ABSTRACT
Russia does not play a significant part in the contemporary debate about the future of Northeast Asia as it relates to “rising China” and “East Asian regionalism.” While Moscow's envoys sit at the negotiating tables of the Six-Party Talks on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Russia's relevance to Northeast Asia, if acknowledged at all, is reduced to great power game calculations in Cold War-style geopolitical thinking and discussions of energy cooperation for those who emphasize the rapidly deepening economic interdependence and surging demand for natural resources. Within the “riseof- China” discourse, (neo-)realist arguments have gained some prominence, in which the question is whether a formerly communist, non-democratic Russia will align with “communist” China in opposing Western global hegemony or rather, as neorealist theory predicts, balance against a rising China. If Moscow's leaders were to choose the former, this would mean a deterioration of Russia's relations with Japan. If they were to choose a China-balancing strategy this should clearly lead to improved relations between Moscow and Tokyo. Within the East Asian regionalism discourse informed by (neo-)liberal and neo-functionalist paradigms, Russia plays an even smaller role. Despite the fact that it was Mikhail Gorbachev who pioneered the idea of multilateral cooperation in Northeast Asia and that Moscow is the only member of the Six-Party Talks that is unambiguous about the need for change toward a peace regime and the possible unification of Korea, Russia's presence in East Asia is weak. 1 This raises additional questions.
