For decades the antagonism between Russia and China was a constant in international politics, the kind of mutual relations that tend to be marked by ambivalence.
The broadly-based cooperation which has now developed between Russia and China is not limited to the economic sphere. With hardly any other country has Russia fostered contacts with such intensity as with China. External trade relations have developed with similar intensity. Second only to Germany, China has become Russia's most important trading partner.
China's importance to Russia, with regard to external trade, extends beyond the quantitative aspect. China, is one of the few markets in which Russia can sell plant and machinery.
Both sides show an equal interest in greater cooperation. During the past years, it was said repeatedly that a constructive partnership has been developed on the bases of "balanced relations". This partnership, however, was not an alliance and was not directed against third parties.
Several are the reasons for China's significant role in Russian foreign policy. The two biggest Asian land powers have a common border of 4,300 kilometres. Furthermore, there is a border of 3,000 kilometres between China and Central Asia, which Moscow views as a direct sphere of interest.
During his last visit to Beijing in October 2004, Russian President Putin signed an agreement which finalises the demarcation of their border along the Ussuri river, near the Russian Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk. This resolves 40 years of bilateral border disputes.
The significance of Sino-Russian relations is not only growing, it is changing. This is closely linked with the new orientation of the entire Russian foreign policy on Asia, during recent years. The Soviet side had previously perceived the Asia-Pacific region exclusively under military-strategic aspects. The new orientation is aimed at integrating the then USSR into this dynamic part of the world economy and, at the same time, bringing Soviet power to bear.
China was the central factor in the policy towards Asia, whereas Japan was also to play a major role in the economic field. Steps were taken, therefore, to normalize relations with Japan.
A change of course was also adopted in favor of South Korea and the Korean peninsula. China, was worried about a rapprochement between Russia and Taiwan. In strategic terms, a possible total orientation by Russia to the West was
viewed as a development which could shift the global balance of power to the disadvantage of China.
Moscow's policies are still primarily oriented to the Unites States and Japan. In Moscow, there was a growing call to attach equal importance to the relations with the West and East, in view of the refusal by the United States to accept Russia as an equal-ranking partner and to foster its economic integration into the region.
Russia decided, that it needed to reassess the role of China in Russian foreign policy and a far reaching change in orientation took place in foreign policy discussions in Moscow.
During the discussions, concepts came to the fore which were aimed at the assertion of "national interests", through a policy oriented to a balance of power. China not only became a renewed focus of Russian foreign policy towards Asia as a direct neighbor, but also as a counterbalance to Japan and to the United States.
Moscow, once again began to play the Chinese card.
For the Russians, the relation between Russia and China ensured the necessary balance in Russia's relations with the West and, viewed as a whole, between East and West. Close relations between Russia and China are also useful in conflicts with the United States and Japan.
The demonstration of harmony is explained by extensive mutual interests in various fields. One common interest is to promote the economic development of one's own country. This meant a common interest in the creation of regional and global security, which would be able to create the peaceful environment
needed for economic development.
There was also a common interest in countering the disintegration of multiethnic states, common ground in the fight against fundamentalist tendencies, especially in Islam, and a concurrent need to stabilize the situation in Central Asia.
China is grateful for Russian support in multilateral regional-security initiatives which the two discussed, along with delegates from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO).
The group agreed to move forward with plans to establish an anti-terrorism center in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO), which has Moscow's support, is also useful for China's domestic security agenda. China announced an “anti-crime campaign” in the western province of Xinjiang, the home to the
ethnic Uighur separatists which Beijing accused of being behind a series of
bombings in the region.
There has long been international condemnation of Human Rights violations in China's campaign against Uighur separatists, so the timing of the crackdown coincides with Russian-and SCO-backed anti-terrorist initiatives and is designed to lend it legitimacy.
In return, China enhances its economic involvement with the economies of Central Asia and the Russian Far East, and at the same time both Moscow and Beijing benefit from limiting American influence in the region.
China and Russia are retooling their strategies to attenuate American dominance and to ensure that the United States will not override their
interests with impunity in the future. Both states remain committed to closer relations with the United States and at the same time are deeply dismayed by the United States handling of the Iraq crisis and are less inclined to pursue
their ties to the United States at high cost to other national interests.
For the Chinese, this can translate into a more muscular assertion of China's role as the dominant Asia-Pacific power while Russia is expected to underline its geostrategic value as a nuclear power.
Russia has an interest in a more “orderly” world. The current mechanisms for bringing changes about are few and not very effective. China is on the lookout for new alliances that would level the playing field more with the United States in managing global affairs.
China's anxiety over American global power brought China to call for new alliances whose purpose is to include military support for Iran, in order
to check American control of the Persian Gulf. China is also keeping an eye on the consequences of the Iraq crisis on the Asian region. The Chinese would like to consolidate their relations with the United States but, at the same time, they are very pragmatic and determined to defend what they regard as their own interests.
China defends its military cooperation with Russia, while strongly attacking American efforts to build space-based weapons like its proposed national missile defence system. Russia and China have taken a joint stance against the development of outer space weapons and in an apparent condemnation of the proposed American national missile defence system, warned that the development of space-based weapons would lead to a new arms race.
On the other hand, Moscow is not planning a joint response with China to the American decision to abandon the 1972 ABM treaty and to build a missile defence shield.
At the same time, conflicts still exist between Russia and China, especially in the field of economic cooperation, and the significance of economic relations between the two countries is repeatedly emphasized but the military components of cooperation have become a subject of controversy.
Various factors play a role here. Russia has become one of the most important arms suppliers of China. China has purchased two Sovermenny-class modern Russian destroyers, well aware of the tension that the high-tech machines would bring to the Taiwan Straits. The destroyers sailed through the Taiwan Straits as a reminder of China's massive amphibious war games and ballistic missile tests. China, signed a contract to purchase the destroyers in 1997, as a response to Washington's dispatch of two aircraft carrier groups to the Taiwan Straits to monitor the 1996 military exercise, a move which further heightened tensions in the strait.
Intensive collaboration is also developing in the fields of military training and technological cooperation. This is viewed critically in Russia, since the economic form of implementation - to a large extent based on broader trade - is regarded as a disadvantage and adverse consequences are feared for Russian relations with Southeast Asia. On the other hand, the question is raised whether a "future enemy" was not being provided with arms.
The Russian media brings up the question whether measures of unilateral disarmament since the beginning of the Nineties should be revoked, in view
of the armament tendencies in the Asia-Pacific region. The antagonisms are made even greater by differing views on a host of international issues. Regardless of assurances to the contrary by both sides, these differences are not unimportant.
They mainly revolve around Russia's relations with Taiwan and the claims of both sides in Central Asia, as well as the role of Russia in Southeast Asia, which likes to be viewed there as China's opposite number.
From a Russian perspective, the Chinese card is fraught with risks. The decisive aspect is whether the individual conflicts can be resolved in the future, rationally, or whether they will be perceived and assessed in light
of what is claimed to be “a lesson in history”.
Russia finds itself in a difficult situation in Asia, especially in regard to China. Russia was formerly accustomed to compensate its traditional sense of “inferiority” towards the West, through the awareness of a “superiority” towards the countries in the East. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990-91, Russia can no longer play the part of the “big brother, but is rather obliged to accept that a change has taken place in China's favor and that it is being economically overtaken by its eastern neighbor.
Although an open conflict in the near future is ruled out, voices are becoming loud in Russia that consider the possibility that China is working towards a territorial revision against Russia and others are convinced that this is already the goal of Chinese policies.
The risk is portrayed in the economic field that Russia's Far Eastern and, to a certain extent, Siberian territories could become Chinese raw materials colonies.
In Russian foreign policy, there is no sign of a clear position in regard to Moscow's relationship with China. The direction that prevails in the Russian foreign ministry seems to call for “equal relations” with powers east and west of Russia's borders and to not view the potential risks as too great, at least not in the short term.
China appears as a unique partner for economic cooperation and as a counterbalance in relations with the West.
On the other hand, China is viewed by others as a “unique risk”, but with the hope to integrate China into a security policy system through close cooperation and thus restrain any danger which might occur.
Others among the decision makers in the Russia foreign ministry view the risks emanating from China as an argument for a strategic partnership with the West, while yet others regard China as a possible ally against the denomination of the world by the United States.
The question that is being raised now is, how will Sino-Russian relations, at the dawn of the 21st Century, develop. Will the world witness a new conflict between the two powers with a reversed balance of power and with territorial claims on China's part? Or will the world witness an alliance between Russia and China against the West?
Despite china's significance for Russia today, China has neither the capital Russia requires for its transformation, nor the necessary technology which could enable the country to completely turn its back on the West. A close alliance with China would increase Russia's isolation from the Western countries and from the newly industrializing Asian states and thus widen the gap to the technologically advanced countries. Such a development would also aggravate the existing social and political crisis in the Russian Far East. At the same time, the social differences between Russia and China would increase.
China is also primarily working in a different direction. At the moment, Russia cannot act as a substitute in the event of a break-off in relations with Beijing’s main partners. China also has no interest in regaining Russia as an active co-player in the Asia-Pacific region. In the event of an increase in Western pressure on China, however, it could feel compelled to close ranks with Russia.
Future developments will be substantially determined by Western policies. Up until now, this consideration has hardly been taken into consideration in the policy of European countries towards Russia.
A strategic alliance between Moscow and Beijing is very unlikely. Both countries are rivals in major regions, in a struggle for hegemony. Despite all the progress in the development of mutual relations, there are deep rooted conflicts. The friction between the two countries is currently so slight because they are both primarily preoccupied with their own problems - but the end of rivalry had not yet come.
Israel Rafalovich
The broadly-based cooperation which has now developed between Russia and China is not limited to the economic sphere. With hardly any other country has Russia fostered contacts with such intensity as with China. External trade relations have developed with similar intensity. Second only to Germany, China has become Russia's most important trading partner.
China's importance to Russia, with regard to external trade, extends beyond the quantitative aspect. China, is one of the few markets in which Russia can sell plant and machinery.
Both sides show an equal interest in greater cooperation. During the past years, it was said repeatedly that a constructive partnership has been developed on the bases of "balanced relations". This partnership, however, was not an alliance and was not directed against third parties.
Several are the reasons for China's significant role in Russian foreign policy. The two biggest Asian land powers have a common border of 4,300 kilometres. Furthermore, there is a border of 3,000 kilometres between China and Central Asia, which Moscow views as a direct sphere of interest.
During his last visit to Beijing in October 2004, Russian President Putin signed an agreement which finalises the demarcation of their border along the Ussuri river, near the Russian Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk. This resolves 40 years of bilateral border disputes.
The significance of Sino-Russian relations is not only growing, it is changing. This is closely linked with the new orientation of the entire Russian foreign policy on Asia, during recent years. The Soviet side had previously perceived the Asia-Pacific region exclusively under military-strategic aspects. The new orientation is aimed at integrating the then USSR into this dynamic part of the world economy and, at the same time, bringing Soviet power to bear.
China was the central factor in the policy towards Asia, whereas Japan was also to play a major role in the economic field. Steps were taken, therefore, to normalize relations with Japan.
A change of course was also adopted in favor of South Korea and the Korean peninsula. China, was worried about a rapprochement between Russia and Taiwan. In strategic terms, a possible total orientation by Russia to the West was
viewed as a development which could shift the global balance of power to the disadvantage of China.
Moscow's policies are still primarily oriented to the Unites States and Japan. In Moscow, there was a growing call to attach equal importance to the relations with the West and East, in view of the refusal by the United States to accept Russia as an equal-ranking partner and to foster its economic integration into the region.
Russia decided, that it needed to reassess the role of China in Russian foreign policy and a far reaching change in orientation took place in foreign policy discussions in Moscow.
During the discussions, concepts came to the fore which were aimed at the assertion of "national interests", through a policy oriented to a balance of power. China not only became a renewed focus of Russian foreign policy towards Asia as a direct neighbor, but also as a counterbalance to Japan and to the United States.
Moscow, once again began to play the Chinese card.
For the Russians, the relation between Russia and China ensured the necessary balance in Russia's relations with the West and, viewed as a whole, between East and West. Close relations between Russia and China are also useful in conflicts with the United States and Japan.
The demonstration of harmony is explained by extensive mutual interests in various fields. One common interest is to promote the economic development of one's own country. This meant a common interest in the creation of regional and global security, which would be able to create the peaceful environment
needed for economic development.
There was also a common interest in countering the disintegration of multiethnic states, common ground in the fight against fundamentalist tendencies, especially in Islam, and a concurrent need to stabilize the situation in Central Asia.
China is grateful for Russian support in multilateral regional-security initiatives which the two discussed, along with delegates from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO).
The group agreed to move forward with plans to establish an anti-terrorism center in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO), which has Moscow's support, is also useful for China's domestic security agenda. China announced an “anti-crime campaign” in the western province of Xinjiang, the home to the
ethnic Uighur separatists which Beijing accused of being behind a series of
bombings in the region.
There has long been international condemnation of Human Rights violations in China's campaign against Uighur separatists, so the timing of the crackdown coincides with Russian-and SCO-backed anti-terrorist initiatives and is designed to lend it legitimacy.
In return, China enhances its economic involvement with the economies of Central Asia and the Russian Far East, and at the same time both Moscow and Beijing benefit from limiting American influence in the region.
China and Russia are retooling their strategies to attenuate American dominance and to ensure that the United States will not override their
interests with impunity in the future. Both states remain committed to closer relations with the United States and at the same time are deeply dismayed by the United States handling of the Iraq crisis and are less inclined to pursue
their ties to the United States at high cost to other national interests.
For the Chinese, this can translate into a more muscular assertion of China's role as the dominant Asia-Pacific power while Russia is expected to underline its geostrategic value as a nuclear power.
Russia has an interest in a more “orderly” world. The current mechanisms for bringing changes about are few and not very effective. China is on the lookout for new alliances that would level the playing field more with the United States in managing global affairs.
China's anxiety over American global power brought China to call for new alliances whose purpose is to include military support for Iran, in order
to check American control of the Persian Gulf. China is also keeping an eye on the consequences of the Iraq crisis on the Asian region. The Chinese would like to consolidate their relations with the United States but, at the same time, they are very pragmatic and determined to defend what they regard as their own interests.
China defends its military cooperation with Russia, while strongly attacking American efforts to build space-based weapons like its proposed national missile defence system. Russia and China have taken a joint stance against the development of outer space weapons and in an apparent condemnation of the proposed American national missile defence system, warned that the development of space-based weapons would lead to a new arms race.
On the other hand, Moscow is not planning a joint response with China to the American decision to abandon the 1972 ABM treaty and to build a missile defence shield.
At the same time, conflicts still exist between Russia and China, especially in the field of economic cooperation, and the significance of economic relations between the two countries is repeatedly emphasized but the military components of cooperation have become a subject of controversy.
Various factors play a role here. Russia has become one of the most important arms suppliers of China. China has purchased two Sovermenny-class modern Russian destroyers, well aware of the tension that the high-tech machines would bring to the Taiwan Straits. The destroyers sailed through the Taiwan Straits as a reminder of China's massive amphibious war games and ballistic missile tests. China, signed a contract to purchase the destroyers in 1997, as a response to Washington's dispatch of two aircraft carrier groups to the Taiwan Straits to monitor the 1996 military exercise, a move which further heightened tensions in the strait.
Intensive collaboration is also developing in the fields of military training and technological cooperation. This is viewed critically in Russia, since the economic form of implementation - to a large extent based on broader trade - is regarded as a disadvantage and adverse consequences are feared for Russian relations with Southeast Asia. On the other hand, the question is raised whether a "future enemy" was not being provided with arms.
The Russian media brings up the question whether measures of unilateral disarmament since the beginning of the Nineties should be revoked, in view
of the armament tendencies in the Asia-Pacific region. The antagonisms are made even greater by differing views on a host of international issues. Regardless of assurances to the contrary by both sides, these differences are not unimportant.
They mainly revolve around Russia's relations with Taiwan and the claims of both sides in Central Asia, as well as the role of Russia in Southeast Asia, which likes to be viewed there as China's opposite number.
From a Russian perspective, the Chinese card is fraught with risks. The decisive aspect is whether the individual conflicts can be resolved in the future, rationally, or whether they will be perceived and assessed in light
of what is claimed to be “a lesson in history”.
Russia finds itself in a difficult situation in Asia, especially in regard to China. Russia was formerly accustomed to compensate its traditional sense of “inferiority” towards the West, through the awareness of a “superiority” towards the countries in the East. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990-91, Russia can no longer play the part of the “big brother, but is rather obliged to accept that a change has taken place in China's favor and that it is being economically overtaken by its eastern neighbor.
Although an open conflict in the near future is ruled out, voices are becoming loud in Russia that consider the possibility that China is working towards a territorial revision against Russia and others are convinced that this is already the goal of Chinese policies.
The risk is portrayed in the economic field that Russia's Far Eastern and, to a certain extent, Siberian territories could become Chinese raw materials colonies.
In Russian foreign policy, there is no sign of a clear position in regard to Moscow's relationship with China. The direction that prevails in the Russian foreign ministry seems to call for “equal relations” with powers east and west of Russia's borders and to not view the potential risks as too great, at least not in the short term.
China appears as a unique partner for economic cooperation and as a counterbalance in relations with the West.
On the other hand, China is viewed by others as a “unique risk”, but with the hope to integrate China into a security policy system through close cooperation and thus restrain any danger which might occur.
Others among the decision makers in the Russia foreign ministry view the risks emanating from China as an argument for a strategic partnership with the West, while yet others regard China as a possible ally against the denomination of the world by the United States.
The question that is being raised now is, how will Sino-Russian relations, at the dawn of the 21st Century, develop. Will the world witness a new conflict between the two powers with a reversed balance of power and with territorial claims on China's part? Or will the world witness an alliance between Russia and China against the West?
Despite china's significance for Russia today, China has neither the capital Russia requires for its transformation, nor the necessary technology which could enable the country to completely turn its back on the West. A close alliance with China would increase Russia's isolation from the Western countries and from the newly industrializing Asian states and thus widen the gap to the technologically advanced countries. Such a development would also aggravate the existing social and political crisis in the Russian Far East. At the same time, the social differences between Russia and China would increase.
China is also primarily working in a different direction. At the moment, Russia cannot act as a substitute in the event of a break-off in relations with Beijing’s main partners. China also has no interest in regaining Russia as an active co-player in the Asia-Pacific region. In the event of an increase in Western pressure on China, however, it could feel compelled to close ranks with Russia.
Future developments will be substantially determined by Western policies. Up until now, this consideration has hardly been taken into consideration in the policy of European countries towards Russia.
A strategic alliance between Moscow and Beijing is very unlikely. Both countries are rivals in major regions, in a struggle for hegemony. Despite all the progress in the development of mutual relations, there are deep rooted conflicts. The friction between the two countries is currently so slight because they are both primarily preoccupied with their own problems - but the end of rivalry had not yet come.
Israel Rafalovich