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Abstract
The relative durability of the growing alignment between Russia and China is perhaps the central question regarding this relationship. This article examines the degree to which cooperation and policy coordination have become institutionalised between these two states through the creation of a complex and self-reinforcing network of bilateral and multilateral agreements. Grounded in the literature on treaty nestedness and utilising social network analysis, this article examines 154 bilateral Russia–China agreements and 54 agreements and declarations signed under the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Notes
I am grateful to William A. Lange for his research assistance on this article. Funding was provided by Upper Midwest Regional Center on Public Policy, North Dakota State University, Grant 2015-1.
1 This is the focus of Wilkins (Citation2012b), who offered a typology of different alignment types, all based upon security cooperation. Chidley (Citation2014) cited Wilkins work positively, but argued that his exclusive focus on security relationships limited the concept of alignments too narrowly.
2 ‘President Xi Jinping Gives Joint Interview to Media from BRICs Countries’, China Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 19 March 2013, available at: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/t1023070.shtml, accessed 29 July 2015.
3 ‘China–Russia Relations at Unprecedented High Levels: Medvedev’, Xinhua, 22 October 2013, available at: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-10/22/c_132820701.htm, accessed 29 July 2015.
4 ‘Russia’s Wrong Direction: What the US can and should do’, Council on Foreign Relations, Independent Task Force Report 57, 2006, p. 49.
5 Formal treaties are ratified according to the internal rules of individual states and represent the most binding form of international agreement, in line with the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Other written documents are binding on state behaviour to different degrees. This article takes a broad perspective and includes such agreements, rather than limiting the data to formally ratified treaties. For those documents which have been signed but not ratified, the Vienna Convention imposes an obligation that states not defeat the ‘object and purpose’ of the document.
6 According to the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website, Russia has ratified more agreements only with Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine, and Armenia (available at: http://archive.mid.ru/spd_md.nsf/webcantr/, accessed 29 July 2016). In fact, of the top ten countries with which Russia has ratified agreements (based upon the number of agreements ratified), China is the only non-Soviet state.
7 There are no agreements listed between the time that the Soviet Union dissolved (in December 1991) and 1 January 1992.
8 For purposes of data collection, this article utilised four primary sources: two from the Foreign Ministry (available at: http://archive.mid.ru/spd_md.nsf/webcantr/ and http://archive.mid.ru//BDOMP/bl-raz.nsf/7b27b40957ce8e5743256a2c00350999/753418d95007c94e43256c7d006b8b44!OpenDocument, accessed 29 July 2016), one from the Kremlin (available at: http://archive.kremlin.ru/text/docs/30566.shtml, accessed 29 July 2016), and the Bulletin of International Treaties (available at: http://www.szrf.ru/, accessed 29 July 2016).
9 The independent sources included: Ligal Uèj, available at: http://www.legal-way.ru, accessed 29 July 2016; Zhōng é fǎlǜ wǎng, available at: http://www.chinaruslaw.com, accessed 29 July 2016; and Zakony Rossii, available at: http://www.lawrussia.ru, accessed 29 July 2016.
10 One document referenced by the SCO agreements—the Programme of Cooperation of SCO Member States on Combating Terrorism, Separatism, and Extremism for 2013–2015 (SCO-2012-02)—was not found. Nonetheless, it is included in the database since it is specifically referenced by other documents.
11 Three websites were primarily used for the text of these agreements or statements: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, available at: http://www.sectsco.org/RU123/, accessed 29 July 2016; Rossiya Ufa 2015, available at: http://sco-russia.ru/documents/, accessed 29 July 2016; and ‘Regional’noi antiterroristicheskoi struktury Shangaiskoi organizatsii sotrudnichestva’, available at: http://ecrats.org/ru/about/documents/, accessed 29 July 2016.
12 See the Appendix for the full list of agreements and codes.
13 All other subjects contained five or fewer agreements. These included the following: culture, tourism, air travel, debt, education, taxation, social and labour, terrorism, search and rescue, local government cooperation, legal assistance, natural disasters, and customs. Together, agreements under these subjects constitute approximately 22% of all agreements included in the database.
14 This analysis utilised UCINET and NetDraw to construct the network charts.
15 ‘Agreement between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the Russian–Chinese State Border, Western Part’, RC-1994-02, available at: http://www.lawrussia.ru/texts/legal_383/doc383a267x390.htm, accessed 6 December 2016.
16 ‘Russian Federation’, World Trade Organization, available at: http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Language=S&Country=RU, accessed 29 July 2015; ‘China’, World Trade Organization, available at: http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Language=S&Country=CN, accessed 29 July 2015; ‘Xi Jinping Meets with President Vladimir Putin of Russia’, China Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 8 July 2015, available at: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1280313.shtml, accessed 29 July 2015.
17 ‘Agreement on the Establishment and Organisational Basis for the Regular Meetings of Heads of Government’, RC-1997-03, available at: http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/international_contracts/2_contract/-/storage-viewer/bilateral/page-249/47515, accessed 6 December 2016.
18 These commenced prior to being formalised in the 1997 treaty.
19 ‘Li Keqiang Co-Chairs 20th Regular Meeting between Chinese Premier and Russian Prime Minister with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of Russia’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 18 December 2015, available at: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1326358.shtml, accessed 3 March 2015.
20 ‘The 20th Regular Meeting between the Heads of the Russian and Chinese Governments’, Government of Russia, 17 December 2015, available at: http://government.ru/en/news/21123/, accessed 3 March 2015.
21 ‘Press Statement and Answers to Journalists’ Questions at a Joint News Conference with Chinese President Jiang Zemin’, President of Russia, 16 July 2001, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21288, accessed 29 July 2015.
22 This treaty mentions the joint Russian–Chinese declarations and statements adopted by the two sides during this period in general terms, but does not cite them explicitly by name. Consequently, these were not included in the database.
23 ‘Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship, and Cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Peoples People’s Republic of China’, RC-2001-02, available at: http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/international_contracts/2_contract/-/storage-viewer/bilateral/page-3/46508, accessed 6 December 2016.
24 ‘Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship, and Cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Peoples People’s Republic of China’, RC-2001-02, available at: http://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/international_contracts/2_contract/-/storage-viewer/bilateral/page-3/46508, accessed 6 December 2016.
25 See also, ‘Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation’, Russia Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 12 February 2013, available at: http://www.mid.ru/en/web/guest/foreign_policy/official_documents/-/asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/content/id/122186, accessed 29 July 2015.
26 The legal status of these documents is questionable, since there are joint statements. Nonetheless, they contain bilateral commitments and are listed in the Russian Federation’s treaty database. Therefore, they were included here as well.
27 These numbers include the isolates.
28 These percentages exclude Global Order agreements.
29 This value is 1,476 compared to 210.
30 This isolate is the 2009 Agreement between the Governments of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on Cooperation in Ensuring International Information Security (SCO-2009-04).
31 ‘Consular Treaty between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China’, SCO-2002-01, available at: http://ecrats.org/upload/iblock/1e6/3.pdf, accessed 6 December 2016.
32 ‘Declaration on the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2001-03, available at: http://ecrats.org/upload/iblock/268/2.pdf, accessed 6 December 2016.
33 ‘Declaration on the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2001-03, available at: http://ecrats.org/upload/iblock/268/2.pdf, accessed 6 December 2016; ‘Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2002-01, available at: http://ecrats.org/upload/iblock/1e6/3.pdf, accessed 6 December 2016; ‘Treaty on Long-Term Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation between the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’, SCO-2007-02, available at: http://mddoc.mid.ru/api/ia/download/?uuid=79f9d181-022a-4514-a6b0-534a200e0537, accessed 6 December 2016.
34 ‘Declaration on the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2001-03, available at: http://ecrats.org/upload/iblock/268/2.pdf, accessed 6 December 2016; ‘Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2002-01, available at: http://ecrats.org/upload/iblock/1e6/3.pdf, accessed 6 December 2016; ‘Treaty on Long-Term Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation between the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2007-02, available at: http://mddoc.mid.ru/api/ia/download/?uuid=79f9d181-022a-4514-a6b0-534a200e0537, accessed 6 December 2016.
35 ‘Declaration on the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2001-03, available at: http://ecrats.org/upload/iblock/268/2.pdf, accessed 6 December 2016; ‘Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2002-01, available at: http://ecrats.org/upload/iblock/1e6/3.pdf, accessed 6 December 2016.
36 ‘Treaty on Long-Term Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation between the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2007-02, available at: http://mddoc.mid.ru/api/ia/download/?uuid=79f9d181-022a-4514-a6b0-534a200e0537, accessed 6 December 2016.
37 ‘Declaration of the Fifth Anniversary of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2006-02, available at: http://rus.sectsco.org/load/44799/, accessed 6 December 2016.
38 ‘Declaration of the Heads of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO-2002-02, available at: http://kremlin.ru/supplement/3449, accessed 6 December 2016.
39 Figure actually under-represents the importance of the RATS in the SCO network since the organisation itself is mentioned in numerous additional documents within the SCO database, but the agreement which formed it is not mentioned specifically and therefore was not considered nested in these agreements for purposes of the network analysis.
40 ‘Agreement on the Regional Antiterrorist Structure (RATS)’, SCO-2002-03, available at: http://ecrats.org/upload/iblock/d83/8.pdf, accessed 6 December 2016.
41 ‘Convention of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Against Terrorism’, SCO-2009-03, available at: http://nac.gov.ru/zakonodatelstvo/mezhdunarodnye-pravovye-akty/konvenciya-shanhayskoy-organizacii.html, accessed 6 December 2016.
42 ‘Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights: The Impact of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, Human Rights in China, March 2011, available at: http://www.hrichina.org/sites/default/files/publication_pdfs/2011-hric-sco-whitepaper-full.pdf, accessed 29 July 2015.
43 The Treaty of Semipalatinsk was signed by the five, former Soviet, Central Asian states and the Protocol was signed by Russia, China, France, the UK, and the United States. The original agreement was ratified by all parties, but the Protocol has not been because of perceived issues regarding the Treaty of Semipalatinsk’s effect on prior security arrangements (Ishiguri Citation2014).
44 In Article 3 of the 2002 heads-of-state declaration (SCO-2002-02), the SCO members stated that they ‘believe that the observance of the international non-proliferation regime is one of the most important elements of ensuring peace and security both in Asia and globally’ (‘Declaration of the Heads of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, available at: http://kremlin.ru/supplement/3449, accessed 6 December 2012).
45 Only Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova rank lower in terms of all agreements. Only Moldova ranks lower when references to Global Order agreements are excluded.
46 These are SCO-2001-02 and SCO-2009-03 and were cited in the bilateral agreement on Cooperation in Combating Terrorism, Separatism, and Extremism (RC-2010-03), found in the top-centre of Figure .