The RUSSIA - ASEAN SUMMIT, already the second in a row, caused ambivalent feelings both in Moscow and in the capitals of the "dozens". There seems to be no doubt that our relations do not stand still. However, it is equally clear that today the Russian Federation and the Association countries benefit more from working together with other partners. In areas where connections are more productive, the circle of people directly interested in their development is also expanding. The ranks of analysts are multiplying, monitoring the state of cooperation, outlining its new frontiers, explaining why we need the appropriate partners and why they need us.

Opinions collide, discussions go beyond the expert field, becoming the property of ordinary readers, TV viewers and Internet users. We and some ASEAN countries, for example, are discussing relations with China in a similar way - their closest neighbor to the north, and our closest neighbor to the south. Some will hasten to remind you that neither we nor the ASEAN countries can compete with China in terms of their share in the global economy and their ability to fascinate the world with their success, which is why we and ASEAN are not equal.-

Viktor Vladimirovich Sumsky-Director of the ASEAN Center at MGIMO, Chief Researcher of IMEMO RAS, Doctor of Historical Sciences.

victor.sumsky@gmail.com

novtsy turn our eyes to him much more often than to each other. So be it, but isn't there a hint of community of interests in such a judgment? After all, both ASEAN members and we live side by side with a country that is one of the most influential Powers of the twenty-first century. Isn't this a reason to "compare notes", compare impressions, and think about what can be done together, especially in the production and technological spheres, in order to look worthy against the background of a regional and global leader?

With the declaration of a course for modernizing Russia, the debate about which external partnerships will help us implement it in the best possible way has also been revived. Once again, we hear that "The West and only the West" knows the secrets of high technologies and will share them if we play for its team in geopolitical games. We have already experienced all this in the 1990s, and the experience of the past years (as well as the current crisis, which came from no one knows where) leaves no room for illusions. Moreover, it is impossible to ignore such an alternative as active cooperation with the successfully modernizing East Asia. The position of the country's top leadership is quite clear about this. In July of this year, at a meeting on socio-economic issues held in Khabarovsk by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the problems of modernizing Russia, developing its Far Eastern regions and strengthening partnership relations with neighboring Asian countries were considered in conjunction.

But our "eternal Westerners" will not be confused by anything. In response to the above, they will recall that virtually all the East Asian countries and territories where accelerated modernization took place in the second half of the 20th century were at least in political and often military alliances with the United States. These alliances were often open (as in

Japan, Taiwan and South Korea) or informal (as in Indonesia and China), but they were always supplemented by trade and economic preferences, without which the "Asian wonders" would hardly have taken place. I accept this argument with three caveats. First, all of this took place in a Cold War environment that can no longer be brought back. Second, even then, it was important to know the measure: none of the founding countries of ASEAN had such close ties with the United States as the Philippines. But it is in the Philippines that modernization processes have not been easy. Third, no one offers to "cut loose" in relations with the West. It is suggested (just something!) to follow his own example, the West, in what he has always been particularly strong - in the realism of assessments and actions. And this position requires taking into account all available opportunities and options for cooperation with the outside world.

Moreover, it requires a certain amount of caution in the direction of East Asia, where it is time for us to turn around without further delay.

"We're in the middle of it now!" - you could hear it recently at a conference held in one of the ASEAN capitals. It was meant that the global center of economic life was moving to East Asia, and this was said with a sense of deep satisfaction. I had to put aside the prepared text of the speech and remind you that being "in the center" has its downsides. The greater the benefits of doing business in this zone, the more diverse forces rush there and the more difficult it is for them to agree. The area of the center is an area of fierce struggle for world hegemony. The extreme forms of this struggle are world wars. In the twentieth century, the growing contradictions in the central sphere gave rise to two such wars. The interdependence of economies (and in the center they are stronger than anywhere else) they didn't save us from such denouements.

Here you want to "pause" to listen to the comment already from

myself. Isn't it possible that threats to peace are emerging not in areas of stagnation and poverty, but in dynamic countries with growing prosperity?

Of course, it is not good to fall into alarmism, but there are still reasons for reflection - especially if you look at modernization not in a straight-forward technocratic way, but see it as an ambiguous process, in which new achievements are always accompanied by new problems. That was how Samuel Huntington looked at her, by the way. Noting that to" launch " modernization programs, a minimum of political manageability is needed, and the ultimate goal of such programs is stability, which is characteristic of a developed modern society, he stressed that modernization as such is a highly destabilizing thing. The higher the pace of transformation, the more real the threat of destabilization becomes.¹

These ideas, formulated almost half a century ago, do not lose their explanatory power today, when you compare them, for example, with the events of recent years in Thailand - a country experiencing a crisis not because of chronic backwardness, but because of accelerated development. Painful in themselves, such crises are even more dangerous when they occur in a region where the legacy of the Cold War is still alive (Korea, the Taiwan Strait), where there is no shortage of strained relations between neighboring countries, protracted territorial disputes, or so-called new security threats such as cross-border crime. This is exactly the region that we are considering now.

But perhaps most worryingly, this is also the backdrop for a contest for regional and global supremacy between the United States and China in East Asia. The picture is complicated by the old China - India and China - Japan feuds and simultaneous attempts by the main rivals to draw ASEAN as a whole and its individual countries closer to them.

Видят ли все это лидеры Восточной Азии, думают ли об этом их советники, обсуждают ли эти вопросы между собой? И видят, и думают, и обсуждают. Иначе поиски "новой региональной архитектуры" сотрудничества и безопасности не приобрели бы в этой части мира то первостепенное значение, которое имеют сейчас. Готовность участников восточноазиатского саммита принять в свой круг Россию - знак того, что от нее ждут более значимого вклада в эти поиски.

How could it be expressed? There is nothing better to do here than defend one's own national interests, because when applied to East Asia, they practically coincide with the collective interest of the region. The policy of co-development of our Far Eastern territories with nearby political and economic spaces, based in Khabarovsk, makes sense if East Asia retains economic dynamism. It can preserve it only if it does not escalate the current regional contradictions, and even more so before they turn into a conflict phase. Peace in East Asia is needed by the vast majority of participants in regional processes, and all of them, including us, will have to fight for it. Passivity and connivance with the forces that provoke conflict can be even more disastrous for us than for anyone else. After all, passivity is synonymous with not being ready for trials, and if we imagine that it will come to them, then we with our "vast expanses" and resources will be dragged into an absolutely unnecessary confrontation, even against our own will.

Assuming that this reasoning is not entirely groundless, we will see that ASEAN is almost our natural ally. Like Russia, the Association and its members only lose out in the situation of growing contradictions between the United States and China.

Like us, ASEAN should refrain from making a clear choice in favor of Washington or Beijing. The very fact of such a choice would polarize the forces in the region, put the side that decided on the choice in the face of a clearly stronger enemy, and threaten to be drawn into a conflict in which it would suffer unacceptable damage.

The situation requires ASEAN, as well as us, to play an active political game of caution. The role of the Association as a moderator of a number of multilateral dialogues connecting East Asian countries with each other and with partners in other regions, in principle, gives it such an opportunity - and at the same time is completely acceptable to Russia.

It seems that neither we nor our friends in ASEAN have yet understood the full measure

our strategic need for each other. Let's hope that the process of understanding it will give us additional incentives for economic exchanges, and these latter will strengthen the foundation of political partnership.

Keywords: Russia, modernization, new regional architecture of East Asia, ASEAN, China, USA.

¹ См.: Huntington S.P. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven-London: Yale univ. press, 1968. P. 1 - 92.

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