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

Russia is a useful partner for China because it supports China on all major foreign policy issues and does not interfere in China’s domestic affairs. While Chinese experts may privately express criticism of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, publicly officials have adopted a stance of neutrality. In return, Russia has not commented publicly on China’s activities in the South China Sea, although these actions have irked Russia’s other Asian partners, such as Vietnam. But Moscow has inveighed against the “internationalization” of the South China Sea disputes and has condemned US “freedom of navigation” activities in the area.

Ultimately, while the Kremlin seeks to overturn the US-led global order and promote a tripolar world order, Beijing prefers to reform the existing order to suit China’s economic and geostrategic interests, and it regards the United States as its only true global counterpart. Nevertheless, China’s support for Russia has enabled Moscow to avoid the international isolation that the United States and Europe sought to impose on it after the Crimean annexation. In this way, China has acted as a facilitator of Russia’s military activities in Ukraine and Syria, which have enabled Russia to raise its international profile and forced the West to resume dealing with Moscow. Despite potential Sino-Russian rivalries in Central Asia or the Arctic, a shared normative approach toward the international arena and suspicion of US intentions and policies will continue to bind the two countries together for the foreseeable future. But it will remain a relationship dominated by official contacts, with far less interaction between entrepreneurs and civil society than is the case for Russia and Europe. As one Russian explained:

In our relations with countries like Italy or Germany, there are lots of small-and medium-sized enterprises [that] have a presence here and employ many Russians. There is a multi-layered fabric of human contacts that has grown over years with cultural exchanges, mixed marriages. With China, we have very little of that. 67

This underscores the fact that Russia still defines its foreign policy with Europe and the United States as its main reference points. The men in the Kremlin understand the West better than they do China.

Another reality check against which to assess the rhetoric of close Chinese-Russian ties is to look at where the Chinese send their children to study. In 2017, there were upward of 350,000 Chinese university students in the United States, a fivefold increase in a decade, pouring $9 billion into the US economy. By contrast, there are 25,000 Chinese university students in all of Russia. 68Even fewer Russian students go to China—15,000—while 100,000 US students go to China and 900 go to Moscow. This shows clearly that the Chinese are highly pragmatic about where they can secure the best education for their children without this changing moderating political attitudes toward the US.

During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, candidate Donald Trump suggested that it was important for the United States to improve relations with Russia because closer US-Russia ties might induce Moscow to join Washington in pressuring Beijing to change its policies. In the Cold War years, “playing the China card” became a central aspect of the Nixon-Kissinger opening toward Beijing at the same time as Washington pursued détente with Moscow. In the strategic triangle of that era, the United States appeared to hold all the cards, because China and the Soviet Union feared—and even fought—each other, and both sought improved ties with the US as a hedge against each other. Today the balance of power in that strategic triangle has dramatically shifted, and China holds most of the cards. As a senior Chinese official put it, “Relations among China, Russia, and the United States currently resemble a scalene triangle, in which the greatest distance between the three points lies between Moscow and Washington. Within this triangle, Chinese-Russian relations are the most positive and stable.” 69

Ties with China have protected Russia from the full impact of Western sanctions and have provided it with continuing international legitimacy at a time when the West has sought to isolate it. Would Russia have acted differently in Ukraine or Syria had there been no Chinese alternative? It is, of course, impossible to answer that question, but Beijing has remained neutral as Russia has destabilized Ukraine and used military force to keep the Assad regime in power in Syria. In the age of Trump and the fraying of traditional alliances, the dynamics of Sino-Russian relations could change were the United States to intensify both its trade war with China and its nascent rapprochement with Russia. But Trump is more likely to continue to upend the international order than to consolidate a durable new partnership with either Russia or China.

China represents a key pillar of Putin’s world. It offers Russia a partnership with a rising power and reinforces both countries’ drive to create an alternative global order. But it is unlikely that the relationship will blossom into a full-fledged alliance any time soon. The sprawling Russian embassy in Beijing, with its historical roots going back to 1658, is a testimony to the longevity and significance of the relationship between Russia and China and its many changes. For now, the “elder” brother will continue to seek closer ties to his “younger” brother, even as the junior sibling surpasses him.

In the early morning hours, Tokyo’s bustling Tsukiji fish market—the largest in the world—comes to life. Workers careen around the vast aisles filled with tuna, salmon, and sea urchin in three-wheeled electric cars, sending spectators scuttling in all directions to avoid a collision. Visitors can watch the daily auctions and then repair to one of the unprepossessing-looking cafés in the outer market for an exquisite sushi breakfast of fresh fish. The 150-year-old SushiBun café, with its simple wooden benches and tables, has a skilled chef who serves up each new piece of sushi with a dramatic flourish. It also has a unique distinction. On its wall hangs a testimonial signed by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Lavrov likes to visit the café and sample different fish during his visits to Tokyo, which have become more frequent in recent years. But one of the key topics never changes. For more than seventy years, Russia and Japan have been trying to sign a peace treaty and normalize their relations, but they have not succeeded yet. World War Two has so far not ended for Tokyo and Moscow. Indeed, history plays a more important role in this relationship than in many other parts of Putin’s world, and both countries remain trapped in the past. The current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is determined to improve ties and has pushed for an accelerated negotiating schedule. So this gets Lavrov to the fish market more often now.