Convergence or divergence? Visions of world order and the Russian-Chinese relationship

ABSTRACT

Scholars studying Sino-Russian relations remain divided regarding the extent to which Russia’s and China’s visions of international order converge. The article addresses this question by comparing how Russian and Chinese elites interpret the evolution of world order. My analysis shows that Russian and Chinese views on world order partly overlap and partly diverge. Russia and China’s defiance of Western primacy in international politics provides a basis for cooperation. Both countries distrust the West and oppose some policies pursued by the United States and its European allies. At the same time, leaders in Moscow and Beijing do not fully agree on what alternative norms they would like to promote. While joint declarations paper over this divergence, the differences are more pronounced in the patterns of Russian and Chinese practical engagement with global governance and their attitudes towards globalization and anti-globalization movements. The Chinese leadership appears to be genuinely interested in contributing to political-economic stability, while Moscow seeks first and foremost the symbolic confirmation of its great-power status and does not mind playing the role of an occasional spoiler. The article concludes that these differences have the potential to slow down, if not derail, long-term cooperation between Russia and China.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia
• China
• Russia-China relations
• world order
• global governance

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank the editor of the special issue, Elias Goetz and an anomyous reviewer for comments on previous drafts of this article. The research and writing of this article benefited from the Kennan Fellowship granted by the Kennan Institute.

Notes

1. The complexity and internal contradictions of Russia’s and China’s visions of world order make it difficult to classify them in terms of status quo or (neo-)revisionist powers. For depictions of Russia as a ‘neo-revisionist’ power, see Sakwa (2017). For a view of China as a revisionist actor, see Callahan (2016).

2. For a quantitative analysis of Russian-Chinese treaties and agreements, see Ambrosio (2017).

3. The phrase ‘new international relations’ had also been used by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s.

4. For more on China’s position vis-vis the UN, see Godement et al. (2018).

5. According to critics, this is the case of China’s deployment of peacekeepers to South Sudan, see Xie and Copeland (2017).

6. Other assessments provide higher numbers but the details of particular agreements are rarely released publicly.