United States and the Asia-Pacific

Chapter Fifteen
Artyom Lukin and Tamara Troyakova
The Russian Far East and the Asia-Pacific:
State-Managed Integration

Executive Summary
• The success of Russia’s engagement with the Asia-Pacific
hinges crucially on whether its Far East can be transformed
from the country’s backyard into its Pacific front gate.
• While in the 1990s Moscow almost completely neglected
the Russian Far East, under Vladimir Putin, the central
government began to reassert its influence, including in the
area of the region’s external links. One of the most impor-
tant developments has become the launch of an array of
major state-funded projects designed to boost the economy
of the Russian Far East and encourage its integration into
the Asia-Pacific. The September 2012 APEC summit in
Vladivostok is an important step in that direction, aimed at
giving an extra impetus to the Far East and showcasing it to
the international community.
• Russia’s regional integration has an important demographic
dimension as well. The Russian Far East’s population de-
cline, which began in 1991, has resulted in the loss of a
quarter of its population. Russia needs to diversify its for-
eign migration sources, as its increasing demographic needs
may not be fully satisfied by problematic Chinese or Central
Asian immigration. In particular, Moscow might start pay-
ing attention to large suppliers of human resources, such as
Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and some other nations
in Southeast and South Asia. Thus, the Russian Far East
may need more integration with the Asia-Pacific, not just
in terms of trade, but also for the sake of increased human
inflows to boost its flagging demography.

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• Having experienced the chaotic liberalization of external

links in the 1990s which threatened national security, the
Russian government is now pursuing a state-managed inte-
gration of the Russian Far East into the Asia-Pacific econ-
omy. The success of this dirigiste strategy depends on the
continued availability of considerable financial resources
in Russia’s development budget, as well as competent and
clean governance.

Introduction
Russia belongs to the Asia-Pacific by virtue of having its own
Pacific territories, or the Russian Far East. This region has no legal
administrative status within the Russian Federation. An expression,
“Eastern Siberia and the Far East,” is often used to refer to the area
east of Lake Baikal, without drawing a clear distinction between
“Siberia” and “the Far East.” Since 2000, the term “Far East” has
been increasingly used to signify the Far Eastern federal district,
which is made up of nine territories with the constitutional sta-
tus of “federal subjects.” They are Primorskiy krai, Khabarovskiy
krai, Kamchatskiy krai, Sakhalinskaya oblast’, Amurskaya oblast’,
Magadanskaya oblast’, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the Jewish
autonomous district, and the Chukotskiy autonomous district. Al-
though the Far East occupies more than one-third of Russia’s total
area, it has only about 6 million residents.
Over the history of the Russian Far East, two alternating pat-
terns have shaped its interactions with the neighboring countries of
the Asia-Pacific. The first pattern involves relative freedom in for-
eign trade and migration flows. The second has restricted external
links, with tightened state controls, although the tightness of those
controls may vary, from nearly total, as in the Soviet period of the
1930s through the 1980s, to selective restrictions, as in the present
day. The logic behind the alternation of these patterns stems from
a number of variables, such as international politics, economic situ-
ation, and the general condition of Russia’s state political system.

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During the past twenty years, the Russian Far East’s interac-
tions with the Asia-Pacific have dramatically expanded. It is thus
important to understand not only Russia’s national interests in the
Asia-Pacific, but also those of subnational actors in the Russian
Far East.

The Historical Experience

Russian expansion across Siberia moved in both northern and
southern directions. After the signing in 1689 of the border Treaty
of Nerchinsk with China, which blocked Russians’ advance into
the Amur River basin, their further expansion was directed toward
the Northeast, all the way to Alaska. It was not until the middle of
the nineteenth century that Russia came back to the Amur Region.
By the Treaty of Beijing in 1860 the Russian empire had acquired
the southern part of what was to become its Far East, gaining ac-
cess to the Sea of Japan. According to the American historian John
Stephan, “Russia absorbed Priamurye and Primorye by a combina-
tion of encroachment, diplomacy, and luck.”1
In 1884, the Transbaykal, Amur, Primorye, and Sakhalin districts
were united in a newly created Priamurye governor-generalship. It
was the first separate administration for the region, and provided
an institutional framework for a regional identity distinct from that
of Siberia. Also, the Far East had quite a lot of ethnic and cultural
diversity, accommodating not only Russians but also Ukrainians,
Estonians, Jews, Germans, as well as Chinese, Koreans, Japanese,
and other ethnic groups. Immigration shaped regional develop-
ment and added a cosmopolitan shade to the region.
At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twen-
tieth centuries, the Russian Far East was largely open to contacts
with foreign countries. Labor resources were formed by migration
not only from the European part of Russia, but also by migration
from China, Korea, and Japan. However, growing international
1
John J. Stephan, The Russian Far East: A History (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1994), 47.

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presence and the openness of the Far Eastern market caused con-
troversy. There were public debates that revolved around whether
the region should maintain the free trade zones along the Chinese
frontier and in regional ports. As a result, in 1913, the free trade
zone along the Sino-Russian frontier was abolished.
During the early Soviet period in the 1920s, the Far East existed
as a relatively autonomous economic area with porous external
borders. However, in the 1930s, the model of full state control
was introduced into the region, closing it off from the neighboring
countries. The Soviet system imposed an economic structure that
concentrated on the development of the natural resources of the
region for the needs of the national economy. With the acceler-
ated development of mining and defense industries, the region was
turned into a war fortress.
Under the Soviet Union, the region had very limited economic
and human ties with the outside world.2 Nikita Khruschev’s visit
in 1959 to Sakhalin and Vladivostok was a chance in the context
of his attempt to decentralize the Soviet economy. He famously
promised that Vladivostok would be the second San Francisco
someday. Some growth in the regional engagement with the out-
side world took place in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, the
Vladivostok-based Far Eastern Shipping Company became a ma-
jor freight carrier in the Pacific. The Soviet Far East reached a
new high in its exports of timber, fish, and minerals, and imports
of industrial equipment and consumer goods. The signing of a
number of trade agreements between the Soviet Union and Japan
was the focus of an export-oriented strategy. An outline for future
development of the Sakhalin offshore oil and gas deposits was
conceived at that time.
In 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed a new
era of engagement with the Asia-Pacific region during his Vladiv-
ostok visit. He stressed that the Cold War era was ending and the

2
For example, Vladivostok, the region’s biggest city and its main seaport, was
officially closed to foreigners until 1991.

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Soviet government would seek to open up the region and develop

it as part of a broader Asia-Pacific economy. Although still state-
owned, the Far Eastern enterprises were allowed some freedom to
begin trade interactions with foreign partners.

1990s: The Retreat of the State

While for most of the Soviet period the Far East existed vir-
tually isolated from the international environment, the situation
abruptly changed in the early 1990s, when the Soviet regime col-
lapsed. In the 1990s, the Russian Far East enjoyed almost full liber-
alization in its external relations, especially in trade. This was due to
several factors, of which the most important was the radical shift
in the nation’s political and ideological paradigms, resulting in the
dominance of market liberalism.
Moreover, the financially struggling central government virtu-
ally abandoned many of its obligations to the Russian Far East,
which had always heavily relied on subsidies and aid from Moscow.
This forced the region to survive on its own. Liberalizing con-
tacts with the neighboring Asia-Pacific countries was then seen as
a way for the Far Eastern territories to subsist, with the promise of
boosting their economies by hooking up to East Asia’s booming
markets.
The shedding of Moscow’s controls over external contacts was
also caused by the general breakdown of the state apparatus in
the 1990s. The government could not have managed international
links of the remote region even if it had wished to do so. Positive
changes in international politics played a role, too. After the end
of the Cold War, Russia did not have to worry any longer about
military threats from its Asia-Pacific neighbors. The United States
and Japan were declared most valued partners of the democratic
Russia, while relations with China became fully normalized.
However, the laissez-faire model of international integration,
as practiced in the Russian Far East in the 1990s, proved to be a
failure. Although it enriched some businessmen and helped certain

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sectors of the population make their livings, this model was lead-
ing to the region’s degradation rather than stimulating its develop-
ment. The lifting of trade and border barriers while the state and
law enforcement institutions were extremely weakened resulted in
predatory overexploitation of the region’s natural resources, exac-
erbated corruption and transnational crime, and ultimately threat-
ened Russia’s national security on its eastern borders.

2000s: The Return of the State

From the early 2000s onward, the shift to controlled and man-
aged international integration has been taking place in the Russian
Far East. Its main characteristics are as follows:
1) strengthened controls over foreign trade, especially in the
exports of the region’s main staples, such as fish and timber;
2) restrictions on certain imports from neighboring countries,
such as a crackdown on “shuttle trade” with China conducted by
individual petty merchants and the imposition of prohibitive tar-
iffs on imported cars;3
3) tougher rules on foreign labor migrants;
4) implementation of major infrastructure and industrial pro-
jects, largely through government-related funding, with many of
the projects aimed at the Asia-Pacific markets.
While in the 1990s Moscow almost completely neglected the
Russian Far East, largely leaving the region to its own devices, un-
der Putin, the central government began to reassert its influence,
including in the area of the region’s external links. One of the most
important developments has become the launch of an array of
major projects designed to strongly boost the economy of the Rus-
sian Far East and encourage its integration into the Asia-Pacific in
a more efficient and sustainable manner. In December 2007, the
Russian government approved a program for economic and social
3
The imported cars are mainly second-hand vehicles from Japan.

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development of the Far East and Trans-Baikal region, committing

to invest more than 1 trillion rubles (approximately 30 billion U.S.
dollars) over six years, an unprecedented sum for the region.4 The
money is to be spent on the construction and modernization of
transportation, energy, and other kinds of infrastructure, as well as
launching new industrial production. The bulk of the efforts and
funding is focused on Vladivostok, the venue for the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation summit in 2012. The government even
adopted a special program under the title, “Vladivostok City as a
Center for International Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region.”
When, at the APEC leaders’ meeting in Sydney in September
2007, Putin announced the decision to host APEC 2012 in Vladi-
vostok, many, both in Russia and abroad, expressed their bewilder-
ment, questioning the wisdom of choosing a Far Eastern city with
almost nonexistent infrastructure over Moscow and Saint Peters-
burg for hosting a high-profile international event. Explaining the
decision to bring APEC to Vladivostok, Putin and other top Rus-
sian leaders emphasized that it was aimed at giving an extra impetus
to the Far East and showcasing it to the international community.
Although “the Far Eastern program” was formally launched in
2007, during the “fat years” of a booming economy, Moscow did
not abandon or suspend its implementation, even when the global
crisis of 2008-09 hit Russia’s economy hard. The government reaf-
firmed its commitment to invest billions of dollars in the Far East,
and large-scale construction continued apace, especially in Pri-
morskiy krai and Vladivostok.5 The most visible projects include,

4
Pavel Minakir, Olga Prokapalo, “Programmy i strategii razvitiya rossiyskogo
Dal’nego Vostoka” (The programs and strategies for development of the Russian Far East),
Problemy Dal’nego Vostoka (Far Eastern Affairs), (2011), 5: 98.
5
At the beginning of 2009, some government officials suggested that, in order to
save money, the venue for the APEC summit should be moved from Vladivostok to Saint
Petersburg, where all the necessary facilities for hosting major international events were
already in place. However, the proposals were rejected by Russia’s top leadership.

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among others, the construction of a large, state-of-the-art univer-

sity campus,6 two big sea bridges,7 a petrochemical plant, an oil
pipeline from Eastern Siberia, a natural-gas pipeline from Sakhalin
Island, and the reconstruction and enlargement of the Vladivostok
airport. Furthermore, in 2009, some new projects were approved
by the government, such as an automobile assembly plant in Vladi-
vostok8 and two big shipyards to be built in the south of Primors-
kiy krai. The massive influx of government money helped the Far
East to weather the economic crisis of 2008-09 with less pain than
most other Russian territories.
In 2009, the government started subsidizing passenger air travel
on the most popular routes connecting Far Eastern cities with Mos-
cow, Saint Petersburg, and Sochi. Travelers under the age of twenty-
three and over sixty are entitled to air tickets at half their regular price.
The high cost of travel from the Far East, along with low average
incomes, had made it impossible for many residents of the region to
make trips to the western part of the country. Many Far Easterners,
especially among the youth, had never visited their national capital,
while regularly traveling to nearby China, Japan, and South Korea.
Thus, one of the main goals of the subsidized air fares is to over-
come the isolation of the Far East from the rest of the country and
reinforce the Russian identity of the region’s population.
Indicative of how much attention Moscow is now paying to
the Far East and its main city, Vladivostok, has been the high fre-
quency of visits by top government officials. For instance, in 2011
6
Located on the picturesque Russkiy Island off Vladivostok, the world-class campus
will house Far Eastern Federal University and be capable of accommodating up to 50,000
students. The university is designed as an education and research center of academic
excellence that would be able to attract students and scholars not only from Russia, but
from the Asia-Pacific, as well. The university construction is scheduled to be completed
by the time of APEC Leaders’ meeting in early September 2012, so that its facilities can
be used as the summit venue.
7
The bigger bridge, more than 3 kilometers long, will link Vladivostok to Russkiy
Island, while the smaller one will connect two main parts of the city across the bay.
8
One of the main motives to launch the manufacturing of cars in Vladivostok was to
compensate the region for the loss of access to relatively cheap cars from Japan, whose
imports were drastically cut by prohibitive customs duties in 2009.

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alone, President Dmitriy Medvedev visited Vladivostok once, while

Prime Minister Putin traveled there two times, and his first deputy,
Igor Shuvalov, visited the city repeatedly over the year.
However, Moscow also took a measure that undermined a key
sector of the region’s foreign trade and hurt some groups in the
Far East. Starting from January 2009, in order to provide protec-
tionist support for the struggling Russian car manufacturing indus-
try, the government slapped prohibitive tariffs on most types of
imported autos.9 This significantly reduced the imports of vehicles
from Japan, a business which, by some estimates, had directly and
indirectly employed up to 100,000 people in the Russian Far East,
particularly in Vladivostok, and given many people access to rela-
tively cheap, high-quality autos. The government actions triggered
mass protests culminating in Vladivostok in December 2008. The
protesters convened a rally outside the regional government build-
ing, then drove their cars around the city and blocked the main city
artery.10 Nevertheless, the federal authorities would not back down
and refused to reverse the decision on the new levies. Instead, they
swiftly airlifted to Vladivostok a special riot-police unit from Mos-
cow to quell the unrest.11
This is a case in point of how regional and national econom-
ic interests may diverge. While many people in the Far East view
imported Japanese cars as a profitable and vital business, Mos-
cow considers the inflow of highly competitive autos as a serious
threat to the domestic car-making industry, which provides jobs
to millions in the European part of the country in industrial cit-
ies like Tolyatti, the location of Avtovaz, Russia’s biggest national
9
In July 2009, the introduction of strict phytosanitary inspection on all imported
vehicles served as another barrier to the car trade.
10
There are different estimates as to how many people took part in the protests.
Official figures put the number at no more than 200, while some of the protesters alleged
there were 10,000 of them. However, it was undoubtedly the biggest mass protest in the
Russian Far East since the 1990s.
11
Since then, no large-scale protests have been reported in Vladivostok. While there
were mass opposition rallies in Moscow in the winter of 2011/12, very few people took
to the streets in Vladivostok and other Far Eastern cities.

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automaker. When the government had to choose between the eco-

nomic interests of a remote region and the survival of densely
populated industrial areas in the core of Russia, the choice had
actually been predetermined.
As one further step to increase the state’s involvement in man-
aging the Far East’s economy, plans have been unveiled in early
2012 to establish a giant State Company for the Development of
the Far East and Eastern Siberia. The company, which is expected
to be headquartered in Vladivostok, will report directly to the Rus-
sian president. It is to be granted a special legal status, as well as
tax exemptions, and is expected to consolidate the most valuable
government-owned assets in the Far East and Eastern Siberia.12
Finally, in May 2012, the newly elected President Putin created a
special government ministry for the development of the Far East.
The ministry will be headed by the former Khabarovsk governor
Viktor Ishayev, who will simultaneously continue to serve as the
presidential envoy for the Far East. Viktor Ishayev has long ac-
tively advocated the need for more government investment in the
Far East to promote its industrialization and modernization.
However, the growth of state presence in the Far East will not
be able to bring the desired results if it is not accompanied by
serious efforts to make governance in the region more competent
and less corrupt. Official corruption has been especially serious in
Primorskiy krai, the most populous and developed territory of the
Russian Far East. This has clearly been one of the major barriers to
business investment in the region, both foreign and domestic. The
governor of Primorskiy kray, Sergei Darkin, whose nearly eleven-
year rule was widely associated with rampant graft, was finally fired
by Moscow in March 2012.13 The new Kremlin-appointed Gover-
nor Vladimir Miklushevskiy, who had previously served as deputy

12
Kirill Mel’nikov, Alexandr Gudkov, Alexandr Panchenko, “Vsy vlast’ v Sibiri” (All
the Power in Siberia), Kommersant (April 20, 2012), available at: <[Link]
doc/1919404>.
13
In April 2012, the chairman of the regional legislature, one of Darkin’s closest
cronies, was detained on charges of fraud.

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minister of education and then as rector of the Far Eastern Fed-

eral University, pledged that he would make “decriminalization” of
the region one of his main priorities. This gives some new hope
that the Russian Far East will become more attractive for private
business and investors.

The Demographic Challenge

When discussing the issues of the Russian Far East’s interac-
tion with the Asia-Pacific, the subject of demography often comes
up. It is not uncommon to read or hear that the relatively small
population of the Russian Far East (6.3 million) inevitably invites
“demographic pressure” from the neighboring densely populated
countries, such as China and Korea, posing an imminent geopoliti-
cal threat to Russia. Thus, it is argued, Russia should be very cau-
tious in opening its Far East to contacts with its Asian neighbors
to avoid “demographic invasion.”
Indeed, Russia is experiencing an unprecedented crisis of de-
population. Among Russia’s regions, its Far East has been most
badly hit. Its population decline began in 1991, when the Far East-
ern residents started to leave the area for the territories west of the
Ural Mountains. In 1993, this migration outflow was exacerbated
by fewer births and more deaths, as the entire Russia entered a
period of population decline. As a result, the Russian Far East
has now lost about a quarter of its population. Medvedev, visiting
the region in July 2010, identified falling population as “the most
alarming and dangerous trend.”14
Meanwhile, the government has quietly abandoned its previous
plans to increase the Russian population in the Far East through at-
tracting ethnic Russians from the former Soviet republics, apparently
having recognized their unfeasibility. Since 2006, when the federal
program for the resettlement of compatriots was adopted, just a few

14
Transcript of the Meeting on Social and Economic Development of the Russian Far East and
Cooperation with the Asia-Pacific Countries (Khabarovsk, July 2, 2010), available at: <http://
[Link]/transcripts/8234>.

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migrant families have arrived in the Far East. This should come as no
surprise. The Russian migrants that do come to the country prefer
to settle in the more developed areas than in the Far East. The latest
“Strategy for Economic and Social Development of the Far East and
Baikal Region,” which was signed by Putin in December 2009, says
nothing about increasing the population with new settlers, focusing
instead on encouraging existing Russian residents to stay in the region
through “creating comfortable living conditions” and “achieving aver-
age Russian level of social and economic development.”15
How can the Russian Far East compensate for its dwindling
working-age population? Some experts believe that only neighbor-
ing China can help it cope with a mounting demographic crisis.
According to sociologist Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya, there is no
alternative to Chinese immigration. She even predicts that, by the
mid-21st century, the Chinese are likely to become Russia’s sec-
ond-largest ethnic group after Russians themselves.16
However, many Russians view Chinese immigration as a nation-
al security threat rather than a blessing for the country’s economy.
Talking of an imminent Chinese demographic expansion, they
point to the stark imbalance in population densities between the
depopulating Russian Far East and northeastern China, which has
more than 100 million people. They argue that China will naturally
be driven to fill this “demographic vacuum.”
Nevertheless, a number of prominent China experts in Russia
think that Chinese demographic expansion is a myth. There are
no signs that the Chinese seek to settle in the Russian Far East.
Indeed, the number of Chinese citizens entering Russia has been
decreasing since 2000.17 Russia’s Far East is not a particularly at-
15
Strategy for Economic and Social Development of the Far East and Baikal Region for the Period until
the Year 2025 (December 2009), available at: <[Link]
16
Zhanna Zayonchkovskaya, “Immigratsiya: al’ternativy net” [Immigration: there
is no alternative], in V. Mukomel’, E. Pain (eds.), “Nuzhny li immigranty rossiyskomu
obschestvu” [ Does the Russian Society Need Immigrants?] (Moscow: Fond Liberla’naya
Missiya, 2006), 30.
17
Victor Larin, “KNR glazami dal’nevostochnika” (The PRC as viewed by a Russian
Far East resident), Mezhdunarodnie protsessy (International Trends), (2010), 1:125, 128.

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tractive place for Chinese immigrants. We should also remember

that China itself will very soon face a shortage of a young work-
force. China’s population of fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds has
already peaked and will continue to shrink over the next decade.18
In addition, as China’s economic boom is leading to wage increas-
es, Chinese workers will have more reasons to stay at home rather
than venturing into a cold and alien Russia.
China may neither be able nor willing to provide Russia’s Far
East with sufficient migration inflows. Indeed, there may come a
time when Russia would actually want more Chinese migrants to
alleviate the labor shortage in the Far East, but they will not be
coming anymore. Which countries, then, could act as demographic
donors for the Russian Far East? It seems that, over the short term,
only the former Soviet Union republics of Central Asia – Uzbeki-
stan, Kirgizstan, and Tajikistan – could play such a role. They still
retain some historical, cultural, and language bonds with Russia.
These poor countries, with extremely high unemployment, have
an abundant supply of young people, who look to Russia as an at-
tractive destination. Today, one can see many more Central Asians
than Chinese on the Vladivostok streets. According to some esti-
mates, their total number in Primorskiy krai has already exceeded
the number of Chinese migrants. In recent years, the number of
marriages between Russian females and male migrants from Cen-
tral Asia has been steadily increasing in the Far East, whereas mar-
riages between Russians and Chinese are virtually absent.19
Some Russian demographers believe that even Central Asia will
not be able to satisfy Russia’s, and its Far East’s, needs in imported
labor.20 Russia has to think about diversification of its foreign mi-
gration sources. In particular, it might pay attention to big suppliers

18
E. Wong, “China’s Export Economy Begins Turning Inward,” The New York Times,
June 24, 2010.
19
Personal interview with Sergei Pushkaryov, Chairman of the Advisory Council of
the Federal Migration Authority (Primorskiy krai, Vladivostok, July 6, 2010).
20
Interview with Alexander Vishnevskiy, Director of the Institute of Demography,
Higher School of Economics (Moscow, January 15, 2010), available at: <[Link]
articles/234753/?sphrase_id=76755>.

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of human resources such as Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and

some other nations in Southeast and South Asia. For example, rep-
resentatives from Bangladesh and India have already shown some
interest in sending their labor migrants to the Russian Far East.21
From this perspective, the Russian Far East may need more integra-
tion with the Asia-Pacific, not just in terms of trade, but also for the
sake of increased human inflows to boost its flagging demography.

Conclusion
The success of Russia’s engagement with the Asia-Pacific hing-
es crucially on whether its Far East can be transformed from the
country’s backyard into its Pacific front gate. After years of virtual
neglect in the 1990s and early 2000s, Moscow has been stepping
up efforts to boost the development of the Far Eastern territories.
Apart from an evident need to raise the living standards of the re-
gion’s population, Moscow pursues strategic and foreign policy goals:
1) strengthening sovereign control over Russia’s Far Eastern
areas;
2) sending a clear message to foreign actors that Russia is seri-
ous about its Asia-Pacific ambitions;
3) turning the Far Eastern territories, particularly its southern
parts, into modern and efficient hubs to expand Russia’s exchanges
with the Asia-Pacific economies; and
4) improving the demographic situation in the Russian Far East.
The current increase of the state presence in the Russian Far
East’s economy and its external relations has a number of caus-
es. First, Putin succeeded in consolidating the state-driven politi-
cal system, enabling Moscow to reassert its leverage over Russian
regions, some of which sometimes verged on separatism in the
1990s. Second, vast financial reserves accumulated by Russia dur-
ing the era of booming economy and high oil prices made it possi-
ble to embark on major infrastructure, industrial, and image-boost-
21
Personal interview with S. Pushkaryov, op. cit.

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ing projects in the Far East. Third, the strategic environment has
changed. In the 1990s, China was still perceived by many Russians
as a relatively underdeveloped country that could pose danger only
in terms of poorly controlled migration inflows. In the 2000s, it
has finally become clear that China is growing into a full-fledged
great power, perhaps even a superpower, in the not-so-distant fu-
ture and this may present a big challenge to Russia and its Far East.
Geopolitics has always been the central government’s underly-
ing concern when dealing with the Far East. Due to the region’s
remoteness from the country’s core, sparse population, poor in-
frastructure, as well as the presence of big and ambitious powers
in its neighborhood, Moscow always has to be very careful about
how the Far East’s external relations are conducted. A complete
liberalization of foreign contacts may lead to the loss of effec-
tive sovereignty over the area, whereas the region’s isolation would
perpetuate its economic backwardness. That is why the Russian
government has now made a choice in favor of controlled and
selective international integration with neo-mercantilist overtones.
This means Russia will open or restrict external links in specific
sectors and industries in accordance with its national interests as
defined by Moscow. It is believed that only the state’s leading and
proactive role, including massive government investments, can en-
sure the development of the Russian Far East and its inclusion in
the Asia-Pacific economic system as an equal participant, rather
than a mere supplier of raw materials.
The eventual success of this strategy by no means looks as-
sured. It depends on two main conditions. First, Moscow must
have sufficient financial resources to provide sustainable, long-
term funding for the costly development programs in the Far East.
Second, and perhaps even more important, competent policies and
good governance are essential, lest the efforts and money be spent
in vain.

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