The East Wind Prevails? Russia’s Response to China’s Eurasian Ambitions

Abstract

Deference to Chinese aspirations in Eurasia is integral to Moscow’s pursuit of closer relations with Beijing. Yet China’s pursuit of regional, and ultimately global, influence is at odds with Russia’s longstanding ambition to maintain post-Soviet Eurasia as a strategic glacis and sphere of ‘privileged interests’. Russia has consequently sought to shape and channel Chinese engagement in line with its own interests, with mixed results. Disappointments with the effects of Chinese economic and political influence on Russian equities, limits on Sino–Russian coordination, and the interest of Eurasia’s smaller states contributed to a growing wariness on Russia’s part. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine and attendant confrontation with the West have left Russia more dependent on China, even as China itself has become more realistic about the prospects for Eurasian integration.

The views expressed in this essay are those of the author and are not an official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the US government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In his September 2013 speech in Astana, Xi referred to a ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ and, days later in Jakarta, to a ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road’. Until ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ was proclaimed the preferred English translation in 2016, Chinese official statements and press coverage mostly used the term ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) when referring to the two collectively. For simplicity’s sake, I will refer to the ‘BRI’ throughout the period since Xi’s Astana and Jakarta speeches.

2 On Sino–Russian relations in the South Caucasus, see Tracey German’s contribution to this special issue.

3 ‘Deng Xiaoping’s “24-character Strategy”’, Global Security, available at: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/24-character.htm, accessed 21 June 2022.

4 ‘Sovmestnaya deklaratsiya Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki i Rossiiskoi Federatsii o mezhdunarodnom poryadke v XXI veke’, People’s Republic of China’s Embassy to the Russian Federation, 1997, available at: http://ru.china-embassy.org/rus/xwdt/t202668.htm, accessed 5 May 2021.

5 ‘Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peoples Republic of China, 2001, available at: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/2649_665393/t15771.shtml, accessed 5 May 2021.

6 On Eurasia’s changing energy landscape, see Morena Skalamera’s contribution to this special issue.

7 Russia’s pursuit of regional integration in the former Soviet Union—especially its initial focus on Ukraine—was also a response to the EU’s Eastern Partnership programme.

8 See also Ferdinand (2016) and Callahan (2016a, 2016b).

9 ‘“Odin poyas, odin put’” sozdaet novye vozmozhnosti dlya global’nogo razvitiya’, Rossiiskaya gazeta, 5 October 2019, available at: https://rg.ru/2019/10/05/odin-poias-odin-put-sozdaet-novye-vozmozhnosti-dlia-globalnogo-razvitiia.html, accessed 5 May 2021.

10 Online interview with Vasilii Kashin, 16 December 2020.

11 Significantly, the English version speaks of discouraging ‘external partners’ rather than ‘for the Chinese side’ (dlya kitaiskoi storony).

12 ‘Konferentsiya: ‘Pyat’ let kontseptsii ‘Bol’shaya Evraziya’: problemy i dostizheniya’, Sovet po vneshnei i oboronoi politike, 29 November 2019, available at: https://www.svop.ru/meeting/31390, accessed 5 May 2021.

13 ‘Xi Jinping Holds Talks with President Vladimir Putin of Russia’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peoples Republic of China, 2015, available at: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/xjpcxelsjnwgzzsl70znqdbfelshskstbels/t1263258.shtml, accessed 5 May 2021.

14 ‘Putin and Xi Jinping Discuss Projects to Combine the Silk Road Economic Belt with EEU’, TASS, 8 July 2015, available at: https://tass.com/economy/806984, accessed 5 May 2021.

15 ‘Sovmestnoe zayavlenie Rossiiskoi Federatsii i Kitaiskoi Narodnoi Respubliki o sotrudnichestve po sopriazheniyu stroitel’stva Evraziiskogo ekonomicheskogo soyuza i Ekonomicheskogo poyasa Shelkovogo puti’, The Kremlin, 8 May 2015, available at: http://www.kremlin.ru/supplement/4971, accessed 5 May 2021.

16 Online interview with Anastasiya Pyatachkova, 21 December 2020.

17 Online interview with Vasilii Kashin, 26 December 2020.

18 ‘China and Eurasian Economic Union Officially Sign Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement’, Ministry of Commerce, Peoples’ Republic of China, 2018, available at: http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/newsrelease/significantnews/201805/20180502746079.shtml, accessed 5 May 2021.

19 Online interview with Anna Kireeva, 5 January 2021.

20 Online interview with Ivan Safranchuk, 2 February 2021.

21 ‘China’s Share in EAEU Foreign Trade Growing to 20%’, TASS, 27 October 2020, available at: https://tass.com/economy/1217083, accessed 5 May 2021.

22 The Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin, announced in April 2021 that Moscow was allocating 40 billion rubles to the project with the aim of completing it in 2024 (‘Mishustin vydelit 40 mlrd rublei na stroitel’stvo VSM Moskva–Kazan’, Interfax, 9 April 2021, available at: https://www.interfax.ru/russia/761980, accessed 5 May 2021).

23 Online interview with Maksim Samorukov, 12 January 2021.

24 ‘Tajikistan, China to Hold Another Joint Military Drill in Pamirs’, Eurasianet, 9 July 2019, available at: https://eurasianet.org/tajikistan-china-to-hold-another-joint-military-drill-in-pamirs, accessed 5 May 2021.

25 ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China’, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2020, available at: https://media.defense.gov/2020/Sep/01/2002488689/-1/-1/1/2020-DOD-CHINA-MILITARY-POWER-REPORT-FINAL.PDF, accessed 5 May 2021.

26 Online interview with Anna Kireeva, 5 January 2021.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey Mankoff

Jeffrey Mankoff, Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University, 300 5th Ave, Blgd. 64, Fort McNair, Washington, DC 20319, USA. Email: [email protected]