Solutions to developing Russia - ASEAN relationship in the new international context

The globalization and regionalism trend now occurs strongly and exerts a lot of impacts on the orientation of foreign policy of the countries and the region including Russia and ASEAN. In the early 21^st century, Asia - Pacific region in general and ASEAN in particular is still the most dynamic region with many achievements in socioeconomic development and global cooperation relations as well as connections. ASEAN plays the key role in many global connections and attracts the attention from many big countries. In the early 21^st century, Russian Federation paid more attention to ASEAN in particular and Asia - Pacific region in general. This is shown clearly in the East orientation policy of Russian Federation. This policy is established in the principle of developing and consolidating comprehensively bilateral relations with other countries, combined with the active participation in the multilateral political and economic organizations in the region. The foreign policy of Russia for this region is confirmed to take advantage of the combination of internal interest and external interest in order to ensure national security as well as developing Russia in general and Siberia and Fast East of Russia in particular. On the other hand, big country role of Russia rises up, which makes ASEAN countries have more practical view. ASEAN still regards Russia as an important factor for peace and development in the world and there are a lot of potentials for them to develop future cooperation.

However, until now, Russia - ASEAN relationship has not matched with the potential and demand for cooperation of both sides. To promote this relationship to a new height, apart from bringing into full play potentials, removing obstacles in specific field, it is necessary to establish new mechanisms and frameworks to create favorable conditions for developing cooperation relationships. Getting aware of the importance in the above international relationship, in the 4^th quarter of 2009, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang Thuan (Institute for European Studies) acted as the chief editor for the book entitled: Solutions to developing Russia - ASEAN relationship in the new international context with a view to providing the readers with much intensive scientific information around the international relationship Russia - ASEAN such as analyzing and forecasting international and regional context, potential and development policy of Russia and ASEAN in key areas such as trade, investment, energy, military, science and technique, etc., achievements, present issues and their reasons, concurrently putting forth solutions to promoting this relationship in the above areas in order to carry out the master program on Russia - ASEAN cooperation development in the 2005-2015 period.

                                                                                                    Pham Vinh Ha