Integration of the Russian Economy with the Asia-Pacific Countries: Opportunities and Risks

Abstract

The specifics of the Russia's integration policy in relation to large sub-global markets, which include the Asia-Pacific region, are described in the paper. The integration processes in which the Russian economy is involved are limited to some CIS countries, and the process of opening the Russian domestic market to other countries is slowing down, owing also to the growth of tariff and non-tariff barriers. However, the author shows that the economically
justified areas of Russia's integration with close and
large economies could be reduced only to the EU and Asia-Pacific countries. The paper investigates the factors that positively or negatively affect the Russia’s integration with European countries, with a number of post-Soviet countries and Asia-Pacific countries. The Asia-Pacific economic space,
unlike the European one, is largely fragmented both in its structure and in the extent of the Russia's economic relations with the countries of the sub-global economy. It
is shown that Russia maintains a foreign policy confrontation with some countries of the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, Russia does not experience such contradictions with most countries of the sub-global economy. In the East Asian market, which is the largest and closest to Russia, the Russian economy is outside the sphere of industrial cooperation and is much more modestly characterized than in the European market. In general, Russia does not take part in the integration formats of the Asia-Pacific Region. It is indicated that China stands out as the most geographically close and largest trade partner for Russia. For the current exogenous restrictions applied to the Russian economy, the paper describes possible directions for maintaining Russia's foreign economic relations based on the “adaptation”
strategy by significantly simplifying imports, i.e. unilaterally reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers to the goods importing from the major economies of the AsiaPacific region, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.