Russia-China Relations in the Post-Crisis International Order

Marcin Kaczmarski

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780415787598
• eBook ISBN: 9781317634263
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The book explores developments in Russia-China relations in the aftermath of the global economic crisis, arguing that the crisis transformed their bilateral affairs, regional liaisons and, crucially, altered the roles both states play on the international arena. Discussing how Russo-Chinese cooperation has accelerated in energy trade, arms sales and in the Russian Far East, the focus is on how the still mutually advantageous relationship has become more asymmetric than ever, reflecting China's meteoric rise and Russia's decline. These dynamics are explored through three perspectives: domestic, regional and global. Domestically, the book traces the role of political coalitions and key interest groups involved in how the two states shape their reciprocal policies. Changes in the regional dimension are examined with particular reference to a new status quo emerging in Central Asia. The book concludes by explaining how the changing relationship is affecting the international order, including the balance of power vis-à-vis the United States as well as Russia and China's changing attitudes towards global governance.

1 Beyond the ‘strategic partnership' and the ‘axis of convenience’

DOI: 10.4324/9781315757803-1

It has been almost thirty years since Russia and China began to rebuild their relationship, which was shattered during the years of the Cold War. Mikhail Gorbachev reached out to China in his speeches in Vladivostok in 1986 and Krasnoyarsk in 1988, offering unilateral concessions that would ease tensions between the two rival states. Following his visit to Beijing in May 1989 the Soviet–Chinese normalisation, which coincided with the end of the global Soviet–US confrontation, gathered pace.¹ Contrary to expectations, the break-up of the Soviet Union did not slow down the reconciliation process and in fact facilitated co-operation. With Russia unable to uphold its superpower status, the states found themselves on a more equal footing, falling largely in the same category in the new unipolar international order. In 1994 the leaders of Russia and China, Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin, announced that their states had entered into a ‘constructive partnership’. This status was elevated only two years later to that of a ‘strategic partnership’.² Along with both governments’ mounting enthusiasm regarding their relationship, scepticism among scholars towards the idea of the strategic partnership increased. Bobo Lo gathered all the doubts together in his seminal book The Axis of Convenience (2008). The title alone encapsulated the tensions inherent in the relationship between Moscow and Beijing, implying the absence of a genuine breakthrough.

These two narratives – the optimistic vision of strategic partnership and the sceptical account summarised by the ‘axis of convenience’ – have organised academia’s understanding of post-Cold War Russia–China relations. They are, however, insufficient to explain the dynamics of the relationship in the aftermath of the 2008–9 global economic crisis. The strategic partnership suggests that both states remain equal, while the relations are characterised by an increasing asymmetry. On the other hand, breakthroughs in co-operation have transformed the relationship too much to be dismissed as ‘geopolitical convenience’. This chapter sets the scene to go beyond the two reference points. It looks at the historical backdrop of the relationship and its current international and domestic context. Following an overview of key developments between Moscow and Beijing since 2008 this chapter engages in depth with the two approaches to Russia–China relations: the strategic partnership and the axis of convenience. Arguing that neither allows for an adequate assessment of the post-global-crisis developments, this chapter proposes an alternative interpretation, along the lines of a peaceful power transition.

Changing historical asymmetries

History does not determine Russia–China relations but developments taking place in the wake of the global economic crisis need to be placed in historical context. When analysed from the long-term perspective, Russia–China relations have more often than not tended to be asymmetrical and unequal rather than equitable. One state has usually had significant leverage over the other.

The two great powers began to take each other into account in the mid seventeenth century. Russia under the new Romanov dynasty embarked upon the colonisation of Siberia and the Far East. China’s new Qing dynasty, in their endeavour to broaden influence in Asia, crossed over the Great Wall and united China with Manchuria (which constitutes the north-eastern part of today’s China).³ The 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, among the first documents concluded between Russia and China, was de facto the first concession made by the Tsarist Empire to the Middle Kingdom. The treaty envisioned Russia giving up parts of the territory it had conquered over the previous fifty years.⁴

By the mid nineteenth century Russia–China relations remained limited and developed at a slow pace. They met in Central Asia as well as the Far East. Once the Tsarist Empire adapted to the era of industrialisation in the 1850s, it managed to gain the upper hand over China and became capable of pushing its interests forward as well as shaping the agenda of the relationship according to its own vision. This Russian advantage over China persisted for the following century and a half, surviving the revolutionary changes both states experienced in the twentieth century. It turned out to be subject to change only after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

The era of Russia’s superiority opened with the Treaty of Aigun, concluded in 1858. It redrew the existing arrangements, handing over control of the territory north of the Amur river to Russia.⁵ A series of treaties followed, which were a poignant illustration of the growing weakness of China and its inability to resist Russian pressure.⁶ Russia expanded territorially in the Far East and Central Asia, but it also embarked upon a ‘colonial and economic infiltration’ of China itself.⁷ Safeguarding its parochial interests, Russia protected China from its major rival, Japan. In reaction to the Sino–Japanese war of 1894–5, Russia, along with France and Germany, forced Tokyo to ease the conditions for peace with China and provided loans for the Chinese government to repay reparations. The early twentieth century brought a sui generis strategic alliance between Russia and China. Geopolitically, it was directed at Japan. Economically, it handed Russia control of Manchuria. The Chinese Eastern Railroad, linking the Trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok through the north-eastern part of China, was the major economic project of that time. What added to its economic viability was Russia’s control of Chinese sea ports in the region, which Moscow secured in the early 1900s.⁸ Even despite the defeat in the 1904–5 war against Japan, Russia managed to maintain its influence in northern Manchuria and Outer Mongolia (current day Mongolia).⁹

Ground-breaking revolutionary changes in both states – the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911 following the toppling of the Qing dynasty, and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 – did not end Russia’s superiority in relations with China. After the fall of the Qing dynasty Russia prepared the ground for future independence of Outer Mongolia which, along with Central Asian Xinjiang, formed ‘buffer zones’, strengthening Russia’s advantage over China. In addition, following the Bolshevik Revolution Soviet Russia became engaged in China’s domestic politics. It forged ties with both the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and subsequently interfered in the Chinese civil war.¹⁰ Making certain concessions to the KMT, Soviet Russia retained its influence in Manchuria. It was only the Japanese aggression of 1931 that forced the USSR to change its policies towards China. Relations with the KMT and CCP became subordinated to the goal of reducing Japan’s threat to the Soviet Union.¹¹ This geopolitical landscape changed after the end of the Second World War and Japan’s unconditional surrender.

Ideological affinity and political-military alliance followed the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in China’s civil war in 1949, but neither of these removed the fundamental power and status asymmetry existing between the Soviet Union and the new Chinese state, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This asymmetry was the ultimate reason for the conflict that was to break out a decade and a half later, in the mid 1960s.¹² The major bone of contention, hidden behind the façade of communist newspeak, was the Soviet Union’s drive for superiority and its overarching objective to maintain global leadership in the communist camp. Moscow attempted to subordinate China in a way similar to its handling of the Eastern European states. The treaties concluded between the two states in the 1950s, including a bilateral military alliance, remained unequal, giving Moscow a series of privileges in China’s economy and politics.¹³ Even though after Stalin’s death the USSR made several concessions to China, it did nothing to improve Beijing’s perception and wariness of Soviet imperialism. As China’s potential grew, its aspirations to leadership in the communist world, particularly among developing states, increased. This put China on a collision course with the Soviet Union and turned out to be detrimental to the Sino–Soviet alliance. Increasing tensions in the 1960s developed into two decades of outright hostility, with the states regarding each other as a major threat to their security.¹⁴

Mikhail Gorbachev, who took the helm of Soviet foreign policy in 1985, paved the way for normalisation, but the Soviet Union continued to hold an advantage over China both in military and economic terms.¹⁵ Central Asia was part of the Soviet Union and until early 1989 Soviet armed forces occupied Afghanistan. Alliances with Mongolia, North Korea and Vietnam provided Moscow with additional leverage over Beijing in East Asia. In the global dimension China was still in the ranks of developing states, part of the so called Third World, which never made it to the superpowers’ club of the Cold War period despite its quasi-alignment with the US in the 1980s. Even the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the establishment of a new Russian state in the form of the Russian Federation did not initially remove the asymmetry between Moscow and Beijing. Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square clampdown China found itself in international semi-isolation and the future of the regime was far from certain. Meanwhile, Russia, under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, was perceived as a candidate for joining the West and becoming a strategic partner of the US.

Russia’s significant advantage over China faded away only in the mid 1990s. The failure of Russia’s transformation to a market economy stood in stark contrast to China’s successes in embracing key elements of capitalism. Moscow’s ‘shock therapy’ was unsuccessful, especially when juxtaposed with the gradual transition undertaken by the Chinese leadership.¹⁶ While its political and economic transition to liberal democracy and a market economy stalled, Russia grew increasingly disappointed with the West. Moscow became interested in making its policy less Western-centric and more multi-vector, and co-operation with China paved the way for a policy of this kind. China, for its part, advanced along the path of bold economic reforms. In its relations with the Western states it managed to overcome the most immediate consequences of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The gradual strengthening of China and simultaneous weakening of Russia has become a long-lasting trend, underpinning their relations and leading to the emergence of a rare symmetry between the two.¹⁷

The period was marked by the 1996 joint declaration of strategic partnership. Russia and China, in search of their place in the new unipolar, Western-dominated international order, linked their efforts. ‘Multipolarity’ became the major concept propping up co-operation between Moscow and Beijing. The opposition to US ‘hegemony’ and the defence of the primary role of the UN were the most important elements of a joint vision of international politics. Russia was principally interested in the political dimension of the relationship. China, more cautious with regard to international politics, sought primarily economic gains. Beijing seemed to be more attentive to stabilising its neighbourhood rather than opposing the US in the global dimension.

The arms trade formed the practical backbone of the new relationship. China received access to military technology that had previously been blocked by the Western embargo, which turned out to be the key factor in the modernisation of its armed forces. Russia managed to save its military-industrial complex. Both states engaged in the difficult management of joint interests in Central Asia. The rapprochement was confirmed with the 2001 treaty on good neighbourliness and friendly co-operation and the establishment of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation in the same year.¹⁸ Russia’s resurgence in the early 2000s, fuelled largely by high oil prices, managed to at least partially match China’s continuous rise. It sustained the impression of symmetry to the extent that observers usually placed Russia and China in the same category – among emerging and re-emerging great powers.

The context of the relationship

The late 2000s saw the beginnings of a new stage in Russia–China relations. The relationship did not only evolve – its settings also changed significantly. The single most important external factor influencing relations between Moscow and Beijing was the 2008–9 global economic crisis. It overlapped with a number of other developments taking place in the regional and global dimension and coincided with shifts on Russia’s and China’s domestic scenes, especially since both states underwent an official change in leadership. This section surveys the global, regional and domestic backdrop against which Russian–Chinese developments should be viewed.

The global economic crisis

The global context, in which Russia–China relations have been taking place in the period covered by this book, has evolved at a much faster pace than during the previous decade and a half. Until 2008 Moscow and Beijing developed their relations under the two forms of the US primacy in the international order. In the 1990s liberal internationalism prevailed, with the West’s position as a whole relatively unified. The 200...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Beyond the ‘strategic partnership’ and the ‘axis of convenience’
• 2 The domestic contexts of the Russia–China relationship
• 3 The bilateral breakthroughs
• 4 Russia–China relations in the wider neighbourhood
• 5 The role of the US in the Russia–China relationship
• 6 The changing global roles of Russia and China
• Conclusions: the Russia–China power transition in the making
• Index