Carnegie Moscow Center
For Russia, the upcoming APEC Summit is seen primarily as an opportunity to attend important, bilateral meetings, not to talk about common issues in the Asia-Pacific.
China and India would definitely want to know if Russia is really so afraid of the missiles they are developing that is ready to abandon the INF Treaty.
Russia certainly seeks to further its strategic partnership with India and to continue to develop its relations with Pakistan. However, its moves will face growing mistrust in New Delhi and Islamabad if Moscow remains silent on South Asia’s hot-button issues.
Regionalization may indeed be the future or at least the new stage of globalization. Competition among the super-regions, in this scenario, will become the essence of global geoeconomics and geopolitics.
South Asia is more vulnerable to a possible nuclear conflict than any other region. It is necessary to take a number of urgent steps to stabilize relations between India and Pakistan and prevent a nuclear threat.
It would be a stretch to think that ASEM can foster any kind of benign diplomatic triangle between the EU, Russia, and Asian powers. However, ASEM may survive as an interesting mix of debating club, retreat and venue for bilateral meetings.
Facing Western sanctions, some Russian pundits are rushing to find an easy way out through increased cooperation with Asia. However, nothing can replace the West for Russia.
Moscow’s most recent, failed attempt to cooperate with China on the Altai gas pipeline shows that its political ambitions are not compatible with elementary arithmetic.
Rather than “replacing” Europe with China in its foreign policy universe, Russia would be wise to develop its relations with Beijing closer to the level of the very thick ties which link it to its Western neighbors.
Moscow’s military-technical cooperation with both New Delhi and Beijing means that Russia cannot stand apart from Indian-Chinese disagreements.