Putin, himself a moderate nationalist: For a detailed examination of the many facets of Putin’s persona, see Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Washington, DC: Brookings), 2013.
The Kremlin has even reportedly: See Maria Snegovaya, “How Putin’s Worldview May Be Shaping His Response in Crimea,” Washington Post, March 2, 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/02/how-putins-worldview-may-be-shaping-his-response-in-crimea/.
Some believe the annexation: Those espousing this view often point to Putin’s public call for Russians to “acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century” in a state of the nation address nearly a decade earlier. See Vladimir Putin, “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,” The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia, April 25, 2005, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22931.
As evidence, some even pointed: “Vladimir Putin’s Interview with the BBC (March 13, 2000),” Gazeta, March 7, 2001, https://www.gazeta.ru/2001/02/28/putin_i_bbc.shtml.
These elites also lamented the perceived: See Vladimir Putin, “A New Integration Project for Eurasia—The Future Is Born Today,” Center for Strategic Assessment and Forecasts, October 4, 2011, http://csef.ru/en/politica-i-geopolitica/223/novyj-integraczionnyj-proekt-dlya-evrazii-budushhee-kotoroe-rozhdaetsya-segodnya-1939; “The Article by Vladimir Putin ‘50 Years of the European Integration and Russia’ is Published Today in the European Media,” President of Russia, March 25, 2007, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/37692.
As one leader of a Gulf country: Anonymous Gulf state leader, in-person conversation with author, the Middle East, January 2016.
So far, this approach has served: See Joshua Tucker, “Why We Should Be Confident That Putin Is Genuinely Popular in Russia,” Washington Post, November 24, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/24/why-we-should-be-confident-that-putin-is-genuinely-popular-in-russia/.
According to Yegor Gaidar’s book: Yegor Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2007), 106–7.
one study by the Oxford Institute: Andreas Economou et al., “Oil Price Paths in 2017: Is a Sustained Recovery of the Oil Price Looming?” (Energy Insight: 1, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K., January 2017), 10, https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Oil-Price-Paths-in-2017-Is-a-Sustained-Recovery-of-the-Oil-Price-Looming-OIES-Energy-Insight.pdf.
With the removal of many sanctions: Mitchell A. Orenstein and George Romer, “Putin’s Gas Attack: Is Russia Just in Syria for the Pipelines,” Foreign Affairs, October 14, 2015.
Finally Russian interest in cooperation: For example, the 2016 deal between OPEC and non-OPEC countries translated into significant gains for Russia. Russia exported an average of 5 million barrels per day from 2014–2016. This meant that for every dollar increase in the price of oil, Russia gained approximately $5mn on a daily basis or $1.8bn annually. There was an $8 increase in the Brent Price of Oil from November to April. That would roughly translate into an increase of $15bn in Russia’s export revenues. “JODI-Oil, Primary (all data),” Joint Organizations Data Initiative, www.jodidb.org/ReportFolders/reportFolders.aspx?sCS_referer=&sCS_ChosenLang=en; “Europe Brent Spot Price FOB,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=rbrte&f=m.
In 2012, long before Russia’s confrontation: Denis Pinchuk and Alexei Anishchuk, “Putin Tells Russian Gas Exporters to Look East,” Reuters, October 23, 2012, www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-putin-energy-idUSBRE89M0RR20121023.
A great power should not: Russian academic, in-person conversation with author, Moscow, Russia, May 27, 2014.
Even the mouse’s corpus: “The Resident Population in an Average Year,” EMISS Government Statistics, Ministry of Communications of Russia, https://fedstat.ru/indicator/31556?#.
Yevgenii Nazdratenko, the recalcitrant: Yevgenii Nazdratenko, “Russia: Far Eastern Governor Wants to Import More Russians,” Info-Prod Research, June 5, 2000, www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-62504369.html.
Shaikin likely exaggerates when he claims: “Russia Fears Flood of Illegal Chinese Entering Russian Far East,” Peace and Freedom, July 6, 2013, https://johnib.wordpress.com/tag/alexander-shaikin/. According to the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., “The number of Chinese visiting, working, or living in Russia has been among the most wildly abused data points in a country known for statistical anomalies.” See Maria Repnikova and Harley Balzer, “Chinese Migration to Russia: Missed Opportunities,” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2009, 13, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/No3_ChineseMigtoRussia.pdf.
But the Russian Federal Migration: Peter Zeihan, “Analysis: Russia’s Far East Turning Chinese,” ABC News, July 14, http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82969.
It is perhaps no surprise that: Pepe Escobar, “The Roving Eye: The Future Visible in St Petersburg,” Asia Times, May 29, 2014, www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-290514.html.
More recently, a 2015 deal: “How Russia Could Become a Food Superpower,” Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2015, https://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/07/15/how-russia-could-become-a-food-superpower/.
Russians declared, “China’s creeping: John Xenakis, “World View: Russia Makes a Controversial Deal to Lease Siberian Land to China,” Breitbart News, June 21, 2015, http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/06/21/world-view-russia-makes-a-controversial-deal-to-lease-siberia-land-to-china/.
First, the crisis over Ukraine and Crimea: In speaking to the Valdai Club—an annual gathering in Russia of international experts—in 2014, Putin explained, “Asia is playing an ever greater role in the world, in the economy and in politics, and there is simply no way we can afford to overlook these developments. Let me say again that everyone is doing this, and we will do so too, all the more so as a large part of our country is geographically in Asia. Why should we not make use of our competitive advantages in this area?” See full transcript at “Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club,” President of Russia, October 24, 2014, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/copy/46860.
Today, Russia is desperately searching: For instance, a decade ago, prospects for greater gas usage in Europe were on the rise as analysts and policymakers perceived gas as a bridge to a more low carbon fueled economy. Today, the combination of stagnant economic growth on the continent and a surfeit of European renewable energy has dulled this outlook. See Chapter Eight.
In 2009, Gazprom anticipated: Guy Chazan and Catherine Belton, “Gazprom Freezes Arctic Gas Project,” Financial Times, August 29, 2012, www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ab331568-f1d8-11e1-bba3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3G3UL4vj6.
These grandiose plans were: Ibid.
The room in Shanghai seemed far: “Video: Russia, China sign ‘gas deal of the century,’ ” YouTube video, 1:59, posted by “RT,” May 21, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MJJ-YzuKNs.
The deal centered on the development: “Power of Siberia,” Gazprom, www.gazprom.com/about/production/projects/pipelines/ykv/.
Under the thirty-year arrangement: Nikos Tsafos, “The Russia-China Gas Deal: A $400 Billion Marriage,” The National Interest, May 29, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-russia-china-gas-deal-400-billion-mirage-10556; the calculations in this sentence are based on the assumption that Chinese natural gas consumption is 360 bcm or 12.7 tcf in 2020 and on statistics provided in “Dry Natural Gas Consumption 2014,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=3&pid=26&aid=2&cid=CH,&syid=2010&eyid=2014&unit=BCF.
During this time, China’s demand: Candace Dunn, “Natural Gas Serves a Small, but Growing, Portion of China’s Total Energy Demand,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, August 18, 2014, www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=17591.
In 2012, CNPC estimated: The 2012 CNPC estimate is source
d from Keun-Wook Paik, “Sino-Russian Gas Breakthrough and the Implications towards Regional and Global Gas Trading” (Presentation, Harvard Kennedy School Workshop, held in Washington D.C., Washington, D.C., January 29, 2014). In 2010, total Asian consumption of natural gas equaled 19.2 tcf. “Global natural gas consumption doubled from 1980 to 2010,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, April 12, 2012, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=5810.
Not only did China prefer: Dunn, “Natural Gas Serves a Small, but Growing, Portion of China’s Total Energy Demand.”
China—intrigued by the 2011: U.S. Energy Information Administration, “World Shale Gas Resources: An Initial Assessment of 14 Regions Outside the United States” (Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of Energy, April 2011), 4, https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/worldshalegas/archive/2011/pdf/fullreport_2011.pdf.
Talk began of how the United States: Edward McAllister and Martin Roberts, “Analysis: U.S. LNG Exports a Real Possibility; Obstacles Remain,” Reuters, December 3, 2010, www.reuters.com/article/us-lng-usa-export-idUSTRE6B24TN20101203.
“Whether Gazprom slept through”: Stepan Kravchenko and Anna Shiryaevskaya, “Putin Dismisses Concern Gazprom ‘Slept Through’ Shale Gas Boom,” Bloomberg, April 25, 2013, www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-25/putin-dismisses-concern-gazprom-slept-through-shale-gas-boom.html.
This figure is lower than Russia: Although the final price of the gas remained shrouded in secrecy, most commentators believe China agreed to pay a price close to what Europe was paying for Russian gas at the time, leading to the valuation of $400bn. Author interviews in Moscow, Russia, May 2014.
He was quick to tweet: Louise Watt and Vladimir Isachenkov, “Gazprom Deal: China, Russia Natural Gas Pact Worth $400 Billion,” Huffington Post Business, May 21, 2014, www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/china-russia-gas-deal-gazprom_n_5364004.html.
Pushkov’s counterpart in Russia’s upper house: Associated Press, “China Signs Giant 30-Year Deal with Russia for Natural Gas,” Washington Times, May 21, 2014, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/21/china-signs-giant-30-year-deal-russia-natural-gas/?page=all.
One Washington commentator asked: Stephen Moore, “The Russia-China Pipeline,” National Review, May 22, 2014, www.nationalreview.com/article/378555/russia-china-pipeline-stephen-moore.
Others saw no occasion for levity: Quote found in Dina Gusovsky, “Should America Worry About a China-Russia Axis?” CNBC, October 22, 2014, http://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/22/should-america-worry-about-a-china-russia-axis.html.
One newspaper subsequently asked: Emma Graham-Harrison et al., “China and Russia: The World’s New Superpower Axis?,” Guardian, July 7, 2015, www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/07/china-russia-superpower-axis.
Predictions that “the US could find”: See, for example, Gordon G. Chang, “China and Russia: An Axis of Weak States,” World Affairs, March/April 2014, www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/china-and-russia-axis-weak-states.
Reinforcing this sense of a burgeoning: Carrie Gracie, “Brothers Again? How Deep Is the Xi-Putin Bromance?,” BBC News, April 24, 2015, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-32409409.
But the two countries were slow: See Philip Andrews-Speed and Roland Dannreuther, China, Oil, and Global Politics (London: Routledge, 2013), 119–22.
They finally settled most of their border: In 2009, China and Russia reached an agreement in which Russia would sell 300,000 barrels a day to China for twenty years in exchange for a $25 billion loan to Russian companies to develop oil fields and build pipelines to deliver this oil to China. A spur of the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline began delivering this oil in 2011.
In addition to the natural gas deals: Alexander Gabuev, “A ‘Soft Alliance’? Russia-China Relations After the Ukraine Crisis,” European Council on Foreign Relations, February, 2015, 4, www.ecfr.eu/page/-/ECFR126_-_A_Soft_Alliance_Russia-China_Relations_After_the_Ukraine_Crisis.pdf.
During President Xi’s 2015 visit: “China, Russia Call for Proper Settlements of Major International Issues,” Xinhuanet, May 9, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-05/09/c_134222910.htm.
Perhaps most significantly, China has stepped: In 2015, China Construction Bank Corp. pledged to provide as much as $25 billion as loan guarantees to struggling Russian companies. In 2016, the Bank of China agreed to a $2.2 billion, five year loan to Gazprom, the largest the company ever received from one bank. See Anna Baraulina, “Russia Wealth Fund to Team With China for $25 Billion of Lending,” Bloomberg, May 8, 2015, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-08/russia-wealth-fund-to-team-with-china-for-25-billion-of-lending; “Gazprom secures large loan from China,” Economist Intelligence Unit, March 3, 2016, http:/www.eiu.com/industry/article/1754001159/gazprom-secures-large-loan-from-china/2016-03-04.
The combination of continued sanctions: Morena Skalamera and Andreas Goldthau suggest that Russia’s shift to Asia has been reduced to a more strategically limited “pivot to China.” See Morena Skalamera and Andreas Goldthau, “Russia: Playing Hardball or Bidding Farewell to Europe?” (discussion paper 2016-03, Geopolitics of Energy Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, June 2016), 15–20, http://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/files/publication/Russia%20Hardball%20-%20Web%20Final.pdf.
Ambitious Russian plans to meet: Despite the slowing of LNG projects, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe more recently launched specific initiatives to forge closer economic ties with Russia. Abe has presented a package of business deals to Russia, with the understanding the Japanese companies will be more involved in infrastructure and energy development projects in Russia. One initiative was a $400 million loan from the state-owned Japan Bank for International Co-operation to Novatek to help develop the Yamal LNG project, despite the fact that Novatek is under sanctions. Abe and Putin have also engaged in sporadic discussions aimed at the settlement of a longstanding territorial dispute surrounding the Kuril Islands. See “Japan Strengthens Outreach to Russia,” Economist Intelligence Unit, September 13, 2016, http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1994605583&Country=Japan&topic=Politics. For the state of cooperation with South Korea, also see Younkyoo Kim, “The Impact of Low Oil Prices on South Korea,” National Bureau of Asian Research, May 14, 2015, www.nbr.org/research/activity.aspx?id=562.
The gas once expected to flow: Stuart Radnedge, “Gazprom is postponing construction of the Vladivostok LNG plant on the country’s Pacific Coast,” Gasworld, June 29, 2015, https://www.gasworld.com/vladivostok-lng-plant-construction-shelved/2007743.article.
Gazprom’s CEO, Alexei Miller: Ibid.
While Russia’s reliance on China: See Meghan L. O’Sullivan, “Asia: A Geopolitical Beneficiary of the New Energy Environment,” in Asia’s Energy Security Amid Global Market Change, Muhamad Izham Abd. Shukor et al. (Washington, D.C.: The National Bureau of Asian Research, December 2016), 22–24, http://nbr.org/publications/specialreport/pdf/Free/02172017/SR63_AsiasEnergySecurity_December2016.pdf.
Specifically, the new price environment: See “Russia-China Pipeline Plans in Crisis,” Economist Intelligence Unit, February 4, 2016.
Scholars from the U.K.-based International: Samuel Charap, John Drennan and Pierre Noël, “Russia and China: A New Model of Great-Power Relations,” Survival 59, no. 1, January 31, 2017.
But the fact remains that, if China: Author’s own calculations from various Chinese sources. Also see Christine Forster and Stephanie Wilson, “China’s lower gas demand leaves NOCs facing oversupply: WoodMac,” Platts, ed. Megan Gordon, June 10, 2015, https://www.platts.com/latest-news/naturalgas/sydney/chinas-lower-gas-demand-growth-leaves-nocs-facing-27495854; Shi Xunpeng, Hari Malamakkavu Padinjare Variam, and Jacqueline Tao, “Global impact of uncertainties in China’s gas market,” Energy Policy 104 (2017), http://www.australiachinarelations.org/sites/default/files/2017%20Shi%20Variam%20Tao%20China%20gas%20market%20uncertainties.pdf.
This dynamic will accentuate: Linking overseas finance with Chinese construction
companies is one of the ways in which the Chinese government hopes to address the overcapacity that has emerged as a result of the slowdown of China’s economy after decades of boom. See Bo Kong and Kevin P. Gallagher, “The Globalization of Chinese Energy Companies: The Role of State Finance,” (Global Economic Governance Initiative, Boston University, 2016), https://www.bu.edu/pardeeschool/files/2016/06/Globalization.Final_.pdf.
If China gets involved in constructing: Interestingly, China reportedly wanted to keep the Altai pipeline project alive, conditional upon holding an open tender and allowing Chinese companies to build the pipeline. Aleksandr Medvedev, the deputy director of Gazprom, rejected this proposal, stating that “we do not need Chinese men and equipment here, we never did and we never will.” “Russia-China Pipeline Plans in Crisis,” Economist Intelligence Unit, February 4, 2016.
Negotiations between the Turkmen: Andreas Heinrich and Heiko Pleines, eds., Export Pipelines from the CIS Region: Geopolitics, Securitization, and Political Decision-Making (Stuttgart: ibidem Press, 2014), 163–68.
After a tense 2009 summit between: Bruce Pannier, “Pipeline Explosion Raises Tensions Between Turkmenistan, Russia,” RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty, April 14, 2009, https://www.rferl.org/a/Pipeline_Explosion_Stokes_Tensions_Between_Turkmenistan_Russia/1608633.html.
An agreement was then struck: Isabel Gorst, “Russia welcomes end to Turkmen gas dispute,” Financial Times, December 23, 2009, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/20dfe82e-ef69-11de-86c4-00144feab49a.html?ft_site=falcon&desktop=true#axzz4nrjqySIQ.
The Russian-Turkmen gas trade resumed: Russian-Turkmen gas trade stopped once again in 2016. “UPDATE 2-Russia resumes Turkmen gas imports, slashes volumes,” Reuters, December 22, 2009, www.reuters.com/article/russia-turkmenistan-idUSLDE5BL0BX20091222; Catherine Putz, “Russia’s Gazprom Stops Buying Gas from Turkmenistan,” The Diplomat, January 6, 2016, thediplomat.com/2016/01/russias-gazprom-stops-buying-gas-from-turkmenistan/.
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