The discourse in Asia, including in Japan, is focused on whether the Ukraine conflict should be characterized as a “New Cold War”, or it should be called a “Clash of Civilizations”.
The Ukrainian issue clearly takes center stage on the 2014 global political agenda. However, it is less certain how this issue is related to the general structural reformatting in global politics and the global power shift to the East, in particular. This issue seems more relevant now that the APEC summit in Beijing, in which most Asian leaders and presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin were participating.
In his well-known address to the Valdai Club in October 2014, President Putin strongly condemned the US hegemonic unipolar policy, which has led to a serious deterioration in the global situation, namely in Libya, Syria, Iraq and other countries. He also hinted that the United States may want to recreate a semblance of a quasi-bipolar world, by condemning Russia, China and Iran as a union of the ‘Evil’, though the context is not so clear.
On the other hand, he stressed that the change of focus towards the East in Russia’s development strategy, especially towards China, was not a reaction to the situation in Ukraine. Putin also emphasized that this shift began before the crisis in Crimea and Ukraine and would not be stopped by the possible sanctions by the US and allies.
The present author, who lives in Japan, is tempted to comment from the Asian or East Asian point of view, which has significantly different regional agenda from the Russian-Western discourse.
The discourse in Asia, including in Japan, is focused on whether this conflict should be characterized as a “New Cold War”, or it should be called a “Clash of Civilizations,” as Fyodor Lukyanov and Ivan Krastev intimated in their background paper. To be precise, most Japanese analysts generally avoid the term “New Cold War”. I do not know how Chinese experts characterize this crisis, but several prominent Chinese experts whom I met in Beijing in the beginning of November also agreed to discard the Cold War connotations.
First, this New Cold War divide is asymmetrical at best. Russia has fewer allies in this conflict. Even Custom Union member countries may not welcome the ‘Russky Mir” (Russian World) discourse, especially when this ‘Mir’ is sometimes mingled with ‘Struggles’ or ‘Conflicts.’ Put simply, the Russian world, or Русский мир, as a cause of global problems is too isolationist. Of course, isolationist discourse is also found in the West, the United States in particular.
Second, the New Cold War discourse is oversimplified on complex issues such as relations between Kiev and Moscow. In September this year, some officials told me that Russia is Ukraine’s elder brother. Yes, historically. But such a simplistic dichotomy does not help understand the historically complex relations between Moscow and Kiev and the tragic trajectory of their development. British historian Andrew Wilson called Ukraine as ‘unexpected nation.’ Ukraine’s unstable and unpredictable character has led not only to a revolution, but also confusion that eventually caused the civil war. The Western world and global community became hostages to the situation in Ukraine.
No one denies the intensification of tension in the US-Russian relations in the wake of the Maidan revolution. Crises are breaking out in every sphere, from politics, the media, finance to energy. The sanctions list is growing, from personal level to the system-wide trade relations between the East and the West. Given the US position on financial and technological supremacy, these sanctions will have a huge impact on the Russian-Western relationship and global economy.
Nevertheless, neither Russia nor the West, including Japan, are sure of the aim, or the purpose of these sanctions, nor even of the subject of the struggle. Some have suggested a regime change in Russia, but the effect may be counterproductive, at least in the short term, because the ‘Putinist consensus’ seems strengthened, while the Poroshenko regime was somewhat weakened by the October elections. Vague objectives can be useful, but sometimes they produce a different, or even contrary, effect.
President Putin is right in saying that the conflict has developed “as a chain reaction following an intensive local-level conflict.” By implication, the crisis emerged due to miscalculations of the parties involved, including local leaders, lower level leaders, or simple mistakes by some commanders. Otherwise, conspiracy theories may prevail after all. We should consider calmly whether this conflict is worth committing to globally, both for the East and the West.
The impact of Ukraine and the Crimean issue on the Asian political agenda is more complicated. If this problem is a universal issue that the global community should commit to, it will inevitably evolve into a global issue between the East and the West. However, from the point of view of the Eastern countries, or Japan, the issue is far less clear. Maybe, this is the reason why India and China abstained from the vote on the UN resolution condemning the Crimean referendum.
Meanwhile, although the Asian agenda is developing quite differently and independently, even the term ‘Cold War rhetoric’ is used. Asia is multifaceted, hybrid and uneven. East Asia had been multipolarized by the beginning of 1970s, following the US-China rapprochement. Yet the communist regime did not fail in this region following the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Communist China would benefit more from the western sanctions.
Naturally, there are significant discrepancies among the G7 members on these issues, including the sanctions and Ukraine. Japan is a reluctant follower in the sanctions issues, not because, or not only because Japan has now launched the peace treaty negotiations with Russia, but rather because sanctions should be carried out by calculating the causes and effects. A simplistic buildup of sanctions does more harm than good both for the global economy and international relations.
Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.