Keywords

1 Introduction

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, told Russian state news agency Tass ahead of a trip to Russia in June 2019 that he regarded President Putin as “my best and bosom friend.” A few days later, Putin prepared a small ice cream and champagne party for his Chinese counterpart, celebrating Xi Jinping’s 66th birthday. In 2017, Putin awarded Xi the highest honor of Russia, the Order of St. Andrew, and a year later, Xi awarded Putin the first-ever Friendship Medal of the People’s Republic of China.

Few, if any, state leaders spend more time together than Xi and Putin, and this pattern of behavior over many years clearly signals a growing bilateral relationship (Lo, 2019, p. 1). Since Xi’s first visit to Russia as China’s head of state in 2013, Xi and Putin have met more than 30 times. It has been suggested that the rise to power of Xi Jinping in China in 2012 and the return to office of Russian President Vladimir Putin the same year “invigorated China and Russia’s growing alignment” and that the “authoritarian tendencies and shared world views of the two leaders have helped improve bilateral coordination while managing their differences” (Kamphausen, 2019, p. 7).

This chapter discusses how the policy choices of Xi Jinping and the Chinese leadership on Russia are formed and shaped. This is a tall order with regard to China, with little information available about the views and intentions of Xi Jinping and China’s foreign policy elite. We can assume, though, that China’s policy toward Russia is not driven by Xi Jinping’s possible fondness for Putin or Russia, but by strategic calculations about what best serves Chinese interests.

The Sino-Russian relationship is often explained on the basis of values, identity, and ideology. For instance, Rozman (2014) contends that the identity overlap of China and Russia was strengthened throughout the 1990s and 2000s and that it is far stronger than acknowledged in Western countries. Welch Larson and Shevchenko (2019) suggest that China and Russia, in their search for great power status, share a common identity of pride as well as humiliation in their respective relations with the West. Lukin (2018) finds that economic and geopolitical interests have contributed to drive China and Russia closer together over the last couple of decades in spite of their political and cultural differences, and others emphasize that the pressure generated by the international system strengthens their partnership (Bekkevold, 2020; Korolev & Portyakov, 2019).

In this chapter, I argue that the realist school of international relations and balance of power theories are the best tools to explain China’s growing ties with Russia. Realists contend that stability in the international system results from maintaining a balance of power and that economics is less relevant to national security than military might (Waltz, 1979). Realists acknowledge that constructivist variables may, under certain conditions, moderate actors’ level of uncertainty about others’ intentions, but insist that power structures exist by the mere presence of other actors and the harm they can do in the future (Copeland, 2000, p. 206).

During the last decade, China and Russia have finally managed to develop an economic partnership, but their level of interdependence is still relatively low. History, identity, and ideology are important variables for understanding China’s relationship with Russia. Yet, few, if any, bilateral relationships between two major countries have changed back and forth so dramatically as that of China and Russia. Examining Sino-Russian relations across several time periods, this chapter illustrates that there is no single continuous historical narrative or identity in China on Russia. During the last century, China has seen Russia as imperialist, a comrade in arms, a foe, and a partner, and it is now discussing whether it should be an ally. China’s policy choices in its relationship with Russia have first and foremost been shaped by their relative power position and systemic pressures from great power politics.

This chapter consists of six parts. The first part is a brief outline of the relationship during the Qing Dynasty and early communist period. The second part looks at China’s relationship with the Soviet Union from the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 through the signing of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty in 1950 to the Sino-Soviet split. The third part explores China’s rapprochement with the United States in the aftermath of the 1969 border clash with the Soviet Union. The fourth part deals with China’s relationship with Russia through the 1990s and 2000s and discusses how China adjusted to the US hegemonic position. The fifth and main part examines the development of China’s relationship with Russia during the last decade. The sixth part draws some conclusions from the analysis.

2 Russian “Imperialism”

Chinese indignation and resentment toward imperialism and the “Century of Humiliation” (1839–1949) resurfaces from time to time, although it is usually directed at Great Britain, France, the United States, or Japan, not at Russia. Nevertheless, Russia also played its part in imperialism in China. The “Great Game” between Britain and Russia in Central and South Asia in the nineteenth century also encompassed the western parts of China, with Russian operatives based in Xinjiang and a strong Russian influence in the region well into the 1930s. During the Second Opium War from 1858 to 1860, with the Qing Dynasty under heavy pressure from British and French forces, Russia used the opportunity to push for Chinese concessions. Through the Treaty of Aigun, concluded in 1858, and further concessions given in 1860, Russia gained the Amur Basin, the current Russian maritime province, and the island of Sakhalin (Paine, 1996).

The Sino-Japanese War in 1895 altered the balance of power in the region, with Japan on the ascendancy. In order to secure its own interests in the region and to stem Japan’s growing influence, Russia signed the secret Treaty of Alliance with China in 1896. Seen from Moscow, a seriously weakened China was willing to accept Russian financial assistance at the price of Russian political influence (Eskridge-Kosmach, 2008, p. 40). The 1896 treaty provided that the two powers would come to each other’s aid in the event of a Japanese attack on Russia in the Far East, on any Chinese territory, or on Korea. Moreover, it stated that all Chinese ports would be open to Russian warships during military operations against Japan, and China agreed to allow the construction of a railway line across Chinese territory in the direction of Vladivostok (Elleman & Kotkin, 2010). Russia was not the only imperialist power building railways in China, and the recovery of railway rights became a passionate issue in China’s nationalist movement (Spence, 1990, pp. 251–256).

In fact, the Russian influence on the railway and its access to Chinese ports would reverberate in China’s relations with Russia for decades. Russia lost control of it after its defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, but regained control in 1924. Following the October Revolution in 1917, the Soviet Union repeatedly called on the other great powers to follow its lead and give up their trade and territorial concessions in China. Nonetheless, in 1924 Moscow signed two secret treaties with China, one with central authorities in Beijing and another with Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin’s government in Manchuria, renewing its control over the Russian-built Chinese Eastern Railway. Some scholars speculate that if these treaties had been publicly known in China at the time, it could have changed the public view on imperialism and undermined the legitimacy of the communist movement in China (Elleman, 1994, pp. 459–460). However, it did result in a large-scale Russian military intervention in China in 1929 after the Chinese Northeastern Army attempted to take over the railway. Russia again lost control of the railway after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, only to regain it yet again during World War II. Russian influence on the railway as well as access to the Lushun port on the Liaodong Peninsula was finally settled as part of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty in 1950.

From 1937 to 1941, the Soviet Union supported China in the Sino-Japanese War, but to Chiang Kai-shek’s disappointment, it withdrew its support after it had signed a neutrality pact with Japan in 1941. For Stalin in World War II, Europe was the primary security concern. After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States stepped in to support China against Japan. Moscow and Washington were chiefly concerned with Japan’s power position in their respective Asia policies, and they both played the “China card” against Japan (Garver, 1987).

3 From “Comrade in Arms” to the Sino-Soviet Split

In December 1949, a few weeks after having proclaimed the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong travelled to Moscow to sign a Friendship Treaty with the Soviet Union. Mao decided China was best served by “leaning to the one side” in the US-Soviet rivalry, and since the need for security against the United States was viewed as paramount, China tilted toward the Soviet Union (Nathan & Ross, 1997, p. 36). Communist China aligning with the socialist camp of the Soviet Union was an obvious choice, but the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet Union was at times quite troublesome.

From the very beginning after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet Union in its China policy pursued a dual policy of national self-interest and ideological ambition, weaving diplomatic and revolutionary activity together with the aim of fashioning in a new pattern of Russian power in the Far East (Whiting, 1954). Soviet support to the Chinese communist movement increased after World War II, cementing the Sino-Soviet alliance, and the relationship was further strengthened during the Korean War and the first half of the 1950s. In this period, the People’s Republic of China both wanted and needed Soviet aid, and the Soviet Union served as a model that the Chinese Communist Party wanted to copy in terms of technological achievements, military structure, and society (Westad, 2012, pp. 290–306). Nevertheless, balancing great power ambitions and ideology in its China policy would soon become increasingly difficult for the Soviet Union.

The Sino-Russian split was the result of growing disagreements on a number of topics, which can be divided into four interrelated clusters of issues. First, the two parties developed different views on ideology. Soviet advisors in China voiced concerns and disagreements toward how Mao implemented socialism, and in particular the policies of the Great Leap Forward. This critique didn’t go down very well with Mao (Westad, 2012, p. 336). Mao and Khrushchev also had two different views on the role of world revolution and the international communist movements (Westad, 2012, pp. 328–332; MacFarquhar & Schoenhals, 2006, pp. 3–11).

Second, toward the late 1950s, they disagreed on how to deal with the United States. Whereas Khrushchev wanted to move toward a “peaceful coexistence” with the West, Mao wanted to use the apparent momentum of the “high tide of socialism” to directly confront “US imperialism” (MacFarquhar & Schoenhals, 2006, pp. 6–7; Westad, 1998).

Third, there was a strong feeling in China that it was not treated as an equal by the Soviet Union. In 1950, Mao got his treaty in Moscow, securing financial, technological, and military aid, but his national pride had suffered in the process (Westad, 2012, p. 293). Part of the price Mao had to pay was to accept Mongolia’s independence (Elleman & Kotkin, 2010, p. xiv). Moscow had also compelled Beijing to grant extraterritorial rights in China (Nathan & Ross, 1997, p. 39), which had been one of the hallmarks of Western imperialism.

Fourth, from the mid-1950s onward, China’s national security interests increasingly diverged from those of the Soviet Union. Their views on Taiwan differed, and when Khrushchev proposed a “joint fleet” and building a naval radio station on the Chinese coast to assist the Soviet Pacific Fleet, the Chinese declined. In 1958, Moscow halted its support for China’s nuclear program, as it could derail talks with the United States on de-escalating the Cold War. In 1962, the Soviet Union did not support China in its border conflict with India, and in 1963, China criticized the Soviet Union for negotiating the test-ban treaty with the United States (Garver, 2003; Nathan & Ross, 1997, pp. 40–46).

Even though Mao tried to save the Sino-Russian alignment (Wang, 2006), his vision had from the very beginning been to rebuild China’s power and status. In the age of Cold War superpower rivalry, however, China was too weak to achieve this goal on its own, and priority had to be given to survival (Goldstein, 2020). Leaning toward the Soviet Union was simply a tool in a larger vision. Mao never intended China to be Moscow’s satellite, nor did he foresee the alignment with Moscow lasting forever (Goncharov et al., 1992, pp. 203–225). Ideology played its part in China joining the Soviet camp and in the Sino-Soviet split, but on both occasions, Mao’s China made its choices based on regime survival, national security interests, and how to navigate great power politics.

4 From Sino-Russian Border Clashes to Sino-US Rapprochement

After the Sino-Soviet split, and with China successfully detonating its first nuclear bomb in 1964, the Soviet Union increasingly viewed China as a threat. The Soviet Union strengthened its military presence in the Far East, from 12 divisions in 1961 to 25 by 1969 (Nathan & Ross, 1997, p. 43), and it encouraged unrest in Xinjiang (Nathan & Ross, 1997, p. 44). The Sino-Soviet border clash in 1969 created the possibility for China and the United States to begin communicating with each other, laying the foundation for a Sino-American rapprochement (Yang, 2000). The rapid escalation of the border clash during the spring and summer of 1969 created a war scare in Beijing (Yang, 2000, p. 35), and Mao responded by issuing orders to ease relations with the United States (Westad, 2012, 367). Two decades after signing a Friendship Treaty with the Soviet Union, China decided to balance the Soviet Union through rapprochement with the United States. In 1971, Kissinger made a secret visit to Beijing, and President Nixon announced that he intended to visit China the following year. The next two decades would be characterized by classic balance of power politics between China, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

Moscow moved more divisions to the Chinese border and expanded its Pacific fleet. In 1971, Russia signed a friendship treaty with India, and in Southeast Asia, Russia established a strong influence through its collaboration with Vietnam. From 1979, Soviet ships and planes regularly operated from Cam Ranh and Danang in Vietnam, as well as from the Kampuchean port of Kompong Sam (Kelemen, 1984). By the mid-1970s, at a time when the United States seemed to turn more isolationist, the Chinese leadership was concerned about the Soviet Union’s growing influence and possible encirclement of China in the Far East. In addition to leaning toward the United States, China responded by positioning itself as the leader of the Third World, in contrast to the US-led First World and the Soviet-led Second World. This campaign was in reality an effort to establish a global anti-Soviet front (Garver, 2016, pp. 324–330).

From establishing diplomatic relations in 1979 and through the 1980s, the United States treated China as a de facto ally in its rivalry with the Soviet Union (Westad, 2012, p. 374; see also Chapter “Russia-China Naval Partnership and Its Significance” by Alexandre Sheldon-Duplaix). Nonetheless, throughout the 1980s, Beijing and Moscow sent each other subtle messages signaling an intent to improve relations, and in 1986, Soviet communist party leader Mikhail Gorbachev took the initiative to normalize relations. The main reason was that its significant military presence on the Soviet-China border, on top of its arms race with the United States, was costly for Moscow. In its reply, Beijing linked normalization to three issues: the border, which involved settling the border dispute as well as withdrawal of troops from the border; ending the occupation of Afghanistan; and halting its support for Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia (Fravel, 2008, p. 138). China wanted to reduce the Soviet Union’s influence in its neighborhood. Normalization of relations, however, would not be possible until 3 years later, with Gorbachev’s visit to Beijing.

5 “Strategic Partner” in a Unipolar World

The balance of power and pressure generated by the international system would continue to shape China’s policy toward Russia after the Cold War as well, although in a less prominent manner. After Gorbachev’s visit in 1989, the pace of border negotiations quickened. Faced with international isolation and growing regime insecurity in the immediate aftermath of Tiananmen, China wanted to improve relations with Russia (Qian, 2006), and in doing so, it was willing to make concessions in the border negotiations (Fravel, 2008, pp. 137–144). China reached an agreement with Russia on most of the disputed border areas in the early 1990s, with the last issues finally settled in 2004. With its relationship to Russia normalized, the border settled, and troops redeployed, for the first time in its entire history, China was now free from a security threat to its northern land border. With its strategic rear safe, China could give more priority to coastal defense, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, and it could channel resources into building sea power (Bekkevold, 2020; Goldstein, 2005, p. 142).

The collapse of the Soviet Union changed the balance of power in the international system, with the United States remaining the only superpower. China adopted a two-pronged policy toward the United States, combining cooperation with opposition. China needed close cooperation with the United States to achieve its goals of economic growth and integration into the world economic order, but it was skeptical about the new dominant position of the United States in the international system and opposed US policies that could undermine its security interests. In achieving the latter, China developed close ties with Russia.

China worked with Russia in the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to manage a highly unstable security environment and increased Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia (Bekkevold & Engh, 2017). Russia became an important source of modern weapons platforms that China could not produce itself nor obtain from the United States or European countries in the aftermath of Tiananmen (Lo, 2008, p. 80; see also Chapter “Russian-Chinese Military-Technological Cooperation and the Ukrainian Factor” by Sarah Kirchberger). China appreciated Russia’s support in opposing US plans for missile defense in the region (Goldstein, 2005, pp. 139–142), and Russia shared China’s vision for a multipolar world order eventually replacing US hegemony. This was reflected in their Joint Declaration on a Multipolar World and the Establishment of a New International Order, adopted in 1997, as well as their engagement in the BRIC from 2006 onward.

In the early 1990s, China saw Russia as weakened and humiliated, but also as a country that wanted to restore its great power status, and China believed Russia still had great power potential (Deng, 2008, pp. 138–151). Being aware of Russian concerns about the growing power gap in China’s favor, Beijing has throughout the post-Cold War period pursued a policy of reassurance vis-à-vis Russia (Hsiung, 2019). This was part of a larger Chinese strategy from the mid-1990s onward, countering growing concerns in the region about its rise through adherence to Deng Xiaoping’s advice to “keep a low profile” in its foreign policy (Goldstein, 2005). China’s reassurance policy toward Russia is arguably one of Beijing’s most successful diplomatic achievements, although its success has been helped by Moscow’s tense relationship with the United States.

In 1996, the two presidents Jiang Zemin and Boris Yeltsin signed a joint statement announcing their “partnership of strategic coordination based on equality and benefit and oriented toward the 21st century,” formally establishing China’s “strategic partnership” with Russia. In 2001, China signed the Treaty on Good Neighborliness, Friendship, and Cooperation with Russia. China has no such friendship treaty with any other country. Nonetheless, despite its success, the Sino-Russian partnership remained a “limited” partnership throughout the 1990s and well into the 2000s, with modest economic cooperation and very little people-to-people contact (Lo, 2008, p. 177; Andersen, 1998, pp. 10–12). In a study from 2010, Bobo Lo argued that there was a “high degree of indifference” among the Chinese elite toward Russia, and in particular within the Chinese public (Lo, 2010). However, the relationship has since moved on.

6 Sino-Russian Partnership in the Era of Sino-US Rivalry

The rapid development of the Sino-Russian partnership over the last decade is the result of two dynamics, one bilateral and one systemic. During the 1990s and 2000s, Beijing and Moscow managed to put in place a relatively solid platform for their relationship, with a border agreement, the 2001 friendship treaty, and regular high-level meetings. For instance, celebrating 70 years of diplomatic relations in 2019, the regular China-Russia Prime Ministers’ Meeting was held for the 24th time (MFA, 2019b, September 17), whereas Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and China’s top foreign affairs official Yang Jiechi conducted the 15th round of bilateral strategic security consultations (MFA, 2019a, April 12). Since the mid- and late 2000s, China and Russia have finally started to build on this foundation, adding economic cooperation, energy partnership, academic exchanges, and even growing tourism. Concurrent with this bilateral dynamic, an increased great power rivalry and the more prominent role of the United States as a common denominator have contributed to the closing of ranks between China and Russia. The return to a new bipolar world structure, with the United States and China as the two dominant powers in the international system, seems to have further strengthened the ties between Beijing and Moscow. I will outline here how systemic changes during the last decade have informed China’s ties with Russia, and how it may shape the relationship over the next several years.

6.1 Balance of Power Politics

China’s and Russia’s respective relationships with the United States have been in a downward spiral for the last 10–15 years, reinforcing the role of the United States as the common denominator in Sino-Russian relations. In the case of Russia, its annexation of the Crimea and military intervention in eastern Ukraine in 2014 only reinforced a long-term negative trend in US-Russia relations that had been developing since the 2004 Orange revolution, the 2008 Georgian War, and disagreements over missile defense and the handling of Libya and Syria (Lo, 2015, pp. 165–200). In the aftermath of the Ukrainian Crisis, Russia used China as a counterweight against the United States. Russia’s “pivot to Asia” was embraced by China (Bekkevold & Lo, 2019). At the time, China’s own relationship with the United States was deteriorating. In 2010, after observing a more assertive Chinese foreign policy, Washington launched a policy shift toward Asia, also referred to as the “US pivot to Asia” (Ross, 2012). Chinese policy elites regarded the US rebalancing of its policies to the Asia-Pacific region as a major strategic challenge, with some Chinese analysts seeing it as an attempt to contain China, while other more moderate voices simply saw it as an attempt to balance China’s rise and maintain US regional leadership (Zhang, 2016).

In the 2010–2014 period, two interrelated topics dominated the debate among China’s international relations scholars: the policy shift from the traditional principle of “keeping a low profile” (tao guang yang hui) to a more proactive foreign policy (feng fa you wei) and how to respond to the “US pivot to Asia” and the future of US-China relations (Wang & Meng, 2020; Liu & Liu, 2016; Duchâtel & Puig, 2015). One important strand of this debate was whether China should build an alliance with Russia. The viewpoints among Chinese scholars covered the whole spectrum, from strong advocates of an alliance to those opposing the idea (Wang & Meng, 2020; Liu & Liu, 2016). In other words, when Russia pivoted to China in 2014 and the two countries issued a joint statement declaring that their comprehensive strategic relationship had entered a “new stage,” this was a policy development that China had already been discussing for some time. Moreover, China embracing Russia’s “pivot to China” was the perfect response to Washington’s “pivot to Asia” strategy. Clearly, China intended to send a message that it had the option of strengthening relations with Russia to counterbalance the US strategic encirclement (Wang & Meng, 2020).

As a response, and partly as a corrective to the debate both within China and in the United States and Europe concerning the growing Sino-Russian relationship moving toward an alliance, Fu Ying published an article on Sino-Russian relations both in one of the leading Chinese IR journals, as well as in Foreign Affairs. From her position as the Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, her message carried weight. She emphasized that even though Sino-Russian ties were better than ever, China had no intention of forming an alliance (Fu, 2016). For the time being, the Chinese view was that “forging a partnership without forming an alliance” (jieban bu jiemeng) carried lower costs and promised greater returns (Wang & Meng, 2020, p. 499).

Over the last decade, we have witnessed China’s economic and military rise gradually reaching a level where it has caused a shift in the distribution of power in the international system from a US unipolar system to a new bipolar world structure, with the United States and China as the two dominant powers (Tunsjø, 2018). When great powers rise, their foreign policy ambitions tend to grow accordingly. This has also been the case with China. It was evident in China’s more assertive policies in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and in Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” slogan and goal of rejuvenating the Chinese nation (Goldstein, 2020). Another expression of a more powerful and ambitious China is its growing sea power and “blue water” capabilities (Ross, 2018).

The emergence of a bipolar US-China international system has three consequences for China’s relationship with Russia. First, in a bipolar structure, the rivalry between the two dominant powers is expected to intensify (Waltz, 1979). The Sino-US rivalry will mainly be a naval rivalry (Ross, 2018). Thus, the main thrust of China’s geostrategy will for the foreseeable future be directed toward the Pacific and the wider Indo-Pacific theater, away from Russia. This geopolitical situation “helps” China to maintain a cordial relationship with Russia despite the growing power gap between them.

Second, a bipolar system compels secondary states to choose sides (Waltz, 1979). In the previous bipolar system, the Soviet Union was the peer competitor of the United States, and Beijing first aligned with Moscow before it realigned with the United States. This time around, China is the peer competitor of the United States, and Russia accommodates China. As of today, the Sino-Russian partnership is not an alliance. It is built on a geopolitical context that favors their cooperation. The greatest achievement in Sino-Russian relations is that they are managing to keep their common strategic rear safe without committing themselves to any mutual defense obligations. With its rear to Russia safe, China can channel more resources to its rivalry with the United States in maritime Asia, and with its rear to China safe, Russia can give priority to its European flank and stand up to NATO (Bekkevold, 2020). Russia’s arms sales to China are conducted on the premise that China is more likely to use these weapon platforms in a maritime conflict with the United States than in a land campaign against Russia (Gabuev, 2019). Whether Beijing at some point prefers to form an alliance with Moscow will depend on the nature of its rivalry with the United States.

Third, in a bipolar system, the two rivals are also expected to view their interdependence as a mutual vulnerability (Waltz, 1979). In other words, both China and the United States will seek to decouple from each other, particularly in strategically important sectors, and this is already unfolding (see also Chapter “Options for Dealing with Russia and China: A US Perspective” by Andrew A. Michta). Hence, from a Chinese perspective, cooperation with Russia will be of increased importance over the next few years. In the following, I will briefly outline China’s economic ties with Russia, China’s narrative building of Russia including people-to-people contacts, and how systemic pressure shapes these ties.

6.2 Economic Cooperation

During the last 10–15 years, China and Russia have finally managed to add economic cooperation to their relationship as an important dimension. In 2010, China surpassed Germany to become Russia’s largest single trading partner, and in 2019, Russia was China’s tenth largest trading partner, accounting for 2.4 percent of China’s total foreign trade in goods (China National Bureau of Statistics, 2020). However, the Sino-Russian economic relationship is not exclusive, and both countries have stronger economic links with the European Union, the United States, and US allies than with each other (Bekkevold, 2020). The United States, Canada, European NATO countries, Japan, South Korea, and Australia account for approximately half of China’s exports, and Russia’s relatively weak economy, with a GDP smaller than that of Italy or Canada, is unable to replace China’s economic relationship with these countries (Bekkevold, 2020).

Moreover, Chinese investors see corruption, red tape, and poor infrastructure as constraints to their operations in Russia (Hillman, 2020, July 15). The implementation of cooperative projects between northeast China and the Russian Far East has been particularly slow, despite the huge efforts put into these projects from national leaders and governments on both sides (Feng & Cui, 2019, September 30). For instance, of 20 special economic zones (SEZs) established in the Russian Far East in 2014 and 2015 to attract foreign investors, by 2019, only 6 had managed to attract Chinese investors, and out of 45 projects listed in the 6 SEZs that attracted Chinese investments, only 5 had started operating (Spivak, 2019, November 4). The Chinese side encourages Russia to open its arms to its neighbor more widely, meaning providing easier access for Chinese investors (Wang, 2019, December 9).

Nevertheless, Russia is an important partner for China in specific strategic sectors. It assists China in developing nuclear energy plants (“China-Russia joint nuclear power plant,” 2021, March 29), and together with Saudi Arabia, it is the largest exporter of crude oil to China. Imports from the Power of Siberia pipeline started in 2020 and will continue to rise over the next few years (EIA, 2020). The growing Sino-Russian energy partnership is mainly the result of the two countries finally managing to benefit from their comparative advantages in an attempt to diversify their energy market (Russia) and sources (China), and not so much an outcome of systemic pressure or the conflict with the West in Ukraine (Bekkevold & Tunsjø, 2018). However, China’s rivalry with the United States will increasingly shape its economic relationship with Russia. One sector where this is already unfolding is China’s import of soybeans, as the trade war with the United States has forced China to replace the United States with Russia as one of its main import sources (Wishnick, 2020). Another example is the wide range of new 4IR technologies (Fourth Industrial Revolution), as the United States and its allies consider decoupling from China in high tech industries. Since 2015–2016, China and Russia have increasingly concentrated on technology and innovation in their partnership, signing a series of agreements with the aim of increasing cooperation in 4IR technologies (Bendett & Kania, 2019; see also Chapter “Chinese and Russian Military Modernization and the Fourth Industrial Revolution” by Richard A. Bitzinger and Michael Raska).

6.3 State-Society and People-to-People Relations

Public opinion and popular protests occasionally play a role shaping Chinese diplomacy and foreign policy. Chinese popular protests targeted toward other countries are usually responses to particular events and incidents, with demands for Chinese authorities to take a tougher line in its diplomacy. However, the protests are often mobilized by the authorities in the first place and feed on nationalistic feelings related to China’s “century of humiliation” as well as a more current narrative of the West attempting to undermine China’s rise. Moreover, the narratives feeding public opinion and protests are partly based on historical facts and partly on a top-down-driven process of socialization and propaganda through the Chinese media and the educational system (Gries & Sanders, 2016).

Japan is the most common target of Chinese popular protests, including a wave of anti-Japanese public mobilization that swept across China in the early 2000s (Reilly, 2012), and during the Diaoyu Islands Crisis in 2012–2013, with popular protests shaping a tougher Chinese approach to Japan (Gries et al., 2016). Other notable examples are the Chinese consumer boycott targeted at the French retailer Carrefour after French protesters disrupted the torch ceremony in Paris in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics (Economy & Segal, 2008) and how the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999 sparked mass protests from Chinese across the globe (Gries, 2001). Russia also played its part in China’s “century of humiliation,” and it was China’s main foe in the latter half of the Cold War. Still, in the top-down process of rebuilding Sino-Russian relations after the end of the Cold War, Russia has been portrayed in a more positive light, one that fits in with how Chinese leadership sees world affairs.

A study of Chinese urban citizens’ attitudes toward the European Union, Japan, Russia, and the United States undertaken in 2010 found that the respondents had the most positive attitude toward the EU, followed by Russia, and then the United States, whereas the attitude toward Japan was predominantly negative (Noll & Dekker, 2016). A similar study of Chinese elite students’ attitudes toward six countries (the European Union, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States) done in 2014 discovered that students held the most positive feelings toward Russia. The study furthermore observed that mainland Chinese students held significantly warmer feelings toward Russia than their non-mainland counterparts, suggesting that China’s educational system and media promote a more favorable image of Russia when compared with those impressions conveyed outside mainland China (Zhou, 2018).

While a young student in Beijing in the early 1990s, I was asked to play a minor role in a Chinese television series, portraying one of the Russian pilots in the Soviet fighter squadron secretly sent to support China during the Sino-Japanese war between 1937 and 1941. This television series was an early attempt at restoring the image of Russia in post-Cold War China. In fact, constructing a joint identity related to their participation in World War II is one of the main building blocks in the top-down-driven narrative building of China and Russia. Just like the “Great Patriotic War” in 1941–1945 is important for Russian national pride, China’s “War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1937-1945” plays a crucial role in China’s national identity. China and Russia relate to each other’s WWII experience, making this a powerful joint narrative. This narrative-building has been given extra promotion since 2010, with regular conferences, workshops, exhibitions, and media events conducted to commemorate their joint WWII experiences (Korolev & Portyakov, 2019, pp. 56–59).

In addition to the top-down narrative, a growing number of Chinese citizens now also interact with Russia. For instance, the number of co-authored publications involving Chinese and Russian academics increased by almost one hundred percent between 2013 and 2017 (Mayo, 2019, June 20). Furthermore, the number of Chinese students in Russia more than doubled from 2015 to 2020, with 48,000 students from China enrolled in Russian universities in 2020 (Russkiy Mir Foundation, 2020, September 9). The United States remains the top destination for Chinese students, with the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada as the next three top student destinations (ICEF Monitor, 2019). From 2019 to 2020, universities in the United States hosted more than 370,000 students from China, accounting for 35 percent of all foreign students in the United States (Wang, 2021, January 2). However, in line with rising tensions between China and the United States, there is increased tension in their academic collaboration, with the United States debating whether Chinese students and academics are scholars or spies (Krige, 2020, October 12). In May 2020, three Republican legislators introduced legislation to ban Chinese students from graduate or postgraduate studies in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (Wang, 2021, January 2). One likely result of this may be a drop in the number of Chinese students in the United States and a further increase in the number of Chinese students going to Russia.

Tourism between China and Russia is also growing. In 2019, more than two million Chinese tourists visited Russia, up from 1.5 million in 2017, and only 158,000 in 2010 (Hillman, 2020, July 15; Russia Briefing, 2018, March 19). In fact, only the United States, France, and Germany now receive more Chinese tourists than Russia. Moscow tops the list of Russian destinations for Chinese tourists, with Vladivostok placing second (Russia Briefing, 2018, March 19). There is a trend toward Chinese visitors doing a specialized kind of sightseeing in Russia, exploring sites symbolizing their shared communist history and ideologies (Paulo & Phang, 2019, November 8).

7 Conclusion

Examining China’s relationship with Russia over the last century and a half, it is obvious that the balance of power has shaped this relationship more than any other variable. China’s view of Russia has shifted depending on their relative power position and the balance of power in the international system. With three decades of friendly ties after the end of the Cold War, the Sino-Russian partnership is no longer a limited partnership. It increasingly resembles a normal relationship between two neighboring countries, with close cooperation on a wide range of topics and an increasing number of Chinese, from all walks of life, interacting with Russians. Contemporary Sino-Russian relations have their own momentum regardless of the United States. Nonetheless, the United States is now also a stronger denominator in their relationship than at any time since the first half of the Cold War, and it is difficult to see this changing any time soon.

Where does the Sino-Russian relationship go from here? From a Chinese perspective, the current arrangement with Russia is perfect, with its strategic rear to Russia safe, without having to commit to any defense obligations. With China’s rivalry with the United States intensifying and the United States and allies decoupling from China, Beijing would want to further improve its ties with Moscow. However, entering into a formal alliance with Russia might bring more costs than benefits, but this is dependent on developments in the international system and above all China’s relationship with the United States.

China no longer sees Russia as a rival. This is not the result of friendly ties, shared values, or growing economic cooperation, but an outcome of the dramatic shift in the balance of power between them. China has moved from an inferior position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union throughout most of the twentieth century to a current position of preponderance in relation to Russia. Since the 1990s, China has pursued a policy of reassurance toward Russia, but as the power gap between China and Russia continues to widen in China’s favor, it could be increasingly challenging for Beijing to adhere to this policy. Thus, at some point down the line, Moscow might want to reconsider its alignment with Beijing in a similar fashion to what it did in the late 1950s. If Russia decides to realign with the United States, it would be a loss for China. It would not be a dramatic loss in terms of the power balance. Russia is already too weak in relation to China to constitute a major threat to Chinese interests. In 2020, China’s defense expenditures were already four times those of Russia, whereas the gap in GDP (purchasing power parity) between China and Russia was equivalent to the gap between the United States and the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, it would be a significant geopolitical loss. If Russia realigns with the United States, the latter would be able to give full priority to balancing China.