Russia’s pivot to Asia: Rationale, progress, and prospects for oil and gas cooperation

This article explores Russia’s engagement with Northeast Asia (NEA) in the area of oil and gas and examines the sustainability of Russia’s energy policy vis-à-vis Asia. The study argues that: (1) Russia’s eastward shift is a pragmatic choice to escape the evolution of the EU’s energy-governance institutions to establish a uniformly regulated European energy market, which has become increasingly incompatible with Russia’s state-capitalism mode of energy governance (2) Russia’s region-specific (Eastern Siberia and Far East) and sector-specific (oil and gas) arrangements prove to be an expedient means to forge Russia’s energy ties with the geopolitically complex region of NEA (3) to succeed in the long-term, Russia needs to replace its reactive energy policy towards Asia with a proactive attitude vis-à-vis both the evolving individual energy policies of NEA countries and the ongoing institutionalization of the energy markets in the region as a whole.