Description
Russia’s weakened economic and political relationship with Europe places it in an increasingly subordinate position in relation to its key partner in Asia. Eurasian and Asian identity discourses have historically failed to gain traction. While Putin could previously declare the Eurasian Union to be a ‘bridge between Europe and the dynamic Asia-Pacific region’, and one of the ‘poles of the modern world’, it is now a bridge to nowhere. If, prior to the (re)invasion of Ukraine, Russia was on the margins of the Asia-Pacific, it now finds itself on a double-periphery.
This paper traces the development of Russia’s civilizational pivot away from Europe. Russia finds itself increasingly in a subordinate position vis-à-vis China, another ‘civilizational state’, yet Putin suggests that for Russia the Mongol invasion was better for Russia than Western influence. By examining the use of such tropes, this paper explores the urgent reframing of Russian identity and foreign policy amongst political and intellectual elites who seek to maintain an appeal to so-called ‘traditional’ values, and positioning Russia as an alternative to Europe, while attempting to intensify and extend relations with China.
