Asianophile Russia.

[Gukpard]

This is quite a difficult thing to pull off since the closest we can realistically have to an asianophile Russia is Eurasianism from Lev Gumiliyov and the guy hated "degeneracy", but maybe someone can have better ideas for this scenario.

So, basically one of Russia most important debates in its history is if they are going to westernise, like people like Peter the Great or Medvedev tried, or if they are going to keep their own identity. This question is about a third way, of making Russia more integrated with Asia.

Basically the Russian far east is pretty underdeveloped based in what it could be, so maybe there could be a push in the 20th century in a non Soviet Russia to develop it by trading with Korea and Japan, leading to a rise of stuff like russian anime, Russian Dorama and maybe we could have RRock along with Jrock and K-pop. What do you think?

 

[Phalamus]

How about a white russian rump state in the east, backed by Japan or a stronger China and as such highly integrated with east asian economies, which later reunifies the country after the fall of communism?

 

[Screwhorn77]

Basically the Russian far east is pretty underdeveloped based in what it could be, so maybe there could be a push in the 20th century in a non Soviet Russia to develop it by trading with Korea and Japan, leading to a rise of stuff like russian anime, Russian Dorama and maybe we could have RRock along with Jrock and K-pop. What do you think?

This just circles back directly to westernization, in my view. Japan got to where it was partly by adapting a variety of Western achievements.

 

[HelloThere]

This is quite a difficult thing to pull off since the closest we can realistically have to an asianophile Russia is Eurasianism from Lev Gumiliyov and the guy hated "degeneracy", but maybe someone can have better ideas for this scenario.

So, basically one of Russia most important debates in its history is if they are going to westernise, like people like Peter the Great or Medvedev tried, or if they are going to keep their own identity. This question is about a third way, of making Russia more integrated with Asia.

Basically the Russian far east is pretty underdeveloped based in what it could be, so maybe there could be a push in the 20th century in a non Soviet Russia to develop it by trading with Korea and Japan, leading to a rise of stuff like russian anime, Russian Dorama and maybe we could have RRock along with Jrock and K-pop. What do you think?

That was more or less the scenario that many political observers expected from the Soviet Union in 1990: With the Warsaw Pact already practically non-existent, it was perceived that the Soviet Union would focus more on the Asian region. At that time there were two camps in the Soviet foreign ministry: one was looking for more cooperation with the West, the other wanted to turn to Asia.

Yevgeny Primakov was considered one of the "Asians" who wanted a Moscow-Delhi-Beijing axis. If it had prevailed, this would of course also have a stronger cultural impact on the Soviet Union becoming more 'Asian' in cultural matters.

 

[Orcbuster]

Problem us that the eastern reaches of russia has always been unimportant.

 

[nagachate]

Does the POD have to be post-1900? Becuse otherwise one scenario i thought of was if the 1792 Russian expedition to Japan was more successiful. The Japanese locals in Hokkaido were welcoming to the Russians who were there to return castaways, even the shogunal council decided that they shouldn't just expell the Russian ship. The problem of the expedition was the translator, named Tugolukov. Tugolukov made several mistakes, like use colloquial Japanese in formal letters, mispell the word "kubō" as "kubo" when reffering to Catherine II and the Shogun in the letter (the first means "lord", the second "dent", "hole", or the female genitalia, so the letter read as "the hole of my land greets the hole of your land"), spread misinformation to the other Russians that the Dutch were sabotaging the negotiations (when in reality the Dutch were barelly brought up by the Shogunal council) and most importantly, he mistranslated the "shinpai"(literally "trust card", a permission for an individual ship to dock in Nagasaki) as "treaty". The result of the latter was that the Russian captain thought that when he received a shinpai to enter Nagasaki, he was being invited to sign a treaty, which he did not had authorization from St Petersburg to do, so after all that he returned to Russia and left the Japanese waiting in Nagasaki. After that point relations with Japan declined quickly, in 1804 another expedition made the same mistake of mistaking commerce with diplomatic ties, which this time actually insulted the Japanese who refused to even let the Russians in. In response, the Russians raided several towns in the Kuriles, which in turn convinced Japan that Russians were just another barbaric people. The lowest point probably was the Golovnin Incident, when a Russian castaway was arrested by Japanese officials.

That's all to say, with a POD in the 1790s or earlier, Russia could become the only Western nation aside from the Netherlands to have good ties with Japan. Japanese trade in turn could help both the Far East of Russia to grow faster and feed the colonies in North America, and maybe this newfound importance can speed up the Trans-Sib railway's construction. Russia could all but replace the Netherlands as the main source of Western sciences later on when the Shogunate start trying to catch-up. Eventually other powers will force Japan to open up, and it might even be the United Kingdom due to suspicion of Russia. After that, as long as relations don't get drastically damaged, i think a long lasting Russo-Japanese friendship is possible, with all the cultural exchange that this brings.

 

[jlckansas]

The problem with Russia being Asianphile instead of Asianphobe is the fact that no one from the West has taken over or otherwise conquered Russia. Every successful invasion of Russia has come from the East, from the Mongols to the Russo Japanese war are the ones that have defeated them. This has lead to a national "Paranoia" and them not trusting them.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

I think that, had the east Asian states been open for business during the heyday of Russia's Siberian and Alaskan fur trade, then the Russian far east would be much more settled and developed. IOTL there was no local market to develop, and that more or less remained the case for a very long time. Periodic hostility from Japan, China closing itself off the the Soviets, and the DPRK even when it was economically well off was closer to a black hole for aid rather than a trade partner. By the time the cold war postures settled down Russia no longer had the demographics required to piggyback Asian trade to develop the far east.

Unironically, the USSR could benefit from a M-R equivalent with Japan. Simply because it would finally get the two trading.

 

[WotanArgead]

Basically the Russian far east is pretty underdeveloped based in what it could be, so maybe there could be a push in the 20th century in a non Soviet Russia to develop it by trading with Korea and Japan, leading to a rise of stuff like russian anime, Russian Dorama and maybe we could have RRock along with Jrock and K-pop. What do you think?

Speaking from the point of view of cultural influence, the OTL of the USSR was very close to this. In the eighties, there was already an "informal" culture of Hong Kong action fans. By that time, Asian-made productions had a very wide reach - such films as Legend of Dinosaurs & Monster Birds, Sanshiro Sugata, and Samurai Banners enjoyed success. The USSR has always been more focused on regions like Eastern Asia, India, and Europe - simply because American cinema was expensive.

In fact, in one Russian-language timeline, this process was implemented - Korea and Japan eventually moved to neutrality, and as a result, cooperation was established. Later it moved into a different phase. Here we had a small dispute - because there are no guarantees that Asian media will be in demand in the Central Asian republics. nevertheless, one can see the phenomenon of Q-Pop - that is, pop muhyks in Kazakhstan created in the Korean style. In the USSR, this process can go further. True, one interesting detail - the Minister of Cinematography was Kim Jong Il (For Kim Il Sung was overthrown, and his family fled to the USSR).