Translated material
Banana-lemon Sochi
On May 19, the Russia-ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) forum began in Sochi, which was opened by President Putin. Delegations of the Sultanate of Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines arrived
The ASEAN Summit in Sochi is a godsend for those who like to discuss the exciting and tantalizing mysteries of geopolitics and its wunderkind little sister, geoeconomics. Ten heads of state from countries that beckon the simpleton either with the wisdom of Theravada Buddhism, or with a peppy militant anti-American heritage, or simply by mentioning Vertinsky in a song. And all of them are in Sochi, at Vladimir Putin's, and all behind closed doors: there is so much room for imagination, for combinations! A slightly more sober and less curious pique vest, of course, will say that 10 ASEAN countries in Sochi are Russian pressure on China, which, although a friend of Russia for centuries and a potential buyer of all the oil and gas that is in Siberia, but at the same time partner of the United States, and a tough negotiator who is by no means ready to make concessions to Russia. And in general, it is better for a person to keep his distance from a mobilization capacity of a billion-odd.
And yet, even discarding geopolitics with geoeconomics and other quasi-sciences, it is impossible not to pay attention to the atmosphere of all these meetings of Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, government and Kremlin officials with ASEAN colleagues. It is fundamentally different even from the atmosphere of negotiations with Russia's best friends in Europe today - the Hungarians and Italians: it is clear that the current Russian government is almost more comfortable in ASEAN than in a union state with Belarus. For example, the Sultan of Brunei, not the first or the second time flying to Russia on his Boeing 747 with a huge retinue, the Kremlin always finds a common language with him, and not only in the gas market. Vietnam was the first to create a free trade zone with the EurAsEC, Cambodia and Singapore are negotiating the same. With Southeast Asia, the current government of Russia is generally doing surprisingly well. What a pity that we are not a tropical island in warm seas!
I believe that in many respects the surprise from this tropical harmony is explained by the rather fantastic idea of the population of the Russian Federation about what the ASEAN countries are
from a political point of view. Visiting the beaches of Thai Phuket, Indonesian Bali and Vietnamese Phan Thiet can give the impression of a world inhabited by kind smiling Asians who voluntarily elected strong national leaders in the 1960s and since then politely but firmly reject all the tricks of developed countries, demanding from them unbridled democracy and oblivion of national traditions. If you look at all this not through tourist sunglasses, then you can quickly remember that the ASEAN countries are mostly ruled by authoritarian regimes with a rich history of power relations with each other and with their own populations. For example, it is recommended to familiarize yourself with the biography of Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia since 1998 (came to power after another coup d'etat), the former Khmer Rouge and a minister in the occupation Vietnamese government of Cambodia - the atmosphere of wary and business-like sincerity in negotiations with ASEAN countries is becoming more understandable.
ASEAN countries are for the most part ruled by authoritarian regimes with a rich history of power relationships with each other and with their own populations.
Finally, the recent publication of the Panama Files by the ICIJ consortium showed that the Vietnamese are apparently mastering the intricacies of using offshore networks with the participation of Russian banks. Government of Singapore
have been lured into Russian investment projects for a long time and not without success. There is something to talk about both publicly and non-publicly. It is also important, in general, that ASEAN, in essence, was created in the 1970s as a partner of the United States in the fight against Sino-Soviet influence in the region. Since then, a lot of water has flowed. But modern Russia, in the person of Vladimir Putin, so wants to be the USA of the 1970s, the blissful times of the Cold War, that the quiet sound of the banjo from Sochi is heard all over the world: now it's us, we are a shining city on a hill! We have nuclear power plants, cruise missiles, aircraft carriers and a Formula 1 track. Come, we will do great things - then we will figure out what.