This seminar will examine Russia’s relations with the East Asian region. Russia’s recently declared “pivot” to the east is an indication of the growing importance Moscow attaches to its strategic, political, and economic interests in East Asia, particularly with respect to China, Japan, and South Korea. The seminar will examine the nature of those interests and Moscow's policies to realize those interests. A special feature of this seminar is that a small group of MIIS and Middlebury College students will be selected to take part in a fully funded field research trip to Vladivostok and Khabarovsk in March. The trip will include a series of meetings with: (1) professors, researchers, and students at the Far Eastern Federal University's School of Regional and International Studies in Vladivostok, as well as the Economic Research Institute, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Khabarovsk; (2) officials of the administrations of the Khabarovsk and Primorye regions; and (3) journalists and nongovernmental organization representatives in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. Upon return the students will write a research paper based on these meetings. The other students who are not selected to participate in the field research will also write a research paper on a topic approved by the instructor.