Russia's energy diplomacy with China: personalism and institutionalism in its policy-making process

ABSTRACT

Russia's growing energy cooperation with China is central to several of Moscow's top foreign-policy objectives. Analyzing what drives Russia's energy diplomacy with China can therefore shed important light on the dynamics of Russian foreign policy-making. We go beyond other recent studies of this topic by examining the role of domestic political influences and the countries’ bilateral interactions. We show that personalist elements influence both Russia's policy-making and its diplomacy with China. The personalism has made it hard for Russia to coordinate the relevant decision-making institutions and get the most from its energy strength. The economic gains from recent energy deals, particularly to Russia's Far East, have been less than expected, and Russia has met only limited success in achieving its foreign-policy priorities in the Asia-Pacific region. Moving forward, Russia must further institutionalize its decision-making process, limit the role of personalism, and better coordinate the activities of its energy firms with the goals of its central agencies and local governments.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia
• China
• Energy Diplomacy
• Foreign Policy-making
• Asia-Pacific

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Yuval Weber and two anonymous referees for this journal for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For simplicity, we refer to this part of Russia as its Far East, but that should be understood to include not just the regions in the Far Eastern Federal Administrative District but also those in the eastern portion of the Siberian Federal Administrative District such as Irkutsk Oblast, the Republic of Buryatia, and Zabaikalsk Krai.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Jilin University [grant number 2015QY001] and People's Government of Jilin Province [grant number 2014B021].

Notes on contributors

Bo Xu

Bo Xu is an associate professor of Northeast Asian Studies College at Jilin University. He is currently a visiting scholar of political science at the University of Iowa. His research concerns Russia's domestic politics and foreign policies, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.

William M. Reisinger

William M. Reisinger is a professor of political science at the University of Iowa. He received his PhD degree from the University of Michigan and joined the University of Iowa faculty in 1985. His research concerns politics in the former communist states, especially Russia.