Soviet Influence in East Asia and the Pacific in the Coming Decade: Part I

Abstract

In the years ahead, momentous decisions confront the Soviet Union with respect to its Asian-Pacific policies. Already, Soviet specialists on Asia, in and out of official positions, have been requested to re-examine Moscow’s Asian policies, exploring possible alternatives, especially in situations where matters have not gone well. Mikhail Gorbachev’s Vladivostok speech on 28 July 1986 is an indication of the first fruit of those efforts. How far innovations will go, how fully proposals will be translated into concrete agreements, remains to be seen. A major power always finds it difficult to execute bold new policies. Traditions accrue, weighing heavily not merely upon actions, but on the attitudes underwriting them. Bureaucracies in particular are uncomfortable with change. They do not want to tear down or even significantly alter the edifices they have so laboriously built and defended. And above all, the USSR is a bureaucratic polity. Thus, before effectuating genuine changes of policies, a leader must change officials, especially at the all-important middle levels where the ‘experts’ zealously defend their handiwork. Gorbachev recognizes this fact, as is illustrated by the personnel changes taken and in the offing. But it remains to be seen whether such changes will be sufficient to sustain fresh attitudes and policies.