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This article addresses Russia's role in the Asia-Pacific region and asks whether and how its conception of its role has changed. It is suggested that within Russia there is a re-evaluation of regionalism, underway in both academic and public spheres, which seeks to engage with 'Eurocentric' approaches to regionalism and, to some extent, challenge it -much of this remains at a discursive or rhetorical level. However, there is also evidence to show that Russia is attempting to diversify relations in the region away from China due to the overdependence of Russia's Far Eastern region on China in economic terms.This article examines Russia's role in the Asia-Pacific region (APR). It investigates whether Russia's conception of its role in the region has changed and, if so, how it has changed? The debate around emerging powers and how regional governance might inform global governance adds new significance to these questions. By tracking the trajectory of Russian academic and official thinking about regionalism in the Asia-Pacific context, this article sheds new light on this underexplored and poorly understood area of Russian foreign policy.Two questions have dominated Russian discourse vis-à-vis the region: Japan's role as a 'normal' military power, and China's emergence as a possible challenger to American hegemony. The 'return' of the United States (the so-called 'pivot') to the APR presents new challenges and raises further questions about the nature and future of regional structures there, particularly with respect to how to deal with a 'rising' China. While Russia is hardly unique in facing these questions, the growing urgency of the need to develop the Russian Far Eastern (RFE) okrug (region) makes engagement with the APR a significant issue for both domestic and foreign policy. The development of the RFE presents a range of interconnected issues: socio-economic and societal; geopolitical; geoeconomic; and environmental. The RFE -a region that once could remain insulated from outside pressures -now needs to be part of broader integrative processes to assure its future. The extent and nature of this integration has been a subject of discussion in Russia since the 1980s, but the future of the RFE has reached a critical juncture. Within Russia there is a re-evaluation of regionalism underway in both the academic and public spheres that seeks to engage with 'Eurocentric' approaches to regionalism and, to some extent, challenge them -much of this remains at a discursive or rhetorical level. However, there is also evidence that Russia is attempting to diversify relations in the region away from China due to the overdependence of the RFE on China in economic terms.Several government-sponsored expert reports, including those of the Council for Security

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This chapter examines the place of the Russian Far East in Moscow's security-policy deliberations. Analysing influences ranging from the deployment of Russian armed forces in the Far East to bilateral and multilateral engagements in the Asia-Pacific, and Russian-Chinese attempts at coordination in global politics, the authors find that factors local to the Russian Far East are particularly salient for understanding Russian security policy in the Asia-Pacific. The asymmetry between Russia's underdeveloped Far Eastern region and the populous and economically thriving countries of the Asia-Pacific region represents a significant vulnerability for Russia. Security concerns related to the social and economic underdevelopment of the Russian Far East have thus prevented the 'pivot' from being grounded in broad regional engagement.