Fpri Events

A region two-thirds the size of the United States, the Russian Far East possesses enormous natural wealth and a vital strategic location on the north Pacific, where the interests of several major powers – China, Japan, the Koreas and the United States – intersect. The RFE also fronts on the Arctic Ocean, another key theater of emerging geopolitical competition, controlling the eastern part of the Northern Sea Route. The Ukraine crisis and the West’s economic disengagement from Russia seem likely to increase China’s influence in the RFE and in East Asia generally, with important potential consequences for the regional security balance. Is a Russia-China alliance a chimera or a reality? Is Russia moving into China’s economic orbit? Is collaboration still possible between Russia and the US? These are the questions that Artyom Lukin and Rens Lee address in their new book Russia’s Far East: New Dynamics in Asia Pacific and Beyond, the product of a unique collaboration between an American and a Russian scholar.