JOURNAL OF CENTERAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS STUDIES
Year:2018 | Volume:24 | Issue:101 |Papers Count:6

Sino-Russian relationship has been in the stage of strategic cooperation for more than two decades. This cooperation covers different areas including economic cooperation. Trade of goods, energy transportation and foreign investment are components of Sino-Russian economic relationship. Starting from a very low level in 1990s, economic cooperation between the two countries has traversed a rising trajectory despite some fluctuations, and officials from both sides have always tried to expand this cooperation. Strategic nature of the relationship between China and Russia is emphasized by political experts and officials from both countries. Given the strategic nature of Sino-Russian relationship, our primary research question is as the following: what is the strategic significance of the economic cooperation between China and Russia, within the overall framework of their relationship? The authors firstly define the concept of strategic relationship based on the emphasized characteristics of such a relationship. Then, the strategic significance of economic cooperation between China and Russia is assessed using this definition. The hypothesis of the authors is that the economic cooperation between China and Russia lacks a high level of strategic significance.

As not confined to lands and borders, religion is a basis for transnational identity. Therefore it is assessed as a source of soft power among neighboring and coreligionist countries. During the USSR era all policies were designed in the framework of communist ideology and dictated from Moscow to other parts of the country. But after the Collapse of the Soviet Union, the internal ties were ended. However, Russia remains an influential country in near abroad. But, the absence of communism led to an ideological vacuum in Russia's relations towards its new neighbors. Therefore Christianity is one of Russia's alternatives to eliminate the mentioned vacuum. The present article tries to answer the following questions: How is the role of church assessed in Russian foreign policy? How is the effectiveness of religious diplomacy assessed in Georgia and Ukraine? Although the role of the church in Moscow's foreign policy is interpreted as a soft power, Russian religious diplomacy was used as a hard power instrument in Ukraine and Georgia, rather than serving as a soft power. This hypothesis is examined in the context of Joseph Nye's soft power theory.

Following the collapse of USSR, Russia was neglected from a serious attention towards Central Asia and Caucasus countries due to its own internal issues. Therefore a geopolitical vacuum emerged in this region and was followed by the activities of both regional players (including Iran, Turkey and the Zionist Regime); and transregional ones (the US and NATO). The conceptualization of “ Near Abroad” in Russia’ s national security document in 2015 and Putin’ s second presidency, as well as Russia’ s political, economic and social ties with Central Asian Republics, all led to Russia’ s serious attention once again towards the mentioned Republics, afterward referred to as Russia’ s “ backyard” or “ sphere of influence” . In order to scrutinize Russia’ s most important foreign policy challenges, using explanatory – analytical method, the present article attempts to answer the following question: Which factors are within Russia’ s most important foreign policy challenges for expanding its cooperation in Central Asia according to national security document and during Putin’ s second presidency? Using defensive realism, the author believes that NATO’ s expansion to East, terrorist activities in the region and United States unilateralism are Russia’ s most important foreign policy challenges in Central Asia.

An increase of energy consumption in China since last two decades and the same continuous perspective for future has made the issue of fossil fuel provision a vital and significant factor for the country. An access to safe energy resources is an important element for guaranteeing the revitalization trend as China’ s strategic choice. Therefore one of the prominent foreign diplomacy trends for China is to have an access to convenient energy resources and to diversify its import hubs as well as to extend its relations with countries that are rich in hydro carbonic resources, especially in Caspian region. Furthermore considering its rich gas resources, Turkmenistan’ s strategic plan is to become a strategic actor in energy area. During the presidency of Bardi Mohammadov, de-isolation was one of the foreign policy priorities as well as attracting foreign investment and access to diversified foreign markets through development of gas transportation routes. The present article attempts to assess the impact of energy on foreign policy and bilateral relations. The hypothesis of the literature is that energy has paved the way for Turkmenistan – China relations and Central Asia – China gas pipeline has been the startup of the mentioned cooperation. This article is written using explanatory – analytical description and the theory of economic interdependency.

The Russia – India – China Triangle is one of the first mechanisms that were used to encounter the US centered international order by the eastern powers which brought along the SCO and BRICS. Russia, India and China’ s foreign ministers troika is actually an attempt for making a cooperation network among revisionist powers. Given the bilateral, trilateral and multilateral relations between the three mentioned countries, the question is whether such a goal is possible or not. The article’ s achievement proves that although having relative potentialities and strong motivations for changing the US centered international order, the Russia – India – China Triangle is not capable of achieving the goal in the present situation. That is rooted in their diverse perception about the nature of this change and the position of each three country in the future of such a new order. Therefore strengthening the perspective of a change in international order is assessed as a positive measure for these players. Using an explanatory-analyzing method, the literature tries to find out the inefficiency causes in mechanisms of Russia – India – China Triangle.

Economic sanctions always bring along both positive and negative results for a country. The economic sanctions against Russia since 2014 caused inflation, difficulty of access to international investment markets, lower value of ruble against euro and dollar, and a delay in Russia’ s path out of crisis. All these events, made Russian government support its financial and economic divisions against sanctions. The present article addresses the following question: What characteristics do the most important measures have that Russia took against sanctions? Strategic wisdom and a balanced activism are addressed as the main elements that Moscow used against sanctions. Using library and archive resources and an explanatory – analyzing method, the present literature attempts to assess Russia’ s economic indexes since 2014 to 2018.