Анджела Стент - Putin's World - Russia Against the West and with the Rest

The reality is that once China has constructed these ambitious projects, it will inevitably become more involved in the security of the countries through which its highways, railways, and pipelines pass. The previous “division of labor” between Russia and China in Central Asia will change.

The countries of Central Asia have learned over the past twenty-five years to balance their ties with Russia and China and fine-tune their economic and political relations with both large neighbors. In general, they are more familiar with Russia than with China, given their centuries of shared history. Their elites still receive much of their news from state-run Russian television channels. They are less familiar with China, its language and its culture. Nevertheless, they need Chinese investment and trade. If China largely steps in to fill the wider vacuum left by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the closing of its military bases there, that might disturb the current balance and raise tensions in the area. But for now, China is careful to calibrate its activities in Central Asia so as not to arouse Russian concerns.

Ultimately, Russia, China, and the states of Central Asia share fundamental ideas of what stability in the region looks like and how to maintain it. They are a group of authoritarian states dedicated to maintaining themselves in power and to ensuring that no Islamist or color revolutions threaten their rule. Whereas they view with great suspicion any Western attempts to open up their societies, Central Asian elites welcome Russian and Chinese support of the status quo.

In its ongoing quest for sovereignty, Russia has been able to exercise influence internationally far beyond what its constrained capabilities would suggest. A major reason for this is its permanent seat—and veto—on the United Nations Security Council. China has been an enabler of Russian actions in places like Syria and Ukraine, reinforcing the exercise of Russian influence by coordinating its Security Council votes with Moscow on important international matters. Indeed, Russia’s and China’s support for each other has led them to derail a number of Western projects designed to bring humanitarian relief and punish those who promote ethnic violence. The major areas where they have supported each other—and often thwarted the West—are the Balkans, Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Both countries insist that the principles of sovereignty and noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries take precedence over Western concepts of humanitarian intervention—except, in the Russian case, when they apply to defending the rights of Russians living in post-Soviet states, such as Ukraine. Russia and China differ with the West on the interpretation of several of the foundational principles of the United Nations, such as the responsibility to protect and humanitarian intervention. Russia and China have worked together to block or modify resolutions that the United States, Britain, and France have proposed before they ever come up for a vote, so that they do not have to use the veto.

In the past decade, Russia and China have vetoed resolutions criticizing human rights violations by authoritarian leaders, such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Myanmar’s military junta. In the Zimbabwean case, they claimed that Mugabe’s actions did not threaten international security and they refused to support an arms embargo. They repeatedly vetoed resolutions that would have imposed penalties on the regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and its use of chemical weapons against its own people as the Syrian Civil War unfolded. However, China has been more cautious in votes on Ukraine, because it has reservations about Russia’s actions there. It abstained rather than rejected the General Assembly’s condemnation of the annexation of Crimea, and it left Russia alone to veto a Security Council resolution calling for the establishment of an international tribunal to investigate the 2014 downing of the MH-17 airline in the Donbas. Indeed, China maintains active political and economic ties to Ukraine. On other issues, they have coordinated their votes. China has usually followed Russia’s lead on issues involving Iran’s nuclear program, and Russia has followed China’s lead on issues involving North Korea’s nuclear program.

Sino-Russian cooperation in the United Nations is a manifestation of a broader commitment to reject an international order imposed by the West. But what does a new order look like? The breakdown of Russia’s relations with the United States and Europe following the annexation of Crimea provides some indications.

Since the March 2014 annexation of Crimea and the deterioration of Russia’s ties with the West, Putin has consistently praised the Russia-China partnership, implying that it is a preferable alternative to the vexed relationship with the United States and Europe. China has not publicly criticized Russia’s policy in Ukraine, and its vice premier has said, “China categorically opposes the sanctions the United States and Western countries have taken against Russia.” 60Although China has not sanctioned Russia, it has been careful not to take actions that contravene those sanctions, especially in the financial field. The Bank of China has given Gazprom a loan of $2 billion, and two development banks have provided some loans to Russia. But the big four Chinese banks have complied with Western sanctions. Given the choice between increasing their presence in the high-risk Russian market and the opportunity to strengthen their position in the large and stable markets of the EU and the United States, China has opted for the latter. 61Russian business people have been disappointed by China’s cautious approach to investing in their country. As one of Russia’s most successful entrepreneurs said, “There was a certain level of optimism regarding Chinese companies. It was thought they were coming to the Russian market to spend big money. But the Chinese turned out to be very rational and very good businesspeople, so they wouldn’t give money away for nothing.” 62

Some Western officials express concern that the China-Russia relationship has entered a qualitatively new stage, one that poses a potential political and military threat to the West. 63Has the axis of convenience evolved into a genuine alliance? The evidence is decidedly mixed because of the asymmetry in the stakes. As Bobo Lo, author of the axis-of-convenience argument, subsequently wrote, “Beijing and Moscow work together in many areas, challenging US leadership, opposing Western liberal interventionism, and developing economic ties. But progress has been incremental rather than transformative.” 64Nevertheless, Sino-Russian military cooperation has markedly increased. In 2018, 3,500 Chinese troops took part for the first time in Russia’s “Vostok” (Eastern) military exercise of 300,000 troops, the largest Russian military exercise since 1981. 65Earlier, a Chinese official had said that China “has come to show Americans the close ties between the armed forces of China and Russia.” 66

China remains wary of the unpredictability of Russian foreign policy. It does not share Putin’s view of Russia as a global power equal to the United States or China. For Russia, however, the partnership with China represents a geopolitical equalizer, counterbalancing the predominant power of the United States. This disparity in the two countries’ views of each other limits the nature of their embrace.

China has become the focus of Russia’s post-Ukraine, anti-Western policy. This partnership is designed to reinforce Russia’s role as an independent center of global power, one of Putin’s key foreign policy goals. It is also intended to confer success by association from a rising China to a Russia experiencing serious economic problems. China’s support for Russia has served to legitimize Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and Syria. China also offers a geo-economic alternative to Europe both as a trading partner and an energy consumer. The two leaders appear to enjoy a close working relationship, enhanced by a mutual aversion to domestic dissent and to Western attempts to promote democracy and human rights, which could undermine their rule. But Russia’s strategic dependence on China is much greater than China’s is on Russia, and although they both reject the current global order, they do not agree on what a future world order should look like.