Abstract: This paper examines the Japanese factors behind the stalemate between Japan and Russia. It treats the territorial dispute not as a core reason but as a consequence of deeper problems, both emotive and structural. Japanese leaders cannot challenge the multiple forces keeping them from ending the stalemate.
Country or Region: Russia
Diesen, Glenn
Abstract: Russia’s effort to become a geoeconomic power in Asia alters the dynamics of the territorial dispute with Japan. Both Moscow and Tokyo aim to prevent Russia’s geoeconomic “pivot to Asia” becoming merely a pivot to China. Yet, a settlement is obstructed by the growing geoeconomic value of the Southern Kurils and Japan’s lack of an autonomous foreign policy.
Brown, James D.J
Abstract: This essay makes the case that despite Abe’s careful cultivation of closer ties with Russia in the areas of politics, economics, and security, a favorable territorial deal is still likely to elude him. Above all, this is because the conditions that Russia will apply to even a two-island deal will be too demanding for any Japanese leader to accept.
Feffer, John
Abstract: Donald Trump’s America First philosophy stresses the importance of sovereignty in international relations, bringing US policy at least rhetorically in line with that of North Korea. Rising nationalism in China and Japan has also sharpened an already existing debate on sovereignty in the region involving territorial issues and history questions. The issue has come to a head around North Korea’s claim to a sovereign right to a nuclear weapons program. The current status quo, in which North Korea remains an unofficial member of the nuclear club and the international community continues to pressure it into rolling back its nuclear program, could persist. But the change in the underlying philosophy in US policy suggests that this status quo has become increasingly unstable. War could disrupt the status quo, most likely as a result of miscalculation or misinterpretation. There are three potential nonmilitary exits from this status quo. One possible solution would be the normalization of the sovereign status of all the countries in the region. A second scenario involves a modest “smudging” of sovereignty, for example, the “freeze for a freeze” proposal supported by both China and Russia. In the third scenario, the countries of the region address the multilateralism gap by forging cooperation on a common threat–climate change–that reframes sovereignty and initiates a “virtuous circle of engagement.”
Christoffersen, Gaye
Abstract: Chinese and Russian officials and scholars discursively construct and reconstruct repeatedly the nature and boundaries of Eurasian regional integration in an ongoing process of regional order construction guided by diverging concepts that involve the Eurasian Economic Union, the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the Greater Eurasian Partnership. There is a process of accommodation and adaptation that has led to a slow unfolding of a Eurasian regional order. I draw on the English School to examine Sino-Russian efforts to maintain a Eurasian regional order rather than to slip into an unbridled rivalry for spheres of influence.
Korolev, Alexander, and Vladimir Portyakov
Abstract: Although not formal allies, China and Russia have steadily increased their strategic cooperation. However, crises and tensions in each other’s areas of strategic interest continue to complicate each country’s relations with the other and the rest of the international community. In this article we explore China’s reaction toward major crises in the post-Soviet space (the Caucasus crisis of 2008 and the Ukraine crisis of 2014) and Russia’s responses to the South China Sea dispute and show that they share many similarities. To explain the reaction patterns and better understand the nature of contemporary China-Russia relations, we apply a neoclassical realist framework, which helps assess the impact of both system-level and unit-level factors on great powers’ behavior. The assessment demonstrates that the observed behavior pattern is an outcome of causal forces of different levels simultaneously pushing in different directions.
Wishnick, Elizabeth
Abstract: After dismissing the Sino-Russian partnership for the past decade, scholars now scramble to assess its significance, particularly with US foreign policy in disarray under the Trump administration. I examine how China and Russia manage their relations in East Asia and the impact of their approach to great power management on the creation of an East Asian order. According to English School theorist Hedley Bull, great power management is one of the ways that order is created. Sino-Russian great power management involves rule making, a distinctive approach to crisis management, and overlapping policy approaches toward countries such as Burma and the Philippines. I conclude with a comparison between Sino-Russian great power management and the US alliance system, note a few distinctive features of the Trump era, and draw some conclusions for East Asia.
Ying, Liu
Abstract: In this article I analyze the China-Russia strategic partnership of cooperation from a constructivist perspective. By employing Wendt’s concepts and structures of identity to understand relations between China and Russia, and their relations with other countries, I seek to elucidate the drivers of the current China-Russia partnership and shed light on the reasons why, despite burgeoning ties, the two countries have not established a formal alliance. I argue that both China and Russia are in the process of reconstructing their national identities while also integrating into the international community. There exists an ideational foundation for the China-Russia strategic partnership, but divergent concepts of harmony and honor make China and Russia act differently when interacting with a third party in the international community. I argue that China and Russia are still on the way to forming a shared concept of strategic partnership. Beijing and Moscow are not likely to set an alliance arrangement against a third party in the foreseeable future.
Lukin, Artyom
Abstract: In this article, I examine Russia-US relations, focusing on their Asia Pacific dimension. I argue that the United States and Russia hold widely divergent visions of international order. Washington remains committed to the idea of US-led hegemony based on Western liberal values whereas Moscow champions a multipolar great power order founded upon the balance of power, Westphalian sovereignty, and the diversity of values. I find strong affinity between Moscow’s foreign policy discourse and Hedley Bull’s version of the English School in international relations theory. Viewed from the English School perspective, the layer of fundamental norms and institutions linking Moscow and Washington together as citizens of one international society has become dangerously thin. This inevitably affects Russia-US interaction in the Asia Pacific and makes their cooperation on pressing security issues, such as North Korea, difficult.
Sutter, Robert
Preview: This essay begins with an examination of the causes and drivers of the closer Russia-China relations that have emerged in the last decade. It then analyzes the roadblocks, or “brakes,” that will slow the developing relationship, in particular identifying how the two countries diverge on many of their most important foreign relationships. The next section studies the strategic consequences of tighter Sino-Russian cooperation for U.S. interests. The final section identifies policy options and provides an outlook for 2018.
Yamazoe, Hiroshi
Preview: This essay assesses the implications of relations between China and Russia for the U.S.-Japan alliance, taking into consideration the impact of the Sino-Russian partnership as well as the challenges that each country poses. Differences in interests and the non-binding nature of the strategic partnership currently prevent the relationship from becoming a formal alliance. Still, China and Russia have overlapping interests and their cooperation is growing, a trend that is unlikely to be slowed by the policies of other states.
This essay imagines the impact of the partnership on the U.S.-Japan alliance in three scenarios in order to better understand what situations the United States and Japan want to avoid. The general finding is that, while the United States needs a long-term strategy for countering Russian challenges in limited areas, the U.S.-Japan alliance should develop even longer-term and more comprehensive efforts to counter China’s challenges without expecting a quick victory or exacerbating Sino-Russian collaboration.
Uyama, Tomohiko
Preview: This essay will examine Russia’s and China’s activities in Central Asia and assess the implications for U.S. and Japanese interests. The first section will assess Russia’s and China’s respective roles in the region. The second section will then discuss U.S. and Japanese relations with the Central Asian states and consider options for dealing with Russian and Chinese influence, even possibly by cooperating with those countries on economic and security initiatives
Lukin, Alexander
Preview: This essay argues that the Sino-Russian rapprochement is a natural result of broader changes taking place in world politics, while the U.S. policy hostile to both countries has had the effect of accelerating that process. It analyzes the causes of this rapprochement, outlines the growing shared interests between Russia and China, and discusses possible changes in U.S. relations with both countries under the Trump administration.
Stent, Angela
Preview: This essay examines the United States’ key policy objectives toward Russia and discusses the extent to which the Sino-Russian relationship can facilitate or hinder these objectives. It starts out from the premise that the key drivers of U.S. policy toward Russia and China differ considerably. The major driver behind U.S.-Russian relations is that the United States and Russia are the world’s two nuclear superpowers with the lion’s share of nuclear weapons. They are also on opposite sides of a number of international conflicts and have a limited economic relationship. A key driver of the U.S.-Chinese relationship, by contrast, is the fact that the United States and China are the world’s two economic superpowers. Differences over security issues such as Taiwan or the South China Sea have also played an important role, but trade and investment questions loom much larger in this relationship than they do in U.S.-Russian relations. The stakes in the U.S.-Russian relationship are therefore of a very different order of magnitude than those involved in the U.S.-Chinese relationship.
Joo, Seung-Ho, and Yune Lee
Abstract: Since 2000, President Vladimir Putin of Russia has persistently pushed for trilateral economic projects involving Moscow, Seoul, and Pyongyang, especially in the fields of energy (oil, gas, and electricity) and transportation (railroad). The Kremlin has long maintained that its proposed trilateral projects would not only be economically beneficial to all but also pave the road to inter-Korean reconciliation and peaceful unification. This article addresses three questions regarding Putin’s trilateral economic projects. What motivates Russia to push for the projects? Would they bring benefits to the three countries? Would they facilitate Korean peace process? The authors argue that Putin’s trilateral economic projects are part of Russia’s quest for power and search for a multipolar world order and should be understood from the theoretical framework of “structural realism.” The research finds that the projects are not feasible due to North Korea’s nuclear crisis and economic uncertainties and may be implemented after the current North Korea’s nuclear crisis is resolved diplomatically, if North Korea’s leadership changes or if inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation is achieved by the progressive government of Moon Jae-In.
