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Abstract: Russia claims to be a great Asian power, but its policies have failed to develop the Russian Far East or to use the energy lever at its disposal to develop the region or become a major, reliable energy provider. These failures owe much to the nature of the Russian political and economic system, and, as a result of Moscow's failure, Russia is running the risk of coming under China's political and economic influence.
Keywords: Asia, China, energy, Russia
Contemporary Russian foreign policy is aggressive, belligerent, offensive, and swaggering. Official statements reflect the now-popular elite view that Russia is up, America is down, and Europe counts for little or nothing because of its disarray. Russia's statesmen and analysts are also prone to this tendency to make inflated claims of Russia as an Asian power. For example, in 2008, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that because Russian consumers are buying more Japanese cars, many of which are made in (European) Russia, Russia "makes for the prosperity of Asia, and in particular, Japan with its entire potential." Lavrov also stated that the plan to hold the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Vladivostok in 2012 and Russia's growing involvement in Asian economic and political processes proves that "Russia's integration into the [Asia-Pacific Region] has become a fait accompli."1 Similarly, the veteran foreign policy analyst Viktor Kremenyuk writes that the revival of Russian power is making it an increasingly serious competitor to the United States. He charges that Russia is "successfully crowding out the United States from its position as China's No. 1 partner, and over time could become that country's quasi-ally."2
It would be difficult to account for such grandiose delusions without understanding Russian elites' long-standing habit of making inflated claims about Russia to compensate for or conceal the weakness and disarray that they often perceive at home. However, when we examine Russian policy in Asia, and particularly the state of its far eastern provinces, whose effective development is essential for success in Asia, Moscow's tone changes. This may well reflect the differing audiences involved: in statements concerning Russian policy in Asia, Moscow and Russian elites are speaking to the local and central government elites directly responsible for making and implementing policy, whereas the...