Putin Proposes Another Greater Eurasia Project

In the aftermath of the Crimean annexation in early 2014, numerous prognosticators around the Kremlin brushed off resulting Western sanctions as little more than tired, wayward nuisances. Western unity, these voices brayed, was a figment of imaginations in Brussels and Washington; surely, within a few months, the Kremlin would manage to peel off Greek, Hungarian, or Czech counterparts, effectively neutering Western claims about maintaining a post-Westphalian, post-Cold War order.

Moreover, even if these sanctions -- targeting Kremlin-aligned elite, Russian investments, and domestic gas extraction alike -- remained, they would do little more than spur an eastward orientation Moscow had long hinted at. Between its geopolitical sway and swelling coffers, Beijing’s political and Shanghai’s financial clout could effectively offset the West’s cold shoulder. The fruits of such partnership appeared early: After a decade’s worth of bickering over price and ownership, Chinese and Russian officials finally agreed upon a massive, $400 billion hydrocarbon deal, set to construct the Power of Siberia pipeline to cap both Russia’s pivot east and China’s energy extraction within its friendly western reaches. With the deal, the quasi-rapprochement between Beijing and Moscow seemed a fait accompli, with a prone West suddenly left in the lurch.

Two years on, however, the Power of Siberia, battered by price drops and decreasing demand in China, remains lethargic, with the projected 2017 completion date effectively scrapped. Likewise, Chinese banks have been overly hesitant to provide Russian companies with sufficient capital, a severe misread on the Kremlin’s end. All told, trade between Moscow and Beijing stood battered by the end of 2015, sagging to just over $60 billion. As Foreign Policy’s Alexander Gabuev noted, “Russia has only managed to attract $560 million in foreign direct investment from China, less than 0.5 percent of China’s total outbound direct investment in 2015 and much less than the $4 billion in Chinese investment Russia received in 2013, before the Ukraine crisis.” And as The Diplomat’s Catherine Putz detailed, an average annual trade expansion of over 25 percent has plummeted to a 2.7 percent annualized growth.

It’s in this atmosphere, then, that Russian President Vladimir Putin has begun scrambling for an avenue to broaden, or at least resuscitate, the faltering Moscow-Beijing alignment. Last month, Putin took the dais at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, delineating a handful of reasons why Russia, now mired in its second year of recession, was worthy of investment. One of the reasons Putin outlined dealt with the proposed marriage of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union and China’s Silk Road Economic Belt. The slack progress on the initiative today is the relatively unsurprising result of trying to pair a protectionist bloc and an expansionist, integrationist project.

However, Putin didn’t simply push the stalled docking of the EEU and the SREB. Rather, he decided to lob a new, broader project. Something to compile the existing, ad-hoc organizations cluttering the broader Eurasian landscape. Something to act as a catch-all, as an umbrella, for all of the pre-2016 projects relegated to little more than talk-shops and empty-effect summits. “As early as June we, along with our Chinese colleagues, are planning to start official talks on the formation of comprehensive trade and economic partnership in Eurasia with the participation of the European Union states and China,” Putin said. “I expect that this will become one of the first steps toward the formation of a major Eurasian partnership.”

The Russian president outlined a vision to conjoin members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and those tied to the EEU -- singling out China, India, Pakistan, and Iran -- in something he termed a “greater Eurasia” project.

“All these agreements should be future-oriented and provide the basis for harmonious joint development resting on equal and effective cooperation,” Putin said.

The Russian president reiterated his call the next week, during the SCO summit in Tashkent. “The start of talks on linking the Eurasian Union and China’s Silk Road Economic Belt project opens up good prospects,” he said. “I am sure that involving all of the SCO member states and the CIS countries in this integration process would pave the road for developing a broad Eurasian partnership.”

Suddenly, it appeared that the Kremlin was no longer satisfied with the worn-down multilaterals dotting the Eurasian landscape. The CIS, SCO, and EEU have all stumbled into differing degrees of irrelevancy, with member organizations repeatedly ignoring, say, the SCO’s admonitions against separatism, or the EEU’s push toward bloc-oriented integration. (Indeed, it appears that the only organization Putin wouldn’t lump into this “greater Eurasia” project is the Collective Security Treaty Organization, with its mutual security obligations.) From the little Putin has let on, it seems the Russian president would see the “greater Eurasia” partnership subsume all member-states into a single, streamlined behemoth. A single, macro-Eurasian group, in a sense -- a single, macro-Eurasian partnership. A grand, unifying project for a region mired in sectarian tensions.

On the one hand, Putin’s proposal appeared to effectively negate, or at least admit the failure of, the EEU’s protectionist tendencies, acting as a culmination of fiscal frustrations from the group’s member-states. On the other hand, the call appeared as something of a naked attempt to cultivate standing both domestically and internationally. Suddenly, Putin was positioning Russia as the guiding voice across Asia -- a move to reassure his place for his domestic audience, as well as a push to break the post-Crimean isolation still lingering.

But if this was a call for a geopolitical realignment, for a post-post-Cold-War order centered upon the equitable poles of Moscow and Beijing, the call was greeted with a resounding thud. Chinese officials remained largely mum on the proposal, with New Delhi likewise uninterested, at least as of now, in acceding to some form of “greater Eurasia.” And while one Pakistani MP thundered in support of Putin, he was drowned out by the silence greeting the Russian president’s proposal.

The planned enjoining of the EEU and the SREB slogs on, and the construction of the Power of Siberia continues at its slow pace. But Putin’s proposed partners -- having witnessed the fates of the CIS, EEU, and SCO, and even the CSTO and BRICS -- appear largely uninterested in swallowing another multilateral organization that places Russia in the pole position. Most importantly, China appears willing to balk at the scheme, and unwilling to push its relationship with Moscow any further than need be. A “greater Eurasia” may someday rise, but it won’t be anytime soon -- and it almost certainly won’t be under the current leadership structure across the region.