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Russian Far East and the North Pacific Region: Emerging Issues in International Relations

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Russian Far East and the North Pacific Region: Emerging Issues in International Relations THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST AND THE NORTH PACIFIC REGION: EMERGING ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Selected papers from a conference held at East- West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii Edited by Mark J. Valencia THE EAST-WEST CENTER is a public, nonprofit education and research institution with an international board of governors. The U.S. Congress established the Center in Hawaii in 1960 with a mandate "to promote bet• ter relations and understanding between the United States and the nations of Asia and the Pacific through cooperative study, training, and research." Some 2,000 scholars, government and business leaders, educators, journalists and other professionals annually work with the Center's staff on major Asia-Pacific issues. Current programs focus on environment, eco• nomic development, population, international relations, resources, and cul• ture and communications. The Center provides scholarships for about 300 graduate students from the Asia-Pacific-U.S. region to study at the nearby University of Hawaii, and conducts faculty and curriculum development programs focusing on Asia and the Pacific for teachers from kindergarten through undergraduate levels. Since 1960 some 28,000 men and women from the region have participated in the Center's cooperative programs. Officially known as the Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West, Inc., the Center receives its principal funding from the U.S. Congress. Support also comes from more than 20 Asian and Pa• cific governments, private agencies and corporations and through the East- West Center Foundation. THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST AND THE NORTH PACIFIC REGION: EMERGING ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Selected papers from a conference held at East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii Edited by Mark J. Valencia Cosponsored by International Relations Program, East-West Center Center for the Soviet Union in the Pacific and Asia Region, University of Hawaii Supported by a University of Hawaii-East-West Center Collaborative Research Grant and published in November 1992 by the Program on International Economics and Politics, East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. Printed in the United States of Ameri• ca. These conference papers may be reproduced in whole or in part without writ• ten permission of the East-West Center provided appropriate acknowledgment is given and a copy of the work in which these papers appear is sent to the East-West Center Program on International Economics and Politics. Additional copies can be obtained by writing to: East-West Center Program on International Economics and Politics 1777 East-West Road Honolulu, HI 96848 CONTENTS Foreword v Acknowledgments vii Map of the Russian Far East v/'/7 Historical Perspectives John J. Stephen 1 The Potential for Greater Economic Integration in Northeast Asia Burnham O. Campbell 4 Possibilities and Questions for Research Mark J. Valencia 23 Cooperation in Far East Development: Caveats and Concepts Won Bae Kim 26 The Far East Economy: The Crisis and the Solution Pavel A. Minakir 29 Problems with the Solutions Leslie Dienes 43 The Far East and the North Pacific: The Strategic Context Vladimir I. Ivanov 47 Japan and the Far East Yutaka Akino 52 Present Problems Ivan S. Tselichtchev 54 The Korean Peninsula and the Russian Far East Vastly V. Mikheev 61 China and the Far East John Quansheng Zhao 68 Mongolia and the Far East Sh. Sandag and Mark J. Valencia 73 Western Canada and the Far East Robert E. Bedeski 78 iv Contents Alaska and the Far East Victor Fischer 82 The Western United States, Hawaii, and the Soviet Union Robert Valliant 93 Notes 111 Contributors 117 TABLES 1. Northeast Asia and Four Major Countries: General Economic Data, 1985 5 2. Intraregional Factor Endowments and Comparative Advantage 12 3. Trade Emphasis of Northeast Asia and Four Major Countries, 1985 15 4. Future Demographic Change in Northeast Asia and Four Major Countries 18 5. Japan-USSR Trade 55 6. Canada's Trade with the USSR, 1989 79 FOREWORD In 1990, the International Relations Program of the East-West Center and the Soviet Union in the Pacific Asia Region (SUPAR) program of the University of Hawaii initiated a collaborative project to explore the rap• idly evolving relationship between the Russian Far East and its North Pa• cific neighbors. The project reflected recognition that developments in the then Soviet Union provided growing opportunities for integrating the geo• graphically vast but sparsely populated Russian territory in East Asia into the mainstream of economic and political life in the North Pacific. It was clear, however, that significant obstacles remained in both the development of broader ties between the Russian Far East and neighboring countries and for broader North Pacific regional cooperation. The project was designed to explore both these dimensions of the interaction of the Rus• sian Far East in the North Pacific region. In its first phase the project looked at the evolution of the bilateral connections and culminated in a conference in May 1991. Dr. Mark Valencia of the East-West Center was the principal organizer of this conference. Selected papers and parts of papers from this conference are included in this volume. The papers showed that economic, cultural, and other ties were increasing rapidly but from a low base. There remain many constraints to continued development of these links, not least of which is the political and economic uncertainties within Russia. A second phase of the project, to be initiated in 1992, will examine the prospects for enhanced North Pacific regional cooperation. This region is distinguished by the virtual absence of regional institutions which is due largely to the many political barriers to cooperation. On the other hand, problems requiring cooperation, such as economic development or trans- border environmental issues, have increased urgency. Although political barriers remain, especially in the Korean peninsula, the region is experienc• ing increasing momentum toward international cooperation. We hope that the project will contribute to the identification of those areas where inter• national cooperation involving the Russian Far East is both needed and feasible. Charles E. Morrison Director Program on International Economics and Politics v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editor of this volume and the coordinators of the Project on the Rus• sian Far East and the North Pacific wish to gratefully acknowledge the support of the University of Hawaii-East-West Center fund for collabora• tive research that made this conference possible. The conference organiz• ers wish to thank Lynn Haramoto, Dorine McConnell, Dorothy Villasenor, and Mendl Djunaidy for their logistical support for the conference. The editor of this volume thanks the rapporteurs—Chen Zhisong, Noel Lud- wig, Kazumi Ogawa, and Leigh Meyer-Mitchell for their faithful report• ing of the lively and complex discussions. Their reports, and the high quality of the papers and dialogue, made my job as editor relatively easy. The author of each paper is acknowledged at the beginning of each section. However, since I freely used, edited, and integrated the rapporteurs* notes with the papers, I must take responsibility and apologize in advance for any misattribution or misrepresentation of ideas or facts that may have occurred. Deborah Forbis copyedited the work. Ann Takayesu typed this manuscript in her usual highly professional manner. Mark J. Valencia East-West Center v/7 Russian Far East HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES John J. Stephan THE SETTING Lying at the juncture of Eurasia and the Pacific, the former Soviet Far East1 (now called the Far East or the Russian Far East) has for centuries been a meeting ground for diverse peoples and cultures. Neolithic com• munities in the Priamur2 and Primorye3 shared affinities with counterparts in China, Korea, Japan, Siberia, and North America. A millennium of Chinese suzerainty and 300 years of Russian rule, punctuated by interims of politically contrived inaccessibility, have not attenuated the region's cos• mopolitan character. Wedged between China, Korea, Japan, and the United States, the Far East is today an arena where centrifugal forces pulling apart the Soviet Union interact with integrative trends in the Pacific Basin. It is both part of and distinct from Siberia, both separate from arid connected with China, Japan, and Korea. INTEREST NOT NEW Interest in the Far East is not new. Krushchev—not Gorbachev—was the first to invite a Japanese prime minister to Moscow, to return Japanese war criminals, to open Siberia to trade and investment, to allow regular plane and boat travel between Japan and the USSR, and to discuss inter• national trade in Far East coastal and marine resources. He was also the only Soviet leader to offer to return some of the Kuril Islands. Indeed, the development and global place of the Far East have been topics of discussion several times in the last one hundred years. For exam• ple, the concept of a "Pan-Pacific Zone'* was drawn up in the eighteenth century by one of Captain James Cook's men. Between 1898 and 1902 the Russians were selling coal, timber, and fish abroad in return for the steel necessary for the Trans-Siberian Railroad. There were several books and conferences on the development of the resources of the Far East be• tween 1942 and 1947. In 1944, U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace visited the USSR and wrote about minerals development there. Owen Lattimore went as well, and wrote that Magadan was a combination of the Hudson Bay Company and the Tennessee Valley Authority. In fact, some people, e.g., George Kennan, complained that American scholars were overly prais• ing the Far East in the 1940s. 1 2 John J. Stephan Outside interest in the Far East waned in the 1950s and 1960s during the heat of the Cold War; Eric Teal was one of the few people to write about it during this period. Interest picked up again in the 1970s, with Ar- mand Hammer investing in Soviet petroleum and Yoshinari Komatsu in• vesting in Soviet timber.
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