Obstacles and Opportunities for Economic Engagement between Australia and the Russian Federation

Abstract

My presentation on contemporary Australia-Russia economic relations is divided into two sections. The first focuses on geo-economics, which looks at both countries current trade and foreign investment priorities, including the implications of China’s monumental One Belt One Road project (OBOR), in which Russia has often been characterised as an integral player. Its primary focus is on the issue that in addition to its cultivation of closer links with a rising China, Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’ has included the pursuit and gradual consolidation of wider trade and institutional initiatives across the Asia- Pacific, in which Australia’s involvement has been marginal. The second and interrelated section considers Australia’s response, drawing on the debates about the commonalities and differences between Russia’s and Australia’s approaches to Asia’s economic resurgence. It also looks at the issue of the current dominance in Australian political arenas of suspicion and a ready condemnation of the governance of post-Soviet Russia. Show more