This project aims to bring together scholars specializing on Sino-Russian relations to address the current status of Sino-Russian relations in the political, military, energy and trade sectors. We aim at producing a comprehensive account on the current status of relations between Russia and China in the sectors outlined above and the geo-political realignments that have occurred in Eurasia in the last 2-3 years. This will be done by exploring overlapping interests and tensions between these two states. Apart from the purely bilateral relations, a focus will be on Central Asia as the region is a major determinant of contemporary Sino-Russian relations.
Although China's and Russia's role with regards to Iran and North Korea affect the bilateral relationship as well, it is mainly on the basis of events in the Central Asian theatre that China's and Russia's policies converge or clash. The importance of this to Western long term interests in the region should not be understated. This relates both to: the future ability of Europe, the U.S. and Japan to have a lasting influence in Central Asia. Secondly there is the need to get a nuanced understanding of how much substance and how much rhetoric is involved in contemporary Sino-Russian relations, and what to expect from this relationship in coming years. This is necessary in order to apprehend the resilience of this strategic partnership, and the implications that this may have for Russian and Chinese interests as well as for external actors.
Sino-Russian relations have swayed considerably in the 21st Century. During the Yeltsin era China-Russia relations were strong. Putin's accession to the Presidency in 2000 and his initial pro-Western policies strained these relations. Russia's involvement in the war on terror together with Russia's complicity in a U.S. military presence in Central Asia did not go down well in Beijing. Putin's domestic constituency found his swing into Washington's fold equally awkward. Putin's acceptance of NATO's expansion into the Baltics, permission given to the U.S.' withdrawal from the ABM-treaty, and quiet consent of American forces' presence in Georgia raised additional fears in the Duma, within Russian public opinion and to an extent among the Chinese.
From 2003-2004 Russian foreign policies started to orientate towards a more China-focused foreign policy. Instead of siding with the U.S. the Kremlin chose to shift its attention to a Russo-Chinese balance. This was primarily manifested within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) and its further institutionalization. The primary factor accounting for this sudden strategic shift by Moscow is most likely found in the simple fact that Russia gained no tangible benefits from the engagement with Washington, yet was forced to make numerous unbearable concessions. This was highly unpopular among public opinion, the Duma, the Defense Ministry and other ministries where Soviet nostalgia persists. The pressure exerted from these groups was one of the reasons Putin started to explore overlapping interests with China.
Today, China and Russia have settled most of their outstanding border disputes, are enjoying a booming bilateral trade, and have held the large-scale military exercises Peace Mission 2005 and Peace Mission 2007. Bilateral trade in 2007 topped $48 billion while a high-level mechanism devoted to bilateral security talks between Russia's Security Council and the Chinese Communist Party's Politburo has been formed.
Primary Researcher
Niklas Swanström
Collaboration Partner
Robert Bedeski
