Анджела Стент - Putin's World - Russia Against the West and with the Rest

Irrespective of history and politics, however, trade remains a linchpin of the relationship. China is Japan’s number one trading partner by far, and Japan is China’s second largest trading partner after the United States. Despite this, so far Japan has declined to join China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank—the only country in East Asia (apart from North Korea) that opted out. But the close economic ties between the two countries have not mitigated tense political relations as China rises. Indeed, those tensions are increasing.

As China has become more assertive in claiming territory in the South China Sea, the dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands has come to dominate Tokyo’s political ties with Beijing. Japan administers the islands and does not acknowledge that Beijing also claims them. According to a Japanese observer, “China has come to pose a physical threat to Japan…. Japanese get the impression China wants to revive the Chinese empire and an ancient order in Asia.” 59In 2014, a public opinion poll found that 53 percent of Chinese believed China would go to war with Japan, whereas only 29 percent of Japanese believed this to be the case. 60Russia has tacitly supported Chinese claims to these islands.

What are the prospects that the seventy-year-old Russia-Japan territorial dispute will be resolved and a peace treaty finally signed? On the face of it, Putin is surely strong enough domestically to make a deal, especially since the population of the Russian Far East might accept a territorial compromise if it brought them substantial economic benefits. But therein lies the problem for the Kremlin. What does Russia stand to gain economically from giving up territory beyond what the Japanese government and companies are already offering? Abe appears to want a peace treaty and the return of two islands more than Putin does, and Russia has more leverage. Of course, if Russia normalized relations with Japan, Russia could emerge as a more powerful player in Northeast Asia. It could be a broker in a neighborhood beset by rivalries and tensions. Japanese concerns about China and North Korea have created greater urgency for a resolution of this dispute in Tokyo than in Moscow. So Russia might well find it useful to remind the Chinese that it has a variety of options in Asia, including closer ties with Japan. Nevertheless, since the Ukraine crisis, relations with China have become more important for a Russia seeking to create a post-West order. As long as relations with the United States and Europe remain adversarial, it is useful for Russia to cultivate ties with a Japan dedicated to promoting better relations. But it is unlikely that Putin will make any territorial concessions. At the 2018 Valdai meeting, in response to a Japanese questioner, Putin asked with some exasperation, “Is that about the islands again? Not interested.” 61

What are the prospects that Japan might revise its stance on the islands and agree to a peace treaty that leaves the Kurils as part of the Russian Federation? After all, it is more than seventy years since they were part of Japan and surely a younger generation cares less about this issue. Just as questioning anything connected to the Soviet victory in World War Two is taboo in Putin’s Russia, so too is the questioning of Japan’s sovereignty over the Kurils. For both countries, the persistence of national narratives and myths is an essential part of the fabric that unites their societies. Given these realities, the fate of the islands will remain shrouded in a fog of uncertainty for some time to come.

In December 2017, Putin made a surprise visit to Hmeimim, Russia’s air base in Syria. He hugged Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, declared victory over Islamic State, announced that Russia was withdrawing some of its troops from Syria, and praised the Russian pilots who had enabled him to declare their success: “You are victorious, and you are going home to your families, parents, wives, children, and friends. The fatherland is waiting for you, my friends. Have a safe trip home. I am grateful for your service.” 3From Syria, he flew to Cairo, met with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and signed a $21 billion deal to build a nuclear power plant. Then he flew on to Ankara, met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the two leaders vowed to strengthen ties between their two countries. They also condemned the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “Naturally, the focus was placed on the Middle East situation [and peace process] that has deteriorated dramatically and on Syrian affairs, where our countries are closely cooperating,” Putin told journalists after the talks with Erdogan. 4In the span of twenty-four hours, Putin had sent an unmistakable message to the rest of the world: Russia is back in the Middle East as the go-to power to tackle the region’s most pressing problems. Nothing will get resolved without Russia’s participation.

Since Putin’s return to the Kremlin in 2012, a steady stream of Middle Eastern heads of state have visited Russia. Leaders from Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have journeyed to Russia to confer with Putin, as has Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu—the latter several times a year. Indeed, Russia is the only great power that talks to the Shia states, the Sunni states—and the Israelis. It has replaced the United States as the go-to player in a fractured and violent area of key global strategic importance.

Indeed, Russia’s return to the Middle East after the withdrawal that followed the Soviet collapse is one of Putin’s major foreign policy achievements. He began to restore ties—and build new ones—early on in his tenure in the Kremlin. But it was Russia’s military intervention in Syria in September 2015 and the Obama administration’s ambivalence about America’s role there that gave Putin the opportunity to break Russia out of its post-Crimea isolation and insert it in the region in a forceful way. And in contrast to Soviet times, when Moscow’s client states in the Middle East were largely chosen on ideological grounds, Russia’s engagement with regional partners today is pragmatic and nonideological. This gives it much greater freedom of action. Russia has been able, remarkably, to establish cooperative ties with the region’s main protagonists—and antagonists: Israel and the Palestinians; Israel and Iran; Iran and Saudi Arabia; Turkey and the Kurds; both Libyan governments; and Hamas and Hezbollah.

How and why has Putin succeeded in reestablishing Russia as a major Middle Eastern player, in some cases edging out the United States, and in areas where the USSR was never before present? The story of Russia’s return to the Middle East exemplifies Putin’s most successful modus operandi: capitalizing on opportunities provided by US inaction and preexisting regional rivalries, and skillfully exploiting them to resurrect Russia as a respected player in a number of key conflicts.

Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire were great power rivals. After Russia was defeated in 1856 by the Turkish-European coalition in the Crimean War, it was determined to regain lost territories in the Caucasus. This it did after its war with Turkey in 1877. Russia also presented itself as the protector of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, particularly of the Armenians. The collapse of both the Russian and Ottoman empires at the end of World War One led to a realignment of Russia’s ties with the Middle East. But in the interwar years the USSR’s foreign policy focused mainly on Europe and China. The Comintern appealed to anti-colonial groups in the British and French empires—including those in the Middle East—but it was wary of nationalists who wanted independence but rejected communism.