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Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
Sprache: Englisch

Beschreibung

With many predicting the end of US hegemony, Russia and China's growing cooperation in a number of key strategic areas looks set to have a major impact on global power dynamics. But what lies behind this Sino-Russian rapprochement? Is it simply the result of deteriorated Russo-US and Sino-US relations or does it date back to a more fundamental alignment of interests after the Cold War? In this book Alexander Lukin answers these questions, offering a deeply informed and nuanced assessment of Russia and China's ever-closer ties. Tracing the evolution of this partnership from the 1990s to the present day, he shows how economic and geopolitical interests drove the two countries together in spite of political and cultural differences. Key areas of cooperation and possible conflict are explored, from bilateral trade and investment to immigration and security. Ultimately, Lukin argues that China and Russia's strategic partnership is part of a growing system of cooperation in the non-Western world, which has also seen the emergence of a new political community: Greater Eurasia. His vision of the new China-Russia rapprochement will be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding this evolving partnership and the way in which it is altering the contemporary geopolitical landscape.

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Seitenzahl: 462

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

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Leseprobe

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Preface

Notes

Acknowledgments

1 Russia, China, and the Changing International System

The West

Russia

China

Disagreements Come to the Surface

Other Centers of Power and Their Associations

Consolidation of Non-Western Centers

Post-Bipolar System

Notes

2 Russia in the Eyes of China

The Fate of the “Elder Brother”

Towards Strategic Partnership

Changes in the Chinese Approach to Russia under Putin

The Current Chinese View of Relations with Russia

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Central Asia

Korea

Alternative Views

Conclusions

Notes

3 Russia’s Pivot to Asia or Just China? Russian Views of Relations with China

Russia’s Pivot to Asia

Russia’s Views on China in the 1990s

A Multipolar World

The View of China in Putin’s Russia

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization

The Ukrainian Crisis and Russian Approach towards Relations with China

Conclusions: Reasons for Rapprochement with China, a Russian View

Notes

4 From Normalization to Strategic Partnership

Russian-Chinese Relations under Yeltsin

Putin Becomes President

The Treaty of 2001

9/11 Attacks and Their Impact

Arab Revolutions

Russia and China in Central Asia and the SCO

Conclusion

Notes

5 The Strategic Partnership Matures: Multidimensional Cooperation

Strategic Partnership System

Practical Cooperation

Trade and Economic Cooperation

Investment Cooperation

Energy Cooperation

Cooperation in Science and Technology

Arms Trade

Military Cooperation

Korea

Cooperation in Culture, Education, and Sports

Chinese Demographic Expansion Myth

Myth of the Russian-Chinese Struggle for Influence in Central Asia

Real Areas of Potential Disagreement

Notes

Conclusion: Beyond Strategic Partnership? Managing Relations in an Insecure World

The Impact of the Ukrainian Crisis

Asia – Not Only China

Russian-Chinese Cooperation and the Emergence of Greater Eurasia

Donald Trump and the Future of Russian-Chinese Relations

Notes

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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China and Russia

The New Rapprochement

Alexander Lukin

polity

The right of Alexander Lukin to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2018 by Polity Press

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press101 Station LandingSuite 300Medford, MA 02155, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2174-6

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexander Lukin is a Russian political scientist and international relations expert. He currently works as the Head of Department of International Relations at National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. He received his first degree from Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1984, a DPhil in Politics from Oxford University in 1997, a doctorate in history from the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow in 2007, and a degree in theology from St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University in 2013. He has worked at the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Soviet Embassy to the People’s Republic of China, and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. From 1990 to 1993, he served as an elected deputy of the Moscow City Soviet (Council), where he chaired the Subcommittee for Interregional Relations. His books include The Political Culture of the Russian Democrats (2000), The Bear Watches the Dragon: Russia’s Perceptions of China and the Evolution of Russian-Chinese Relations since the Eighteenth Century (2003), and Pivot to Asia: Russia’s Foreign Policy Enters the 21st Century (2016), and he has published numerous articles and policy papers on Russian and Chinese politics. He edited and contributed to the major Russian work on Russian-Chinese relations, Russia and China: Four Hundred Years of Interaction (Moscow, 2013), and is an Honorary Researcher of Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences. He was a visiting fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University from 1997 to 1998. From 2000 to 2001, he worked as a research fellow at the Center for Northeast Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. Alexander Lukin has also worked as the Director of the Center for East Asian and Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, as Chair Professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, and as Distinguished Professor at Northwest University, Xian, China. He serves on the editorial boards of Asian Politics and Policy, International Problems (Belgrade), and The ASAN Forum (Seoul). In 2009 he was awarded a medal for Outstanding Contribution to the Development of Sino-Russian Relations, by China’s leader Hu Jintao, and in 2012 a medal on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization for his contribution to its formation and development.

PREFACE

This book is an attempt to acquaint the English-speaking audience with the realities of relations between Russia and China as Russian and Chinese observers understand them. It argues that the current Russian-Chinese rapprochement is the natural outcome of developments in international relations in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the major non-Western states began working together to create a counterweight to the preponderant influence of the West and its desire to build a unipolar world. The Russian-Chinese rapprochement stems from the fact that the leadership and elite of both countries share similar views on the geopolitical situation in the world, the main trends and dangers that exist, and the favorable prospects for those relations to develop and find expression in the emergence of a multipolar world.

There is no lack of English-language literature on Russian-Chinese relations after the collapse of the Soviet Union. An interested reader can find a lot of valuable material for various periods in their development in several informative academic works, such as the studies by Elizabeth Wishnick, Jeanne Wilson, Natasha Kuhrt, Gilbert Rozman, and Marcin Kaczmarski, among others. However, there are some general traits that differentiate these works from Russian or Chinese studies.1

Several approaches to Russian-Chinese rapprochement can be found in the English-language literature on the subject. Most obviously, there is a lot more skepticism about various aspects of Russian-Chinese strategic partnership. Some observers claim that this rapprochement is fragile, even ephemeral. They point to various problems that arise between the two countries and suggest that, while outwardly in agreement, Moscow and Beijing actually pursue different interests and distrust each other.

Bobo Lo’s idea of an “axis of convenience” is the most striking here. It suggests that “Their partnership is an axis of convenience, driven by a pragmatic appreciation of the benefits of cooperation rather than a deeper like-mindedness,” while “strategic trust remains elusive.” At the same time, Bobo Lo states:

Moscow worries about China’s growing assertiveness in East Asia, the displacement of Russian influence from Central Asia, and the emergence of a China-centered or G-2 world in which Russia would play a subordinate role. It is also anxious about the growing asymmetry of the bilateral relationship, and the extent to which Russia now depends on China, both within Asia and in the international system more generally.

In addition, “Moscow and Beijing diverge fundamentally over how an eventual ‘new world order’ might look. Whereas Putin envisages a tripolar order based on the interaction between the United States, China, and Russia, the Chinese see the Americans as their only true global counterpart.”2 According to a more recent study by John Watts, Sofia Ledberg, and Kjell Engelbrekt, the Russian-Chinese “still frayed defence and security relationship … remains a relationship based on convenience and only partially converging interests in the critical areas of military technology and defence posture, ultimately reflecting a long-standing strategic rivalry that will not be easily overcome.”3

Lo mitigates his approach somewhat in later work, probably bowing to the obvious fact that Russia and China have stepped up their cooperation. He writes, “the two sides agree on much, not least the undesirability of a ‘hegemonistic’ United States,” and mentions that bilateral relations have deepened considerably. In describing the history of those relations, he offers a detailed description of “how Beijing and Moscow have moved their relationship from one of cold confrontation in the 1980s to today’s ‘comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination.’” He concludes, however, that the condition of those relations “remains essentially what it has been for much of the past two decades,” calling them a “partnership of convenience” and essentially asymmetric.4 On the whole, this creates an impression of internal inconsistency, of someone who is reluctant to abandon his hypothesis in the face of a growing body of contradictory evidence.

Some “asymmetry” supporters acknowledge the reality of rapprochement and the fact that the leaders of both countries sincerely desire it. However, they argue that the growing economic imbalance in those relations is a sign of Russia’s dependence on China.5 Marcin Kaczmarski provides a typical example of this approach with his book Russia–China Relations in the Post-Crisis International Order (2015), in which he refers to the fall of Russia and the rise of China as the main features of their bilateral relations.

Finally, supporters of a third approach argue that the rapprochement is based on an understanding of common interests, common identity, shared views on the international situation, and similar foreign policy thinking.

This study offers a different approach than the one taken by the “skeptics,” whose arguments are (often) out of sync with Chinese and Russian sources. In fact, according to the official Russian position, “International relations are in the process of transition, the essence of which is the creation of a polycentric system of international relations.” This is how the Foreign Policy Concept adopted in 2013 describes it.6 President Putin has never spoken in favor of a tripolar world nor expressed any expectation that one would emerge. China also envisages a multipolar world in the future. As Chinese leader Xi Jinping said when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly on September 28, 2015, “The movement toward a multi-polar world, and the rise of emerging markets and developing countries have become an irresistible trend of history.”7 That general position is enshrined in numerous bilateral documents, including the Russian-Chinese Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World adopted in 1997. Bobo Lo offers no evidence to back up his claim that Putin “envisages a tripolar order.”

The supporters of asymmetry generally draw better-grounded conclusions, but even many of those are doubtful. First, in speaking of China’s overwhelming might, they refer primarily to the Chinese economy, which has indeed significantly surpassed the Russian economy. However, Russia continues to outstrip China in terms of military might and global political influence (not least because Beijing is in no hurry to translate its economic might into costly foreign policy and military actions). Thus, it is premature to speak of China’s overall superiority or of any broad asymmetry.

It is difficult to predict how the future will unfold for either country. History provides examples of rapidly developing countries – such as Japan – that were predicted to become the world’s leading economy,8 but instead fell into periods of prolonged stagnation. There are also cases of countries, such as China, that found the strength to break out of economic stagnation to achieve long-term growth. Of course, the simplest approach is extrapolate from current trends, but such predictions are often flawed.

However, even in the event that the current tendency persists and the overall power of China significantly surpasses that of Russia, it will not necessarily mean that Russia should be worried. All China threat theories are based on a West-centric assumption that China (just like Russia) is politically so different from peace-loving democratic Western countries that it strives for domination and aggression by its very nature. Meanwhile, one rarely hears that the much weaker Canada should be wary of the United States, or Belgium of France. The reason is that these countries share basic values and a worldview; they see each other as valuable partners and do not need to fear each other. It is true that in these pairs the strongest state is generally more influential, but that does not mean that the other should be wary of it. This book attempts to show that Russia and China are consistently moving toward a similar closeness (although their common vision differs significantly from that of the US and its allies). And if and when this goal is reached, the last mutual fears will be allayed.

The downside of the English-language material on Russian-Chinese relations stems from several problems common to many authors. First, many works do not draw on enough Russian and Chinese sources, particularly those available only in their native languages – and a number of works cite no such sources whatsoever.9 Other works, while citing a variety of English-language sources, tend to include either exclusively Russian-language or exclusively Chineselanguage sources – most often the former.10 In some cases, that creates an impression of one-sidedness and makes it difficult to understand the motives of the other side. For example, the failure to draw on Chinese analytical literature referring to the importance of relations with Russia might have led Kaczmarski to see asymmetry in their relations and to conclude that a supposedly weakened Russia was more interested in those ties than an increasingly powerful China. In addition, the lack of awareness demonstrated by the English-language literature of the motivations of the two sides at times reduces it to a source of only secondary importance for Russian and Chinese researchers, who have often long since discussed and resolved the very issues in question.

Second, such explanations often miss the mark due to the widespread desire of international relations specialists to pigeonhole Russian-Chinese rapprochement and bilateral relations as a whole according to a particular international relations theory.11

Third, when writing about Russian and Chinese motives and actions, such authors often fail to discriminate between the official and dominant views that both reflect and determine countries’ foreign policies, and the unofficial and even marginal opinions that have little influence on official policy. Thus, some authors often seek to validate their views by citing individual Chinese experts whose opinions they claim represent the official position of the country and its leaders.12 After all, when they write “China” or “the Chinese,” the reader naturally understands that to mean the official, or at least widely accepted position of the country. For example, in support of the suggestion that the Chinese are seeking bipolarity, Lo cites the opinion of Tsinghua University scholar Yan Xuetong, an expert whose views in no way reflect the official Chinese position. To the contrary, Yan Xuetong is known for advocating a Chinese-Russian alliance – the necessity for which both Russian and Chinese officials consistently reject.

In fact, some Russian researchers do express concern about Beijing’s growing might and the possibility of Russia becoming dependent on China. However, they generally represent radical pro-Western or extremely nationalistic groups – neither of which reflects the general opinion of the expert community, much less the official Russian position enshrined in numerous documents. As for Lo’s contention that China views Russia as a country in decline which cannot, therefore, serve as an equal partner, some individual Chinese experts do indeed hold this opinion and we will examine it later in this book. At the same time, some Chinese experts advocate the opposite position – arguing, for example, that China should establish a formal anti-Western alliance with Russia. However, neither reflects the official position, which is that China advocates forming an equal partnership with Russia.

Fourth, many authors – and particularly those in the press – clearly let political objectives color their interpretation of the results of analyses. In this area, it is often difficult to distinguish between strictly scientific research aimed at objective analysis, and “policy papers” written to pressure politicians into taking particular actions. This sometimes leads to a very serious bias.

Those who argue that Russia should orient itself toward the West, including commentators in the West, claim that Russian-Chinese rapprochement could turn Russia into a “satellite” or “raw materials appendage” of a more powerful and aggressive China.13 However, when Moscow had a similar relationship to the far more aggressive West, they said that Russia was “entering the world economy” and joining the “civilized world.” At the same time, when the West and China take almost identical actions in Russia, Western analysts interpret them differently. For example, when Western investors purchase large portions of state-controlled Russian mining companies and deposits, those analysts refer to it as profitable investments and successful privatization, but when Chinese corporations do the same thing, they portray it as an attempt to gain possession of strategic Russian reserves and as economic expansionism.

By contrast, those who advocate confrontation with the West write that Russia must inevitably form an alliance with China to put it in a stronger position to pursue an independent course.14 This approach gives inadequate attention to China itself, thereby avoiding possible diversion from their main goal of creating a simplified bipolar world. In fact, both approaches are informed more by ideological preferences than by meaningful analyses of the actual situation.

There are, however, some commentators, who, while criticizing both Russia’s and China’s regimes, call for one country to be used against the other. Some claim that “the West can find more common ground with China, which benefits from stability, than with Russia, which benefits from disruption.”15

A different group of Western analysts calls for aligning with Russia in opposition to China, the country they feel poses the greater long-term danger.16 These analysts often try to prove that China, and not the West, poses the greater threat to Russia. They claim that the West’s actions, including the expansion of its military infrastructure to Russia’s borders and its anti-Russian sanctions, not only pose no threat to Russia, but actually benefit it. At the same time, they allege that China is hatching plans for world domination, the seizure of Russian territories, demographic expansion, and to force its northern neighbor into economic submission.17

Bobo Lo, for example, describes his political goals very clearly. He criticizes “voices suggesting that the West should ease up on Putin, claiming that sanctions … have driven Russia into China’s arms,” as well as those who argue “that China, not Russia, is the main threat.”18 The logical recommendation based on these thoughts would be the continuation of a course of simultaneously confronting Russia and China that is anathema to the approach of the traditional “realists” – Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and even Zbigniew Brzezinski – that attempted to tear China away from the Soviet Union as part of the “triangle” and use one against the other.

Thus, although the arguments Bobo Lo puts forward seem sound, in reality they differ little from the baseless claims made by Constantine Menges who, without citing a single official document or source, stated that China has some sort of “stealthy strategy toward global dominance” that includes plans to use Russia and its Far Eastern regions as a tool.19 He suggests countering that strategy by supporting “democratic” (meaning pro-US) forces in both countries – a tactic that would undoubtedly drive Moscow and Beijing even closer together.

The views of those analysts who hold that Russian-Chinese rapprochement is based on the similarity of their views of the outside world, or what Gilbert Rozman refers to as their “parallel identities,” is much more grounded in reality.20 It is not by accident that most of them are well read in both Russian and Chinese language sources. Unlike Bobo Lo, no one can accuse Rozman of not being familiar with official documents or of not knowing which views reflect the official position and which are marginal. He has devoted his entire career to studying the positions that the East Asian ruling elites take toward the outside world and neighboring countries. According to Rozman,

China’s rhetoric in support of Putin’s actions in Ukraine and Russia’s rhetoric endorsing Xi’s thinking about East Asia is not a coincidence. Rather, it is a feature of a new, post–Cold War geopolitical order. As long as the current political elites in China and Russia hold on to power, there is no reason to expect a major shift in either country’s national identity or in the Sino-Russian relationship. Countries hoping to create a divide between the two – including Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – are bound to be disappointed.21

Jacob Stokes expresses a similar opinion: “A shared political vision for world order provides the foundation for Chinese-Russian cooperation. It is defined primarily by the desire to see an end to US primacy, to be replaced by multipolarity.”22

Despite these authors’ occasional ill-founded assessment, this conclusion is sound. Their problem lies elsewhere. In arguing that Russian-Chinese rapprochement threatens the world order they refer not to the relationship that exists in reality, but to the one that, in their opinion, should take shape following “the end of history” – a world order in which the US and its allies dominate and the values and views of their ruling elite hold sway. The new level of cooperation between Russia and China really does threaten that order. Or, more exactly, the attempt by the West to build such a world order contributed to the current Russian-Chinese rapprochement, which in turn made it impossible for the “end of history” scenario to play out as anticipated.

This, however, does not mean that China and Russia will necessarily clash with the US, as Michael Levin predicted about a decade ago.23 What’s more, not only does Russian-Chinese rapprochement in no way threaten the multipolar world order that is actually emerging, it actually serves as one of its major pillars.

In any case, a number of US and European authors consider the foundation of Russian-Chinese rapprochement to be the increasing similarity of their approaches to the outside world. John Garver argues that the formation of a strategic partnership with the new Russia Federation “was a major element of Beijing’s response to the ‘extremely unbalanced’ international system that emerged after the Cold War.”24 Interpreting it as a result of the two countries’ dissatisfaction with that system, he even calls their coming together a “Far Eastern Rapallo” and supports his analysis with texts of numerous bilateral documents. Elizabeth Wishnick maintains that “because of normative affinities, this has always been a partnership of consequence, rather than a tactical arrangement. Sharing norms does not imply holding identical positions on all issues; rather, Russia and China share a common perception of Western pressure on their domestic choices and constraint on their freedom of manoeuvre globally.”25

Such conclusions much more accurately reflect the reality of Russian-Chinese rapprochement, but their authors are not at the center of political debate and have no significant impact on US and European foreign policy. Moreover, their research often fails to take a systematic or consistent approach to ascertaining the causes of Russian-Chinese rapprochement.

This book is an attempt to fill some gaps in English-language studies of Russian-Chinese rapprochement. The author did not aim at defining Russian-Chinese relations from the point of view of an International Relations theory, but concentrated more on explaining the realities on the ground by changing perceptions of the bilateral relationship and international relations in general of the leaders and elites in the two countries. The study looks at the process by moving from the general to the particular. Examining the general, global changes in the international system – that is, its gradual evolution from a bipolar to a multipolar model – the author observes that these changes have led to significant changes in the way Russia and China view the outside world and to relations between their political elites. It was these changes – driven by attempts by the United States and the European Union to preserve the unipolar order that emerged briefly after the collapse of the Soviet Union – that contributed to a growing rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing. Having gained its own logic and momentum, that movement has had a significant impact on the global order and has led to the creation of a system of cooperation in the non-Western world. This is seen in the creation and rising influence of such organizations and groups as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and in the emergence of a new non-Western community: Greater Eurasia. This process, in turn, is increasingly driving the international system toward a multipolar (polycentric) world.

The aims of this book have determined its structure. The first chapter examines the evolution of Russian and Chinese foreign policy concepts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries as a factor in their development as independent centers of world politics. The second and third chapters show the evolution of the approaches taken by their respective political elites, both toward each other and in bilateral relations with others – demonstrating at the same time the gradual convergence of their views of the world and their growing understanding of the need for rapprochement. The book gives particular attention to indicating which views and approaches in each country belong to the mainstream and define foreign policy, and which are of only marginal significance. The fourth chapter presents official bilateral documents and describes expanding spheres of Russian-Chinese cooperation on the world stage in order to illustrate the growing convergence of their approaches. The fifth and final chapter discusses the impact of Russian-Chinese rapprochement on the world system and prospects for its development.

Realizing that many analysts who write about Russian-Chinese relations take an ideology-based approach, this author strives for maximum objectivity. Of course, it is difficult to achieve absolute objectivity in the social sciences because every researcher holds certain convictions that influence his or her findings.

Writing over a century ago, Max Weber complained that the development of social sciences “was not, however, accompanied by a formulation of the logical distinction between ‘empirical knowledge,’ i.e., knowledge of what ‘is,’ and ‘normative knowledge,’ i.e., knowledge of what ‘should be.’”26 Things have not changed much since that time.

Nonetheless, taking a cue from Weber and claiming that this study achieves a degree of scientific precision, the author takes pains to point out where he attempts to describe “what is” with respect to Russia and other countries, and where, by contrast, he makes a personal call for what “should be.” Although the latter has a place in any discussion of policy, it has no place at all in objective academic inquiry. With this as our guide, we hereby attempt to present this study of Russian-Chinese rapprochement.

Notes

Elizabeth Wishnick,

Mending Fences: The Evolution of Moscow’s China Policy from Brezhnev to Yeltsin

(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001); Jeanne L. Wilson,

Strategic Partners: Russian-Chinese Relations in the Post-Soviet Era

(Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004); Natasha Kuhrt,

Russian Policy towards China and Japan

The El’tsin and Putin Periods

(Abingdon: Routledge, 2007); Gilbert Rozman,

The Sino-Russian Challenge to World Order: National Identities, Bilateral Relations and East versus West in the 2010s

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014); Marcin Kaczmarski,

Russia–China Relations in the Post-Crisis International Order

(New York: Routledge, 2015).

Bobo Lo, “Sino-Russian Relations,” Europe China Research and Advice Network (ECRAN), Short Term Policy Brief 87, May 2014, p. 3. See also his earlier work, Bobo Lo,

Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing and the New Geopolitics

(London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2008).

John Watts, Sofia Ledberg and Kjell Engelbrekt, “Brothers in Arms, Yet Again? Twenty-First Century Sino-Russian Strategic Collaboration in the Realm of Defence and Security,”

Defence Studies

, 16(4) (2016): 444.

Bobo Lo,

A Wary Embrace: What the China-Russia Relationship Means for the World

(Melbourne: Penguin and Lowy Institute, 2017).

James Bellacqua, “Introduction: Contemporary Sino-Russian Relations: Thirteen Years of a ‘Strategic Partnership’” and Charles E. Ziegler, “Russia and China in Central Asia,” in James Bellacqua (ed.),

The Future of China-Russia Relations

(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), pp. 8, 257–8; Kaczmarski,

Russia–China Relations

“Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation: Approved by President of the Russian Federation V. Putin on 12 February 2013,” February 18, 2013,

http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/official_documents/-/asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/content/id/122186

The full text of Xi Jinping’s first UN address is at

http://qz.com/512886/read-the-full-text-of-xi-jinpings-first-un-address/

Ezra F. Vogel

, Japan as Number One

Lessons for America

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979).

Bobo Lo, “Sino-Russian Relations”; Bobo Lo,

A Wary Embrace

; Watts, Ledberg and Engelbrekt, “Brothers in Arms, Yet Again?”

10.

Kuhrt,

Russian Policy

; Kaczmarski,

Russia–China Relations

; Geir Flikke, “Sino–Russian Relations: Status Exchange or Imbalanced Relationship?”

Problems of Post-Communism

, 63(3) (2016); Alexander Korolev, “Systemic Balancing and Regional Hedging: China–Russia Relations,”

Chinese Journal of International Politics

, 9(4) (2016).

11.

Geir Flikke, “Sino–Russian Relations”; Korolev, “Systemic Balancing.”

12.

Bobo Lo’s writings are the most obvious example. See also Elizabeth Wishnick, “Why a ‘Strategic Partnership’? The View from China,” in Bellacqua,

The Future of China-Russia Relations

, pp. 56–80.

13.

See, for example, Aleksandr Khramchikhin, “Pekin Moskve – partner, no ne drug: Kitayskiy vektor ne dolzhen preobladat’ vo vneshney politike Kremlya” [Beijing is Moscow’s partner, but not a friend: China vector should not dominate in Russia’s foreign policy],

Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie

, November 7, 2014,

http://nvo.ng.ru/realty/2014-05-16/1_china.html

14.

Viktor Martynyuk, “Politicheskiy soyuz Rossii i Kitaya neizbezhen, potomu chto vygoden obeim stranam” [Russian-Chinese political alliance is inevitable because it is in the interests of both countries],

Km.ru

, May 19, 2014,

http://www.km.ru/world/2014/05/19/vladimir-putin/740321-politicheskii-soyuz-rossii-i-kitaya-neizbezhen-potomu-chto-vy

15.

Ian Bond, “Russia and China: Partners of Choice and Necessity?” Centre for European Reform Report, December 8, 2016,

http://www.cer.org.uk/publications/archive/report/2016/russia-and-china-partners-choice-and-necessity

16.

Samuel Charap and Ely Ratner, “China: Neither Ally nor Enemy on Russia,”

National Interest

, April 2, 2014,

http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/china-neither-ally-nor-enemy-russia-10168

17.

Edward N. Luttwak, “5. Play Russia against China,”

Politico

,January/February 2017,

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/outside-the-box-ideas-policies-president-trump-administration-214661

; Doug Bandow, “A Nixon Strategy to Break the Russia-China Axis,”

National Interest

, January 4, 2017,

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/nixon-strategy-break-the-russia-china-axis-18946

; James Nadeau,

“

Trump’s Great Game: Courting Russia to Contain China,” Foreign Policy Association, December 15, 2016,

http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2016/12/15/trump-courting-russia-con-tain-china/

18.

Bobo Lo,

A Wary Embrace

19.

Constantine C. Menges,

China: The Gathering Threat

(Nashville: Nelson Current, 2005).

20.

Rozman,

The Sino-Russian Challenge

21.

Gilbert Rozman, “Asia for the Asians: Why Chinese-Russian Friendship Is Here to Stay,”

Foreign Affairs

, October 24, 2014,

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/east-asia/2014-10-29/asia-asians

22.

Jacob Stokes, “Russia and China’s Enduring Alliance: A Reverse ‘Nixon Strategy’ Won’t Work for Trump,”

Foreign Affairs

, February 22, 2017,

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2017-02-22/russia-and-china-s-enduring-alliance?cid=int-lea&pgtype=hpg

23.

Michael Levin,

The Next Great Clash: China and Russia vs. the United States

(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008).

24.

John W. Garver,

China’s Quest: A History of the Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 540.

25.

Elizabeth Wishnick, “In Search of the ‘Other’ in Asia: Russia–China Relations Revisited,”

Pacific Review

, July 7, 2016, p. 14.

26.

Max Weber, “Objectivity of Social Science and Social Policy,” originally in Max Weber,

The Methodology of the Social Sciences

http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-objectivity-in-the-social-sciences.pdf

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The research for this book was supported by a grant from the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow.

This book is derived, in part, from two articles: Alexander Lukin, “Russia in a Post-Bipolar World,” Survival, 58(1) (2016): 91–112, and Alexander Lukin, “Russia’s Pivot to Asia: Myth or Reality?” Strategic Analysis, 40(6) (2016): 573–89.

1RUSSIA, CHINA, AND THE CHANGING INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

Although the Russian-Chinese rapprochement that began in the late twentieth century has a particular value and internal logic of its own, it is also an integral part of a larger trend in world politics. And while changes in the world order exert a significant, if not decisive influence on that rapprochement, the very fact of two major states developing closer ties affects the international situation as well. It is therefore impossible to understand Russian-Chinese rapprochement without first analyzing the main trends in the development of the international system in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, as well as the evolution of the Russian and Chinese approaches to the outside world as a whole.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, the world entered a new period of development. The customary bipolar system of the Soviet Union and the United States that prevailed after World War II had collapsed following the self-destruction of one of its poles. One can long argue why this happened, but it is clear that the Soviet communist project was unable to compete and failed. In fact, Soviet ideology had cornered itself. Born of the Western secular Enlightenment tradition, it inherited its idea of technological progress and the satisfaction of people’s material needs. But Soviet ideology vowed that faster progress would be achieved not by enhancing self-rule and respect for individual rights and private property, but by concentrating resources in the hands of the state, nationalizing property, and ensuring its fair distribution. This project proved economically unviable. Also, the Soviet Union pursued a policy that was based on the ideological goal of spreading its system to as many countries as possible, and eventually to the whole world. This wasted considerable, albeit not limitless, resources and exacerbated economic problems.

The world’s first ever bipolar system of global confrontation between the two centers of power had had its positive and negative sides. The control exercised by the two centers over large parts of the world and the rules of the game they set in international relations provoked occasional conflicts on neutral territories, and virtually any local outbreak in the Third World turned into a standoff between the two main centers, with each supporting one of the conflicting sides. In addition, people living in countries and territories controlled by the Soviet center enjoyed very little freedom and had to struggle with the social abnormality of totalitarian regimes.

But those conflicts could hardly compare with the horrors of world wars. There were international rules after all, written and unwritten, and both the Soviet Union and the West showed their ability to find consensus on them (the Helsinki Accords, nuclear nonproliferation agreements, and documents reducing and banning weapons of mass destruction are the most vivid examples of that).

The West

The collapse of the Soviet center of power, which had overestimated its strength caused not by war but by outside pressure and internal problems, was followed by the triumph of the West.1 Having sought global control, Soviet leaders lost much of what they could otherwise have achieved.

The situation in the early 1990s was marked by the strong, if not decisive, influence of the United States and its allies on international developments. Their victory in the confrontation with the Soviet camp had made the Western political and economic model more popular. Some of the former Soviet associates sought to join the West; others, including Russia itself, had elected leaders who sincerely showed their appreciation for the West. The United States and its allies were also unparalleled in terms of military capabilities.

However, the breakup of the Soviet camp did not affect other key tendencies in global development processes. Such non-Western centers of power as China, India, Brazil, and others continued to rise and become stronger. They tried to solve their own problems and protect their interests, at least near their borders. Being interested in cooperation with the West, they did not seek confrontation with it, as they had no means to do so, but at the same time they did not share many of the West’s goals, to different extents and for different reasons, and were actually quite worried about some of them.

The former Soviet empire was a blend of different attitudes. While some of the Eastern European countries (excluding Serbia, which had not been part of the Soviet empire) had unconditionally agreed to join the Western system as its junior partners, the new Russian authorities hoped for equal cooperation based on a common understanding of global development goals. Central Asian republics feared a drive for Western-style democratization: some of them gravitated toward Russia, others tried to find a balance between Russia and the West, while still others chose autarchy.

In that situation, the United States and its allies could have pursued a balanced policy of keeping, wherever possible, much of their influence through improved relations with major global players. For example, Russia could have been integrated into the Western system to a large extent either by admitting it to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as George H. W. Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker repeatedly suggested,2 or by adopting a flexible policy combining real assistance (a new Marshall Plan) with due respect for Moscow’s interests and concerns. This could have produced a close partnership with Moscow without any formal alliance with it, in much the same way as had been done with Mexico or Egypt under Sadat and Mubarak.

This was a realistic scenario, but it required some concessions and compromises, which, however, were not required to achieve the ideological goals pursued more and more vigorously by Western politicians. Intellectuals in the United States and Europe had long been leaning toward the ideology of “democratism,” a one-sided mixture of political liberalism, the concept of “fundamental human rights,” Enlightenment secularism, and colonial theories of Western supremacy. As a result, as had often happened in history before, the West tried to impose upon the world its own model as a universal solution.

The underlying principles of foreign policy based on the ideology of “democratism” are quite simple. Western political ideologists who set trends in foreign policy believe that the best way to integrate “backward” nations into the world of “freedom and democracy” is to submit them to political influence through economic and political alliances. For this to happen, they need leaders who understand that this will benefit their countries (that is, Western-leaning ones) and who will therefore work toward this end. Even if these forces fall short of “democratic” standards, it will not be a big issue. Once they submit economically and politically, they will be pushed up to the required level with Western prodding.

The course chosen by the West after the Soviet Union’s breakup was based on this ideology rather than realism. Infatuated with victory, its leaders saw no reason to show any regard for the interests of other countries: the whole world would soon be at their feet anyway as all nations could not wait to melt into the West on the basis of its “universal” values, the only correct ones. This idea was expressly stated by Francis Fukuyama in his The End of History and the Last Man.3 But the largest part of the world rejected, not without good reason, most of these “universal” values as an ideological smokescreen for the West’s attempts to impose its hegemony. Many of those values also were at variance with the traditional cultures and religions prevalent in other major civilizations.

The West had overestimated its abilities both politically and culturally. The world was more complex and its values more diverse than Western leaders had realized, being intoxicated by their success but restricted by their ideology. The attractiveness and objective possibilities of the West were dwindling due to the economic and political rise of non-Western centers of power and due to demographic processes. Western capitals, and especially Washington, continued to act as if “history had come to an end,” using pressure, and often force, to project their own vision of the world and even of internal life on other countries and whole regions that did not want to Westernize. This policy produced chaos in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Ukraine.

Some Western observers have eventually noticed this tendency, in hindsight. American foreign policy analyst Richard N. Haass wrote in his “The Unraveling” that the US actions have exacerbated global disorder:

The post–Cold War order was premised on US primacy, which was a function of not just US power but also US influence, reflecting a willingness on the part of others to accept the United States’ lead. This influence has suffered from what is generally perceived as a series of failures or errors, including lax economic regulation that contributed to the financial crisis, overly aggressive national security policies that trampled international norms, and domestic administrative incompetence and political dysfunction.4

Haass further says:

Order has unraveled, in short, thanks to a confluence of three trends. Power in the world has diffused across a greater number and range of actors. Respect for the American economic and political model has diminished. And specific US policy choices, especially in the Middle East, have raised doubts about American judgment and the reliability of the United States’ threats and promises. The net result is that while the United States’ absolute strength remains considerable, American influence has diminished.5

While Haass explores foreign policy flaws, Henry Kissinger points to the growing degree of ideologization in American policies as one of the reasons for their failures, but uses a different term: “The celebration of universal principles needs to be paired with recognition of the reality of other regions’ histories, cultures and views of their security.”6

Europe, too, has recently, and belatedly, been criticizing the policy based on the “end-of-history” ideology. An essay published by the European Council on Foreign Relations says that the way of life adopted by the European Union (EU) as a universal model for the whole world to use in the future was actually an exception for that world:

The new European order was different from all previous post-war settlements … The remaking of Europe took the shape of extending Western institutions, most of them created for a bipolar world. The unification of Germany became the model for the unification of Europe … Europeans were aware of the distinctive nature of their order but they were also convinced of its universal nature. From the World Trade Organization to the Kyoto Protocol, and from the International Criminal Court to the Responsibility to Protect, European norms seemed to be in the ascendant. Europeans were convinced that economic interdependence and converging lifestyles would be the dominant source of security in the world of tomorrow. Intoxicated by its own innovations, the EU became increasingly disconnected from other powers – and saw only where others fell short of European standards rather than try to understand their different perspectives. This applied to the EU’s neighbors, other great powers such as China, and even to allies such as the United States. And the claim of the European project to be, at one and the same time, exceptional and universal made it impossible for Europeans to accept any alternative integration projects in their continent.7

In general, the United States and Europe, as well as faraway Australia and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent Japan, should be viewed as one center of power cemented together by the common totalitarian ideology of “democratism,” that is, the desire to impose their model upon the rest of the world. In the foreseeable future, the policy of this center of power, which remains the strongest in the present-day world, will be defined by the gap between growing ideological ambitions and dwindling relative capabilities. Faced with challenges that are both external (the rising influence of non-Western centers of power) and internal (the changing demographic and political situation), the West is objectively losing its influence in the world.

The popularity of the Western model and ideology was based mainly on the assumption, quite common among many non-Western nations, especially after World War II, that the Western political model could secure the highest level of economic well-being. Freedom is attractive, of course, for a part of the population in not-so-rich and autocratic states, but along with economic well-being, not instead of it. The majority of countries have always sought to adopt the Western model as the one that guarantees a more prosperous life. The rapid economic rise of China at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries, and the economic and political failure of many countries where the United States and Europe had tried to impose their model of development (Russia in the 1990s, Iraq, Libya, etc.) led many to question the universal effectiveness of the Western slogans of “democratization,” “market economy,” and “free trade.” The Western policy of diktat and constant bombing showed that the ideology of “democratism” was often used to cover up for attempts to establish political dominance. This understanding seriously undermined the West’s “soft power” and at the same time added popularity to other models, primarily the “Beijing Consensus,” as an alternative to the Washington one.

Mainstream Western foreign policy thinkers have failed to understand that the expansion of the West’s model has reached cultural and civilizational limits. The Western system was straightforward to spread in Eastern Europe, where countries tired of Soviet control sought to join Western alliances for political and cultural reasons. The system was established or restored there relatively easily (although not everywhere). But this model is culturally much more alien to North Africa and Eurasia. Islam and Orthodox Christianity, which are gaining popularity in the post-Soviet space, reject Western “democratism,” with its increasingly vague social roles of men and women, euthanasia, surrogate motherhood, same-sex marriages, and the like, not only for political but also for moral reasons. And they oppose it so strongly that they are ready to fight against this onslaught of sin. The conflict in the Ukraine, where a cultural and civilizational dividing line has cut the country into two, just as growing anti-Western movements have split up the Islamic world, was largely caused by these factors.

The West will gradually change. What will the United States be like in twenty or thirty years from now, if a considerable part of its population becomes Spanish speaking? In Britain, cities have growing Muslim populations. In France, polls indicate that Muslims make up about 8–10 percent of the population.8 What will its policy be like if their number reaches 30 or 40 percent? Will growing migration evoke a reaction from right-wing traditionalists? Fears of growing migration have already played a major role in Britain’s vote to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s election in the US. Western countries can respond to the migration crisis by shutting down their borders or taking other radical steps, but this will signify serious backtracking on many postulates of “democratism” and significant changes in foreign policy.

The first signs of change are already evident. The referendum victory by “Brexit” supporters and the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency were the result of the frustration that large segments of the population feel toward the policies and ideologies of the elites. Those elites amass great wealth from globalization by using cheap migrant labor and opening markets in developing countries under the banner of “free trade.” At the same time, they ignore the negative consequences that their actions have had on ordinary citizens: the loss of jobs, a growing gap between the richest and poorest segments of the population and between the richest and poorest regions, the breakdown of families, the erosion of traditional values, and so on. In fact, the ideology of “democratism,” “free markets,” and “free trade” has essentially turned into an ideological justification for a course that enables major multinational companies that are largely controlled from the US and Europe to earn enormous profits, and that imposes the social and political value system of the Western elites on the rest of the world. At the heart of that ideology lies what Singaporean diplomat Bilahary Kausikan has aptly termed the “myth of universality: i.e. the postulates of [U.S. and European-led and approved] universal values, universal human rights, a united international community, international law, etc.”9

In the meantime, while US and European elites have been talking about growing universality, new centers of power have been forming in such diverse states as China, Russia, India, Brazil, and others. Also, religious revivals are occurring not only in the former Soviet republics, but in the Muslim world and among both Christians and Muslims in Africa. And everywhere, in spite of all their differences, this integrative process is most often based on values differing from those preached by modern Western society. China speaks of collective Confucianism, the role of Hinduism is on the rise in India, traditional Christians in Africa firmly reject questionable moral innovations sanctioned by mother churches in Europe, and the Muslim world generally views modern Western society as the center of sin and depravity. Even moderate Muslim leaders do not accept Western civilization in its entirety, but try to create something of their own using its achievements. Former Malaysian deputy prime minister, current opposition leader and well-known theorist of Islamic civil society Anwar Ibrahim made this interesting statement on the subject:

The Civil Society we envisage is one based on Moral Principles … the Asian vision of civil society departs in a fundamental respect … from the social philosophy of the Enlightenment … that religion and civil society are intrinsically incompatible… . Religion has been a source of great strength to Asian society and will continue to be a bulwark against moral and social decay.10

At the same time the West is losing its moral leadership; its military dominance, though still in force, has weakened significantly; and the appeal of its material prowess is diminishing as other effective economic models emerge, most particularly China’s. Events have repeatedly shown the error of the idea that Westernization is both a universal goal and an inevitable outcome once the authoritarian regimes resisting it are removed. The most recent examples are the anti-authoritarian revolutions in Arab countries that brought to power forces even more anti-Western than the governments they overthrew. It turns out that Europe is surrounded not by hostile rulers hindering Westernization, but by entire populations who consider Western society alien and undesirable. And it is their leaders who, as Alexander Pushkin once said of the Russian government, are often “the only Europeans” in their country.11

The international system is changing, moving toward greater diversity. However, in the foreseeable future, while “democratism” adapts to the new realities, the West can hardly be a source of peace and stability. On the contrary, its policy will continue to produce global conflicts that will most often erupt in territories that border on other non-Western centers of power with their own values. The main source of these conflicts will be attempts to impose the ideology of “democratism” on a population which is not willing to accept it.

Russia

The crisis in Ukraine in 2014 has placed Russia and the world before a new reality. The paradigm of international relations that developed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that defined the rules of the game for Russia and its key partners during the Yeltsin period and the early years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, is now undergoing a change. That period can be called the “post-Soviet consensus.” What are its main features? Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has been considered, in principle, a partner of the West. And although it is not as close a partner as the member states of Western economic and political alliances, Russia was thought to share the West’s basic foreign and domestic policy goals. The disagreements that arose over such questions as Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, and others were attributed to Russia’s size and the short time it had spent under the West’s influence. In any event, those differences were resolved fairly quickly. Russia’s national peculiarities and its short experience with democracy were seen as the reason for the country’s distinctive approach to domestic policy – something that Moscow leaders themselves mentioned.

The crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s reaction to it have fundamentally changed this consensus. Russia refused to play by the rules. To understand this reaction one should analyze the difference between the Russian and Western approaches to the international situation.

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