China in the Russian mind today: Ambivalence and defeatism

Abstract

This article describes the ambivalence of Russian attitudes toward China at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Russians of all strata combine a willingness to see China as a friendly neighbour with a high level of fear of the giant that could swallow much of the country whole, especially the Asian part. The article pays special attention to the split in Russian views of China among elites. While some elites, who have strong anti-American attitudes, see China as a major ally against the United States, others call on the government to treat the United States as the single force that can help Russia protect the integrity of its territory against China, whose people still do not recognise the existing borders between the two countries.

Notes

¹Even today, only 4% of Russians are aware of this event (FOM 2005a).

²Radio station Ekho Moskvy, 3 December 2005.

³See, as an example, R. Rusakov's article ‘Dykhanie Drakonov (Rossiya, Kitai i evrei)’, available at: http://www.rus-sky.org/history/library/rusakov/3.htm, accessed 18 September 2006.

⁴‘Tikhaya interventsiya’, 29 June 2005, available at: http://www.sakhanews.ru, accessed 4 October 2005.

⁵See a survey of the studies on ambivalent attitudes in Eagly and Chaiken (1998, pp. 279 – 281).

⁶For more about this conflict, see Musalov (2005).

⁷The dramatic period in Soviet – Chinese relations in the 1960s – 70s has generated a great deal of research (see Rozman 1987; Stoessinger 1981; Mancall 1971; Griffith 1971; Deutscher 1970; Salisbury 1969; Short 1982; Middleton 1978).

⁸For further details see All Russian Centre of Public Opinion (2005); Il'ichev (2006); and ‘Kitai pokazyvaet pyatki’, Moskovskie Novosti, 17 March 2006.

⁹See also ‘V zerkale SMI. Tret'ya storona Rossiisko-kitaiskikh manevrov’, Slovo, 19 August 2005. On the official denial see the interview with Sergei Ivanov, minister of defence, in Izvestiya (Litovkin 2005).

¹⁰As evidence, it is possible to point to a statement that the ‘Minister of Defence does not consider China as its military ally and forbade the selling of some new military weapons to this country’ (Vlasova et al. 2005).

¹¹See Streshnev (2005). See also another glowing description of the meeting between the two ministers of defence (Russian and Chinese) in Moscow in September in ‘Rossiya – Kitai’ Na Vysshii Vroven' Partnerstva' Krasnaya Zvezda, 7 September 2005.

Ekho Moskvy, 8 September 2005.

¹³‘Put’ Drakona’, Russkii Kur'er, 11 July 2005.

¹⁴‘Sil'nyi slabyi Kitai’, Ekspert, 4 July 2005.

¹⁵Victor Larin, quoted in Glybina (2006).

¹⁶‘Put’ Drakona’, Russkii Kur'er, 11 July 2005.

¹⁷ Ekho Moskvy, 8 September 2005.

¹⁸TV programme, ‘Sunday with Vladimir Solov'ev’, on Russian TV channel NTV, 27 November 2005.

¹⁹‘Ugrozhaet li Kitai Rossii?’, Izvestiya, 1 July 2005.

²⁰‘Pulikovskii ratuet za Kitai’, 15 July 2005, available at: http://www.Vyakutii.ru, accessed 8 June 2006.

²¹On the position of the governors in the Far East toward China, see ‘Tikhaya interventsiya’, 29 June 2005, available at: http://www.sakhanews.ru, accessed 8 June 2006.

²²See the statement of Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign relations committee of the State Duma on Ekho Moskvy, 8 September 2005; see also Ukolov (2006).

²³ Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 31 March 2006. See an interview with Viktor Larin, director of the Far East Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography in Glybina (2006); see also Ukolov (2006).

²⁴See an interview with Victor Larin, director of the Far East Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography in Glybina (2006).

²⁵See the interview with Igor' Bestuzhev-Lada, available at: http://www.china.com, 9 June 2006, accessed 18 September 2006; see also an article by I.V. Bestuzhev-Lada and G.A. Namestnikova in Sotsial'noe Prognozirovanie, available at: http://lib.aldebaran.ru/author/bestuzhevlada_i/bestuzhevlada_ i_socialnoe_prognozirovanie/bestuzhevlada_i_socialnoe_prognozirovanie__19.html, accessed 18 September 2006.

²⁶‘Dobro pozhalovat' ili postoronnim vkhod …’, Ekonomika i Zhizn', 28 May 2005.

²⁷See the report on his press conference online, available at: http://www.utro.ru/articles/2005/07.

²⁸See Rostovskii (2005); see also the interview of A. Dugin, ‘S kem Rossia?’, 7 November 2005, available at: http://www.evrazia.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2556, accessed 18 September 2006.

²⁹‘Kitai pokazyvaet pyatki’, Moskovskie Novosti, 17 March 2006.

³⁰See Sazhneva (2005). See also Steve Nettleton, ‘Russians Bear Heavy Load on “Ice Road to China”’, available at: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/russia/story/train/blagoveshchensk, accessed 18 September 2006.

³¹See also ‘12 mln. dollarov vlozhat kitaitsy v ekonomiku regiona’, Vostochno-sibirskaya Gazeta, 8 September 2005.

³²For more about the role of Russia as a supplier of fuel to China see Rubanov (2006).

³³‘Kto prodal kosmos kitaitsam?’[‘Who Sold the Cosmos to China?’], Moskovskii Komsomolets, 15 November 2005. See also ‘Uchenogo obvinili v shpionazhe’, Vzglyad, 14 November 2005.

³⁴See Gennadii Zyuganov, ‘Poka v Rossii khoronyat sotsializm, sotsialisticheskii Kitai dogoniaet Ameriku’, 27 April 2004, available at: http://www.kprf.ru/party_news/23171.shtml, accessed 18 September 2006.

³⁵A. Vinogradov, ‘Sharashkina Model’, 27 July 1999, available at: http://www.gazeta.ru, accessed 4 October 2006; ‘Sil'nyi slabyi Kitai’, Ekspert, 4 July 2005; Ekho Moskvy, 7 September 2005.

³⁶‘Rossiya i Kitai—uchit'sya drug u druga?’, Romir, 16 September 2004.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vladimir Shlapentokh

The author wishes to thank Joshua Woods for his editorial contribution, and Vera Bondartsova for the research she contributed to this article.