By Sergey Radchenko
Putin arrives in Beijing desperate to reorient Russia’s Asia policy amid tensions with the West and China’s rise.
One of the most useful exercises for understanding Russia’s geopolitical dilemmas is to take any of the number of commercial flights from Moscow to Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East. It is a journey of about eight hours, covering thousands of miles and a dozen time zones of virtually uninhabited space – in the words of a 1960s Soviet hit, “a green sea of the taiga.” It really does look like a sea from 30,000 feet, rolling in all directions: forbidding, vast, mesmerizing. For generations Russia has tried to come to terms with its size, sending explorers, colonists, convicts, peasants, soldiers, and Youth Communist league activists to build up islands of “civilization” across Siberia and the Far East.
They built cities dilapidated from inception, laid roads that turned to swamps, erected golden church domes and monuments to Lenin. They brought Russia to Asia and made Asia a part of Russia, leaving indelible marks on Russia’s identity, its present dilemmas, and its future directions. Putin’s arrival in China this week highlights the continued – indeed, growing – importance of Asia in Russia’s global calculus. Today, perhaps more than ever, Russia looks East, not West. It sees Asia’s potential markets, eyes its potential battlefields, and seeks a role for itself as a broker, a visionary, and a leader.
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