Valdai Club

The Korean Peninsula remains the most troublesome knot, where Russia is an important stakeholder. Russia’s interests here have bilateral, regional and global dimensions. There is room for cooperation both with regional partners and the USA.

An abstract of the presentation at Session 2, Regional Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club in partnership with the Habibie Center, entitled “What are Asia’s Goals in the Asian Century?”, Jakarta, Indonesia, November 27, 2015.

• At the start of the 21st century, Asia evolved as generally the safest region in the world. However, it lacks any formal institutions that can prevent it from sliding toward instability, either caused by local contradictions or by “imported” ones. To prevent either scenario from occurring, Russia suggested the concept of pan-Asian security, which was first unveiled as the 2010 Russian-Chinese Initiative on Security in the Asia-Pacific Region. A joint proposal by Russia, China and Brunei to negotiate the Framework Principles of Strengthening Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region followed in 2014. In 2014, Russia proposed an Action Plan, which serves as a roadmap for reaching concrete agreements and promoting cooperation in such areas as confidence-building, conflict settlement, arms control and non-proliferation, combating terrorism and transnational organized crime, food security, energy security, environmental security, disaster relief, and increasing stability of the regional financial systems.

• The final goal is preparing a comprehensive pan-Asian treaty, which would regulate the basic issues of security and cooperation in Asia and the Pacific.

• Russia is trying to distance itself from Asian history debates (despite its principled stand on the “inadmissibility of falsifications of history”). Territorial conflicts in East Asia put Russia in a precarious position as some of these conflicts involve countries, with which Russia would not like to spoil relations by supporting the opposite side in a conflict (having solved the border issue with China, Russia is now directly concerned with only one territorial problem – the more or less frozen territorial dispute with Japan). Moscow is also trying to avoid taking any clear-cut position on the South China Sea conflict.

• China’s and Russia’s approach to promoting a democratic system of international relations in the region is increasingly at odds with a rigid structural approach that is the cornerstone of the US policy in the region (the “hub and spoke” doctrine). The exclusive TPP is another manifestation of such an approach, and, therefore, there is a danger of Asia breaking into several “mega-blocks,” as the new proposals on an ASEAN economic community (approved at the EAS in Kuala Lumpur in November 2015) may indicate.

• Russia should concentrate on the issues that are most relevant to her and that could really have an “added value” for Asian security and cooperation. The Pivot to the East policy should be directed toward North East Asia as its centerpiece and avoid a total focus on China. It is a neighboring region with historical ties to Russia, also housing the world’s three leading economies. North East Asia is a gateway to Asia and the Pacific for Russia. Any pivot to a broader Asia, where Soviet/Russian positions were never strong, should be based on the positive reaction to Russian advances in the neighboring area and practical results of its activity in security and economic spheres.

• North East Asia is a classic example of a contradiction between economic progress and geopolitical insecurity (the Asian Paradox): it enjoys rapid economic growth and economic integration, but security issues hinder continued progress (the Korean issue, Taiwan, territorial disputes, historical animosity, and new challenges).

• The Korean Peninsula especially remains the most troublesome knot, where Russia is an important stakeholder. Russia’s interests here have bilateral, regional and global dimensions. There is room for cooperation both with regional partners and the USA.

• The Western approach to the Korean problem is based on a false premise that the North Korean regime will eventually collapse, thus solving the security issues in this area. This collapse would mean unification of Korea under South Korean rule.

• However, such a scenario is even less likely now than it was in the 1990’s, when North Korea faced an unprecedented economic crisis, being devoid of aid and friends. The North Korean regime is changing, albeit slowly, and only a long-term evolution could “conventionalize” this country. For that, however, external security is crucial. Unless such external security is guaranteed, North Korea will cling to its nuclear weapons.

• The official Russian position is that a nuclear North Korea is unacceptable. However, Russia understands well the reasons for North Korea’s insistence on maintaining a “nuclear deterrent” and, in fact, sees little prospects for “denuclearization” of the DPRK, unless the regional security conditions change radically (which is unlikely). In fact, the absence of a diplomatic process causes the situation to deteriorate even further. Therefore, the rhetoric regarding North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons has almost disappeared from Russia’s official discourse.

• Russian experts also believe that, in practical terms, the so-called “North Korean nuclear problem” enables the US to keep a strong political and military grip on South Korea as being integral to the US global interests (a case in point is including the ROK in plans for deploying the THAAD systems, aimed at China and Russia). At the same time, the Korean problem, acting as a thorn in the side of China, is also of benefit for Washington as it contains Beijing’s rising ambitions. Even North Korea’s preservation of some missile and nuclear potential could be, in keeping with this logic, acceptable for the US policy-makers – that is, as long as North Korea doesn’t cross some “red line”. This game-changing event might be Pyongyang’s acquiring a nuclear-tipped ICBM, capable of reaching US territory, a development that would force the US to take some drastic measures.

• Moscow consistently tries to solve the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula, supporting, not pressure and sanctions, but a multilateral political process, aimed at protecting the lawful interests of all the parties, while at the same time guaranteeing non-proliferation and stability in the area. However, the agenda of the six-party talks was artificially narrowed down to only the North Korean nuclear program, a thing unacceptable to North Korea, and so the talks broke down. Still, Russia supports the resumption of the six-party talks without any preconditions.

• Russia also sees trilateral and multilateral projects involving both Koreas as the most effective tool for making a breakthrough in economic cooperation aimed at achieving prosperity in the Korean Peninsula.