Archive for category Russia

How China sees Russia

Posted by Nicu Popescu in China, Russia on June 27, 2011

On a recent trip to China, I asked Chinese thinkers and researchers how do they see Europe, Russia, the Putin-Medvedev dynamic and the post-Soviet space. Virtually all were very positive about Russia. Despite a lack of trust between Beijing and Moscow, the relationship seems to be  better than almost any time in modern history – economic exchanges are booming (increased by 43% in 2010 reaching USD 55 bn), and China’s border with Russia is one of China’s most stable. But scratching a bit deeper beyond the surface the picture is unsurprisingly more mixed. And not necessarily reassuring for Russia. As a Chinese put it, the relationship is good because ‘we know that when two tigers fight, both are likely to be wounded, and we want to avoid it’. This is hardly a positive way to start a partnership.

China and the break-up of USSR

A colleague of mine and I asked the Chinese how do they see the break-up of USSR. Here is the answer we got:

‘We had a big debate about whether this is good or bad for China. Some ideological people were saying this is bad because it undermines the attractiveness of Communism. But the pragmatists were saying this is good for China. And it is true, after the break-up of USSR we have very good relations with Russia. Better than ever before.’

The untold part of the answer is of course the fact these ‘better than ever’ relations are build on a very different balance of power and a Russia that is much weaker than USSR. As I wrote previously, Chinese views on the post-Soviet space do not differ much from those in Europe or the US. They differ in style (China is more deferential to Russia), but not in substance. Read the rest of this entry »

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Revolutions and youth movements

Posted by Nicu Popescu in EU, Europe (un)divided, Russia, South Caucasus, southern neighbours, Ukraine on April 11, 2011

One of the main stories of the 2000-2005 wave of revolutions – successful in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and failed in Belarus, Azerbaijan and Egypt – were the existence of organised youth movements with names which were variations on the idea ‘enough is enough’. Otpor in Serbia, Pora in Ukraine, Kmara in Georgia, Kefaya in Egypt, Zubr in Belarus), and Mjaft in Albania became almost household names. However, I have not heard of anything ressembling Kefaya in the recent Egyptian or Tunisian revolutions. These recent revolutions were conspicuous by the absence of well-organised and well-branded youth movements. The revolutions seem to have done well enough without them.

Certainly, it is not youth movements, but authoritarian regimes and ‘ripe contexts’ that are the causes of revolutions. This sounds self-evident, but both revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries seem to often miss it (though it is impossible to know whether a revolutionary situation is ‘ripe’ before it actually happens). I still remember the avalanches of venom deployed against youth movements as ‘fifth columns of foreign powers’, not just in Russian, Azeri or Serbian media, but also in plenty of (leftish) European newspapers (the Guardian seemed to excell at that). Many of them implied that youth movements, not authoritarian mismanagement were the causes of revolutions. But it is also indicative how Kefaya failed to lead to anything meaningful in Egypt in 2005, whereas the 2011 protests toppled Mubarak without any Kefaya-like organisation. Read the rest of this entry »

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Germany’s new Ostpolitik (again)?

Posted by Nicu Popescu in China, Europe (un)divided, Russia, trips, Ukraine on December 10, 2009

(with updates)… I have just returned from Germany from a joint ECFR-Bertelsman event on the “Eastern partnership or Partnership with Russia”. Of course, the answer is with both. No need to spend time on this. But I got a certain sense that the German debate on Russia and the Eastern neighbourhood might be changing. Of course this is only a snapshot and such trends are far from consolidated. And they have yet to trickle down through the German foreign policy machinery, not least in the Brussels committees. But here are some of the interesting nuances I have heard in my convesrsations with a few experts as well as FDP and CDU (the new coalition partners) voices.

On Ukraine

There might be an increasing sense that Ukraine, Moldova, and perhaps Belarus will “of course” join the EU. Though with two caveats:  1) in the long run (defined as 20-30 years), and 2) “this should happen at our own pace, not due to geopolitical considerations”. The language is still more positive than I ever heard in Germany.

Much has been made about the fact that FDP’s election manifesto mentions an EU accession perspective for Ukraine. The Ukrainian foreign minister Poroshenko even says the new German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle (and FDP leader) gave him such a manifesto with the word “Ukraine” underlined and Westerwelle’s signature next to it. I tended not to overdo the importance of this point in the manfesto. But my FDP interlocutor stressed that the Ukraine point in the manifesto was thought through, discussed and “voted twice in an electoral year by the party convention, and this is not a backdoor policy paper, but a key document”. Read the rest of this entry »

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Russia’s Chinese neighbourhood

Posted by Nicu Popescu in China, EU, Europe (un)divided, Russia on December 7, 2009

I recently spoke at the Sino-European forum co-organised by ECFR/Centre Asie and CICIR about the EU-Russia-China triangle. While thinking about the non-existent triangle I ran into the proceedings of another ‘strategic dialogue’ – between Russia and China. And the following exchange of views on Russia’s desire for a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space caught my eye.  One of the Russian participants (Alexey Arbatov) asked the following question (page 19):
“A certain part of Russian political elite thinks that our central objective should be the re-establishment of the Soviet Union in this or that form, the establishment of uncontested Russian domination in the post-Soviet space. This is not what the leadership thinks, but in political circles, the media, in political parties, and the parliament such a desire is very strong… My question is what is [your country’s] attitude to such a policy line? Would your attitude towards such a foreign policy direction be positive of negative?

The reply: “We understand that Russia has special interests in this space, and that Russia tries to preserve its influence, but only if this takes the form of a civilisational community, because these states are still independent states… Russia should treat these states as independent states from a legal point of view, and from the point of view of international norms.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Russian and EU power of attraction

Posted by Nicu Popescu in EU, Moldova, Russia, South Caucasus, Ukraine on September 13, 2009

(MORE updates…) Here is an interesting opinion poll (Eurasia Monitor) where post-Soviet publics are asked whether they prefer integration into the EU, union of Russia/Belarus/Ukraine/Kazakhstan or independence without integration with any such entities. The results broadly confirm some of the findings from our recent ECFR report on Russian and European neighbourhood policies which argues that EU soft power in the region is not uncotested.

Among the more interesting results are (see page 35 of this opinion poll):

  • Georgia comes first in pro-EU sentiment  with 36% being in favour of integration with the EU. But it also comes first in pro-independence sentiment with 48% (not willing to join any integrationist blocks). Unsurprisingly only 3% want integration into a Russian-led Union. Read the rest of this entry »

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Russian views on EU’s decline

Posted by Nicu Popescu in EU, Europe (un)divided, Russia on August 25, 2009

(with updates)… I started this blog a few months ago with a post on “Is the EU a mistake of history?” where I argued that many, if not most, EU-watchers and policy makers in Russia think the EU is a temporary phenomenon after which Europe will return to power-politics among nations-states and ‘Concert of Europe’-style diplomacy. It is always useful to know what others think of the EU, and I will make sure to post views of the EU from the neighbourhood as well. Here is one more opinion from Russia (copy-pasted without changes):

  • “The European Union (EU) is growing weaker as an actor in foreign politics. The EU common foreign and security policy is still at its infancy because of the diverging interests of the European Union member states, and their reluctance to increase defense spending and shoulder responsibility for keeping up international peace and security. For this reason, the EU cannot be viewed as significant player in the world’s political and especially military-political arena”. Read the rest of this entry »

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A Swedish-led listening tour of the East

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Eastern partnership, EU, Europe (un)divided, Moldova, Russia, South Caucasus on June 22, 2009

The Swedish EU presidency, which starts on 1 July 2009, is getting a lot of advice on what to do during its presidency. But here is one idea more idea for the Swedish EU presidency (contained in our recent ECFR report on the Eastern neighbourhood). The Swedish Presidency should convene a “listening tour” of the Eastern neighbourhood – a Troika visit by the Swedish foreign minister, Javier Solana, the Commissioner for External Relations, and the future Spanish EU presidency to each of the six Eastern neighbours of the EU: Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia). Here is why such a tour is needed and why the Swedish presidency is the best actor to initiate it.

To begin with, the Eastern Partnership summit in Prague, judged by its attendance list, was a near-failure. If the objective of the Eastern partnership was to relaunch the neighbourhood policy and raise its political profile, its start was not impressive. The Swedish presidency-led “listening tour” would help relaunch politically the neighbourhood policy in the East. It would repair some of the political damage done by the unimpressive Eastern partnership summit in May 2009. But the purpose of such a tour should not only be symbolic. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ikea and the Abkhaz paradox

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Russia, secessionist conflicts, South Caucasus, trips on June 15, 2009

As promissed, more impressions from my recent trip to Sukhumi. In Abkhazia, the economic imperative of rebuilding the region and attracting investments (predominantly Russian) clashes with its political project of staying more or less independent. Abkhazia might face the following paradox: until August 2008 Abkhazia was de facto independent but unrecognised; now it is recognised (by Russia and Nicaragua only), but not de facto independent anymore. The closure of the UNOMIG mission (anounced today) will also leave Abkhazia more internationally isolated than ever before.

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Compared to my previous visit there in March 2006, now Sukhumi was livelier. There are more renovated buildings, more expensive cars, more people on the promenade by the sea, and the cafés are fuller. This is both a sign of some economic progress, but also the fact that summer is always livelier than the rest of the year (because of the tourists).

In the hotel I stayed (Ritsa) – very central and right by the sea – there were three wi-fi networks in the range of my laptop. The local GSM operator “Aquaphone” boasts with its 3G network. On one of the formerly abandoned piers in Sukhumi – a café was opened that serves sushi (and where the local authorities took Solana and Lavrov on their recent visits to Abkhazia). I even saw a yellow Hummer (!) (I also saw another one in Tbilisi –apparently that is trendy). A recent spat between the Georgian government and Benetton is also telling. Read the rest of this entry »

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The quiet EU-Russia summit

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Europe (un)divided, Russia on May 21, 2009

For years all observers of EU-Russia relations got used to waiting with angst the next EU-Russia summit (which happens twice a year under each presidency). All recent EU-Russia summits had some spice to them. In May 2007, under the German presidency, Angela Merkel took a principled stance on democracy and played tough with Putin. A few days after that summit, Jose Socrates, the Portuguese PM (and the next EU presidency) was offered the best diplomatic treatment in Moscow – the Kremlin was closed to visitors so that Jose Socrates could jog in the inner sanctum of the Russian state. After that, many expected the EU-Russia summit under the Portuguese presidency to step back from Merkel’s principled stance on Russia. Then there was the first EU-Russia summit with president Medvedev in June 2008 when many hoped it would be the beginning of a post-Putin era; and then the first summit after the Georgia war under the French presidency in November 2008.

But there is little spice in the EU-Russia summit taking place in Khabarovsk on 21/22 May. It seems like a very quiet event. There is not angst, no media hype, no nerves and little hope around it. Why? Read the rest of this entry »

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Georgia-Ossetia: fragile frontline

Posted by Nicu Popescu in Russia, secessionist conflicts, South Caucasus, trips on March 19, 2009

I just returned from Georgia, where I managed to get to the Georgian-Ossetian/Russian frontline. Peace is incredibly fragile there. Nothing separates the Georgian military police from the Russian and Ossetian troops. No peacekeepers, no natural barriers, and no man-made fortifications. Just a  few checkpoints and small sandbag fortifications. The checkpoints of the two conflict parties in Ergneti are just a hundred meters from each other. And nothing else.

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Tskhinvali today. Photo taken from Nikozi, some 300 metres south-west of Tskhinvali.

The relative calm rests almost exclusively on the lack of any (current) interest for renewed hostilities from either Russia or Georgia. Russia has a military victory in its pocket, and an economic crisis on its hands. Georgia is deterred by Russia’s military presence. The EU Monitoring Mission might have some psychologically restraining effects on the conflict sides. But here is little else that would prevent renewed hostilities should any of the parties become interested in stirring them. And they might be. If not now, then in the future. If not by Russia and Georgia, then by South Ossetia. Read the rest of this entry »

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