The 2nd ASEAN Reader

92. ASEAN’s Role in Integrating Russia into the Asia-Pacific Economy

458 Amado M. Mendoza, Jr. By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville 92. ASEAN’S ROLE IN INTEGRATING RUSSIA INTO THE ASIA-PACIFIC ECONOMY AMADO M. MENDOZA, Jr. Reprinted in abridged form from Amado M. Mendoza, Jr., “ASEAN’s Role in Integrating Russia into the Asia Pacific Economy, in Engaging Russia in Asia Pacific, edited by Watanabe Koji (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange; and Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1999), pp. 125–53, by permission of the author and the publishers. THE POSSIBILITIES OF RUSSIAN ASIA1 Whenever Asia Pacific observers contemplate engaging Russia economically, attention invariably veers toward Russian Asia. Since three-fourths of the former Soviet Union’s territory was located east of the Ural Mountains, it was both a European and an Asian state. Most of its economic resources were concentrated on the European side and, despite great economic potential in terms of extraordinary mineral, energy, and timber resources, much of Soviet Asia was underdeveloped for various reasons. For one, much of the area was underpopulated. Second, the region lacked transportation facilities, housing and urban amenities, power supplies, and other support industries and inputs. Third, being desert, taiga, and tundra, huge portions of the region were not suitable for agriculture . Such factors are interconnected and become mutually reinforcing in that low population densities, low economic activity levels, and harsh climates and terrains all imply that infrastructure and construction costs are abnormally high. Limited urban amenities made it difficult to attract people from the European side of the Urals, while the small agricultural base made it hard to attract labor because food sufficiency was not assured (Campbell 1982, 229–234). Given inferior economic resources and weak political appeal, Soviet assets in Asia were predominantly military in nature. These military resources were concentrated in Northeast Asia. Ironically, although they grew fast during the last two decades of the Soviet Union, Soviet military assets in Asia were still inferior to those of its Asian theater adversaries. This is doubly ironic, Scalapino (1982, 89) notes, considering that the anti-Soviet Asian states were galvanized into alliance with the West precisely because of Soviet military power. Retaining much of Soviet Asia and the Far East, Russia is the only Soviet successor state that stretches to the Pacific. Yet it 092 AR Ch 92 22/9/03, 1:00 PM 458 ASEAN’s Role in Integrating Russia into the Asia-Pacific Economy 459 By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville appears weak and vulnerable relative to other powers in Asia Pacific and, with only small sticks and carrots at its disposal, it has been content to play in the regional sidelines . The breakup of the Soviet Union substantially transformed the character and disposition of Russia’s Asian assets with even its disadvantaged military position being whittled down. Soviet military resources there largely comprised ground troops deployed against China, and improved SinoChinese relations mean these troops may either be deployed elsewhere or be demobilized . The Russian Far East, with the key cities of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, used to house the Soviet Pacific Fleet, including submarine-launched strategic missiles in the Sea of Okhotsk, but it is now being demilitarized to attract foreign investment and aid. Nevertheless, Northeast Asia is the area where Russia plays an important strategic role, because of the Northern Territories dispute, the Korean peninsula question, and the new Sino-Russian relationship. The Northern Territories issue between Russia and Japan remains unresolved and may not progress meaningfully until both sides retreat from previous positions and internal Russian opposition to a hand-over weakens. The Japanese should be mindful of Russia’s great-power pride, which was piqued when the Japanese earlier offered a raw moneyfor -islands deal, while Russia has to assure the Japanese that its hesitance over the islands is not caused by a retention of Soviet military doctrine. The 1990 normalization of relations between Moscow and Seoul has led to a corresponding cooling of MoscowPyongyang ties and a significant South Korean economic presence in the Russian Far East. Bilateral trade has grown from US$116 million in 1985 to US$1.2 billion in 1991. Yet further progress was made during Yeltsin’s November 1992 state visit to South Korea. In addition to promising to hand over the flight data recorder of the Sovietdowned Korean Air Lines plane, Yeltsin also assured Seoul Moscow would try to make Pyongyang accept bilateral nuclear inspections and...