Ideas and Ideals

Economic development of Russia’s eastern territories follows on a fl awed way. The emphasis is on the developing of natural resource potential, which is regarded as our “trump card” in relations with Asia-
Pacifi c countries. Cooperation with China, Russia’s main partner in Asia, yet does not bring adequate benefi ts for our country due to a couple of main reasons: on the one hand, China’s economic expansion
and migration differs opportunistic attitude to Russia’s interests; and on the other, we aren’t quite pragmatic in establishing relationships with Celestial country. There is a real long-term risk of “China threat”, which can be refl ected only by “explosive” economic growth of Transbaikalia and the Far East with a balanced development of the mining and manufacturing sectors. It’s necessary to strive for achievement of the native socio-economic competitiveness of the Russian eastern regions on the basis of internal efficiency. This means a focus on production output with prices that really contain a high proportion of value added.That is only the way to minimize the negative effect caused by the objective factor of remoteness and high transportation costs. A pragmatic approach requires foreign economic cooperation. We must learn to maximize our benefi ts and minimize costs, to achieve the best balance of costs and benefi ts for ourselves. It should be the essence of the Russia’s “new Eastern policy”.