Russia, ASEAN becoming close partners

Dmitry Kosyrev, RIA Novosti, Moscow

An unusual diplomatic situation is unfolding around the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Kuala Lumpur for the first ever Russia-ASEAN summit on Dec. 13.

Every year one of the 10 ASEAN capitals hosts an annual summit of heads of ASEAN member countries followed by their meetings with leaders of the dialog partners, whose foreign ministers take part in annual summer sessions. Russia has finally gained admittance to the exclusive circle.

If we go 10 to 15 years back in time, we will see that Russia neither took part in ASEAN summits nor had the status of a dialog partner. In fact, there were virtually no relations with ASEAN apart from the diplomatic presence in most of the 10 member countries. In addition, the relations were strained and rife with misunderstanding and suspicions.

The reasons for that were simple: In the early 1990s, Russia was just beginning to establish its new position in the world. The post-Communist country, having shrunk in size following the breakup of the Soviet Union, was paralyzed with a severe system crisis. Relations had to be built from scratch between Moscow and a group of countries located at a great distance from it.

The task was made more difficult by the split within Southeast Asia into Communist and anti-Communist blocks, while earlier the former USSR, like China, actively supported one of the blocks in its conflict with the other.

The border between the two regional groups (the boundary between Thailand and its western neighbors, Laos and Cambodia,) was traditionally called "the frontline," and Thailand itself was viewed as "a frontline country." From across the Mekong River Thailand fired at the Vietnamese hotel in which the author of this article stayed last summer.

Today all Southeast Asian countries are ASEAN members, and Russia, along with China, India and several other countries, will take part in the summit. Ironically, Russia has achieved the status faster than other dialog partners who have a longer history of contacts with Southeast Asia.

In addition, Moscow and the ASEAN members have been discussing since last summer the issue of whether President Putin will be attending the East Asia summit in Kuala Lumpur on Dec. 14, which is to follow the first ASEAN-Russia high-level meeting.

It is not clear at the moment what the East Asia summit will be like and how it will differ from the ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) meetings. The focus may be on developing a non- confrontational political philosophy that differs from the position of many of ASEAN's foreign partners. East and Southeast Asia have their own economic interests and views on what the world should be like and which course of its development would meet the interests of the region's nations.

These positions have the same importance as the interests of united Europe or North America. To preserve a country's national identity is a great art that requires a great deal of effort from people and nations. Kuala Lumpur will now become the platform from which these interests will be defended.

According to sources in the Russian government, Moscow's initial objective was to seek full-fledged membership of the new forum. But it later became clear that despite Russia's favorable geographic position, the country could not become a member of the organization because of its weak economy. However, the question of whether Putin would be a guest speaker at the East Asian summit has been discussed.

Regardless of the outcome, there is one lesson to be learned: along with China and India, Russia and the ASEAN group share certain opinions of the world. Moscow's vision of its place in the world is remarkably similar to that of ASEAN countries. This suggests that relations between Russia and Southeast Asia have encouraging prospects.

The Russian and ASEAN leaders are expected to sign a joint declaration on enhanced and comprehensive partnership and to adopt an action program on promoting cooperation between Russia and ASEAN in 2005-2015.

In Kuala Lumpur President Putin may speak about a number of fundamental issues essential to Russia and ASEAN. First, good political relations should lead to successful business cooperation. There are two directions in which efforts need to be made: Technology and tourism.

Russian technologies can be used in Southeast Asia, but in order to put plans into practice, the governments of member countries and the organization itself have to work toward this objective. Tourism can now become "a factory of friendship" between our peoples boosting a large number of business and other contacts.

Russia and ASEAN can also provide support for each other in the sphere of foreign policy. Moscow has been trying to consolidate contacts through its own "Central Asian ASEAN" it set up with China -- the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The second direction concerns culture in its broadest sense. Like ASEAN member countries, Russia is a multinational and multifaith country. The experience of people who come from different cultures but share one region or one country could be of great benefit to the world at large. This can also be discussed at length in Kuala Lumpur.