Russian Policy in Asia and Russia � the Republic of Korea relations

Gleb A. Ivashentsov

Ambassador of Russia

to the Republic of Korea

Lecture at Yonsei University

June 2, 2006

Dear friends,

I am grateful to the Yonsei Global Leaders Club for the invitation to address you with the lecture on the relations between Russia and the Republic of Korea. I consider this to be an issue of great importance. The Republic of Korea is a close neighbor of Russia. History and geography have destined our countries to jointly resolve quite a few common tasks. And the deep interest that the young generation of experts �in political science pays to content of those tasks and possible ways to resolve them is sincerely welcomed.

The relations between Moscow and Seoul today are steadily rising to the level of multifaceted and trustful partnership. This partnership is not aimed against any third party. Its goal is to provide for external conditions favorable for safe and prosperous life of people in Russia and the Republic of Korea.��

Nevertheless the Russian-Korean interaction does not take place in some isolated space. It is an integral part of a worldwide political and economical relations system closely related to many other issues, such as internal situation in both countries, a general balance of forces in the Asia-Pacific region and in the world as a whole, and all the processes, often controversial, taking place around the world.

So I would like to brief you on the present situation in Russia and the main goals of its foreign policy to make it easier to understand our approach to development of relations with the Republic of Korea.

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Today�s Russia is confident about its future. We have overcome in general the difficulties of the 1990-s �transition period�. For the last three years our country has been at one of the leading positions in the world in terms of annual economic growth. The high demand for Russian products at the international market made it possible to form large currency reserves, which in its turn will let us make Russian rouble a convertible currency in the nearest future.

President V.V.Putin of Russia has set a task to take serious steps for promotion of investment in industrial infrastructure and innovation while preserving the financial stability. Russia intends to fully apply its potential in such spheres as modern energy production, including nuclear energy using safe new generation reactors, communications, space exploration, aircraft production and to secure a considerable share of world intellectual property market. A breakthrough in those tracks, where Russia has been traditionally strong, can give us a chance to use them as a locomotive for overall economic development.

The economic growth has made it possible for Russia�s government to put considerable effort into some fields which directly affect our citizens� life quality. The National Projects in education, health, agriculture and housing are being put in progress.

The measures aimed at promoting democratization of Russia�s political system are also in motion. The laws on the Public Chamber and the Parliamentary investigation have been adopted, as well as a project for streamlining relationship between the Federal government and regional and local authorities.

I would like to stress that our people opted for democracy and market economy not because we wanted to impress anyone in Europe or overseas. It was our own option. We are and we will be going along our Russian way and while doing so we extend the friendly hand to all those who acknowledge our choice and our interest, to those who are prepared to work with the new Russia on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

With internal consolidation Russia once again becomes a significant independent actor in world politics. The foreign policy of modern Russia is based on pragmatism, transparency and the rule of the international law. That is a pro-Russian policy, when like all our international partners, we strive to defend our national interest. The main task is to harmonize our interests with those of our counterparts such as the EU, the USA, China, India and other countries of the Asia-Pacific, as well as Latin America and Africa, and by doing so to make the world a more democratic and fair and through that a much safer place.

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Asia is justly regarded among the main driving forces of world development, whose importance and role will be increasing in the foreseeable future. The significance of the Asian thrust for Russian interests will grow accordingly. I shall say more: here as nowhere else our internal and foreign policy interests conjugate. ���� Asia demonstrates a high immunity to all manner of crisis phenomena. Its economic growth entails not only the need for access to sales markets, but also - on an ever larger scale - to modern technologies and energy resources. It can be expected that energy security problems are going to become an ever more urgent theme of multilateral and bilateral collaboration in Asia. These requirements also determine our contribution to the ongoing development of the region. Among other things, it is a question of the development of the human resources and innovation sector of Siberia and our Far East.

A distinctive feature of Asia today is the rapid development of the integration processes both in the subregional and in the pan-Asian formats, sometimes overlapping and complementing each other. The growth of the number and vigor of the multilateral associations operating in the region is a vivid reflection of this tendency towards multilateralism and for collective decision-making. I can mention as examples the activity of such authoritative structures as APEC, ASEAN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). All in all, there are more than ten such associations in Asia.

The tendency for the integration processes in Asia to expand and deepen will be increasing. Here as distinct from, say, Europe it's not a homogeneous space culturally, historically or politically. The various subregions have their own specifics. Hence the rapid growth of the number of multilateral associations, and the absence of an all-embracing structure along the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) lines at this point.

There's every reason to expect that the tendency towards multilateralism in the Asia Pacific region will remain dominant. The appropriate mechanisms will assume the ever larger burden of tackling urgent regional problems and create optimal cooperation schemes among themselves and also with extraregional players. This objective tendency was noted and taken into account by us even two years ago, when at the SCO summit the Tashkent Initiative for shaping a partner network of multilateral associations in the Asia Pacific region was put forward. As part of the realization of this initiative, mechanisms of collaboration by the SCO with ASEAN and the CIS have already been established, and documents on cooperation with the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and UNESCAP are in the works.

The above features of the Asian integration processes create an objective basis for the effective entry into them of Russia, having a strong potential for assisting the solution of the practical problems of the region and consistently upholding the fundamental rules of international law and principles of mutual benefit, the recognition and respect of the lawful interests, national peculiarities and traditions of all members of the international community and a dialogue among religions, cultures and civilizations.

Our Asian partners understand that not only Russia needs an economically mobile and politically stable Asia, but that Asia itself needs a strong and prosperous Russia. There now becomes increasingly obvious the consideration of a purely pragmatic nature: without the energy, scientific, technological and intellectual potential of Russia, it will be difficult for Asia as a minimum to achieve the aims of general economic prosperity, which is the fundamental idea of Asian integration.

Of course, foreign policy efforts must go hand in hand with our own strong, well-thought-out social, economic, energy, migration, infrastructural and ecological policy with respect to Siberia and our Far East. That strategy could become what is correctly called the imminent "new thrust towards the Pacific Ocean."

The task can be solved primarily by us ourselves, of course, with the attraction on a balanced basis of the investments of all interested countries of the region. For all the complexity of the tasks in developing the Asian part of the country we will neither give up our sovereignty nor share it with others. Nobody else but us will see to it that all the resources of these areas, including human, are fully tapped and that the development occurs primarily in the interests of those who live there and who will want to live there.

A clear understanding of the conditions of our cooperation with partners in their development on the basis of Russian laws must lie at the base of this major factor of our policy. It is proceeding from this, guided not by considerations of energy egoism and not giving up its lawful rights, that Russia has chosen as the priority theme of its presidency of the G8 the problems involving global energy security.

The above considerations with the utmost obviousness "prompt" some practical conclusions for the policy of Russia in Asia. The chief one of them is that, while building on the ties of good-neighborliness and partnership created over recent years in bilateral relations, primarily with our closest neighbors - both with the colleagues in the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Community and the SCO and with the partners in other associations - we should intensify further our participation in the advanced multilateral structures of the AP region.

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I would like to point out one important consideration, as recently in the international media we witnessed some effort to present our policy in the Asian sector as having some kind of anti-West, anti-US implication or to hint at a temptation to use the "weakening" of America that is supposedly being experienced somewhere in the Moscow corridors of power.

There is no anti-Americanism in our policy, nor can there be. Russia has once and for all renounced confrontational approaches in international affairs. The foreign policy aims being pursued by Russia and the United States, including those in Asia, coincide in principle - we want more security and predictability in the world.

If there are differences between us, then they bear primarily a politico-philosophical character and concern the divergency of views regarding a new world pattern. Today, having drawn lessons from the experience of the Soviet Union, we cannot agree with the "transformational" logic of artificially speeding from the outside the complicated processes of the maturation in countries and regions of some or other forms of political and economic life.

Neither do we believe in the possibility of attaining an "absolute security" by attempts to achieve a manifold military superiority over any country of the world, the striving for which led to the unleashing of the Cold War.

Nor should our national interests concur in everything as applied to concrete situations, and we're also witnessing competition in the trade and economic field. This is normal and does not hinder us from closely cooperating on a whole range of problems and being allies in the antiterrorist coalition.

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������� Partnership with the Republic of Korea is one of the basic elements of Russia�s policy in Asia. The two countries have common or similar approaches to major international issues, such as formation of the new, multi-polar world order with the key role for the UN, non-acceptance of diktat in inter-state relations, combat to international terrorism and securing non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

�������� The security in the region of North-East Asia is of particular significance for Russia and the Republic of Korea as the more than 50-year old military stand off on the Korean Peninsula now has been aggravated by the unsettled nuclear problem. Basing on the perception that the problems of the Korean Peninsula are to be solved mainly by Koreans themselves Moscow supports the steps of Seoul and Pyongyang aimed at promoting their mutual cooperation. It does its best to contribute to success of the six-party talks.

We are not ruling out the possibility that the present six-party format of consultations on the nuclear problem, should those succeed, could become a basis for a future set-up for negotiations for peace, security and cooperation in the North-East Asia.

Since 1990 when the diplomatic ties between Russia and the Republic of Korea were established the top leaders of our countries met fourteen times. Last year our presidents met twice; in May in Moscow during the celebration of the 60-th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and in November in Pusan during the APEC summit which was followed by the working visit of� the President V.V. Putin to the Republic of Korea.

This spring the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ban Ki-moon and the Minister for Trade in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Kim Hyun Chong visited Russia, bilateral consultations of Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs took place, a group of Russian parliament members visited Seoul. The Consulate General of the Republic of Korea was opened in St.Petersburg not so long ago.

For this year we have planned the next meeting of the Russian-Korean Joint Commission on Cooperation in Economy and Science and Technology, some high-level visits from Russia to Seoul. The Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea has been invited to visit Russia.

Within last five years the volume of Russian-South Korean trade has almost tripled. The fact lets us expect a further growth of bilateral trade in the nearest future. The Russian-Korean Joint Action Plan for trade and economic cooperation signed in November 2005 has summed up bilateral cooperation in the fields of politics, economy, science, technology and culture. The adoption of the plan has made it easier to monitor the implementation of bilateral agreements and joint cooperation projects.

Especially important is our dialogue in the field of energy, as it is aimed at determining spheres of mutual work and strengthening energy cooperation on a regional level in North-East Asia. We are talking about a very broad interaction in petroleum, gas and coal sectors as well as in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Bilateral cooperation in development of oil and natural gas reserves in the East Siberia and the Russian Far East is planned. Last February an organizational set-up was formed for joint exploration and development of petroleum and natural gas resources on the Kamchatka Peninsula continental shelf. The possibility of Korean participation in the construction of the East Siberia � Pacific pipeline is also to be a subject of discussion. Assistance for Korean resources corporation joining the development of bituminous coal in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is being under consideration. Joint research in the field of electric power will continue, this including an electric power-line construction project to supply electric power from the Russian Far East to North and South Korea.

As for the cooperation in nuclear industry, the agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Korea of May 22, 1999, provides for Russia supplying to the Republic of Korea low-enriched uranium, uranium enrichment, designing and construction of low- and medium-power reactors for off-shore nuclear power plants and sea water conversion machines, etc.

The Joint Action Plan also provides for specific programs of cooperation in such fields as science and technology, industry, space research, IT and communications. That is why it is unreasonable to see Russia only as a potential supplier of raw materials to the Korean market. At present more than one third of civilian helicopters being used in the Republic of Korea are Russian-made. Quite a few commercial agreements on joint science-research and experimental projects, aimed at production of high-tech products in the Republic of Korea under Russian licenses are being developed.

With Russia�s assistance the first Korean cosmonaut will be trained by 2008 to be launched into space on a Russian spaceship.

Broad horizons for Russian-Korean cooperation could be opened by �Europe-Korea� international railway project. This transportation line has a potential to become one of the main foundations for future Eurasian integration.

�The DPRK�s participation in the program, as well as in the North-East Asia united energy and pipeline network, would help further development of friendly ties between the two Koreas, ensure peace and security on Korean Peninsula, and in North-East Asia as a whole.

One of the new peculiarities in our bilateral economic and trade cooperation lately is the strive of Russian regional authorities to promote quite a few investment projects of a scale and significance that exceed regional borders. Large-scale, long-term cooperation projects with the Republic of Tatarstan, the Republic of Tuva, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) are under consideration.

The lack of information about each other�s culture and art caused by years of mutual isolation is being rapidly changing now from both Russian and Korean sides. A lot of books about Korea have been published in Russia, South Korean movies have gained popularity � now in Moscow and other cities one can easily buy tapes and DVDs with South Korean movies, including works of famous Korean film director Kim Ki-duck. On the other hand participation of Russian art groups as well as Koreans playing Russian music in the cultural life of the Republic Korea can be widely seen. Last year the Republic of Korea was visited by our Circus, Ice ballet, Mariinsky opera troupe, Bolshoi ballet troupe, the Y.Bashmet group, Russian Radio and Television choir, etc.

Cooperation between the leading TV-companies of our countries would, no doubt, contribute greatly to better mutual understanding between our nations.

It is necessary to broaden our ties in higher education, especially in the field of technology, so more of Korean students could study in Russia and Russians � in Korea. Organization of youth festivals could be a great opportunity for our young people to get to know each other better, for it is necessary for the two countries youths to escape prejudices and to overcome negative stereotypes of the past.

As President V.V.Putin of Russia has pointed out �trustworthy and benevolent relations between Russia and the Republic of Korea are of course based on similarities in our vision of the modern world. But what is the most important, it is Russians and Koreans working together on a vast amount of initiatives�. Russian-Korean partnership corresponds to vital interests of our two peoples as well to strengthening peace and security in North-East Asia and Asia-Pacific as a whole.