“Russia: Looking for New Allies in East Asia”

The events of April 1996 strongly symbolize the changes that Russian foreign policy has undergone since 1992. While Russia began by proclaiming a “strategic partnership” with the USA, already by last November her defense minister, Grachev, told the West that in response to NATO's planned eastward enlargement, Moscow might see herself forced to seek new allies in the East. In March 1996 the new Russian foreign minister, Evgenii Primakov, declared the “strategic partnership” with the West to be “dead”, ⁽¹⁾ and only a few weeks later, at the end of April, President Yeltsin declared as Russia's aim to form a “strategic partnership” with China.