Russian Policy towards China and Japan - 9780415305785

Taylor & Francis

Drawing on the most up-to-date sources, this book provides an in-depth examination of Russia\u2019s relations with China and Japan, the two Asia-Pacific superpowers-in-waiting. For Russia there has always been more than one \u2018Asia\u2019: after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were those in the Russian elite who saw Asia as implying the economic dynamism of the Asia-Pacific, with Japan as the main player. However there were others who saw the chance for Russia to reassert its claim to be a great power, based on Russia\u2019s geopolitical and geoeconomic position as a Eurasian power. For these, China was the power to engage with: together China and Russia could control both Heartland and Rim, both Eurasia and Asia-Pacific, whereas accepting Japan\u2019s conception of Asia implied regional fragmentation and shared sovereignty. This book argues that this strand of thinking, mainly confined to nationalists in the El\u2019tsin years, has now, under Putin, become the dominant dis.