RUSSIA’S FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD ASIA – April 12, 2007

Putin’s foreign policy might perplex the observer. It is often inconsistent and contradictory, in its approach to Asia, for example. Russia has been engaged in relationships with many Asian countries, but China and Iran stand out as the most important. In dealing with these countries, Putin has revealed inconsistencies. The general Russian-Chinese relationship, for example, seems to demonstrate consistent improvement since the collapse of the USSR. China and Russia have moved increasingly closer for economic, military, and geopolitical reasons. One aspect of their relations has become increasingly crucial: Russia's importance for China because of China’s quest for energy. Russia is one of the few sources of oil; indeed, Putin has a plan for pipelines stretching across all of Siberia and the Far East. China and Japan have vied for this oil, and Russia has been undecided who would get it first. At the beginning of discussions, Russia seemed to be inclined to provide oil first to Japan; then China emerged as the chosen one. Later, Russian authorities once again started to waver. On the West, on the other hand, Putin has no doubt and is building a pipeline directly to Germany.

Russia’s relationship with Iran is also marked with inconsistency. The government has supported Iran's claim that its nuclear research is exclusively peaceful, and has tried to minimize the possible effect on Iran of the UN sanctions advocated by the West. But Russia still accepts the idea of sanctions and, Iranians claim, has actually dragged its feet in building the Boushehr atomic power plant, the most important Iranian-Russian project. The Iranians, outraged by the delay, proclaim that they could finish Boushehr themselves. The Iranians believe that Russians have played a double game with them, and recently clearly conveyed their displeasure when Ahmadinejad proclaimed that Israel will collapse in the same way as the USSR. The statement was made at exactly the time when most Russians nostalgically remember the death of the USSR 15 years ago. The Iranian president was also aware that Putin proclaimed the collapse of the USSR as the greatest catastrophe of the twentieth century. Thus Russia's relationship with China and Iran hardly exhibits the clear trend toward forging the grand Eurasian alliance that some pundits believe; at least the road to this alliance is not without serious bumps and zigzags. Russia is clearly reluctant to embrace Iran and China wholeheartedly. What is the reason for this hesitancy?

The pundits have assumed that the Russian government’s restrictive attitude toward China and Iran is mostly due to geopolitical considerations. China has become much stronger than Russia from an economic and demographic point of view. The Russian government is not anxious to make itself too dependent on its big neighbor, who could easily transform itself into the enemy. There is also the assumption that Chinese immigrants would finally overrun Siberia and the Far East.

The fear of China and Iran has one other important source usually ignored by the pundits, one which has nothing to do with a sense of geopolitical threat from abroad. It is not even connected with a real or imaginary fear of immigrants. Indeed, while reluctant to provide a direct pipeline to China, with whom Russia has engaged in military maneuvers, Putin is going ahead with a pipeline that will provide a direct flow of oil to Germany, a member of NATO, an organization with which Russia has quite a tense relationship. While extremely apprehensive about the influx of foreigners from Asia/Africa, whom Russian mob often beat up, the populace actually have nothing against Europeans, and the cases when white Europeans or Americans are harassed just because they are from Europe or the USA are extremely rare. Thus the assumption that Russians are reluctant to embrace Asian countries just because of the fear of future confrontation or the influx of immigrants cannot always explain Putin’s hesitation.

The source of apprehension is purely internal and is connected with the rise of Russian nationalism, for whose proponents to be Russian is directly connected not with citizenship or even language and culture but with ethnicity/race. An important aspect of current Russian nationalism, one not much elaborated upon, is that, quite contrary to Russian nationalism of the past, quite a few of today's nationalists are actually anti-Western. They may be quite critical of Western, and especially American governments and their attempts to push Russia around. But they have nothing against whites from West Europe and the USA. Despite all their conflicts with the Russians, these people are still fellow whites and racial brothers. The conflicts/frictions between them and Russians are mistakes and they will soon realize this and join hands with white Russians against the common enemy – Muslims of various ethnic origins and Chinese – a threat to their very existence. In fact the participants in the November 4, 2006 nationalistic “Russian March” saw the major enemies of Russia in Muslims and Chinese, not Americans and NATO, as was the case with “Red to Brown" opposition of nationalistic minded Communists and nationalists in the Yeltsin era.

This racially directed Russian nationalism not only makes Chinese, in fact, any non-European presence, uncomfortable but also has implications for Russian foreign policy. Putin, with all his authoritarian penchant, is not a totalitarian ruler and takes public opinion in consideration. Even more important, Putin, or at least a considerable group of his advisors, cannot avoid the influence of the public mood, of ideas in the air. They believe – possibly contrary to the actual logic of events – that the current tension with Western Europe is a temporary hiatus; hence the great desire to marry Europe through Germany with oil/gas pipelines as sort of wedding ring. Friendships with China and Iran are more like temporary lulls before an open and bitter divorce. These feelings play an important role in shaping Russian policy toward China and Iran and an apparently bizarre inconsistency in Russian foreign policy.

Dmitry Shlapentokh

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Author of the article holds a Ph.D. degree in history from the University of Chicago, M.A. degree from Michigan State University and M.A. from the Univerity of Moscow. He is presently working as an Associate Professor at Indiana University at South Bend. He has authored several books on politics and history.

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