The APEC summit showed that becoming Asia is also not bad

Due to a number of circumstances, the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization that ended in Vladivostok on September 9 turned out to be unexpectedly successful for Russia. It is unknown whether the Russian authorities counted on the main achievements of the summit: six months ago, APEC as a “soft alternative” to the WTO and partnership with the EU, strengthening economic contacts with Japan, and China’s readiness to support Russia’s financial and political initiatives were clearly not on the agenda. As it turned out, no one in the world is going to hinder the “turn to the east” of the Russian economy.

The agenda of the 20th APEC Business Summit on September 7-9, which was decided six months ago, did not itself suggest that a series of meetings in Vladivostok could turn into something truly significant. Let us recall that APEC was created in 1989 at the initiative of Australia as an informal club of countries with access to the Pacific Ocean (now this rule has been de facto abolished) and aimed at creating a free trade zone in the region. In the Russian Federation, which joined APEC in 1998, the APEC summit in Vladivostok was initially viewed as a foreign policy event - largely contrary to the meaning of this association, which in official documents positions itself as an alliance not of "states" or "countries", but exclusively of "economies" .

Several circumstances changed the nature of the summit. The first is the development of the financial crisis in 2010-2011, which by 2012 transformed into a threat to the economies of the non-APEC European Union. The second is Russia’s accession to the WTO in the summer of 2012: APEC is also considered as a “Pacific club” within it. Third, due to the crisis, the increased interest of China and the countries of Southeast Asia in “multi-currency” world trade, which by 2012 already looks like an alternative to the dollar-euro pair. Finally, the dramatic changes in 2010-2012 in the global gas market and the growing uncertainty of Russia's position in the global gas market have also made the Vladivostok summit more and more interesting for the whole world over the past months - and precisely as an APEC meeting of heads of state on economic issues .

The final “preparatory chord” for APEC 2012 was given a day before the opening of the summit completely unexpectedly - on September 6, the European Central Bank announced an unlimited redemption of the government debt of troubled EU countries. In the medium term, the Asian APEC economies, which are more attractive for investment compared to the EU, may become “acceptors” of new liquidity that will appear on the global financial market as a result of the “salvation of Europe.” This could become the main topic of discussion among the leaders of the APEC countries in Vladivostok: it is impossible to think of a better moment for such discussions, despite the pre-announced absence of US President Barack Obama at the meeting (US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew to Vladivostok on September 8, after key bilateral meetings) .

From the communique of the meeting in Vladivostok published on September 9, it is clear that APEC worked precisely as an economic association. The biggest achievement of the summit was the commitment undertaken by the participants to refrain from increasing protective import duties until 2015 and the agreement on a list of 54 environmental products for which import duties are expected to be reduced to 5% within three years (currently they reach 25-30%). We are mainly talking about energy equipment and components of the utility infrastructure of “green” energy. In this area, since 2010, a constant conflict between the EU on the one hand and the US and China on the other is obvious. Thus, in the summer of 2012, the EU, within the framework of the WTO, began an attempt to limit the import of solar panels from China (after European manufacturers lost this market to the Chinese). At the same time, Appendix C to the final communique does not limit APEC countries in disputes with other countries in the WTO on these issues. In the future, the list of environmental goods may expand: we may be talking about creating a kind of “soft alternative” to the WTO within APEC - and, further, opening up the opportunity for APEC countries to play on the contradictions in the WTO with the EU.

The results of the summit are also important for Russia because in Vladivostok the topic of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - a possible free trade agreement between nine developed APEC economies, initiated by the United States in 2009, which Russia and China have no chance of joining - received almost no development. If at the previous APEC summit in Honolulu, Chinese President Hu Jintao announced the country's fundamental support for the TPP idea, then in Vladivostok the topic was not developed. And in general, at APEC 2012 there were no obvious contradictions between the positions of Russia and China, although the bilateral meeting between Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao did not produce any significant announced results.

However, despite the tense political relations between Russia and Japan over the Kuril Islands, the “Japanese” results of the APEC summit turned out to be positive - Japan’s readiness to participate in the Russian project for the export of liquefied gas from the Russian Federation “Vladivostok LNG”, an agreement between the ICT group and Mitsui on railway transport , several smaller contracts. Russian-Japanese negotiations within the framework of the APEC summit were not very publicized - but following their results, on September 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the upcoming visit of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to Russia and a discussion with him of key problems in relations between the two countries. Considering the extreme restraint of Japanese investments in the Russian Federation, negotiations in Vladivostok would be successful for Russia and that’s all.

In the purely political sphere at APEC 2012 in Vladivostok, the Russian authorities probably relied on Hillary Clinton and the United States. But nothing unpredictable or at least symbolically important happened here (except for the forecast of the US Secretary of State about the possible repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment by the US Congress in September-October 2012). The parties exchanged views on all possible unrelated topics - from the civil war in Syria to the Pussy Riot affair, but not on APEC topics. However, even the United States could not find any objections to Russia’s Asia-Pacific plans.

The “eastern turn” of the Russian economy is so far only an assumption associated primarily with the hypothetical prospects of a crisis in the EU. The good background of the negotiations on September 7-9 was confirmed during the APEC summit by the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, who announced with even excessive enthusiasm that the state monopoly's gas supplies to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region "in the very coming years... will exceed the volumes of supplies to Europe." And Vladimir Putin, at the final press conference in Vladivostok, even accused the EU of demanding Russia to continue “subsidizing” Eastern Europe with cheap gas. This harshness looked like an illustration of the fact that they are really ready to talk about an “eastern turn” of the Russian economy. But on the other hand, success in Vladivostok is also an extremely fortunate coincidence, and implementing the bonuses received is a more difficult task than a successful APEC summit on Russky Island.

Dmitry Butrin, Vladivostok

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