This week, our guest is Andrey Kortunov, the founding director of the Russian International Affairs Council. Time Stamps: 00:01:00 Kortunov’s career before RIAC 00:09:22 RIAC’s origins and evolution 00:18:36 RIAC’s work on sanctions 00:25:40 BRICS and other international institutions 00:33:29 China-India relations 00:36:06 Russia-China relations 00:47:00 Russia-Western relations
This week, our guest is Andrey Kortunov, the founding director of the Russian International Affairs Council.
*The Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Stimson Center and produced by University FM.
**The first twelve episodes of this podcast were published by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
(Transcripts may contain a few typographical errors due to audio quality during the podcast recording.)
[00:00:00] Peter: Hi, I'm Peter Slezkine, Director of the Monterey Trialogue, a program hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Since the middle of the 20th century, relations among the United States, Russia, and China have had an enormous impact on each country separately and on the world as a whole. The purpose of the Monterey Trialogue is to better understand these extraordinarily complex and consequential relationship by directly engaging with experts from all three countries.
Today, our guest is Andrey Kortunov, founding director of the Russian International Affairs Council. We’ve recorded the first part of this episode in a conference room in Istanbul and the second part in the offices of the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Thank you very much, Andrey, for joining us on the podcast. So, perhaps, you could begin by giving us a brief description of your career, the places that you've worked and taught, where you studied.
[00:01:00] Andrey: In 1979, I graduated from the Moscow Institute of International Relations, where I had the privilege of taking classes at the Faculty of International Law and later on, at the Department of International Relations. And essentially, I had a choice between two career tracks. The first one was to go to the Foreign Ministry. I spent a couple of months in London with the Soviet embassy there.
And the second, probably less apparent, option was to go to academia. And I decided to take the second track opportunity primarily because I felt that in academia, I would have a little bit more intellectual autonomy, a little bit more opportunities for self-fulfillment, and I was not particularly happy about almost a military-type discipline in the foreign ministry.
So, I joined the Institute of U.S. and Canada Studies. My initial idea was to continue my studies of the United Kingdom, but at that point, we didn't have an institute for Europe in the Soviet Union. So, the U.S. and Canada institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences was the best choice available. Ultimately, I became a deputy director. By late Soviet standards, that was quite a career. I think that I had 120 scholars under my supervision, three or four departments, including department on Canada.
We tried to proliferate to Australia. We failed. But it was interesting because it was the period of Gorbachev and new thinking. And we felt that our ideas were in demand. We generated tons of policy briefs, memoranda, and reports to the Soviet Foreign Ministry and Eduard Shevardnadze, but also to the international department of the CPSU Central Committee. Sky was the limit, so to say.
[00:03:10] Peter: When you say your ideas were in demand, what, in particular, interested the Soviet government?
[00:03:15] Andrey: Well, it's hard to tell because that depended on the particular situation. For instance, we were engaged in the preparation of President Gorbachev's trip to the United States in 1987. And I was assigned to a small section of experts working on the schedule of Gorbachev's spouse, Raisa Maximovna. So, we had to advise her where to go, you know, what to wear, how to behave. Of course, it was very new. And even the first lady of the Soviet Union was not really prepared for such a trip. But of course, on top of that, there was some serious issues related to conventional arms control in Europe.
[00:04:00] Peter: Had you, yourself, been to the U.S. at that point?
[00:04:03] Andrey: I got to the United States for the first time even before perestroika. I think it was in 1984.
[00:04:11] Peter: So, when you were giving Raisa Gorbacheva guidelines about how to act, you had some personal experience.
[00:04:17] Andrey: Oh, absolutely. You know, I, I thought that I knew Washington, D.C. relatively well. Though, of course, it was probably, an overstatement. But I knew some places. I knew shopping malls. I knew universities like Georgetown, GW, American University. But as I said, it was not the only dimension which we participated to. There were some political issues and some speeches made by Gorbachev. We participated in drafting some statements. And there was a lot of fight about the specific wording of particular statements, but generally, the overall mood was very upbeat. It was very optimistic.
[00:04:58] Peter: And when the whole system came crashing down, I suppose it was a shock. Did it feel like the work that you had been engaged in suddenly meant less because it was meant to be a slow progressive project of adaptation and the floor fell out from under you, or was it an exciting time filled with new opportunities?
[00:05:16] Andrey: Well, that depends how you define because on the one hand, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union after Yeltsin got to power gradually, I started feeling that, probably, our advice is no longer in demand. The Kremlin was becoming more self-sufficient in terms of the approach to foreign policy. Though, it didn't happen in any abrupt way. It was a gradual decline of the academy.
Of course, there were problems with retaining our personnel because we couldn't pay a lot of money and the social status of academics was also going down, but I convinced myself that, basically, foreign policy had become, more or less, a technical issue, that Russia is well on track, that there might be some problems with the United States or with Europe, but these problems are not going to change the overall course. That's why I decided that, probably, the time had come to start moving in some other direction. And I left the institute.
I started a couple of NGOs, working on education reforms in Russia, on community development, especially in small towns, on independent media, human rights, and so on and so forth. So, I spent another maybe 15 years of my life are working on grassroots issues in various parts of the Russian Federation. We worked a lot with American foundations, Ford Foundation, MacArthur's, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Mott, USAID, of course, but also with Russian private businesses, including Yukos, for example. We worked with the Russian Ministry of Education, with the Russian Ministry for Regional Development, with many governors and many mayors.
[00:07:09] Peter: How aligned were these various supporters? Were you getting very different messages from, say, Carnegie than you might get from Russian government agencies, or was every, more or less, pushing in the same direction at that time?
[00:07:22] Andrey: Well, of course, even in early 2000s, they had slightly different priorities because the ministry wanted to rebuild the system. Most of U.S. foundations or European foundations were interested in supporting specific institutions and individuals. And that, from time to time, created tensions between the two sides, but there was always a way to reconcile the positions and to come up with a program that would fit into the priorities of various donors.
[00:07:56] Peter: What of those projects has endured to this day? Has it basically all suffered from the rupture in relations, .
[00:08:03] Andrey: I won't say that the rupture of the relations was the main cause for the problems. I think that the country has changed. It has become more centralized, more institutionalized. I watched the evolution of Russian universities. In 1990s, they were much more autonomous than they are right now.
And of course, the political environment was also changing, you know, this new legislation on foreign agents. And the last but not the least, with the decline of the relations with the West, many of Western institutions and foundations started leaving Russia, changing their priorities and moving to other regions of the world.
[00:08:45] Peter: At what point did that withdrawal of American foundations become particularly notable?
[00:08:49] Andrey: Well, I think that this process started maybe around 2004, 2005 after the imprisonment of Khodorkovsky, but it became more explicit by the end of the first decade of the century, by maybe 2010. But the institutional inertia was significant. And there were many organizations that wanted to preserve their presence or at least to preserve a Russian file in their portfolio.
[00:09:22] Peter: So, you joined the Russian International Affairs Council in 2011, the moment that you just described as being the one where the American withdrawal had more or less become complete.
[00:09:31] Andrey: Well, I shouldn't say that I joined the council. I started building the council. I was approached by Igor Ivanov, former Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, to help him with this new initiative. That was in mid-2010. The decision was made by then-President Dmitry Medvedev that we need such an institution as an NGO. And since I... by that time, I had accumulated a lot of experience in NGO building. I founded maybe a dozen of them altogether, small, big foundations, associations, you name it.
Igor Ivanov invited me and said, "You know, I have this proposal from the Russian leadership. And I would like you to work with me on putting it together because I have no experience in civil society, and you have. So, why don't we do it together?" It took us about a year to launch the council. And it became operational maybe by mid-2011.
[00:10:36] Peter: And what was its purpose?
[00:10:37] Andrey: The overall purpose was to find a, a user-friendly interface between academics and decision-makers. The idea was that we should not compete with the major academic institutions or with universities in producing fundamental research on international relations, but rather we should try to help them to adjust the, "product," in order that this product could be digested by governmental bureaucrats. But there were some other missions as well.
Of course, we were supposed to enlighten the Russian public about what is going on in the world. And we had as our corporate members about a dozen of leading public schools with strong IR departments. And we assisted them in curricular development. We had competitions for journalists, mostly young journalists, working in the field of international relations. We were supposed to consult Russian businesses or Russian regions on issues related to international cooperation.
And of course, the last but not the least, the council was supposed to be a, a mechanism to reach foreign think-tanks and foreign experts in order to join them in putting together projects, writing reports, promoting publications in periodicals, so on and so forth. So, the idea was that the council might also help to build strong relations with peer institutions in Europe, in the United States, but also in Asia, in Africa, and Latin America.
[00:12:23] Peter: So, at the outset of the council's work, the articles you published, the reports that you produced, the conferences you held focused mainly on which countries and subjects?
[00:12:33] Andrey: Well, I think that when we started, probably, our prime priorities were in the West. But also, we, we try to diversify geography by gradually reaching out to Middle East, to China, but also to places like Japan, South Korea, India, Iran, the Gulf.
[00:12:57] Peter: But at that point, that was less of a focus. There were fewer institutional connections.
[00:13:00] Andrey: When we started, definitely, most of our projects were in the West. Though, you know, I have to tell you that, for instance, with China, we've had a couple of continuous projects. For instance, every year, we publish a report on the state of the bilateral relations together with the Fudan University.
[00:13:19] Peter: And that started in what year?
[00:13:20] Andrey: Oh, I think it was probably 2012 or 2013, but that was...
[00:13:24] Peter: So, right at the outset, more or less.
[00:13:26] Andrey: Yeah. I think our first experience there, Russia was... the APEC summit in Vladivostok. I think it was 2012. And we were authorized to be the main coordinator of the expert dimension of the summit. It was a big deal for Russia then. So, that allowed us to somehow get into Asian affairs and to get connected to a number of institutions in Asia, not only in China, Japan, Korea, as I mentioned, but China gradually was getting more and more visible on our radar screen. And it started consuming more and more of our time and our energy.
[00:14:05] Peter: So, your work at the beginning focused mainly on the West, on Europe and the United States, but obviously had a global purview. And within the non-West, China was the principal focus from the beginning. Now, of course, China is at the center of your work. You go there very frequently. Your son is at Peking University, as far as I understand. Your colleague, Ivan Timofeev, is seriously studying Chinese.
[00:14:30] Andrey: He's not the only one. We have a large group of our younger scholars who study Chinese for, I think, maybe second or third year already. I thought it was a, a kind of hobby, and they would entertain this idea for a couple of weeks, and then they would realize how difficult it is to learn Chinese, and they would drop it, but I was wrong. They're persistent in this hobby. And some of them can already communicate in Chinese.
[00:14:57] Peter: So, this was a very abrupt turn following the start of the war.
[00:15:00] Andrey: Well, you know, I would say that the first call was, of course, 2014. Crimea, Donbas, the first cycle of sanctions. We started losing some of our partners. For example, we could never restore in full our relations with Polish colleagues after 2014. If you take Baltic states again, we preserved some in Latvia and in Estonia, but definitely, we could not limit the damage completely. So, already, 2014 was an important turning point for us. But...
[00:15:40] Peter: But just on the negative side, so you lost relations with certain countries for whom-
[00:15:46] Andrey: Well...
[00:15:46] Peter: ... the annexation of Crimea was a point of no return. But did this lead then to the creation of closer relations with China and other non-Western countries?
[00:15:54] Andrey: You know, it was a bit more complicated. When I thought back in 2014, how these developments might affect our activities, my impression was that, you know, we have two types of partners in Europe. We had easy partners and difficult partners. Easy partners mostly in Southern Europe, and difficult partners mostly in the North. And I thought that after what had happened in 2014, we are likely to lose hard partners and easy partners will turn into difficult ones, but that was not exactly the case because I noticed that some of the most difficult partners and most difficult countries turned out to, to be the most persistent in trying to preserve this relationship.
[00:16:48] Peter: So, which ones?
[00:16:49] Andrey: For instance, you know, take the United Kingdom. We traditionally worked with RUSI, Royal United Service Institute. And as you know, RUSI is an institution which is associated with the British military. It has always had rather conservative views on Russia, not to use a different term. So, I thought that they would probably decide not to work with us after 2014, but not only they maintained these contacts, they wanted to, to maintain these contacts even after the beginning of the Russian special military operation.
Or, you know, take SIPRI, for example. They also were very interested in maintaining contacts. And I would even venture to say that maybe their interest grew in this very challenging international environment because they felt that they need to have access to the Russian expert community, and they needed to keep these communication lines open. So, it's not linear, you know. Some centers were scared, and they were concerned about how these conflicts might affect their reputation back at home, but some demonstrated spectacular resilience and spectacular commitment to continue the dialogue.
[00:18:16] Peter: And these contacts with RUSI, with SIPRI, endure to this day.
[00:18:20] Andrey: Well, right now, they are less active, but this is also because they are not encouraged by the Russian government. So, it's not that they do not want to work with us, but we have our domestic constraints as well.
[00:18:36] Peter: So, the process of focusing a bit less on the West or of having decreasing relations with the West begins in 2014. But then things take a real turn in 2022. So, how does your job change? How does RIAC's work transform after the launching of the special military operation?
[00:18:57] Andrey: Well, my general observation would be that this work has become much more technical. We have a large section on Western sanctions. We study sanctions, the potential implications for the Russian economy, the trajectory, what we can expect, what we should not expect, how we could cope, how our partners might or might not avoid over compliance. It's a pretty technical stuff. This is clearly in demand because there are various requests from a, a variety of economic actors or large Russian companies or financial institutions or Russian regions or even foreign partners because definitely, we entered uncharted waters. And no one really knows how it might end up with, what will happen tomorrow, what we should expect. And of course, for any business, I imagine it is very difficult to operate and to plan something when you have no idea what might happen tomorrow. So, such issues are becoming more important.
[00:20:12] Peter: So, now, there is expertise among your younger colleagues. There is a, sort of, routine where another packet of sanctions comes out. Analysis can be made. Recommendations given both to the Russian side, government, business, and to third parties elsewhere. How quickly did you find your feet? At what point did people begin to feel at least somewhat comfortable living in this new reality?
[00:20:35] Andrey: Well, you know, you mentioned my colleague, Ivan Timofeev, who decided to work on sanctions long before the start of the special military operation. And they have accumulated some experience and a, a pool of experts. I have to tell you that one of the advantages of an institution like RIAC is that we do not need to rely on exclusive in-house expert knowledge. Instead, we can engage experts using our very broad network.
So, I would venture to say that altogether, we probably have a couple of hundred for sure, maybe close to 1,000, of experts, which affiliated to RIAC in this or that capacity. So, if you take sanctions, for instance, definitely, we do not rely just on these very few experts that we can retain inside RIAC, but we rely on a broad range of experts who we know trust RIAC, find it appropriate to work with us, and who can make their own contributions.
But of course, you know, I should add that when I'm talking about technical aspects, there are some political implications as well. And for instance, you know, this year, there will be the BRICS Summit in Kazan in October. There is a lot of discussion about how this organization might evolve institutionally over the next couple of years.
So, I can imagine that many think-tanks are competing for rendering advice and suggestions on various avenues of its potential development, what priorities it should have, you know, what additional mechanisms can be developed within BRICS, should we continue expanding or should we start deepening, how we can reconcile problems that do exist between various BRICS members.
So, it is an interesting work. And I think that it might be helpful. Though, of course, it's not easy to assess the impact that we can make because it's almost like a black box. You throw something there, and then you can only expect that what you have thrown will be considered interesting or important.
[00:22:51] Peter: How do you know if something that you have thrown out there is received?
[00:22:55] Andrey: It's hard to tell. We can guess. Sometimes, we receive feedback. Folks, you know, came up with 10 ideas. Two of these 10 are absolutely crazy. Just forget about them. Another two, it's not our job, so you should probably direct them to another agency. Some of them are good, but the time has not come. But, you know, these two items look interesting. Why don't you work on them further? That happens. And that is a good response because it's an indicator that they are interested, and they would like us to do something practical.
[00:23:30] Peter: And so, the sanctions work is one of those-
[00:23:34] Andrey: It is easier to market sanctions because there is a large community of potential clients, so to say. It's not just about the Russian foreign ministry or the Russian Central Bank. It's about various businesses-
[00:23:48] Peter: In Russia and abroad.
[00:23:49] Andrey: ... in, in Russia and abroad, including even the central banks of some countries far away.
[00:23:55] Peter: And so, you're saying that in 2022, there was already a fairly broad base of experience in dealing with sanctions because of the experience since 2014. So-
[00:24:05] Andrey: That's right.
[00:24:06] Peter: ... there were quite a few changes after 2022, but nonetheless, you weren't starting-
[00:24:10] Andrey: Yeah. I think...
[00:24:10] Peter: ... from scratch.
[00:24:10] Andrey: Yeah. We were one of the first to capture this market, if I can use this term. And we got certain comparative advantage because, you know, many studies, many papers lack the analytical depth. I think it's a general problem right now, not only in Russia, but all over the place. This red line between analysis and advocacy is eroding. And I have nothing against advocacy, but it's a different job, you know. It has different criteria.
If you want to analyze, you have to detach yourself from your political preferences or your ideological biases. If you look at the current field of international affairs analysis in Russia, and I think in many other countries, this field is quite saturated, relatively low quality, politically heavily biased materials. Yeah. That's why, you know, quality analysis should be in demand.
[00:25:20] Peter: So, you're saying in Russia, a considerable amount of material produced on international relations is, more or less, produced for political purposes.
[00:25:28] Andrey: I think so, I think so. I, I think that this is one of the problems because there should be a division between promoting specific political ideas and analyzing the international environment.
[00:25:40] Peter: So, sanctions is clearly a big focus now, one in which you have a large and diversified market, as you say, the receptive audience. BRICS is an institution that now gets considerable attention. You've been proposing various possible modes of development. So, you're saying that there are two alternatives – widening and deepening. It seems last time, they went with widening, including a few new members, very different kinds of new members. Can you tell us what proposed? Are you in favor of deepening or widening?
[00:26:10] Andrey: Well, let me say that it's much bigger than just the future of one institution. It's about inventing and promoting a new model of multilateralism because we can talk about BRICS, we can talk about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, we can talk about CSTO, about APEC, about OPEC+, about other organizations which you can find in plenty. And most of them are relatively weak.
These are not institutions like the European Union or like the North Atlantic Alliance. Most of them are not binding. One of the reasons why nations are trying to get to BRICS is because the entry ticket is not expensive. They can afford it. They do not make any real commitments. And at the same time, they hope to enhance the international standard by joining such institutions.
So, what we have to do, and this is an important academic task, but also applied political task, we have to identify how this multilateralism can work in the era of weak institutions, which means that this multilateralism should be project-focused and should be situational rather than strategic. It implies its own liabilities, of course, and we can talk about that at length, but still, it is better than its absence. So, we work on some of these issues. We are not the only ones to do that, but we'd like to make our own contributions to the extent possible.
[00:27:59] Peter: It's interesting. It seems to be that, I suppose, the general background is a weakening of institutions overall because the Americans are also, in some sense, taking the same approach, now favoring purpose-based coalitions-
[00:28:11] Andrey: Well...
[00:28:11] Peter: ... functional institutions that aren't necessarily enduring and everlasting.
[00:28:17] Andrey: Well, I think that in Brussels, they would probably disagree with that. They would say that, "Look at NATO. It has become much stronger than it used to be. It is bigger right now," but I think that the weakness of NATO is exactly in its growth because it has become too complicated. It has become too diverse. I'm skeptical about the NATO global role.
I think that the United States will ultimately rely more on institutions like AUKUS or Quad or Five Eyes or something like that because there will be a strong resistance in Europe to turning NATO into an anti-China organization. I think that many European nations are not ready to follow the United States in this direction.
[00:29:01] Peter: Yeah. Quad and AUKUS specifically were the ones I was referring to as these new types.
[00:29:05] Andrey: I agree. I think that we might see new members to AUKUS. And also, as you know, there are attempts to put together a trilateral alliance in the Northeast Asia, uniting the United States, Japan, and South Korea. And I think this process will continue. So, we are entering a new era of international institutions.
They will be weaker, but at the same time, they will be cheaper, they will be more flexible, more adaptive to the changing environment. So, it's like, you know, the era of dinosaurs is over, and this, you know, huge monsters are close to extinction, while, you know, these small, very mobile adaptive mammals are already around. So, definitely, future historians would probably note that it was a very serious change in international actors.
[00:29:58] Peter: Well, SCO and BRICS perhaps look mobile relative to the UN, but they are also quite large and, and slow to move and still at a very early phase of formation. So, some of the American smaller groupings might seem to be mobile and, sort of, focused on a single purpose, the ones that are directed against China, obviously, foremost among them, but BRICS and SCO are a bit fuzzier. So, can you explain how they fit into this new ecosystem? What kind of creature are they?
[00:30:30] Andrey: Well, I agree with you that they might already be too big and too numerous in numbers to remain efficient. I personally always stood for the concept of BRICS+, which implied that we shouldn't rush with the enlargement of the organization, but we should rather use initial members in order to reach out to other nations. For instance, we could have South Africa as the BRICS representative in the African continent.
And other interested parties might be in a position to link to BRICS through working with those South Africans. You know, in, in Latin America, Brazil could play a similar role. So, in my opinion, what was really important to make sure that the red line between membership and partnership will not be as it is in case of traditional institutions, that, you know, if you can engage into specific projects, for instance, talking about BRICS, if you can get plugged into what the new development bank is doing, that might be good enough.
You do not necessarily need to fight for the formal membership. But as we see, the decision was made to pursue broadening. And I think for us, it is understandable because I assumed that one of the prime priorities of the Russian leadership is to make sure that Russia is not isolated. How can you prove that you're not isolated? One of the ways to do that is to engage as many countries as possible into multilateral institutional arrangements that you have.
So, right now, President Putin can say, "Look, you know, you say that you isolated the Kremlin, but why do we have this long line of nations willing to join BRICS? That suggests that you're wrong, that we're not isolated, and the world majority, or whatever you call it, is not against Russia." So, I think that these are tactical political considerations, but they appear to guide the Russian approach to BRICS.
[00:32:47] Peter: So, a short-term symbolic payoff in showing that Russia is not isolated, but perhaps at the expense of institutional coherence going forward.
[00:32:55] Andrey: Yeah. Well, I am not absolutely pessimistic on the future of BRICS. I think that you can still reconcile in terms, but of course, every new member comes with its own priorities, its own prejudices, its own concerns. And if you have the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in one organization, you can imagine that the lowest common denominator will be really low because these two nations have very different views on many fundamental international matters.
[00:33:29] Peter: Let's take two other nations, China and India, that are members of both the SCO and BRICS, and perhaps Russia’s two most important partners of Russia today. How do you approach the Indians and the Chinese, you, yourself, RIAC, and Russia, in a way that keeps each side satisfied?
[00:33:48] Andrey: Well, you know, when I only started working with Chinese and Indians, I had an overrated perception on what Russia could do to help the two nations to somehow follow policy of reconciliation and to sort out problems that exist between the two. Clear enough, no third country can act as a mediator between China and India. Russia cannot solve these problems for Beijing and for New Delhi. However, Russia can operate on the margins.
For instance, you know, it can invite both nations into its programs in the Arctic Ocean. And you might have heard about this new flavor of the season, the concept of the so-called three poles, you know, the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the Himalayas. That might constitute an opportunity for the three nations to work together on common projects.
First of all, both India and China would like to get Russian LNG, which is produced there. So, transit is important. Second, both countries are interested in exploring natural resources. Maybe not now, maybe later when global warming, warming will open new territories there for exploration of oil and gas or minerals.
Fishing has become another important opportunity for both India and China. I don't want to overrate it. These are not full members to the Arctic Council. They do not have Arctic coastlines. But I just wanted to use it as illustration of how Russia could work on the margins.
And Himalayas, of course, you know, we know that it's a disputed territory in some way, but on the other hand, if you look at what is going on there in terms of climate change, melting of the glaciers in Himalayas, I think that it would be only logical for countries like China and India and Russia to work together to monitor the situation and to assess implications of the changes in this part of Asia on the overall environment. So, I think this is not, this is not impossible.
[00:36:06] Peter: Let's turn to China specifically. As we said, many of your colleagues at RIAC are seriously studying Chinese. It seemed perhaps a hobby that has turned into a real pursuit. Not easy, late in life, to learn a language like that, but they seem seriously dedicated.
You, yourself, are not learning Chinese, but you are going there frequently. So, what is the nature of your professional relationship to China? Who are your counterparts there? How receptive are the Chinese to the Russian interest in their country? How frequent are the interactions? And at what, sort of, levels?
[00:36:40] Andrey: Well, we have a, a strategic partner in Beijing. And we signed an agreement with them a couple of years ago. I think it was maybe 2015 or 2014, something like that. We did it when I was included into the official delegation led by President Putin in Beijing. So, we signed this agreement in the presence of the two leaders, which was, of course, you know, kind of, honor because other agreements were primarily between large public companies.
So, we work with them. And that means that every year, we have a large conference. One year in Moscow, another year in Beijing. And we discuss the most important challenges for the relationship accomplishments. We discuss how this relationship evolves in the world, how it is affected by the other players, actors, like the United States or India or Europe.
And in between, we have small events when we need to react to, let's say, a new initiative coming from Moscow, from Beijing, or when we have to find something that we would like to share with our respective authorities on the eve of a state visit because there are many of them. Putin goes there. Xi comes to Moscow. We have small, focused workshops.
So, that's our flagship program there. On top of that, if you take Beijing, we have a couple of smaller initiatives with educational institutions and with think-tanks. For instance, you know, we worked with the Peking University on how China and Russia view Africa, kind of, comparative assessment of our strategies, our approaches, our assessment of the African dynamics. I think it was interesting. We published a rather thick report on this issue.
So, we have projects like that, not only with universities, though, of course, it's not just the Peking University, but Tsinghua University is also one of our partners. I was there just two weeks ago, the Beijing Global Peace Forum, Yan Xuetong. You probably know a very distinguished Chinese scholar who leads this effort for already many years. I think, this year, it was the 10th or the 12th forum of such kind. We work with a number of private think-tanks.
There are not too many of them in Beijing, but there are some. And on top of Beijing, of course, we have contacts in some other major cities, most important of which is Shanghai. The Fudan University, every year, we publish a report, a state of the relationship. We do it for already nine years. So, this report should be 10th already.
And I think it's unique because it's not just, you know, two views, but we try to merge Chinese and Russian texts into a single document and to put special attention not so much to accomplishments, some achievements, because, you know, this relationship, it's almost like a mutual admiration society. They praise us, we praise them, but that's not very productive. So, we try to, to the extent possible, to be candid and even blunt and to talk about unresolved issues, about bottlenecks, about stumbling blocks, about problems that we have to address.
[00:40:21] Peter: So, could you give us a few examples of such stumbling blocks, misunderstandings, disagreements that perhaps come up less now than before, but that you have encountered frequently in your interaction with Chinese colleagues?
[00:40:35] Andrey: Well, to talk about stumbling blocks, we should probably distinguish between, quote unquote "objective divergence of interests," which exists. For instance, Russia and China cannot address India the same way, you know. They have very different views on India and on some other nations in Asia or in Central Asia. The Ukrainian issue is also something that can generate differences in views, but there are some issues which can and should be resolved in the process of more intense contacts and cooperation.
For instance, if we take the economic interaction between Russia and China, right now, it is limited primarily to basic trade. You know, we sell oil and gas, we receive some gadgets, consumer goods, cars, things like that, which is fine, but this is not the future. The future belongs to more advanced industrial cooperation in gradually building common production and technological nets and chains. And this is something which is much more difficult because it's an entirely different level of cooperation.
I would say it is rather collaboration than cooperation itself. We need to have a joint vision of what we want to accomplish. Likewise, I think that, in some areas, our cooperation might be too superficial. For instance, look at existing multilateral institutions, which Russia and China participate to, like, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or BRICs. I think that they're still looking for a mission. And I think that we should work hard to make sure that these institutions become more efficient than they are right now.
Definitely, there are many opportunities that have to be explored. So, sometimes, it's about misperceptions. It's about the legacies of the past. I think there are concerns on both sides. China might be concerned about political stability here. In Russia, there might be concerns about long-term goals of China vis à vis the Russian Federation. There are, of course, people who are convinced that China harbors some aggressive intentions and just waiting.
[00:43:07] Peter: Toward Russia.
[00:43:08] Andrey: Toward Russia, that it's just a matter of time.
[00:43:10] Peter: And the Far East specifically, that there's an imbalance of population, and Russians are occasionally anxious.
[00:43:16] Andrey: That's right. But, you know, if you look at the in-country migrations in China, you'll see that the Northern Provinces, and Heilongjiang in particular, are losing people, not gaining people. So, people tend to go further south, not further north.
[00:43:31] Peter: Well, climate change, I suppose, could reverse course in the future.
[00:43:34] Andrey: Climate change, but also, you know, the, the center of the Chinese economic activities, the, the southern coastline still.
[00:43:41] Peter: Well, I just mean in the future, if those areas become very hot, then perhaps the trajectory will reverse.
[00:43:45] Andrey: Well-
[00:43:45] Peter: Now, obviously-
[00:43:45] Andrey: Yeah.
[00:43:46] Peter: ... from Harbin, everybody is going to Hainan.
[00:43:49] Andrey: Well, Harbin is a, is a vibrant city in itself, of course, but if you look at the province, especially the, the most northern parts of the province, you know, there are not too many opportunities there. Maybe that will change, or maybe we will see a reverse trend, but right now, I don't see that there are any particular reasons to be concerned about, "yellow peril," about China somehow infiltrating Russia and taking advantage of the perceived Russia's weakness. So, I think that we, we have to deal with such misperceptions.
[00:44:19] Peter: What are some misperceptions on the Chinese side? So, this is a Russian misperception.
[00:44:22] Andrey: Well, on the Chinese side, I would mention, first of all and foremost, is that the Chinese society is divided on the issue of Russia. There are fans of Russia who believe that indeed, you know, this is the backbone of the Chinese foreign policy and this alliance or quasi-alliance should be preserved and further strengthened, but there are people who tend to be very critical of Russia, who believe that Russia is, is not really modern, that there is a lot of red tape, a lot of corruption, and that it is very difficult to deal with, with Russia.
Its legislation is changing all the time. That's why, for instance, there are not a lot of Chinese investments in Russia. Indeed, there are, there are different views. And it depends on Russia how to make sure that, not only the leadership, but the Chinese society as well is convinced that Russia is a valuable partner and that it's worth, you know, working with Russia and investing in Russia.
[00:45:23] Peter: But so, what are your counterarguments? When you are in Beijing or Shanghai with a colleague who says Russia is not modern, Russia is corrupt, too much bureaucracy and red tape, how can we possibly do business with you? All of these proposals look great, but they don't work in practice. And you say, "Actually..."
[00:45:39] Andrey: Well, first of all, I think that it would be wrong to deny some facts which are, more or less, evident, that there are problems. And definitely, Russia is a project in making, so to say. We hope that the current crisis might become an important incentive for Russia to change. And we see that at least it seems that the Russian leadership is getting much more serious about fighting corruption, about enhancing the efficiency of the Russian economic system.
And to be fair to Russia and to the Russian leadership, I have to say that, two and a half years ago, when Russia started its special military operation Ukraine and when it confronted you know, this avalanche of international sanctions, many economists, I would say, the majority of economists believed that Russia would yield under pressure, that it would implode, that it would crumble, it would confront a very serious crisis, but Russia has demonstrated a lot of resilience.
That cannot be denied. At least economically, it turned out to be much more stable than many thought it would be, which suggests that there are some strong features in the Russian economic system that have to be taken into account. So, the glass is either half full or half empty. That depends on how you look at it.
[00:47:00] Peter: Well, let's try to look at it more carefully and finish with your prognosis about the results of the current crisis, so either the possible conclusion of the war in Ukraine, various possibilities for negotiation and settlement, or if you want to go more broadly, the future of Russia-U.S. relations over the next five, 10 years.
[00:47:24] Andrey: Well, let me say that no matter how this specific conflict ends, and we can speculate about the details of the territorial settlement, how the line of contact will be or will not be secured, I think that the reality is that this clash between Russia and the West, unfortunately, will continue at least for some time. Right now, I find it difficult to imagine that this conflict can be resolved any time soon because it's not just about Ukraine.
It's about fundamentally different views on the world, on the international system, on what is fair and what is not, what is legitimate and what is not legitimate, and how a new global order should look like. So, the differences are fundamental. I think that differences are probably less fundamental at the level of societies because even now, the Russian society is not that different from societies of its West neighbors.
If you look at the basic sociological data, if you look at social structure and urbanization, education, career expectations, consumption models, the rate of divorces or whatever, you will see that we are somewhere in the middle, maybe between Poland and Germany, but clearly not very close to East Asian countries. So, we remain a predominantly European power.
But at the political level, at the level of the political classes, the clash is fundamental, and it's not likely to fade away too soon. However, I think that we can still hope for what I would call a managed confrontation because both sides, the West and the Russian Federation, are interested in avoiding excessive risks and preventing an inadvertent escalation, which unfortunately is still possible. They are also interested in cutting down the costs of an uncontrolled arms race.
That's why I stay cautiously optimistic about our ability to gradually restore some basic communication lines, especially MIL to MIL communication lines, maybe gradually moving towards confidence-building measures and ultimately to some new model of arms control. It will be a slow movement, because definitely, you need to have some trust, which is absent right now. But I don't think that there is any other way. And I hope that on both sides, common sense will prevail because no one is interested in permitting a suicide, which might happen if the current trends are not reversed.
[00:50:15] Peter: But so, you think the significance of Ukraine might lessen in the coming year or two or three, but the conflict will endure, it will just have to be managed and resolved across many different dimensions beyond Ukraine?
[00:50:28] Andrey: I think that Ukraine, if there is no decisive victory of one of the sides, Ukraine will continue to be a bleeding wound for Russia because it will be a major drain of resources. Ukraine will continue to be emphatically anti-Russian, no matter how this conflict ends. It will probably take generations to restore some, more or less, normal relations between the two nations.
So, I don't think that it will fade away, but I just wanted to say that even if we imagine for a second that a miracle happens, these issues off the table, there are still very important disagreements and contradictions between Russia and the West. The jury is still in session in the sense that we don't know what will happen to Russia in a couple of years from now. We don't know what will happen to the United States or to the European Union either. A lot will depend on the ability of the two sides to demonstrate their resilience and their commitment to what they believe to be their values and their priorities.
[00:51:37] Peter: Well, so, whether the glass is half full or half empty, let's hope that there's still water in it five years hence.
[00:51:44] Andrey: Well, hopefully, hopefully.
[00:51:51] Peter: Thanks for listening to the Monterey Trialogue Podcast. Make sure to subscribe to the show, so you don’t miss out on any episodes. I’m Peter Slezkine. The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.