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Putin’s May trip to China and June trips to North Korea and Vietnam showcased the Asian axis of his pursuit of a new world order. Some commentators abroad argued that he was acting in desperation with little strategic rationale for revitalizing his “Turn to the East.” This contrasts with the narrative in Russian publications. Turning to North Korea for a mutual defense treaty is not just a sign of having nowhere else to turn but a natural outgrowth of how the “Turn to the East” has evolved through multiple stages. Putting China in an uncomfortable position through his bold initiative with Kim Jong-un does not mean that Putin is endangering his key relationship but represents a calculated risk that China will adjust to this gambit as it did to the Ukraine war more by reinforcing Putin’s adventurism than by cooperating with others to rein in his actions. If this message is left unsaid, the focus on autonomous Russian behavior is unmistakable. While optimism is overdone, sources convey intentions worthy of scrutiny.
Why is North Korea the logical next target of Russia’s “Turn to the East?” The “turn” has been, at each stage, a China + 1 approach. After Russia’s assault in Ukraine encountered adversity, it appeared that only China was left as a partner of consequence while the Eurasian Economic Union had atrophied instead of expanding. India provided some relief, but its partnership with the United States and US allies diminished its value. Only North Korea loomed as the right kind of target, all the more so because of its value as an arms supplier. In the earlier stages of the “Turn to the East” North Korea had not been ignored, as Moscow relented on tougher sanctions only due to Chinese pressure in 2017. In 2020-21, the pandemic made new overtures difficult, but in the aftermath of the Ukraine war’s outbreak, the logic of targeting the North was compelling. In supplying the North with new types of lethal threats and hinting that these could be later shared with rogue actors around the world, Putin reveals that his strategy is to play a game of chicken with the West, using North Korea as tool of threat enhancement. He also is targeting South Korea, threatening it as the US ally whose arms to Ukraine could make it most vulnerable.
Putin’s Visits to North Korea and Vietnam
On June 20, Kommersant warned that South Korea is reconsidering its refusal to supply weapons to Ukraine over the new agreement of Russia and North Korea. Viewing the treaty on a strategic partnership as a military alliance, especially Article 4 on quickly extending military assistance if the other country is at war due to armed attack, Seoul expressed its deep concern. It considers this a violation of the Security Council sanctions. Putin at the signing ceremony pointed to the West supplying Ukraine with F-16 fighters and other high-tech weapons to strike at Russia and did not exclude the development of military-technical cooperation with the DPRK. A day before the same paper called the visit historic, emphasizing the complete agreement on the struggle against the “imperialist policies of the United States and its satellites.” It presented a picture of Pyongyang as booming with entire, new microregions, theaters, museums, greenery, and simple but clean homes. Putin’s remarks on the changes in Pyongyang’s appearance due to the dedicated work of the Korean people under Kim Jong-un’s leadership were well covered.
On June 20, Anastasiya Kostina in Izvestiya wrote that South Korea is exporting more weapons to Eastern Europe, which eventually make their way to Ukraine. The total ordinance exceeds that from all of Europe, much of it to Rumania, whose leader in April agreed with Yoon Suk-yeol to expand defense ties, and to Poland, where ties are even deeper. Publicly claiming a neutral position of not sending lethal weapons to Kiev and insisting it does not want to damage ties to Russia over such supplies, Seoul can get around restrictions, acting under pressure from the US and now with the added weight of the growing closeness of Russia and North Korea. Seoul has been eager to gain access to the NATO market, and it has had great success over the past 20 years. Noted separately was Putin’s warning to Seoul against making a “big mistake” and suffering a “painful” response if it should decide to send arms to Ukraine, directly or perhaps indirectly.
Another article reported on how the international media is discussing Putin’s visit to Pyongyang. Clearly, the shock value of the visit suited Putin’s intentions to a tee. Perhaps, even the prospect of Chinese discomfort played into Putin’s agenda, knowing that Beijing was apt to keep silent. Whereas at the May China-Japan-South Korea (CJK) summit it had agreed to language on the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Putin in Pyongyang had appeared to excuse the nuclear program, not to criticize it. Yet, another Izvestiya article on June 21 reported that the previous day China’s Global Times had welcomed Putin’s talks with Kim Jong-un as proof that Russia is not alone and does not fear sanctions, nor is it afraid of an extended conflict in the ongoing struggle over Ukraine.
On June 21 in Izvestiya, Russians warned of increased US pressure on Vietnam after Putin’s visit. The article stressed the fact that Russia was not isolated and that states do not want to be US puppets, but there was scant substance on how bilateral relations would be aided by the visit.
On June 20 in Izvestiya, Alena Nefedova wrote that the new pact with the DPRK does not depend on the conflict with Ukraine. The defense treaty is unrelated. It opens the door to a military partnership, where North Korea can be helpful as has been Iran with its technological breakthroughs in drones. Although Seoul is upset, Putin stressed that Russia would provide military assistance to the DPRK only in case of aggression. As far as we know, the ROK is not planning that; so there is no need, Putin added, while warning it of corresponding decisions if it should supply lethal weapons to Ukraine. As for Vietnam, 60% of transactions now occur in local currencies, Russia is prepared to make long-term investments in hydrocarbons, and both sides intend to develop defense cooperation further. Yet, problems arise from Western sanctions and Vietnam’s closer ties to the US. Vietnam has not joined the sanctions, but it also has not condemned them. One gets the feeling that in some cases, it listens to the anti-Russian recommendations of Washington. Vietnamese companies fear secondary sanctions, impacting trade. In 2021-23, trade fell from $5.6 to $3.6 billion, although it is rising in 2024. Now Singapore is the first trading partner in Southeast Asia at $3.725 billion. Russia’s main interest is to provide energy—atomic and gas—or transport infrastructure, but pressure from the West is in the way. Only military technology is advancing, but there are many competitors, not only the United States, and Vietnam is turning to Russia, reacting to its complicated relations with China. As in the coverage of India, Russians are more openly appealing for ties based on fear of China.
In Izvestiya Anastasia Kostina asked why Seoul now wants to cancel the 2018 agreement with Pyongyang, saying it is looking for any excuse to get rid of this inconvenient agreement with the intent to resume propaganda transmissions by loudspeaker and in response to about 1000 balloons filled with trash, as tensions on the peninsula rise. Provoked by leaflets from South Korea, the North warned that if they continue it would send 100 times more refuse. What the North is doing is just a game, while the South is prepared to make a serious response, since the conservatives or rightist in control never found the agreement beneficial. This would allow military exercises near the demarcation line and loudspeaker propaganda transmitting critical news about the DPRK authorities and K-Pop, listening to which can lead to a prison camp in the North. The North may hold off on severe measures until just before the US elections, reminding the US public and political class of its existence and desire for some kind of compromise. To the degree Seoul has drawn closer to Tokyo and especially to Washington in opposition to the nuclear threat from the DPRK, Pyongyang has become hesitant to carry out provocations. Only in response to such military cooperation did it put into orbit an intelligence satellite after two unsuccessful attempts. The launch was the last straw for Seoul, which decided to end the 2018 agreement, including intelligence activity in the demarcation line area, which Pyongyang followed by pausing everything to which it had agreed. All of this is testimony to Seoul finding a pretext to abrogate an inconvenient document. The September 2023 Constitutional court ruling opened the door to the propaganda leaflets and what followed. As relations spiraled downwards, Kim Jong-un officially renounced peaceful coexistence and designated the South as an enemy.
Kommersant on June 11 elaborated on the “trash war,” repeating Pyongyang’s claim that it is responding to critical leaflets and noting North Korean soldiers who got lost at the border as something other than a provocation. South Korea has reverted to its old ways of propaganda loudspeakers and then pulled back. Pulling back is fully understandable, readers are told, given how in 2014 sending propaganda leaflets had led to shooting across the demarcation line.
India and BRICS
On June 13 in Izvestiya, Aleksei Kupriyanov wrote about India’s role in multipolarity and the durability of BRICS. Insisting that BRICS was not affected by the geopolitical differences between China and India, which more than once resulted in skirmishes, or financial crises and the pandemic, Kupriyanov attributes its staying power to the ideal format for an era when alliances are passe and countries support one another for specific purposes and not others. India finds BRICS of value for economic ties to other developing countries, as in rises over two decades from 5th to 3rd in the world economy amid pretenses for a greater say in global management. It is of value also for status, seeking a permanent position in the Security Council, knowing it surpasses Great Britain and France as an economic and military power and was a victor in WWII without mass thievery and destruction of other civilizations. Realizing that the UN is now in permanent crisis, India is counting on other formats, including BRICS, a nucleus of the future world architecture. Another driving force is the China factor, seen in India as seeking a model of a “multipolar world, but with a unipolar Asia.” India pretends to enjoy an equal status with China, regionally and globally, and it has equal status in BRICS. It can use BRICS to get China to force Pakistan to back down if needed. Russia is important to India in BRICS as a strategic partner and an alternative to China and long-term friend. Implying that in the RIC triangle, India must rely on Russia rather than think of Russia as joining with China, this is a rebuke to China’s Asian strategy.
Viktoriya Guliants in Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn, No. 4, wrote about the synergy between the SCO and BRICS, a consolidation of the non-western world. In place of the old architecture of the world order, she discerns the formation of a polycentric system, led by regional processes of integration with global linkages. The SCO is regional, and BRICS is global. The 23rd SCO summit in July 2023 by video-conference, chaired by Narendra Modi, welcomed Iran into the organization and began the process of Belarus’ accession. Yet the Achilles heel of the SCO is unregulated territorial disputes between its members, affecting the organization’s work. Indo-Pakistan and Indo-Chinese disputes as well as the Kirghiz-Tadzhik and Kirghiz-Uzbek border conflicts are noted. Preconditions are missing for turning the bloc into an anti-West coalition. Today, only Russia and Iran have tense relations with the collective West. Others belong to international organizations striving to maintain ties to the US, EU, and East Asian allies of the US and take a neutral position. The SCO finds it difficult to advance its projects, but the most advanced is the establishment of a new, alternative system of international relations. It needs an economic jolt to pursue some alternative to the Western world in building infrastructure. It is unlikely that Turkey would join. The first BRIC summit took place in 2009, and it 2012 South Africa joined. A unifying principle is the concept of polycentrism. Russia and China are of the Global North, and the other three are in the Global South. In 2024, six new members joined. In circumstances of the crisis in the UN and G7 the expansion of the SCO and BRICS forges the architecture of a new world order with multipolarity, unlike the widening alliances of the West. It can become an influential non-western bloc beneficial to the Global South.
The common denominator is RIC, Russia-India-China, first conceived by Primakov in 1998 as a troika with politics in the forefront with close economic ties added later. The Russian official documents treat RIC as the “nucleus” of BRICS and the SCO, where agreement is reached on the most significant agenda issues. Sino-Indian tensions stood in the way after 2019, leaving the tie between Russia and China as key to reaching a new level, which requires that the SCO add an economic orientation, e.g., with its own bank, as the BRICS has. The direction of SCO and BRICS activities should be correlated to deal with global challenges, especially the crisis of the global system of management, the international economic context, and pro-US one-sided institutions.
Putin’s Trip to China
On April 14 in MKRU, Iury Tavrovsky set forth a far-reaching agenda for the Putin-Xi summit ahead, opening a new chapter, not just a page, in bilateral relations. Harking back to the Russia-China bank established in the 1890s, the proposal explains what could be strategic cooperation in the economic arena to 2030. It takes Xi Jinping’s words of March 2023 on grandiose changes as a tipoff for bold follow-up in the global “cold war” being waged by the West against Russia and China, where each has become the “second front” for the other. This should now be recognized openly and codified in a document in a celebration to mark 75 years of diplomatic relations at the beginning of October and in consideration of this year’s SCO and BRICS summits. Russia could propose a way to manage the Sino-Indian border dispute, which weakens the solidarity of the SCO, BRICS, and the entire Greater South. Tavrovsky also called for military responses to NATO and the G7 extending into the Indo-Pacific and new US-led groups by means of joint Russia-China patrols of strategic bombers and combat ships carrying hypersonic missiles and nuclear weapons, including temporarily basing these at each other’s airports and ports. He also backed a Sino-Russian-Iranian agreement and a Sino-Russian-North Korean one. Based on overlapping national interests, complementary economic structures, and similar political cultures, Moscow and Beijing must do more bilaterally, too. Of late, unexpected problems, especially in transport and finances, have stalled agreement on the plan for economic cooperation to 2030. Therefore, political will of the leaders should proceed to long-term solutions, overcoming the surviving anti-Chinese and anti-Russian prejudices of the elites in the two states, oriented for a few decades to the West. Willingly or unwillingly, they are interfering with the decisions of the top leadership. New aides to Putin and Xi with full powers and the necessary staff could break the logjam, including with a financial structure separate from Washington, such as the bank that built the railroad across Northeast China to link Vladivostok and the Zabaikal region in opposition to Japanese penetration of Manchuria. Colossal infrastructure projects could follow, building new and modernizing existing rail lines, oil and gas pipelines, ports, and airports. Tavrovsky’s wish-list points to how Russia’s economy could be saved by China and suggests that Russians are standing in the way, while assuming that China is so ready to break from the West and turn to Russia as its one partner that it will satisfy Russia’s greatest desires, even to the point of shelving its territorial dispute with India.
Alena Nefedova and Anastasia Kostina in Izvestiya wrote about Putin’s visit to China and military cooperation. They note Moscow’s approval of Beijing’s peace proposal for Ukraine, but say Ukraine and the West reject it, citing Putin’s May 15 interview with Xinhua in advance of his visit to China. Both China and Russia support a multipolar world order. They also have a shared culture, reflected in Putin and his family’s interest in Chinese culture and some of his relatives studying Chinese. This partnership has always been built on equality, trust, and mutual respect. Added to this is wise and far-sighted policies of Xi Jinping, Putin asserted. Inside Russian society interest is growing in China’s culture and art. About 90,000 students are studying Chinese. In 2023 more than 730,000 Russians visited China. In Moscow Chinese New Year is now celebrated as the 75th year of diplomatic relations is marked. Trade doubled from $111 billion in 2019 to $228 billion in 2023 with more than 90% of accounts in national currencies. The challenge is mentioned of establishing shared technological platforms when sanctions limit Chinese firms tied to Western markets. Putin stressed that the two states’ positions overlap on key questions on the international agenda. Western elites fail to respect civilizational diversity and age-old, traditional values. While China has expressed its position on managing the Ukraine crisis, Russia has its own proposal to resolve the situation and will not unquestioningly follow another’s plan. Alexander Lukin is quoted on the differences: China’s interpretation of the territorial integrity of all countries; talks without any preconditions; and concern for the security interests of all sides. The differences are more pronounced between China’s position and those of the West and Ukraine, which have rejected China’s plan, while Russia has left the door open to consider it.
In Profil, Ivan Zuenko on May 22 explained the symbolic meaning of Putin’s visit to Harbin, part of a two-day stop in China on May 16-17, his nineteenth visit to China as president. Founded in 1898, Harbin became a concession to Russia on the railroad to the Pacific Ocean, which kept extraterritorial control to 1920. Even after that, many Russians and other Europeans lived there and shaped the city’s economy and culture. Chinese recalled this history badly for a long time, and the Russian legacy was largely erased, but all of that has changed drastically. Founded as a cosmopolitan city, where Russia and Chinese civilizations interacted, is a key element in the city’s identity and tourist appeal now. Many broken down buildings have been restored, and new buildings are styled on the old model, as the railroad station. Museum exhibitions have changed their tune, and old Russian symbols restored. Putin lay flowers at the memorial to Soviet soldiers who died in the battles for the liberation of China from the Japanese. This was the first visit of a Russian president to Harbin since 1997. In their 43rd meeting, Putin and Xi Jinping did not reveal the contents of their discussions, but it sent signals to the global majority and the Euro-Atlantic minority that Russia is in no way isolated and attempts to turn Beijing toward pressuring Moscow are meaningless. Putin was keen to shore up this vital partnership.
In Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, May/June, Ivan Zuenko asked if the Chinese model of foreign policy could be applied in Russia, noting that in the past decade it has become an ideal with little basis in reality in Russian discussions. China is seen as a country with wise leadership and a virtuous people—patriotic, far-sighted, law-abiding, hardworking. Yet, China is far from the ideal described, as can be seen in the extreme battle with the pandemic in 2022-23. Some argue that if Moscow followed Beijing’s example and acted with restraint in foreign policy there would be no conflict with the Western world or unprecedented sanctions. In an earlier period, China did succeed in development open to Western markets, avoiding wasting resources on a military conflict. Yet, this was necessitated by extreme poverty in the 1980s. Showing restraint even after 1989 was related to the fact the US expected to draw China into its economic and cultural world as the political regime was replaced, following the scenario of Taiwan and South Korea. Russians have mistranslated “taoguang yanghui” as keeping a low profile and hiding one’s possibilities, but before Xi Jinping most of the political and military elite in China did not intend to hide power but were forced due to its weakness. An active foreign policy would have interfered, especially when the West misunderstood the “end of history” and gave China technology, finances, and economic ties not available before or after. China could quiet growing fears of a “China threat,” but this was just a temporary approach.
Three milestones are now recognized in China in raising its voice on the international arena: (1) the US destruction of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999; (2) the 2008 Olympic Games and Shanghai World’s Fair of 2010, boosting China’s self-confidence; and (3) THAAD deployment in 2016, seen as the spread of “global NATO,” which Russia had predicted. Later came the “tariff war,” the AUKUS anti-Chinese military bloc, and other events putting China and the US on the brink of a new cold war. Discussion ensued as to whether China would shift from “soft” methods and a passive foreign policy, not consistent with the interests of a richer society inclined to national revanchism. China’s positive, integrationist behavior was taken as a threat, as the world hegemon lost confidence in its global leadership as early as the 2000s, seen in the reaction of neorealists. Also consequential was a slowdown in China’s economic growth, causing Xi Jinping to divert public emotions from domestic matters to the international arena. At first, China did not want to spoil relations with trading partners or interfere with the model of globalization, naively assuming China could rise without conflict, but the US could not accept that. Meanwhile, the Global South was also rising, which China considered itself to lead in correcting the international system. In Chinese terms, “under Mao Zedong, China rose up, under Deng Xiaoping, it got rich, and under Xi Jinping, it became powerful.” A passive foreign policy was suitable only in the second stage and under favorable foreign conditions. Earlier than China, Russia started on the path of systemic opposition to the West, while in 2014-18 Chinese colleagues advised that Russia was being too unrestrained and should stress economic pragmatism. From 2018 and the start of the trade wars, such talk faded, as Chinese gradually recognized the logic of Moscow’s actions. If, even now, part of the Chinese political and intellectual elite stick to the view that one can reach agreement with the world hegemon, trying to persuade it, there Is no turning back to a passive model of foreign policy.
On May 16, rbc.ru summarized the agreements between Putin and Xi on day 1 of a visit to mark the 75th anniversary of normalized relations. Putin noted the rise of trade by almost a quarter in 2023 to $227 billion and the weighty program of 40 major investment projects. On May 17 Putin would go to Harbin for the opening of the 8th Russo-Chinese expo and 4th forum on international cooperation. The next meeting of Putin and Xi is set for October at the BRICS summit in Kazan after over 40 meetings since 2013. In the joint statement the leaders affirmed containment of falsifications on the history of WWII. Repeated visits of Western leaders opposing China’s material support for Russia’s military activities in Ukraine while threatening sanctions on Chinese companies failed to enlist Xi Jinping in their games, despite his reluctance to quarrel over the matter and lose all Western investments. Xi is keen on closer military ties to Russia, but there will not be a full military alliance, which would require a fundamental rethinking of China’s foreign policy, which sees the US mentality as stuck in 20th century Cold War, while China lives in the 21st century ready for equal friendships with all.
In Rossiya v Global’noi Politike, May/June, Konstantin Asmolov and Kirill Babaev analyzed a triangular world and triangular blocs in East Asia. They argued that periods of global turbulence are inevitable at times of transition in the international system, equating today’s era with three in the twentieth century: 1914-19, 1938-45, and 1988-92. Rising dissatisfaction of developing states with the existing world order, seen as the US and “collective West” dictating its will on the world, as in military interventions and the use of sanctions, leads to pursuit of more just order and respect for civilizational diversity. The authors welcome deglobalization or, as they prefer, clusterization of the world and international economic relations based on political preferences. The result is a system of blocs. Armed conflict as a means to resolve problems stopped being taboo with the 1999 events in the former Yugoslavia. A “strategic triangle” exists among Russia, the US, and China, the three main centers of power.
Before our eyes, the formation in East Asia of triangles is taking place: Washington-Tokyo-Seoul and Moscow-Beijing-Pyongyang. Emerging after the Versailles 1919 meeting, the three centers were the USSR, Hitler’s Germany, and the West, leading to a temporary bloc of the West and the USSR, destroying the Third Reich. Again, in the 1970s-80s, a tripolar system emerged, allowing China to begin to catch up versus the USSR and US. Now the tripolar model has reached a certain balance—Russia and the US have nuclear parity, and the Sino-US balance is based on gigantic economic interdependence, which the US in preparation for potential conflict seeks to alter by cutting imports from China. China alone cannot balance the threat from the US, which both face. China needs Russia as the core of BRICS and a welcome partner for such countries as India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, and Turkey. Russia is China’s only major ally/partner. Questions are raised about the degree to which Russia should get involved in a US-China conflict. In the Russian political arena, there is a desire to avoid getting pulled into a conflict as the younger partner of a greater power. Primakov advised not to conclude an alliance with China against the US or with the US against China. The Russian political elite does not like the West, but knows it well, while it has very weak familiarity with China, and unfamiliarity is scary. Liberally inclined academics and veterans of the struggle with Maoism, as well as the US and Europe try to create an image of China as a dangerous partner. True, in the Russian government more and more are acquainted with Chinese specifics. There is potential for conflict, but both sides strive to eliminate it, as in a 2023 PRC map designating as China’s territory Ussuriysk, half of which belongs to Russia, when the Russian foreign ministry just said the border question was resolved for good, and the Chinese spoke of a technical error.
Russia, China, and the United States can be called part of “greater East Asia.” Active on the Korean Peninsula are two “small” triangles—eastern (RF, PRC, DPRK), and western (US-Japan-ROK), which is formally institutionalized as an alliance, importantly at the Camp David summit. They have detailed concrete measures to contain China and, in fact, liquidate the sovereignty of the DPRK and operate on an ideological basis for a “free and open Indo-Pacific region, founded on respect for international law, and universal norms and values” amid talks on the formation of an “Asiatic NATO.” The eastern triangle, as the strategic partnership of Russia and China, is based on a shared threat and rejection of US policies, but it is not formally institutionalized. If the exchange of Russia-DPRK visits in 2023 gave rise to various rumors, there are no documents comparable to Camp David. Russia is interested in the existence of North Korea as not only a buffer zone, but also one of a few ideological allies. Russia and China agree that sanctions on the North should be softened in line with its moratorium on nuclear tests and launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles. From 2022, they began to more actively oppose US sanctions on the DPRK at the UN. Some Russian academics regard Russia’s agreement to sanctions in 2016-17 as a mistake, and on March 28, 2024, Russia vetoed a continued mandate for monitors of the sanctions. North Korean-Chinese friendship was tightened in 2018 as an uninterrupted process, sealed in blood, from the Korean War, based on socialist ideology, and growing closer and closer. Nuclear weapons are needed for balance but have limited use and must be joined with strategic alliances, for which China is the chief economic sponsor and diplomatic defender and Russia plays the role of primary military partner, since it has nothing to lose in relations with Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo. Problems exist in the eastern triangle, e.g., China does not openly support Russia’s actions in Ukraine, not wanting to be accused of double standards in regard to secession. Also, problems exist in opening the Tumen River to the Japan Sea and in cooperating on Central Asia and Mongolia, while North Korea is far from agreeable to what Moscow and Beijing want in security, as regarding nuclear weapons. Yet, in this triangle, there is no lord and vassal relationship or territorial pretensions, while all possess nuclear weapons.
Potential conflict could erupt over the Korean Peninsula; Taiwan, pushed to formal separation from China; and Chinese borders in the South China Sea. The probability of the first is lowest. Sino-US confrontation is more probable. The ROK response to a Taiwan conflict in support of the US is more likely than North Korea fighting for China’s interests. Neither side would be drawn into a South China conflict. Russia will avoid unnecessary involvement in a China-US conflict not touching on its direct interests, not acting as a “junior partner.” The trend of strengthening the western bloc will, at a minimum, continue through Yoon’s term to the spring of 2027. Despite the continued tension, both Koreas will strive to avoid the suicide for both of armed conflict.
China-Japan-South Korea summit, US-Japan-Philippines summit, and Taiwan
In Izvestiya on May 27, Anastasiia Kostina wrote about the CJK meeting and the prospects for South Korea and Japan to go against the United States. Saying that ties within this triangle had been complicated by Japan and South Korea consolidating their alliances with the United States in the geopolitical battle with China, Kostina sees the May 27 Seoul summit, five years after the prior meeting in China, as a step toward normalization, including free trade talks despite US to cut China off from global supply chains. Yet differences over Taiwan and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula remain. Kostina argues that the very fact of the meeting signifies progress even in the absence of concrete agreements. China sought to separate politics from matters of trade, stopping protectionism and semi-conductor supply chain separation, as the US strives to weaken the dependence of states in the region on China and regionalist tendencies. Despite the pro-American positions of the US allies, China seeks to strengthen economic ties with them. The most results came in the bilateral meeting of Li Qiang and Yoon Suk-yeol, the first visit in nine years of China’s no. 2, coming just after Korea’s foreign minister went to China, the first such visit in six years. Li and Yoon agreed to establish 2+2 consultations of the foreign and defense ministers, starting in mid-June with new economic cooperation also planned.
On April 22 in Izvestiya, Valerii Kistanov considered the formation of an Asian NATO, reacting to the April 11 three-way summit of Biden, Kishida, and Marcos after the April 10 Biden-Kishida meeting noticeably bolstering the US-Japan alliance and calling both anti-Chinese. In the past month tensions between China and the Philippines have escalated, while China’s actions to control the Senkakus in the East China Sea have reached a new level. The three leaders intend to boost maritime exercises and consultations. Marcos has given the US access to four of his military bases, mostly in the north not far from Taiwan, on top of five objects elsewhere. In contrast to Duterte, who leaned to Beijing and away from Washington, Marcos is turning to the latter, but fears spoiling ties with China and denies that the summit was against any country. As expected, China’s ministry of foreign affairs reacted sharply to these meetings as a threat to regional peace and stability. The new triangle is not institutionalized, adding to the informal mini-alliances created by Washington and Tokyo on behalf of a free and open Indo-Pacific to contain the ever-strengthening economic and military power of China, i.e., the Quad, AUKUS, Five Eyes, and the Camp David triangle. Strictly speaking, none of these could be called and Asian NATO since they do not call for direct military support of each other in the event of a foreign security threat. All of this could be called into question if Trump returns as president. However, the process forging a network of mini-alliances in the Asia-Pacific region to contain, first of all China, but also North Korea and Russia will continue.
In MEiMO, No. 5, Ia. V. Leksyutina analyzed US Taiwan policy, discerning increased support for the island under both Trump and Biden. She identifies a variety of driving forces: the rise of China, the changing military balance, growing Chinese pressure on Taiwan since 2016, the rise in Taiwan identity, and a reassessment of China in the US in favor of containment. The author calls the changes in US policy “salami tactics” that, in combination, form a critical mass signifying a serious shift in direction. The standoff in August 2022 raised the prospect of confrontation.
Although formally there is no principal change in US policy—still a “one China” policy together with “strategic ambiguity,” and opposed to Taiwan declaring its independence—the degree of change is stressed. While the status quo suits the US policy of containing China, more obvious is the clear national interest of the US in Taiwan. In this situation, both sides are drawing closer and closer to a threshold for military confrontation. Mutual cooperation in a triangular context has eroded. No one wants a conflict; however, space to maneuver keeps narrowing. Unification is so critical to the “China Dream” that Beijing must act, while the US has increasingly indicated it would respond in case of a threat to Taiwan. Leksyutina points to high likelihood of conflict.
On May 28, Sergey Strokhan in Kommersant contrasted the alternative conceptions of security at the Shangri-La Dialogue of Washington and Beijing, fighting over Asia. Noting also that defense ministers of the US and China would likely meet, the article said that Singapore is the only Southeast Asian state that has joined in sanctions against Russia, as it orients itself to the West in security but accepts the Chinese influence on some matters. Meanwhile China agreed to the CJK summit because even US allies cannot allow themselves to be fully committed to US policies aimed at containing China, a signal also to the new premier of Singapore Lawrence Wong. A question for the Shangri-La Dialogue was how to respond to the conflict in Ukraine with Russia not invited as in 2023, as the US allies seek to draw Asia into supporting Ukraine.
CJK summit
In Kommersant on May 27, attention turned to the first CJK summit in five years, explaining that hopes were low given how South Korea and Japan have lately antagonized China by drawing closer to the US. The very fact of the summit was treated as a symbol of progress. Li Qiang appealed for not joining a bloc separate from China and to refrain from protectionism and a split in supply chains, but he stressed a new, positive beginning. The three sides spoke of accelerating talks for an FTA, at an impasse since 2019. New 2+2 Sino-ROK talks will begin in June, and Sino-ROK FTA expansion may resume. Sino-Japanese talks were less successful, as marine exports and Taiwan remained stumbling blocks. On North Korea, Natalya Portiakova concluded, a launch drew a vague call from Li for regional peace, at odds with the other two.
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