Russia and Multilateral Diplomacy in East Asia

... initiatives do not seem to be as ambitious as China’s Belt and Road Initiative , they do already have an advantage over it - they are not Chinese. In today’s climate of growing fears of debt trapping and Chinese ‘sharp power’ this gives a measure of hope to U.S. and Japanese infrastructural investors aiming at Southeast Asian and Eurasian markets. All this creates challenges for the relevance of multilateral institutions in Asia. When the Quad re-emerged November 2017, the news caused concern in Southeast Asian countries: ...