China and Russia: A deepening partnership?
This is a complete transcript of the China and Russia: A deepening alliance? discussion, chaired by Alicia Kearns MP. She was joined by Sergey Radchenko, Bonny Lin and Maria Repnikova.
Alicia Kearns
I think we are now live. So I'm going to kick us all off. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. I'm sorry that we are running slightly late, I was giving evidence with a select committee. But this is a really important and clearly timely debate. So China and Russia, a deepening Alliance. And it's a really distinguished panel for you to hear from today. Over the last few years, we all know that we've seen a renewed focus on the China-Russia relationship. But this is often framed really as a focus on both countries rejecting the rules-based international order, attacking multilateralism, focusing more internally on what they want to achieve, and therefore projecting internationally in a wolf warrior-style approach. But actually, for a partnership of convenience to an alleged alliance with no limits, and no forbidden areas of cooperation, the relationship between China and Russia is seemingly growing stronger, but how does it really look in reality? And I think there's a lot of questions with Ukraine about how we make sure we don't push Russia and China closer to one another. So today, our panellists are going to look at the history of China Russia relations, asymmetry in the relationship, China's growing influence on the world stage, and how the invasion of Ukraine will affect that China-Russia relationship.
So the first speaker is Sergey Radchenko, who is the Wilson H. Schmidt, Distinguished Professor at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He’s written a lot about the Cold War, nuclear history and obviously of course Russia-Chinese foreign and security policies.
Then we’re going to go to Bonny Lin, a fellow for Asian security and director of China power project at the Center for Strategic International Studies. She previously was an associate director at RAND.
And then we're going to hear from Dr. Maria Repnikova, who's an assistant professor of global communication at Georgia State University, who looks a lot at China media and soft power.
Before I start, I just want to thank the China Research Group for all their work. Chris and Julia, you are absolute powerhouses. And if you aren't subscribed to our daily newsletter, do please sign up. And a reminder that we have an exceptional podcast that has just launched called Talks On China, which is available on all good podcast platforms. So we are now going to turn to Professor Sergey Radchenko over to hear from you.
Sergey Radchenko
Thank you, Alicia. And thank you. I would like to also extend my gratitude to China Research Group for hosting me alongside the other wonderful panellists here today for this discussion of China-Russia relations - a very hot topic. Everybody's talking China-Russia today, it's in the headlines. But interestingly, though, this is a relationship that goes back centuries. Russia first encountered China in the 17th century, as it advanced eastward as part of the early stages of Russian imperialism. And for China, that was quite robust and it basically repulsed Russian imperialism at that time. So the early encounters between Russia and China were not at all so friendly.
However, later - well actually, later encounters were not particularly friendly as well - but later Russia became stronger. As the 19th century progressed, the Russian Empire advanced further and further into the east and of course the Chinese Empire, the Qing Empire declined and withered. And in the mid 19th century, Russia and China concluded a number of treaties which were effectively imposed on China. They saw China lose ostensibly large swathes of territory in Siberia and the Far East – the fact that some Chinese Nationalists have certainly not quite reconciled themselves with even today.
Now, later on, in the 20th century, the Soviet Union and China became close communist allies after Mao Zedong and his Chinese Communist Party triumphed in their revolution in 1949. At that point, China and the Soviet Union drew close together. In 1950, they signed a treaty of alliance - an actual treaty of alliance that was supposed to be eternal and unbreakable. Low and behold, it fell apart after just 10 years. Why did it fall apart? There are all kinds of reasons why it may have, but I prefer the explanation that the alliance was inherently unequal. It was like a hierarchical structure where China had to defer to the boss, the Soviet Union. China was always the younger brother in that relationship. And it had very different ideas about global strategy that were at odds with the Soviet global strategy. So they inevitably developed divergences and clashes, and of course there was the personality clash between the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong.
The Alliance crashed with a loud thud by the 1960s. They were increasingly enemies, so much so that by 1969 China and the Soviet Union actually fought the border war in the area called Zhen Bao, an island on the Ussuri river that separates China from Russia and the Far East. And the Soviets, believe it or not, actually threatened the pre-emptive nuclear strike against China. We don't know if they were serious about it, but certainly this was floated out there as a potential threat (something that was, by the way, understood by the United States, which is why in the late 1960s, early 1970s, you see an outreach from the United States to try to build up relations with China under Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger).
Now, that led then, of course, to Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972, and a triangular diplomacy that continued for much of the 1970s. Now, in that triangular diplomacy, the United States was in a very advantageous position because it could develop a relationship with the Soviet Union through the process known as détente (which turned out to be short lived) and also with China. It played China and the Soviet Union against one another, but China and the Soviet Union hated one another. They had ideological divergences. They had amassed huge armies on both sides of the border, and were really afraid that either side or the other will invade. So that situation continued through the 70s into the 1980s.
And then from the early 1980s, the Soviets and the Chinese started to feel each other out to see if they could improve their relationship. This process started under Deng Xiaoping and the Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev in approximately 1982, and then continued under Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev visited Beijing in May 1989 and this process was basically complete - they normalised their relationship. And at that point, we can speak of a new era in Sino-Soviet, soon to be Sino-Russian relations because the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. At that point, the new Russian leader President Boris Yeltsin was temporarily distracted by this new policy of engagement with the West, but very soon redirected his attention to Asia and started building up a relationship with China, which also even Yeltsin thought was very important to Russia. And indeed, if you look from the perspective of long term trajectory and long term interests of Russia and China, I think they both understood that having a quarrel between the two is not in their national interest. Therefore, they had to maintain some kind of a constructive relationship, a process we see really gain speed under Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin, who was the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. And then that, of course, continued into the present with the current relationship between Putin and Xi Jinping.
But you just have to understand that this process of Sino-Soviet rapprochement/Sino-Russian normalisation and improvement of their relationship actually continued. It’s a continuous process all the way from the 1980s to the present day. So what we see today between China and Russia is not something that just appeared out of nowhere. It's a long historical process.
That being said, what we see today in the relationship between China and Russia is not an alliance like in the 1950s. The 1950s Alliance was more like a proper alliances. In other words, both sides had security guarantees or offered security guarantees towards the other side. There was expectation of, let's say, if one side finds itself in conflict with a third party, the other side should come to help. (By the way, this expectation proved problematic when in 1959 China went to a war or border clash with India, and the Soviets tried to stay neutral. The Chinese thought, well, this is a betrayal. This is an utter betrayal, you cannot do this to your communist ally – and that actually undermined the alliance itself).
Well, today we don't have this. So what I prefer to call the Sino-Russian relationship today is an alignment rather than an alliance. That is to say, the two countries share specific interests and they stand shoulder to shoulder on a number of issues, including kind of a general opposition to what they call, you know, Western hegemony or American hegemony. That being said, they still have their specific interests in specific areas where they don't coincide with one another. That is to say, what, for example, Russia is doing in Ukraine does not necessarily meet with China's approval. If China were to do something in the South China Sea, this will not necessarily meet with Russia's approval and they are free to maintain kind of benevolent neutrality. And this is what we're seeing today, playing out in connection with the crisis with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. China is maintaining benevolent neutrality - it's sitting on the fence. Rhetorically, sometimes it supports Russia. It also says it doesn't like NATO enlargement to the east, for example. But it is also not interested in actually backing Russia to the tilt and saying, oh, yeah, come on, we'll fight this war together. This is just not happening - the Chinese are calling for de-escalation and or even sticking, putting their ring there and trying to be mediators of some kind. So I will finish my short remarks here, and over to you.
Alicia Kearns
Those were absolutely fantastic kind of historical overview and real detail about where China and Russia have come and where they are now. I'm now going to hand over to Bonny Lin who’s also going to give us a general overview into this topic.
Bonny Lin
Thank you very much. And echoing what Sergey said, I'm very delighted to be here and with this opportunity to engage with this crowd. So I just wanted to add a couple of quick points on Sergei’s history of how we got here, by pointing it out that at least from the Chinese perspective, if you look at recent developments - and if you stand from Xi Jinping’s perspective - there are very few international leaders that has supported Xi Jinping to the same extent that Putin has.
So if you look at some of China's most important initiatives like the Belt and Road Forum, it's been noted on the Chinese side that Putin personally supported and attended the first Belt and Road Forum in 2017 and the second one in 2019. If you look at COVID-19, both China and Russia have been more or less on the same page in countering what they view as politicisation of the pandemic, and Putin has also publicly said it's not acceptable for other countries to blame Beijing for the pandemic. And most recently, to lead up to the February 4th statement, we saw both China and Russia push back against the US Democracy Summit, but also it was very clear and important for Beijing, in particular for Xi, to have Putin there to support him at the Beijing Olympics.
“I do worry as we’re moving forward, that one wrong lesson learned China might be taking from the Ukraine conflict is that if China believes that its behaviour will always be viewed as problematic no matter what it does, why would that limit China from moving closer to Russia?”
So from China's perspective, as the two countries have been growing closer, it's been clear to Xi Jinping that as he looks at world leaders that support China, there's very few outside of Putin of the most important world leaders that have provided China that sort of support.
Now, I do want to comment a little bit on what's happening right now in Ukraine. We’re seeing many leading US and Western analysts comment that China's decision to deepen relations with Russia on February 4th was one of the biggest foreign policy blunders that Xi Jinping has made. I'm not sure that that is the takeaway from Beijing right now, or that's Xi Jinping’s perspective at all. In fact, earlier today, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reaffirmed the importance of Russia as the most important close neighbour and strategic partner for China. He emphasised the need for both China and Russia to withstand international pressure and dangers and to continue pushing forward on the relationship. He also emphasised that the relationship is built on no alliances, no confrontation, no targeting third country and no interference by third countries either. So there's quite a bit of discussion, particularly in the US media, about the low limits in the relationship between China and Russia. I think that was true for probably a couple of weeks after the February 4th statement, but now we are seeing China coming back and trying to impose a limit to yet again saying it's not Alliance.
And what I'm seeing is, despite China's statements of how it poses, or how it does not, it does not like the developments in Ukraine, exactly like Sergey mentioned. We're not seeing necessarily China rushing - there's quite a bit of concern on China's end of standing closer to Russia with respect to Ukraine. And despite China's offers to play a peace-making role in Ukraine, I don't actually see any fundamental change, or reassessment in China, about the importance of its relationship with Russia. We've seen that China has distanced itself from Russia on Ukraine, but we have not seen any major moves from China to pressure Russia to change or alter its behaviour. I guess I would say it's still early to see what's going on in terms of as the Ukrainian conflict further develops, but I feel we should not rule out the possibility that Beijing might be willing to take some more temporary measures to distance itself from Moscow on Ukraine. I think though, if China were to do that, it would try to make sure that the actions it’s taking are perceived as, you know, the pure costs of doing business with Russia, especially on its own merits and not as China responding to Western pressures to sanction Russia.
I do worry as we're moving forward, that one wrong lesson learned China might be taking from the Ukraine conflict is that if China believes that its behaviour will always be viewed as problematic no matter what it does, why would that limit China from moving closer to Russia? What does China have to lose? So if you look at the Ukraine conflict from Beijing's perspective, Beijing clearly does not view itself as an aggressor. It does not view itself as taking any part in the Ukraine conflict, and has strongly denied that it has in any way greenlighted Putin’s decision to use force. So if you take this Chinese perspective and you believe this, then China's probably read the narrative coming from the United States and other countries that China has blood on his hands, that China is responsible for Russia going into Ukraine, as the United States and the West continue to make up excuses for ways to counter and contain China. So then you could make the argument that if the United States and other countries are set on opposing China anyways, what does China have to lose? Right? In that sense, China cannot afford to lose Russia as a strategic partner. I think this is a very dark mentality, and we can't rule out that this is how Beijing things. And just a final note, we are seeing some of this reflected in what's coming out of the two sessions right now. So we're seeing increased Chinese defence spending to 7.1% in 2022, even as China's GDP has fallen to 5.5% target for this year. So I'll wrap it up here, but looking forward to the further discussion.
Alicia Kearns
Thanks so much Bonny, that was really helpful. We're now going to hear from Dr Maria Repnikova, who's going to talk particularly about the media, and the representations of relationships and so on, Maria, over to you.
Dr Maria Repnikova
Thank you so much, Alicia. And it's an honour to be part of this very distinguished group and to learn so much from the historical perspective of Sergei, but also from the geopolitical perspective from China, from Bonny. So I wanted to just briefly note a couple of questions of the relationship, the way that I've observed it over the past, I guess, 10 years since I've been looking at this, and then focus more on the media and social media in particular. So when it comes to the relationship, I just wanted to complicate a bit this idea of the alliance as well, kind of echoing Sergey calling it an alignment. I wanted to further highlight the asymmetry that we're seeing today in China-Russia relations. I think it's important to keep that in mind as we think about this partnership. So there are several layers of symmetry.
First of all, when we think about the economic relationship, it's quite asymmetrical, right, Russia is not even in the top 10 partners for China when it comes to trade. China makes up about 18% of total of Russia's trade, so EU is still kind of the key partner for Russia when it comes to trade but China makes up a pretty big fraction. Not the same thing for China when it comes to Russia. When we think about the terms and conditions of this relationship, particularly in investments and various other economic deals, China has been increasingly pressuring Russia to make concessions on various big deals, including when it comes to BRI. There have been many accounts from Russian analysts about some disappointment on the Russian side about what they're really gaining from the BRI project. Even though Putin shows up to these meetings and supports China, rhetorically, it doesn't mean that they're really reaping the most of the benefits that they were expecting to reap from this project.
Thirdly, there's a lot of still mutual suspicion and Sergey mentioned the territorial gains that Russia has made in the border conflict, right. So I was looking at social media debates recently and we're seeing that as many digital nationalists are supporting kind of the pro-Russia stance, they're also arguing that it's a good time to force Russia to make some concessions - to give them the land back. Basically, even though they're saying that Russia is justified to protect its own borders, maybe it's a good time for China to actually push back and get some of its own land back. So we see these kind of contradictions, or maybe they're not contradictions and that's just the nature of this relationship. So mutual suspicion, I think, still desire to maybe at some point (at least on behalf of the nationalistic sentiments they’re projecting) to get the land back. And we're seeing also very limited people-to-people exchanges, right. So, if we think about just exchanges between people, not just geopolitical relations, there are not that many students exchanges.
And overall, I think the mutual understanding when it comes to the layer beyond just the elites is quite limited. That's my sense from reading the accounts and looking at the societal side of this relationship. And geopolitically, if you think about Central Asia, right, China has already taken over Russia as the key trading partner for Central Asian nations and there's quite a bit of friction there as well, when it comes to who is the key partner for Central Asian states. Is it China or Russia? Can they really complement each other, or is there competition as well? So that's just a brief note in terms of asymmetry. So the thing is, as we think about this relationship we have to be cautious of not maybe overestimating, how significant is this friendship beyond the rhetoric? Is there real substance to it or is it about symbolism? I think that's something we have to keep in mind.
When it comes to media representations, there's a symmetry here as well. It's something I want to highlight or focus more of my remarks on. So as was already mentioned by Bonny and Sergey, the comments that are coming out of Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese spokespeople on this issue have been primarily focusing on, kind of, this relatively diplomatic stance, but at the same time it can be easily interpreted very ambiguous and pro-Russia, and it depends how one interprets this ambiguity. So they're saying that they're pro-peace, the two sides should come together, and especially focusing on the fact that the conflict in Ukraine has deep historical roots. But it's complex, right? So this complexity means that, you know, it's not one sided. So we shouldn't blame Russia unequivocally, we should kind of look at this, you know, in a more holistic way, which means that perhaps Russia has some right to defend its territory, its borders, protect its security, and so forth. So maybe it shouldn't go as far as it has gone, but at the very least, we should take into account Russia’s perspective, I think that's how I'm interpreting some of these statements.
So the way that Russian media and Russian commentators have interpreted this is very much that China stands with Russia. So I've been looking at state TV reporting and state and more commercialised media, they don't always focus on China. But when they do, they highlight that Russia is not alone, right, it has China. So even though others have turned away, and we're facing such significant sanctions, and essentially an attack on Russia's economy, China is still there. So we have a really major partner that's with us. So that's how this ambiguity has been kind of co-opted or reinterpreted by the Russian side – as, you know, in a positive way that China's standing with Russia.
When we look at Chinese media coverage of this issue, it's actually been kind of underplaying the crisis. If you look at major pages of Chinese media, major websites and so forth, you don't see you the Ukraine crisis at the heart of the coverage the way you do in Western media. In fact, the key focus is domestic issues, right, domestic economy, Xi Jinping’s success in leading this economic miracle, and now, of course, the party session, the party congress sessions are starting. So there's a lot of debates, again, about what China is doing domestically and how it's going to reassert its power and keep the growth up and so forth. And coming out with the pandemic also, is this kind of a success story, right? It's managed to control the pandemic. We kind of forgot about the pandemic now but it's an important part of the narrative as well – pre-Ukraine conflict.
So essentially, I think there's kind of an asymmetry there, with Russian media highlighting kind of China as a partner but Chinese media underplaying the conflict all together, when we look at the coverage of this issue. And when we look at the social media side, just the presentations on social media, my take is that a lot of these pro-Russian stands or commentaries are really primarily anti-Western, so anti-US, anti-western hegemony. So they don’t really substantively engage with the conflict or try to understand who is at fault here or how this conflict developed, but they're really attacking NATO, and particularly the US for being hypocritical in pushing China to take a more uncompromising position, but also vis-à-vis Russia and the whole conflict. You know, the US has started so many wars and conflicts itself; it hasn't kept up with its promises of peacekeeping operations; it has been an aggressor and hasn't faced any repercussions, so basically a lot of the discussion is very much focused on de-legitimising the US and the West and kind of highlighting this immoral stance, right, that it's acting in an immoral manner.
And that’s very much to me echoing China's external communication in recent years, both on social media but also by some so-called wolf warrior diplomats, very much focusing on kind of rebuking some of these American human rights accusations but also highlighting the China maybe is an immoral power. It's, you know, here in this case, it's taking that of a more balanced stance today. They also announced they’re sending aid to Ukraine, so they are somewhat shifting a little bit, but of course not saying anything more than that - as Bonny mentioned there’s no significant rhetorical shift in this regard. But highlighting that they have a certain stance that perhaps in some ways is more legitimate than what the US is offering, you know that China has not been an aggressor, that's how they're positioning themselves, the US has. China's democracy is more effective, efficient, it's responsive to public concerns, the US democracy is failing. So a lot of these kinds of commentaries are coming out, both by officials, but also on social media, which I found quite interesting.
And lastly, I think when we think about the lessons from this crisis, will this really reassert China's friendship or stance vis-a-vis Russia, or is China going to look more again, kind of inwardly by thinking, well, we should be more cautious and present more of a buffer zone for ourselves in dealing with potential sanctions from the west or kind of not facing the same economic collapse that Russia's economy is now facing? So is this kind of a cautionary tale, or is this more of a story of basically closer ties over time, that, you know, China will keep standing with Russia, or they're learning something from this crisis that perhaps will suggest something different? So I think the learning, or kind of what they're reaping from this crisis as far as lessons for themselves for China, I think it's something we can keep discussing. I find that very interesting. So thank you.
Alicia Kearns
Thank you ever so much. The first question, and we are now getting into Q&A, is for Sergey. First, Russia, as it is hit with all these economic sanctions and the West seeks to essentially cut off it his legs financially, is it going to become a vassal state to the Chinese? And for Bonny, what opportunities do you think China will be seeking to gain as we see Russia become economically weaker and obviously have fewer friends that it can turn to?
Bonny Lin
No problem. So the question was what will China try to gain as Russia becomes economically weaker. So I think it's to be seen in terms of what China is looking for. So my sense is that as this conflict proceeds, or even if it wraps up with the Western sanctions, Russia will be generally more dependent on China, which will give China more leverage. But what I don't know is if there are any specific asks that China would try to take advantage of given that Russia is more reliant on China. We already saw a number of areas in which the two have identified ways to further strengthen their relationship, as identified February 4th, so I would assume at the minimum a continuation of those. I would think that, at least in the near term, China would be a little cautious in engaging more militarily with Russia, just because it doesn't want to be associated with what's happening in Ukraine. So some of the agreements the two sides had identified on the military side in late 2021, I would see at least some pause on that, at least for the near term.
In terms of the economic side, I do think that China could gain more in terms of trying to get, for example, acquire more Russian energy, maybe there could be in the future more interest in seeing what additional advanced military arms Russia might be willing to sell. But I also think that in the near term, and this goes to a point that Maria mentioned, there probably also is a measure of to what extent can China support Russia, but also make sure that it's also doing okay, domestically? Because as we're looking at the two sessions right now, one of the major themes is China faces a number of headwinds at home, right. And I would think that the priority for China right now is to make sure that it has its domestic portion, deal with those domestic problems, and to the extent possible, then still can support Russia regardless of what's happening on the Ukraine side. So at least in the near term, I don't see China trying to really leverage this for any significant gains, left and right. But I would defer to Sergey on whether that's an accurate assessment on what Russia might be seeking from China this.
Alicia Kearns
Fantastic, thank you. And Sergey, obviously, feel free to comment on what Russia might be seeking, but we spend a lot of time seeing Russia desperate for parity on the world stage with the US government. So whether it be peace talks or negotiations, or wanting to be seen as being amongst the kind of equal world leaders in being able to bring people together and control, in being an international peacemaker, or beyond that, can Russia accept being a junior partner in a relationship with China?
Sergey Radchenko
Ah, difficult to see that. The Sino-Soviet alliance in the 1950s fell apart precisely because China could not accept its role as a junior partner. Even though it was a lot weaker than the Soviet Union at that time, the alliance was of course very unequal. Today, we have alignment, not alliance. Russia is dependent on China in many ways. But to come back to this question of vassal state, you know, can it become a vassal state. What is a vassal state? Would it have to defer to China's decision? I mean, look at North Korea - an insignificant little country in Northeast Asia with a brutal regime and a very poor, desperate population. The Chinese are even having difficult time convincing the North Koreans to do what they want, never mind a power like Russia that has an independent nuclear arsenal, a large military. And then lots of options, of course, are kind of constrained now as far as the West comes. But no, I don't see Russia either becoming a vassal state or even trying to become a vassal state.
If the Chinese do pile pressure on Russia, then we could see friction developing in this relationship. What we see at the moment, though, is the Chinese treading extremely carefully and note, for example, what their reaction was when the Russians recently send their so-called peacekeepers to Kazakhstan. I don't think by the way, this measure was coordinated with the Chinese or there was much of a consultation beforehand. The Russians basically said okay, we're going in because we see that as our backyard and we're just doing what we want – and that's despite the fact that Kazakhstan is also crucial to China's BRI and, you know, whole dream of more assertive Chinese foreign policy, etc, etc. The Chinese were clearly not particularly happy, and in their rhetoric, tried to redirect Kazakhstan in the more acceptable direction of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and not you know, they didn't want those affairs to be sold through the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is headed by Russia. So, nevertheless, you know, you see Russia basically acting quite independently and the Chinese acting very carefully in order not to create the impression that there are serious frictions in the relationship. They have managed.
Look, analysts have been predicting - some analysts, not me - the Sino-Russian relationship would fall apart. Back in 2000, there were people saying, oh, you know, this is just a marriage of convenience, they'll fall apart, there's going to be problems in Central Asia, there are going to be problems everywhere, you know, the Chinese will try to emigrate to Siberia and the Russians will be afraid of that. This has not happened, Actually, they have been able to resolve their problems. This is not to say that the relationship does not have tensions, but somehow they've been able to work out their attentions, and, you know, there's no reason to think that the alliance will necessarily collapse. Alignment, I should say – not alliance.
Alicia Kearns
That's obviously fine. Maria, there's a question from Alexander McColl. He says that China's international relations, are they aimed at audiences outside of China, or are they really just focused on internal Chinese audiences?
Maria Repnikova
Yeah, thanks for that question. I mean, when it comes to the focus of China's international relations, but especially, I guess, communication and soft power and diplomacy, I think the audience is very much dual. It's both domestic and external. So I have a book that just came out on Chinese soft power and one of the arguments there is that, unlike the kind of Western conception of soft power/public diplomacy, Chinese public diplomacy is very much both internally and externally-oriented. So we see that there's a lot of emphasis on creating domestic cohesiveness, unity and, of course, also sparking patriotism and allegiance to the party as part of this external diplomatic communication. So I think it's very much dual when it comes to the audience and in certain occasions the domestic factor outweighs the external one. And then it depends on the issue, but we see at times that domestic audience/domestic pressure is more significant than the external audience.
Alicia Kearns
Brilliant, and Bonny – the next one is from Lee Jones, I don't know if you want to kick us off. Lee says that different positions on Ukraine have come out of China over the last week. Is this a reflection of contradictory interests and agendas within China, or lack of coherent strategy? Because I think we in the West too often risk saying, essentially, China has one position, and representing the Chinese Communist Party as this kind of monolith of opinion, monolith of action, so it would be helpful to understand where the fault lines lie in terms of Russian relationship within China.
Bonny Lin
So in terms of, I guess, China's differing position from Russia on Ukraine, I don't see, rather, I don't see how the Chinese think that that is incompatible with its general desire to strengthen relationship with Russia. The way the Chinese compartmentalise this issue is that the overall trend is that it wants a stronger strategic partnership with Russia and to use Russia as, I agree with Sergey, not an ally but like a key friend that it wants to be able to depend on. But as part of their relationship, it never said that the two had to always be on the same page on every single issue, right.
So from China's perspective, I don't think that they see any contradictions between taking a more, trying and positioning itself in a more neutral position on Ukraine, versus a position on Russia that is still sort of strengthening the relationship. I would say that I personally don't believe that China really is taking that much of a neutral position on Ukraine. As the Western sanctions are hitting on Russia, China will have to figure out what it wants to do, and it’s pretty clear right now that China has said that it does not want to abide by these sanctions and it will continue business as usual with Russia. That, to me, is not a clear position on Ukraine, that’s not taking neutrality on Ukraine, that is in some way supporting Russia and providing somewhat of an economic lifeline as Russia moves forward on Ukraine.
Alicia Kearns
Thank you. And Sergey, obviously on the 4th of February the strategic partnership was signed. In that, Beijing supported Russia's demand that Ukraine not join NATO. Obviously, that happened in a context where there were already 100,000 troops gradually amassing on the border. Do you think this will have emboldened Putin, or do you think that the strategic partnership, it's just us and academics looking into it a bit too much, and thinking it might have helped give Putin a bit more confidence?
Sergey Radchenko
I think the statement should be taken and should be looked at separately from Ukraine. It's a logical conclusion to what has been happening in the Sino-Russian relationship for some time. It has some very interesting elements, for example, the two sides trying to redefine what it means to be democratic, like, you know, arguing that China and Russia are both democracies with a 1,000-year history. And if you read the statement, you can find those remarkable words about that and you have to think about it, you know, what are they talking about? When was there, you know, democracy in Russia perhaps under Ivan the Terrible? Maybe if you go back 1000 years, I think it's the Song Dynasty that we would have to find democracy in, in China. But anyway, you've got this remarkable, remarkable effort to redefine democracy, redefine human rights, and forge almost some sort of an ideological backbone to this alliance, which I find extremely fascinating on its own terms. Whether this emboldened Putin, to a certain extent, Putin in moving against Ukraine, had made rational calculations.
People have said that he's deranged, etc, etc, but in his own world, he was making a rational calculation, and that calculation had to do both with the position of the West and the position of China and indeed, the position of Ukraine. He did not expect the sort of unified response and condemnation and sanctions that he encountered, he expected something along the line of, you know, 2014, maybe a little bit worse. He calculated that Ukraine is not covered by Article Five of NATO. It's not a member state of NATO, therefore NATO would never fight for Ukraine. He also did not anticipate this kind of resistance from the Ukrainians themselves. And of course, the United States appeared kind of weak because it had just withdrawn from Afghanistan, and that was chaotic, and it was preoccupied with Asia and, you know, he thought maybe they wouldn't look to Europe. And of course China was the lifeline and the backbone. This close relationship, of course, allowed him to – even if you saw how he prepared the troops for the invasion of Ukraine, a lot of those troops came from the Far East and were transported from Siberia and the Far East to the border of Ukraine, exposing the border with China. If the Soviets from the 1970s came back to life today, they will look at the situation they will say, wait, this is crazy, because our enemies are the Chinese. Well, now, the relationship with China is so close, that it allowed Putin to basically take the Russian military out of Siberia and move it to Europe and be quite comfortable with it.
Alicia Kearns
Thank you very much. And Sergey, before I move away from you, a really interesting question that’s come in from Lawrence is it does appear like a lot of the West is looking, essentially, to regime change as the only solution to end the conflict in Ukraine (whilst they might not be saying so publicly). What would be the impact of regime change within Russia? Obviously we don't know who would replace Putin, but is the relationship really personality driven? Or does it go really beyond that really leading on the historical and the kind of the previous history of the two countries?
Sergey Radchenko
This is an extremely important question. Here's my take on this. Okay. I'm generally very strongly opposed to Putin's policies. I think they're absolute disaster - his foreign policy, his domestic policy, everything is a huge, huge disaster. However, that being said, Russia maintaining a close relationship with China seems like a sensible policy to have, keeping in mind that Russia and China are neighbours, they are divided by or united, as you prefer, by a very long border. And they have a very checkered history. In history, when China and Russia or the Soviet Union were enemies, it didn't do either of them particularly well.
So, even if Putin dropped dead today, or he was replaced by somebody, or indeed Navalny was let out of jail and became president of Russia, I think it would be in Russia's national interest for any leader of Russia to actually try to maintain a decent relationship with China - it would be in Russia's national interest. Now, would that exclude this kind of personal relationship, the chemistry that we have had between Putin and Xi Jinping who have met what 38 times? 38 times I believe they have met. Possibly, possibly, but you know it doesn’t, you don't have to have this kind of personal chemistry to have a reasonable relationship. I mean, Boris Yeltsin had reasonable relations with China, even Mikhail Gorbachev was able to fix up this relationship. Remember, the current state, the current Sino-Russian rapprochement actually dates back to Mikhail Gorbachev, one of his most lasting legacies as a matter of fact.
Alicia Kearns
That was a really fascinating answer, thank you. Maria, there's a question that's come in about fault lines between Russia and China and their relationship, and that’s for Maria. But Timothy also pointed out competing over India. Can you just give us an idea about some of the fault lines that exist between China and Russia, and specifically where they sit in terms of competing influence over India?
Maria Repnikova
I don't focus on India specifically, so I would defer maybe to the other colleagues to explain that situation more clearly.
Alicia Kearns
Sure. Is there anything more broadly on fault lines between Russia and China that you wish to draw upon?
Maria Repnikova
Yeah, well, you know, specifically when I'm focused on Central Asian thinking about collaboration versus competition framework, I think, you know, there's significant tension when it comes to how they see one another, but also how Central Asia states attempt to manoeuvre between China and Russia and kind of navigate and stick alliances or relationships with both. So I guess, to me, this kind of regional competition generally complicates China-Russia relationship, like there is some degree of complementarity, but also competition. So seeing this, again, Alliance/ alignment, I think, from my perspective, it's fractured by some of these regional competitive spaces.
Whether it's Central Asia – I don't know as much about the competition with regards to India – you know, when we think about this, this lens of regional competition, I think it showcases that there's a degree in which they may be offering something different to the states, but the same time, I think they're forcing them to choose to some degree as well, so that fuels, kind of, some fractious, some fractiousness to this alignment or alliance as you put it.
Alicia Kearns
Thank you. And Bonny, Felipe has asked about how the UK and Ukraine have both called on China to play peacemaker. Realistically, is that an avenue they're going to want to jump into and, actually, do we even want them to be?
Bonny Lin
That's a good question, but maybe I can jump on really quickly on the India question first, just so we address the question. In terms of Russia and China competing for influence in India, I think that's an interesting question because China and India have had worsening relations, particularly in the last couple of years with all the different types of conflicts and tensions within Galvan Valley. So the main issue is where India sees itself vis-a-vis Russia, right, given how much India depends on Russia for its arms.
So right now, there's quite a bit of discussion in DC as to what extent is it possible now, given what's happening in Ukraine, for India to move closer to the west, United States, Europe and whatnot, and further from Russia? I think what we've seen with India's abstention in the UN Security Council vote on Ukraine is that India is still relatively cautious given its dependencies on Russia. So I think there's not so much of a Russia, China competing over India, it's more of India stuck between potentially closer relations with Russia versus the West. With respect to the, sorry, what was the other question you asked?
Alicia Kearns
The cause for China to play peacemaker, they could, but actually would we even want them to?
Bonny Lin
I think it does not hurt for China to play a role as peacemaker, I just don't think China's going to do very much. I think what China is going to do is encourage all sides to take responsibility and try to take a step back, but I don't see China using leverage either way, whether it's on Russia, on Ukraine. I just see China playing rhetoric and saying that it's playing its role and really not doing much. So, I think it doesn't hurt to have China communicate to Putin that you should try to negotiate or try to de-escalate. I just don't see China having a positive influence either way, or for that matter, a significant influence either way.
Alicia Kearns
Fab. Sorry, that's really helpful. I wasn't speedily going through enough people’s questions here, enough. Maria, quick question around Southeast Asian countries more, and Central Asian countries such as Vietnam and Kazakhstan, for examples. Stuart was asking about, where China and Russia have been balancing each other somewhat, will this drive countries more to the west, what's been happening in Ukraine? Or do you think, actually, it will drive them even further towards China and Russia, knowing that China and Russia need more allies and friends at this time?
Maria Repnikova
Yeah, that's a tricky question. But one thing to point out is that, you know, one example is Kazakhstan. What we've seen, despite all the recent events within Kazakhstan, major crackdowns on protests, there have been some quite big protests in support of Ukraine. So some people came out, and I think it's pretty dangerous, to take a huge risk to come out and support, you know, Ukraine and standing with Ukraine. So that, to me, speaks to at least some societal sentiment that, you know, not necessarily aligning with Russia, in this case, certainly, but not with China. And of course, Russia also supplied troops and all kinds of paramilitary support to crash a protest within Kazakhstan. So given that recent, very recent history, just recent events, I imagine at least on the societal level, there is frustration with Russia's interference, and they see themselves as kind of similar to Ukraine, they didn't get as much attention globally, as Ukraine have and Russia didn't go as far as Kazakhstan as it has in Ukraine - but I think they would sense kind of some degree of allegiance.
But then on the leadership at least, I think they wouldn't quite express the same sentiment and I imagine many people who support Ukraine would be potentially detained or criticised or face, you know, all kinds of consequences – not as harsh as in Russia, but maybe something along those lines. So I think we have to differentiate between kind of the elite level that may face quite a bit of challenge in terms of their statements to support Russia - do they stand with China, or is Russia and China closer in this case? Or do they support the West? You know, that's kind of more likely to be more neutral on elite side, and maybe some more pro-Russia statements, but in the context of society itself I think there's quite a bit of support for Ukraine.
Alicia Kearns
Thank you. And I'm aware that we are coming close to the end of time, so I've got one final question for all the panellists - although Bonny, I'm going to be very cheeky and give you two in the final. But just a quick reminder to everyone that we hold regular events at China Research Group so please do make sure you sign up, and our wonderful podcast that Chris works so hard on is available on all good podcast platforms. So my final question to all panellists comes from Lisa Hou and I think we all want to know your answer on this, which is about Ukraine and Taiwan and whether we are at risk of creating a false parallel. So will Western sanctions on Russia unsettle China and its potential plans to invade Taiwan by 2049/ 2050, or will strengthening economic relations between Russia and China ultimately lessen China's dependence on Western markets and make an invasion of Taiwan even more likely? And how likely is it that the entirety of the situation Ukraine is going to actually bring Russia and China closer together?
And then Bonny, just to give you a cheeky sub-question from somebody, the South Korean election on Wednesday, if Yoon wins, what impact will that also have on Taiwan? So I will start with Maria, if you want to start with your answer on how you feel about the parallel between Taiwan and Ukraine, then I'll go to Sergey, and then we'll finish with Bonny.
Maria Repnikova
Right, so the parallel between Ukraine and Taiwan. First of all, again, social media media's perspective or side, we see that the parallels are clearly drawn. There are a lot of commentators comparing Ukraine and Taiwan and essentially highlighting that, you know, Taiwan is very similar, it's a very similar situation – they're kind of calling for unification and there's extreme sentiment of nationalism. At the same time, on the official side today, Wang Yi made a statement that Ukraine and Taiwan are fundamentally different issues because Taiwan is kind of an internal affair, it’s part of China's internal domestic affair, versus Ukraine which, you know, he's referring to being more external, it's still an independent state, right. So, he did make that distinction.
Even though nationalists are calling for a stronger line, officially, a much more kind of diplomatic line has been channelled. And when it comes to what will happen in the future, I guess, looking at the recent refocus on domestic economy, but the same time, of course, military spending, it's a bit hard to tell which way China is going to turn. From my perspective, I see that maybe again, as I said earlier, this presents more of a cautionary tale in terms of, you know, being cut off from the global international system, and being hit by similar sanctions with, you know, potentially destroy Chinese economy. So I see this maybe as more of a more of a cautionary tale in terms of how far China would go and Taiwan. But if you look at the military spending increasing and the extreme nationalistic sentiment, you can also, you know, highlight a different perspective that maybe there is actually more possibility more potential for China to go further. So not a very, you know, straightforward answer, but I see two sides, two possibilities, two scenarios when it comes to this question.
Alicia Kearns
Thank you, Sergey, over to you.
Sergey
I would endorse every word that Maria has just said, I think she's right on target there. You know there's a Chinese saying, how does it go, ‘to kill a chicken in order to scare a monkey’. You know, the saying, to kill a chicken to scare a monkey (杀鸡儆猴). This is, where used application to Russia, in China, is where the West supplies sanctions on Russia, Russia being the chicken in order to scare the monkey, in which case, you know, China becomes the monkey. Yeah, know, you wonder about this. You wonder what Beijing will think, having witnessed what just happened to Russia. Russia is in disarray. I mean look, it is in the state of utter economic meltdown. They could talk about multipolar world order and hegemony and whatnot, etc, etc. Look what happened, you know?
We can see the results, the Chinese are scratching their heads, and they are clearly taking notes, as far as we can tell. You know, the Chinese government is always very good at observing others, they have taken notes from, you know, the Soviet collapse from the Gulf War, for example, and so on and so forth and adopted their policies. And I think they're also taking notes from this. And in general, if you look at their behaviour, they're quite risk averse. So those people who predicted that the moment Russia invaded Ukraine, the Chinese will say, Hey, let's go invade Taiwan, we haven't seen this happen. We haven't seen this happen. However, I would also agree with Maria that the prospect remains for Chinese military action against Taiwan. And of course, much here depends on the outcome of Russia's adventure misadventure in Ukraine. If Russia gets away with it, even at the cost of sanctions, then perhaps the Chinese will you know, consider this as part of their calculations but if so, we'll have to come and see.
Alicia Kearns
Thank you, Sergey. And please find me but not least aware of the phrase might be clear in my mind is caught up in chickens and monkeys, and I'm able to now frame sentences, Bonny just briefly on the South Korean election, and whether that will embolden Xi to act quicker on Taiwan. And then finally, what parallels, if any, can be drawn between Ukraine Taiwan.
Bonny Lin
So I don't think the South Korea election is going to impact Xi's calculation on Taiwan or the China-Russia relationship. I think what we're seeing with all the statements is China wants to make the China-Russia relationship to the extent possible dependent on dynamics between the two sides. Obviously, that is probably going to be more idealistic than reality, but it still shows the general direction of where China is going in terms of that.
With respect to Taiwan, I think there are two things that I'm watching. One is exactly like what Maria has already mentioned, Chinese lessons learned from Ukraine. And I commented last week on what I think China's lessons could be right now, but I have to say, with the conflict evolving, China's lessons learned could actually evolve day by day or week by week. So I would just be very cautious of right now, based on what we're seeing today, to conclude that the lessons learned from China is that the cost for a Taiwan innovation are going to be much higher. This could be reassessed longer term, and right now it's just too early to say.
The other thing I want to point out is given all these linkages, both in the media but also China's attempts to refute the linkages between China, Taiwan, there has been increased focus on Taiwan right now, which has sparked more support for Taiwan internationally, but also more awareness within Taiwan that it could actually happen to them. So there is probably a renewed investment in Taiwan's defence, both internally and externally, and China’s seeing that as problematic. China sees this as international community as well as United States supporting more Taiwan independence. So there is a linkage in that respect, that I am worried that China is more worried now about Taiwan than before, because it's seeing all these linkages, but I don't see this as China accelerating as timeline for invasion, or any of that anytime soon, because of China's 20th Party Congress, but there is elevated concern with respect to China on Taiwan now because of what it's seeing in terms of international community's reactions to Ukraine.
Alicia Kearns
Brilliant, well in which case, first of all, a massive thank you to Sergey, Maria and Bonny for what was a really informative session. I know I learned lots, but also massive thank you to all the participants because without you, we wouldn't be here. And those are some really amazing questions. And I'm so sorry, I couldn't get to all of them, but hopefully in a future session. In the meantime, I think we've all learned a great deal about the Russia-Chinese relationship. And I'm sure the next few weeks we'll be learning a lot more about it. So thank you so much to all of you. Thank you. It's China Research Group. A big thank you to Chris and Julia, who make everything happen here. And please do sign up for the newsletter and a podcast and we hope to see you at a future event.