Russia, ASEAN becoming close partners

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.