Mark Hong – författare

With the rise of India and China, the rest of Asia is feeling the great impact of socio-economic changes and challenges created by these twin engines of progress and cooperation. Currently, Russia's interaction with ASEAN is limited to dialogue between both parties, and trade between both sides is categorized by Russian arms sales and ASEAN raw materials. This book sets out to help explain these anomalies and puzzles, by examining the state of relations between Russia and selected individual ASEAN countries. Several interesting ideas are offered, such as a proposal for a Russia-ASEAN FTA; building tourism/business bridges through budget airlines; and proposals to strengthen and energize the ASEAN-Russia dialogue.

In an era of great changes and much uncertainty, such as the revival of an active Russia, buoyed by increasing energy wealth, a U.S. mired in Iraq and Afghanistan, rising China and India, as well as Japan moving towards normalization, ASEAN needs to closely monitor great power trends and thinking. On Russia-ASEAN relations, three authors offer their perspectives. Energy issues are scrutinized. The ongoing efforts to build an East Asian Community are analysed. At a time when Russia has an active profile in Southeast Asia with its arms sales to Indonesia and its nuclear technology assistance to Myanmar, this book offers useful and authoritative discourses on its relations with ASEAN, building on an earlier volume published by ISEAS.

This useful energy book, based on lectures delivered at the ISEAS Energy Forum, as well as papers written by invited experts, provides a means to access energy information. It is part of the ISEAS Energy books series which serves to educate and raise public awareness on energy issues.

In 2012, Russia assumes the Chairmanship of APEC, and is keen to build on its memberships of both East Asia Summit (EAS) and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). Russia is geographically and historically part of Asia and the Asia Pacific, and has been a dialogue partner of ASEAN since 1996. Still, the obstacles of distance and languages have led ASEAN member states and Russia to know and interact little between both sides. As growth poles in the world economy, there is much benefit in greater interaction between their rich economies. To commemorate the 15th Anniversary of the Russia-ASEAN dialogue partnership in 2011, the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS and its counterpart from MGIMO-University, Moscow co-organized a two-day conference that year, in which papers were presented offering perspectives from Russia and the ten ASEAN member states. Representatives from academia, and the public and private sectors offered insights on topics including geopolitics, bilateral relations, business and economics, and culture and education. This is a timely book that affords the reader insights into where ASEAN-Russia relations currently stand and suggests how they can improve and move forward.