Seen in historical perspective, Russia’s latest turn to the east is not new. “From the shores of the Pacific and the heights of the Himalayas, Russia will dominate not only the affairs of Asia but those of Europe as well.” The Russian statesman who wrote those words was not Vladimir Putin, as some might suspect, but Count Sergey Witte, Alexander III’s finance minister, in a memo to his monarch in 1893. Witte, the architect of Russia’s industrial revolution, launched the trans-Siberian Railroad, aimed at opening up the resources of the eastern two-thirds of Russia and giving Moscow the means to establish its presence as a great power in the Pacific.
以歷史的眼光來看，俄羅斯最近“戰(zhàn)略重心向東方轉移”并不新鮮。“從太平洋之濱到喜馬拉雅山之巔，俄羅斯不僅將主導亞洲的事務，還將主導歐洲的事務。” 這句話并非如一些人或許在懷疑的那樣、出自弗拉基米爾?普京(Vladimir Putin)之口，而是出自沙皇亞歷山大三世(Alexander III)的財政大臣謝爾蓋?維特伯爵(Count Sergey Witte)，1893年，他在給君主的奏折上寫下了這句話。維特是俄羅斯工業(yè)化革命的設計師，曾推動修建西伯利亞大鐵路(Trans-Siberian Railway)，以求開發(fā)俄羅斯東部三分之二國土蘊含的資源，并且讓莫斯科能夠確立俄羅斯作為太平洋大國的存在。