thus, made his first foray into international politics by stopping in Pyongyang in 2000. When he returned as president in 2012 and, even more, after relations with the US deteriorated in 2014 owing to his moves in Ukraine, both sides of the peninsula were seen in a more definitive light. Moscow found common cause with Beijing, at least, at the stage of resisting Seoul and Washington. Moon’s New Northern Policy was viewed as vacuous despite his promises at the 2017 Eastern Economic Forum and his call for “nine bridges” in June 2018. Putin was supposed to visit Seoul in 2020 followed by Moon going to the Eastern Economic Forum in an anniversary year. Moscow refused Seoul’s appeals in 2020 on North Korea, only calling for restraint from both sides.

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Although Moon’s position on North Korea is closer to Russia’s, political ties are limited by Seoul viewing Russia as “secondary,” a “regional” power, and a junior partner of China. Seoul only wants to use Moscow to influence Pyongyang. Seoul seeks to monopolize the right to deal with Pyongyang or, if that fails, to fully isolate the North. It does not respect Russia, conveying negative images, e.g., of crime. If there is no anti-Russian political force and no anti-Korean tendencies in Russia (the Korean Wave raises South Korea’s status), relations should be much better. The alliance with the US and presence of US troops are seen as the only source of discord. Moscow could help in case of deepening dependence on China or the US.14 Russians breathed a sigh of relief when Moon’s overtures to Kim Jong-un coupled with Trump’s diplomacy failed. If denuclearization had proceeded with tensions lowered, Russia would see itself as marginalized without an economic vertical axis from its Far East or a multilateral plan for Northeast Asian security. While China may emerge as the biggest beneficiary of the impasse, Russia counts on North Korea’s wariness toward China and South Korea’s preference for some other country to keep the North from complete dependence on China. Biden’s moves may drive Kim Jong-un for a time toward more autarchy and also need for China, but Russia is thinking one step ahead. It is not pleased with South Korea’s policies and worries that a conservative would do more damage, but it counts on Kim Jong-un to rescue plans for Russia having a major role in maneuvering over: (1) the future of the whole peninsula; (2) a North-South economic axis to prevent Chinese domination; and (3) a multilateral security framework weakening US alliances and escaping Sinocentrism. Looking back, Russia values Soviet support for North Korea, as opposed to the disdain toward the Soviet period shown in the 1990s (aided by Western propaganda and liberals). Many authors point to the North’s strategic location, economic potential, and value as a source of labor for the Russian economy. It is assumed that North Korea would be wary of China and South Korea, making Russia its ideal partner—if economic forces could only be developed through the South Korean recognition of Russia’s true affinity. A turning point for Moscow was reached in 2019–20 with three developments: (1) the shift of China to full hostility toward the US, similar to Russia’s thinking: (2) the leap in Sino-Russian relations, not only as one side eyed Taiwan and the other Ukraine with urgency, but also with joint responses toward North Korea; and (3) the tightening of Sino-DPRK relations. “A significant marker was a 2020 speech by Xi Jinping celebrating the anniversary of the sending of Chinese People’s Volunteers to the DPRK in order to help a neighboring country and contain American aggression. Xi explained that in the face of aggression, the Chinese people will not buckle at the sight of an aggressor, and their backs will not bend. That war taught the Chinese to speak with the aggressor only in the language they understand.” Little changed to 2022.

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The Ukraine War and the Korean Peninsula

By 2021, after the stalemate in US-North Korean relations and the diplomatic pause due to the pandemic, Russia prepared to renew its support for North Korea in light of three factors: (1) further deterioration in Russo-US relations; (2) deepening tensions between North Korea and the US; and (3) worsening Sino-US relations. A term used for the new environment was “confrontational stability.” Yet, that thinking preceded the Ukraine war. The anticipated Cold War in Asia assumed a balance of interests, however tense. In the assumed circumstances, there would be de facto recognition of the nuclear status of the DPRK, but not yet recognition of a “concert of powers” in East Asia since North Korea would insist on autonomy and the US, on its right to interfere on the peninsula. A “zone of turbulence” would threaten peace, but nuclear deterrence and the will of Russia and China would prevent a big war. Prior to the Ukraine war, Russia had prepared for confrontation in Northeast Asia. Ukraine is considered by Putin to lack sovereignty and to be an inseparable part of Moscow’s realm. The Korean Peninsula has no such standing, which would give Russians a reason to infringe on its independence. Yet, Putin’s narrative combines sovereign rights with spheres of influence. Fundamental to his logic is a defense of the geopolitical order established as a result of WWII. In Europe, that stands in opposition to NATO expansion to the east, infringing on states that came under Moscow’s sway in 1945. In Asia, it is visible in hardened Russian rhetoric toward Japan, as if claims to disputed islands call into question inviolable outcomes in 1945. It is also prominent in publications about the Korean Peninsula. Russia has special prerogatives. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, to which South Korea responded along with other US allies with sanctions, sharply accelerated the downward spiral in ROKRussian relations. Weeks later, Yoon Suk-yeol’s election brought a clear tilt in foreign policy toward the US, spelling an even more definite end to the 35-year record of “Nordpolitik” and subsequent overtures to the Kremlin. If there had been no war in Ukraine, the chances were low that Yoon’s conservative worldview coupled with Sino-Russian coordination and support for North Korea would have allowed for another reiteration of outreach to Moscow. Nonetheless, the emphatic nature of how the image of cooperation collapsed in the first months of 2022 offered proof that there was little substance behind the earlier façade or real hope left for a reversal. The Ukraine war confirmed the “unfriendly” label for South Korea already apparent. If the repeated overtures of Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in had tempered thinking along with some satisfaction over economic ties, these positive images were swept away. In a polarized world, South Korea was on the opposite side. The fact that the war tightened Russian ties to China and bolstered North Korea’s image solidified the line-up in Northeast Asia, as Yoon’s impending presidency made the case for bipolarity even stronger.

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Parallels between Russian Thinking on South Korea and Japan

Except for about one year in 2015–16, ROK-Japanese relations were continuously troubled over the decade of Russia’s “Turn to the East.” Opportunities seemed to abound for Moscow to play on the differences to try to drive a wedge between the two US allies, given that the leaders of both were eager to boost bilateral relations. Instead, similarities in the chronology of ups and downs in Russia’s ties to them point to other factors determining its policies. A comparison can be instructive for grasping the forces behind Putin’s evolving thinking toward East Asia unfavorable to the two US allies. In 2013, Russian optimism about multipolarity peaked, visible in warmth shown to both Park Geun-hye and Abe Shinzo. If this is usually attributed separately to the overtures coming from these leaders, as if they were acting without regard for the welcoming posture of Putin, the overlap was not coincidental. Putin recognized Abe’s quest for a breakthrough with Russia—his family’s destiny— before Abe took office and lured him with the appeal for a breakthrough in bilateral relations on the basis of a “hikiwake” solution or a draw in judo. Likewise, Park’s intention to break from Lee Myung-bak’s troubled relationship with Russia was obvious from the start, and with diplomacy with the new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at a near standstill, encouraging Park made sense. The “Turn to the East” prioritized the development of the Russian Far East through capital infusions and spoke of the policy as a pathway to multipolarity in Asia. It was Moscow that first caused a spike in optimism that past rifts would be overcome and then thwarted Abe and Park as Moscow focused mainly on China. Both countries had tried to allay Russian concerns that they were part of the US-led coalition to punish it for its early aggression in Ukraine, insisting in Seoul that it had not joined the sanctions and in Tokyo that it, as a member of the G7, had done the minimum possible. Moreover, both argued that a clear separation must be made between Russia in Europe and in Asia, Although Russians found it convenient to repeat these arguments, as if Moscow had driven a wedge in US alliances and could proceed as planned with multipolarity in the “Turn to the East,” a different line of reasoning soon prevailed. Moscow was turning more decisively to China and North Korea with more hostility to the US, and US allies could not deliver on their promises due to adherence to the sanctions and no sovereignty. In 2016, Seoul’s decision to deploy THAAD confirmed this judgment. If there was no comparable trigger for blaming Tokyo, Russia’s tone had changed, and the December Putin visit to Japan, for which Abe had raised hopes and Japanese media had waxed optimistic about a breakthrough, proved to be a failure. Upswing and downturn followed the same timeline in both states. The situation for Russia in Tokyo and Seoul suddenly brightened by early 2017. In May 2016, Abe defied Obama by meeting Putin in Sochi and reinvigorating the pursuit of a breakthrough, which had slowed two years earlier. And in May 2017, Moon Jae-in assumed the presidency in Seoul, flaunting a more

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welcoming stance toward North Korea at odds with the US position and promising new overtures to Moscow. If Moscow’s primary orientation was to Beijing and to resume efforts to engage Pyongyang, it could not ignore these new opportunities with the US allies. Yet, Moscow’s focus in 2017 centered on Beijing and Pyongyang, not on these US allies. Abe and Moon downplayed Russia’s toughening posture, the latter blaming it on Park’s failed policies. By 2018, each had launched new initiatives to woo Putin against all odds. The “New Northern Policy” was a repackaging of Park’s “Eurasian Initiative,” and in 2018 in his diplomacy with Kim Jong-un Moon had appeared to raise Russian hopes for trilateral economic projects. Yet, Russia was deeply skeptical that it would succeed, putting much more stock in Kim’s summits with Xi Jinping for hardening his posture toward both Moon and Donald Trump. Moon’s effort to enlist Putin’s support paled before Putin’s quest for Kim to meet him in Russia, raising Putin’s stature as a player in this diplomacy. Abe fully acceded to the return of just the two small islands in his 2018 Singapore summit with Putin, rekindling Japanese hopes, but Russian interpretations after its constitutional amendment banning the transfer of any territory assumed he was now inclined to sign a peace treaty without any territorial deal, as it had sought. Talks with Abe, as with Moon, had reached a dead-end. Russian commentators treated their successors as betraying the upbeat attitudes that Russia has slighted. Four forces stand out as we reflect on the decade as a whole. First, there is history, notably the parallel interpretations of the victory in WWII and the establishment by Russia of North Korea and the Korean War. Second, there is a quest for Russian influence in shaping the future of Northeast Asia in keeping with memories of the Soviet sphere of influence. Third, Putin is driven by antipathy to “color revolutions” or to the spread of democracy and other “universal values” in opposition to the identity he was determined to preserve in Russia and wherever else possible. Finally, having decided early that a “New Cold War” was under way, it was essential for Putin to find the desired balance between China and North Korea on one side and Japan and South Korea on the other without losing sight of strong animus to the US, which was blamed for forcing the revival of a Cold War. In Putin’s thinking, the value of Seoul and Tokyo kept sinking through the decade. Conclusion

In both Moscow and Seoul, hopes were raised in the 1990s for South Korea to play a positive role in Russia’s post-Cold War transition, and they lingered until 2022 despite mounting evidence that expectations were not being met. There were growing signs of unrequited aspirations, as overtures to Moscow failed to draw much interest. The turning point had been reached by 2010, when Moscow failed to side with Seoul on the Cheonan sinking, although some may trace it back

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to 2000, when Putin launched his foreign policy by visiting North Korea. Others may point to 2004, when Russia chose to defer to China in the Six-Party Talks after taking a more independent stance in 2003. Whichever date one chooses as the turning point, 2016 stands as the point of no return, due to the Russian reaction to THAAD and cozying up to North Korea. Moscow branded Seoul “unfriendly” in 2022, but felt so earlier. Leaders in Seoul feigned a view of Russia increasingly at odds with reality. They minimized Russian support for North Korea and ignored what Russians were saying about the problems in ROK-Russian relations. The message delivered from Moscow should have left no doubt that, geopolitically, it sided with North Korea, economically, it put little stock in South Korean relations, and, in identity terms, kinship with Pyongyang trumped that with Seoul. This thinking gave no reason for South Koreans to be optimistic over the years. Russian diplomacy to the Korean Peninsula was handicapped by three obstinate realities: (1) Pyongyang prioritized Beijing and often appeared to be using Moscow as if it could play off its two, long-term backers; (2) Seoul sought to keep Moscow engaged to impact its policy toward Pyongyang, but its ties to Washington were determinative; and (3) Russia’s economic weakness left it with a weak hand, which if used recklessly could result in isolation. Thus, it tried to enlist South Korea in economic triangularity but failed repeatedly. The crux of the problem was the gap between South Korean and Russian thinking on geopolitics, economics, and national identity. Seoul championed reconciliation. It sought a community to promote security, addressing North Korea through joint guarantees. Although anchoring its security in the ROK-US alliance, it was amenable to some regional security understanding. Yet, Moscow made it clear in prioritizing the threat from the US and its alliances over that from North Korea that geopolitics drove it against Seoul, not toward finding common ground over threats to peace coming from Pyongyang. The attacks by the North in 2010, the THAAD deployment of 2016, and the Hanoi summit of 2019 exposed this wide gap. Russian writings left no ambiguity that South Korea is on the adversarial side and opposed to the geopolitical architecture deemed essential for Russia’s critical national security interests. Economics long appeared to be the driving force of improved Russo-ROK relations. It would be the pathway to revitalization of the Russian Far East, a priority for Putin. It would help to modernize the Russian economy, for which the intermediate level of South Korean technology, compared to the US and Japan, drew special praise. In the transformation of North Korea, the two states to its north and south were seen as ideally suited to work together, whether on railroad lines, electricity grids, oil and gas pipelines, or transit trade in coal and other commodities. However, in the 2010s, the tone in publications shifted from optimism about such prospects to blame for Seoul’s supposed failure to live up to its promises. A minority viewpoint that Moscow had not created an attractive environment for foreign investment faded away.

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Most telling about the hardening of Russian thinking toward both parts of the peninsula was coverage of national identity in all of its dimensions. Rejecting narratives that exposed the horrendous reality of North Korea in favor of simplistic assertions that the country in the past and present is just rationally responding to threats, Russians removed any identity gap from discussion of Russo-DPRK relations. Indeed, rhetoric invoked an historic bond between nations, implying identity overlap. As for South Korea, it never enjoyed the allure Japan was gaining in the 1980s for culture, consumer electronics, and eventually cuisine. There was no “Korea Wave” in the 2000s–2010s, as had occurred in parts of Asia. By the late 2010s, it was being defined as a US ally unsympathetic to Russia. The shadow of the Korean War had reappeared. Putin’s war in Ukraine put an exclamation mark on two decades of leaning to Pyongyang over Seoul. Russian reasoning denounced US alliances whether in Europe or Asia. Economic avenues were shuttered, but Russia insisted that it could cope, leaving no openings for Seoul as well as others. Finally, the national identity divide hardened. No room was left for affinity with South Korea, while North Korea gained more sympathy. Putin’s “Turn to the East” had run its full course: It was to China and North Korea, i.e., to the past. This chapter draws heavily on Country Report: Russia and other articles in The Asan Forum, which summarize and interpret Russian thinking on the Korean Peninsula over a decade.

Notes 1 Gilbert Rozman, “The Russo-U.S. National Identity Gap and the Indo-Pacific in 2021,” in Gilbert Rozman, ed., Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies: Questioning the Pandemic’s Impact on the Indo-Pacific: Geopolitical Gamechanger? Force for Deepening National Identity Clashes? Cause of Shifting Supply Chains? (Washington, DC: Korea Economic Institute, 2021). 2 Alexander Lukin, Pivot to Asia: Russia’s Foreign Policy Enters the 21st Century (New Delhi: Vii Books, 2016). 3 The book that best encapsulates Russian thinking is A.V. Torkunov, G.D. Toloraya, and I.V. D’iachkov, Sovremennaia Koreia: metamorfozy turbulentykh let (2008–2020) (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 2021). 4 “Russia Designates S. Korea as an ‘Unfriendly’ Nation,” Yonhap, March 7, 2022. 5 Georgy Toloraya, “Korea: A Bone of Contention or a Chance for Cooperation: A View from Russia,” The Asan Forum, February 19, 2019. Also see Gilbert Rozman, “A Russian Perspective on the Tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” The Asan Forum, February 15, 2021. 6 See “Country Report: Russia,” The Asan Forum, September 16, 2013; Alexander Lukin, “Russian Strategic Thinking Regarding North Korea,” The Asan Forum, September 2013. 7 Gilbert Rozman, “Ex-ambassadors to Seoul Advise it to Change,” The Asan Forum, April 7, 2016. Also see Gilbert Rozman, “Russian Authors on the Korean Peninsula and on Japan in Joint Publications,” The Asan Forum, December 23, 2015. 8 Serghei Golunov, “Russia’s Korean Policy since 2012: New Hopes, Achievements, and Disappointments,” The Asan Forum, August 3, 2016.

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9 Gilbert Rozman, “North Korea’s Place in Sino-Russian Relations and Identities,” The Asan Forum, December 23, 2015; Hirose Yoko, “Russia’s North Korea Policy: The Logic and Dilemma of Assisting North Korea,” The Asan Forum, December 8, 2017.  10 Gilbert Rozman, “The Eastern Economic Forum September 2017: What to Make of It?” The Asan Forum, October 23, 2017. 11 Artyom Lukin, “Russian Commentary on South Korea in 2019,” The Asan Forum, December 31, 2019. 12 Asia Risk Research Center, April 8, 2021. 13 A.V. Torkunov, G.D. Toloraya, and I.V. D’iachkov, Sovremennaia Koreia, Ch. 15, pp. 323–55. 14 This section and some others are taken from Gilbert Rozman, “A Russian Perspective on the Tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” The Asan Forum, February 15, 2021, which drew on the A.V. Torkunov, G.D. Toloraya, and I.V. D’iachkov, Sovremennaia Koreia, especially on Ch. 17, pp. 376–413.

7 RUSSIA “TURNS TO THE EAST” YET AWAY FROM JAPAN James D. J. Brown

On March 7, 2022, the Russian government included Japan in an official list of countries and regions labeled as “unfriendly.” This was followed on March 21 by the announcement that Russia had suspended talks on a bilateral peace treaty, which has yet to be signed since the end of the Second World War. These measures were retaliation against Tokyo’s introduction of sanctions in response to Russian aggression against Ukraine. Yet, as this article demonstrates by assessing the last decade of relations, Moscow’s policy toward Japan had already hardened long before the invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. This helps explain Japan’s uncharacteristically tough response to the invasion. Since there was relatively little to be lost in terms of bilateral relations, the Japanese government was emboldened to join Western partners in introducing punitive sanctions. The Japanese shift, however, was not solely due to the hardening of Russia’s position. A fundamental reassessment of Japan’s posture toward great power relations was taking place, accelerated by three developments prior to the 2022 war. First, personnel changes were notable in the eclipse of the boosters of a soft approach toward China (led by Nikai Toshihiro, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party from 2016 to 2021) or Russia (led by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo with Imai Takaya, special advisor to the prime minister). Second, the illusion that Russia could be lured away from China finally collapsed, given striking developments in their bilateral relationship, including joint Russia-China military drills in the vicinity of Japan. Finally, the extraordinary level of trust that quickly developed between the Biden administration and Japan’s leadership in 2021 and early 2022 smoothed the way to close coordination in response to the Ukraine war. From the time of the APEC summit in Vladivostok in 2012, Russia began to place greater emphasis on its recently announced “Turn to the East.” It was DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-10

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inevitable that relations with China would take priority within this policy, yet to avoid the “Turn to the East” becoming simply a “turn to China,” it was essential for Russia to develop relations with other East Asian countries. In this regard, Japan, as East Asia’s second-largest economic power, initially seemed the obvious choice. This appeared to be on Vladimir Putin’s mind when, ahead of his return to the presidency in May 2012, he indicated an eagerness to settle the peace treaty issue with Japan. He even made use of the Japanese terminology he knows from judo when stating: “When I become president, we will gather our foreign minister on one side and the Japanese minister on the other and give them a command—hajime [start].”1 Particular excitement was generated in Tokyo when the president-elect spoke of settling the countries’ longstanding territorial dispute by means of a “hikiwake,” meaning a draw in Japanese.2 This was taken by many as a sign that Putin was willing to return two of the four Southern Kuril islands, which were seized by the Soviet Union in 1945 but continue to be claimed by Japan as its Northern Territories. During the first years after Putin’s comments, there was certainly a new energy to Russia-Japan relations. This owed much to Abe Shinzo, who returned as prime minister in December 2012 and enthusiastically embraced the agenda of building closer relations with Russia. However, looking back over the decade that has now passed since Putin’s call for a new start, it is clear that, even before the invasion of Ukraine, bilateral relations had not become markedly better. Indeed, economic ties continued to underwhelm, political frictions were recurrent, and security tensions were increasing. Hopes of resolving the territorial dispute had also evaporated well before Russia formally suspended the peace treaty talks. This chapter therefore explores why it is that, despite Moscow’s apparent intentions in 2012, the subsequent decade witnessed, not a turn toward Japan by Russia, but a turn away. It begins by describing the progression of bilateral relations during this period. This extends from Abe’s warm reception in Moscow in April 2013, when the sides discussed a strategic partnership, to the chill of January 2022, by which time the Russian president and Japanese prime minister had not met for well over two years and held only one phone call in the entirety of 2021. To explain this pre-invasion shift in Russian thinking, I stress four main points: (1) The negative impact that the deterioration of Russia-US relations has had on ties between Moscow and Tokyo; (2) Russian disappointment at the scale of economic cooperation offered by Japan; (3) Russia’s increased closeness to China, including alignment on issues of historical memory in East Asia; and (4) Moscow’s perception of Japanese unreliability due to changes in Tokyo’s attitude toward Russia following Abe Shinzo’s departure from office in September 2020. Having analyzed the relationship in years preceding 2022, the essay turns finally to explaining the unprecedented steps that Japan has taken in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It concludes by arguing that, since Russia’s turn away from Japan preceded the invasion of Ukraine, irrespective of the outcome

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of that conflict, there is little prospect of a swift revival in Japan-Russia bilateral relations. From “Hikiwake” to a Constitutional Ban on Territorial Concessions

The Russian government would no doubt insist that it remained committed to developing close relations with Japan until Tokyo took the “unfriendly” step of introducing sanctions. Moscow might point to the New Year message sent by Putin to his Japanese counterpart in December 2021 in which the Russian leader “reaffirmed his commitment to further contacts with Kishida Fumio [who took over as Japanese prime minister in October 2021] and expressed confidence that the constructive development of Russia-Japan cooperation would accord with the interests of the peoples of Russia and Japan, and would contribute to regional stability and security.”3 Yet, while this is the public position, the reality is that Russia’s attitude toward Japan has become considerably less accommodating since 2012. This shift can be illustrated by dividing the years from 2012 to 2022 into distinct time periods. The first time period began in March 2012 with Putin’s positive talk and lasted until March 2014. The most important development during these two years was Abe’s trip to Moscow on April 20, the first official visit to Russia by a Japanese prime minister since Koizumi Junichiro traveled to the Russian capital in January 2003. The visit had emotional significance for Abe, enabling him to visit the Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences to view the cherry blossom tree his late father, Abe Shintaro, had planted when visiting as foreign minister in May 1986. However, the visit was also substantive. Most notable was a new framework for the relationship in a joint statement “on the development of a Japan-Russia partnership.” Among the points included was a commitment to regular reciprocal visits by the leaders and foreign ministers. The document also acknowledged that the absence of a peace treaty so many years after the Second World War was “abnormal” and stated that this should be resolved by means of “a mutually acceptable solution.”4 Even more strikingly, the joint statement announced the establishment of “2 + 2” talks between Russia and Japan, meaning between defense and foreign ministers. This is a format that is usually reserved for a country’s closest security partners. The first of these was duly held in Tokyo in November 2013. One month later, Japan issued its national security strategy (NSS) in which Russia is described, not as a source of concern, but rather as a partner with whom “it is critical for Japan to advance cooperation … in all areas, including security and energy, thereby enhancing bilateral relations as a whole, in order to ensure its security.”5 At this time, economic relations were also on a positive trajectory, with total bilateral trade turnover reaching an all-time high of $33.2 billion in 2013.6 The summit in April also featured an agreement between the Russian

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Direct Investment Fund and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation on the creation of a joint investment fund for financing projects within Russia. Further agreements were signed in relation to the energy sector, including a memorandum of understanding between Russia’s state-controlled Rosneft and Mitsui & Co. The positive trend endured into 2014. Even as other world leaders stayed away from the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics in February due to concerns over human rights within Russia, Abe was cheerfully in attendance. There were also plans for Putin to visit Japan later in the year. This all came to an abrupt halt with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March. As G7 members condemned Moscow’s “illegal” actions and began to introduce a series of sanctions, Tokyo came under pressure to follow suit. The measures introduced by Japan were deliberately weak and were described by one expert as “having no content.” 7 Still, with Western partners taking a strong stance, Abe, no matter what his own wishes, had no option but to postpone high-level engagement. The crisis over Crimea thereby ended this first period of post2012 relations between Russia and Japan. The period of inactivity that followed lasted until the start of 2016 when Abe evidently judged that sufficient time had elapsed to allow energetic re-engagement. He was advised against doing so by Barack Obama in a February phone call, but Abe, perhaps having assessed that the outgoing US president was a lame duck, ignored the suggestion and returned to Sochi in May.8 This meeting proved to be one of the most significant of the 27 that Abe and Putin ultimately amassed. It was here that they agreed to a “new approach” to the peace treaty issue.9 As became clear later, this entailed Abe focusing on just two of the four disputed islands, the return of which Putin had appeared to offer in his “hikiwake” comment. To incentivize the Russian side to fulfill this apparent promise, the Japanese government also presented an 8-point economic cooperation plan, whose implementation would be overseen by a new cabinet position of minister for economic cooperation with Russia.10 Relations gathered momentum with Abe’s reception as guest of honor at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September. There, the Japanese leader treated his hosts to a remarkable speech in which he enthused about a future in which “the sparkle of Vladivostok will light up even the farthest reaches of the Pacific Ocean and give rise to enormous synergistic effects.” He also promised to return to Vladivostok each year, and invited the Russian leader to join him in “occasionally enter[ing] the virgin taiga forest, get enveloped in the sunlight filtering through the trees …, and together consider what kind of relations Japan and Russia must have 20 or 30 years into the future.”11 With Abe’s speech enthusiastically received by the Russian audience, it may have seemed to some in Tokyo that Japan could become the focal point of Russia’s “Turn to the East.” With Abe already having visited Russia on five occasions since returning to office, it was Putin’s turn to reciprocate. He did so by travelling to Yamaguchi,

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the prime minister’s home prefecture, for a relaxed “no ties” summit in December 2016. The main result of this meeting, as well as the more formal discussions that followed in Tokyo, was an agreement to begin talks on conducting joint economic activities on the disputed islands.12 From the Japanese government’s point of view, this was an opportunity to re-establish at least some form of Japanese presence on the islands seven decades after the Soviet Union’s expulsion of the Japanese population. Yet, the hyperbole in advance of this visit, which included the claim that the sides might agree to share sovereignty over the islands on the model of Vanuatu, indicated that Russia had led Abe to expect a breakthrough rather than this vague plan.13 When these exaggerated hopes came to nothing, many in Japan detected a serious loss of Russian interest. For the next two years, this political dynamic continued, with regular summits at which Abe and Putin made a show of close personal relations by calling each other “Vladimir” and “Shinzo,” as actual progress stalled, e.g., on a legal framework for joint economic activities. The impasse appeared to be broken in the Singapore meeting of November 2018 at which, on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit, the Russian and Japanese leaders agreed “to accelerate negotiations on a peace treaty based on the Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration of 1956.”14 The significance of this statement might not be immediately apparent, but it marked a major shift in the focus of the talks. Prior to that point, the Japanese governments had insisted that the basis for discussions were agreements, such as the Tokyo Declaration (1993), that state that all four of the disputed islands are the subject of the negotiations.15 By contrast, the Joint Declaration of 1956 mentions only the two smaller islands, but features the commitment by Moscow that it “agrees to hand over to Japan the Habomai Islands and the island of Shikotan. However, the actual handing over of these islands to Japan shall take place after the conclusion of a peace treaty.”16 On reflection, Abe described this Singapore summit as his most memorable meeting with Putin.17 As 2019 dawned, it seemed to some in Japan that Russia and Japan were on the cusp of a breakthrough that would mark the completion of the process set in motion by Putin’s comments in March 2012. The Abe administration hoped that this would deliver at least the two smaller islands of Shikotan and the Habomais, plus joint economic projects on the larger islands of Iturup and Kunashir. This would have fulfilled Abe’s ambition of achieving a final settlement of postwar issues and ending the “abnormal” situation across Japan’s northern frontier. However, what actually was observed from 2019 was a progressive hardening in Russia’s stance. This was already apparent in January when the Russian foreign ministry summoned ambassador Kozuki Toyohisa to condemn the Japanese leadership for recent statements that, according to Moscow, “grossly distort” the truth and “mislead the public” with regard to the peace treaty talks. The Russian side was especially aggrieved about Tokyo’s references to “the transfer of the ownership of the islands to Japan.”18 This criticism was unfair since, as noted, the 1956 Joint Declaration does explicitly envisage the handover of territory.

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Relations did not break down entirely, and there were still some positive developments, including a summit in June 2019 that was organized to coincide with Putin’s visit to Japan for the G20 Summit in Osaka. However, the atmosphere had clearly cooled, with Putin stating that the “tempo has been lost” in peace treaty talks.19 The Russian side also began to insist increasingly strongly that, before any serious discussion of the status of the islands could begin, Japan needs to recognize the results of the Second World War, including Russia’s right to sovereignty over all of the islands acquired by the Soviet Union at the end of that conflict. This is tantamount to demanding that Tokyo acknowledge that its seven decades of claims to the islands have been entirely without foundation. Equally impossible was the Russian foreign ministry’s demand that the provisions of the 1956 Joint Declaration (i.e., the transfer of two islands to Japan after the signing of a peace treaty) could “only be implemented in full, in the context of the termination of the US military presence on Japanese territory.”20 Abe still traveled to Vladivostok for the Eastern Economic Forum in September that year, but Putin made a point of embarrassing him. The Russian leader did this by using the forum to preside (via video link) over the opening ceremony for a new fish processing plant on Shikotan. In other words, at the same time as hosting Abe in Vladivostok, Putin publicly celebrated the development of Russian infrastructure on an island claimed by Japan and which Moscow has supposedly committed to handing over after a peace treaty is signed.21 Other indicators also pointed toward a less-compromising Russian attitude. For instance, talks about joint economic projects on the disputed islands went nowhere as Moscow insisted that any investments would have to be consistent with Russian law. Japan, by contrast, had hoped for the creation of a special legal jurisdiction that would avoid any tacit acknowledgment of Russian sovereignty. To make matters worse, when Tokyo refused to proceed with investments on the Russian government’s terms, Moscow announced the creation of an expanded special tax-free zone on the disputed islands that will operate under Russian law and to which third countries, such as South Korea and China, are also invited to contribute.22 Perhaps most worrying of all is that, from 2019, Russia stepped up military cooperation with China in the vicinity of Japan. In July of that year, Russian and Chinese strategic bombers conducted their first joint air patrol over the Sea of Japan and East China Sea. Those exercises concluded with a Russian A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft violating Japanese-claimed airspace over Takeshima (Dokdo in Korean). These joint air patrols were then repeated in December 2020 and November 2021.23 Sino-Russian naval cooperation also began to look more threatening. Specifically, in October 2021, five Russian and five Chinese warships conducted their countries’ first joint transit of the Tsugaru Strait that separates Honshu from Hokkaido. These vessels then proceeded to track the Japanese coastline and to make an almost complete circuit of the main Japanese islands.24

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There is, therefore, no question that Russia’s attitude toward Japan had shifted markedly since Putin’s seductive talk of “hajime” and “hikiwake” in 2012. This was demonstrated conclusively by the Putin administration’s decision to revise the Russian constitution in July 2020.25 The main purpose of these changes was to give Putin the option of remaining in power until 2036. However, an additional line was added to Article 67 specifying that: “Actions … directed towards the alienation of part of the territory of the Russian Federation, and also calls for such actions, are not allowed.” It is true that exceptions are permitted for “delimitation, demarcation, and re-demarcation of the state border,” yet the head of the State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation Pavel Krasheninnikov has clarified that this provision is just for technical matters, stating “Here, there can be no talk about any islands, about any territories.”26 Consequently, in the words of Russian senator Aleksey Pushkov, following this, “the prospects of Moscow renouncing sovereignty over the Southern Kurils is now, in my opinion, equal to zero.”27 For Abe, who had made relations with Russia a centerpiece of his foreign policy, this was a painful slap in the face. Explaining Russia’s Tougher Stance

To summarize, Russia’s relations with Japan between 2012 and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine can be divided into four periods: 1 A honeymoon that began with Putin’s “hikiwake” comments in March 2012; 2 A temporary estrangement that followed Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014; 3 A “new approach” that commenced with Abe’s visit to Sochi in May 2016 and culminated in the Singapore agreement of November 2018; 4 And, finally, a period of increasingly acrimonious relations that started in January 2019. To explain the failure of Russia’s “Turn to the East” to lead to improved relations with Japan, even before the invasion, I focus on Russian thinking during this decade. Although this is only one side of the dyad, it is here that we find the main explanations for the change, not least because, on the Japanese side, Abe, who was in power from December 2012 to September 2020, remained unshakeable in his commitment to developing close relations with Putin’s Russia. By contrast, within Moscow, we find a growing sense of disillusionment regarding what can be gained through relations with Japan. Relations with Japan Held “Hostage” by the United States

Putin’s initial emphasis on relations with Japan was certainly informed by economic considerations—about which more follows in the next section—yet it was

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also about geopolitics. Moscow makes no secret of its opposition to the “blocbased” security system that the United States maintains in East Asia through its network of alliances. In the view of the Russian government, these alliances might create security for the participating countries, but they come at the expense of the security of those who are left out. For this reason, Moscow has long advocated what it describes in its official foreign policy concept as “an inclusive, open, transparent and equitable collective security and cooperation architecture in Asia-Pacific.”28 With a view to achieving this, the Kremlin wants to encourage Japan, as Washington’s most important ally in East Asia, to distance itself from the United States. There is, of course, nothing new in Moscow’s opposition to the Japan-US alliance. In fact, it was the Soviet Union’s hope of drawing Japan away from the United States that prompted General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev to offer the transfer of two islands in the 1956 Joint Declaration. This promise was then rescinded after Japan agreed to a revised security treaty with the United States in 1960. Moscow, at the time, complained angrily in a memorandum that “this treaty actually deprives Japan of independence.” The official note added that “This situation makes it impossible for the Soviet Government to fulfill its promises to return the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan.”29 Moscow therefore has a history of using the territorial dispute as an instrument with which to influence Japan’s relationship with the United States. Such thoughts likely shaped Putin’s decision to raise the prospect of a transfer of territory to Japan via his “hikiwake” comments in 2012. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has, for instance, been explicit about the Russian government’s desire “to cooperate more closely in foreign policy affairs and see a more independent Japan.”30 Sergey Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, has also spoken of his belief that “Japan should be a neutral country,” and he listed Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden as possible models.31 However, if the underlying aim of Putin’s initially positive stance toward Japan was to drive a wedge between Tokyo and Washington, he was to be disappointed. In November 2018, Abe is reported to have reassured Putin that, in the event of the transfer of Shikotan and the Habomais to Japan, he would not consent to US forces being stationed there.32 This was a minor victory for Moscow since it indicated a willingness on the part of the Abe administration to place restrictions on the application of the US-Japan Security Treaty, whose article 6 affirms that “the United States of America is granted the use by its land, air and naval forces of facilities and areas in Japan.”33 Overall, however, the decade from 2012 witnessed the continued strengthening of the alliance. Indeed, bilateral relations even emerged unscathed from four years of “America First” nationalism during which President Donald Trump repeatedly questioned the value of the US network of alliances. The most telling moment from Moscow’s perspective was Japan’s response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014. At the time, Abe did not show

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any genuine concern for Ukraine’s plight. Indeed, the Western response was an inconvenience since it obstructed Japan’s relations with Russia and hindered Abe’s courtship of Putin, whom the Japanese leader described as someone who is “dear to me as a partner.”34 Furthermore, Suzuki Muneo, a veteran politician who was a key advisor to Abe on Russia policy, argued against sanctions and even proposed that Japan officially recognize Russia’s claim to Crimea in exchange for a deal to resolve the status of the Northern Territories.35 And yet, Abe’s government, under pressure from G7 partners, did ultimately introduce sanctions on Russia and pause high-level interactions. In doing so, Tokyo hoped to maintain a balance. On the one hand, they sought to keep Western governments satisfied by announcing punitive measures against Russia and signing G7 joint statements condemning the Kremlin’s behavior. However, at the same time, Abe’s government signaled its lack of enthusiasm for the policy by ensuring that Japan’s sanctions in 2014 remained purely symbolic and by avoiding any individual (as opposed to G7) criticism of Russian foreign and domestic politics. By doing this, Abe hoped to seamlessly resume his engagement with Putin as soon as a couple of years had passed since the crisis over Crimea. Superficially, this strategy worked since the sides agreed to a “new approach” to relations in May 2016. Moscow had not, however, forgotten the events of 2014. Rather, they had learned the lesson that, no matter how much a Japanese government professes friendship, when push comes to shove it will always side with the United States. This encouraged the view in Moscow that Japan is really only a semi-sovereign state and cannot be treated as a fully independent actor. It was this disappointment at the failure to encourage Japan to distance itself from Washington, as well as disdain for what was seen as Japanese subservience, that contributed to Russia’s increasingly tough stance toward Japan as the 2010s progressed. Above all, the perception that they are still dealing with a Japan that cannot say no to Washington led to increased Russian concerns in relation to several security issues. For instance, when responding to a Japanese journalist’s question in December 2018, Putin raised the issue of US military bases in Japan, stating: “This is a closed part that’s not understood by us. We don’t understand the extent of Japan’s sovereignty when making this kind of decision. You know better than other colleagues—and I also know—that the governor of Okinawa is against certain decisions related to the strengthening and expansion of a base. He is against it but can’t do anything. And the people who live there are also against it.”36 Russia also argued forcefully against the deployment of additional US-supplied missile-defense units to Japan. Above all, Moscow stridently opposed the Aegis Ashore system that was due to be deployed in Akita and Yamaguchi, at either end of Honshū, in 2023. The Japanese government argued that this land-based system was needed to provide an extra layer of mid-course defense against incoming missiles from North Korea. However, Moscow saw the system as another component in the expanding US network of global missile defense, which is regarded as primarily directed against Russia’s nuclear deterrent. The Russian

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leadership also alleged that the Aegis Ashore system was capable of firing groundlaunched Tomahawk cruise missiles and would thereby constitute a violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which had not yet been abrogated. Indeed, Lavrov explicitly questioned whether Japan would have independent control over the Aegis Ashore system, saying: “We have heard that supposedly Japan will be the one running the system and that the United States will have nothing to do with it. We have serious doubts that this is true.”37 The Aegis Ashore deployments were ultimately canceled in June 2020 due to Japanese concerns about the system’s effectiveness and cost, as well as the risk that parts of the missile interceptors could fall to ground within Japan, causing civilian casualties. However, Russian concerns about Japan pliantly agreeing to serve as a launchpad for additional US weapons systems did not subside. Instead, after the United States announced its withdrawal from the INF Treaty in February 2019, Russian complaints increasingly centered on the possibility of Japan agreeing to host ground-launched intermediate-range missiles, which are no longer proscribed. Moscow no doubt understands that any such US deployment in Asia would be directed primarily against China, which, having not been a party to the INF Treaty, has accumulated a vast lead over the United States in this category of weapon. However, Moscow remains anxious that such intermediate-range missiles within Japan could also have sufficient range to strike territory in the Russian Far East. In November 2019, Defense Minister Kono Taro denied that Japan was preparing to host post-INF US missiles, insisting in an interview that “We have not been discussing any of it.”38 However, the Russian side is again unconvinced, with Lavrov alleging that Washington intends to deploy these weapons in Japan and South Korea.39 Putin also insisted that “Japan is positive about the deployment of such weapons systems on its territory.”40 Lastly, Russia is also opposed to Japan’s role in the development of new, UScentered security architecture in the Asia-Pacific. Maria Zakharova, official spokeswoman of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has, for instance, criticized the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” concept, which has been heavily promoted by Tokyo, as being “in fact subordinated to one task; that is, to guarantee the narrow, blocbased interests of its military alliance with Washington.”41 Similarly, Lavrov has condemned the Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue (Quad), which brings together Japan, the United States, Australia, and India “as part of a US-led ‘persistent, aggressive and devious’ policy intended to ensnare India in its ‘anti-China games.’”42 Furthermore, Moscow objects to the expansion of Japanese security cooperation with European partners, which included the visit to Yokosuka of a British Carrier Strike Group in September 2021. Both the United Kingdom and France are also in talks with Japan on signing Reciprocal Access Agreements, which, as with the deal signed between Japan and Australia in January 2022, would make it easier for the countries’ forces to conduct joint exercises on Japanese territory.43 From Moscow’s perspective, this looks very much like the expansion of NATO’s activities to Russia’s eastern frontiers.

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Overall, a decade after Putin’s comments about a new start in Russia-Japan relations, Moscow was left in a state of frustration that, despite its efforts to encourage Tokyo to show more strategic independence, Japan’s relations with the United States and other US allies had become stronger than ever. Indeed, in January 2022, Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed the need to develop Russia-Japan relations so that their prospects are no longer held “hostage” by Japan’s ties with its closest allies.44 In reality, Russia’s hopes of undercutting the Japan-US alliance were always in vain. At a time when Japan felt growing threats from China and North Korea, it was inconceivable Japan would do as Russia sought. Indeed, Russia’s tactics worked against its broader strategy. Putin opted repeatedly over the decade to put military pressure on Japan by militarizing the disputed islands, selling more advanced weapons to China, and joining it in military maneuvers. This heightened Japanese insecurity, thus ensuring that Japanese policymakers clung even more firmly to the US alliance. Smart Traffic Lights and Not Much Else

The main factor explaining Russia’s pre-invasion loss of enthusiasm for relations with Japan was therefore Tokyo’s unshakeable commitment to the US alliance at a time when Moscow already identified the United States as an adversary in a New Cold War, which Putin was preparing to turn into a hot war. In a triangular context, this meant a sharp tilt to China, which also left no room for Japan. However, other factors also contributed to Moscow’s sense of dissatisfaction. The first of these is economic. Proponents of closer Japan-Russia relations have long argued that bilateral economic relations have plenty of unfulfilled potential. This is based on the judgment that the economies are complementary, with Russia being well-endowed with natural resources yet lacking high-tech investment, and Japan being just the opposite. There is also the consideration of geographic proximity, with just 45 km separating Sakhalin from Hokkaido. Added to this, there was the prospect that intensified economic relations with Japan could prevent Russia from becoming overly dependent on resource exports to China. Moreover, it was hoped that Japan could contribute to the economic development of the Russian Far East, which Putin famously described in 2013 as “our national priority for the entire 21st century.”45 Initially, this optimism appeared justified as Abe enthusiastically supported closer economic ties. His calculation was that, by giving the Russian side a taste of what enhanced economic cooperation with Japan could deliver, Moscow could be induced to give ground on the territorial dispute in order to secure a peace treaty. It was with this in mind that Abe unveiled the 8-point economic cooperation plan in May 2016. Specifically, this promised enhanced cooperation in the areas of: “(1) Extending healthy life expectancies, (2) developing comfortable and clean

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cities easy to reside and live in, (3) fundamentally expansion medium-sized and small companies exchange and cooperation, (4) energy, (5) promoting industrial diversification and enhancing productivity in Russia, (6) developing industries and export bases in the Far East, (7) cooperation on cutting-edge technologies, and (8) fundamentally expansion of people-to-people interaction.”46 To oversee implementation, the Abe government created the position of minister for economic cooperation with Russia, the only cabinet-level post that specifically prioritizes relations with a named country. Moreover, as the main cheerleader for this plan, Abe kept his promise of returning to Vladivostok each year to attend the Eastern Economic Forum, where he added further hyperbole about “a brilliant future in which Japan-Russia relations will have brought their latent potential fully into bloom.”47 However, there proved to be a serious mismatch between the types of projects emphasized by Japan and those most desired by the Kremlin. On the Japanese side, priority was given to the first two points in the 8-point plan, i.e., improving Russian health care and regenerating the urban environment of Russian cities. Abe himself explained that “What we chose were fields directly connected with the daily lives of individual citizens living in Russia.”48 When addressing the audience at the Eastern Economic Forum in 2017, the Japanese leader, therefore, emphasized small-scale practical projects, including assisting in the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis, repairing the sewage system in Voronezh, and introducing a pilot scheme for smart traffic lights. These projects had the merit of offering quick, tangible benefits to ordinary Russians, which, it was hoped, would encourage a more positive view of Japan and a more accepting attitude toward territorial concessions. There was the added benefit that these small-scale schemes did not risk large quantities of Japanese taxpayers’ money. Yet, whatever these projects’ real merit, they were looked upon by Russian officials as little more than chicken feed. One senior Russian diplomat described them as merely an “imitation of cooperation.”49 What the Russian leadership really wanted was multi-billion-dollar energy and infrastructure projects. For instance, in September 2017, Putin spoke with excitement about a plan to create a bridge from the Russian mainland to Sakhalin and another from Sakhalin to Hokkaido as “a project of an absolutely planetary scale.”50 Such megaprojects have the advantage of creating visible manifestations of the Russian government’s achievements, but they also generate lucrative contracts for favored Russian firms and their oligarch owners. By contrast, the micro projects promoted by Japan offered few such opportunities. There was also a sense on the Russian side that it was rather beneath the dignity of a national leader to be singing the praises of something so mundane as technology for repairing sewage pipes or reducing traffic jams. The one major exception in terms of economic cooperation was the agreement, finalized in 2019, for a Japanese consortium to take a 10% stake in Russia’s Arctic LNG-2, a vast gas project controlled by Russia’s Novatek. This is certainly a sizeable investment, with the stake worth at least $2 billion. Yet, this project

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also demonstrates the hesitation of Japanese private firms to commit to major investments in Russia. The Abe government strongly urged both Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Corp to invest in Arctic LNG-2, which was seen as useful in diversifying Japan’s energy imports. However, the firms were understandably concerned about the risk of future US sanctions on the Russian energy industry, and ultimately only Mitsui & Co proceeded with the investment. Moreover, Mitsui & Co agreed to do so only after JOGMEC, the Japanese state-owned resource company, conceded to financing 75% of the stake, thereby breaking its usual rule of funding up to 50% of a project.51 Arctic LNG-2 was, therefore, not the start of a flood of large-scale Japanese investment, but rather the high-water mark. Moreover, with G7 members scrambling to reduce dependence on Russian energy following the invasion of Ukraine, this project also looks like a historic mistake. Overall, the Japanese government committed the fault of overpromising and under-delivering. Indeed, in the decade after 2012, total bilateral trade between Japan and Russia declined. Having reached an all-time high of $33.2 billion in 2013, it was a mere $20.8 billion in 2021.52 Economic cooperation is now going into reverse as Japan applies sanctions, yet, even before this occurred, the Japanese government’s preference for small-scale projects and the Japanese private sector’s concerns about political and economic risk held back trade and investment. Moscow’s hopes that Japan would play a leading role in financing the development of Siberia and the Russian Far East had, therefore, already evaporated before Tokyo’s introduction of sanctions in 2022. Japan’s overall disinterest in investments was understood even in Russia as a reflection of a poor investment environment. Even Chinese firms balked, although some megaprojects were inked given state energy interests. Some hopes had been raised at the time of the 2012 APEC summit in Vladivostok for “modernization” of the Russian economy with clear priority for the Russian Far East. Some special economic zones were created, yet Japanese firms soon discovered that Putin had no intention of tackling the corruption and enforcing the legal protections that would create a genuinely positive environment. Without commitments to major projects, Putin lost interest in pursuing Japanese investment. Alignment of Russia with China on Issues of Historical Memory

A third factor that explains Russia’s gradual turn away from Japan in recent years is Moscow’s increased closeness to China. The military aspects of this relationship, including regular exercises in the vicinity of Japan, have already been mentioned. There is also the consideration that, as China’s economy has become more technologically sophisticated, Chinese firms have become prospective partners in areas where Russian companies might once have looked toward Japan. Less frequently noted is the growing alignment between Moscow and Beijing on issues of historical memory. The Chinese Communist Party has, of course, long found political value in highlighting atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army

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during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in alleging that the Japanese government has failed to accept responsibility. In recent years, Moscow has begun to echo some of Beijing’s language in this area, as well as to accuse Tokyo of contributing to the falsification of the history of the Second World War. Alexander Baunov suggests that Russia is undergoing “a real shift towards a Chinese approach to history.”53 This applies to domestic politics where, just as the Chinese authorities seek to prevent criticism of Mao’s grave errors, so the Russian state now silences criticism of Stalin. This was evident in the December 2021 decision by the Russian Supreme Court to liquidate Memorial, a human rights group dedicated to the memory of Stalinist repression. This Sinification of the Russian government’s attitude to history also applies to foreign policy. The Putin administration has always lashed out against individuals and groups in Europe, especially in the Baltic States and Ukraine, who promote a narrative of the Second World War in which the Soviet Union is presented, less as a liberator, and more as an aggressor. What is new is that Moscow’s vehement opposition to any questioning of its chosen history of the war increasingly applies to East Asia too. A milestone in Russia’s growing alignment with China on historical issues was 2015. The Russian authorities had intended Victory Day in May of that year to be a major international event since it marked the 70th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe. However, since western leaders stayed away due to Russia’s annexation of Crimea a year earlier, Xi Jinping was left as the most prominent world leader to attend. Putin then returned the favor by joining celebrations in Beijing in September 2015 to commemorate the official anniversary of what the Chinese leadership calls the Chinese People’s Victory in the War of Resistance against Japan and the End of World War II. Putin’s attendance was, in his words, intended to honor the memory of the Soviet and Chinese soldiers “who fought shoulderto-shoulder against militarist Japan.”54 This description is rather a stretch since the Soviet Union had a neutrality pact with Tokyo for most of the war and only joined the conflict against Japan on August 8, 1945, just one week before the announcement of Japan’s surrender. Aside from this rhetoric about fighting side-by-side, another sign of Russia and China’s increased closeness on historical memory was the Kremlin’s decision in 2020 to change the official date on which Russia marks the end of the Second World War from September 2, which was the date on which the Allied powers, including the Soviet Union, signed the official instrument of surrender with Japan in 1945, to September 3, which is the date on which the Chinese Communist Party marks the end of the conflict. Furthermore, history featured in the joint statement of February 4, 2022, in which Russia and China announced that their friendship has “no limits.” Specifically, this statement affirms that: “The sides intend to strongly uphold the outcomes of the Second World War and the existing post-war world order, defend the authority of the United Nations and justice in international relations, resist attempts to deny, distort, and falsify the history of the Second World War.”55

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Not coincidentally, as Russia’s view of the war in East Asia has become closer to that of China, Moscow’s criticism of Japan has intensified. For instance, in May 2019, a group of seven Duma deputies undertook a seven-day research trip to the Kuril Islands to commemorate their “liberation” from Japanese militarism.56 Similarly, in 2020, the Russian Central Bank issued a special coin in memory of the “liberators of the Kurils.” This is an interesting choice of language since the islands had not been militarily seized by Japan. Instead, the southernmost islands of the archipelago had always been under Japan’s control, while the remainder of the chain was peacefully transferred from Russia to Japan in 1875. Moreover, it is notable that, after the islands’ “liberation” by Soviet forces in 1945, the Japanese population was forcibly expelled. Moscow has also become much more strident in criticizing what it claims to be Japan’s “falsification” of the history of the Second World War. For instance, when the foreign ministers of Lithuania and Japan issued a joint letter in January 2021 to honor the memory of Sugihara Chiune, the Japanese diplomat credited with saving thousands of Jews from Lithuania in 1940, Maria Zakharova, the chief spokeswoman of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the countries of promoting “a distorted view of the events of World War II.” She added: “In fact, at the time of the events described in Europe, Japan was carrying out open aggression against China, brutally suppressing any resistance (remember the Nanjing Massacre), and tried to test the strength of the Soviet and Mongolian borders.”57 The Russian authorities have also followed China in criticizing Japanese history teaching, alleging, without evidence, that Japanese school textbooks seek to conceal that it was the United States that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. Zakharova has even claimed that “Japanese children do not know who carried out these bombings.” Likewise, Putin has alleged that Japanese school textbooks state with deliberate vagueness that “allied countries” conducted the nuclear attacks.58 The most notable example, however, is the Russian government’s sudden decision to draw attention to the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trial of December 1949, at which the Soviet Union tried 12 members of Japan’s Kwantung Army for their role in the production and use of biological weapons. Specifically, in September 2021, a special forum was held in Khabarovsk, which was attended by several officials and commenced with an introductory message from Putin. Addressing the forum, First Deputy Minister of Education Alexander Bugaev called for the crimes of Japanese militarists to receive more attention within the history syllabus at Russian schools.59 To coincide with the event, the FSB also released a selection of previously secret documents, which, they said, provided evidence that Japan was planning to use biological weapons against the Soviet Union during World War II. The FSB further alleged that the declassified files show that Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army conducted medical experiments on Soviet prisoners at the Hogoin camp near Harbin.60 Over the course of several years, Russia has, therefore, fallen into line with China in presenting Japan’s wartime atrocities as a matter of contemporary

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political importance and in regarding the Japanese government as dominated by unrepentant militarists. Having already promoted this narrative, it was natural for Moscow to portray Japan’s post-invasion support for Ukraine as a manifestation of Japan’s supposed instinct for sympathizing with Nazis. For instance, on February 28, 2022, the official Twitter account of the Russian embassy in Tokyo alleged that “Japan has twice in less than 100 years supported a Nazi regime. One for Hitler’s regime, and now for the Ukrainian regime.”61 Abe’s Successors Lack His Enthusiasm for Russia

The final factor that exacerbated Russia’s growing resentment toward Japan was Abe Shinzo’s departure from office in September 2020. Abe was consistent in his championing of relations with Russia, and he could be relied upon to drag his feet when urged by Western partners to condemn Russian excesses. The same cannot be said of Abe’s successors. Suga Yoshihide, who replaced Abe and served as prime minister until October 2021, cannot really be said to have had a Russia policy at all.62 This was primarily because the energy of the Suga administration was absorbed by the COVID-19 crisis. However, Suga also seems to have judged that Abe’s assiduous courtship of Putin had brought him nothing but scorn. As a consequence, in the 12 months of Suga’s premiership, the Japanese and Russian leaders only held one phone call. In addition, Suga did not attend the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September 2021, and did not even submit a video message as Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi of India had done. In retaliation, Russian state media propagated the story that the Japanese leader had not been invited.63 Kishida Fumio served as Abe’s foreign minister from 2012 to 2017, and, during this time, he met on multiple occasions with his Russian counterpart. When Kishida took over as prime minister in October 2021, it might, therefore, have been assumed that he would simply replicate Abe’s Russia policy. However, even before the invasion of Ukraine, Kishida showed that he has some ideas of his own. With regard to peace treaty talks, Kishida continued to mention the Abe-Putin agreement that was reached in Singapore in November 2018. However, he strenuously avoided mentioning the 1956 Joint Declaration, opting to emphasize instead that talks must be based on the “various bilateral agreements” reached up until now. Since the 1956 Joint Declaration mentions only two islands, whereas other agreements, including the 1993 Tokyo Declaration, refer to all four, this was the Kishida administration’s way of subtly moving back toward the goal of securing the return of all of the disputed territory.64 Such shifts since Abe left office have caused frustration within the Russian leadership, with Putin himself complaining that Japan has “repeatedly revised its stance.”65 Kishida’s adoption of a tough line toward Russia after the invasion of Ukraine therefore did not represent a break with a cherished policy. Instead, Kishida’s response was in line with his pre-existing reservations about Abe’s policy of

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rapprochement with Russia. The ease with which this policy shift was executed was a reminder that Russia policy was run by Abe himself and a narrow circle of advisors, who lost influence under his successors. Others, including the Japanese Foreign Ministry and much of the media, were always dissatisfied with Abe’s “new approach” to Russia. Many were critical of the lack of reciprocity and judged that it was unlikely to succeed given the increased closeness of SinoRussian relations and Putin’s intensifying hostility to the United States. Given this pre-existing opposition to Abe’s policy, the Kishida administration faced little resistance in changing course. Japan’s Sanctions on Russia

As Russia amassed its forces on Ukraine’s borders in early 2022, Kishida reassured Joe Biden that his government would “continue close coordination with the United States, other friendly countries and partners, and the international community on taking strong action against any attack.”66 Some questioned his seriousness given Japan’s record of introducing only token sanctions following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and refusal to join Western partners in expelling Russian diplomats following Russia’s use of a nerve agent in the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in the UK in 2018. However, Kishida’s deeds proved as good as his words. In the days and weeks following the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Japan joined Western partners in introducing several waves of sanctions. These include personal sanctions on close to 500 Russian individuals, including military leaders, business figures, and politicians. Both Putin himself and his daughters were included. Numerous businesses and organizations have also been targeted, including defense-related firms and the FSB. Moreover, financial sanctions have frozen the assets of Russia’s largest banks, and transactions with the Russian Central Bank have been restricted. Japan has also banned the export of dozens of technical items, such as semiconductors, as well as luxury goods, including expensive vehicles. Several imports from Russia, including alcoholic beverages and lumber products, are now also barred. It is true that Tokyo has so far resisted pressure to divest from oil and gas projects on Sakhalin and in the Russian Arctic. Yet, the Kishida administration has committed to phasing out imports of Russian coal, which accounts for 13% of Japan’s coal imports for power generation.67 Other notable steps include Japan’s commitment to providing $7.6 billion in financial support to Ukraine. The government has also set aside its usual reluctance to assist parties to a conflict and has supplied non-lethal military equipment to Ukraine, including drones, hazmat suits, and gas masks. This prompted Irina Yarovaya, deputy speaker of the Russian Duma, to accuse Japan of helping “Ukrainian Nazis” to prepare a chemical weapons attack.68 Most striking of all was Japan’s announcement on April 8 of its decision to expel eight Russian officials. This is the first time that Japan has demanded

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the mass expulsion of diplomats from any country. In fact, in Japan’s modern’s history, there were previously only three cases when the government officially requested the withdrawal of a diplomat. According to media reports, the expelled officials were Russian intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover.69 Japan’s unusually forceful response is partly explained by the egregious nature of Russia’s actions, including claims of the widespread killing of civilians. Yet, some US allies, including South Korea under President Moon Jae-in, remained reluctant to introduce punitive measures against Russia. Other possible explanations include Japan’s fear that a failure to respond with sufficient resolution to Russia’s aggression could embolden China to attempt something similar against Taiwan or the disputed Senkaku Islands and a growing sense of common purpose with the United States and with European states. After all, if Japan failed to join in resisting this attack, would they be keen on supporting Japan in a contingency? A major factor in Japan’s unusually bold response was also the Japanese government’s sense that it had little to lose by adopting a hard line. In other circumstances, Tokyo would have hesitated to impose sanctions in fear of jeopardizing talks about the territorial and peace treaty issues. Yet, Moscow had already largely extinguished Japanese hopes by revising the Constitution in 2020 to ban territorial concession and by refusing to make the concessions necessary to enable joint economic projects on the disputed islands. The Kishida administration was therefore free to implement sanctions in the knowledge that Russia’s subsequent suspension of peace treaty talks only entailed the cancellation of an already moribund process. This was a foreign policy error by Moscow. A shrewder policy would have been to continue to cultivate Japanese hopes of a territorial deal and thus deter Tokyo from joining Western sanctions. Given recent developments, however, feigned interest in a deal would have met with tremendous skepticism, unlike in 2014. Conclusion

The decade from 2012 began with the Russian leadership expressing hope of Japan playing a central role in Russia’s “Turn to the East,” yet ended with Russia turning away from Japan, then Japan imposing tough sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This chapter has demonstrated that the downturn in bilateral relations preceded the invasion of Ukraine and was caused by a shift in Moscow’s attitude toward Japan. This change in Russian thinking was primarily driven by the deterioration of Russia-US relations. Additional factors were Moscow’s disappointment at the modest scale of Japan’s economic cooperation, as well as Russia’s increased closeness to China, which encouraged Moscow to echo Beijing’s criticism of Japan over historical issues related to the Second World War. This negative trend was already palpable in 2019. It then became more apparent under

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Abe’s successors, who were less eager to cultivate friendly relations with Putin. With bilateral relations already in a state of malaise, the Japanese government was emboldened to respond more forcefully to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine than might otherwise have been the case. Given this recent history, what predictions can be made about the future of Russia-Japan relations? In the short term, it is highly unlikely that there will be a quick revival in bilateral ties, as occurred two years after the annexation of Crimea. Instead, relations will probably become increasingly confrontational. For instance, in its Diplomatic Bluebook 2022, which was published in April, the Japanese government described the disputed Northern Territories as being “illegally occupied” by Russia, the first time this phrase has been used in this official document since 2003.70 Japan’s national security strategy was also revised at the end of 2022. Unlike the 2013 version that presented Russia as a partner, the 2022 edition describes Russia’s actions in the Indo-Pacific region as a “strong security concern.” Note: Cabinet Secretariat, “National Security Strategy,” December 2022. Even in the longer term, the prospects are not good since, as this analysis has demonstrated, Russian thinking about Japan turned negative even at a time when the Japanese government, under Abe, was prioritizing closer relations. A major factor in this was found to be the role of the United States. It was the hope of encouraging Tokyo to show more independence from Washington that informed the Putin administration’s initial desire for engagement in 2012. It was then annoyance at Japan’s alignment with the United States in imposing sanctions (albeit half-hearted ones) in 2014 that clearly soured Moscow’s attitude. The Kremlin’s frustration later grew as the Japanese government eagerly deepened security cooperation with Washington and enthusiastically promoted security architecture, such as the Quad, that is designed to reinforce US power in the Indo-Pacific. The other factors are subordinate to the impact of US-Russia tensions. Specifically, even before the invasion, Japanese economic engagement with Russia was held back by the poor investment climate and the risk of being caught up in ever-tightening US sanctions. Likewise, Russia’s increased closeness to China intensified with its post-2014 isolation from the West. Even if we set aside the current war, a fundamental positive shift in Russian thinking about Japan only seems possible in two scenarios. The first would be a major improvement in relations between Russia and the United States since this would render Japan’s close alignment with the United States less problematic from Moscow’s perspective. The second would be a significant distancing of Japan from its US ally. Neither of these appear remotely likely. As such, during the next ten years, irrespective of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, it is unlikely that Russia’s continuing “Turn to the East” will feature a significant turn toward Japan. This is a problem for both sides. Japan is left no closer to resolving the territorial dispute. It must also contend with unsettled relations on its northern frontier at a

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time when it needs to concentrate its attention and security resources on China and North Korea. Meanwhile, for Russia, a “Turn to the East” without Japan cannot be regarded as a success, not least because it leaves Russia overly dependent on China and without a potentially key investment partner for the development of the Russian Far East. Notes 1 “Putin schitaet vozmozhnym reshit’ territorial’nuiu problemu s Iaponiei” RIA Novosti, March 2, 2012. 2 Ishikawa Yōhei, “Pūchin shushō, Hoppōryōdo saishū ketchaku ni iyoku dakyō-ten saguru,” Nihon Keizai Shimbun, March 2, 2012. 3 Kremlin.ru, “Pozdravlenie glavam gosudarstv i pravitel’stv zarubezhnykh stran s Novym godom,” December 30, 2021. 4 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Nichiro pātonāshippu no hatten ni kansuru Nipponkoku sōri daijin to Roshia renpō daitōryō no kyōdō seimei (shuyō pointo),” April 29, 2013. 5 Cabinet Secretariat, “National Security Strategy,” December 17, 2013. 6 “Russia-Japan Trade,” Valdai Discussion Club, October 25, 2018. 7 Quoted in Wrenn Yennie-Lindgren, “New Dynamics in Japan-Russia Energy Relations 2011–2017,” Journal of Eurasian Studies, vol. 9 (2018), p. 157. 8 “Japanese Premier said to Shun Obama Request to not Visit Russia,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, February 24, 2016. 9 James D.J. Brown, “Japan’s ‘New Approach’ to Russia,” The Diplomat, June 18, 2016. 10 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Nichiro shunō kaidan,” May 7, 2016. 11 Prime Minister of Japan and his Cabinet, “Address by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the 2nd Eastern Economic Forum,” September 3, 2016. 12 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Pūchin Roshia daitōryō no hōnichi (kekka),” December 6, 2016. 13 “Hoppōryōdo de Roshia to no kyōdō tōchi-an, seifu kentō,” Nihon Keizai Shimbun, October 17, 2016. 14 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Japan-Russia Summit Meeting,” November 14, 2018. 15 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Tokyo Declaration on Japan-Russia Relations,” October 13, 1993. 16 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Joint Compendium of Documents on the History of Territorial Issue between Japan and Russia,” March 1, 2001. 17 “Abe moto shushō tandoku intabyū, ichimon ittō shōhō,” Hokkaidō Shimbun, December 26, 2021. 18 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “O vstreche zamestitelia Ministra inostrannykh del Rossiiskoi Federatsii I.V. Morgulova s Poslom Iaponiii v Rossii T. Kodzuki,” January 9, 2019. 19 Ogawa Tomoyo, “Putin Says ‘Tempo has Been Lost’ on Japan-Russia Peace Treaty,” Nikkei Asia, March 16, 2019. 20 “Lavrov: Iaponiia dolzhna priznat’ suverenitet RF nad Kurilami dlia zaklucheniia mirnogo dogovora,” TASS, November 23, 2019. 21 “Pūchin-shi, Hoppōryōdo no kōjō kadō-shiki ni sanka,” Nihon Keizai Shimbun, September 5, 2019. 22 “V pravitel’stve predlozhili prevratit’ Kurily v ‘bespretsedentnuiu zonu.’” RBK, September 8, 2021. 23 Jon Grevatt, “China, Russia Conduct Joint Air Patrol over Sea of Japan,” Janes, November 22, 2021.

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24 “China, Russia Navy Ships Jointly Sail through Japan Strait,” Reuters, October 20, 2021. 25 James D.J. Brown, “Russia’s Revised Constitution shows Putin is no Friend of Japan,” RUSI, July 6, 2020. 26 “V Gosdume ob’iasnili poniatie demarkatsii v proekte o tselostnosti territorii,” RIA Novosti, July 14, 2020. 27 “‘Vopros zakryt’: Pushkov otsenil znachenie popravok v situatsii s Kurilam,” RIA Novosti, July 2, 2020. 28 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation,” December 1, 2016. 29 Evgeniy Zhirnov, “‘Kogda oni budut likvidirovany, skazat’ trudno,’” Kommersant, September 9, 2019. 30 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Sergey Lavrov’s Remarks and Answers to Media Questions at a News Conference on Russia’s Diplomacy Performance in 2015,” January 26, 2016. 31 Ishikawa Ichiyō, “Roshia taigai chōhō no toppu ga kataru Nihon to no kankei,” Tōyō Keizai, March 13, 2020. 32 “Hoppōryōdo ni Beigun, Pūchin-shi keikai Abe shushō ‘gokaida,” Asahi Shimbun, November 16, 2018. 33 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Japan-U.S. Security Treaty,” January 19, 1960. 34 “Sindzo Abe: prezident Putin mne dorog kak partner, s nim mozhno pogovorit’ po dusham,” TASS, November 25, 2018. 35 “V Tokio obsuzhdaiut ideiu ‘obmeniatt’ Krym na Kurily,” Vzgliad, August 12, 2015. 36 President of Russia, “Bol’shaia press-konferentsiia Vladimira Putina,” December 20, 2018. 37 “Lavrov: RF opasaetsia, chto SSHA budut imet’ dostup k upravleniiu sistemoi PRO v Iaponii,” TASS, January 15, 2018. 38 Robin Harding and Lionel Barber, “Japan Sounds Warning on China’s Growing Military Might,” Financial Times, November 1, 2019. 39 “Lavrov zaiavil, chto SSHA mogut razmestit’ RSMD u Rossiiskikh granits,” TASS, December 22, 2019. 40 “Rossiia obespokoena voennym sotrudnichestvom Iaponii,” RIA Novosti, June 6, 2019. 41 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Kommentarii ofitsial’nogo predstavitelia MID Rossii M.V. Zakharovoy v sviazi s Iapono-amerikanskimi voennymi ucheniiami ‘Vostochnii shchit,’” July 3, 2021. 42 Ian Hill, “Why is Russia Worried about the Quad?” The Strategist, July 1, 2021. 43 James D.J. Brown, “Japan-Australia Defence Deal more than a Bilateral Pact,” The Straits Times, January 22, 2022. 4 4 “Lavrov soobshchil, chto mozhet posetit’ Iaponiiu v blizhaishie dva-tri mesiatsa,” TASS, January 14, 2022. 45 “Prezident: pod”em Sibiri i Dal’nego Vostoka - natsional’nii prioritet na ves’ XXI vek,” TASS, December 12, 2013. 46 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Japan-Russia Summit Meeting,” May 7, 2016. 47 Prime Minister of Japan and his Cabinet, “Address by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the 3rd Eastern Economic Forum,” September 7, 2017. 48 Ibid. 49 Minister Counselor Dmitry Birichevsky speaking at Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, September 18, 2018. 50 “‘Vedomosti’: most na Sakhalin poschitali nerentabel’nym,” Novaya Gazeta, September 3, 2018. 51 “Hokkyokuken LNG sankaku Mitsuibussan, Roshia e no kodawari,” Nikkei, July 1, 2019.

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52 “Tovarooborot mezhdu Iaponiei i Rossiei v 2021 finansovom godu vyros na 56.9%,” TASS, April 20, 2022. 53 Gideon Rachman, “Putin’s Attempt to Control the Past Follows the Xi model,” Financial Times, January 3, 2022. 54 President of Russia, “Press Statements Following Russian-Chinese Talks,” May 8, 2015. 55 President of Russia, “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development,” February 4, 2022. 56 “Deputaty Gosdumy zavershili morskuyu ekspeditsiyu na Kurily, kotoraia prokhodila pod devizom ‘Kurily—nashi,’” Interfax, June 11, 2019. 57 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Brifing ofitsial’nogo predstavitelia MID Rossii M.V. Zakharovoy,” February 4, 2021. 58 James D.J. Brown, “Russian Strategic Communications Toward Japan: A More Benign Model of Influence?” Asian Perspective, vol. 45, no. 3 (2021), pp. 559–586. 59 “SK Rossii prizval pridat’ oglaske prestupleniia voennykh militaristskoi Iaponii,” TASS, September 7, 2021. 60 “FSB predstavit dokumenty o planakh Iaponii primenit’ bakteriologicheskoe oruzhie v gody voiny,” TASS, August 30, 2021. 61 “Roshia taishikan no nihongo tsuittā ‘amarini mo muchakucha’ to hihan aitsugu,” Yahoo News, March 1, 2022. 62 James D.J. Brown, “Japan’s Russia policy under Prime Minister Suga,” RUSI, June 10, 2021. 63 “SMI ob”iasnili otsutstvie prem’era Iaponii na VEF,” RIA Novosti, September 1, 2021. 64 “Kishida shushō shūnin-go hatsu Roshia Puchin daitōryō to denwa kaidan,” NHK, October 7, 2021. 65 “Putin Calls Absence of Russia-Japan Peace Treaty ‘Nonsense,’” Kyodo, September 3, 2021. 66 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Nichibei shunō terebi kaidan,” January 22, 2022. 67 “Roshia-san sekitan kin’yu e,” Hokkaidō Shimbun, April 9, 2022. 68 “V Gosdume zapodozrili Yaponiyu v podgotovke khimicheskoy ataki na Ukraine,” Lenta, April 19, 2022. 69 “Roshia gaikōkan-ra 8-nin, kyō ni mo Nihon shukkoku e,” NHK, April 20, 2022. 70 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, “Gaikō seisho 2022,” April 2022.

8 MONGOLIA Russia’s Best Friend in Asia? Sergey Radchenko and Mendee Jargalsaikhan

On September 3, 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Mongolia, taking part in the commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the battle of Khalkhin Gol (Nomonhan), an undeclared Soviet-Japanese war along the border between the Mongolian People’s Republic and Manchukuo. Putin did his rounds in Ulaanbaatar, which included a visit to the monument of Georgii Zhukov, the Soviet general in charge of the joint Soviet-Mongolian operation. After 1939 Khalkhin Gol became one of the foundational myths of “martial” friendship between the USSR and its then-satellite, the Mongolian People’s Republic. Some of this enthusiasm withered away after the collapse of socialism but became revived in recent years. In their joint appearances, Putin and his Mongolian counterpart Khaltmaagiin Battulga invoked the spirit of the Soviet-Mongolian “militant fraternity” (Putin’s words) in ways that were quite reminiscent of the propaganda of the bygone days.1 There was more continuity than rhetoric alone suggested. Putin and Battulga signed a new treaty that officially upgraded the Russian-Mongolian relationship to “permanent comprehensive strategic partnership.” This was perhaps neither unnatural nor entirely unexpected. After all, Mongolia has maintained such a partnership with neighboring China since 2014. But there was something peculiar about the method—a treaty, and one without an expiration or a denunciation clause. The treaty superseded an earlier one, signed in 1993, of extendable 20-year duration, which modestly proclaimed “friendly relations and cooperation” between Russia and Mongolia. A comparison between the two shows just how far the relationship has progressed since the uncertain days of the early 1990s. There is now a clause (absent in the 1993 treaty) about Russia and Mongolia “perfecting [their] ties in the defense and military-technical spheres, viewing these as an important component of DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-11

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maintaining regional and global security.” In contrast to the earlier treaty, Russia has now pledged (in perpetuity!) to “provide military-technical assistance” to Mongolia.2 There is also now not just the pledge by each side [read: Mongolia] “not to participate in blocs or military-political alliances, directed against one another” (with the exception of the word “blocs” this was already in the 1993 treaty) but also the more all-encompassing promise to “abstain from participating in any actions or from support of such actions, directed against the other side.” Since the latter provision can be interpreted extremely widely, Mongolia could be in breach of its obligations if the Kremlin concluded at any point that Ulaanbaatar’s relations with third parties (e.g., China, the United States, or Japan) were somehow directed against it. Of course, the same restrictions also apply to Russia, but as the power disparity between the two is heavily in Russia’s favor, Mongolia is the one to feel the pressure from these constraints. It remains to be seen whether these theoretical restrictions will have a practical effect on Mongolia’s international agenda. Some of its previous engagements—such as sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq (to assist the US effort there) or hosting events like the 2013 Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies (of which Mongolia is a member)—would, if pursued today, certainly give Russia cause for reproach. On the whole, then, the 2019 treaty represents a turning point. It could mark the beginning of the end of Mongolia’s famed third neighbor policy, which entailed a pro-active effort to develop close relations with Western Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, India, and Turkey— the collective “third neighbor”—as an ostensible counterweight to overreliance on Russia and China. This development represents an extraordinary comeback for Russia in Mongolia and a result of twenty years of the Kremlin’s unrelenting attention to the landlocked country. In the 1990s Russia for most intents and purposes abandoned Mongolia. Its troops withdrew. Its assistance dried up. Scant attention was paid by Moscow to its former satellite as Russia itself reeled from the economic crisis while seeking support in the West. Things began to change in 2000. In November of that year Putin became the first Russian leader since Brezhnev to visit Mongolia. In 2003, Putin agreed to write off nearly 98% of Mongolia’s Soviet-era debt (some $US11.4 billion) in a gesture that was much appreciated by Mongolian public opinion. In 2006 and 2009, Moscow and Ulaanbaatar issued joint declarations on developing a strategic partnership between the two countries. In 2004, Mongolia became an observer in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has largely served as the Sino-Russian forum for managing their complicated relationship. Ten years later, on Mongolian initiative, the leaders of Mongolia, China, and Russia met for the first time on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Dushanbe. This “trilateral” format empowered Ulaanbaatar and represented a new, more activist phase in the Mongolian government’s effort to upgrade relations with China and Russia.

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In 2014, Russia finally introduced a visa-free regime with Mongolia, which led to an impressive revival of tourism and border trade and, in general, improved Moscow’s standing in Mongolian public opinion. In retrospect, many of these changes overlapped with Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj’s presidency. Elbegdorj, who received a Western education and hailed from the ostensibly more “Western-oriented” Democratic Party, pragmatically embraced China and Russia, recognizing the promise of economic integration in the context of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Yet it was also on Elbegdorj’s watch that Mongolia adopted its 2010 National Security Concept, which reiterated support for the third neighbor policy and even promised Mongolia’s “active participation” in EU and NATO activities.3 It was also Elbegdorj who in 2015 pushed hard for the doomed bid to proclaim Mongolia’s permanent neutrality, upsetting both Moscow and Beijing in the process.4 Elbegdorj left a mixed legacy: while some of his moves clearly frustrated his neighbors, on the whole Mongolia’s standing in Beijing and Moscow continued to improve. Elbegdorj’s replacement in 2017 with Khaltmaagiin Battulga (also formerly of the Democratic Party) introduced interesting nuances. Battulga not only struck a populist note by trumpeting the Chinese threat to Mongolia’s independence but also played up his commitment to improving Mongolian-Russian ties. For obvious pragmatic economic reasons, Battulga’s anti-Chinese views were dialed back fairly quickly when he assumed power. In fact, he began courting China, becoming the first foreign leader in February 2020 to visit Beijing since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Battulga even raised some brows when he announced assistance to China in the form of 30,000 sheep.5 In the meantime, his bromance with Putin became genuine and lasting, with Battulga consciously cultivating a tough-man image of “Mongolia’s Putin.” Just how far Battulga was prepared to go from Elbegdorj’s now defunct ambitions of “permanent neutrality” became clear when in 2018 he began calling for Mongolia’s membership in the SCO, presenting it as one way to access muchneeded funding. The idea found both ready supporters and many detractors in Mongolia. Those in favor cited economic arguments, pointed to the examples of India and Pakistan to argue that the SCO was not just the “dictators’ club,” and underscored the benefits of closer relations with China and Russia. The detractors warned that joining the SCO could constrain Mongolia’s foreign policy (in particular, if the organization became a de facto alliance “against the West”). Others doubted the economic benefits of participation and even questioned whether Mongolia really belonged in an organization with a primarily Central Asian emphasis.6 The Mongolian Parliament held closed hearings on the subject, and groups of experts and officials were dispatched to SCO countries to study their experience. The idea died a quiet death—for now. It is clear that Russia, for its part, keeps pushing Ulaanbaatar to join, as it is also keen to have Mongolia onboard Putin’s economic integration project, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Russia-led military alliance—the Collective Security

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Treaty Organization (CSTO).7 But Ulaanbaatar has so far resisted such an intimate embrace. However, there is no denial that Battulga has brought Mongolia into a much closer alignment with the northern neighbor, the 2019 treaty being the case in point. Another thing that happened on Battulga’s watch was the near-complete obliteration of the Democratic Party, the former refuge of Mongolia’s “pro-Western” politicians. The Democratic Party was comprehensively defeated by its long-time rival the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) in the parliamentary elections of 2016 (this, however, was before Battulga’s election as president) and again in 2020.8 This defeat had little or nothing to do with foreign policy; more than anything else, it was a result of DP’s factionalism and MPP’s relative organizational strength. But this is not to say that external actors were uninterested in the outcome. MPP, after all, is the successor to the socialist-era Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, and Putin had previously developed very good personal relations with key MPP players, including the former president (long since disgraced) Nambaryn Enkhbayar and the former prime minister Sanjaagiin Bayar. The latter, in particular, had been a forceful voice in favor of a closer Russian-Mongolian relationship, and there is certainly scope for similar closeness between the current generation of MPP leaders and Moscow. In any case, the Russians have been satisfied with the relative political stability of Mongolia under the MPP. It is political change that they dread the most, for it brings the danger of unpredictable reversals in Ulaanbaatar’s foreign policy. This chapter reviews current issues in Russian-Mongolian relations by focusing in particular on the railroad, the question of natural resources, and the prospect of the construction of a gas pipeline across Mongolia. These three areas not only show the challenges Russia faces but also speak to Putin’s substantial track record in relation to Mongolia. After all, the relationship between Moscow and Ulaanbaatar has become much closer than anyone would have expected twenty years ago. It is certainly good news for Russia. Whether this is necessarily good news for Mongolia remains an open question. The Railroad

The Trans-Mongolian railroad, which spans over 2200km, connecting Russia and China, is a reminder that regional integration in this part of the world predates the BRI. The railroad was constructed between the late 1940s and the mid-1950s, and is owned jointly and equally by the Russian and Mongolian governments. The strategic link experienced serious economic problems in the 1990s–early 2000s (a consequence of Russia’s general loss of interest in Mongolia). By the latе 2000s, much of the railroad infrastructure was worn out and required repair or replacement.9 Russia’s continued ownership of 50% of the strategic railroad has long troubled Mongolian policy makers who have repeatedly tried to squeeze the Russians

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out—but so far without results. Moscow has also resisted Mongolia’s efforts to upgrade the railroad by attracting external funding. The most notable example was the 2007 row over Ulaanbaatar’s bid for the Millennium Challenge Compact (MCC) funds. The money (in total some $188 million was earmarked for the railroad) was to be dispersed by the United States and was widely perceived to be a “reward” for Mongolia’s participation in the US-led “war on terror,” but it came with strings attached, including the opening of the railroad’s accounting books. This the Russians refused to countenance, but it was not the main problem. The bigger issue was permitting a third party—the United States—to meddle with Russia’s key strategic and economic asset in Mongolia. The then-head of the Russian Railroads Vladimir Yakunin declared that “if there’s free cheese, it must be a mousetrap.”10 The upgrade fell through. To make up for the shortfall of funds and to address the justified concern in Mongolia about such heavy-handed tactics, the Russian government proposed to set up a new company, “Razvitie Infrastruktury,” with the mandate to oversee an overhaul of the aging railroad. In 2010 Moscow proposed to add $250 million to the coffers of the joint enterprise. The same year, not without Yakunin’s involvement, the trans-Mongolian railroad purchased 35 locomotives from a factory in Luhansk, Ukraine. The cash was provided by a Russian bank without tenders or much transparency, leading some Mongolian commentators to suspect that Russia-led “modernization” of the railroad would in the long run cost much more than it really had to.11 One of the most interesting developments surrounding the trans-Mongolian railroad has had to do with the railroad gauge. Russia’s ability to keep Mongolia tied to the Russian gauge (1520 mm) despite the arguable economic advantage of shifting to the narrower Chinese gauge (1435 mm) is a case study in how technical standards translate into geopolitical influence. There has been a long back-andforth debate on the issue in Mongolian politics. In 2010 the Mongolian Parliament approved a policy document concerning Mongolian railroads, which resolved to maintain the existing (Russian) gauge.12 The person who pushed for this decision was the Minister of Road, Transport, Construction and Urban development (and later president) Battulga, who used his own private media empire to raise alarm over the prospect of building railways to the Chinese gauge (this would presumably make it easier for China to invade Mongolia). In 2013–14, the political situation changed again. In October 2013, thenMongolian Prime Minister Norovyn Altankhuyag visited China, signing several high-profile agreements, including one with Shenhua, China’s largest coal producer, to increase the export of Mongolian coal to the southern neighbor.13 In the wake of what seemed like Mongolia’s embrace of China-led regional integration, the country’s parliament approved plans to build two branch railroads to the Chinese standard. One would run from the Tavan Tolgoi coal deposit to the Chinese border; the other from Khuut (in Eastern Mongolia), once again, to the Chinese border.14

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The change was accompanied by something of a scandal over the leaked letter from Vladimir Yakunin (dated June 21, 2014) to Norovyn Altankhuyag, in which the former angrily denounced the decision to build narrow-gauge tracks as undercutting the hope for Mongolia to play “a key role in Eurasian [read: Russia-led] integration.” Yakunin also criticized the decision on the ground that it would make Mongolia overly dependent on just one buyer (China), whereas the Russian railroad gauge would permit it to export resources via Russia to other markets in East Asia.15 Yakunin’s letter, like nothing else, demonstrated certain subterranean tensions in Sino-Russian relations—in particular, the friction over competing visions of Eurasian integration—and Moscow’s unrelenting effort to keep Mongolia strategically tied to its railroads and, by extension, its sphere of influence. In 2020, the Mongolian Supreme Court overturned the 2014 decision about the narrow gauge, returning Mongolia to its strict adherence to the 1520  mm gauge.16 This reversal obviously favors Russia and amounts to an important breakthrough for Moscow’s position in the country—one might add, at China’s expense. Notably, Mongolia’s commitment to the 1520 mm gauge even found its way into the text of the 2019 Russian-Mongolian Agreement: Mongolia can no longer go back on this commitment without violating its international obligations.17 In the meantime, in September 2014, in the course of Vladimir Putin’s visit to Ulaanbaatar, Russia and Mongolia signed an agreement to modernize the railroad, including the signaling system. A further agreement, concluded by Putin, Xi Jinping, and then-Mongolian President Ts. Elbegdorj in 2016, to create an “economic corridor” connecting Russia and China through Mongolia provided an additional impetus to discussions about the upgrade of railroad infrastructure. In 2019, the joint enterprise began the implementation of a long-term upgrade program aimed at doubling the railroad capacity by 2030.18 More Russian locomotives are being purchased with additional loans from Russian banks.19 In short, after years of relative neglect, Russia is paying renewed attention to this key strategic asset, for both economic and geopolitical reasons. Moscow’s effective control over this railroad helps assure its position in the country as an indispensable facilitator of regional integration, even if the economic engine driving this integration is actually China. This is a way for Russia to stay ahead in this game. Resources

Compared to the 1990s, when Russia for most intents and purposes simply abandoned Mongolia, the first two decades of the twenty-first century have seen a sustained effort on Moscow’s part to re-engage and, in particular, secure access to the country’s plentiful natural resources. It has, however, faced stiff competition, partly from China (which has largely monopolized Mongolian exports) but also from Western developers like the Anglo-Australian multinational Rio Tinto, which has shipped copper from Mongolia since 2013.

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Russia’s most important investment here was Erdenet—the sprawling copper and molybdenum complex in northern Mongolia. The joint Soviet-Mongolian mining enterprise was established in 1973. Each side had 50% of the venture, though in 1991 the ratio of ownership was changed to 51/49, in Mongolia’s favor. The Russians were thus left with very little control over the venture and saw almost nothing in profits because of extraordinary rates of taxation. It was perhaps this frustration over the lack of control that ultimately persuaded the Russian stakeholders (the state-owned Rostec) to give up on the venture altogether, selling it to Mongolia in 2016 for an estimated $390 million, plus another $10 million for the joint-stock company Mongolrostsvetmet (which mined fluorite, gold, and iron ore). It is still not entirely clear why Russia gave up on this economic asset (indeed, arguably its key asset in Mongolia). It is clear that at the time, the decision encountered certain pushback in the Russian policy establishment (the Foreign Ministry was reportedly against the deal).20 The likely reason was simply that the venture was underperforming economically, and highly susceptible to political changes in Mongolia. Moscow has tried hard but failed to gain access to the Oyu Tolgoi copper deposit (which was ultimately awarded to Rio Tinto), and the world’s largest untapped coal deposit at Tavan Tolgoi. Russia’s ambitions in relation to Tavan Tolgoi were closely tied to the railroad, since the key selling point—which would presumably lead Mongolia to award the contract to the Russians—was that they would then be able to take the coal out via a branch line and onto export markets in China and beyond. To endear itself to Ulaanbaatar, in November 2010, Moscow wrote off 97.8% of recent Mongolian debt (in addition to the earlier Soviet debt that Putin had already forgiven). But the promising plans fell through when the Mongolian government decided to split the deposit three ways between the Russians, the Americans, and the Chinese, leaving all unhappy. The bidding was canceled and further discussions ground to a halt. The deposit remained in the hands of the Mongolian government (through the state-owned Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi). Having kept the Russians (and everyone else) at bay, the Mongolians currently hope to develop the deposit largely with their own resources and have floated internal bonds for the purpose. It is unclear, however, whether the developers can acquire the $3.4 billion required in investment between 2021 and 2025.21 In 2019, the Mongolian government made the decision to build the railroad (to take out the coal) with its own resources—construction troops, no less—leaving Russia (and potential other contenders) out in the cold. At least the Russians can derive satisfaction that the railroad gauge accords to its own standard (1520 mm). The railroad is currently under construction. Intriguingly, Mongolia is now trying to take advantage of the tensions in SinoAustralian relations in order to displace Australia as China’s coal supplier. The potential profits—provided the transportation bottlenecks can be overcome—are simply colossal. Not for the first time, Ulaanbaatar is skillfully playing its resource cards in an intricate geopolitical game.

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The discussion of Russia’s efforts to gain access to Mongolia’s natural resources would be incomplete without a brief mention of the instructive Khan Resources affair. Khan Resources, in spite of its name, was a Canadian company that in 1998 and 2005 obtained rights to a uranium deposit in Dornod, Eastern Mongolia, that had once been explored by the USSR and Russia but was later abandoned for lack of demand in 1995. In 2009, the company (which held a majority stake in the joint venture, which also included Russian and Mongolian partners) professed readiness to begin production in Dornod, though whether it actually planned any production or intended simply to resell the deposit to other (possibly Chinese) investors has remained a subject of controversy.22 In August 2009, however, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Ulaanbaatar, where he agreed to develop Dornod’s uranium resources jointly with Mongolia. The media reported the head of Russia’s atomic agency Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko as promising to invest “hundreds of millions of dollars” into the joint project. Medvedev promised to resolve problems with Mongolia’s outstanding debts to Russia and extend new agricultural credits in the amount of up to $300 million.23 In the meantime, the Mongolian Parliament passed legislation that effectively stripped Khan Resources of its license. Khan Resources then successfully sued Mongolia’s government, and in the end reached a settlement to receive $70 million from Ulaanbaatar in compensation, though not before the company’s chairman, James Doak, died in his hotel room in Ulaanbaatar after what was described as difficult negotiations with the Mongolian authorities.24 The Khan Resources case has been described as both demonstrating the perils of Mongolia’s economic nationalism, and also its limits (insofar as the Mongolian government, in the end, had to pay up something—though not as much as was demanded). But it also points to the success of Russia’s efforts to keep an undesirable competitor—a Western company—out of a strategic area like uranium exploration. This strategy of denial has served Russia well even in cases where it has failed to push its advantage, as, indeed, in the case of Dornod’s uranium reserves, which—for all the promises of 2009—remain largely undeveloped today. Ulaanbaatar has played along. “Mongolia sees uranium as part and parcel of its regional balancing act,” the US Embassy reported almost two years before the Khan Resources controversy exploded. “Mongolia has embraced Russian proposals wholeheartedly in order ‘to keep the bear fed.’”25 Gas Pipeline

Battulga and Putin, during their meeting on the sidelines of the September 2019 forum in Vladivostok, reached an agreement in principle to construct a trans-Mongolian gas pipeline. In December 2019 then-Prime Minister (who later succeeded Battulga as president) Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh signed a Memo of Understanding with Gazprom to begin preliminary exploration. The pipeline, called Power of Siberia 2 (the trans-Mongolian section will be called Soyuz-Vostok), could take

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up to 50 billion cubic meters of gas to China, or 1.3 times the capacity of Power of Siberia, which has connected China and Russia since 2019. If realized, this multi-billion-dollar project would bring Mongolia a bonanza in transit fees (up to 1 billion USD, according to some Mongolian estimates),26 gas for domestic consumption, and thousands of construction and maintenance jobs and may well encourage additional infrastructural development, including the building of railroad and highways, and the laying of trans-Mongolian electrical and optical cables. Access to natural gas would also help Mongolia cope with one of its most serious and persistent problems, air pollution in Ulaanbaatar. The signing of the MoU comes after more than twenty years of speculative discussions around the possibility of constructing a pipeline through Mongolia. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese seemed overly keen on the idea in the past—it was Ulaanbaatar that pushed for it, for obvious economic reasons as well as the country’s political stability. But the breakthrough, when it came, had a clear political component, framed as it was in terms of Russia and China’s respective visions for regional integration. If the pipeline were built, it would not only help anchor Mongolia in China’s BRI but also serve as an example of what Putin called the Greater Eurasian Partnership. This partnership—peddled by Putin since 2016—envisions the merger of China’s integrationist schemes (i.e., the BRI) with Russia’s (i.e., the Eurasian Economic Union, of which Mongolia is not a part), and its extension to other regional actors, including India, Iran, and Pakistan.27 One of the problems with the Greater Eurasian Partnership is that it has so far been confined primarily to hopeful proclamations; the Mongolian pipeline could be a game changer in this regard. Since the gas pipeline project is still only in its initial phase, its long-term impact on Mongolia’s relations with its two neighbors cannot yet be ascertained. There are, for example, worries among some observers in Ulaanbaatar that Moscow may put Mongolia under political pressure in ways that it has done with Ukraine (which lies astride Russia’s gas transit routes). Worse still, the pipeline could allow China to add to its already overwhelming economic leverage to settle any disputes (such as, for instance, over transit fees) to Beijing’s advantage. There are also concerns associated with the construction of the pipeline, including where the projected 3,700 construction jobs and the 1,500 maintenance jobs would come from (imported jobs would be politically controversial) and who would operate the pipeline.28 What begins as an economic windfall could thus end up as a liability for Mongolia, especially in view of the populist currents in Mongolian politics. These concerns, notwithstanding, the overall sense in Ulaanbaatar is that of considerable enthusiasm on account of the pipeline. There is a bipartisan consensus in Mongolia about the desirability and the importance of the country’s involvement in the project. Conclusion

Year 2021 was a special year for Russian-Mongolian relations. On November 5, the two countries marked the 100th anniversary of their bilateral relationship.

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This was not always a problem-free relationship. Mongolia was thrown about by the treacherous tides of Russia’s wars and revolutions. It loyally followed Moscow in bloody purges and in building a Communist paradise that led down a blind alley. Then it was practically abandoned for years—left to fend for itself. But in recent years Moscow has made a comeback, understanding, perhaps, Mongolia’s geopolitical importance. It is clear that the Kremlin regards Mongolia as an important piece in its Asian game. Having put aside recriminations of the 1990s, Moscow and Ulaanbaatar have developed a degree of trust in one another’s policy agendas. The relationship today is as close as Russia has with anyone in the region, quite a bit closer, for example, than even with China, which (despite proclamations of solidarity) is still regarded with a degree of wariness in Moscow. It took years of patient work to get to this point. The most difficult aspect of Russia’s engagement with Mongolia was learning to overcome a tendency to play it rough. It was too easy to throw one’s weight around—for example, on matters pertaining to the railroad. The fallout from the MCA funding scandal cast a shadow over the relationship for years. Bickering over access to Tavan Tolgoi and the railroad gauge fed recriminations in Ulaanbaatar that Moscow was pursuing neo-imperialist projects. The Russians seemed unable to understand the rough-and-tumble of Mongolian democratic politics, so different from Moscow’s own increasingly authoritarian propensities. A willingness to give up on politically and economically problematic assets—like Erdenet—helped. Russia’s strategic patience ultimately paid off. The main reason for the current rapprochement between Russia and Mongolia is that Mongolia itself desires it. Why? There are several reasons. First, Russia is increasingly seen across the political spectrum as a key economic partner. Even the Democratic Party came to recognize Russia’s indispensability (the MPP has always been more closely attuned to Moscow’s interests). Mongolia’s economic strategy hinges on the viability of various Sino-Russian economic corridors, and the degree of Ulaanbaatar’s involvement in these corridors is directly connected to the state of Russian-Mongolian relationship. Second, Russia is regarded as a key counterweight to China, on which Mongolia is heavily dependent economically. Ever apprehensive of China’s influence, the Mongolians look to Russia for reassurance: it is that wariness, undoubtedly, that feeds Moscow’s hopes that one day Mongolia will join the CSTO—not so much out of love for Putin as out of fear of Xi. Third, Russia’s gestures—from debt cancellation, to the introduction of a visa-free regime, to Putin’s relatively frequent visits to Mongolia, to vaccine diplomacy—help to create a positive image of Moscow in Mongolian public opinion. Finally, the West (especially the United States) have paid relatively little attention to Mongolia. It certainly did not become a magnet for Western investors, Rio Tinto notwithstanding—though that would have as much to do with Ulaanbaatar’s own somersaults (as the Khan Resources debacle showed like nothing else) as with the lack of interest on the part of Western multinationals. The payback from the Third Neighbor policy has not been all that impressive.

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All of this has given Russia opportunities for considerably increasing its influence in Mongolia—opportunities that the Kremlin has skillfully taken advantage of. Indeed, the blossoming bilateral relationship has become one of the few success stories of Putin’s otherwise underwhelming “Turn to the East.”

Notes 1 The Presidential Administration of Russia, Press Release, September 3, 2019, http:// kremlin.ru/catalog/countries/MN/events/61436 2 In 2013, Ulaanbaatar also concluded a military assistance agreement with China, which includes provisions for gratis military aid. The text of the agreement has not been published. https://zasag.mn/news/view/3012/ 3 “The National Security Concept of Mongolia,” July 15, 2010, https://www.legalinfo. mn/annex/details/8070?lawid=6163 4 Sergey Radchenko, “As China and Russia Draw Closer, Mongolia Feels the Squeeze,” The Asan Forum, October 11, 2018, https://theasanforum.org/as-chinaand-russia-draw-closer-mongolia-feels-the-squeeze 5 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of PRC, Press Release, February 27, 2020, http://ie.chinaembassy.org/eng/zgxw/t1750462.htm 6 Mendee Jargalsaikhan, “Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Mongolia’s Membership Debate,” Mongolian Geopolitics, No. 3 (2020), http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/ mongolei/17483.pdf 7 Interview of Russian Ambassador to Mongolia, RIA Novosti, December 3, 2019, https://ria.ru/20191203/1561852966.html 8 For a detailed account of Mongolia’s 2016/17 electoral cycle, see Sergey Radchenko and Mendee Jargalsaikhan, “Mongolia in the 2016–17 Electoral Cycle: The Blessings of Patronage,” Asian Survey, vol. 57, no. 6 (2017), pp. 1032–1057. 9 V.V. Graivoronskii, “Modernizatsiia Zheleznodorozhnogo Transporta v Mongolii,” Vostochnaya Analitika, 2011, https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/modernizatsiya-zheleznodorozhnogo-transporta-v-mongolii-i-rol-rossiysko-mongolskogo-sotrudnichestva/ viewer 10 Ibid. 11 On the locomotive deal, see http://www.ukrrudprom.com/digest/Mongoliya_kupit_ luganskie_teplovozi.html; on the likelihood of corruption, see http://www.mongolnow.com/degradatsiya-zheleznoj-dorogi/ 12 The Parliament of Mongolia, The State Railroad Policy, 2010, https://www.legalinfo. mn/annex/details/3342?lawid=7018 13 Alicia Campi, “Efforts to Strengthen Sino-Mongolian Relations in Fall 2013,” Jamestown Foundation, December 5, 2013, https://jamestown.org/program/effortsto-strengthen-sino-mongolian-relations-in-fall-2013/ 14 The Parliament of Mongolia, Resolution, May 15, 2020, https://www.legalinfo.mn/ law/details/10742 15 “The Letter of Yakunin,” The 24 Hour News, September 11, 2014, https://www.24tsag. mn/a/63548 16 The Parliament of Mongolia, Resolution, May 15, 2020. 17 “Article 12, Agreement on Friendly Relations and Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the Russian Federation and Mongolia,” July 13, 2020, https://docs.cntd. ru/document/565307846?marker=7DE0K7 18 MOSGIPROTRANS, Press Release, June, 2019, https://www.mosgiprotrans.ru/rus/ news/1208/ 19 https://gudok.ru/newspaper/?ID=1526974

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20 Lkhagva Erdene and Sergey Radchenko, “The Mysterious Sale of Mongolia’s Erdenet Mine,” The Diplomat, June 9, 2016, https://thediplomat.com/2016/07/ the-mysterious-sale-of-mongolias-erdenet-mine/ 21 “Seeking to Unseat Australia, Mongolia’s Giant Coal Mine Plans $700 mln bond,” Reuters, April 21, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/mongolia-coal-idUSL4N2ME0MU 22 Permanent Court of Arbitration, PCA Case No. 2011-09, March 2, 2015, https://www.italaw.com/sites/default/files/case-documents/italaw4267.pdf; on the rumors of a possible investment from China, see https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/ 2015/05/18/64188-uranovaya-druzhba-dovela-do-arbitrazha 23 “Russian Federation and Mongolia Will Solve the Problem of Debt,” Reuters, August 15, 2009, https://www.reuters.com/article/orubs-mongolia-russia-uraniumidRUMSE57O0XI20090825 24 “Khan Resources to Receive 70 million to Settle Mongolia Dispute,” Bloomberg, March 7, 2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-07/khanresources-to-receive-70-million-to-settle-mongolia-dispute; Mongolian experts did not find anything suspicious in Doak’s death, though Russia’s interest in the case raises questions. 25 US Embassy Cable, November 6, 2007, WikiLeaks, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/ cables/07ULAANBAATAR630_a.html 26 L. Khangai, “About the Natural Gas Pipeline Construction Process,” June 19, 2021, http://baabar.mn/article/baigaliin-khii-damjuulakh-khooloi-barikh-tusliin-yawtsiin-tukhaid 27 “Putin Called for a Great Eurasian Partnership,” TASS, June 17, 2016, https://tass.ru/ ekonomika/3376295 28 “The Pipeline Issue Now Depends on us,” News.MN, December 18, 2019, https:// news.mn/r/2239127/;, “Pipeline Is Not a Dream,” MONTSAME, June 8, 2020, https://montsame.mn/mn/read/227750

9 CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE INDO-PACIFIC IN RUSSIA’S “TURN TO THE EAST” Gilbert Rozman

Russia has many reasons to reject the concepts of the “Indo-Pacific” and the “Quad,” which it closely associates with that. Geographically, these concepts conflict with favored constructs, whether “Asia-Pacific,” “Greater Eurasia,” or “Arctic-Pacific.” Strategically, Indo-Pacific means the reassertion of US leadership in Asia, contrary to Russian insistence that the US is losing and a new regional order is taking shape. Ideologically, this concept asserts values anathema to the narrative Vladimir Putin has articulated in his “Turn to the East” and elsewhere. Diplomatically, Russian opposition aligns it with China, whose coattails Russia is riding to reassert its influence. The main problem for Russia, however, is that in emphasizing close ties to India, it sees in the concepts “Indo-Pacific” and the “Quad” a stark contradiction with claims it has been making.1 Moscow views the southern tier of Asia through the prism of Soviet superpower pretensions. It had a special partnership with India. It cultivated close ties to Vietnam. Economic ties were not in the forefront, but arm sales were critical. Having gained a foothold in the 1960s–70s, Moscow sought to renew its influence after its withdrawal in the 1990s, taking satisfaction that it gained entry to the newly expanded East Asian Summit along with the US in 2011. In light of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which Russia has viewed with a wary eye, Putin has tried to balance close camaraderie with Xi Jinping with autonomous efforts to reassert its presence. Below, I separately discuss recent Russian thinking about regional architecture, ASEAN and its members, and India. First, I trace the evolution of its views since Putin declared the “Turn to the East” in 2012, taking special note of a shift in 2020–21 linked to both China and the US.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-12

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Tracking Russian Thinking about Asia’s Southern Tier over a Decade

Russia is preoccupied with two countries—the US and China—both of which over the past decade have reconceptualized regional architecture in Asia with keen attention to the role of Southeast Asia and South Asia. To a considerable degree, Russia has responded to the moves they have made—Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” Donald Trump’s security-focused “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP), and Joe Biden’s multilateral FOIP plus the Quad; and Xi Jinping’s BRI as well as Xi’s increasingly aggressive, unilateral moves against India, Australia, and others. Growing advocacy of the concept of the “Indo-Pacific” within Asia and by the US over the past decade has raised alarm in Russia. It defines the region in a manner deemed maximally unwelcome by a continental power hugging the Arctic Ocean but far from the Indian Ocean. In response, coupled with responses to warnings it has become China’s “junior partner,” Moscow has insisted that the concept is a US scheme for polarizing Asia and containing China, while simultaneously trumpeting the alternative of “Greater Eurasia,” a geographical construct that serves to confirm Russia’s status as a great power stakeholder in the eastern half of Asia. On the surface, Moscow is in conflict only with the US moves, but it also is struggling with China’s. By turning to the East, Moscow has sought to demonstrate it does not need the West. In stage one of its turn—2012–13—the focus was on Northeast Asia but not excluding ties with Europe. In stage two—2014–16—in response to the sanctions from the West and Xi Jinping’s initiatives for Asian regionalism, Putin proposed a mix of closer ties with China, multipolarity with several leading Asian states, and Greater Eurasia as a bridge between Xi’s BRI and his own Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Both India and ASEAN figured into claims for multipolarity and Greater Eurasia. Stage 3—2017–21—saw more accommodation of Xi and resistance to Donald Trump’s call for FOIP. The fact that India entered the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), albeit with Pakistan at China’s insistence, and it also was part of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) encouraged Putin to think more seriously about Asia’s southern tier. The years 2020–21, however, posed a dilemma due to at least five factors: 1) Sino-Indian relations were tense after their border skirmish in the Himalayas; 2) Indo-US relations were drawing closer with the Quad; 3) hopes for ASEAN to accept Russia as a great power balancer to the US and China were fading; 4) the BRICS and SCO were weakened and multipolarity was being exposed as an illusion; and 5) Sino-Russian divisions over the architecture of Asia were deepening as Xi Jinping’s accelerating Sinocentrism came into conflict with Putin’s insistence on Eurasianism.2 Prioritizing opposition to US policies—even more under Joe Biden than Trump—Putin hesitated to change course in 2020–21. Indeed, he encouraged

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talk of a bilateral alliance with China unlike in earlier periods. Yet the divide over India cast a deep shadow over the relationship. If he did not flag the issue, Russian writers did and warned that an asymmetrical alliance with China was a threat to Russia, including to its aspirations for multipolarity.3 One of the key questions before Russia was how to reinvigorate autonomous ties in Asia’s southern tier in a new environment. In 2022 Putin moved into a fourth stage by launching a war in Ukraine with an impact in Asia. Russian Thinking about Regional Architecture

Moscow has largely viewed the southern tier of Asia through seven constructs: Greater Eurasia, BRICS, an expanded SCO, BRI, multipolarity with ASEAN serving as a pole, the FOIP, the Quad, and a New Cold War vs. the US. An eighth construct Sinocentrism goes unmentioned but looms large in the background. In Greater Eurasia, the BRICS, the SCO, and multipolarity with ASEAN, Russia claims to have the right organizational mix to balance the BRI while not openly opposing it. Early to recognize the arrival of the New Cold War, it accepted BRI as a means to that end, but the FOIP and the Quad have shaken Russian optimism, not so much due to the US moves, but owing to Sinocentrism that has driven India away from Russia toward the US and also has complicated Russia’s ties in Southeast Asia, e.g., in retreating from Vietnam energy exploration. One construct stands above all of the others in the mindset visible in Russian publications about the “Turn to the East.” That is Greater Eurasia. It serves as an umbrella conception, bolstered by the BRICS, the SCO, and ASEAN summits with Russia reaffirming multipolarity. Yet it was coined in response to the BRI, and Russians could never shake doubts that, instead of coordination of the two, China was merely paying lip service to Russia’s idea while unilaterally pursuing its own in a manner that marginalized Russia and undercut multipolarity in the quest for Sinocentrism. In response to Xi Jinping’s announcement of the BRI centering on China, Vladimir Putin called his framework Greater Eurasia. In the mid-2010s, it remained unclear how these leaders, while trumpeting ever-closer relations, would reconcile their dueling frameworks. In May 2014, when Putin went to Beijing to put meat behind his promise to turn to Asia after Russia had invaded Crimea and faced sanctions in the West, the focus was on “docking” Putin’s EEU with Xi Jinping’s recently announced Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB). It expanded the focus of Sino-Russian cooperation from the border area linking the Russian Far East and Northeast China, where it had largely been in the 1990s and 2000s, to Central Asia. (Until then, the SCO had delineated a division of labor there without much genuine cooperation.) Yet Xi’s decision to encompass the SREB within the BRI soon widened the focus again, leading Putin to counter with his Greater Eurasian Partnership in the region. Russia’s gaze was turning to the south.

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The EEU was on too small a scale with little chance to expand, and it was predominantly economic in nature. After defense of Russia’s priority position in Central Asia, joining with China’s SREB to keep watch over it, in the face of the BRI, a broader Russian initiative was needed. First mentioned in December 2015, Putin gave the initiative its name at the 2016 Petersburg economic forum. At the May 2017 BRI forum he elaborated on this mega-region and won China’s acquiescence.4 The jointly led SCO persisted, and SCO-ASEAN talks were proposed with tariff liberalization to follow. Moscow struggled to lend substance to its notion of a Greater Eurasian Partnership. Beijing gave lip service to the idea as it put real resources behind its own BRI. As in discourse on multipolarity, two entities in the south of Asia caught Moscow’s attention: India and ASEAN. India had figured earlier in Russian great power narratives. In the late 1990s Foreign Minister and then Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov had proposed a troika of Russia, China, and India. Foreign Minister Wang Yi in March 2016 joined Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in supporting linking the SCO to ASEAN, endorsing Putin’s grandiose plan for a single Eurasian space, but no ASEAN state joined the SCO and Russian calls for a free trade agreement (FTA) between the EEU and these countries meant little given the fear of FTAs prevailing in Moscow. If Greater Eurasia seemed to be an empty vessel, Russia only redoubled its claims of comparability to the BRI in Asia’s architecture. With little interest in Japan or South Korea as partners offering balance and multilateralism to Russia, the idea of Greater Eurasia does not openly distance Russia from China, but it feigns that India’s continued “strategic autonomy” and ASEAN’s large and growing role would somehow keep Russia free of undue Chinese pressure. This pretense was sustained against growing doubts in the third stage of the “Turn to the East.” Yet a backlash in Russia against Moscow’s tilt toward China at India’s expense and even against harsh rejection of the “IndoPacific” concept could be observed in 2020–21. Some argued there are many different notions of the Indo-Pacific, including Japanese and Indian ones at odds with the US one, seeking to resuscitate multipolarity amid new bipolarity. If there are various versions of the Indo-Pacific, e.g., Indian and Indonesian ones recognizing the central role of ASEAN, and the US one aimed at containing China (using the Quad), why is Russia critical of the Indo-Pacific, not noticing the difference in interpretations of it? Yet such queries also acknowledge that Russia’s Pacific Fleet is small, has no bases in the Indian Ocean or ability to project force there, and Russia’s own project—Greater Eurasia—is purely continental and of little interest to India or the Southeast Asian states. In contrast, to the mainstream hostility to the Indo-Pacific idea, some Russians of late have said it is necessary to distinguish other views of it besides the US position, striving to reduce Moscow’s isolation on a concept that it is here to stay.5 That is also an indication of searching for a way back to multipolarity and Eurasianism, not Sinocentrism.

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In 2020–21, the FOIP was seen as a new mega-region, impacting Russia after it had coopted the BRI with the Greater Eurasia initiative.6 The Quad soon followed to be buttressed by regional partners including Vietnam, while weakening ASEAN centrality in security. This was seen as a fresh blow to the multilateralism Russia seeks, marginalizing it in maritime Asia. India’s role and a weaker ASEAN as well as China’s negative reaction all boded badly, pulling countries to the south, not to the north.7 The backlash against this reflects a desperate effort to limit growing signs of an alliance with China. Russian Thinking about ASEAN and Its Member States

On one hand, Putin’s seriousness about ASEAN repeatedly was found wanting. After Russia’s entry into the EAS, Putin did not attend subsequent summits. In 2015 he also missed the APEC summit, casting doubt on whether his “Turn to the East” is to Asia or just to China.8 On the other, Russia praises ASEAN as the center of the Asia-Pacific region and key to the formation of regional and global architecture. Moreover, it was argued that “Current trends in the regional power balance will still provide Moscow with a unique chance to restore its influence as a power which is neither threatening nor being threatened by its neighboring states, which is consistent with Russia’s interest in reducing the US military presence.”9 In October 2021, the ASEAN-Russia summit was the latest to trumpet the importance of ASEAN for Greater Eurasia, following meetings in 2016 and 2018. ASEAN has an essential place in this. One article praised the utility and effectiveness of ASEAN as a regional organization, claiming it had become the nucleus of broader international cooperation involving nearly all of the leading states in the world. This laudatory commentary treated ASEAN as a godsend for peace, stability, and security with significant further potential.10 Hope was placed on partnerships with the EU and SCO despite a lack of detail on how they would lead to broad Eurasianism, which places no demand on values given the merits of the “ASEAN Way,” and adheres to the principle of “sovereign equality.” There are other challenges. For one, economic ties with Southeast Asia are limited. One article acknowledged that only 1.9 percent of Russia’s exports go to the ASEAN states. Where there is significant local interest in Russia’s high-tech achievements (as claimed by the article), awareness in ASEAN is low. Concern was raised about insufficient information in the region about business in Russia, difficulty in finding a niche for companies in a highly competitive region, and local producers squeezing out Russia goods, such as fertilizer. Russia fares better in terms of arms exports. To counter that, the author calls for free trade zones, such as the one the EEU created with Vietnam. While the article is upbeat about more dialogue, the overall tone is pessimistic with scant evidence of real progress in ties to ASEAN states amid some dire warnings.11

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The proposal to establish an FTA made at the Russia-ASEAN summit of May 2016 invited a negative response. This has led to a realization that there is little benefit for ASEAN as they prioritize talks with more important economic partners. Take, for instance, RCEP which is a trade agreement without Russia aimed at harmonizing rather than changing the existing “rules of the game” in trade.12 Simpler operations to draw ASEAN into the Greater Eurasian Partnership are also not going well, leaving Russia with only bilateral channels. Even so, this is an area that is fraught with challenges, much of it Russia’s own doing. In 2020 Moscow and Jakarta celebrated the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations. After three decades of tension, relations were reset with a 2003 declaration, but they did not deepen much despite arms sales. Exaggerated claims by the Russian side on security cooperation were belied by silence on China’s actions in the South China Sea. Even so, Lavrov argued that after relations were established Jakarta found Moscow to be a reliable friend in establishing its state, developing its economy, and strengthening its international position. Relations, he added, are poised for broader cooperation as well as a high level of mutual trust for military cooperation.13 Yet the claim that the two closely cooperate on security ignores how Russia deals with China’s infringement into Indonesian waters. Lavrov cited as a priority tightening relations with ASEAN and pointed to Indonesian interest in integration into the Eurasian space, but he offered nothing of substance. On the 70th anniversary with Vietnam. Lavrov recalled standing together in the difficult battle of the Vietnamese people for freedom and independence and in the following peaceful construction. Special mention was made of traditional close ties in defense as well as economic ties, symbolized by the fact that Vietnam became the first state with which the EEU in 2015 signed a FTA, leading to Russia’s trade volume climbing to $6.1 billion in 2018. Although energy ties are heralded, no mention is made of the challenge of exploring for oil and gas in the South China Sea. A rise in Russian tourism to Vietnam is noted, reaching in 2018 about 600,000 visitors. Reference was made to their close positions on both global and regional problems, again with no specifics about blaring differences over relations with China and the US.14 Vietnam buys extensive Russian military technology, leading to Russian ambivalence toward South China Sea problems, and China accepts Russia’s ties there as the lesser of two evils compared to USVietnam military cooperation.15 Yet in July 2020, Beijing pressured Rosneft to abandon its drilling in the Vietnamese continental shelf. Russia is in danger of losing its authority over Southeast Asian states, e.g., Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, which prefer multi-national investments, if it is seen as pro-China and its economic projects favor Chinese interests. One new wrinkle in Russia’s approach arose with an opportunity to play a spoiler role after the military coup in Myanmar in 2021. It boosted ties with an eye to arms sales and an expansion of its influence in the region. This was not, however, a strategy to improve ties to ASEAN. Reminiscent of its embrace of North Korea in the mid-2010s, Russia was acting opportunistically, not strategically.

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The pursuit of the Greater Eurasian Partnership conveys an image of proactive and visionary leadership in an era of integrating megaprojects and reaffirms the “Turn to the East.” Greater Eurasia lowers Russian emphasis on China, upgrading the role of ASEAN, which sees itself as steering great power interactions. One Russian author argued that Trump’s lack of interest in Southeast Asia would compel states in the region to pursue balanced relations with other states. Japan, the EU, India, and Russia are mentioned. She found it fully possible that, despite weak economic ties with Russia, a shared desire to maintain a polycentric structure of international relations would draw them closer.16 Insisting that the BRI and Russia’s initiative are not competitive, Russians bemoan a lack of Russian elite interest and diplomatic resources for Southeast Asia. China offers credits, investment, infrastructure, and trade. The US offers regional security and defense from the Chinese influence. Russia offers neither is the upshot of warnings on Russia’s problems. This has been further hampered by continued talk of a Sino-Russian alliance in response to military exercises in the South China Sea and of Russia demonstrating solidarity with China on territorial issues, seen in Putin’s refusal to recognize the international tribunal’s ruling. One author argued for Russian adherence to neutrality as a court ruling could also be sought by Japan in its dispute with Russia. Distance and lack of experience in this region complicate full inclusion of ASEAN in the Great Eurasian Partnership. Two years after publicizing this theme, Russia had yet to even clarify it, the article concluded.17 It is often clearer what Russia is against than what it is prepared to do. Its calls for an economic partnership have little appeal. Antipathy to the US and acquiescence to China fail to persuade countries inclined to hedge between the two. Rhetoric that ASEAN uses Russia to boost its salience and to check US dominance exaggerates Russia’s role. When ASEAN states agreed to Russia joining the EAS, they sought it along with the US to balance against China’s growing role, economically and politically. Instead, it has focused on balancing the US. An argument that Russia and ASEAN agree on “sovereign democracy” makes little sense if Russia cannot criticize China’s infringements on sovereignty and democracy. Russian Thinking about India

India in the 2010s served as a bulwark for Russian aspirations in Asia. It was seen as a force for Eurasianism, the critical piece in the BRICS, a vital addition to the SCO, a barrier to Sinocentrism and the BRI, and an obstacle due to its strategic autonomy to US ambitions to contain China. Yet Moscow had little to offer except arms to keep India in line, let alone to convince it to join in Russian designs for a regional architecture. Moscow had too little leverage on Beijing to get Delhi to expect any benefits from this troika. Moreover, it could scarcely convince the Indians that Washington was a threat to their interests. The problem for Moscow

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is that it pretends to have an independent foreign policy in Asia but is so bound to China it cannot act accordingly. Although Modi attended the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok on one occasion and visited Russia in December 2015, the results apart from joint military production were paltry. The idea of a “troika” of Russia, China, and India served a few Russian aspirations: to construct a continental architecture, while others had a maritime orientation; to gain the pivot when the two others struggled to improve their relationship; and to prevent a Sinocentric regional order from emerging. Claims to have special closeness to India served to allay concern about getting caught in an asymmetrical dyad with China and averting India’s warming ties to the US and its allies. Yet ties lost even a semblance of closeness, dwarfed by booming Sino-Russian relations. India became more strategic in its thinking or pragmatic in expanding ties of economic advantage. This was quietly acknowledged in the far fewer references to India in Russian commentaries about turning to Asia in the late 2010s. Hovering near $10 billion per year and not changing in structure, trade left Russia marginalized. Its large share of India’s arms purchases was falling amid criticism of delivery and quality problems, as India showed concern about rising Russian arm sales to Pakistan. The expanded SCO gave Russians hope. One writer argued, the influence of the SCO will spread into South Asia with the entry of India and Pakistan, its role as a counterweight international institution will grow, and its scale of almost half of the world’s population and four nuclear powers will, statistically, be prominent. This is the pathway to a multipolar world and a united Eurasian alternative to Western Europe.18 Such optimism was reinforced by claims that Indians are resisting Western intrigues to use India to contain China. In 2016– 17 there were still hints that the troika of Russia, China, and India, in one setting or another, would prevail, stressing Russia’s importance for regional architecture for the future and rules of the game. When Sino-Indian differences were noted, as in Indian opposition to BRI, Russians kept insisting that reconciliation could be achieved. By the end of 2017 idealism about the Greater Eurasian region was falling, and concerns about Russo-Indian relations in the context of the triangle with China were intensifying. While efforts were made to shore up Greater Eurasia and this triangle, warnings intensified, notably in 2020. One expert warned that BRI is both a political and an ideological project. The key ally is Pakistan, to which arms are going in large quantities and through which important transportation corridors pass. Soon Gwadar will be designated a Chinese military base. Pakistan has unpayable debts, and China will not forgive any. It is proceeding similarly with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives.19 India’s boycott of China’s BRI forum was well covered, echoing reservations about China’s plans. Another article blamed Chinese hawks for pushing BRI in a manner that alienates countries.20

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Given sharp disagreements between India and China, Russia could not always succeed in the role of middleman, it was said. Despite insistence that the triad is a major part of forming a polycentric architecture and that they agree on values such as multilateralism, equality, and the superiority of international law, there was strategic avoidance of all sensitive issues. Asked about the existing differences, one Indian official noted that China refuses regular meetings of defense ministers from the three parties. He said also that India wants to give the battle against terrorism key attention, as it stated in BRICS, and it wants support for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, which is opposed by China. India is dissatisfied too with the development of Sino-Pakistan relations, including China’s decision to invest in a project in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, leading India to boycott the BRI summit. An article notes also the near-war over the summer over China’s road construction opposed by Bhutan. Mentioned to are Indian complaints against Russia over Pakistan with experts in recent months speaking of the formation of a Moscow-Beijing-Islamabad triangle aimed against the intended triangle of Washington, Delhi, and Islamabad, citing Russian arms sales to Pakistan. Yet, the article defensively claims that this is geopolitical talk from the past, not from the polycentric world we have entered, and Russia’s deepening ties to Pakistan are not against India’s interests nor is the special linkage with China directed against anyone’s interests.21 In 2018 and 2019 Moscow grasped for new hope with India. The Xi-Modi summit in April 2018 was huge for Russia, which was eager for the contradictions in that relationship, which had deepened economically, politically, and militarily over the prior year, to be reduced. In the spring of 2017, India had boycotted the BRI summit with its inclusion of a transport route through Pakistancontrolled Kashmir and its effort to draw India’s neighbors into China’s planned corridors. The Maldives political crisis, in which China was active, was another blow to India, as was the rental of a Sri Lankan port to China, which could turn into a Chinese naval base along with one in the Maldives. China’s active role in Bangladesh and Myanmar as well as participation in talks over Afghanistan raised fears of a blockade of India by its main geopolitical opponent. Finally, in the fall standoff in Bhutan, where armed conflict was narrowly averted, tensions came to a head. India and China were on the verge of war. India fears that if China constructs the road it has begun in Bhutan, it would control a strategic area and put at risk the corridor between two parts of India; it then cited 1988 and 1998 agreements between China and Bhutan and points to construction violating them. Yet, it pointed to growing impatience in India with the China-Pakistan economic corridor. The article observes that despite both countries being part of the SCO and BRICS, Russia cannot serve a mediating role, and economic ties do not act as a defense against greater conflict.22 Modi’s visit to Wuhan marked the beginning of a dialogue, not just a tactical maneuver to remind Trump of the area, leading to sustained talks and a planned Xi visit to India in 2019. Instead of an India-US alliance, which some

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had forecast after Modi accelerated the process of drawing closer, Trump lost interest in India, pressuring it to join in sanctions against Russia, obliging Modi to turn to China, which would have occurred anyways for objective economic and geopolitical reasons. Already 15 percent of Indian start-ups are financed by China as trade reaches $90 billion. Modi’s economic goals depend on China, while in the trade war with the US, China can find insurance in India. In geopolitics India is losing on the Maldives and can best respond by cutting a deal with China on demarcating spheres of influence—instead of fighting over the BRI and in accord with India’s strategic autonomy at a time of Sino-US discord. This would give Russia room to maneuver before India draws too close to the US, concludes an upbeat Russian article.23 Another article focuses on closer Sino-Indian relations. Although some factors will continue to divide these states for perhaps five to ten years, it calls on Russia to treat India as a reliable partner on a par with China and the US. The April 2018 Wuhan summit achieved far more than expected and proved that Indo-US ties are far from the tacit alliance some have claimed. The author sees Trump angering Delhi with his blackmail and giving it no choice but to draw closer to Beijing, which would have occurred anyways for economic and security reasons. Trade may have hit $90 billion in 2018, as investments are also rising rapidly. As for security, states on the Indian Ocean are turning to China economically, and India lacks the means to be seen as the protector against China. The best hope for India is to work out a demarcation of spheres of influence that guarantees China’s economic interests in return for India’s economic and security ones, as India preserves strategic autonomy. Having shifted toward the US, it is now shifting toward China.24 The Indian elite has turned away from Russia due to pro-American propaganda and reactions to Russia’s moves toward China and Pakistan (arms sales and military exercises). Somehow, Russia needs to demonstrate to India that it is independent of China and will not become its junior partner, e.g., through ties to Vietnam (the most appealing triangle where military ties remain close), Indonesia, and Japan (where India could bring the other two closer). There is a need to consult with China on these formats, which will recognize the benefits in more space for maneuvering at the expense of the US. For Russia, India represents an independent pole along with China and the US, justifying pursuit of it as if China will be supportive.25 Civilizational arguments were invoked to affirm both Russo-Indian and SinoIndia closeness. One source posited overlap on most questions as alternatives to Atlantic civilization and places in the “non-Western” world demonstrating the end of the Western stage in the development of the system of international relations. Both India and China are at the stage of long-term economic and culturalcivilizational rise, becoming drivers of Eurasian and global growth, harboring resentments over the trauma in national identity of loss of status in world politics. They are revisionist players, ready to rewrite the West’s rules of the game.

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Each is obsessive about national sovereignty. Given positive historical ties between the two, their new ties will mean consolidation of the heartland and renewal of Eurasia.26 This new heartland will become an “axis of history.” The US opposes the consolidation of Eurasia, pressing for the maximum contradictions between China and India, it is said. The Russo-Indian-Chinese (RIC) triangle has been reactivated. This is geographically more compact than the BRICS. Russia seeks to refocus on the triangle, the article suggests. The three can meet at the G20, BRICS, the SCO, etc., but more is needed for consolidation, the piece warned.27 It added that some Russians see Moscow gaining as the pivot in the triangle with no shift southward in the Eurasian center, marginalizing it. Yet, both Beijing and Delhi react with suspicion to play on their contradictions, and the situation may arise when Moscow is forced to take sides, causing big losses. It is up to China, the stronger country, to allay suspicions was the wary conclusion drawn. More desperate assessments appeared too. Suggesting that the SCO can serve as a platform for new Sino-Indian dialogue and that normalization of Indo-Chinese relations would breathe new life into Russia’s “Turn to the East,” an article noted that India is gradually leaning toward the US. Washington is taking advantage of Sino-Indian tensions, and Russia cannot offer India economic cooperation—new technology, new markets—on the desired scale. US arms sales are rising. Political, economic, and cultural ties with India are attenuating in comparison to India’s ties to Russia’s rivals. Yet, India does not join anti-Russian sanctions or yield to Western pressure. If an exclusive orientation by Moscow to Beijing happens as Indo-Chinese contradictions are escalating, trust in Moscow could be badly hurt, while Western states would be eager to take Russia’s place.28 After the border clash in July 2020, Russia helplessly hosted an SCO summit unable to address the cavernous gap that now existed between India and China, silently avoiding taking either’s side.29 With the term Eurasia coming into wide usage, as the crux of discussions about a new world order, the fact that Russia is its birthplace is noticed. If China and India are recognized as the epicenter of modernization after five centuries when the West temporarily had that role, it is Eurasia that is rising to be the center of the world. Russia is added as the third country in the mix for its influence on Eurasia and its central place in the BRI, which connects Eurasia. Russia’s key task in Eurasia is to achieve maximum closeness between India and China, since it has no strategic competition with either of these two giants, many have assumed. They are harking back to the troika framework. Another writer notes that both Russia and India need to be careful in their choice. They are swing powers, striving for multipolarity, which can block unipolar or bipolar mechanisms. If Russia allied with China or India with the US, the dynamics would shift. They could guarantee the loss of either hegemon if they worked together. Optimal for both is to maintain their strategic autonomy. India should avoid siding with the US to avoid escalation of border conflicts, maximize

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its development, and gain access to technology and arms. To refute Indian press coverage that Russia is a Chinese vassal and supports Pakistan and Russian coverage that India is becoming a US junior partner and Russia is losing out, they need to forge a kind of alliance to overcome all of the shortcomings.30 In 2015 Russia saw Modi’s emergence as good for triangularity with China and Russia. If the US was trying to arouse Indian fear of China, it would not succeed or India would end up isolated.31 The author of that piece, Gleb Ivashentsov, wrote again in 2020, calling India the key state, which is not “leaving to the West.” It prefers to avoid firm declarations on serious international issues and to keep maximum freedom to maneuver on the global arena, while affirming its key role in the Indian Ocean and part of the Pacific Ocean. India shows understanding of Russia’s international behavior, from the Soviet introduction of troops into Afghanistan to the return of Crimea. It has not imposed sanctions against Russia. Its two main problems with Pakistan and China cannot be resolved without Russia’s participation. Modi attended the 2019 EEF aiming to widen economic participation in the Russian Far East, and he has interest in a North-South corridor through Iran to Russia and Western Europe and in control of terrorism in Central Asia. Such claims were characteristic of the heady days when close China ties and multipolarity were both expected.32 More forthright blame in 2020 was placed on China for spoiling relations with countries in the region, including India. One article says the US and India are uniting in anger against China, and they are forging stronger military ties, which could change the balance of power in the region. It hints at blaming China for alienating India. Citing the crisis in the Himalayas that helped change Indian thinking, it suggests that US diplomats believe it will draw India into regional partnerships with the US, Japan, and Australia. India is looking more favorably on participation in the anti-Chinese coalition. This strikes a huge blow against Russian geopolitical aspirations, it finds.33 India is not showing its former restraint about rapprochement with the US. In 2020, India is expected to purchase $20 billion worth of weapons. Previously negative on the presence of foreign militaries near its borders. India blessed the US defensive agreement with the Maldives. 34 There is more than a wisp of disappointment that China is driving states toward the US rather than rallying states in Asia behind the Sino-Russian agenda of prioritizing opposition to the US presence. Russia risks losing India by leaning always to China in this triangle. Even a former ambassador to Moscow known for being sympathetic is asking why Russians keep ignoring the threat that India is facing. A passage in a speech by Lavrov aroused anger. He charged that the West is trying to drag India into anti-Chinese games with the Quad and to sharply weaken Russia’s ties to India, including in military-technological cooperation. There was also mention of India being a separate pole under pressure from the West but not yielding. Yet the Indian press jumped on Lavrov’s remarks and the postponement of a Russia-India summit.

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The leader of Congress attacked the government for disrupting traditional ties with Russia. The foreign ministry responded the postponement had been due to the pandemic, and the opposition’s remarks could lead to irresponsible rumors that could truly damage relations with Russia. Lavrov’s remarks were not timely given the fact that a half year had passed since the Sino-Indian border fighting had occurred with military tensions persisting.35 India sees Russia as gradually turning into a junior partner of China, just standing by no matter how tensions worsen. On the sensitive question of the Indo-Pacific region, Russia keeps telling India to drop the idea when many countries are drawn to it. This is not an American plot but an idea widely popular in Indian expert circles. Leaning to China, Russia is seen as no longer a major actor in the Indian Ocean. Nostalgia for Russo-Indian friendship will disappear if nothing changes. If Russia unquestioningly supports all of China’s actions in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, India will join the American camp.36 If it is an autonomous, powerful player in the region cooperating with India, that would be good for China too, which does not want to see India become an American bastion, concludes a Russian article, suggesting a backlash to the momentum of late to ally with China.37 On December 6, 2021, Putin met Modi in New Delhi, striving to breathe new life into bilateral relations. Defense topped the agenda, extending a military technology agreement. In defiance of forces pulling the two countries apart, they reaffirmed their special relationship. The subtext, however, was Modi’s desire to keep Russia from drawing even closer to China and Putin’s aim to keep alive the notion that Russia is not fully in China’s camp. Upbeat messages reflected the mood in Moscow to keep alive a vision of Greater Eurasia beyond Sino-Russian relations as it was intensifying conflict over Ukraine and facing even greater dependency on China. The Ukraine war from February 2022 and Quad summit of May 2022 tested India’s place in the Indo-US-Russian triangle. Russia took comfort from India’s refusal to condemn its attack and to join in sanctions. The US was frustrated but responded patiently. The upshot of the summit was further strengthening of the Quad to the disappointment of Russia but no sign that India would take a stance against Russia. Moscow found some comfort in that. Conclusion

Russia counted on ASEAN and India for its Greater Eurasia Partnership from 2015, pleased that the BRICS and an expanded SCO reinforced this agenda. Yet apart from renewed hope for the RIC triad in 2018, expectations have soured. In 2020–21 a combination of the FOIP and Quad led by the US and India’s outrage over China’s aggressive behavior throttled Russian plans. Some Russians even warned that Moscow is becoming marginalized in ASEAN and sidelined by India over its excessive tilt to China. Greater Eurasia increasingly appears to be an

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empty shell. Yet, the Ukraine war saw Russians double down on China ties and content themselves with India’s restrained response. Moscow had to backtrack on energy exploration in the South China Sea and to remain silent in triangular settings over Sino-Indian fighting in the Himalayas. By prioritizing its relationship with China, it has lost ground in Asia’s southern tier, watching a resurgent US host Quad summits. Obsessing about overturning the US-led world order, Moscow has deferred to China’s assertion of a Sinocentric Asian order, which is undercutting plans for Greater Eurasia and multipolarity. A backlash in Russia could be detected to an alliance with China, which could enable Sinocentrism and marginalize Russia in Southeast and South Asia. Rethinking the idea of the “Indo-Pacific” as less US containment of China leading to bipolarity than a quest by India and others for regional balance with room for Russia if it avoids alliance with China was under debate. In 2022, however, there was no room for questioning bipolarity. It was Russia, more than China, driving the world in that direction. Notes 1 Aleksei Kupriyanov, “Zokoldovannyi Treugol’nik: postoianno podderzhivaia Kitai, Rossiia riskuet poteriat’ Indiiu,” Profil’, January 12, 2021. 2 See Ch. 1. 3 See Ch. 2. 4 Anton Tsvetov, “Vmesto Povorota: ASEAN i Evraziiskii proekt Rossii,” Carnegie.ru, October 17, 2017. 5 Igor Denisov, Oleg Paramonov, Ekaterina Arapova, and Igor Safranchuk, “Russia, China, and the Concept of Indo-Pacific,” Journal of Eurasian Studies, vol. 21, 2021, 72–88. 6 Anton Tsvetov, “Russia Still Seeking a Role in ASEAN,” Carnegie.ru, May 19, 2016. Anton Tsvetov, “Indo-Tikhookeanskii Front,” Carnegie.ru, March 22, 2018. 7 Ibid. 8 Aleksei Kupriyanov, “Zokoldovannyi Treugol’nik.” 9 Vitaly Kozyrev, “Russia-Southeast Asian Relations in China’s Shadow,” The Asan Forum, April 19, 2016. 10 Viktor Samoylenko, “Five Decades of ASEAN,” International Affairs, No. 3, 2017. 11 Aleksei Sinitsyn, “Integration Processes in the Asia-Pacific Region: Russia and ASEAN,” International Affairs, No. 5, 2018. 12 Aleksandr Korolev and Grigory Kalachigin, “Na Vostochnom fronte est’ permeny: Shto oznachaet podpisanie VREP?” Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, November 16, 2020. 13 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, February 4, 2020. 14 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Article by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ‘Russia and Vietnam…,’” January 29, 2020. 15 Dmitri Streltsov, “Russia’s Position on Territorial Conflicts in East Asia,” International Affairs, No. 6, 2017. 16 Ekaterina Koldunova, “Iugo-Vostochnaia Aziia: Snova na periferii Amerikanskogo vnimaniia?” Rossiiskii Sovet po Mezhdunarodnym Delam, May 15, 2017. 17 Dmitri Streltsov, “Russia’s Position on Territorial Conflicts in East Asia.” 18 Andrei Kortunov, “ShOS-Kamen: otvergnutyi stroiteliami novoi Evrazii,” Rossiiskii Sovet po Mezhdunarodnym Delam, May 14, 2018. 19 Aleksandr Lukin, “Sokrytie vozmozhnostei ili triumfal’noe shestvie,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, November 19, 2018.

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20 Aleksandr Lukin, “Diskussiia o razvitii Kitaia i perspektivy ego vneshnei politiki, Polis, No. 1, 2019. 21 Sergei Strokhan’, “Chlenov b’iut a ShOS krepchaiet,” Kommersant, May 15, 2017. 22 Dmitri Narkevskii, “Kitai Indiia: Nezamechennaia vstrecha Moscow, Russia,” Rossiiskii Sovet po Mezhdunarodnym Delam, May 4, 2018. 23 Aleksei Kupriyanov, “Velikii Iuzhnoaziatskii Povorot,” Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, November 22, 2018. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Andrei Kortunov, “Vossoedinenie Khartlenda,” Rossiiskii Sovet po Mezhdunarodnym Delam, February 6, 2019. 27 Sergei Strokhan’, “Chlenov b’iut a ShOS krepchaiet.” 28 Aleksandr Gabuev, “Bol’she, da Khuzhe: Kak Rossiya prevratila ShOS v klub bez interesov,” Carnegie.ru, June 13, 2017. 29 Kommersant, September 10, 2020. 30 Aleksei Kupriyanov, Aleksandr Korolev, and Nanndan Unikrishnan, “Rossiia i India kak tret’ia sila novogo miroporiadka,” Russia in Global Affairs, No. 3, 2019. 31 Gleb Ivashentsov, “The Indian Ocean: New Players in the Game,” International Affairs, 2015. 32 Gleb Ivashentsov, “Novye Rubezhi Indii,” Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’, No. 4, 2020. 33 Sergey Trush, “Rossiia-SShA-Kitai: Rezony i riski, Rossiisko-Kitaiskogo voennogo sblizheniia,” Vestnik Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk, No. 21, 2020. 34 V. Skozyrev, “Vashington vtiagivaet partnerov v antikitaiskii blok,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 4, 2020. 35 Aleksei Kupriyanov, “Zokoldovannyi Treugol’nik: postoianno podderzhivaia Kitai, Rossiia riskuet poteriat’ Indiiu,” Profil’, January 12, 2021. 36 Aleksei Kupriyanov and Alexander Korolev, “The Eurasian Chord and the Oceanic Ring,” Valdai Club, September. 2019. 37 Aleksei Kupriyanov, “Indo-Patsifika kak geopoliticheskii konstrukt: podkhod Indii i interesy Rossii,” Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’, No. 11, 2021.

PART III

Reconciling the Ukraine War and the “Turn to the East”

10 RUSSIAN THINKING ABOUT CSTO PEACEKEEPING Central Asia, China, and the Ukraine War Gaye Christoffersen

When Putin defined his vision of a Eurasian regional order on June 17, 2016, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, he called it the Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP), an international organization that would incorporate the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China, China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), Japan, India, Pakistan, Iran, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, and European countries. Many of the countries and organizations included in the GEP vision were not aware they were in it, and many were uncertain what its purpose was. The EEU had been Putin’s economic integration initiative for a customs union among post-Soviet states. He hoped to create a Russian sphere of influence in the territory of the former Soviet Union. Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan joined the EEU. The EEU would only have been economically relevant if Ukraine had joined it, which it refused to do, leaving the EEU struggling to be viable. The EEU and BRI had been officially linked during the May 8–9, 2015 visit by Xi Jinping to Moscow. The Chinese referred to this as docking [对接] the two projects, and the new framework created by this docking “一带一盟” [one belt, one union]. From 2015 to the present, there has not been a successful docking. The EEU was meant to block Chinese economic penetration of Central Asia but was unsuccessful as Beijing had treated the EEU as a corridor for the BRI. The GEP was a much larger strategy to counterbalance China, meant to show Russia as taking the initiative in the post-Soviet space of Central Asia, and to treat this as the center of a much larger Eurasian regional architecture linked to other regional organizations such as the SCO and ASEAN.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-14

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Much has been written about the EEU and the GEP as economic integration mechanisms. There was another organization in the post-Soviet space that has been less studied, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which was meant to function as a post-Soviet security mechanism for peacekeeping, and a mechanism for security cooperation with China. This article examines the CSTO’s relations in the post-Soviet space and with China, taking the Ukraine crisis as a case study of CSTO viability as a peacekeeping organization. CSTO in the Post-Soviet Space

Vladimir Putin’s speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference presented his view of Russia’s security interests and warned the West against North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) eastward expansion. Putin was particularly concerned about post-Soviet countries joining NATO.1 It was the same year that Putin began to shape the CSTO into an organization for peacekeeping, which he has continued to do up to the present. Putin also expected the CSTO to help Moscow create a Russian sphere of influence among post-Soviet states. Additionally, Putin hoped to make the CSTO a basis for resistance to NATO and NATO’s eastward expansion. The CSTO had begun as a Collective Security Treaty (CST) among post-Soviet countries in 1992 focused on terrorism. In 2002, CST member states agreed to form a military alliance, a collective security arrangement, CSTO. On October 7, 2007, the organization created a legal framework for forming its peacekeeping activities, Agreement on Peacekeeping Activities of the CSTO.2 The Agreement allowed for deployment of peacekeeping operations (PKO) within member states’ territory and also outside of CSTO members. Deployment outside of the CSTO was important for cooperation with the United Nations (UN). However, despite the steady institutionalization of the organization, the CSTO did not actually engage in a peacekeeping mission until January 2022 in Kazakhstan. The CSTO had become under Putin a collective security arrangement to form a Eurasian regional order, an alternative to the Western liberal order. Other CSTO countries were not as negative on NATO. Armenia contributes forces to NATO peacekeeping. Kazakhstan, through NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, established a training center in December 2007, and had annual military exercises with NATO allies called “Steppe Eagle” since 2006.3 The Russian rationale for peacekeeping in the post-Soviet space is that Russia has a duty to protect ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking populations living there. Victims of ethnic conflict in the near abroad expect Russia to rescue them. Moscow claimed it had this responsibility since the international community was not interested in participating in peacekeeping in the post-Soviet space.4 Chinese analysts have noted Moscow’s stress on exerting influence over the post-Soviet space as a means for Russia to regain its status as a great power, and Chinese recognize that the mechanisms used by Moscow to consolidate its

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leadership in Central Asia are the CSTO and the EEU. Chinese analysts recognized the tension between Moscow’s ambitions to integrate and lead the postSoviet states, and those states’ determination to consolidate their sovereignty and territorial integrity, which led to Russia and post-Soviet states continuously adjusting and negotiating their relationship. Post-Soviet states feel they cannot completely cut off all ties with Moscow lest they provoke the Kremlin, nor can they let Moscow undermine their sovereignty.5 In December 2021, Xi Jinping discussed with Putin possibilities in China’s relationship with the CSTO. According to TASS, Beijing intended to expand its cooperation with Russia and the CSTO to maintain security and stability.6 Xi implied China might participate in a joint peacekeeping mission with the CSTO. The CSTO welcomed dialogue and cooperation with China to maintain stability in the Eurasian region.7 China’s interest in the CSTO was as a source of security for its BRI in Central Asia. As an economic initiative, the BRI lacked a political framework. In May 2018, Xi Jinping tried to incorporate the SCO into the BRI at the SCO’s Tianjin meeting, which would have given the BRI a political framework. Xi’s initiative was vetoed by India. Cooperating with the CSTO might institutionalize further a political framework for Central Asia. It would have initiated China’s security role in the region in a way that would not threaten Moscow or Central Asian countries. Moscow had frowned on China’s new military facility in Tajikistan and also Chinese bilateral military exercises with Central Asian states. Peacekeeping entails maintaining functional civil-military relations. An enduring issue for civil-military studies is civilian control of the power of the armed forces, ensuring their accountability to civilian authorities, and their compliance with civil and human rights to not target civilian populations. There is much written on the Russian and Chinese militaries but much less on their civil-military relations because the study of this poses many challenges. One is the assumption that Leninist systems command strong loyalty from their militaries and maintain good civilian control through a system of political commissars and party secretaries. In 2018, Putin created a new directorate responsible for military-patriotic work within the Russian army, resurrecting a Soviet-era practice. Therefore, there is an assumption that there is no problem of losing civilian control. However, there are many other issues in Leninist systems’ civil-military relations that warrant further examination. One challenge is the merging of civilian and military roles, especially with the Chinese Long March generation which had both military and civilian roles. More recently problematic is China’s militarycivilian fusion (MCF), whose purpose is for China to develop the most technologically advanced military in the world by removing barriers between civilian commercial research and China’s defense industrial sectors, thus incorporating civilian researchers into military projects.8 An additional issue is whether there is military dominance of foreign policymaking leading to securitization of policy, or alternatively, the military could

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have a moderating influence on civilian leaders. Both Russia and China have what might be called the “chicken hawk” problem in Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, where militarized civilians do not represent civilian interests in relations with their military, nor do they represent military interests as they are much more willing to initiate military adventurism than the uniformed services. A chicken hawk is defined as a person who advocates for war yet has themself avoided active military service. The chicken hawk assumes he is a great military strategist but invariably embroils the military in disasters such as wars of choice with ambiguous objectives. During wars and peacekeeping, does the military deliberately target civilians? Do peacekeeping operations focus on protecting civilians? What is the military’s treatment of civilian conscripts? The prospect of Sino-Russian joint peacekeeping leads to questions on Russian concepts of peacekeeping compared to Chinese concepts. Empirical analysis of peacekeeping allows for comparing norms of civil-military relations with their practical application on the ground. China and the CSTO

Xi Jinping’s interest in the CSTO is surprising given previous Chinese skepticism of the organization. A prominent Chinese analyst, Zhao Huasheng, in March 2021, reflected this doubt on the CSTO as a peacekeeping organization, as it seemed to be a means to create a Russian sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space that would keep other great powers, including China, out. Russia was focused on restoring a special relationship—political, military, economic, and cultural—promoting regional integration through the CSTO. Zhao thought Russia’s goal would face challenges from sovereign states’ resistance to political integration with Russia.9 The 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan had led to discussion of ChinaCSTO relations in the context of setting up a buffer zone around Afghanistan at the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border, patrolled by the CSTO, to protect Central Asia and Xinjiang. Some Chinese analysts suggested China could coordinate with, if not participate in, the CSTO patrols of the buffer zone, while other Chinese thought it was not in China’s interest to officially take part in this military alliance.10 In September 2021, there was a joint meeting of SCO and CSTO Heads of State to discuss the security situation in Afghanistan. Putin suggested closer contact between the CSTO and the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), and the participation of the CSTO collective rapid reaction forces in SCO counterterrorism exercises.11 Xi Jinping agreed that the CSTO-SCO jointly play a stabilizing role in Afghanistan and eradicate terrorist organizations.12 It was at that time that Putin added an amendment to the CSTO peacekeeping agreement that CSTO would be under the leadership of a “coordinating state.” Russia intended itself to be the coordinating state. The Russian Duma ratified

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Putin’s proposal, but none of the other CSTO members’ parliaments have ratified the amendment, possibly concerned that Putin might use this to drag the CSTO into a conflict with Ukraine. In January 2022, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed support for cooperation between the CSTO and the SCO in relation to the CSTO intervention in Kazakhstan. Wang’s preference seemed to be working through the SCO rather than China-CSTO relations. However, a Chinese analyst noted that “the SCO lacks the toolbox to directly intervene. Nor does it have any provision allowing it to send troops into member states.”13 Under Russian leadership, the CSTO carried out a peacekeeping mission for the first time in January 2022 in Kazakhstan. On January 5, 2022, Kazakh President Tokayev requested assistance from the CSTO to manage protestors. He, in effect, was asking for Kremlin assistance, to overcome what Tokayev called a “foreign terrorist threat.” The CSTO would only have come to his assistance if his country was under attack from foreign forces, not domestic protestors, leading him to declare the protests were led by foreign terrorists. CSTO troops were dispatched within days. On January 19, 2022, the CSTO announced the peacekeeping operation was over and all troops had left Kazakhstan. At that time, China was marginalized and sidelined in Kazakhstan. Russian China expert Igor Denisov noted that Beijing had less political leverage in Kazakhstan than Moscow despite Beijing’s economic clout. Denisov suggested China benefited from the Russian and CSTO security role in Central Asia. He was critical of China’s wait-and-see approach, while Russia was the active player in Kazakhstan. He thought it was possible for Beijing to accept a security role in the future, hinting China could be part of such an operation if it so chose.14 The Russian intervention in Kazakhstan’s domestic riots was understood by both Russians and Chinese to have shifted the balance within Kazakhstan toward Moscow. Russian analysts were quick to point out this transformation and to emphasize that Chinese investments in Central Asia required Russian protection. Alexander Gabuev noted that China lacks what Russia possesses—airborne troops that speak the local language, which can be dispatched in a matter of hours, and have good intelligence on Kazakh elite politics and decision-making.15 Dmitri Trenin predicted that Kazakhstan would become more pro-Russian and a much more reliable ally, giving up its multivector diplomacy that cultivated China, the US, European Union (EU), and NATO, which had irritated the Kremlin.16 Trenin situated the Kazakh crisis in a larger transformation by Moscow, which was no longer tolerating post-Soviet states’ multivector diplomacy. He warned that Moscow is rebuilding itself as the leading great power in the postSoviet space, and that “the geopolitical retreat that Russia began three decades ago has ended, and a new policy of selective expansion based on Russia’s national interests has commenced.”17The Russian Ambassador to Kazakhstan, Alexey Borodavkin, claimed that the Steppe Eagle military exercise that Kazakhstan

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hosted with the US and NATO, would “no longer fly in Kazakhstan” because Kazakhstan was now more firmly a part of the CSTO.18 The CSTO followed up on Wang Yi’s suggestion for closer CSTO-SCO cooperation. On February 16, 2022, the CSTO, the Commonwealth of Independent States Anti-Terrorism Center (CIS ATC), and the SCO RATS signed a joint agreement on common approaches to countering international terrorism and extremism. The agreement supported the UN Security Council resolution 2354 (2017) on countering terrorist ideas and the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. The organizations considered themselves to be part of a broad antiterrorist coalition, which could come under the auspices of the UN.19 The agreement had been signed in Moscow the same day the UN Security Council debated cooperation between the UN peacekeeping system and the CSTO. In 2010, the CSTO had signed the Joint Declaration on Cooperation between the United Nations and the CSTO. The UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy in Central Asia had worked in close partnership with the CSTO on issues such as cross-border crime, terrorism, and drug trafficking. More recently from 2020 to 2022, the CSTO worked especially hard to establish its legitimacy within the UN PKO system. 20 There was a 2020 CSTO Plan to Start Negotiations with the UN to include CSTO peacekeepers within UN international peacekeeping forces. Chinese and Russian Peacekeeping

A major difference between China and Russia is that China is much more active in UN PKO. In December 2021, there were 2.235 Chinese peacekeepers and 79 Russian peacekeepers contributing to UN missions.21 Russian peacekeeping operations differ from UN missions in their lack of attention to mediation and constructive dialogue, and other peacebuilding efforts that could support peaceful resolution. The values of the UN, protection of the individual through development, peace and security, and human rights are reflected in the UN’s core obligation to protect civilians in armed conflict. In the 1990s, responding to atrocities in Rwanda and the Balkans, the UN moved toward principles of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). States committed to these principles at the 2005 UN World Summit. China and Russia were skeptical of R2P, although in 1956 China had ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention, which protects civilians in areas of armed conflict, Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, signed on August 12, 1949. There are 159 articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV), which state that civilians are to be protected from murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, torture, or brutality, and from discrimination on the basis of race, nationality, religion, or political opinion. Civilians are defined as persons not participating in armed conflict or no longer participating. On November 12, 2019, Russia withdrew from the Fourth Geneva Convention.22

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Chinese PKO values tend to emphasize a strong state, political order, and social stability.23 Chinese are concerned with protecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a state, not getting involved in combat missions, and promoting state capacity-building especially in infrastructure. Given China’s principle of noninterference in domestic affairs, it has been cautiously supportive of R2P under certain conditions—if there are large-scale killings of civilians and mass violence, if the state is failing, and if the UN Security Council approves. China vacillates on a case-by-case basis but is considered to be adapting to the concept of R2P. Russian-style peacekeeping shares with China a state-centric focus and concern with preserving order rather than protecting civilians. Russia’s understanding of R2P has been used to justify military interventions in post-Soviet states to protect the rights of ethnic Russians. China’s experience with peacekeeping has taken a different trajectory than Russia’s. The UN PKO has been a venue for building China’s international image. There have been more than 40,000 Chinese peacekeepers participating in 30 UN missions. China has developed principles for peacekeeping that include UN Security Council control of PKO, host state consent to PKO, the non-use of force except in self-defense, the need to retain impartiality, and adhere to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. All of these principles align with UN principles. In the Chinese view of peacekeeping, there is minimal space for an independent role for civil society and NGOs. Chinese are opposed to UN PKO promotion of a host country’s domestic political reform, which they fear Western states would use to encourage political liberalization. The Chinese have tried to increase the legitimacy of the one-party state and authoritarian governance, arguing there is no single model for peacebuilding. Xi Jinping is intent on China expanding its influence in global governance and transforming the global governance system. China’s participation within the UN PKO system has allowed it to continually shape from within UN norms, UN procedures, and how the UN organizes PKO.24 Russia has followed two alternative tracks in peacekeeping, one with the UN and NATO, and the other gradually creating a Eurasian peacekeeping force that reflects Russian-style peacekeeping at odds with UN PKO. Putin has dispatched Russian armed forces for overseas missions in Georgia, Syria, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, which he called peacekeeping missions, but lack the legitimacy of UN PKO and are not internationally recognized as peacekeeping missions. The ideal Russian civil-military relationship is portrayed in a Russian account of civil-military relations during WWII in Primorsky Krai, which notes that an acute labor shortage led to special forms of civil-military interaction. Responsibility for overseeing development of defense capabilities was delegated to civil authority, the Far Eastern Regional Committee of All-Union Communist Party. Soviet military personnel were assigned civilian agricultural tasks. The army, the Special Red Banner Far East Army (Osobaya Krasnoznamennaya Delnevostochnaya

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Armiya, OKVDA), and the Pacific Fleet (TOF) were involved in the collectivization of farms, consolidating individual farms into collective farms. Discharged soldiers were encouraged to settle in the Soviet Far East and farm. During WWII, wartime labor shortages in factories led to placing military personnel into the industrial work force. Fishing boats were used for military transport, and soldiers worked as fishermen. This Russian account of civil-military relations in Primorye during WWII upholds the melding of civilian and military roles.25 This WWII experience, and the Cold War afterward, left a distinctive political culture of a militarized civilian population with minimal political space for an autonomous civil society. When the author arrived in Vladivostok, capital of Primorsky Krai, in 1992, she was stunned to find the civilian population so mobilized and militarized. Primorye was home to the Soviet Pacific Fleet, making this a unique situation and not generalizable to other Russian territories. Another civil-military dimension is the recruitment of civilians as conscripts in the military. Analysts claim that the problematic nature of Russian mandatory service has been for the past three centuries the basic problem of Russian civilmilitary relations.26 Conscripts are notoriously brutalized in the army with reports of starvation, hazing, and beatings. Russian civilians promote replacing conscription with a professional military force but are opposed by Russian military elites. The 2008 Russian-Georgian War revealed the problem of inertia and lack of motivation in the conscript-based army.27 In 2001, Putin promised to end military conscription but has not yet implemented this reform. On the issue of a military’s restraining influence on civilian elites, studies of the Russian use of force and civil-military relations found military elites did not have a restraining influence on political elites’ defense policy, but they were more hesitant to support an interventionist foreign policy compared to civilian political elites.28 Putin views the world through information provided by a small circle— the FSB (Federal Security Service), SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service), and FSO (Federal Protective Service), giving him a distorted view of reality and contributing to securitization of foreign policy.29 By contrast, NATO, as an alliance of democracies, emphasizes civilian control with a constant exchange of political and military views. In January 2003, the Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) Group North (CIMIC Group North) was created to advise a NATO Commander with a coordinated approach to civilmilitary expertise, important during NATO operations.30 This exchange of civilian and military views is replicated throughout the organization. When the former Warsaw Pact countries joined the Partnership for Peace program with NATO, they began a process of socialization and transformation that required them to adopt new practices and culture in civil-military relations.31 Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program with NATO in 1994 but experienced much less socialization. According to NATO, it was trying to build a partnership with Russia, developing practical cooperation in areas of common interest, and carrying out a dialogue. Russia joined the North Atlantic Cooperation

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Council (1991) and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (1997). The 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act forged the formal basis for bilateral relations and included the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council (PJC) as a forum for consultation, which was replaced by the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) in 2002. According to a NATO brochure, in the 1990s initial stage of the relationship, Russian peacekeepers working with NATO-led peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Bosnia exhibited “military professionalism, discipline” and even-handedness. During their service in the Balkans, Russian peacekeepers got to know how NATO works and acts.32 Russia passed a law on June 23, 1995, Federal Law No. 93-FZ On Procedures for Deploying Civil and Military Personnel for Activities Related to the Maintenance or Restoration of the International Peace and Security, providing a legal framework for Russian military and civilian personnel to participate in UN peacekeeping operations. NATO-Russian relations have had a mixed history. Russia did not seek authorization for military intervention from the UN Security Council before the 2008 military intervention in Georgia that Putin called peacekeeping. Putin claimed Russian troops were protecting human rights under the R2P. Russian recognition of the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states led to NATO suspending formal meetings of the NRC, which were then resumed in 2009. The Russian formal training of Russian peacekeeping forces is claimed to be based on the same training UN Blue Helmets receive mixed with experiences from the Afghan War, Transcaucasus, and other conflicts. However, Russian peacekeepers do not maintain neutrality, and end up being a party to the conflict. In contrast to traditional UN peacekeeping, Russian peacekeepers rely on heavy artillery, forcefully separating the opposing sides, and forcefully pressuring combatants to come to an agreement. Russian peacekeepers believe they must have “a powerful strike force of long-range artillery groups, combat helicopters and ground attack aircraft, as well as with a mobile reserve of tactical forces in tanks or APCs.”33 A USIP report found Russian peacekeeping driven by geostrategic interests and global political ambitions with behavioral patterns reflecting Russian strategic culture, all at odds with UN principles.34 The report noted that in the near abroad in Europe and Central Asia, Moscow preferred “weak, corrupt, conflict-ridden, and economically dependent states over which Moscow can exert leverage.”35 The CSTO and EEU were created for this purpose. NATO-Russian cooperation was suspended in 2014 due to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea, which NATO states it will never recognize, although it still remains open to dialogue with Russia.36 Despite tensions, NATO’s policy continued to be strengthening deterrence while remaining open to dialogue with Russia. The NRC resumed meetings in 2016, holding 11 meetings since then until 2022. In October 2021, NATO had reduced the Russian mission to NATO due to a large number of undeclared intelligence officers in it.

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In December 2021, Russia proposed a legally binding treaty to NATO, demanding NATO not enlarge further to the east and prohibiting NATO from deploying military forces or weaponry in member states that joined after 1997 which would be former members of the Soviet bloc. Russia’s proposal was against NATO’s Open Door Policy.37 On January 12, 2022, the NRC met to discuss Russia’s military build-up in and around Ukraine, and Russia’s proposal to block NATO’s eastward expansion. Putin had linked the two issues. The NRC has not met again since then. In January 2022, the CSTO had its first peacekeeping mission in Kazakhstan. The CSTO intervention was considered successful since Russian forces only guarded facilities such as the airport, were reported to never have had contact with Kazakh civilians, and departed Kazakhstan after a few days. It was a careful and well-choreographed performance rather than genuine peacekeeping. This was the first use of CSTO troops in a peacekeeping mission. The Kazakh PKO experience was touted by Russians as demonstrating Russian political leadership in a Russian sphere of influence in the Central Asian postSoviet space. The Kazakh PKO was meant to demonstrate to China that Russia had strategic and cultural influence in Central Asia. China had expected Central Asia to go through a process of de-Russification that would reduce Russian cultural influence and allow for larger Chinese economic influence.38 Following the January 2022 CSTO peacekeeping in Kazakhstan, Russia sought to establish greater legitimacy for the CSTO in the UN. On February 16, 2022, Russia, as Security Council president, organized a debate in the UN Security Council on the CSTO’s partnership with the UN. TASS reported that Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin discussed with the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the possibility of expanding participation of the CSTO in UN global peacekeeping operations.39 Previously, the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly on April 21, 2021, had adopted by consensus a resolution on cooperation between the UN and the CSTO. The February 16, 2022 UN session debated furthering cooperation in peacekeeping under the Action for Peacekeeping initiative and its implementation strategy, the Action for Peacekeeping Plus.40 This was the third time Russia had organized this debate. There were similar debates on October 28, 2016 and September 25, 2019, when Russia was Security Council president. Security Council members were divided. The US and UK were skeptical of CSTO motives.41 This was only four days before Putin’s declaration he would dispatch Russian peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine. Chinese UN Ambassador Zhang Jun praised the Russian initiative in the Security Council, supported CSTO peacekeeping in Kazakhstan, and supported CSTO participating in UN PKO. He stated that China planned to increase its communication and coordination with the CSTO member states. Zhang noted that “China stands ready to work with the CSTO member states to deepen

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cooperation in promotion of BRI.”42 The UN Security Council debate did not produce any concrete outcome. The CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas’s statement in the debate claimed that the CSTO regarded the UN as its main international partner with which it sought to expand cooperation in peacekeeping. He referred to the CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Forces’ success in Kazakhstan the previous month which he noted was fully in line with UN legal principles.43 However, the UN does not recognize Russia’s right to a sphere of influence in post-Soviet states, nor a right to dispatch Russian peacekeepers to post-Soviet states. On February 17, 2022, the day after the UN Security Council debated CSTO-UN relations, Zas, from Belarus, had stated that the CSTO could deploy to the Donbass in Eastern Ukraine on a peacekeeping mission.44 Zas at that time indicated that troops would only be sent to the Donbass, and it is not clear he was speaking for all of the CSTO member states. Ukraine: Case Study of Russian Civil-Military Relations and Peacekeeping

Russia’s militarized peacekeeping invasion in Ukraine demonstrated weaknesses in Russian civil-military relations. Putin’s planning for the invasion contributed to its failures. Putin did not do serious war planning but rather planned a clandestine operation. He kept his plan hidden, involving only a very small group of military planners. Putin did not have strong Ukrainian experts advising him.45 Consequently, Russian soldiers dispatched to Ukraine were in disarray, undersupplied, and uncertain of their mission. On February 21, 2022, Putin announced in a televised address that he would recognize the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), and that he had ordered the Russian military to conduct “peacekeeping operations” in these Ukrainian territories. Putin claimed his goal was to de-nazify and demilitarize Ukraine. He also stated that Ukraine is not really a separate country from Russia. Russian-style peacekeeping did not gain international legitimacy as the world rejected Russia’s claim to peacekeeping in its Ukraine invasion. On February 26, 2022, the UN Security Council voted on a resolution that demanded Moscow immediately stop its attack on Ukraine and withdraw all troops. Of the Council’s 15 members, 11 voted in favor, while China, India, and the United Arab Emirates abstained, and Russia vetoed it. US UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stated that calling a military invasion a “peacekeeping operation” was nonsense. UN Secretary-General António Guterres accused Russia of perverting the concept of peacekeeping. Guterres stated that the protection of Ukrainian civilians was the UN’s highest priority. After the Russian attack on Ukraine, NATO condemned the attack as a violation of international law that threatened Euro-Atlantic security, stating “Russia

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has breached the values, principles and commitments that underpin the NATORussia relationship.”46 NATO increased its presence in member countries bordering Russia and increased the readiness of the NATO Response Force (NRF). NATO is concerned that Putin will not stop with Ukraine but continue to harass and probe NATO member countries that are former Soviet bloc countries. Individual NATO countries have supplied Ukraine with weapons and welcomed Ukrainian refugees, but NATO as an alliance stated it would not get directly involved in Ukraine. Putin tightly controls information within Russia about the Ukrainian “special military operation,” not revealing the number of Russian soldiers killed, or the losses sustained in the operation. Anyone who calls it a war or a military invasion could receive a 15-year jail sentence. The information blackout has effectively deprived the people of clearly understanding the nature of Putin’s Ukrainian invasion. Domestic information campaigns strengthen positive views of Russian “peacekeepers.” The Russian Education Ministry held a “Peace Defenders” lesson online to reinforce the Kremlin’s narrative that Russian peacekeepers had entered Ukraine to protect the civilian population of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.47 In addition to Putin’s peacekeeping narrative, there was an additional Russian justification—conflict in Ukraine was similar to the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War, where the International Brigade with 60,000 volunteers fought against fascism. It was a narrative that made Russia’s invasion a noble cause. Foreign volunteers from Syria, Chechnya, and the Wagner Group, private mercenaries with ties to Russia’s GRU, were meant to help solve Russia’s problem of too few troops sent to Ukraine.48 Foreign volunteers have also joined the Ukrainian fight against Russian troops. The Ukrainian defense ministry has claimed there are over 20,000 individuals from 52 nations volunteering to join the Ukrainian armed forces. Russia has stated it will not give them POW status if captured but rather treat them as criminals and execute them. That would be contrary to the Geneva Convention, article 4, which states Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy: Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.49 Putin had always assured the Russian public that there were no conscripts, only professional military, participating in his military operation in Ukraine. He was concerned it would hurt his popularity if Russian mothers knew where their sons were. The mothers had been searching for their sons on social media. However, Ukrainian forces had captured Russian conscripts, and many conscripts had surrendered, stating they were not told the true nature of what they were doing and

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they had not received any training for it. Many were teenagers. Ukraine put videos of their statements on the internet and set up a hotline to provide information to their mothers who were calling Ukraine. With this information on social media, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed, for the first time on March 9, 2022, that in fact there were conscripts in Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The ministry promised to pull them out but have not done so. Putin, feigning shock, claimed he told Russian army commanders to exclude conscripts from his military operation in Ukraine, ordering punishment for those commanders who had sent conscripts.50 In February 2022, at the beginning of Russia’s invasion, the Ukraine government filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Russia under the Genocide Convention. Both countries are signatories to the treaty. Ukraine did not have enough time to gather evidence that Russian troops were committing genocide. Instead, it argued that Russia must stop damaging Ukraine’s reputation with claims that Ukraine is committing genocide, claims that had not been verified. And further that Russia must cease its military invasion based on false claims. Russia argued that the legal grounds for its military invasion were under Article 51 of the UN Charter on self-defense and customary international law, not the Genocide Convention. This was an after the fact argument cobbled together to make sense of Putin’s unsubstantiated claims of genocide. On March 16, 2022, the ICJ vote was 13-2 in Ukraine’s favor. It ordered Russia to stop the military invasion of Ukraine, to revoke its claim that the Ukrainian government was committing genocide, and to retract its charge that this led to Ukrainian civilians requesting Russia’s military support. The ICJ voted on Ukrainian allegations that Russia falsely accused Ukraine of genocide in order to justify waging war against it. The two no votes cast were from China’s appointee to the UN court, Xue Hanqin, and Russia’s appointee Kirill Gevorgian. Xue Hanqin in his declaration stated that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the situation, thus supporting Russia’s position that it did not act under the Geneva Convention.51 Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians, too numerous to catalog here, are all violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, from which Russia had withdrawn in 2019. There are photos of Russian forces transporting cluster bombs and vacuum bombs, both banned under the Geneva Conventions. Russian forces have deliberately targeted civilians and bombed civilian targets, including residential areas, hospitals, schools, and humanitarian corridors meant to help civilians escape the fighting. The International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, from the start, began collecting evidence as did the Ukrainian government, international journalists, Ukrainian civilians, and several governments. The collection of evidence will be used to try Russian commanders and soldiers as war criminals. The Ukrainian government has opened more than 74,000 war crimes cases against Russia that include rape, murder, torture, forced deportations, and abduction of Ukrainian children transported to Russia.

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Putin has denied all allegations of war crimes but has openly admitted to transporting Ukrainian children to Russia for adoption. The ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, for the unlawful deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. Neither the US, Ukraine nor Russia are a party to the ICC, and there is minimal expectation that Putin would be arrested. The ICC hoped the arrest warrant would deter further war crimes.52 To bolster the Ukrainian military invasion as a peacekeeping mission under CSTO auspices, Putin sought diplomatic support and troop contributions from Central Asian states before and after hostilities had begun, especially Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and also Belarus, all members of the CSTO. The Kazakh Defense Ministry denied receiving a request to send Kazakh troops to Ukraine, and stated Kazakhstan would not do so.53 President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev convened an emergency Kazakhstan Security Council meeting to discuss the Ukraine crisis and how to minimize negative impact on Kazakhstan.54 Tokayev offered to mediate between Kyiv and Moscow but offered nothing else.55 On March 6, 2022, Kazakh protestors marched against the war in Ukraine, demanding that Kazakhstan withdraw from the CSTO and the EEU. Putin called the president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, after the hostilities began. A Kremlin press release claimed Japarov supported the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. However, Kyrgyzstan’s statement of the call did not mention support for it and instead recommended negotiations. Putin spoke with the president of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and reported Mirziyoyev was supportive. Uzbekistan then clarified that it took a neutral position and suggested settling the crisis on the basis of international law.56 Belarus under President Alexander Lukashenko was the only member of the CSTO that gave in to Russian pressure to contribute to the invasion. Lukashenko had initially stated that his military would not participate, but then Belarus became a staging ground for Russian troops, tanks, and the Russian air force to invade Ukraine. Belarus civil society opposed the Russian troop presence. Belarus railway workers sabotaged the rail links used by Russian troops entering Ukraine, disrupting Russian supply lines and creating logistical chaos. Rather than join the Russian military, hundreds of Belarusian volunteers joined a paramilitary group, the Kastus Kalinouski Battalion, to fight Russian troops in Ukraine.57 On February 27, missiles were fired from Belarus into Ukraine. Lukashenko claimed it was a forced step but did not say who was forcing it, and he did not know how many missiles were launched. In March, Lukashenko stated that Belarus troops would enter Ukraine, fighting alongside Russian troops, but by the following month he stated that Belarus troops were forced to enter Ukraine to rescue Belarus truck drivers but would not participate in the military conflict.58 A year after the invasion, Belarusian guerillas continued to sabotage Russian military equipment and Belarus railways making it impossible to ship Russian troops to Ukraine by rail.

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On March 2, 2022, in a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution to condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine, CSTO members Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan abstained, indicating their lack of support for Putin’s invasion. Armenia, a member of the CSTO, announced there was no possibility that the CSTO would be sent to Ukraine, stating CSTO mechanisms can only be activated when a CSTO member state is attacked, and Russia had not been attacked.59 Two weeks into the faltering invasion, Putin decided to portray himself as being surprised that his invasion of Ukraine was not a quick peacekeeping mission similar to the mission in Kazakhstan. He claimed his FBS policy advisers had told him Ukraine was weak, controlled by neo-Nazi groups, and there would be no resistance from the Ukrainian people, who would be happy to be liberated from their government. Claiming to be furious with his faulty intelligence, Putin put the head of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch, Sergey Beseda, in jail.60 Beseda was soon reported to be back at his job. Domestically, Putin continued the peacekeeping narrative. On March 18, Putin held a rally in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium with thousands of Russians waving flags. It was a celebration of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and an effort to unite Russians behind the war on Ukraine.61 Having failed to get CSTO support from Central Asian states, Putin reportedly turned to China for military equipment and support. Xi denied he had agreed to do so when pressed by Biden, who warned him of the consequences if China provided material support to Russia’s war in Ukraine.62 China weighed its options on how to respond to the Ukraine war. Xi Jinping did not condemn the invasion, repeated Russian disinformation, and tried to take a neutral position, offering to mediate. But Chinese were deeply divided, debating whether the Ukraine invasion was good or bad for China. In December 2021, Jia Qingguo had argued that China should focus on comprehensive security, which includes economic security, health security, and food security, rather than a narrow focus on military security. He brought up the Soviet Union as an example of overemphasizing military security. In Jia’s criticism of Chinese hawks, he mentioned that the Soviet Union had collapsed because it had put military expansion over long-term comprehensive security.63 A policy paper published by the US-China Perception Monitor circulated on the Chinese internet for two days, was republished on Chinese blogs and social media, and then was taken down by the Chinese government. Written by Hu Wei, vicechairman of the Public Policy Research Center of the State Council’s Counselor’s Office, it indicated a Chinese debate about what to do. It recommended that: (1) China cannot be tied to Putin, risking isolation with him, and instead should cut away as soon as possible; (2) China should stop playing both sides while claiming neutrality, and instead choose the world’s mainstream position of the West; and (3) China should demonstrate its role as a responsible major power, and take action to prevent Putin’s possible adventures.64

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Other Chinese were supportive of Russia and thought sanctions on Russia were unwarranted. Wang Haiyun, former military attaché in Moscow, and researcher at the China-Russia Strategic Cooperation Think Tank (中俄战略协作高端合作智 库], under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has long advocated for closer Sino-Russian military relations.65 During the 70th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations, Wang promoted a Sino-Russian “quasi-alliance relationship” of “side-by-side, back-to-back, hand-in-hand, and heart-to-heart.”66 On February 24, the day of the invasion, the China-Russia Strategic Cooperation Think Tank and the Institute of Russian, Eastern Europe & Central Asia organized a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences meeting on Report on International Situation 2022. Each CASS institute presented a report on their area of interest. Issues included armed conflict in hot spots in Eastern Europe, great powers in geopolitical struggles, Russia striving to increase its influence in the Eurasian continent, the military confrontation in Ukraine, and criticism of the US. There was Chinese concern over how the Ukraine invasion impacted the BRI.67 What is interesting is that the China-Russia Strategic Cooperation Think Tank organized the meeting on the day of the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the question remains as to why this particular institute organized a CASS general meeting. A Chinese critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Feng Yujun, noted that Russia was losing politically, economically, and diplomatically. Russia had mistakenly believed the global order was fragmenting, giving Moscow an opening to regain its dominance at an accelerated pace in the post-Soviet space. There had appeared to be a rapid rise of Russian influence in Central Asian security following the Russian January 2022 PKO in Kazakhstan. However, its Ukraine invasion demonstrated that Russian comprehensive national strength is deficient, Russian strategic culture’s obsession with territorial expansion is outdated, its rigid, traditional ways of war-fighting are countered by Ukrainian high-tech weapons, and Russian thinking is obsolete, stuck in the 18th and 19th centuries.68 Chinese continued to issue conflicting statements, reflecting different opinion groups. The ineptness of the Russian invasion in Ukraine called into question whether Moscow could successfully maintain security in the post-Soviet space, and whether China should be associated with it in such organizations as the CSTO. Chinese were most concerned with how to avoid being negatively impacted by the economic sanctions placed on Russia by the UN, the EU, and the US. In March 2023, Xi Jinping visited Moscow, signed $165 billion worth of agreements on energy and transport, but there was no mention of military assistance in the joint statement issued at the end of the visit.69 In February 2023, on a Russian TV show prior to Xi’s visit, Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, claimed it was a big mistake on the part of Russian elites to believe that foreign countries would help Russia. The mistake she referred to was Putin and many other Russians having unrealistic expectations of China.70

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Conclusion

The CSTO had steadily institutionalized and expanded its functions from antiterrorist organization to collective security arrangement with peacekeeping functions. However, the future of the CSTO is uncertain. The Central Asian CSTO members have not accepted Russia as its “coordinating state.” All the post-Soviet CSTO states have taken lessons from the Ukraine invasion, and are distrustful of Russian ambitions to place them in a Russian sphere of influence. The attempt to incorporate CSTO peacekeeping within the UN system of peacekeeping to date has made little progress. Throughout the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has claimed to adhere to the norms of UN peacekeeping and the Geneva Conventions even while targeting civilians and trying to hide summary executions of civilians with mass graves. Russia failed to convince the world that its military invasion of Ukraine was a peacekeeping mission, and it failed to recruit other CSTO countries into the military invasion as a CSTO peacekeeping mission in a post-Soviet state. The one CSTO member that did participate in the Ukraine invasion, Belarus, did so reluctantly and under pressure. Lukashenko was opposed by Belarus civil society, from which came volunteers to support Ukraine rather than Russia. Kazakhstan in particular, as the largest Central Asian state, has infuriated Putin by remaining neutral in the Ukraine war. Astana stated that it respects the territorial integrity of Ukraine, did not recognize Crimea as Russian territory nor the independence of the Russia-backed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, and would comply only with decisions made by the Security Council. Kazakhstan worries that Putin may target it next as Putin follows a similar pattern to the Ukraine invasion, claiming that Kazakhstan was not a real state, that Kazakhstan must remain within the Russian world [Русский мир], and that the Russian minority in Kazakhstan is being mistreated.71 Although Kazakhstan has been careful not to antagonize Putin, its neutrality has resulted in it coming under Russian pressure. The Kazakh Defense Ministry announced it would not hold the traditional May 9 Victory Day parade in 2022. The parade was inherited from the Soviet era and was more important to Russians than Kazakhs. Putin is emotionally attached to May 9, and had demanded Russian troops demonstrate some success in the Ukrainian war by the May 9 parade. In response, a prominent Russian TV personality claimed Kazakhstan was “ungrateful” and “sly,” failing to show its support for Russia. He further stated, “Kazakhs, what kind of ingratitude do you call this? … Look carefully at what is happening in Ukraine …. If you think that you can get away with trying to be so cunning, and imagine that nothing will happen to you, you are mistaken.” 72 The Kazakh Foreign Ministry viewed his threat as having Kremlin backing and said he was banned from Kazakhstan. Russian-style peacekeeping with numerous crimes against Ukrainian civilians called into question Russian concepts of civil-military relations and peacekeeping.

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Russian PKO in the post-Soviet states using the CSTO had lost its legitimacy. The sanctions placed on Russia following the Ukraine invasion guaranteed that the CSTO would never be part of the UN PKO system. During the Ukraine invasion, Beijing appeared to have recalibrated as Chinese domestic debates continued. The crisis has hurt Chinese interests by undermining Ukraine’s participation in the BRI as a supplier of grain and a link for China to Europe. Russian disregard for economic consequences has driven a wedge between it and China. Putin’s multiple and contradictory goals for the CSTO—to act as a peacekeeping organization working with the UN, to help Moscow establish a sphere of influence in post-Soviet states, and to act as a counterweight to NATO—were not compatible. Faced with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to establish a Russian sphere of influence there and to block NATO’s eastward expansion, the Central Asian CSTO states refused to participate. The CSTO appeared less and less likely to be the security mechanism for Putin’s vision of a GEP led by Moscow. The director of the Russian International Affairs Council, Andrey Kortunov, observed that the Soviet Union did not collapse in 1991, but instead began a long process of gradual imperial disintegration that has continued up to the present. During this time, the Kremlin had planned to consolidate the post-Soviet space under its leadership, but it had never been able to construct an attractive model of social and economic development that would draw the post-Soviet states to its leadership. The Ukraine invasion, Kortunov argued, should be remembered as the final act of Russia’s struggle to hold onto its imperial past.73 Putin’s vision of creating a GEP that stretched from Lisbon to Vladivostok had been an effort to sustain that imperial past, but now seemed improbable as economic sanctions imposed on Russia constricted its economic and political room to maneuver. Notes 1 Pavel Baev, “Putin’s Journey from the Munich Speech to the Brink of War with Ukraine,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, vol. 19, no. 18, February 14, 2022, https://jamestown.org/program/ putins-journey-from-the-munich-speech-to-the-brink-of-war-with-ukraine/ 2 “Russian Peacekeepers in Conflict Zones,” https://www.rusemb.org.uk/peacekeepers/ 3 Igor Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia: The History and Effectiveness of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 164–166. 4 Roy Allison, “The Military Background and Context to Russian Peacekeeping,” Lena Jonson and Clive Archer, eds., Peacekeeping and the Role of Russia in Eurasia (London: Taylor & Francis Group), 2019. 5 Liu Dan, “后苏联空间: 俄罗斯的战略依托及大国博弈,” 俄罗斯东欧中亚研究, ２０２１ 年第６ 期, 81–96. 6 “China ready to work with Russia, CSTO to support peace, stability in region — Xi Jinping,” TASS, December 15, 2021, https://tass.com/politics/1376087 7 “CSTO Plans to Establish Contacts with China — Press Secretary,” TASS, December 16, 2021.

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8 “Military-Civil Fusion and the People’s Republic of China,” US State Department Fact Sheet, https://2017-2021.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/What-is-MCF-OnePager.pdf 9 “Zhao Huasheng: Russia and its Near Abroad: Challenges and Prospects,” March 11, 2021, http://ciss.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/OpinionsandInterviews/3263 10 Kinling Lo, “Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan Spurs China and Other Neighbours to Consider Their Alliances,” South China Morning Post, August 18, 2021, https://www. scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3145521/taliban-takeover-afghanistanspurs-china-and-other-neighbours 11 “Joint Meeting of SCO and CSTO Heads of State,” Kremlin, September 17, 2021, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66707 12 “Xi Jinping Urges Eradication of Terrorist Organizations in Afghanistan,” CGTN, September 17, 2021, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-09-17/Xi-says-Afghanistans-future-should-be-in-hands-of-all-its-people-13DgA4PEARG/index.html 13 Amber Wang, “Russia’s Kazakhstan Intervention ‘Benefits China,” South China Morning Post, January 17, 2022, p. A3. 14 Igor Denisov, “After Kazakhstan Crisis, China Will Reassess Its Influence in Central Asia Despite Its Economic Clout in Kazakhstan, Beijing Has Had Far Less Political Leverage than Moscow,” The Diplomat, January 18, 2022, https://thediplomat.com/2022/01/ after-kazakhstan-crisis-china-will-reassess-its-influence-in-central-asia/ 15 Yaroslav Trofimov, “Kazakhstan Crisis Shows that Russia Still Trumps China’s Power in Central Asia; Beijing’s Huge Investments in the Region Increasingly Rely on Russian Protection,” Wall Street Journal (Online), January 10, 2022. 16 Dmitri Trenin, “Russia Takes a Gamble in Kazkhstan,” Carnegie Moscow Center, January 24, 2022, https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/86241 17 Dmitri Trenin, “Mapping Russia’s New Approach to the Post-Soviet Space,” Carnegie Moscow Center, February 15, 2022, https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/86438 18 Catherine Putz, “Russian Ambassador to Kazakhstan Says US-NATO Steppe Eagle Exercise will ‘No Longer Fly,’” The Diplomat, February 11, 2022, https://thediplomat. com/2022/02/russian-ambassador-to-kazakhstan-says-us-nato-steppe-eagle-exercisewill-no-longer-fly 19 “Joint Position of the SCO RATS, the CIS ATC and the CSTO Secretariat on Combating Terrorism and Extremism Was Signed,” Collective Security Treaty Organization, February 16, 2022, https://en.odkb-csto.org/news/news_odkb/sostoyalos-podpisanie-sovmestnoy-pozitsii-rats-shos-atts-sng-i-sekretariata-odkb-povoprosam-protivo/#loaded 20 Davidzon, Regional Security Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia, p. 83. 21 United Nations Peacekeeping, Troop and Police Contributors, https://peacekeeping. un.org/en/troop-and-police-contributors 22 Federal Law No. 368-FZ dated November 12, 2019, “On the Withdrawal of the Declaration made upon the Ratification of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, Concerning the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I),” http://kremlin.ru/acts/news/62025 23 Rosemary Foot, China, the UN, and Human Protection: Beliefs, Power, Image (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 3. 24 Rosemary Foot, “Shaping from Within: A UN with Chinese Characteristics?,” The Strategist, Australia Strategic Policy Institute, August 5, 2020, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/shaping-from-within-a-un-with-chinese-characteristics/ 25 Kirill Yuryevich Kolesnichenko, “Civil-Military Relations in the Soviet Far East during World War II (1939–1945): By the Example of Primorsky Krai,” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, vol. 29, no. 3 (2016): 407–422. 26 Alexander Golts, “Conscription: A Basic Question of Civil-Military Relations in Russia,” in Roger N. McDermott, Bertil. Nygren, and Carolina Vendil Pallin, eds.,

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The Russian Armed Forces in Transition: Economic, Geopolitical and Institutional Uncertainties (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 209–221. 27 Nadja Douglas, “Civil–Military Relations in Russia: Conscript vs. Contract Army, or How Ideas Prevail Against Functional Demands,” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, vol. 27, no. 4 (2014): 511–532. 28 Brandon M. Stewart and Yuri M. Zhukov, “Use of Force and Civil–Military Relations in Russia: An Automated Content Analysis,” Small Wars & Insurgencies, vol. 20, no. 2 ( June 2009): 319–343. 29 Pavel Koshkin, “Why the Kremlin Neglects Strategic Thinking,” Russia Direct, September 14, 2015. Interview with Carnegie Moscow Center’s Andrei Kolesnikov, http://www.russia-direct.org/qa/why-kremlin-neglects-strategic-thinking 30 Civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) International Military Staff, January 4, 2011, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_69722.htm 31 George Robertson, “Perspectives on Democratic Civil-Military Relations and Reform,” Speech at the Centre for European Security Studies Conference “Taking Stock on Civil-Military Relations,” May 9, 2001, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/ opinions_19118.htm?selectedLocale=en 32 NATO and Russia: Partners in Peacekeeping, Office of Information and Press NATO, no date. 33 Roy Allison, “The Military Background and Context to Russian Peacekeeping,” Jonson, Lena, and Clive Archer. Peacekeeping and the Role of Russia in Eurasia (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2019), p. 45. 34 Paul M. Carter Jr., “Understanding Russia’s Interest in Conflict Zones,” United States Institute of Peace Special Report, July 2020, https://www.usip.org/ publications/2020/07/understanding-russias-interest-conflict-zones 35 Ibid. 36 NATO, Relations with Russia, February 26, 2022, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_50090.htm 37 NATO, “NATO-Russia relations Factsheet,” February 2022, https://www.nato. int/nato_static_f l2014/assets/pdf/2022/2/pdf/220214-factsheet_NATO-Russia_ Relations_e.pdf 38 Wu Airong, “乌兹别克斯坦“去俄罗斯化”进程探析,” 俄罗斯东欧中亚研究2017 年第1 期, 133–146. 39 “Russian Diplomat, UN Under-Secretary Discuss Boosting Russia, CSTO Role in Peacekeeping,” TASS, February 17, 2022, https://tass.com/politics/1404975 40 “Secretary-General’s Remarks to the Security Council Open Debate on Cooperation between the United Nations and the Collective Security Treaty Organization,” UN Secretary General, February 16, 2022, https://www.un.org/sg/en/node/261907 41 “Debate on Cooperation between the UN and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO),” Security Council Report, February 15, 2022, https://www. securitycouncilreport.org/whatsinblue/2022/02/debate-on-cooperation-betweenthe-un-and-the-collective-security-treaty-organization-csto.php 42 “Remarks by Ambassador Zhang Jun at Security Council Debate on Cooperation between the United Nations and Regional and Subregional Organizations in Maintaining International Peace and Security (CSTO),” from Chinese Mission to the United Nations, Asia News Monitor, Bangkok, February 21, 2022. 43 “Statement by the CSTO Secretary General S. Zas to the UN Security Council, February 16, 2022,” Collective Security Treaty Organization, https://en.odkbcsto.org/news/speech/vystuplenie-generalnogo-sekretarya-odkb-s-v-zasya-nazasedanii-soveta-bezopasnosti-oon-16-fevralya-2/#loaded 4 4 Andrew Osborn, “Post-Soviet Military Bloc Says It Could Send Peacekeepers to Donbass if Needed,” Reuters, February 19, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/ europe/exclusive-post-soviet-militar y-bloc-says-it-could-send-peacekeepersdonbass-if-2022-02-19/

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45 Jonathan Tepperman, “Putin in His Labyrinth: Alexander Gabuev on the View from Moscow,” The Octavian Report, March 14, 2022, https://octavian.substack.com/p/ inside-the-bear-alexander-gabuev?msclkid=ef6ee71ba82611ec95de0326df6ca356&s=r 46 NATO, “Relations with Russia,” February 26, 2022, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/ natolive/topics_50090.htm 47 “Russia Holds ‘Peace Defenders’ Open Lesson on Ukraine Invasion,” Moscow Times, March 3, 2022. 48 Nathaniel Reynolds, “Putin’s Not-So-Secret Mercenaries: Patronage, Geopolitics, and the Wagner Group,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July 2019. 49 “Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War,” Adopted August 12, 1949. 50 “Russia Admits Conscripts ‘Take Part’ in Ukraine Operation,” Moscow Times, March 9, 2022, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/09/russia-admits-conscriptstake-part-in-ukraine-operation-a76846 51 International Court of Justice, “Allegations of Genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Ukraine v. Russian Federation),” March 16, 2022, https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/182 52 Alex Leff, Michele Kelemen, and Charles Maynes, “The International Criminal Court Issues an Arrest Warrant for Putin,” NPR, March 17, 2023, https://www. npr.org/2023/03/17/1164267436/international-criminal-court-arrest-warrantputin-ukraine-alleged-war-crimes 53 “Kazakhstan Not Considering Sending Its Military Contingent to Ukraine Kazakh Defense Ministry,” Interfax: Kazakhstan General Newswire; Almaty, February 28, 2022. 54 “Kazakhstan to Minimize Risks over Ukraine Situation – Tokayev,” Interfax: Russia & CIS Presidential Bulletin; Moscow, February 22, 2022. 55 “Tokayev Calls on Ukraine and Russia for Talks, Offers Kazakhstan’s Mediation (Part 2),” Interfax: Kazakhstan General Newswire; Almaty. March 1, 2022. 56 “Russia Attempts to Contrive Appearance of Support from Central Asian Allies,” Eurasianet, February 27, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/russia-attempts-tocontrive-appearance-of-support-from-central-asian-allies 57 Max Bearak, “Belarusian Battalion Fights in Ukraine ‘for both countries’ Freedom’,” Washington Post, April 1, 2022, www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/01/ ukraine-belarus-fighters-russia/ 58 Teresa Gottein Martinez, “Belarus Troops HAVE Entered Ukraine – Lukashenko Says Soldiers Sent to ‘Free Drivers’,” Express (Online); London April 7, 2022. 59 Naira Nalbandian, “Armenian Officials Rule Out CSTO Deployment to Ukraine,” The Armenian Mirror-Spectator, March 8, 2022, https://mirrorspectator.com/2022/03/08/ armenian-officials-rule-out-csto-deployment-to-ukraine/ 60 Tom Ball and Larisa Brown, “Kremlin Arrests FSB Chiefs in Fallout from Ukraine Chaos,” The Times, March 12, 2022, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ kremlin-arrests-fsb-chiefs-in-fallout-from-ukraine-invasion-chaos-92w0829c5 61 Robyn Dixon, “Putin’s Speech at Staged Patriotic Rally Is Abruptly Cut Off. The Kremlin Claims It Was a Glitch,” Washington Post, March 18, 2022, https://www. washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/18/putin-russia-speech-ukraine 62 习近平同美国总统拜登视频通话, CCTV.com, March 18, 2022, https://news.cctv. com/2022/03/18/ARTICrQlPPJc2xb8Pt6AYi0b220318.shtml?spm=C94212.P4YnMod9m2uD.ENPMkWvfnaiV.5 63 Jia Qingguo, “对国家安全的特点和治理原则之思考,” 爱思想, December 29, 2021, http://www.aisixiang.com/data/130598.html; Jun Mai, “Remember the Soviet Union, Top Chinese Policy Adviser Says in Warning against Blind Pursuit of Absolute Security,” South China Morning Post, January 22, 2022, https:// www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3164103/remember-soviet-uniontop-chinese-policy-adviser-says-warning

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64 Hu Wei, “Possible Outcomes of the Russo-Ukrainian War and China’s Choice,” US-China Perception Monitor, March 5, 2022, https://uscnpm.org/2022/03/12/ hu-wei-russia-ukraine-war-china-choice/ 65 Wang Haiyun, “Military Ties Linchpin of China-Russia Relations,” Global Times, June 4, 2019. 66 Wang Haiyun, “中俄军事关系七十年：回顾与思考,” August 7, 2019, https://www. sohu.com/a/332067884_100098795 67 Xie Fuzhan, “积极应对更趋复杂严峻的国际环境,” 中国社会科学网, February 28, 2022, https://3g.163.com/dy/article/H1A8APLI051495OJ.html 68 Feng Yujun, “Causes, Prospects and Consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian War,” China-US Focus, April 7, 2022, https://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/ causes-prospects-and-consequences 69 “Joint Statement between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation on Deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination in the New Era,” Xinhua News, March 22, 2023, https://k.sina.cn/article_1699432410_654b47da0 200130f1.html?from=news&subch=onews 70 “Russia’s Foreign Ministry’s Spokeswoman Denigrates Western Alliance in WWII,” Russia Media Monitor, February 12, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0MIF8KgN3Ws 71 Nikola Mikovic, “Kazakhstan Slowly Backing Away from Its Russian Ally,” Asia Times, April 19 2022, https://asiatimes.com/2022/04/kazakhstan-slowlybacking-away-from-its-russian-ally/ 72 Olzhas Auyezov, “Kazakhstan may Punish Russian TV Host over ‘Look at Ukraine’ Threat,” Reuters, ALMATY, April 27, 2022, www.reuters.com/world/kazakhstanmay-punish-russian-tv-host-over-look-ukraine-threat-2022-04-27; Catherine Putz, “‘Look at Ukraine’: Russian Commentator Threatens Kazakhstan,” The Diplomat; Tokyo (April 27, 2022); Almaz Kumenov, “Kazakhstan Pushes Back at Threats of Prominent Russian Propagandist Tigran Keosayan Warned Kazakhstan Might Meet Ukraine’s Fate for Cancelling Victory Day Parades,” Eurasianet, Apr 28, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-pushes-back-at-threats-of-prominent-russianpropagandist 73 Andrey Kortunov, “Moscow’s Painful Adjustment to the Post-Soviet Space,” Russian International Affairs Council, April 1, 2022, https://russiancouncil.ru/ en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/moscow-s-painful-adjustment-to-the-postsoviet-space/

11 THE UKRAINE WAR IN THE CONTEXT OF RUSSIAN THINKING ABOUT CHINA Gilbert Rozman

The Ukraine war would have been inconceivable without high confidence in Russia that it could capitalize on a strong Sino-Russian relationship and the war would serve as a stimulus to a more balanced strategic partnership. By tracing the evolution of Russian thinking about the bilateral relationship with Beijing from the 1970s, the analysis below links this thinking about China to the thinking that led to hostility to US alliances in Asia and to aggression in Europe. Advocates of the “Turn to the East” became ardent supporters of the 2022 war. Parallels emerge between 1980s Soviet rhetoric on the Asia-Pacific region and the 2012–21 Russian rhetoric on Greater Eurasia. Fateful decisions at the end of the 1980s and in 2022 drew on myopic worldviews. Setting aside Putin’s ostensible rationale for invading Ukraine in February 2022, we are left with two serious explanations: (1) Putin’s understanding of Russian national identity, drawing, above all, on thinking about history; and (2) Putin’s calculus of the balance of forces in the world, recognizing that a rapidly ascendant China has Russia’s back, but poses a long-term threat unless Russia boosts its own standing. These factors are intertwined. The overlap in worldview had grown just as Putin’s calculations of the weight of combined power and will in comparison to the West had tipped decisively. The centerpiece for Moscow’s plans for turning to the East, both before the 2012 initiative and after, has been China. Given its size, its long border with Russia, its historic centrality in Russia’s march eastward, and its salience as the third party to the grand strategic triangle as understood since at least the 1970s, China far overshadows the other countries of possible interest in this turn. It captured Moscow’s attention as a revolutionary opportunity from the 1920s, preoccupied Moscow as a center of socialism from 1949, and kept the spotlight from the 1990s as the key to recovering status in the top rung of great powers. DOI: 10.4324/9781003386148-15

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How Russian leaders thought about China during the late Cold War period and the first Cold War decades left a lasting legacy. Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was both a sign of confidence in China’s support for Russia and a mark of desperation that Sino-Russian relations were becoming too unbalanced, requiring drastic action to reset them on a new track. Of course, Putin was reacting to the US and its European allies as well as to developments in Ukraine itself, but that is no reason to downplay his thinking on the “Turn to the East” as a driving force. Having failed at other approaches to limit China’s dominance over Russia, Putin shifted to the west to alter the balance in the East; however, the strategy backfired—the asymmetry with China only intensified further. Putin’s “Turn to the East” has rested heavily on thinking about China and Sino-Russian relations. That thinking derives less from accurate recognition of what has been transpiring than from contrived imagery to bolster Putin’s desired narrative of what should be occurring. This is a narrative rooted in a deep-seated view of history, including of China’s place in: the evolution of socialism, the grand strategic triangle of Russia-US-China, and the role of national identity in Russia’s revival as a center of global civilization. The future of the “Turn to the East” depends on reconstructing this narrative to better fit realities, whether of a highly asymmetrical bond to a Sinocentric power or of a much-chagrined Russia recommitting itself to multipolarity. To date, the bond with China is clearly in the ascendancy, obscuring wariness. Yet the Ukraine war, which aimed to redraw that bond to Russia’s benefit, has backfired in leaving Russia both more vulnerable and without options. The first section below demonstrates how the “Turn to the East” is rooted in thinking of Russia’s power elite that also fueled the Ukraine war and can be linked to thinking about China in the Cold War era and subsequently in the decades that followed. The linkages are drawn in chronological coverage. Emphasis is put on the parallels between 1976–86 and the decade to 2021. Three background factors help to explain Putin’s decision to take extreme measures in 2022 to put Russian relations with China on a different track. First, the cat-and-mouse game the two sides had been playing had grown more ominous, as China took actions undesired by Russia and it became more difficult to find a meaningful response. Second, the Russian critique of China and Russian policy toward China had been bursting through the guardrails of censorship, hinting that Moscow needed a new approach—for the critics to distance itself, but for some a different solution might be found. Third, the impression that China at last was aroused to take strong action against the US emboldened Putin to think he could get away with a daring move. All three of these factors are explained in later sections of the chapter. Worldview of the Siloviki

Russia’s power elite (siloviki) has one overriding foreign objective rooted in three strands of legacy thinking. Its primary goal is to secure a place in the big three,

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alongside the US and China, in what is known as the Grand Strategic Triangle. The legacies in question are superpower rivalry with the US—the obsession of the Cold War; the communist belief in forging a new world order with Moscow at the center—contested with China in the Sino-Soviet split; and Russocentrism determining the fate of neighbor states, whether part of the Soviet Union or under its control. The “Turn to the East” since 2012 has been guided by this objective and these legacies. Awakening to defeat by the US in the Cold War, to failure in the Sino-Soviet dispute as China rose rapidly in stature, and to loss of all that made Russocentrism viable, Russia’s power elite in the 1990s grasped for what Boris Yeltsin called the “Russian Idea.” The muddled response left an opening for a more forceful leader to fill the vacuum by reviving the legacies of the Soviet era. Vladimir Putin’s “Turn to the East” should be understood in this context. It became a synthesis of ideas rooted in past consciousness. The Ukraine war should not be divorced from this extended turn eastward. Moscow not only lost the Cold War with the US, but it also lost the SinoSoviet split with China. In the first decade of the split, both China and the Soviet Union were losers, compounding each other’s shortsightedness. In 1971–72, however, Beijing transformed the grand strategic triangle with the US to Moscow’s disadvantage, and in 1978–79 Beijing preceded Moscow by a decade in starting to capitalize on the dynamism of East Asia and did so in a manner that would prove decisive in the 1990s as Moscow lost its way. Awakening to this turnabout, Vladimir Putin from 2000 decided to ride China’s coattails with three clear objectives: (1) to breathe new life into the Russia-US-China triangle; (2) to partake of the dynamism of East Asia; and (3) to construct a new identity of Eurasianism to replace past communism. In 2012, these goals coalesced in what Putin called the “Turn to the East.” Its triangular thrust claimed dynamic results and acquired an identity focus. Critical to fidelity to the legacies behind Russia’s “Turn to the East” was the argument that Russia is not becoming a junior partner to China. If it were, the identity claims advanced for the “Turn” would fall apart: Russia would lose its claim to drive the rivalry with the US; it would have to concede that Beijing had displaced Moscow as had been vehemently opposed through the Sino-Soviet split; and it would need to abandon Russocentrism, standing by as Sinocentrism took over Central Asia. Frequently reinterpreted, the narrative of the “Turn to the East” vigorously countered such negative notions of impending asymmetry. The vocabulary of the “Turn to the East” as well as unofficial policies gave the impression that this was not a “turn to China.” Russians made sure to highlight “multipolarity” and to insist that China was pursuing this as well. They emphasized that the two states were co-leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was an umbrella grouping for the East and operated on the basis of Chinese deference to Russia in Central Asia. Moreover, it was not Russia alone reaching deals with China on big economic plans, but the

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Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Indeed, Russia was not entering a geographic area known by any other name than Eurasia or the “Greater Eurasian Partnership” (GEP). When China announced the “Silk Road Economic Belt” (SREB) later morphing into part of “One Belt, One Road” and then renamed by China the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), Moscow’s response was twofold: not to acknowledge Russia was part of this initiative but that it would partner as the EEU with China; and to insist on using the name “One Belt, One Road,” which kept alive the idea partnership was limited to a narrower belt through Central Asia, where Russia held many cards. The GEP was, in turn, described as a broad association with the word Eurasia and with India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) eager for Russia’s balancing presence, even as prudence dictated that reasons to fear China be downplayed or refuted. Further proof of Russia’s wariness of China came from the failure to agree on investments and infrastructure in Russia. Whether the openness of the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, the building of infrastructure linking Asia and Europe, the development and naming of the Arctic maritime route (called by China as the Polar Silk Road and envisioned as part of the BRI), or construction of Chinatowns in Russian cities, Moscow proved to be wary of Chinese designs. Distrust reflected both the legacy of the Sino-Soviet dispute and the fragility of claims about a close relationship or of confidence in China’s intentions. Moscow kept its distance, befitting a global power intent on being an independent pole and a global civilization. Behind a façade of ever-growing closeness lies a struggle over rival goals. Thus, the Russia-China bilateral relationship has been repeatedly obscured through contortions about factors that limit the asymmetry facing Russia—with population and economy one-tenth the scale of China’s—relying on what it candidly considers to be a power on a par with the US. Desperately striving to be included in the conversations on the other two powers, Russia found itself marginalized. Doubts could not be suppressed about the prospects for the “Turn to the East.” A final gambit was possible: invade Ukraine, get China to support Russia in the context of the growing Sino-US clash over Taiwan, expand the EEU, put the military dimension at the center of international relations, drive energy prices much higher, and rally states in the SCO to stand with Russia against sanctions. As that plan met with difficulty, Russia doubled down on it, still counting on China’s role. When at the SCO summit in mid-September 2022 Putin felt obliged to openly acknowledge that Xi Jinping had “questions and concerns” about Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, a hole in the Potemkin village of Sino-Russian comradery opened for the world to see. At the very moment reassurance was most needed, its exposure as being shaky on the most significant security issue of our time revealed a truth both sides had long concealed: China’s support for the war is conditional, and Russia’s pretenses about bilateral relations are often misleading. Yet, in rhetoric to challenge the US-led order, the two stick closely together. China is not

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about to leave Russia in the lurch in the key strategic triangle. That is not Russia’s worry; it fears that China will take advantage of its weakness. Moscow’s reasoning about China has repeatedly led it astray. In the 1950s its “big brother” mentality proved insensitive to Mao’s Sinocentric approach to an alliance. In the next quarter century,1 Moscow’s pique at having been jilted drove demonization that left scant room for flexible diplomacy. When Gorbachev turned to the West, he alienated China further,2 normalizing ties in a manner that left relations in purgatory. Yeltsin started by exacerbating the problem and then proceeded haphazardly to heal the wounds.3 Putin swung policy sharply in China’s direction, but even he kept misjudging the prospects for the relationship and the balance needed to act strategically. In the thralls of legacy thinking,4 the siloviki could neither distance Russia from China nor reconcile themselves to a subordinate status. The only way out was to prove Russia’s value through war, as China had done in Korea. Views of China in the Late Soviet Period and Parallels to 2012–22

Moscow badly misjudged East Asia in the 1970s–80s.5 The officials blamed for holding back a change of course were ousted in 1986 with Gorbachev’s “new thinking,” but later that was seen as insufficient. Gorbachev, himself, was criticized for his thinking about China and, more broadly, the Asia-Pacific, in the backlash gathering steam from 1992. The rethinking that has kept gaining in intensity retains enduring salience for Russian behavior. Soviet writings on China were scarce in the 1960s; a few polemical pieces filled the vacuum as the Kremlin bided its time in explaining the causes of the SinoSoviet split and how it would reboot its strategy in the East. Three developments in the 1970s brought misjudgments to the fore, as writings proliferated: (1) China’s breakthroughs in 1971–72 with the US and Japan; (2) the death of Mao Zedong, and Deng Xiaoping’s success in the leadership struggle of 1976–78; and (3) the launch of policies aimed at “reform and opening” in 1978–79. Distorted ideas that China was joining the imperialist camp, that it had Maoism without Mao, and that its economic plans were bound to fail left little room for initiatives to take advantage of the huge changes underway. Looking back, many recognize missed opportunities to transform great power relations. Pride in Soviet history avoids Soviet China policy in the four decades of the 1950s through the 1980s filled with misjudgment. The period 1982, when normalization talks with Beijing began, to 1991 is more consequential for the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Neither the entrenched old guard, long used to demeaning the rival communist state, nor the new champions of a “common European home” understood the “strategic triangle” Chinese leaders embraced as early as 1982 with talk of “equidistance.” While Gorbachev succeeded in “normalizing”

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relations with China in 1989, it was a pyrrhic victory, coming on the heels of intense Chinese criticism of his domestic and foreign policy. On all fronts across East Asia Gorbachev is faulted: delaying diplomacy with Japan, abandoning North Korea, and not taking China very seriously. He leaned strongly to the West and, according to the thinking of today’s power elite, missed opportunities in the East, especially to an eager China. The decades 1976–86 and 2012–22 have some clear parallels in Moscow’s thinking. On the one hand, the demonization of the US as a declining power with a deeply flawed Asia strategy anchored the prevailing narrative. On the other, leadership change in China was viewed in an overwhelmingly one-sided manner despite a stifled backlash gaining momentum. In both periods Moscow downplayed Japan’s role as an Asian power, even veering toward threats, as it feigned a winning strategy on the Korean Peninsula while prioritizing North Korea at the expense of the South. It further insisted that the paradigm for regionalism offered by the US and its allies was a flawed attempt at containment and would fail, while also showcasing its own model of regional leadership, which was of scant interest to others. It is, of course, necessary to note substantial differences between the two decades, but they should not obviate striking similarities, which suggest that the legacies of the Cold War era still shape Russia’s behavior in Asia. In each decade, Asia was on the minds of Moscow officials and writers. The vulnerability of the Russian Far East casted a dark shadow, but salvation laid just around the corner. Sino-US ties preoccupied analysts, but a reassuring outcome was assured. The optimistic scenario left no room for Moscow and Washington to reconcile; this was a struggle to the end, which the Russian side was bound to win. Its assets were chiefly military might and energy clout, not a booming economy with up-to-date technology. North Korea’s belligerence was considered an asset too. Whether the deepening of the Cold War or a New Cold War, conflict was ordained, in 1980 and 2020. The most glaring contrast between the two decades was the role assigned to China. After the death of Mao Zedong, the Soviets spent six years insisting that China had “Maoism without Mao” and another four years in a silent mode withholding commentary as normalization talks were just sputtering along. The Brezhnev legacy, lasting until Gorbachev initiated “new thinking” and ousted the old guard overseeing the demonization of China, bypassed Russia’s big neighbor in Asia.6 With the coming to power of Xi Jinping in 2012, the opposite tact was taken, assuming only the most positive role for China and riding its coattails in Russia’s “Turn to the East.” Whether as an implacable foe, posing a great threat to Russian territory and its historical pride, or as a kind of savior, whose economic, military, and civilizational partnerships were critical to the advance of Russia in Asia, China loomed large in Russian narratives with little balance to the coverage, old and new. The Soviet Union over the decade to 1976 was obsessed with fortifying the Russian Far East as it concentrated on building its military strength in the region

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and keeping the area closed to the outside. Interest in Japan was apparent as a market for coal, oil, and other Far Eastern exports. After the death of Mao little changed. Failure to acknowledge Japan’s fast economic ascent worked against overtures to induce more Japanese investment into the Russian Far East. The border with China remained almost completely sealed. South Korea was an enemy with no effort to offend North Korea’s insistence that Moscow does not talk to it. Domestic incentives to draw internal migrants to the Russian Far East brought minor benefits at great cost. The ostrich-like approach to a region surging with opportunity is now regretted. A groundswell of dissent arose in each period about the shortcomings of Russian thinking and policy toward Asia. In 1976–86 it fought censorship by finding obscure avenues of analysis or analogies to make a case for three types of argument: (1) normalize ties with China, altering the balance of power in Asia; (2) recognize China’s reform course, leading to reform at home; and (3) appreciate dynamism in East Asia and transform relations with Japan, South Korea, or even the US. All three arguments were considered dangerous dissent and had to be broached indirectly.7 Only from 1986, in stages, did glasnost lead to open acknowledgment of the criticisms building over a decade of rigid thinking and policy stagnation. In 1976–86 Moscow lost ground in the strategic triangle, in the reform of its system, and in gaining a place in the dynamic rise of East Asia. By 1992 it was beginning to point the way out of its nadir. By 2012 Moscow saw itself gaining ground in the strategic triangle, across Asia, by reconstructing its domestic system, and as an energy and natural resource exporter to Asia. There were similar pretensions as in the earlier decade. This time three key concepts defined the apparent rise in Asia: multipolarity, the GEP, and alliance with China. Combining them in a single regional architecture posed a continuing challenge. As earlier, a bravado that all was marching toward a rosy outcome obscured hard-to-conceal contradictions. Setting aside what followed 1986, we can discern a disastrous outcome from the decade of Soviet inaction toward Asia based on distortions and misjudgments. Soviet audiences were fascinated with the technology of Japan but were warned against its leadership. Chinese reforms set a model for overcoming the stagnation of socialism but were distorted and reviled. Moscow had an opening to rebalance the strategic triangle by making tough decisions, but it held back. The failure of reforms, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the disastrous state of Russia in the 1990s can be traced to these mistakes. Memory of this period is filled with regrets about roads not taken. Both Moscow and Beijing in the subsequent years drew lessons from the slow thaw in the Sino-Soviet split. They had allowed ideology to blind them to the logic of balance of power policies, especially Moscow through 1991. Yet, a second lesson was also drawn, if obscured for a time. They failed to keep their eyes on the principal ideological threat, the US. Both Gorbachev and Zhao Ziyang are

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faulted, but the problem long persisted. Souring on the outcomes of 1989–92, Moscow saw China as the solution. Yet, it waffled on embracing China, fearing the absence of “equal” relations. The legacy of the orthodox communist era proved conducive to overall convergence in national identities.8 Replacing a dogmatic ideology with no room for deviation with more flexible targeting of anti-imperialism renamed antihegemonism and defense of socialism, centered on symbols, the two heirs to great power communism found common ground. Concentrating on the identity gap with the West over the 1940s extrapolated through the Cold War, the diatribes launched at each other in the Sino-Soviet split were left on the sidelines by censorship and a narrow attention span. Threatened by the sweep of the civilization spreading from the West and its civil society advocacy, China and Russia hunkered down behind a shared bunker. The final force derived from the past—communist thinking as well as Sinocentric and Russocentric heritage—was the presumption that one world center (of two or perhaps three) was in their capital. Blaming Washington for refusing to grant it the desired status, each credited the other with being similarly disrespected. Yet, that did not mean that Russia trusted China. In the period 1976–86, the Soviet Union held such a weak hand in the triangle with the US and China that it needed urgently to remedy the situation with one or the other or both. Its opportunity after Mao’s death and even more so after China declared equidistance as its orientation was squandered. In 2012–22, Russia also held a weak hand but decided to put itself firmly in China’s hands. Whereas in the earlier period, it so demonized China that it could not bring itself to see the wisdom in making overtures, in the later period it censored criticism of China to such a degree that it could not acknowledge its more disadvantageous situation. Triangular dynamics were not the subject of calculations allowing room for critical maneuvering. Ideology drove Moscow prior to Gorbachev to stay obsessed with the threat from China due to its dogmatic understanding of communism. It was unable to flexibly assess the steps to reconstruct the strategic triangle. Détente with the US in the early 1970s was not accompanied by steps to relax ideological rigidity either. Although Russian leaders insist that they eschew ideology and are driven only by realistic considerations, the barriers to balanced assessments of China and the US are again rooted in national identity. Despite policies as varied as Obama’s “reset,” Trump’s “love-fest,” and Biden’s rush to summitry to explore common ground, there has been no exploration of options for improving relations with the US. That can be explained only by ideological barriers such as an obsession with rebuilding the Soviet space centered on Ukraine. As much of the world has reacted to Xi Jinping’s return to hardline communism, “wolf-warrior” aggressiveness to the outside, and Sinocentrism, Russia’s mainstream has remained silent for ideological reasons—fear of undercutting Russia’s own authoritarian drift, of weakening the resistance to the international order anathema to Russia, and of

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damaging Sino-Russian bonds to forge an alternative order. Yet, the quest to gain more equal footing only intensified as asymmetry grew larger. A single question dominated in 1976–86 and casted the darkest shadow in 2012–21. Was Russian sovereignty under threat from Chinese territorial memories and claims? The answer in the first period was definitely “yes,” leading to turning the Russian Far East into a militarized fortress and not trusting China to normalize ties. In the interim quarter-century Russians were reassured that only a slight demarcation alignment could resolve the matter. Yet as the second decade witnessed a rise in Chinese confidence, leading to “wolf warrior” assertiveness even toward Russia, alarm over a revival of territorial claims was spreading. Russians reported on Internet postings, rare access to Chinese history museums, and even authoritative statements that stirred concern. In the run-up to the fiveyear extension of the 2001 twenty-year bilateral treaty, some dared to ask for real assurance that the Chinese had, indeed, abandoned all of their past territorial claims.9 Such suspicions led not to separating from China but to trying to prove to it that Russia is now a formidable power worthy of being treated as an equal. Whether under Brezhnev or Putin, there is a dearth of scholarship on maneuvering within a changing balance of power. Cold War thinking present to 1976 barely shifted during the following decade of dramatic changes in Asia. A quarter century later, the mindset of taking down the US was so entrenched that a decade of transformation across Asia with China in the forefront could not dislodge Russian assumptions on what it must do. In the late 1980s, Moscow unraveled the strategic triangle through a sharp tilt toward Washington and preemptory but slight normalization with Beijing. This established an unsustainable foundation for the new era, incompatible with the national identity that haltingly emerged. The verdict reached in the two reforming socialist states was the same: Russian misjudgments of Asia, notably China, over decades had led to a geopolitically disastrous outcome. Today, Moscow has twisted the “Turn to the East” into a turn to China, despite the pretense of the GEP again misjudging China to the point of gliding over its intentions and the asymmetry. The Ukraine war only deepens Russia’s challenges in the East without satisfying strategic triangle aspirations. The abrupt end of the Cold War similarly exacerbated challenges without any sense of satisfaction about Moscow’s ability to sustain its status as a great power, let alone a superpower. Getting China and Asia wrong exacts a heavy price. Severe censorship stifled a debate at two momentous times. The Post-Cold War Period

Russian national identity suffered a double blow from, on the one hand, defeat in the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union and all it stood for, and, on the other, reversal of the superiority complex toward its arch-rival China. The narrative became fixated on the former and ignored the latter. This was made

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possible by the fleeting nature of communist dogma about which side adhered to the orthodoxy more and the enduring nature of great power identity centered on pride about Soviet strength or accomplishments such as victory in WW II and superpower status. Chinese rhetoric catered to Russia’s grievance over its loss of status. The West dangled before Russia an entirely new identity, which not only could not assuage wounded pride but also rubbed salt on the wounds of the loss of identity. Chinese promised to work together to restore key parts of that identity. Ukraine’s independence and reorientation to the West became a powerful symbol of severe humiliation. Before Putin’s “Turn to the East,” Russia was the laggard in acknowledging the worldview China sought to establish as a shared identity. Yeltsin used China for leverage against the US, but his quest for the “Russian Idea” never settled on a worldview resonant with China’s. The relationship kept growing closer except for economic ties, and Russian demagoguery toward China—mainly from local officials—was gradually stifled. Yet, trust was low, and Russians remained preoccupied with the West. Discontent with the West lacked a clear alternative, given low Russian self-confidence and hesitation to recognize how quickly China was ascending as a power. The decade of the 2000s saw a budding strategic partnership with China coupled with rapidly growing economic ties. The countries were shifting on parallel tracks, as China left Deng Xiaoping’s guidance behind and Putin put the Yeltsin era in the rearview mirror. Missing, however, was Russian confidence in itself and in China. Despite a final demarcation of the border dispute that had long-roiled relations, Russians were wary of a Chinese presence in the Russian Far East and of Chinese economic penetration into Central Asia. Hu Jintao prized relations with Japan and South Korea, and looked to the South more than the North, given economic benefits. If Putin was growing more hostile toward the West, he lacked an agenda for Sino-Russian relations. Medvedev’s stint as president also missed this. Four preconditions were essential for Russia to swing sharply to China and to draw linkages between that and Putin’s determination to draw a red line in Ukraine against the West. First, it required a huge boost in Russian self-confidence, which followed from perceived economic and political success. Second, an image of deepening Western decline was necessary, which the global financial crisis and US political near paralysis conveyed. Third, even before Xi Jinping became party chairman, Russians could discern a sharp break from earlier Chinese caution as well as a trajectory of overtaking the US. Fourth, Russian national identity had to dwell on historical landmarks that both raised the stakes for regaining control over Ukraine and connected the historical destinies of Moscow and Beijing. All of these forces came into play by 2012 and later were gaining rapid momentum. Sino-Russian relations were transformed in at least five ways through the bond built between Putin and Xi Jinping: (1) becoming a two-front, linked challenge to the US alliance system; (2) affirming a shared view of history centered on the

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significance of the 1940s and minimizing the relevance of the end of the Cold War; (3) envisioning an alternate economic framework reducing vulnerability to the US-led liberal international order; (4) forging complementarity to a much greater degree on a framework for regionalism in Asia; and (5) prioritizing quick action for confronting the US on their respective borders. For two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, anxiety about the Russian Far East was reported. Its economic backwardness, depopulation tendencies, and concerns about a wave of Chinese migrants or foreign business encroachments spurred demagoguery and handwringing as well as a succession of unrealized development plans. By 2012 failure was widely recognized. Given the gloomy prospects for this region, Putin’s pursuit of a new path drew praise. The “Turn to the East” started with the Russian Far East at the forefront. At the 2012 Vladivostok Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, the region was showcased. Talks with Xi Jinping, Park Geun-hye, and Abe Shinzo soon highlighted the benefits on the way for the region. In 2016 Putin held an annual Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok to showcase development plans for the region as well as the overall success of his “Turn to the East.” Yet by 2022 he had little to show for this effort in the Far East: investment was sparse, development programs went unrealized, and the pandemic halted what little cross-border activity there was except transport. Multiple claims of progress over this decade were belied by the results on the ground. The idea that Vladivostok could become the locomotive behind a regional turnaround after investments to prepare it for the APEC summit and later plans for a Greater Vladivostok special economic zone proved to be an illusion. The three main targets all attached conditions: South Korea spoke of NorthSouth corridors for transportation, pipelines, and electricity transmission, but they depended on North Korea’s cooperation; Japan offered plans for infrastructure and urban improvements, but they were premised on progress on territorial negotiations; and China put conditions on its investments, requiring Chinese ownership and workers unacceptable to the Russians. Meanwhile, even Russians complained of stifling red tape, legal uncertainties, and poor conditions for foreign investment prevailing in the Russian Far East. Putin blamed the South Koreans, only opening Vladivostok for visa-free travel to boost tourism; the Japanese, after he had encouraged Abe’s high-sounding economic proposals that amounted to little; and quietly the Chinese, who came to the city mostly on excursions to casinos and pre-paid programs run by Chinese companies. Successive schemes failed, leaving Russians scrambling to develop the “Arctic-Pacific” region as part of the Northern Sea Route while squabbling with the Chinese over whether this was the polar route of the BRI, for which China would enjoy the freedom of navigation. Discord over the Russian Far East pervaded relations over 30 years, driving the quest for acting to boost Russian clout. In 2012–14 multipolarity stood at the forefront of the “Turn to the East.” Ties to India, Japan, and South Korea were, accordingly, promoted. The SCO,

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co-directed by Moscow and Beijing, would be its vehicle. Yet Sino-Russian relations increasingly eclipsed Moscow’s other ties, and Beijing advanced its own frameworks, notably the BRI, leaving Moscow scrambling to restate its centrality. It propounded the GEP as a framework, which won the endorsement of China and could build on the smaller EEU as regional architecture. Sinocentrism was repeatedly denied. Three elements were vital for this framework: (1) India as the anchor in the south; (2) ASEAN as the partner in the southeast; and (3) Sino-EEU “docking” as the nexus further north. This ideal confronted obstacles largely of China’s doing, although Russia’s lack of appeal and marginality were also drawbacks. China alienated India, especially in 2020 owing to border infringements. It alarmed much of ASEAN with encroachments in the South China Sea and other aggressive moves, driving states closer to the US with little interest in the argument that Russia—so closely aligned with China—serves the goal of a balance of power. Eviscerating claims of multipolarity, facts on the ground left Russia needing another way to deny Sinocentrism. As Russia edged toward an alliance with China, it still sought to keep its claim to autonomy in Asia through the GEP design for regionalism to which China only paid lip service. This process, gathering speed in 2017–19 and at a high pitch from 2020, faced at least three unexpected obstacles: (1) loss of interest by China during the pandemic in nonmilitary linkages desired by Russia; (2) lack of restraint in China in dealing with sensitive, bilateral issues or in forging an attractive image as a close partner; and (3) alarm that Russia was becoming isolated as a country dependent only on China with little influence on China’s ties to others in Asia, especially to India. The end game over the 1980s was normalization, but the 1989 agreement fell short of what both countries had in mind, leaving a trail of loose ends until the 2004 demarcation deal. The 2012–22 process appeared to be heading toward an alliance if an agreement could be reached on the architecture of Asia as well as on the contours of the strategic triangle. After a decade of advancing without interruption in one direction, the end game still remained unclear. Discord over the relationship between Greater Eurasia and the BRI—ranging from Central Asia to the Arctic to India—had been left to simmer. China’s desire for Russia’s support over the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and possibly Taiwan remained unsatisfied. Despite agreement on how to move the North Korean issue forward, elements of rivalry lingered in what should be done afterwards. It was not clear that problems that bedeviled ties would be settled any easier than the problems that had plagued normalization over the 1970s–80s. The dissent in 2012–22 had more opportunities to reveal its meaning despite censorship. It carried three main messages: (1) do not form an alliance with China, leaving Russia at risk as a new balance of power is taking shape; (2) recognize China’s reversion to hardline communism and the danger of spillover to Russia; and (3) reinterpret the dynamics of the Indo-Pacific with room for better ties

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to Japan, South Korea, and the US, and avoidance of a split with India. It had been easiest to make the first point, although no criticism of Putin’s embrace of China is clearly visible. The second point was emerging obliquely without direct references to the implications for Russia’s internal policies. Finally, the case for renewing the pursuit of Japan and South Korea was vaguely in evidence and the loss of India more openly bemoaned, but arguing for cooperation with the US was beyond current bounds. Parallels should not be taken to suggest a similar aboutface. There is no Gorbachev in sight. The war in Ukraine has stifled dissent, while doubling down on China, whatever the risk ahead. Thinking about China came to support the war in Ukraine. Known as a “twoheaded eagle,” Russia has looked to Ukraine as its bulwark against the West and to China as its principal challenge in the East. In the 1960s–80s, it considered Ukraine securely under Moscow’s control and China a serious threat to undermine Russia’s eastern flank. In the 2010s, the situation was reversed: Ukraine loomed as a threat causing insecurity to the west and China drew praise for reinforcing security in the East. The Ukraine war highlighted Russia’s efforts to shore up its Western flank, but it relied on assumptions about the state of relations with China in the East. A similar obsession riled Russian officials 40 years apart. The US on both occasions was accused of harboring a strategy of containment of their country in Asia, squeezing it militarily, economically, and ideologically. Its accomplice was Japan with South Korea supportive too. Yet, Moscow could defeat the US and its allies with its own regional strategy. The big difference between the two periods in Moscow’s thinking was China, changing sides. Another difference after the collapse of the Soviet Union was Russia’s weaker position in the West. To bolster its place in Asia required taking bolder action in Europe. China’s significance had shifted from Asia’s big challenge to the Asian stabilizer allowing action in Europe. Moscow’s strategy in the first half of the 1980s sowed the seeds of its approach much later in the lead-up to the Ukraine war: demonize the US, dismiss Japan and South Korea, reject regionalism on terms others sought, tighten ties to North Korea, and treat China as imagined rather than as it was. Heightened bravado insisted that this was a winning strategy, which a more militarily assertive Moscow could play to a successful conclusion. Yet, reality finally interfered: in 1986 turning to the West and in 2022 going to war. If the past approach reached a dead-end, a drastic alternative had to be tried. Russia views the Asia-Pacific through three principal dimensions. First, it is an arena for expressing national identity viewed through an historical and ideological lens. Second, the East is perceived in terms of military/political power as a strategic battleground. Third, as an energy and natural resource exporter, Russia conceives of the East as the market destination for its key products, while looking more broadly at exports and imports for autonomy. Finally, mutual recognition of powerful and growing forces of Sinocentrism on one side and Russocentrism on the other also weighed against trust. If all of

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these challenges could be kept in check, it is testimony to the power of the forces working in favor of continuously closer Sino-Russian relations. Westerners got Russian national identity wrong through the 1990s, wrongly assuming that the communist legacy could be erased and universal values would be transplanted. A similar error occurred from the 1990s to the 2010s in failing to grasp the force of this shared legacy in drawing Russia and China closer. A third challenge faces us in the 2020s: will national identity propel the two nations to an alliance and shared worldview on Asia and the world order or will it start driving the two apart even if national interests mitigate their rift? The Ukraine war has fueled predictions of closer relations and an identity convergence, but there is reason to doubt growing identity overlap. How is that legacy of thinking about national identity changing early in the 2020s? The consciousness of China in Russia has been raised by the realization that Russia has been cut adrift from other major powers. On the ideological dimension, Russocentrism has intensified with a likely sharpened awareness of Sinocentrism, already growing due to Chinese arrogance, news coming from China, and recent awakening to increased asymmetry. At this moment Russocentrism, antiimperialism, and history are focused on images of the West linked to Ukraine. Refocusing on images of China would take a move by the Russian government barely imaginable at this time or a move by Beijing deemed highly insulting. Both sides are careful to avoid arousing the Russian public. Victory in Ukraine offered Russia the prospect of making credible the idea of a strategic triangle with the US and China and creating a more equal relationship with China. Wars have impacted relations between the Chinese and Russians before: the Korean War giving China credibility, and the Soviet war in Afghanistan losing credibility for the invader. Counting on a quick victory, Moscow envisioned a positive response for bloodying the common enemy and demonstrating its claim to Eurasianism on a big scale. From all sides, the comments stung that Russia cannot avoid becoming the junior partner of China. Beijing did not give it the respect befitting a full partner. Washington treated it as a short-term troublemaker, not a long-term competitor. Many in Moscow warned of asymmetry with China ahead. Seizing Ukraine promised to change the narrative, reviving triangularity at the highest level of international relations and eclipsing talk of bipolarity. It was nothing less than a strategic triangle gambit to satisfy the weakest leg. Comparing the two decades, we find that China was the preoccupation in both: first as a threat and then as a savior. Japan and South Korea were viewed with too much suspicion to satisfy their demands. When China and Russia proposed separate plans for regional integration, insisting that they could “dock” them together for maximum benefit, it tested the relationship. Russians and Chinese conspire to conceal problems in their relationship as if it has been a steady march toward alliance based on national interests and balance of power objectives. Foreign critics latch onto troubles in these bilateral ties to

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insist that they are faking closeness. Over the past decade, relations have followed a dual track: overlapping pursuit of a breakup of the existing regional/global order with increasingly close security ties; and a cat-and-mouse game of discord over Eurasianism versus Sinocentrism. While the complexity of Sino-Russian relations has been revealed in both Russian and Chinese publications, it was the increasingly bifurcated Russian sources that tip us off to the actual duality. In 2020–21, as talk at the highest levels turned to forging a formal alliance, a backlash built in Russian writings with two visible strands: 1) this is not in the interest of Russian autonomy as a pole in the world and regional order; and 2) this would risk dangerous consequences for Russia at home and abroad. The second critique is more far-reaching. Both emerged clearly by 2020, though concerns about conflicting Russian and Chinese objectives course through the past decade since Putin declared that Russia would “Turn to the East.” The Cat-and-Mouse Game Prior to the Ukraine War

The opposition narrative was limited by censorship, e.g., no criticism of Putin’s decisions, no open opposition to close Sino-Russian relations, and no endorsement of improved relations with the US. Yet, it found breathing room for: warnings against a decision yet to be made to declare an alliance; appeals to renew the quest for multipolarity in Asia; and even talk of smoothing ties with at least parts of Europe and key US allies in Asia. Also, those resisting the decisive step of proclaiming an alliance drew on a wealth of evidence over the past decade of China’s unilateral actions in Asia at odds with Russia’s national interests and the partnership that had been promised. Whether in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, or the Arctic, the discord between Moscow and Beijing had intensified. Moreover, in views of bilateral history, in cultural exchanges, and in economic cooperation, the level of distrust had risen appreciably. In the background was alarm inside Russia that China’s authoritarian pathway reminiscent of past socialism would be a harbinger of where Putin was increasingly inclined to take Russia as well. The opposition narrative is revealing about the real problems plaguing this relationship, but it does not tell us that alliance can be averted. Close scrutiny of it can shed light on the cat-and-mouse game over the past decade and on the nature of either an alliance ahead or a rupture in the momentum leading in that direction. We are justified in recognizing a record of move and countermove to 2021. On the global stage and even in military exercises in Asia, momentum had been building. In the geographical and ideological arenas of Asia, however, the rivalry had been pronounced. If Putin started the back-and-forth of the past decade by proclaiming the EEU, the initiative has increasingly been in Xi Jinping’s hands. Russian moves have mostly followed Chinese ones or reflected concern that China’s position is becoming increasingly dominant in Asia. Russia has been on

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the back foot in cross-border relations, responding to repeated plans for Northeast China reaching to the Russian Far East. It fought a rearguard action in Central Asia, where China has sought to change the status quo. On North Korea, Moscow has felt obliged to defer to Beijing’s moves, although in the mid-2010s it briefly got in front when Sino-North Korean relations were more troubled. On India, Vietnam, and elsewhere in Asia’s Southern Tier, Russia has retreated when China has pressed its case. At each point, Russia tries a mild rejoinder, hoping to keep its autonomy alive, before China takes its next move, putting Russia more on the defensive. This is a stealthy game, given the pretenses that the relationship is proceeding swimmingly, and each summit brings closer ties. A more wide-ranging battleground can be discerned in the rival claims for the BRI and the Great Eurasian Partnership. Seeming to offer reinforcing visions of trans-Asian architecture, they conflict in notions of leadership, membership, and purpose. BRI is a hub-and-spoke plan for Chinese infrastructure projects to draw states under an economic umbrella with demands to follow for deference to China’s “core interests” and strategic ambitions. Russia’s Eurasian plan is mostly political with an anti-West emphasis. It relies heavily on India, while the BRI has prioritized Pakistan. In 2020, to Moscow’s great displeasure, China engaged in a Himalayan skirmish with India, soiling bilateral relations further, driving India into the Quad with the US, and scuttling Russian dreams of multipolarity in Asia. Opponents of an alliance warned that Russia would be forced to abandon India and also arms sales to Vietnam, etc. If Sinocentrism proceeds, the foundational concept of Putinism—Eurasianism—could not survive. Russia seeks a sphere of dominance in Asia—Central Asia, Mongolia, the Northern Sea Route—and a balance recognized by China in areas from the Korean Peninsula to India. Multipolarity is its desired architecture with Eurasia a label for areas under Moscow’s sway or shared influence. Critics view an expanding BRI as Sinocentrism, emasculating the SCO, killing Greater Eurasia, and dooming multipolarity. Moscow has tried to keep aloof from BRI investments and fight back over Central Asia and the Arctic, but outmaneuvered, it is left with a stark choice. For bold commentators in Russian newspapers in 2020–21, a lastditch effort was needed to resist China. The counteroffensive warns of what could go wrong, citing conflicts over geography that have already become visible. For three decades, they have played out in the Russian Far East. First, there was the “yellow peril” threat of Chinese migration, then the “Chinatown” threat of new businesses either openly or clandestinely overwhelming Russian companies, then concern over infrastructure opening the area to Chinese transit and control over natural resources, and finally the demands that China as a “near-Arctic” state incorporate the “Polar Silk Road” into the BRI. Despite numerous joint plans for the Russian Far East and Northeast China, pandemic border closings widened mutual distrust. Central Asia is the second battlefield obscured by Chinese and Russian claims of harmony. In the first decade of the SCO to 2011, tensions were kept in check

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by a well-understood division of labor, limiting China’s reach in Central Asia, although the Chinese kept pressing for change, e.g., through the establishment of a free trade agreement (FTA). Putin returned as president heralding a November 2011 agreement to establish the EEU, drawing much of Central Asia tighter into Moscow’s orbit. Xi Jinping started his tenure as president by countering with the SREB, altering Beijing’s relationship with Central Asia. No matter how often Putin and Xi insisted that they were “docking” the two entities and encompassing them with their jointly led SCO, the reality was tense maneuvering. In fear of an alliance, the opposition warns that Central Asia would slip out of Russia’s sphere. Increasingly skeptical, if guarded, comments about the results of the “Turn to the East” hinted at serious losses for Russia, even referring to the death of the GEP and of multipolarity. Moves taken by Russia to counter those by China were seen as too little, too late. Putin then found his own solution, however, not diversification in Asia but glory through victory in Ukraine. A case could be made that Putin saw Russia at a crossroads with one last chance before it fell into China’s clutches in a polarized Cold War and lost its ability to maneuver as a great power. An undercurrent is present that China had set a trap, feigning deference to Russia in Central Asia and on history, but agreement on multipolarity, support for the GEP, or understandings of a different kind over the decade had only lulled Russia into complacency. In fact, tensions prevailed over not only India, Central Asia, and Vietnam, but also North Korea, Japan, and Mongolia. In the background, China wielded its financial clout and Russia’s one-sided needs to drive Russia into a corner from which it urgently had to extricate itself. Sino-Russian relations appeared ever closer on the surface, but behind the scenes there was a cat-and-mouse game of one side testing the other’s limits of tolerance and the other, in response, proffering a test of its own. This duality to keep up appearances would not have been possible without considerable overlap on urgent priorities. They agree on key dimensions of national identity. At the same time, the distrust underscoring the lack of coordination visible in cat-and-mouse behavior is also rooted in national identities. The legacies of the Sino-Soviet split, the heyday of the grand strategic triangle, and traditional communist ideology are all in evidence. Russian thinking about China has taken shape in these enduring contexts. Signs of Disenchantment with the State of Sino-Russian Relations

Antipathy to the US-led worldview has buttressed Sino-Russian relations, but Russians were awakening to a threatening Sinocentric worldview, which the mainstream long denied. For the prior decade, Russians had ignored Chinese civilization as of no consequence as long as China kept its gaze on the evils of Western civilization. It sufficed to assert that ideology has no relevance for

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Sino-Russian relations. This façade was broken by 2020 for three, clear reasons: (1) watching the way China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy and rhetoric treated other countries and fearing they would be turned against Russia too; (2) watching China’s rekindling of socialist ideology, while remembering the muchdespised Mao era and the potential for Russia to follow the same track; and (3) hearing echoes of the Sino-Soviet split and China’s territorial grievances. Developments by 2020 raised the specter of Sinocentrism, arousing alarm about China’s intentions as an ally, and about its threat to Russian sovereignty and national identity. In making the case against forming an alliance, critics did not defend democracy or Russia’s European identity, but they issued warnings over rising inequality. Unmentioned in official Russian narratives are suspicions of the unrevealed Chinese motives in bilateral relations. They range from redressing historical injustices at Russia’s expense to forging a Sinocentric regional hierarchical order including Russia to building a socialist camp with China replacing the Soviet Union at the center. Should Moscow defy Beijing, it would invite a revival of the territorial dispute as well as the full wrath of “wolf warrior” invectives. Isolated and economically dependent, Russia could ill afford to test if China would blackmail it. Should Moscow accept Chinese plans for new levels of economic, technological, and geopolitical closeness, it would leave itself vulnerable, at odds with the driving force in Putin’s worldview. If China is driven by Sinocentrism with scant room for Russia’s interests and is reverting to elements of Maoism with the potential to reassert a socialist hierarchy, desperate conditions demand desperate measures. Fear of “wolf warrior” diplomacy and blackmail over territorial grievances would only deepen if Moscow did not act abruptly. Sensing there is no time to waste amid increasingly clear revelations of China’s conduct in 2018–21, some hinted at turning away from China to a degree; others looked elsewhere. Aleksandr Gabuev wrote, “What China is doing to Australia is relevant. In a decade will Russia still be able to sell weapons to India or Vietnam if China controls half of Russia’s trade?”10 Igor Denisov said, “Attempts by Chinese diplomats in the EU countries to switch to personal threats against the most active critics destroy the social capital that China has been building for many years.”11 Such alarm about China casts doubt on the course Russia had been taking. Fedor Lukyanov wrote that it is dangerous for Russia to become entangled in positioning in the Sino-US world, ignoring debate on its own development. He added, politics based on “civilizational choice” is inadvisable and he drew a parallel with Russia’s ill-advised entry into WW I, when it took sides.12 This appears to be a warning against signs that Russia would take sides and against optimistic assumptions steeped in misjudgments about Russian as well as Chinese civilization. Yet, if such concern raised alarm, a response to draw back from China was rejected in favor of a war to raise Russia’s stature.

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Russians, it seems, could easily bring down the wrath of the “wolf warrior” Chinese. A Nezavisimaya Gazeta article focused on the unprecedented pressure against that newspaper from a Chinese diplomat unhappy with an article. Despite many in Russia believing that the golden age of the 1950s in Moscow-Beijing relations lives on, some Chinese officials do not, says the article. They do not respect Russian laws and do not treat Russians as equal partners. “This tells us more about the real state of bilateral relations that what politicians say.”13 Clearly, a trusting relationship was not developing. At the end of 2020 Vladimir Skosyrev wrote in Nezavisimaya Gazeta that “China has quarreled with everyone, is pursuing a policy that rejects its neighbors.”14 Sergey Trush argued that a Sino-Russian military alliance “does not serve Russia’s security interests and impacts multipolarity,” adding, “Russians are talking a lot about such an alliance since in October China was seen as changing its view of alliance relations …. A new East-West axis would take shape. India would move further to the US. An impact could be felt in Russian society too, adding to disproportions and ideological thinking. The dominant partner would hold sway over foreign policy, ideology, and even budget expenses.”15 These warnings may have fueled a search for change. Poignant reminders of China’s clashing thinking about history came in rapid succession. A 2016 Global Times article warned, “Russia really wants to do what it accuses the United States of.” After the Russian charge d’affaires responded in the paper, Alexander Lukin wrote, “This new tone of Chinese assertiveness is not just for hostile states and is supported by a significant share of the elite, while the leadership does not appear to want to change this.”16 Lukin added, “exchanges through the media are becoming more and more asymmetrical: publication of Russian works on relevant topics in China is possible only if they do not contradict the official position of Beijing. The control has been significantly tightened recently in contrast to the Russian publishing of a significant number of translated Chinese materials on history, politics, and international relations, many reflecting Beijing’s official approaches, which are not shared by most Russian researchers …. The complex of ‘lost territories’ is constantly being fed in China.” A low point occurred in July 2020 when, as one Russian journalist wrote, the 160th anniversary of Vladivostok reminded the Chinese of unequal treaties and that the city does not leave Chinese nationalists in peace. Mentioning the occasion prompted a wave of negative emotions from Chinese bloggers. Anti-Western feelings can be turned against Russia too. Nezavisimaya Gazeta warned of a new ideological component in Sino-Russian relations, pointing not only to the attack on the name of Vladivostok, but a wider pattern of harking back to China’s historical humiliation, anti-Russian emotions raised by a Chinese diplomat in Pakistan, and spillover from the Sino-Indian border clash. It indicated that if China’s leaders do not intend at this time to cause a dispute with Russia, they are artificially arousing emotions over history.17

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The distrust in personal exchanges is high in academic collaboration, acceptance of Confucian Institutes in Russia and Russian TV and publications in China, and business ties. The term “xenophobia” has crept into Russian complaints about China long after it was present in Chinese complaints about Russia. There is scant cause for joint celebration without strife. In mid-July 2020 Ivan Zuenko wrote that “bilateral relations over the past two years have been on the razor’s edge due to anniversaries, convenient and inconvenient.” He noted the 50th of the 1969 border clash, the 120th of the forcible resettlement of Chinese from Russia, and the 160th anniversary of the founding of Vladivostok in 1860, whose announcement aroused a virulent reaction in China, where many are suspected of doubting the 2004 final territorial demarcation, adding that “Historical facts will not persuade the Chinese.”18 On March 28, 2021, Zuenko said, “The living and working conditions for foreigners in China are constantly becoming more difficult. The borders are closed, and no one knows when they will open … business is going bankrupt. It is not just the pandemic. That only accelerated a process growing over the past five to six years.”19 Pretenses that contacts are proceeding smoothly are exposed in such revelations. Such criticisms, however, fell short of offering a solution. That heeding these warnings could undercut Putin’s main policy objectives did not go unnoticed. An unexpected response needed to be found, as it, arguably, was in 2022. Impression that the Chinese Were Ready

For the first 15 years of the post-Cold War era, China urged Russia to do more to bolster bilateral ties and face the US more assertively. Yet, the cautious legacy left by Deng Xiaoping limited what China would do or was seeking from Russia. Over the next decade or so, Russia was at least as assertive as China, growing more so in the mid-2010s, as the two egged each other on. Increasingly, especially from 2018, Russians took comfort from the thought that China was turning more sharply against the US and is ready to raise relations with Russia to a much higher level. The notion that this was becoming an alliance drew attention, both positive and negative. On the positive side, Moscow felt more emboldened toward North Korea, US allies, and the international order. On the negative side, some dared to warn of new dangers Russia would face, overlapping in their concerns with hardliners who were delighted with China’s shift but feared marginalization. The mainstream narrative is all about the unstoppable advance to a partnership determined to reconstruct Asian and global architecture. From 2014, having confronted the West militarily in Crimea, Russia was the driving force, waiting for China to agree that the divide is irreconcilable with the US. Finally, in 2018–19, China joined in this cause, which served to put the forging of a Sino-Russian alliance on the agenda. However, welcome this outcome was to Russia, it raised a problem little anticipated by the mainstream: instead of the

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long-desired multipolarity in Asia, a pattern of bipolarity was emerging, leaving Russia in the shadow of China’s conflict with the US. Moreover, by raising the “red banner” of socialism, China had launched an ideological struggle, which inspired like-minded Russians to embrace a Cold War more heartily, as grew apparent in the Ukraine war. Both critics appealing, indirectly by necessity, for reducing dependency on China, and the mainstream, eager for joint aggressiveness against the US and its allies, recognized that the Sino-US relationship had deteriorated. In strategic triangle logic, that invited change to the other sides of the triangle. Unlike the critic’s advice to shift toward multipolarity (calling for better ties with the US would have crossed a red line), the mainstream pressed for a closer Sino-Russian leg and a more aggressive stance against the US. The Trump impact on Sino-US relations was viewed as an inadvertent favor to Russia. If the pandemic slowed diplomacy, Biden’s more strategic calculus for countering China whetted the siloviki’s appetite for taking quick action. To the extent that the Russia war in Ukraine has gone badly and that ties to Russia damage China’s international image, Beijing is distancing itself from the message conveyed at the Sino-Russian summit in February 2022 prior to the war of “no limits” to relations. Yet, it considers Moscow an invaluable strategic asset in the most important struggle with Washington, militarily, diplomatically, in economic security, and in the global clash of values. Now that Russia is weakened and more isolated, it is also a prime opportunity to extend Sinocentrism. Russia is ever more a junior partner and will pay the price. Moscow has boxed itself into a corner for which it is still unprepared. Russians have long detected a lack of respect from the Chinese. If one reason for the war in Ukraine was to win more respect, its counterproductive effect, visible increasingly since the summer of 2022, is obvious to Moscow. What was bothersome in earlier years is likely to become seriously irksome. Yes, China will want closer relations, needed now by Russia, but on terms more onerous and more offensive to Russian national identity. This dilemma is not going to go away because, on the surface, China is solicitous, and in the background are more acrimonious relations with the US and its allies. Having become mired in Ukraine, Russia awaits China’s moves. The Ukraine war backfired as a way to gain more equality with China. Putin may see no way forward but to agree to China’s terms. Yet, a backlash in the Russian elite is not inconceivable. Three factors are likely to make it a possibility: 1) the high level of distrust of China, never fully overcome from the Sino-Soviet split and even revived in the 2010s; 2) the lack of respect in China for Russia, felt more vividly in the recent years and now exacerbated by the Ukraine war; and 3) the backlash in Russia to the failure in Ukraine, which may take time to play out. Xi Jinping is in the driver’s seat, as he eyes a shift in 2023 from wary watchfulness of Putin’s moves to active intervention to serve China’s objectives.

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The record of the “Turn to the East” is of an increasingly close partnership without increasing trust or confidence that it could proceed favorably for Russia absent a drastic change. The illusion of Eurasianism is unsustainable, and the reality of advancing Sinocentrism is approaching. Conclusion

Reasoning about strategic triangles normally focuses on joining one of the other two parties to gain leverage over the other. Missing is attention to action to secure an equilateral triangle, not just a spot in the mix. China was not content in the 1950s to ally with the Soviet Union as the weak third party. Moscow is clearly like-minded, although its plan to use the Ukraine war to propel it into a new triangular formation clearly backfired. Going to war in Ukraine was a misjudgment comparable to the stagnation in thinking about the grand strategic triangle in the 1970s–80s. It too was rooted in erroneous assumptions about both China and the US. In the late Cold War decades, Moscow was saddled with an out-of-touch national identity that could not comprehend the dynamism taking flight in Asia, the capacity of China to reform, or the nature of Sino-US relations. In the recent decade, it became obsessed with the “Turn to the East,” as if that gave it an alternative to reliance on the West and support from China to cushion the blowback from countries in the West over the war. Xi Jinping and previous Chinese leaders had steered Moscow toward the outcome in 2022. They had urged it to demonize the US, to overestimate itself as one of three centers of power, to expect that China would act aggressively against the existing world order, and to count on a united front in pushing back against US-led alliances. If Putin for a time found himself getting ahead of Xi Jinping in his urgency to take action, he was heartened in 2018–21 by Xi’s anger toward Trump’s trade war, Biden’s human rights rhetoric and economic security agenda, and the hardening of policy in the US toward China’s pressure on Taiwan. Over these years, one could discern in Russian sources newfound confidence that China was preparing to recognize a New Cold War, as Putin had done. The “Turn to the East” is an evolving Russian narrative on how to capitalize on East and South Asia for Russia’s benefit. It rests overwhelmingly on the relationship with China. Assumptions treat Russia as vital to China, having assets that require China to take its interests seriously, and China as intent on pursuing interests consistent with Russia’s needs. Fundamental to all that follows is that both have irreconcilable differences with the US and its allies and must prepare for war over territory, making the other a partner. Ironically, the communist ideology that drove Beijing and Moscow apart is the very foundation of what has been drawing them closer. Yet, Putin seeks a pathway to closeness beyond Russia’s means, fearing asymmetry as he desperately gambles on gaining ground in the West for strength in the East.

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After a decade of cat-and-mouse moves rather than close coordination, the Russian side was essentially out of options. Its pretenses about multiple poles, Eurasia, and Chinese deference rang hollow. Meanwhile, critiques were mounting from both conservatives and reformers that the partnership with China and the “Turn to the East” had gone off the rails. No longer were the goals behind Russian policy, such as a grand strategic triangle rather than a polarized struggle exclusive of Russia, deemed achievable. Finally, China was seen as poised to take action over Taiwan and more amenable to accept Russian aggression challenging the West too. Such background factors put a Russian invasion of Ukraine on the agenda, with erroneous expectations. An outcome of one-sided dependency on China without outside support would allow China to impose its will in a polarized Asia. China, Russia, North Korea, and various states across Central and Southeast Asia with communist legacies would confront a US-led alliance and partnership network mobilized behind an Indo-Pacific strategy. Having given up on multipolarity and watched as Greater Eurasia was being subsumed by BRI, Russia would have little leverage on China: deferring to its censorship and national identity demands; yielding to its economic integration requirements on all fronts of the BRI; and waiting in trepidation for historical and territorial issues to be raised that previously were seen as crossing a red line. The hole dug between 1976 and 1986 proved too deep to climb out of. There is reason to think that the hole dug in 2022 was becoming so deep that Russia would again not find an escape hatch. Notes 1 Gilbert Rozman, A Mirror for Socialism: Soviet Criticisms of China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). 2 Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Concurrent Debate about the Gorbachev Era,” in Thomas P. Bernstein and Hua-Yu Li, eds., China Learns from the Soviet Union, 1949 to the Present (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009), pp. 449–76. 3 Gilbert Rozman, “Sino-Russian Mutual Assessments,” in Sherman Garnett, ed., Rapprochement or Rivalry? Russia-China Relations in a Changing Asia (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), pp. 147–74. 4 Gilbert Rozman, “The Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership: How Close? Where To?” in James Bellacqua, ed., The Future of China-Russia Relations (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2010), pp. 12–32. 5 Gilbert Rozman, “Russia’s Revived Debate on China: Historical Perspective and Implicit Significance,” The Asan Forum, vol. 6, no. 5 (2018). 6 Gilbert Rozman, “Moscow’s China-Watchers in the Post-Mao Era: The Response to a Changing China,” The China Quarterly, vol. 94 ( June 1983), pp. 215–41. 7 Gilbert Rozman, The Chinese Debate about Soviet Socialism, 1978–1985 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987). 8 Gilbert Rozman, The Sino-Russian Challenge to the World Order: National Identities, Bilateral Relations, and East vs. West in the 2010s (Washington, DC, and Stanford, CA: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 2014). 9 These issues are explained in Ch. 2. 10 Aleksandr Gabuev, “РОЛЬ ЕВРОПЫ В РАСТУЩЕЙ ЗАВИСИМОСТИ РОССИИ ОТ КИТАЯ”, Moscow Carnegie Center, March 2, 2021.

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1 1 Igor Denisov, Forbes, April 6, 2021. 12 Fedor Lukyanov, Profil’, May 20, 2020. 13 Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 4, 2020. 14 Vladimir Skosyrev, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 4, 2020. 15 Sergey Trush, in Vestnik—Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk, No. 11, 2020. 16 Aleksandr Lukin, Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, July 1, 2021. 17 Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 15, 2020. 18 Ivan Zuenko, “Kitaitsy o iubilee Vladivostoka: ‘posol’stvo Rossii unizirolo Kitai,’” Argumenty i Fakty, No. 29 ( July 15, 2020). 19 Ivan Zuenko, “Враг в лице сверхдержавы”, RIA Novosti, March 28, 2021, 234 newspaper.

INDEX

Abe Shinzo, meetings with Putin 22, 26–27, 134, 139–142, 221; results with Putin 20, 37, 133 Afghanistan 106, 183, 192, 224 Arctic-Pacific region 2, 32–33, 71, 172, 221 ASEAN: centrality of 176–178; in GEP 14, 26–27, 173–175, 214; significance of 51, 184, 189, 222; summit with 25 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC): entry into 13, 20; hosting in Vladivostok 5–6, 19–21, 38, 122, 150, 221; meetings 10; summits 24, 27, 69, 138, 176 Australia 27, 147, 183, 227 authoritarian digital alliance 33 Battulga, Khaltmaagiin 160, 162–163, 167 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): and GEP 11, 27, 43, 49, 82, 97, 111, 168, 222, 226; and SREB 24, 69, 91; joining 3, 162; plans for 5, 35, 70–74, 78–80, 87, 189; summits 26, 107; wariness of 48, 93, 96–101, 172, 174, 179 Biden Joe 19, 173; and China 31, 232; and Japan 154; and Korea 130–131; and Putin 33, 218 border dispute, revival of 2, 46–49, 228 Brezhnev, Leonid 219 BRICS 24, 26, 106, 173–174, 180; prospects for 40, 51, 178, 184

Central Asia, division of labor 2, 49, 61, 92, 107–108, 112, 174, 227 China Dream 26, 43, 58 civil society 57, 60, 76, 98–99, 103, 195–196, 218 civil-military relations 191–199, 205 Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) 12, 97, 103–108, 112, 162–163, 169; and peacekeeping 190–206 “color revolution” 23, 61, 134 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 108, 189, 194 community of common destiny 34, 36 Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) 11–12, 91, 105, 109–112 democracy vs. autocracy 56, 59–60 Deng Xiaoping 215, 220, 230 docking the EEU and SREB 5, 7, 23–28, 35, 92, 98, 174, failure of 14, 40–42, 49, 51, 189, 222, 227 East Asian Summit (EAS) 24, 142, 172, 176–178 Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) 10, 20, 25–27, 69, 75, 78, 87, 126–127, 130, 167, 221; and India 179, 183; and Japan 141–143, 149, 153; purpose of 84

236 Index

Elbegdorj, Tsakhiagiin 162 energy superpower 6, 12, 39, 112 Eurasian civilization (Eurasianism) 2–3, 30, 213; versus Western civilization 19–20, 60–61 Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) 95–96, 162, 189–190, 214; evolution of 5, 22, 39, 91, 222, 225–227 Eurasian Initiative 20, 120, 122, 134 Eurasianism: and India 178, illusion of 232; meaning of 2, 4–5, 15–16, 24, 224; seen from China 10–11, 70 Far East and Arctic Development Corporation 75–76, 84 Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) 147, 173–176, 184, Free Port of Vladivostok (FPV) 75, 83–84 Free Trade Agreement (FTA) 3, 22, 48, 127, 175–177, 227 G2 21, 23 G7 12, 120, 141, 146, 150 G20 24, 143 Global Development Initiative 109 Global Security Initiative 108, 112 Gorbachev, Mikhail 3, 52, 215–218, 223 Grand Strategic Triangle 211–233; convergence on 7; defined 3–6, 59; transformation of 8 Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP): agendas for 5, 91–92, 95–96, 110, 206; meaning of 7–8, 26, 43, 173–176, 189–190, 214, 222; prospects for 51, 178, 184, 217–219, 227 Heilongjiang 71–87 historical humiliation 57–59, 229 history card 50–51 Hong Kong 63 Hu Jintao 57, 220 human rights 28, 105, 141, 191, 194, 197, 232 India: aggression against 5, 14, 46, 62, 173; arms sales to 50, 56; as GEP anchor 13–14, 27, 214, 222, 226; opposition to BRI 15, 26, 178–181 indivisible security 108, 145 Indo-Pacific 27, 172–175, 184–185; strategy 86, 233

Indonesia 177, 181 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty 32, 50, 147 Kazakhstan 11–12, 44, 91–113, 189–205 Kim Jong-un, and nuclear weapons 19–20, impact of 7, 26, 28, 42, 122–123, 127, 131 Kishida Fumio 153–155 Korean War 130, 134–136, 215, 224; glorification of 13, 57–58, 131 Lee Myung-bak 121–124, 129, 133 Mao Zedong 57, 62, 215–218, 228 maritime partnership 70–71, 85–86 Medvedev, Dmitry 20, 220 Middle Power 11–12, 23, 93 Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East 74–76; Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic 75–76, 87 modernization: as goal 3, 20–21, 150; threat to 6, 38 Modi, Narendra 15, 27, 107, 179–184 Moon Jae-in 27, 120, 126–29, 132–134, 155 multipolarity: case for 22, 231; loss of hope in 5–7, 21, 24, 31, 34, 222; plans for 1, 133, 173–175, 217, 221; under threat 38–39, 50–51, 212–213, 226–227 multivector diplomacy 11–12, 91–94, 99–113, 193 Myanmar 177 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) 61, 95, 106, 108, 128, 130–132, 147, 162, 196–200; expansion 190, 206; ties to 193–195 NATO-Russia Council (NRC) 197–198 Nazarbayev, Nursultan 99, 103–104, 109 Near-Arctic State 71, 226 New Cold War 36, 49, 147, 174, 216; and China’s need for Russia 46; and turn to China 22–23; causes of 31–32, 121; perception of 7, 13, 21, 42, 134; Chinese awakening to 9, 29–30, 34, 230–232

Index  237

New Northern Policy 120, 127, 130, 134 Northern Sea Route (NSR, Polar Silk Road, Arctic Sea Route) 3, 14, 25, 70–72, 77, 214, 221; cooperation on 7, 29, 32, 79–80, 85–87, 126, 226 Obama, Barak 2, 173, 218; and China 21, 23–24, 31; and Japan 133, 141; and Korea 120, 130 Olympics 122–123, 127, 141 Pandemic 19, 33, 71, 82–83, 121, 128, 153; and assertiveness 37, 47, 49, 132; and “virus war” 31; impact of 162, 184, 221–222, 226, 230–231 Park Geun-hye 25, 27, 120–126, 129–134, 221 Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) 190, 194–195, 198–206 Philippines 43, 177 Power of Siberia 30, 32–33, 167–168 Primakov, Yevgeny 13, 175 Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue (Quad) 15, 19, 51, 147, 156, 226; and Russia’s response 172–176, 183–185 RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) 177 Responsibility to Protect (R2P) 194–197 Russia-China Intergovernmental Commission on Cooperation and Development of the Far East and Baikal Region of Russia and of Northeast China 84 Russia-India-China (RIC) 184 Russian Far East 2–11, 15, 20, 25–27, 35–38, 40–51, 60, 69–90, 124, 126, 129, 133, 135, 147–148, 150, 157, 174, 183, 214–217, 219–221, 226 Russkiy Mir (Russian World) 94–96 Russocentrism 4, 60, 213 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) 106–109; coordination of 7, 39, 41, 213, 221–222; hopes for 1, 9–10, 22, 26, 189–191; expansion of 25, 30, 51, 162, 173–175, 178–179, 184; summits 12, 15, 95, 161, 214

Silk Road Economic Belt (SERB): acceptance of 14, 174–175; plan for 5–6, 22, 38–39, 214 siloviki (power elite) worldview 212–216, 231 Singapore 48 Sino-Russian alliance 24, backlash against 8, 46, 49–50, 178; call for 22, 34–37, 174, 217; prospect of 28–30, 222–225 Sino-Soviet split 5, 59, 213, 218, 227, 228–231 Sinocentrism 43, 74, 212, 215, 218; and Korean Peninsula 13, 131; denial of 7, 14, 43, 175, 178, 185, 222; vs. Russocentrism 2, 8, 16, 91, 102, 112, 173–174, 213, 223–232 Six-Party Talks 13, 119–127, 130, 135 socialism 212; reassertion of 8, 29, 60, 218, 228, 231 soft power 12, 96, 101 South China Sea dispute 42, 222 Soviet matrix 42 space cooperation 31–33, 48 Suga Yoshihide 153 Taiwan: as China’s preoccupation 61, 131; confrontation prospects 28, 32, 155, 232–233; Russia’s role in 5, 7, 222 Tajikistan 12, 49, 93–94, 106, 109, 111–112, 191–192, 203 techno-economic bloc 33, 47–48 THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) 26, 121, 124–128, 133–135 ‘third-neighbor policy” 12, 161, 169 Tibet 23 Tokayev, Kassym-Jomart 96, 99–113, 193, 202 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) 24, 27 Trump, Donald 26–30, 128, 145, 173, 178– 181, 218; and Korea 130–131, 134 Trump-Xi trade war 7, 19, 28, 31, 232 Twentieth Party Congress 9 Ukraine War 1–15, 19–23, 35, 52, 61, 64, 84, 91, 95, 104, 107–113, 119, 122, 130–136, 138–139, 144–146, 150–156, 164, 168, 174, 184–185, 189–206, 211–233; Chinese debates on 203–204

238 Index

universal values 61, 224 Uzbekistan 11–12, 93–95, 102–107, 112, 202 Valdai Discussion Club 69, 81–82, 92 Vietnam 24, 43, 48, 62, 172–177, 226–228; and arms sales 50–51, 181 Vladivostok: as gateway 20, 27; as source of contention 46–47, 62, 229–230; superficiality of its change 38, 221

“wolf warrior” rhetoric 8, 19, 46; as response to US 31; meaning for Russia 37, 49, 51, 218–219, 228–229 World War II 129, 132, 134; glorification of results 13, 57–58, 220–221; recognition of the results 143, 150, 152, 155; victory parades 24, 123–124, 151, 205 Xinjiang 23, 63, 98–99, 192 Yeltsin, Boris 220 Yoon Suk-yeol 121, 132