The contributions to this volume in sum paint a multifaceted picture of the complex and evolving Russian-Chinese strategic partnership. It seems clear that depending on the particular issue area studied and the methods adopted for studying it, a number of varying diagnoses can be made regarding the current state and future prospects of this “strategic partnership.” Capturing such complexity was expressly one of our goals; we consider it dangerous to approach the reality of Russian-Chinese cooperation with ready-made interpretations and thus risk falling victim to confirmation bias. That said, a few clear patterns do emerge from our material when it comes to answering the key questions that this research project set out to study and that were listed in the introduction:

  • What is the potential for increased Sino-Russian cooperation based on their existing synergies?

  • What obstacles stand in the way of fully exploiting these synergies?

  • What is the impact of structural incentivesand constraints on their cooperation?

  • What is the likely broad trajectory of the bilateral relationship in light of all of the above?

  • What problems could ensue for NATO, and how could Western countries deal with them?

The following concluding thoughts will offer a brief summary of what can be learned from this volume’s expert contributions in regard to those questions.

1 Structural Incentives for Further Russian-Chinese Cooperation

Our contributors overall agree that the year 2014, when Russia occupied and illegally annexed Crimea, marked a watershed moment that seems to have set the stage for much closer Russian cooperation with China. Several also point out, however, that 2014 was not the initial starting point of this development. Rather, Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008, which coincided with a border agreement with China, seems to already have set Russia and China on this path, and the Russian-Western tensions after 2014 only exacerbated this trend.

On the question of what are the key factors driving Russia and China closer together, our authors broadly agree that systemic factors play a key role. At least under their current leaderships, Beijing and Moscow aim first and foremost to preserve their autocratic political systems and make the world far more advantageous to their survival, and they also both expressly reserve the right to settle territorial disputes and advance their own perceived national interests on their periphery by military force (Stent, 2020, p. 3). In contrast, Western countries actively promote a rules-based international order, democracy, and human rights. They see multilateralism and international law as the primary means to resolve territorial disputes and reject as illegitimate the violation of international borders and attempts to change borders through war. While the record of Western countries regarding these norms is certainly imperfect, the preponderance of their international actions and their domestic polities and identities reflect these values. These differing perceptions between the West and the leading autocratic regimes regarding the rules of the global system seem to be the key driver of the Russian-Chinese alignment. While most authors in this volume who have commented on that issue—in particular Hannes Adomeit in chapter “Putin’s Russia: Global Strategic Outlook and Policies—What Role for China?”, Andrew A. Michta in chapter “Options for Dealing with Russia and China—A US Perspective”, Rainer Meyer zum Felde in chapter “What a Military Alliance Between Russia and China Would Mean for NATO” and Joachim Krause in chapter “The Way Forward: How should Europe Deal with Russia and China?”—place the blame for the widening rift between Western democracies and Russia/China squarely at the feet of Putin’s and Xi’s ever more aggressive outward behaviors, Alexandre Sheldon-Duplaix in chapter “Russia-China Naval Partnership and Its Significance” takes a different stand and points to Western pressure, and in particular NATO enlargement and shared concerns over US military interventions, as being the primary drivers of Sino-Russian rapprochement. The latter perspective downplays the degree to which this is rooted in Putin’s and Xi’s shared regime survival concerns.

The above disagreement represented a recurring theme in Western policy discussions about whether it would be possible to “woo” Russia into the Western camp through concessions and gain its help for dealing with China. The Russian February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine with its extremes of brutality and deception, and in particular the genocidal atrocities inflicted on Ukrainian civilians have rendered such ideas obsolete, as Andrew Michta points out. The immediate Western backlash suggests that any putative cooperation with Russia is for the foreseeable future off the table, at least while Putin remains in power. Western efforts at coaxing China into intervening on behalf of Ukraine meanwhile were unsuccessful during the first eight weeks of the war, with a clear positioning of Beijing still pending as of late April 2022. We have no doubt that regime security concerns bordering on paranoia due to a perceived threat of “color revolutions” exist among the inner circle of the autocratic leaders in Beijing and in Moscow alike; that both leaderships fear and reject Western military interventionism; and also, that these fears shape both governments’ strategic thinking and outlook on the world to some degree. Numerous writings by Russian and Chinese strategists bear eloquent witness to that (Stent, 2020, p. 3). Whether such threat perceptions are rooted in a realistic assessment or whether they are rather conjured up as a tool in information operations and as a justification for outward aggression is entirely another matter. After all, if both countries’ leaderships feel justified in demanding extensive security guarantees from their smaller neighbors and the West, it does not make logical sense for them to deny those same small neighbors—who have a history of being invaded by their larger neighbor—the same right to security guarantees and self-defense that their large (and nuclear-armed) neighboring country invokes for itself. Therefore, we do not share the position that outward structural factors such as NATO enlargement and US support for Taiwan alone are sufficient to explain the trend toward a stronger Russian-Chinese partnership, and we certainly reject the narrative that NATO enlargement has somehow “caused” Russia to invade Ukraine in 2022. Conversely, it is the unprovoked Russian war of aggression against Ukraine that will soon in all likelihood give rise to even further rounds of NATO enlargement, as it proved that Russian neighbors such as Finland and even Sweden have reason to feel under threat.

As several authors outline, internal dynamics within Russia and China may be much more foundational drivers for their rapprochement. Both Hannes Adomeit in chapter “Putin’s Russia: Global Strategic Outlook and Policies—What Role for China?” and Marcin Kaczmarski in chapter “Domestic Politics: A Forgotten Factor in the Russian-Chinese Relationship” discuss the shared fears of regime survival as a key incentive that brings Beijing and Moscow closer together. As Adomeit notes, united by their shared anti-Western grievances, Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China can be seen as cyclists “traveling in parallel on separate bikes but on the same bumpy road of Via Antiamericana.” Kaczmarski points out how various constituencies within Russia that have a stake in the continued existence of the current regime have turned into ardent supporters of rapprochement with China for this very reason. In addition to domestic factors, Jo Inge Bekkevold in chapter “Imperialist, Comrade in Arms, Foe, Partner, and Now Ally? China’s Changing Views of Russia” points to another impactful driver: the evolving great-power competition between the US and China that has strengthened the incentives for China to cooperate with Russia. Having its “strategic rear” to Russia safe while competing with the US for dominance in the Western Pacific has immeasurable strategic benefit to Beijing as it contends with the threat of maritime containment through US alliances in the region. For Russia, having China’s backing in its competition with NATO is likewise a valuable asset. Geography, in this respect, should not be underrated; for two Eurasian giants that share the world’s longest land border (at 4133 km) between them, peace and cooperation along that border not only makes large troop deployments there unnecessary, it also frees up military resources that can be alternatively deployed to higher-priority theaters (Rumer & Sokolsky, 2021). In light of the conflict-fraught history between them, having each other’s back can easily be seen by Russia and China as far more attractive than constantly being at each other’s throat.

2 Evidence Pointing to Differences and Lack of Cooperation: An Uneven Picture

What indications did our authors find that would seem to stall a further rapprochement between China and Russia? One factor that is often cited in this regard is their history of mutual strategic distrust—as laid out in detail by Jo Inge Bekkevold in chapter “Imperialist, Comrade in Arms, Foe, Partner, and Now Ally? China’s Changing Views of Russia”. The question is to what extent such a legacy of betrayals, which resulted in a lack of mutual affinity and empathy, may still be at work, undermining trust and inhibiting meaningful cooperation between constituencies within both countries even today.

Indeed, some of our contributors have come away with the diagnosis that there is still a lot of ground to cover before Russia and China could be considered true allies and partners. Chapter “Partnership Without Substance: Sino-Russian Relations in Central and Eastern Europe” by Edward Lucas and Bobo Lo in particular notes a striking lack of cooperation between Russia and China in their activities in the Central and Eastern European arena. Based on this, they deem it highly unlikely that China would come to Russia’s aid in a crisis in Europe, or Russia to China’s in Asia; however, they also acknowledge that other geographic areas may offer better indications of their overall cooperation than this particular field. But several other chapters likewise note significant divergences in both countries’ approaches to various issues, or point out a lack of coordination despite the objective existence of potential synergies. Some authors point to Russian-Chinese coordination in a field under scrutiny—where it does occur—as being seemingly “ad hoc” and opportunistic rather than strategic and well thought through. Examples of such takes are the study by Richard A. Bitzinger and Michael Raska on cooperation in emerging military technologies in chapter “Chinese and Russian Military Modernization and the Fourth Industrial Revolution”; the analysis by Elina Sinkkonen and Jussi Lassila on cyberspace governance approaches in chapter “Digital Authoritarianism and Technological Cooperation in Sino-Russian Relations: Common Goals and Diverging Standpoints”; and Olaf Wientzek’s discussion of Russian-Chinese behavior in multilateral organizations in chapter “Cooperation Between Russia and China in Multilateral Organizations—A Tactical or a Strategic Alliance?”. Overall, from these contributions, a picture emerges of Russian-Chinese coordination often being imperfect rather than full-fledged, and opportunistic rather than well-planned or integrated into a coherent, structured bilateral strategic partnership.

The question remains, however, of whether that might simply be a transient phenomenon. After all, the watershed moment of 2014 happened only 8 years ago, and many of the studied fields of cooperation may still be in their beginning stages after having started from a low level, with Russian-Chinese cooperation potentially turning into a more mature and stable state after initial interactions have returned positive results—or the reverse might be the case, as it may be. In that sense, we feel that the available evidence is as yet ambiguous, and that the fields of “unclear” cooperation that were analyzed in this volume should continue to be revisited, and the studies updated after a few more years to try and clarify the trend based on new evidence on the actual quality and quantity of Sino-Russian cooperation.

Furthermore, with the exception of emerging technologies, all of the above-named studies concern fields of cooperation that do not have military implications per se. Military forms of cooperation, however, could be seen as the most reliable indicators of strategic trust. Therefore, the development of post-2014 military and defense-industrial cooperation activities is particularly interesting and meaningful for evaluating the future trajectory of the relationship from which trust may eventually trickle down into non-military and less “strategic” fields.

Looking at the chapters that comprise Part II of this volume, and in particular the contributions by Sarah Kirchberger in chapter “Russian-Chinese Military-Technological Cooperation and the Ukrainian Factor” and Alexandre Sheldon-Duplaix in chapter “Russia-China Naval Partnership and Its Significance” about the arms trade, and Brian G. Carlson in chapter “China-Russia Cooperation in Nuclear Deterrence” about cooperation in nuclear deterrence, signs of an unprecedented degree of strategic trust that seems to have overridden previous concerns emerged in the period following 2014. In the arms trade, massive transgressions by China from the reverse-engineering of Russian systems on an industrial scale had long disincentivized the Russian arms industry from sharing its state-of-the-art secrets with this customer. But during the past few years, the relationship has not only overcome these issues, but seemingly moved towards shared development of sensitive arms systems. In that context, chapter “Sino-Russian Scientific Cooperation in the Arctic: From Deep Sea to Deep Space” by Frank Jüris on dual-use scientific research cooperation in the Arctic is of special interest. Jüris describes a pattern of intense and institutionalized dual-use scientific collaboration in the highly sensitive field of hydroacoustic sensors that takes place in a particularly sensitive geographic area—certainly from Russia’s point of view at least. Hydroacoustics is a technology area with massive impact on submarine operations and anti-submarine warfare and as such is in most countries a closely guarded field. The Arctic geographic context of this research collaboration in particular raises questions regarding Russian willingness to support ambitions that China reportedly harbors of ultimately basing parts of its strategic submarine fleet in Russian Arctic ports (“Pentagon Warns of Risk”, 2019). This would be a “game changer” due to its implications for nuclear deterrence.Footnote 1 Brian G. Carlson touches upon this problem and other potential synergies that Russia and China could be tempted to explore in the nuclear area in chapter “China-Russia Cooperation in Nuclear Deterrence”.

Given the Russian and Chinese territorial ambitions in their respective regions that are currently still frustrated by US-led alliances—NATO in Europe, and US bilateral alliances as well as potentially the newly-formed AUKUS pact in Asia—indications for cooperation in the field of nuclear deterrence need to be very closely watched. Russian help for China in the development of a ballistic missile early warning system; joint strategic bomber aircraft patrols near Japan and South Korea; a joint naval patrol encircling a main Japanese island; a steady series of bilateral military exercises, including naval maneuvers; and a mutual assurance of backing each other’s security concerns over Ukraine and Taiwan worryingly pointed in such a direction (Troianovski & Myers, 2021). Likewise, a joint statement ominously issued mere weeks before the 2022 Ukraine invasion openly challenged the existing international order (Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, 2022, February 4). Based on the above-named studies in our volume, the evidence pointing toward a full-fledged military alliance (in form if not in name), while not yet entirely compelling, is nonetheless hard to dismiss as completely unlikely. As a worst-case scenario, this is a worrisome development for NATO and the West, and indeed for the future of the rules-based international order that heretofore has led to unprecedented prosperity and security for hundreds of millions of people. Russian military shortcomings exposed during its Ukraine campaign may well reduce its attractiveness to China as a military ally somewhat. But simply hoping for the best without making needed preparations for hedging against the possibility of worst-case scenarios, as some European NATO members have been prone to doing, could have severe implications. The contributions in Part IV reflect this concern by dissecting the security implications for Europe and NATO that could ensue should Russia and China go down a path as military allies for achieving their mutual geopolitical goals.

3 Defining the Challenge to Europe, NATO and the US

The first part of the challenge posed by China-Russia cooperation to the West is to correctly assess the state, extent, and nature of this cooperation in the first place. Since information warfare and downright deception are key aspects of Russian and Chinese military doctrine (cf. Jensen, 2020; Lindley-French, 2015), the likelihood is strong that both countries could have an interest in either exaggerating or concealing the true extent of their cooperation, and to use signaling to manipulate Western fears about it. Furthermore, since this is an evolving relationship, assessments of the status quo cannot be expected to remain valid for very long, but should be regularly reviewed and updated; in doing so, cognitive bias in the researchers should be counteracted by actively looking for evidence that runs counter to expectations. The next part of the challenge is to assess in what ways a strengthened Sino-Russian military cooperation, whether short-lived and opportunistic or formalized and strategic, could pose a military threat to transatlantic allies.

The three contributions in Part IV—chapter “What a Military Alliance Between Russia and China Would Mean for NATO” by Rainer Meyer zum Felde, chapter “Options for Dealing with Russia and China—A US Perspective” by Andrew A. Michta and chapter “The Way Forward: How should Europe Deal with Russia and China?” by Joachim Krause—all look into the potential military and geostrategic synergies that Russia and China could feel tempted to exploit, and answer the question of what NATO, the US and Europe should do to avert a “nightmare scenario” of strategic simultaneity where the capacity of the US-led alliances to respond would be overwhelmed by a simultaneous attack by Russia on an ally in Eastern Europe and China in the Western Pacific. They all share the concern that deterrence might fail if Russia and China came to the conclusion that their joint risk calculus allows for a testing of NATO and US security guarantees at both ends of Eurasia.Footnote 2 “Probing behavior” to gain an understanding of potential responses is already ongoing on both countries’ peripheries and further afield, and future Sino-Russian developments may depend to a large extent on NATO’s, Indo-Pacific US allies’, and American reactions to the war in Ukraine and further transgressions (cf. Grygiel & Mitchell, 2016, pp. 43–44). In chapter “What a Military Alliance Between Russia and China Would Mean for NATO”, Brigadier General (ret.) Meyer zum Felde dissects the flaws in current NATO assumptions that do not account for the eventuality of a war on a NATO member where Russia might have the opportunistic backing of China. His sobering conclusion is that NATO’s deterrence posture must be urgently amended, and timelines for agreed-upon initiatives to rearm Europe be brought forward in order not to present even further parts of Eastern Europe as a tempting target of military coercion and thereby making coordinated military aggression in tandem with China more attractive to Russia.

Reflecting on the same risk and writing from a US perspective, in chapter “Options for Dealing with Russia and China—A US Perspective” Andrew A. Michta sees a growing US consensus which to an extent may be enshrined in the forthcoming US National Defense Strategy (NDS) that treats China and Russia as de facto allies even if the formal structures of such an alliance are lacking. He calls for transatlantic “burden transferring” instead of just “burden sharing” and points to a need by the US military to concentrate more fully on the Pacific theater, which means Europe will have to be able to provide significant core military capabilities to buttress the NATO deterrent—a situation that Europe is currently unprepared for politically and militarily. As it stands, the Russian war against Ukraine has highlighted the need for urgent improvements of military capabilities and readiness in Europe and led to an unprecedented degree of consensus among the NATO allies. Thus, in addition to burden transferring, it may be wise for the transatlantic allies to greatly increase the depth and breadth of their security cooperation and to break down and reform the still extant Cold War-era processes that constrain US cooperative efforts in a wide range of areas (e.g., operational planning, foreign military sales, etc.). For example, if the United States were to integrate close allies (those who would be expected to contribute meaningful capabilities) into relevant, detailed, operational military planning for top-priority contingencies, that could pay substantial dividends. Similarly, the benefits of US reforms to accelerate and enhance the agility of its military equipment sales processes to allies and partners could be manifold. This radical reform of US security cooperation is needed to enable the allies to handle the much greater total military capacity that the Russian and Chinese militaries can bring to bear than the allies have faced at any time in their history. Finally, this increased total military threat should also cause American defense planners to set much clearer priorities—with a very clear set of great-power top priorities (China and Russia), and a willingness to take additional risk regarding lower priorities (Iran and North Korea)—to a much greater degree than they have done in recent years. Unfortunately, early indications from the soon-to-be-concluded National Defense Strategy (NDS) process (Wasser & Pettyjohn, 2021) pointed to an incremental set of outcomes, which if manifested would leave the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific and Europe with a less capable deterrent posture both now and into the future.

Michta also points to the central importance for the United States to decouple critical supply chains from China’s globe-spanning supply system, a move that is both foundational for winning the competition against China but also may be the most challenging in light of strong economic interests on both sides of the Atlantic favoring sustained economic interchange with and in China. Some analysis also suggests the wisdom of the transatlantic alliance leaning more heavily on the EU’s regulatory superpower to help set technology standards that reflect democratic values as a way to out-compete China in that critically important domain for western societies and economies (Pavel & Cimmino 2022, January 11).

Joachim Krause in chapter “The Way Forward: How should Europe Deal with Russia and China?” echoes some of Michta’s and Meyer zum Felde’s points and makes an important observation when pointing out that the often-asked question “how durable could a potential Russian-Chinese alliance be?” most likely misses the point. By listing historical examples of opportunistic alliances or axes concluded by authoritarian governments that were united in their goal to achieve geopolitical gains through violence and stood in opposition to democratic countries, he shows that even short-lived arrangements of this type not only often resulted in war; they managed to wreak massive destruction within just a few short years. It may make more sense, in other words, to focus on how likely a short-term opportunistic military collaboration between Russia and China could be, what forms it could take, and how it could be counteracted, rather than pondering the risk that Russia and China could be forming a treaty alliance, or how to label their exact type of strategic coordination (cf. Kashin, 2019; Lukin, 2021).

4 Areas for Future Research

During the course of this project, we noted a number of research areas that would likely yield highly interesting data on Russian-Chinese collaboration, but that we were unable to include within the scope of our project. It would, however, be desirable for all these sensitive or strategic fields to be analyzed as case studies to gather further insights into the trajectory of Sino-Russian cooperation in additional areas, especially following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Of particular interest would be Russian-Chinese space collaboration, both in civilian and military programs; deeper insights into Russian-Chinese cooperation on the future strategic forces balance including nuclear weapons, directed-energy, and hypersonics; analyses regarding cooperation on biotechnology and genetic engineering, which increasingly look likely to be critical drivers of the future global economy in the 2030s and beyond; studies on mutual learning processes connected to “hybrid warfare” (or “sharp power”) that Russia and China direct against neighboring states; on both countries’ attempts to forge global narratives, e.g. on the pandemic origins or on vaccinesFootnote 3; on their vast and fast-evolving cooperation in Arctic LNG production and the related novel infrastructures that are being built up along the Arctic Silk Road; Sino-Russian cooperation on climate change and energy resources more broadly, which together will add further dynamism to geopolitical balances; as well as on mutual learning processes regarding methods and tools for suppressing domestic dissent and separatism inside their borders. This list of desirables is by no means exhaustive, but by mentioning just a few such areas, we aim to inspire future research agendas in the hope that gaps in our knowledge of Russian-Chinese strategic cooperation can be gradually reduced and a more comprehensive understanding gained.