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1. Russia and China in Central Asia: Potential For Direct Competition

Author:
Maximilian Hess
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
China is now undisputedly the leading economic partner for the Central Asia region, with trade and investment continuing to increase despite Beijing’s economic slowdown. Russia is still the dominant political partner for the region, but its influence and ability to strong-arm Central Asian states has been significantly dented by the impact of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Central Asian states are now able in tacitly criticize Putin’s actions without significant cost and some have taken advantage of the negative impacts of Russia’s international isolation and sanctions to strike beneficial deals, in particular Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Moscow remains content in its position, knowing that the lack of democracy in the region and dominance of elite networks in business and politics mean that regional states are still willing to turn to Moscow for political support, as witnessed in the Kyrgyz Republic in particular since President Japarov came to power in 2020. Tensions between Beijing and Russia have failed to emerge, at least publicly, although if the current trends continue the potential for direct competition may increase.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, Strategic Competition, and Regional Power
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Central Asia, and Asia

2. Russia Is Down, But Not Out, in Central Asia

Author:
Maximilian Hess
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has weakened its influence in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan. Russia is no longer a regional hegemon, which may increase regional instability. Tensions between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are especially dangerous. Despite Moscow’s diminished influence in Central Asia, regional states cannot afford to completely ignore Russian interests. Western hopes for Central Asian gas resources to be pumped westwards and circumvent Russia remain unlikely to be fulfilled.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Gas, Political stability, Regional Power, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Central Asia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan

3. Russia Is Down, But Not Out, in Central Asia

Author:
Maximilian Hess
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has weakened its influence in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan. Russia is no longer a regional hegemon, which may increase regional instability. Tensions between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are especially dangerous. Despite Moscow’s diminished influence in Central Asia, regional states cannot afford to completely ignore Russian interests. Western hopes for Central Asian gas resources to be pumped westwards and circumvent Russia remain unlikely to be fulfilled.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Gas, Regional Power, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Central Asia, Eurasia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan

4. Seoul Searching: Lessons from South Korea's Experience with Sanctions against Russia

Author:
Maximilian Hess
Publication Date:
12-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
Abstract:
Russia and the West have found themselves enmeshed in an expansive economic war as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. While the conflict on the ground in Ukraine is undoubtedly—and tragically—the primary front of Russia’s aggression, and where its aggression reaps its most dramatic horrors, Western powers have joined with a wide swathe of the international community to support Ukraine’s resistance and hold the Kremlin to account. But as with the kinetic war in Ukraine, the conflict did not begin one evening last February. It was first launched by Russia in response to Ukraine’s pro-Western, anti-corruption Maidan Revolution that raged through the winter of 2013–2014, ultimately resulting in the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych after he sought to capitulate to the Kremlin and refuse protesters’ and the wider Ukrainian public’s demands for continuing the country’s pro-European and pro-Western agenda. Russia was the first power to use sanctions and trade restrictions in the conflict, namely against Ukraine in 2013.[1] Russia also first sought to use Ukraine’s future to bring the international economic order into the scope of its fight even before Yanukovych’s ouster.[2] However, economic and technology restrictions on Russia have been at the core of the wider West’s strategy of support for Ukraine throughout that period. The target of these tools has changed significantly, initially aimed at deterring Russia from further aggression after 2014 to seeking to restrict its state capacity and ability to wage the war since 2022. But their global impact and Putin’s attempts to undermine the international order through his own weaponization of Russia’s economy and its commodities base have left the world in a new era of international economic competition, and other powers, great and small, are being impacted in ways unforeseen. States are, in turn, also learning lessons from this new era of economic warfare for the future, and the risks they might face from such conflict. This paper examines the impact on one often overlooked but deeply affected country, the Republic of Korea (or South Korea). Seoul has a unique position in the economic war in that it was arguably the largest Western ally that did not join the sanctions regime against Russia after Putin’s annexation of Crimea and fomenting conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014. In fact, as we will see, a number of crucial economic ties between Russia and South Korea grew significantly thereafter; although this was also the case for a number of countries that induced sanctions—Germany’s gas linkages with Russia in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline are perhaps the best known example. This paper will examine Seoul’s strategic considerations in doing so, and the reasons that the West did not put substantial pressure on South Korea to join the sanctions regime at the time. Seoul did, however, join the sanctions regime fully in 2022. The domestic political considerations in South Korea played a key role in that shift and will also determine how the policy’s effectiveness is judged and, in turn, how South Korea may be positioned for future similar economic conflict between the West and China.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Sanctions, Economy, Strategic Interests, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Asia, and South Korea