ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: RUSSIA, THE FORGOTTEN PACIFIC PLAYER
As of the middle of 1996, international focus on Russia remains centred on events emanating from the political theatre of Boris Yeltsin’s troubled presidency, on the resurgence of communists in the December 1995 parliamentary elections, and on the volatile northern Caucasus (most notably Chechnya). Occasionally, when nuclear waste is dumped in the Sea of Japan, or when President Yeltsin rejects Japanese earthquake aid as a guileful ‘political ploy’ in the decades-long dispute over the future sovereignty of the northern Kurile Islands, Russia is momentarily remembered in the West as being a state on the Pacific Rim. In general, Russia is the only historically important great power in the Pacific that is not perceived as an integral actor in the euphoric visions of the Pacific Century. As the hapless successor to the now-discredited Soviet regime, Russia is viewed as being shackled by its marxist inheritance. Its greatest challenge is to transform a centralised economic system whose fundamental market characteristics and processes are the antithesis of those factors giving rise to the East Asian ‘success story’. However, it is argued here that Russia’s authoritarian political culture, and its attempts at economic restructuring, are similar to those of today’s successful East Asian states. Authoritarianism, combined with capitalist economic reform directed by the state, are the two pillars upon which East Asian states have achieved economic prosperity. If East Asia is seen as a role model for successful economic modernization, these factors are likely to be promoted as crucial to Russia’s own success in the Pacific Century.
