The Siberian Factor in the Russian Foreign Policy: Economic Instruments and Geopolitical Games

Abstract

In this paper, we try to discuss how the Siberian part of the Russian territory can present advantages and disadvantages for Russian foreign policy. Situated in the center of the Eurasian geography, Siberia offers many economic opportunities and energy reserves as well as a strategic value for Russia, whose population and interests are mostly concentrated in the western provinces. Long considered as an isolated continent for exile for political dissidents, Siberia has become nowadays a center of the economic strategies of the Russian administration, in relation with its foreign policy perspectives. As an energy source for natural gas and oil and transit corridor toward China and Kazakhstan, Siberia is now supported through governmental policies of restructuration and labour migration. This new perspective can lead to a new policy of regionalism in connection with foreign policy interests. For the federal center, there is an unavoidable correlation between the domestic and foreign policy stakes with Siberia’s integration in world and regional politics.