Great Powers in Asia

welcome to CSIS thank you all for coming out with the APEC meetings in full swing this seemed like a good opportunity to have perhaps not quite traditional conversation around economic and security issues in Asia but in doing that I think we wanted to bring in perspectives that don't always get talked about so much and we think about Asian security and multilateral cooperation we have a lot of people including here at CSIS who focus on Asia and we have a lot of people who focus on Europe European security Russia the United States but one of the challenges that I found is that we don't always talk to each other as much as we should and we don't always understand the issues that one another are focusing on as well as we should so with the APEC meetings happening with Donald Trump meeting with Xi Jingping and maybe with lady middleton during these meetings it seemed like a good time to have a conversation with some leading experts in town and not only from in town to talk about US Russian and Chinese perspectives on a whole range of issues across Asia and decided to frame this conversation around a grand strategy how is it that the three countries US Russia and China think about Asia how does it fit into their overall strategic perspectives how does it affect their relations with one another in order to do that we have a terrific panel bringing in people from a variety of locations institutions and perspectives to my left we have Anika de 'va who is an associate professor in the Department of Asian and African Studies at the Moscow City Institute for international relations to her left we have Eun Sun who is oops missing part of her biography apparently who is that the the Stimson Center and is an expert on China both economic and security issues and then to my far left and that's only a locational perspective that's not a political comment is Bonnie Glaser who is our senior adviser for Asia here at CSIS and the director of the CSIS china power project which he works on a whole range of issues related to China and Chinese foreign policy and asia-pacific security we are going to try and have an open discussion here so we're gonna have each of the panelists give a fairly short opening remarks and then we'll open it up for discussion I guess if you are okay with it we'll just go in this order here down the the table and I would sort of kick it off by asking you to view to talk a little bit about how Asia fits into the overall and strategic perspective of the countries you're covering and what that country's involvement in Asia means for regional development and security and what do they mean by Asia or did we do they have the same understanding of Asia when they use the term so that should be plenty to sort of kick off the discussion and then we will open it up so without further ado let me pass the floor to Professor kaa ovah thank you so much this is a great honor for me to be here and present what could be Russia's perspective on this issue so if we look at what Russia how Russia sees Asia the first thing I should say is that Asia has been very high on Russia's strategic calculations and probably we can say that Russia has that Asia has emerged as one of the major strategic dimensions of foreign policy of for Russia of course we should say that it's not it's not reasoned development it has been the focus of Russia for quite a long time and probably this policy was launched in the beginning of the 21st century when the growing understanding that it is Asia where the gravity of world economics and world politics is shifting to that Russia should also try to cooperate more and engage more with and of course as Russia perceives itself as a great power its positions should be strong in all the regions it geographically belongs to and of course if we compare Russia standing in Europe in the post-soviet space East Asia is the region where Russia has much weaker standings that are to be improved in a number of spheres in politics security and of course first and foremost in economics and the policy which is Russia called turned to the east or Russia's Asian pivot if you like more this expression I don't know it is kind of a strategic policy for Russia with a vision that it wants to be more engaged and better engaged with this actively developing region as I said it started probably just not to three years ago it started much earlier and we can see its roots even the late USSR here of course but what really accelerated Russia's Asian period was the worsening of relations with Europe and the US the rift with the West which made Russia accelerate more and to look for partners especially to China its major strategic partner in Asia just to have a kind of a safeguard against the damage dealt to the Russian economy by the Western sanctions so Russia actually is wants to see itself as a stakeholder in East Asia and in Asia in general and if we look at how Russia defines Asia we can say that it is mostly East Asia the trash is focusing on but it is also a part of South Asia that is a great importance to Russia especially if we take into considerations into consideration that it is China India and Vietnam one of the major Russian strategic partners in this regions so actually when we talk about Russia's Asian pivot we should consider it being mostly people to East Asia but also considering are all of India as one of the major strategic partners of Russia as well so actually what's Russian reason of its interests towards Asia is that Russia wants to strengthen its positions as one of the regional powers as one of the major powers in Asia and possibly is a full-fledged regional power with strong positions and this task is now understood as extremely important because of the urgent need of the development of Russia's Far East as you of course were well know it is a great territory but with only six million people living there and well it's not a good thing for Russia that the part which is in Asia the most developing region that the most fastly developing region that Russia is trying to pivot to is its backward province so there have been attempts to develop this region and what we have really seen since 2012 are the attempts to reform a regional governance structure in the Far East introducing the ministry for the development of the Far East and then a special territories advanced special economic zones and Vladivostok is a free port and trying to attract foreign investment Chinese Japanese South Koreans investment and investment from ASEAN India and other states because Russia understands it cannot develop this territory alone and it has been declared as the priority of Russia's policy for the whole 21st century so I think this is one of the major urgent tasks Russia has also got a view of a polycentric order in Asia and Russia believes that it should strengthen its positions as an independent pole as independent power in this East Asian strategic calculations and it also looks for regional security because it really does need security especially on the Korean Peninsula in order to promote the development of the forest so that's why Russia has no revisionist agenda in East Asia and it is extremely interested in maintaining stability maintaining what can be called a status quo and at fur of course first and foremost it's not interested in any military actions on the Korean Peninsula that's why it's policy there has been promoting promoting negotiations and political dialogue is the major means to settle the issue of the Korean Peninsula and first foremost to deal with North Korean nuclear and missile program so probably what is very important for us the most important part of its Asian strategy has been relations with China of course and Russia views relations that the strategic partnership with China as the major centerpiece of its Asian policy it is based on a number of perceptions that Russia and China share together and probably the most importantly is a view to the multipolar or a polycentric world order which would not entail dominance or preeminence of any particular one power but would have different centers of power and it fits into Russia's independence role and its role it sees for itself in East Asia it's also for mutual sovereignty non-interference in the domestic affairs and a lot of other issues for example the the policy on the Korean Peninsula that's Russia and China have a lot in common not all but well quite a lot if we could see however as I said previously Russia wants to see itself as also kind of as centers of power in the station and independent one that's why it's also trying to kind of hedge and to avoid too much dependence on China specifically and develop relations with other states in order to have a more balanced more diversified policy so with this a mirage is developing relations with trying to foster partnerships with Japan South Korea in the first place and also we could see their relations with ice and relations with India and a number of other partners you may say that Russia's Asian pivot has not been too much successful and you would be right about just saying about this we can see that kind of strategic policy there it has been very slow it is incomplete like major policy of for Russia and it actually needs to be strengthened especially the major problem is the development their model of economic development and also the model of Economic Development and the Far East however if you look at the progress that Russia has had we can see that for example trade turn over of Russia and East Asia since the year 2000 and 2012 has multiple has multiplied more than tenfold so there has been ten times increase in trade and we can what is also important we can see the increase of share of Asia in Russia's trade and now for example APEC countries account for 31 percent of Russia's trade and there has been a great increase in 10 or 50 years in this figure and also Russia one of the major concerns of Russia is first and foremost the tensions that we are now witnessing in Asia and here of course Russia opposes for the actions which can bring about military hostilities and it sees that not only the North Korean actions but also the sanctions bring about instability in the region and it also is very negative towards thought deployment in South Korea and opposes it as a kind of strategic game changer that that only disturb eliza's the regional situation that tries to to to make for security of one countries at the expense of other countries and not helping the situation in general as a means so probably I would stop here and now talk about China thank you Jeff and thank you so much money for happening here money is my great sampai and my mentor in terms of my studies so it's truly honor to be on the same kind always here thank you I was asked to talk about China's Asia policy so I'll divide my my talking to several parts first of others you might be aware that before Xi Jinping came into power there had being this consistant debate in the Chinese foreign policy apparatus about which one should be the top priority for Chinese diplomacy for Chinese foreign policy should it be the great power relations aka us-china relations or it should be China's relationship with with his neighbors which is preferring so those who believe that us-china relations ism is more important and the size that as long as us-china relationship was stable then the countries aren't in China's neighborhood when no lung will not have the opportunity to exploit the conflicts and the differences between US and China to to maximize their own national interest so the assumption or the argument for this camp is said as long as us-china relationship is good China's relationship with his periphery will automatically and naturally be stable and that the the the other argument the other camp who emphasized the periphery relations argue that the emphasis on us-china relationship is is reversing the logic of a good external relationship for China because the logic of the United States in this argument is to exploit the problems or the concerns and suspicions of China's neighbors about China to undermine China's external external relations and the external environment therefore the logical said China's priority should be the pursuit of a good relationship with his neighbors in his periphery in order to shape a stable foundation for us China relations so this debate has had been going on for quite a few years especially under under hooding how decade and that this debate was more or less had a initial settlement by the time that Xi Jinping she thinking how did the periphery diplomacy working conference before the end of 2013 and that the emphasis Jinping has placed on the periphery and foreign policy towards China's periphery is believed and interpreted as an indicator of China beginning to see the periphery as more important than than than the United States and then of course we know that six months later Sika was held in in in Shanghai in the May of 2014 and at the Sica China raised the idea that Asian affairs should be managed primarily by Asian countries and that is interpreted as a Chinese version of the monroe doctrine in monroe doctrine in asia and indicated in a lot of analysis a policy orientation by china to exclude a dominant role by the United States in Asia it's interesting that when we talk about Asia policy in the Chinese foreign policy Asia policy is not a categorical concept for China's foreign policy if you look at the periphery China's periphery is as a very important concept but if you look at China's policy towards Asia most of the time people talk about specific sub regions in Asia so there is a policy towards Northeast Asia there is a policy toward Southeast Asia there's a policy toward South Asia and there is even also a policy to essentially she also that's closely related to the policy on Russia but then West Asia is more categorized under the scope of Middle East so Mena in in China and in different sub regions in Asia China also has different interests and different policies for example in Northeast Asia China's primary focus is on the development in the Korean Peninsula and also the evolution of US military alliance in Northeast Asia in Southeast Asia China's focus has been how to manage and control the South China Sea issues and the disturbance it has created for China's relationship with Southeast Asian countries in South Asia China's focus and priority is how to managing how to manage this conflict agendas with India so on where hand china has to balance its competition with India in terms of the regional competition in South Asia but on the other hand on the global level China pursues a coalition with with India both as emerging markets rising powers members of the BRICS in order to counter the pressure from the developed countries on the developed developed countries and developing country block the in senshu Asia China's priority is to contain the openness of the Central Asian region and we ensure that China has a fair role and a fair chance to participate in in in the future of saturation and the issue of Afghanistan Pakistan China's priority is counterterrorism stabilization and the prevention of the spillover effect of the internal instability in these two countries so their different pursuits and different priorities but if we want to generalize what are some of the common themes or coming interest coming to China's overall policy towards Asia there are a couple I would I would say there are at least a three the first one is of course the maintenance of the peace and stability in China's periphery region there can be no warm and there can be no chaos the second interest across Asia is the pursuit china's pursuit of regional economic cooperation to expedite the infrastructure development and the connectivity projects in in asia especially and there's a belt and road initiative and a third category of general interest in asia is how to use economic statecraft and use china's diplomacy public diplomacy and soft power to mitigate the rejection by asian countries about china's rice and about China's rising leadership role in in Asia so if you ask outside observers not Chinese observers most of the analysts would would draw the conclusion that china is trying to build a dominant role in Asia maybe not politically or security-wise at the current stage but China is using its economic power using a soft power influence to strengthen and to expand its influence leading up to such a dominant role and such a China centric dominance does not exclude the United States or US Rowing Asia but it will have a strong component or connotation of rejection of a leadership role by the United States in Asia last but not least the China's view about Russia's Asia policy we know that China and Russia has formed the strategic core didn't coordinate very long-term coordinate of partnership with Russia and the logic for that is that the US has been increasing as strategic pressure on Russia in terms of the NATO expansion in terms of the missile people missile defense system in East Europe and in terms of the vast Pacific sea rebalancing to Asia also increased is he a strategic pressure on China so there's a there's a logic there's a calming interest where China and Russia see that well we we should align our positions to to at least a counter some of the strategic pressure from the United States but so that is status Chu and we we can have a long list of indicators of how the strategic coordination between China and Russia has borne fruit and how you a China and Russia has had pursued coordination and cooperation on a long list of the strategic and security issues however but if you if you look at the issues that have between us between China and Russia it has nothing to do with the United States then that's where you see more problems and more difference of opinions so for example China's belt and Road when this idea was first erasing 2012-2013 one common criticism even in China was that wait you do realize that Central Asia is Josh's traditional severe of influence right and for us to expand our economic influence will inevitably put us in a collision course with Russia's strategic influence so it's as one area of of conflict and that the other issue the other conflict that we don't hear China or Russia talk too much about is that like Anna mentioned Russia has been seeking this diversification of relations in in this Asia policy which makes perfect sense for Russia but on the other hand when Russia enhances arms sales to India and to bnm both countries have territorial disputes with China and problems with China and those answers make China uncomfortable enough of course overall the weakening of Russia's national comprehensive national power and the international isolation has pagina I would say that this ad this advantage position in is in his bargaining and negotiation with China and one common notion that you hear about about and the early initiative is China and Russia have been seeking areas of cooperation or how to connect at about and Road initiative with the Russia dominated Eurasia Economic Union so you hear a lot of rhetoric in that in the direction but I haven't seen too many too many concrete examples of success and last but not least on the issue of DPRK there is also this interesting interesting differences or there's some differences between the Chinese position and the Russian position like the Chinese would say that why is us putting all the pressure on us well Russia is also providing aid and trade with North Korea and it raises questions in China as for the Russia's strategic intentions as ratchet trying to increase its leverage vis-a-vis the United States or there's something more to it so there are certain level of strategic coordination on the Korean Peninsula between China and Russia although there are also issues of disagreements last but not least China's view of US policy towards Asia no surprise there has been a lot of suspicion and hostility especially under the Obama administration and and there's a trump administration with the suspension of TPP by the United States and with us pursuing a more pragmatic and transactional relationship I think the Chinese view of US policy towards Russia towards Asia has been improving and there have been discussions a lot of discussions about the possible cooperation on North Korea a mountain road there even voice is circulating in China about whether Jeju between US and China in the Asia Pacific may not be a bad idea right so those are the discussions but in the long term in the long run I would say the Chinese suspicions still lies in the fact that whether Trump's Asia policy will represent a long-term trajectory of the US policy in Asia such as the notion of indo-pacific has has has raised a lot of sensitive nerves in in in in China about what is the next step of us Asia policy and I would say that in the Chinese calculation if a competitive relationship with the United States's is fixed for the long run then the Chinese logic or the logical conclusion would be less maximize our gains and maximize our interest and pursue cooperation with prompt administration while we can but in the long run we need to also preserve our leverage that is our problem that is China's policy and I don't speak for Chinese government yes thank you for the caveat we're all speaking in our personal capacity here Bonnie however the US thank you Jeff and I certainly represent nobody's views but my own but I've been asked to talk about US interests in Asia and how the United States sees the role of Russia and and China and we are seeing the Trump administration's policy evolve you just talked about the indo-pacific we will hear President Trump give a speech very soon at APEC that I I understand will present a vision of the Trump administration for the Indo Pacific this is not a new phrase of course we've heard many countries use this before Australia Japan our own Pacific Command its area of operations as in fact it extends to India but for for the Trump administration this seems to be the way that it is thinking about its strategy towards the whole region China being a part of that but encompassing Northeast Asia Southeast Asia the South Pacific and as people say extending from Bollywood to Hollywood and not my phrase somebody in Australia wrote a report with that that title and Japan has talked about this as the great diamond and so you have Japan in the north and you have Australia New Zealand Pacific Islands in the South and Asia is sort of a subset of this and you will hear even Americans when they talk about Asia they don't necessarily have the same countries in mind some people might really not focus on Central Asia others might just you know focused on East Asia and not think about India so this really I think no consensus on that but what's the point I'd like to make here is that the United States has enduring interests in the region and I think what you're going to hear from President Trump will be really quite consistent with what you heard from the Obama administration from even the Bush administration and maybe even to some extent the Clinton administration before it the United States particularly under the Obama administration articulated very clearly interests in Asia 2010 Hillary Clinton gave that famous speech in Hanoi where she talked about US interests particularly in the South China Sea but they really extended more broadly and so obviously we talked about things like economic prosperity you know the United States has always emphasized the a the whether you call it Asia Asia Pacific or Indo Pacific as being critically important to America's economic prosperity indeed this was the reason why American ships started coming to the region you know in the 18th century and I think you will hear President Trump also talk about the first ships from the United States that went to trade with Asia so having open access commercial free commercial navigation has always been important to the United States so this administration might use the term free and open Pacific but Indo Pacific but these are not new concepts for the United States we've also heard some officials I think when secretary Tillerson was here I think he talked about a rules-based order the concept of course of peaceful resolution of disputes based on Internet the law these are all things that we have heard previously the United States I think overall has an overarching strategic interest in preventing any single power from gaining hegemony over this entire region and some people say that the United States insists on securing its own supremacy but that is not really clear going forward whether you then the United States is willing to share both responsibilities obligations and it's the free and open sea lanes certainly with other countries but whether or not it insists of being at the top of that the apex of this order in the region or is willing to have sort of a more be part of more of what Anna referred to as sort of a Poli national or something multi but polycentric order in the region I think the one thing we're hearing from the Trump administration that is new is really in the economic side and so there's discussion of fair and reciprocal trade this is very different than the free trade language that was used by the Obama administration there is has there's been obviously a withdrawal from the TPP president Trump is going to call for countries to negotiate free-trade agreements with the United States bilaterally and it remains to be seen which countries are going to be interested in doing that so you're not gonna hear language like principled security Network which we heard from the previous administration it's not fundamentally different so I would say American interests in this region are really indoor next I'll turn to the view of Russia's involvement in Asia and I think the first point to be made is that the United States doesn't really see washa has a really major actor in this region certainly Russia has interests the United States has worked with Russia for example as part of the six-party talks we in the past of had negotiations with as a partner in the six-party talks obviously we haven't had session of the six-party talks in a long time so that's pretty much in abeyance maybe we talk about this issue occasionally but it has fallen I think pretty low on our priorities in dealing with Russia because we have so many other problems in the us-russia relationship is now so caught up in our own domestic politics and the question of Russian interference in our elections that I think it's going to be very difficult for the United States to in any way work with with Russia in Asia or elsewhere I really want to talk about the North Korea issue though because it's been alluded to that the United States sees Russia as very unhelpful in Asia we may shine the spotlight on China's behavior but the reality is that the United States sees Russia as backfilling for in areas like energy other illicit goods that countries have began begun to cut back on in terms of their exports to North Korea and also possibly imports from North Korea that are now banned under UN Security Council resolutions so I think there there's concern about the fact that for example Russia wrote off ten billion dollars of Soviet era debt the United States and pushing sanctions is obviously trying to inflict pain on North Korea so this is seen as unhelpful also so I think the u.s. ultimately sees Russia is trying to assert itself as a great power in order to to counter Western power and and influence and particularly that of the United States so that scene is unhelpful the relationship between Russia and China was for a long time in Washington omus dismissed you know people talked about this being a marriage of convenience right or an axis of convenience that's changing there are people who are doing some research now into Russia China relations I'm sure both inside and outside the government see this this relationship as moving in directions were that our interests in the u.s. may be more negatively affected the resumption of the of arms cooperation some joint development is probably very high on this list you know we went through a period where Russia sold China a lot of arms then China produced its own versions of this that copied them and Russia lost some of its export markets and so Russia backed off for a while and now we've seen this resumed and so it has a particular concern I think to the United States as it contributes to China's ability to have any access area denial weapons that it can be used against the United States and other countries in a in a contingency in the South China Sea I think actually the US and Russia took fairly similar positions after the July 2016 ruling Russia called for example for compliance with international although it didn't call specifically for China to comply but it underscored unclose and called for compliance with the 2002 declaration on the code of conduct and actually called for an early conclusion of a binding code of conduct and I'll bet that's not Beijing's position and probably China doesn't welcome that so in that particular part of the world I do see some some overlap even though Russia and China have conducted a military exercise in the South China Sea though not closed really to the disputed area so then I think turning towards China's involvement in Asia and I'll try to be brief about this because it could be long first I would say it's really it's a mixed bag and and the Trump administration's approach on this is evolving we've just seen President Trump have a wonderful day with day and a half with si Jinping celebrating their personal relationship how much they have income and all of the goals that they share you would almost think we're allies but we're not there's a lot of strategic competition in this relationship and I think what Trump is trying to do is to try to offer some praise and flattery to see Jinping not only to him personally but also to the Chinese people and their accomplishments and then hope that in the aftermath of this visit that that will set the stage for C Jinping to take some steps that Trump wants to see particularly in North Korea and in the economic realm the u.s. does see China is playing a very critically important role in North Korea you will hear time and again US officials saying 90 percent of North Korea's trade with the outside world is with China I have friends in China who dispute that amount and want to see our our evidence whatever it is it's really substantial even if it's as high as if it's just a size 80 percent Russia is certainly trading more with North Korea then in the past but increasingly countries are cutting back on an even stopping trade with North Korea so this really does I think really emphasize that whatever China is continuing to do and some of China's behavior is in compliance with the UN Security Council resolutions some of it is not and that was talked about in Beijing over the last day and a half and I think see Jen Peng has said there the China's cracking down more on banks for example that are facilitating North Korean illicit activities as it gains access through those banks to the international financial system so China's involvement in North Korea is you know it's mixed right China should do a lot more but yet the Trump administration is rightfully giving si Jinping China credit for doing more than it's ever done in the past and maybe recognizing at least partially how much of a threat North Korea actually poses secretary Tillerson said is in his briefing that both of our countries have now endorsed cvid so you know complete irreversible verifiable dismantlement if so that might be a new position for China and I have to look into that but that's the I haven't heard that from the Chinese side only from Tillerson so that's always question mark a few things on the negative side and then I will stop one is Chinese efforts to draw a wedge between the United States and its allies to weaken our allies and in the our alliances in the region this continues si Jinping even in the work report called talked about Cold War mentality so this is something obviously we disagree on China is still seen as undermining the rules-based order in the South China Sea pursuing militarization and Tillerson again in his press conference really emphasized that we want to see this militarization stopped and give diplomacy a real chance in the region so this is an area where we see China's involvement as unhelpful and then finally Yun talked a little bit about the Belton Road initiative and it became apparent when secretary Tillerson gave his speech here at CSIS the first time we have heard a trump administration official directly criticized the Belton Road initiative and he explicitly used the term counter the Belton Road we have not yet seen much about what that strategy is going to be to counter the Belton Road but I think the US has concerns about some of the low standards that will be used in these projects the quality of the infrastructure that may be produced the fact that China is likely to be saddling many countries with debt and that this some of this infrastructure building may come with political strings attached so there are a range of concerns that the US has and now there appears to be a growing effort maybe not only by the US maybe alongside Japan but maybe also as part of the quad to provide alternatives to other countries and so it does seem to me that this administration compared to the Obama administration which was very quiet about the Belton Road initiative and that this administration really has raised some alarms about this strategy going forward which the US and China have talked very little about and so that may be something going forward where we do need to have more of a discussion we in the track two world have had us China Russia trilateral conversations but we haven't done this in the trap one world but I see that as probably unlikely in the near future thank you okay thank you very much money appreciated the way that you kind of give a sense of the direction that things might be shifting that while us may have common interests that have endured over time in Asia the way that the current administration is trying to pursue those interests around issues like the Belton Road may be different from how its predecessor and did and so to kick off the discussion I thought maybe I would raise this issue with all of our panelists and that is all three countries are really facing a degree of political questioning or uncertainty at home in the u.s. of course there are a lot of questions about what the ultimate intentions of the Trump administration are how much political space it will have to do the the things that it wants to do and and what those things are given the divisions within the administration Russia of course has a political transition of its own upcoming with election scheduled for the spring and even if those elections result in villa diamond Putin being re-elected I think it raises some questions about how much continuity we can expect in terms of Russian policy and Russian attention to a range of topics including Asia and in China we just had the party Congress just had the elevation of Xi Jingping to a exalted status within the the pantheon of Chinese leaders but at the same time concerns are growing about debt levels in China about the sustainability of some of the commitments that are being made under the aegis of the Belton Road so I think it's not entirely clear that the way that these three countries are going to approach their priorities in Asia in the coming years is going to look the same as it has looked for the last several years and so I thought I would pass over to the panel the question of the extent to which questions about domestic domestic considerations domestic change and obstacles in each of these countries may have an effect on the way that they engage with Asia in years to come we can go yeah we can go in the same order if I may comment now a little bit on Russia's view on China and yes because I I think I'm the only one who who did not cover this part so as I mentioned earlier that Russia mostly sees chat China's its major strategic partner in Asia and what Russia does values that Russia and China have real have really improved the relations and politics and security have now more understanding and are engaged in a dialogue on what could the architecture of East Asia would be in future and what could be Russia's role in that China's role in that and the role of all the countries which Russia would not be very interested in seeing is a possible China dominated regional order because it would not leave any place to Russia as a kind of independent actor with its own stakes and that's why Russia possibly would not move to kind of an alliance with China unless the US actions make it so and unless Russia feels that much threatened by the yes in Asia that it would need to move to an alliance with China and well unless the situation worsens that much really unlikely to see that and as for the US Russia for sure opposes what what is usually described in Russia's biggest primacy u.s. preeminence in Asia and specifically unilateral actions and for example you thought as a kind of global a part of a global ballistic missile defense which just has its another regional dimension Russia opposes to in every region however there is now almost no cooperation between Russia and us in Asia and as Bonnie mentioned they are seven doesn't perceive Russia as a nation well as a major actor in the Asia Pacific and two if we look at Russia and US relations possibly Stasia and Asia as a whole is a region where the divergency and different interests are less pronounced than in other regions Russia is not entangled in a web of conflicts with the yes there and actually Russia has been very careful not to balance the US in Asia well up up up to up to date and Russia would be unwilling to do so unless it really feels threatened and here there is some potential for well rather limited but copper Asian of course if the relations between countries somehow normalize in general and somehow a back on track but actually if you look at different regions in Europe in the Eurasia for example in post-soviet space we can see that in East Asia there is much more potential for common interest that Russian us share in common and can have at least a kind of dialogue even political and security dialogue on number of issues and here if we could look at possible agenda for Russia's dialogue in East Asia we can see of course the station of the Korean Peninsula where both sides are for denuclearization and North Korean abandonment of nuclear weapons Russia is 100% for that besides that it is the freedom of navigation and as we mentioned actually Russia has always supported the ASEAN stance in this that all the disputes should be settled peacefully according to enclose and according to the international law and here we can see a lot of convergence and Russia has been very carefully and has been trying to calibrate its policy so that each that it tries not to take any sides in any territorial conflicts in the East China Sea in the South China Sea as well and trying to develop relations both with Vietnam for example and anyways China however there is some difference with the US policy is that Russia objects to involvement of the third parties because it believes that only the countries which are directly involved should be part of the negotiations on the issue however everything is not that bad and of course it is also the issues of terrorism cyber security security and transport for example people are returning Isis people returning and going to Southeast Asia this is where Russia and us could really have a potential to to improve security in the region and of course it is it is possibly of this number of counterterrorism measures non-traditional security threats and a number of these issues relief operations and actually here we can have some substantial dialogue of course if somehow the relations can be at least partly normalized and on for Russia I think it's very important to say that Russia's pivot could not actually succeed fully unless Russia improves relations with the yes and the West and to a large extent the success of Russia's people's lies within the US and Russian us can either contribute somehow or maybe not prevent each other strategic forces were opposed and make each other policy harder and of course here the influence of the US on Russia's Asian policy would be much stronger than vice-versa but possibly this could still background for that cooperation if we look at our Russia's internal politics the major question is if we see Vladimir Putin as a candidate as a presidential candidate for spring elections next time because it has not been confirmed yet and we do not really know if it's not he who else would run for the president and I guess this is the central question of course if President Putin runs for the elections he is very likely to win the elections because there is a popular support and here I think we would have a lot of continuity on this issue and I actually do not see well for example any real shift of Russia's policy for example away from Asia and what what I think will also be a priority for Russia is development of the Eurasian Economic Union and possibly or what President Putin has been promoting building a great Eurasian partnership which means connecting the Eurasian Economic Union Russia's own integration project with the belt and Road initiative and finding some modes of cooperation that could be beneficial for everyone and and it's true that you know already mentions that we have no yet concrete projects on connecting the Eurasian Economic Union and belton road however just this October there has been agreed that there is an agreement reached between the Eurasian Economic Union and China on the general principles of Economic Cooperation possibly measures on trade facilitation not an FTA yet but some kind of economic agreement possibly we would see something in future if flooding muradin's though that is next president thank you I'll be quick so when I hear the term that has political uncertainty in China and my question is what political uncertainty after we have certainty is how many years of C Jinping gonna be a pal there is a constant so there were more speculation and uncertainty before the 19th parties Congress but now I think that the debate about that is more or less settled but I think the uncertainty is more about now that we know that Jimmy has consolidate his power what policy course will he pursue into himself foreign policy and there are two paradigms that we can know we can we can we can try to deconstruct this issue first paradigm is if you look at how China reacted to when Obama first came in came Obama first became the the President of the United States u.s. also reached out to China with a list of issues like a like North Korea like climate change the US was trying to pursue cooperation with China but that unfortunately created a sense of I call it a inflated sense of empowerment in China that the the conclusion back then in 2009 I was based in Beijing in China was that owe us is weakened the US his weeks finally our time has come so that did not end up well and between US and China because he was had to respond to this rising assertiveness of China but if we look at how China has reacted to the first year of the Trump administration I think the Chinese has learned the lesson from the Obama year said that when US wants to pursue cooperation with China China should not interpret that as as a sign of weakness so from that perspective because we could speculate that China is likely to pursue more cooperative tone with trump administration herim is it's a it's a it's a discussion I often have with the Chinese scholars and experts my question to them is said so when you say that Chinese leader is weak China has to be more assertive in terms of his Asia policy so that that mean that when Chinese leader is strong he will adopt a less assertive policy and the answer is not necessarily that when we are strong we deserve our space we deserve the respect but when we are we when we are weak we also need need foreign policy to support domestic prestige of the leaders so based on that I think that then the the you never the answer is that China's Asia policy will be certain and the China will proceed with a path of seeking more influence and more dominance in the Asia region I think the real real uncertainty here that people often talk about is the economic uncertainty that if the Chinese economic slowdown is going to continue can China does China have the capacity the financial capacity to sustain is is this economic statecraft with his economic diplomacy and there have been reports in China about how this this regulations were against a capital fleeing capital escape from China affecting certain infrastructure projects that China tries to fund but I would like to point out that for the core were the critical projects under the belt and the initiative the defending of the financing for these projects have not been affected tremendously by this by this economic slowdown so I'll stop there I'll be very brief I think the first point I'd like to make is that despite the domestic challenges and the things going on in domestic politics here in the United States Trump did embark on a very long trip to Asia trip could have been canceled could have been shortened instead was lengthened the president decided to stay the extra day for the East Asia summits as the longest trip to Asia I think that a president has made in 25 years and the fact that he's going to you know six different countries I think is really remarkable or six stops right so I don't see that domestic troubles are going to keep the president at home distract attention from Asia many people asked well si Jinping is in such a strong position having emerged from the nineteen Party Congress and Trump's polls are at all-time lows does that give you know the China an advantage put the US at a disadvantage is that somehow going to affect the US approach and you know my answer to that is the president doesn't see it that way you know Trump sees himself is in a very strong position and he doesn't really pay that much attention to what one particular poll says on a given base given day and if you're spending most of your time watching things like Fox News you'll probably hear there a lot of positive reinforcement so I don't think that he's going to change his personal views in the last point that I make which i think is sort of worth at least pondering his people will ask the question would Trump be more likely to launch an attack on North Korea if he's in a very weak position at home thinking that that could boost support for him and this is you know an ongoing debate that goes on even in academic literature about diversionary war and there really isn't persuasive or conclusive data that shows that countries do this that leaders do this or that it works for leaders if in fact some have done this and and so I guess I would say that you know Trump has been pushing for a tougher policy toward North Korea for a long time you know since he really first came to power because he had had this conversation with President Obama during the transition so it has nothing to do with his the drop in his polling rate ratings or suspicions of his family members you know being corrupt or doing business with Russia they pre-existed it so I guess I think that this is quite unlikely I think that there will not be a domestic element that will drive president Trump to do something in North Korea that he would not otherwise do so I would eliminate that factor thank you okay we have a little bit less than half an hour so I want to open the floor up for questions since we don't have a ton of time it encourage you to keep your questions short and please please please make sure that they are in fact questions that is a statement that ends in a question mark also please identify yourself we have microphones in the back so okay right there hi Jeff hatch Department of Defense I had a question for Anna I was i I know you mentioned North Korea and you know Russia's government thoughts towards that I was wondering if you could expand a little bit more on that and talk about whether or not there would be any scenario whereby the Russian government would would become more involved in the Korean Peninsula North Korea and also if you could talk a little bit or phrase it as a question how do you think the the Russian academic Russian public feels about the border with Korea that Russia shares not just you know what does the government think but if you could shed some light on that for this mostly American audience that agree thank you I'll try to be as much brief as possible if we look at what Russia thinks from North Korea what is the basics of Russia's position that there should be no military actions simply because we share a border with North Korea 70 kilometers border and if animal interaction are to be taken of course Russia would not suffer that much as China will but still it it has a stake and there could be a probable damage to the civilian population contamination of the Far East and of course in case of nuclear actions Russian forests will suffer too that's why Russia has been promoting the political dialogue and has been trying to reach out other countries as a mediator and has also envisioned a roadmap for some a roadmap for the resolution of the issue of the North Korean Peninsula the first stage dual free supporting China's proposal second stage negotiations both bilateral like u.s. North Korea South Korea North Korea and the negotiations multilateral on how on what will be on the table for the six-party talks or maybe a six-party talks plus the yen or probably some other mediators like ASEAN were just most probably the yen and what could be the how could parties conduct relations with each other and what could be the issue of the talks with a view large a long strategic view to the denuclearization of North Korea for sure and the third thing is building a kind of security architecture talks on building collective security architecture meaning that North Korea should be provided something in return for abandoning nuclear weapons should be provided some security guarantees and especially from the US because this is what North Korea actually wants the main goal is to for the regime to to be sustained and and if you look at economic relations what I would like to stress is that actually economic relations between Russia and North Korea are extremely small the exact figure of the trade last year was 76 million dollars and this could not be could not be in any way compared with China's trade with North and actually this figure even a guru who's even declined if we compared to 2014 when it was 96 million but I mean it's not a substantial figure we could actually talk about and Josh has not been sponsoring North Korea for sure and 100% Russia has been adhering to all the sanctions and is going to do this and a matter of concern is the North Koreans 32,000 which are in the forest and the last sanctions say that the labor visa when it is over they should return to North Korea it cannot be resumed and Russia will all sort he adhere to that for sure so and I I don't really think that Russia would like to be involved in any military hostilities what it would like to be involved is some political any political and diplomatic solution and it really wants to be to serve as a mediator here the population are very concerned especially the Far East about any possible military actions on the peninsula and here I should say that Russian experts and population blame both North Korea and the US for all the tensions they they do not lay the blame on on the North Korean side that they say mostly that North Korea has also its own well some reasoning that it's not rational just very rational it wants the survival of the regime and then felt threatened and so it also blames puts a lot of lemon North Korea but not on North Korea and thinks that any military action should be avoided at any cost but but Russia would not send troops or anything like that this is highly unlikely okay thank you over here hi Lauren Holt Holt global or strategies formerly with State Department my question is about the illegal illicit trade black markets how do we deal with that that's been going on and sanctions are certainly not our only answer thank you with North Korea's sorry okay is a question for anybody in particular I I would say at least one thing that could be done would be to enhance inspections I mean if you look at the border crossings between China and in North Korea there's we know where most of the of the goods cross we probably know where most of the smuggling takes place we could have far more strict inspections we could even put a UN official on a bridge to work with China in these inspections I don't know if that's been discussed but there are certainly ways to try and increase border security whether it's along the Russian border or the Chinese border and we could perhaps I mean I don't know if China has sufficient equipment they have a lot of people there's about 150,000 even just PLA troops in the area not along the border but people's armed police that are up there so there's but you know question is do they have all the right kind of capabilities in terms of equipment to monitor the border that's an area where the US could be of help just I think it's more of an issue uh political will rather than material capacity that I believe that if the Chinese government has has a willingness to strictly and 100% implemented sanctions they definitely have the capacity but whether they see it as you their interest or whether they see it as as as necessary at this point who are needed is that's a political question it's not a capacity question and for us as far east it could be a capacity question I think it's also a political question from Russia to some degree that North Korea plays a similar role for Russia as it does for China in the sense that it's a problem but it's also something that is a source of leverage with the United States and that Russia is willing to use in a kind of calculated way as it as it sees necessary okay I saw here yeah hi I'm sana Vannevar I'm with the Osgoode Center for International Studies most of you discussed the role of India and India as a strategic partner for all of your countries I was wondering if you have any idea of what the positions of India are with regards to their willingness to partner with any of your countries and now you think that what their role is in kind of becoming a strategic partner to any of your countries okay let's be brief yeah I would just note that there's obviously growing willingness and India to work with the United States to work with Japan to some extent with Australia but Modi has talked a lot about you know act East and I still see limited very really concrete measures and acting East you know I know and I go to the shangri-la dialogue there usually is not high-level participation by India as the East Asia Summit so India is not I think as much of a player as Prime Minister Modi aspires it to be but there is a desire by I think the United States and Japan to have India play a bigger role in East Asia but I think India's priorities have been more for example in the Indian Ocean maritime areas obviously as concerns along its border with with China so I think it's still a question mark as to how committed India will be in the future whether it's to you know its own unilateral involvement in the region or cooperating with other countries we see the desire we see the interest and I see a trend in that direction but it does seem rather slow to me I think China's interest or enthusiasm about this partnership with India is certainly more significance and India's interest in this partnership and at least on a bilateral level we could see that India's rejection of China's path and Road initiative China and India did not participate in the barf in Beijing about any real forum this this past May and the Chinese perception of the partnership with India exists on a global level between India and China as developing countries Visa Visa develop the countries but on the regional level what China sees more as a need to balance India's tendency to exclude China and India's aspiration to to dominate South Asian region so China recognized that India is the largest country in the in the South Asian subcontinent but it does not mean that China sees to India's exclusivity so I think there are more conflict of perceptions or misperceptions between India and China in terms of this partnership and China also has this fundamental I call it strategic contempt towards India because China essentially sees India as as a backward and an ineffective and inefficient country and China also has this tendency at least for the strategic thinkers in China sees a war of 1962 has permanently settled the dispute or the competition for leadership or dominance between China and India that India's not China's here and would never be China's peer so we will take that into consideration think about this strong desire and China's party to pursue this partnership with India I almost feel well I call it an imaginary coalition with India as for Russia and India I think there is a large degree of convergence because especially on foreign policy goals because India sees itself as a kind of global power and Russia and India share this perception of a polar sensor called order and Russia leaves a place for India as an emerging power in this palace on so-called order and actually thinks that Russia in the partnership could be one of its constructive pillars so I see there are a great degree of convergence and we actually are engaged in a very robust security cooperation with India although Russia's share of India military market is decreasing but it is still a large share and in contrast with China we even there is a high degree of trust in building joint military equipment together something which we don't have for example with China and there have been a lot of security cooperation here what has been lacking again as for Russia everywhere is the economic dimension because our trade is so much lagging behind the the politics and security I could imagine that last year we had a trade turnover of seven point seven billion dollars which is not a sufficient figure at all in any way and there is an understanding that it should be strengthened but it's difficult even from the geographical terms and not speaking about all our economic issues Steve winters independent consultants for Anna also I wonder if you felt that the recent meeting of the Val dye discussion group reflected the turn to the east or pivot to the east I was struck that at the big public concession that on the podium aside from the President Putin you had Jack Ma from Alabama who gave an absolute major address then you had I'm at Karzai ex-president of Afghanistan and then from the audience then you had gregory toloraya asked a question about North Korea which which seemed to me a little bit stage-managed since he's one of the main people advising on the policy of North Korea if he doesn't know what Putin is thinking about North Korea I don't know what that was about but did you feel that was sort of a change there from previous years thank you yes I think that there has been a focus well that has emerged a governmental focus on relations with Asia which was absent before the the crisis the Ukrainian crisis and this is kind of a positive development for our sister station policy because although we had this well strategic perspective that we need to strengthen our policies not much was done in practice and now yes I think yes and especially if we look at the new prospects of relations between Putin and Russia and Japan and Putin moon jae-in in South Korea there is a lot going on here in politics and security especially in economics and yes III think that even least in economic forum demonstrates that these countries they see potential in Russia and that Russia could possibly gradually improve its standings and and I think yes of course probably the major dimension is still like Eurasia now of President Putin and this agenda but I think that a has gained prominence if I compare two procedures Jonathan Ward University of Oxford and I have a question for you you said that Russia does not want to see a China dominated Asian order which I thought was very interesting I'm curious about two things one what role do you think Russia's current activities are playing in the in bringing about something that's getting closer to a China dominated Asian order particular as Bonnie mentioned the proliferation of a to ad technology anti accessory to now and part 2 when Russian strategists you know when you're discussing the sort of Russia's strategic vision look at the future of Russia's Far East not in the near term but let's say over the next 25 years particularly of something as envisioned in the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation were to be achieved where do you see Russia's position in Asia being in in that sort of longer-term perspective particularly in the Far East in East Asia the future of Russia Russia's Far East over a 25 years think it's very difficult to answer the questions briefly I'll try to do my best so if we look at Russia China Russia selling new sophisticated weapons to China as four hundred for example anti-ballistic missile defense systems I think you're mostly implying - and and out aircraft so I think that we can see here well as actually born in mentioned there used to be a downslide and in Russia Chinese security cooperation especially military cooperation because Russia was too much concerned with what China taking samples and copying Russian military equipment however as far as contemporary status concerns Russia probably decided that China has been very quick to develop its own military capabilities and then Russia Russia's share in in Chinese market has declined a lot and that if it is to get any money for its own military development and stimulating research and development for example it now may sell some well more sophisticated weapons to China because simply like in 10 or 15 years China would acquire this capability anyway and Russia would not have enough funds for investing its own military capability so it kind of decided to use this moment and especially possibly with within this reefed with the US when it sees us actions has mostly threatening stability or well and also its own positions in the world in general including Asian ballistic missile defense in Asia possibly we could find the answer here however it's not the top level Russia has or has already produced something that it it that is 400 for example and the top level is still in Russia for itself and Russia has also contracts with India for example India will be the second country which would get as 400 so this is this is very quickly for it for for our minutes are planning this is very difficult to say if our military playing really does want China to get better hid capability possibly its actions are now motivated mostly by the negative attitude towards the US and they the US military actions specifically our military I think is more into that and more into military security cooperation with China in 25 years Russia's Far East is to be developed with Asian partners for sure Russia doesn't have resources to develop it alone there is insufficient labor very small markets and Russia does not have simply good money to invest in the Far East that's why it's trying to devise a new model which would be like economic zones everywhere in East Asia and possibly we would like to see not only a lot of Chinese companies in the Far East but a lot of companies of other countries like Japan and South Korea in the first place also as in India and maybe even the US and well European partners of course so that o different partners could have a stake there it would be a better developed region and Russia could bring its also economic stake to East Asia and try to somehow improve the stability of the region by having its better presence well I think that's mostly Russia's region others realizes not is is another question okay we're getting close to the end so if there are a couple of questions I mean take two or three now and then we will wrap up so I see two right here on the aisle three right here on the aisle let's just do them sequentially and then we'll pass effect to the panelists I'm your schema level armistice our peace foundation USA so I'd like to ask on and you about policy towards Japan and because all of you mentioned about something like sometime is Japan but there is a US Japan and strong us-japan alliance may be so in what Elias come here in China collide with Japan okay so I think we can only take two questions because the Bonnie has to run so we'll do this one Russia and China relations with Japan and then the gentleman sitting in front of you hi Charles Pritchard from the Asian Development Bank my question is on the recent MOU that was signed between OPEC and two Japanese investment banks as kind of the first obvious us counter or balance against the the Bri I just wanted to ask what do you see are the what do you what are the implications on us-china relations directly resulting from that okay great so why don't we just go down the road again I know if you want to start on this on the second question I think it's that it will be interesting to watch China will be concerned about whether the United States is really going to mount a very you know forceful you know whole-of-government strategy I mean where are we gonna get the resources from so what you cited is this OPEC agreement is that really going to be the substance of the strategy is there going to be much more to follow I'm pretty certain that our the US Congress is not going to be voting resources for a you know infrastructure development and in in Asia so we have to work with partners and I don't know how much resources there's going to be so I think you know this is just it's it's a question in my mind as well and and I doubt that there will be any impact on us-china relations in the near term the Chinese are going to be suspicious concerned worried but at the same time there's a level of confidence in China about how much they've already achieved how many countries have signed up to participate in the belton Road initiative how welcome they are in providing many of these loans and you know infrastructure projects they've got enough for plus year head start right and so my guess is they're not be terribly concerned about it if it begins to look like an antique china containment strategy it will have a negative impact on the us-china relationship when the second issue I agree was I agree with Bonnie I don't think the Chinese would be particularly come back and concerned about one or choose specific individual projects sighing that seems to a counter PRI but otherwise without VR I probably would still happen on the issue of Japan I'm personally pessimistic about about the future of china-japan relations under Prime Minister avi and it seems there is this this this de serum made in China as long as RA remains to be the Prime Minister we cannot carry the risk of trying to reach out and say he does something the second day and makes us look bad that seems to be the prevailing sense that that is going to be not so good and the one issue that I know the Chinese are talking about about how Japan can improve that relationship is a bunch of pink enjoying AIB and that's another discussion about Russia in Japan I'm very optimistic about Russia and Japan and I think there is now kind of a new momentum there countries are trying to look if they can build up something more than they could build previously and there is also strategic dimension here Japan wanting to prevent Russia China well aligns were probably untied Japan actions from happening and Russia also trying to diversify its partners to make its Asian people more balanced and of course Russia's in need of Japanese investment technologies innovations this is where Japan and South Korea come in much more handy than most other states in Asia including China and here is really great potential but this current approach meant it's very fragile for sure and possibly if it is rather successful we could see it's as a constructive factor and contributing to Russia strengthen position and Bank strengthen position their relative foreign policy autonomy as well which could not be that bad for age but there is a fixation or on Tortola issue and how it can be settled and there is a symmetry of expectations how the relations could develop and if this issue can be settled by Russia and Japan while Russia wants off or some different climate of relations for some different atmosphere and to build up this atmosphere it will take a long time it's not like 1 or 2 years and Arbor is trying to push a lot for the resolution of the territorial issue and probably now we could have some bad economic operation in these 2 years we have signed 100 more than 150 agreements actually mostly they are mo use and it is to be seen if they are too realized Russia should do its homework better on improving investment climate but still it's a great sign where it's the unprecedented level we are seeing now so this is okay and with that I think we need to wrap it up thank you all for coming let's give a round of applause to our panelists [Music]

Channel: Center for Strategic & International Studies

Views: 7,661

Rating: 4.4857144 out of 5

Keywords: csis, international, politics, diplomacy, washington

Id: A7IKsFwwDyc

Length: 88min 35sec (5315 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2017