동북아 에너지 협력과 극동 러시아

Abstract

The Russian Far East (RFE) has various natural resources in abundance. This region, however, served as merely a supplier of natural resources for the entire nation in accordance with the central government’s political convenience, whereas for the past several years residents in the region have been suffering from economic difficulties as a result of excessive asymmetric industrial structure—overwhelming concentration on heavy industry and resource extracting industry. Since the early 1990s in the context of democratization and economic reform this region has been undergoing tremendous transformations. On the one hand, the RFE readjusted its relations with Moscow—from hierarchical to reciprocal relations. On the other hand, the RFE has been allowed to conduct cooperative relationship with neighboring foreign countries particularly in the Northeast Asian region on its own. In this way, the RFE is now entering into the era of “double integration.” Against this backdrop recently a variety of policy ideas and discussions about how to develop multilateral cooperative relations among the RFE and its neighboring Northeast Asian countries have actively transpired in the Northeast Asian region. Among other things, energy cooperation constitutes one of the most promising fields in multilateral cooperation. The project on developing natural gas in the East Siberian and Sakhalin gas fields has been drawing keen interest and attention among Northeast Asian countries including South Korea. This energy cooperation project is expected not only to provide those countries with mutual economic benefits, but also to promote peace in the region by reducing energy crisis in North Korea and thus contributing to the settlement of nuclear crisis in the latter in the near future. Furthermore, the energy project is conducive to helping Pyongyang to join the framework for multilateral Northeast Asian cooperation in a longer term.