Introduction: The situation in Russia and Ukraine is once again tense, and the recent release of dialogue signals by the leaders of the two sides seems to have eased the situation. However, the posture of the United States, Europe, NATO, and Eastern European countries towards Russia has added more complicated factors to this. Whether to fight or not to fight is a direct issue of greatest concern to the outside world; but how Russia handles the relationship between the "post-Soviet space" is a topic that observers have studied in depth for a long time. On March 21st, Guan College, the Russian Research Center of East China Normal University and the surrounding centers jointly held the "Russia and the World" report conference and lecture series. Zhang Xinzuo, deputy director of the Russian Research Center of East China Normal University, entitled "Operating 'Close Neighbors'?" Russia and the Volatile Situation in Eurasia". From the political crisis in Ukraine, Crimea's entry into Russia, to the turmoil in Central Asia in 2020, and then to the seeming smoke of war in 2021, has Russia's "rules" changed? Are you shouting the slogan "Goodbye Empire"? The following is the full text of the speech.
Zhang Xin, deputy director of the Russian Research Center of East China Normal University, attended the activities of guan college
【Article/Observer Network Columnist Zhang Xin】
Before starting the lecture, I don't know how many friends are paying attention to this area, or certainly not everyone will be paying attention to this area.
If you look at the four pictures on the left, if you don't look at the notes next to them, can you judge which events represent 2020, or what events have occurred inside the so-called "post-Soviet space" or Eurasian space that have attracted media attention?
In the upper left corner is Belarus, and if you know Russian, you can also see what the banner demands. The top right shows the escalation of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the bottom left corner shows popular unrest in Kyrgyzstan over the election controversy, and finally the overly "enthusiastic" demonstrators stormed the parliament building. The lower right corner represents the restructuring of Ukraine, or Eastern Europe. These incidents cannot be said to have all occurred specifically in the past year, and some of them are still in progress.
If we focus only on the past year, there are at least these political events that have attracted widespread attention in the so-called Greater Eurasian region or the "post-Soviet space". It is no exaggeration to say that 2020 has been a very turbulent year for russia's surrounding regions. Using this as a starting point, we can review how contemporary Russia perceives the space around itself, and how it handles its relationship with the space around it. How many of these conflicts and turmoils in Russia's periphery in 2020 are related to the traditional historical political structure of Russia or the former Soviet Union, and how many will have a direct political or policy impact on the future of Russia's operation of its own surrounding areas.
I would like to emphasize that although there is no China at all in this topic, if you are a little more sensitive, you will find that there are many similarities or structural similarities with China, and there are many reflections that can be found, and I hope that today's discussion can also provide you with some ideas for thinking about the problem.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had a huge impact on contemporary Russia, and the two most important impacts related to today's themes were: First, the loss of hegemonic status in the geopolitical sense, and the original status of bipolar confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union disappeared very quickly. Second, the Soviet Union, as a vast multi-ethnic empire, collapsed almost overnight. In fact, these two processes are still not completely over, and still influence and shape in different ways how contemporary Russia deals with and responds to questions such as "who I am" and "what is my relationship with the people in these areas around me and in the regions" in different ways. The relationship between Self-perception, self-positioning, and self-definition in Russia with the surrounding space and people has not ended.
In Russian, the word "near neighbor" is used more often, and the meaning is closer to the "periphery" in the Chinese. What role do these close neighbors play in Russia's geopolitical space imagination? It is probably a bit similar to the poor order pattern of traditional Chinese society that Mr. Fei Xiaotong talked about: Russia's political space imagination is almost a circle of strategic circles. The first circle is Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and the second circle is the rest of these countries in the "post-Soviet space", which basically constitutes the core position of Russia's neighbor in the traditional sense. There are many important connotations, which largely define or constrain how russia can answer the basic question of "who we are". For example, in Ukraine, Russian intellectuals have long asked, without Ukraine, what is Russia?
In recent years, Russia's own representation of this space has evolved, from "post-Soviet" to "Greater Eurasia" in various senses, although it is only a difference in words, but there are deeper political and policy connotations behind it.
Specific to the policy level, after 1991 to the present, there has been a series of Organized and institutionalized attempts promoted by Russia-led and can be called "operating peripherals", such as the "Commonwealth of Independent States" that is rarely heard now, at the economic level, there were relatively rudimentary Eurasian economic communities, the customs union, which has now been upgraded to the Eurasian Economic Union, as well as bilateral organizations such as the Russian-Belarusian Union, and there are collective security treaty organizations in the field of security, and such actions are Russia's efforts in integration and integration.
In February 2014, 20,000 anti-government demonstrators in Ukraine clashed fiercely with police on Independence Square in kiev. Pictured from European News Agency
One of the "highlights" here is the political crisis in Ukraine that began in 2013 and the "return" of Crimea in 2014. Of course, "regression" may need to be in quotation marks, because for people with different positions, the expression of "regression" may have very different meanings and need to be defined in different ways.
I once wrote an article that used the Crimean events as the core to understand the changes in Russia's basic perceptions and attitudes toward "close neighbors" regions. By the way, if you are interested in Ukraine and Crimea, you can read Putin's long speech at the official ceremony of the Russian government on March 18, 2014 to welcome Crimea and Sevastopol back to the Russian Federation. Personally, I think this is the most important political text in the Russian-speaking world after 2000, and it contains very rich connotations.
In my essay, with Putin's speech as the main text, I summarized a set of basic principles on Russia's perception of its relationship with its immediate neighbors at that time.
First, Russia positions itself as the center of a community of civilizations represented by a Russian-speaking civilization, a community called the "Russian world", in which Russia positions itself as the core and protector of this world. The geographical scope of this civilized world and the characteristics of the population it encompasses are highly controversial.
The second, and very important point, is that in Russia's view, the Western world was already clearly in an era of moral collapse, and Russia had to slowly detach from the West, and even not only separate, but in turn represent European civilization. Today's Europe cannot represent European civilization, and the core values of European civilization can be better protected in the "Third Rome" and in Russia. According to this view, the "white left" advocating cultural pluralism has completely abandoned the foundations of European civilization, so in the future Russia will save Europe as the protector of European civilization.
The third point, which is actually very much related to the first point, recognizes the use of force as a reasonable means of safeguarding the interests of Russian compatriots abroad. Here is another subtlety: who is my Russian compatriot abroad? If you use a simple analogy, when you watch the Spring Festival Gala, you will notice that the host will report a series of congratulatory messages, overseas Chinese, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, etc., which is a poor sequence expression of the Chinese style to define who is our compatriots.
Russia faces a similar question, who is my compatriot abroad, who would be included in the group that I believe can use force to protect legitimate interests, which is controversial.
Finally, with profound implications, historical justice and the will of the people are higher than any statute law, so Russia has sufficient moral sensibilities and a stronger sense of historical justice to bring Crimea back to Russia.
The impact of this incident at that time was very huge, especially in the Western policy and strategic circles, which even unanimously agreed that the Crimea incident was an extremely bad event that undermined the entire international order after World War II and had an extremely far-reaching negative impact.
On March 18, 2014, in Sevastopol, crimeans watched Putin's speech on television.
Returning to the topic of "post-Soviet space", I think that in 2020, this round of turmoil in the surrounding areas of Russia has undergone some changes. Here I recommend an article by Dmitry Trinin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center of the Russian think tank, a rather influential strategic commentator. Some of Mr. Trenin's observations and definitions overlap with my own views on Russia. In the series of near-neighbor events in 2020, Russia's response was actually quite defensive. In particular, the European and American media and think tanks imagined that Russia should have a more comprehensive and extreme reaction according to the 2014 set of behavioral standards, but the actual Russian response was very limited.
The most typical example is the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in which Armenia as a whole has the greatest concerns, the greatest overlap and the closest to Russia's interests. But after the conflict, Russia has not made any direct statements, and Putin even said that there is a treaty between us, but the treaty only covers the conflict that occurred on the territory of Armenia. In other words, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict did not take place on Armenian territory at that time, so Russia had no treaty obligation to provide protection to Armenia. In the later period, although Russia sent peacekeeping troops, it was actually a very late defensive measure.
So what is the price russia is paying? This is the last one mentioned here, objectively acknowledging and accepting the reality of Turkey's re-entry in the region, that is, the reality of third-party re-entry into "post-Soviet space".
From this, Mr. Trinin summarized several characteristics. He believes that after this series of events in 2020, to some extent, Russia seems to indirectly shout the slogan of "goodbye empire", which is manifested in the following aspects:
First, the maintenance of a vast imperial system was no longer a central part of foreign policy. Just like former US President Trump said" "America first", this side is "Russia first". If it needs to pay too much of itself to continue to replenish the blood of a so-called former imperial state or population, Russia may already be reluctant to take these additional risks and responsibilities. To some extent, it can be considered that the concept of the "former Soviet Union" no longer exists.
Second, of course, bilateral relations with close neighbors will develop, but this development will go more than the temperament of the leaders of the two sides, and these things are becoming less and less important at the personal level of leaders. You can recall how Russia exerted its influence during this round of domestic turmoil in Belarus.
Third, commitment obligations can be made in bilateral relations, but there is a ceiling. And to add one more, which is my expression, such a commitment obligation must be reciprocal, although not necessarily symmetrical.
Finally, whether on the basis of will or not, third parties are accepted to enter the traditional Russian neighbourhood space. In addition to turkey, which is the most typical example, we have to mention China. In fact, in recent years, Russia's attitude towards China's activities in Central Asia, the Arctic and other regions has generally become more and more relaxed and open, especially after 2013 and 14 years. In contrast, at first, the Russian side's wariness and resistance were still relatively obvious.
Of course, whether, as Mr. Trenin said, Russia has since entered a "goodbye empire" stage, which may still be an early stage, and the subsequent development remains to be seen. That's it for today's sharing, thank you.
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