Russia-China Naval Partnership and Its Significance

Abstract

Allies in 1950, at odds in 1960, at war in 1969, on opposite sides of the Cold War during the 1980s, the Russians and Chinese have worked out their border issues in recent years to partner against a common challenge: the United States. While it can be argued that both countries distrust one another, Moscow and Beijing share a common concern and can’t afford bad relations. Both abhor the US-Western interventions of the last two decades that in their view have destabilized the Middle East, generating terrorism and instability within or near their borders. Both resent US support for their domestic opposition or to neighboring intimate “foes,” most notably Taiwan, Ukraine, and Georgia. Both have displayed their support for Syria and Iran. Both have been engaged in a “strategic partnership” within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization since 2001. Both are now conducting joint naval exercises, sometimes in sensitive areas. But beyond those gesticulations, how far can this naval partnership go? Is it a harbinger of a future military alliance? Does it suggest an intent to deter future Western interventions from the sea? Is there evidence and are there documents that formally support this signaling of strategic and naval partnerships?

1 From Laying the Foundations of the PLA Navy to Breaking Up

From 1950 to 1959, Soviet assistance to communist China was instrumental in creating a navy through technology transfer and training. A veteran of the Long March and key actor, political commissar Liu Huaqing studied naval theory and command at the Voroshilov Naval Academy (1954–1958), now renamed Admiral Kuznetsov. The People’s Liberation Army was given its first submarines and soon started production of its own in Shanghai. From the Leningrad-based industries and institutes, Beijing acquired the know-how to make its first torpedoes.¹ The Soviet Union provided a handful of SAET-50M passive homing torpedoes before support was withdrawn. Naval guns were copies of Russian makes² (Bond et al., 2021). Beijing received numerous aircraft blueprints including the Tupolev Tu-16 bomber, which became the Xi’an Hong-6 in both the air and naval forces. In 1959, the Commander-in-Chief of the People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN) paid tribute to Soviet assistance: “… while our industry, our science and our technology were still relatively backward, the Soviet government, the USSR Central Committee and the Soviet people gave us selfless support…” (Swanson, 1982, p. 200; Bussert & Elleman, 2010). However, the alliance came to an abrupt end. During his visit to Beijing in August 1958, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev sought bases in China to operate his new nuclear submarines and transmit orders to them from a communication station on Chinese soil.³ Considering that this project threatened national sovereignty, Mao turned down the request. Without consulting with Moscow and to distract his people from domestic difficulties, in August 1958 Mao attempted to seize the nationalist islets of Quemoy and Matsu. Fearing that Beijing’s uncoordinated military initiatives might draw the USSR into an unwanted nuclear confrontation with Washington, Moscow suspended its alliance and technical assistance in 1960 (Lewis & Xue, 1994; Joyaux, 1994, p. 38, 164; Swanson, 1982, pp. 214–215).

The Sino-Soviet split dealt a terrible blow to the modernization effort, especially that of the Chinese Navy. According to the People’s Daily, “[...] the Soviets suddenly and unilaterally decided to withdraw all their experts, cancel 343 contracts… and 257 other scientific and technical cooperation projects. They then suspended crucial transfers of equipment and spare parts.”⁴ China lost access to Leningrad’s naval research institutes and was forced to develop its own research facilities, specialized machines, and tools. US intelligence reports soon depicted how the shipyards’ production and operational readiness were seriously curtailed. But against all odds, including the destructive Cultural Revolution, China completed programs for which it had received Soviet kits or plans before the breakup: among them the strategic test submarine Project 629 (Golf) launched in 1964 and P-15 Termit (Styx) anti-ship missiles intended for Chinese versions of Soviet Komar and Osa boats (HY-1) and, later, destroyers and frigates (HY-1 J) based on Soviet Kotlin and Riga class designs (Swanson, 1982, p. 214; Bond et al., 2021, Annex D1).

On March 2, 1969, the Chinese army attacked Soviet border guards on a disputed Ussuri River island (Damanskiy/Zenpao). According to some commentators, Mao wanted to demonstrate to his people and the Socialist Camp that he rejected Soviet leadership of the Communist bloc after the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia and that he also wanted to prove that China could simultaneously confront the USSR to the north and the United States in Vietnam. Ultimately, this risky border war caused Mao to establish relations with Washington, thanks to a common Pakistani ally. From now on the West played the role of a counterweight for China to balance the USSR. The West, in turn, saw its advantage in improving Chinese weaponry and forcing Moscow to devote more resources to its eastern border. Western military transfers to China included torpedoes, engines, surface-to-air weapons, and combat systems. After two decades of hostilities, including Beijing’s support for the United States during the new Cold War (1979–1989), Beijing and Moscow resumed their exchanges in 1989, following Western sanctions and the arms embargo in the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre (Lewis & Xue, 1994, p. 28).

2 Closing the Technological Gap with Russia’s Help

The Gulf War (1990–1991) demonstrated Iraqi military impotence when confronted with superior American technologies. Like the Chinese army, modeled after the Soviet Army, the Iraqi military impotence traumatized Chinese Communist Party leadership (“1991 nian de haiwan zhanzheng,” 2019, November 5). In an existential emergency, Beijing revised its strategic doctrine, moving from the concept of “winning local wars under normal conditions” to the concept of “winning local wars under high technology conditions.” Liu Huaqing, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission following his tenure as the navy chief (1982–1987), advocated the purchase of foreign weapons as an intermediate step to bridge the technological gap. Accordingly, in 1995 Liu Huaqing launched a successful reform of the military industry to achieve the industrial capacity necessary to produce advanced weaponry without outside help (Cheng, 2011; Pillsbury, 2000; Zhang, 2006).

During this process, the resumption of naval relations with Moscow became mutually beneficial. Through its exports to China, Russia kept alive its military-industrial sector, while the People’s Liberation Army rapidly upgraded its forces through off-the-shelf purchases. In the aftermath of the Taiwan crisis (1996) when the United States deployed two aircraft carriers, Beijing bought twelve 877/636 (Kilo) submarines and four 956 (Sovremennyy) destroyers from Moscow. Eight of those submarines came equipped with anti-ship cruise missiles⁵ with a range of 120 nautical miles, while the four destroyers were fitted with 3M-80ME (120 km) and 3M-80MVE (140 km) Moskit missiles (SS-N-22), a qualitative leap to help dissuade US aircraft carriers from approaching Chinese coasts (Bond et al., 2021, annex D1). For air defense, Beijing purchased two S-300 naval anti-aircraft systems (SA-N-6) intended for two Chinese-built 051C destroyers stationed in the Yellow Sea, extending the S-300 belt already protecting the Chinese capital. For its naval aviation, Beijing acquired 26 Helix helicopters, including 14 anti-submarine Kamov Ka-28 PLs, 3 search and rescue Ka-28 PS’s, and 9 early warning Ka-31s (Pillsbury, 2000, p. 76).

Those imports enabled China to license products or reverse engineer and master key technologies and locally produce most major systems now equipping the Chinese navy.

In the area of ship-launched anti-land cruise missiles, Beijing developed the 290 km Ying Ji-18 (YJ-18) based on the Russian 3 M-54 Klub/Caliber cruise missile, with a subsonic cruise mode and a supersonic terminal attack phase (Mach 3). In the field of anti-ship missiles, the Ying Ji-18 generated two anti-ship variants: the YJ-18A installed on destroyers (052D and 055) and the YJ-18B launched by submarines.⁶ Based on the Russian Kh-31 (AS-17), the Ying Ji-91 is an airborne supersonic anti-ship missile carried by naval aviation fighter bombers.⁷ A surface-to-surface variant, the YJ-12A, was designed for and installed on the modernized Pr. 956 destroyers (“Yingji-12,” 2020, October 11).

For air defense missiles, the Hong Qi-16B (HHQ-16B) was developed jointly by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) and the Russian company Almaz-Antey. The Hong Qi-16B is based on the Buk-M1/Buk-2 M surface-to-air missile,⁸ but was improved to be launched from a vertical VLS launcher so similar to the American Mk.41 that it is considered to be a direct copy from hacked Pentagon contractor data (“China hacked into Pentagon,” 2014, September 17). It constitutes the anti-aircraft armament of the 31054A frigates and two 051C destroyers. The Chinese Qi-9 (HHQ-9) long-range missile may borrow some features from the Russian S-300, but it is not an outright copy (“Hong Qi 9 [HQ-9] Air Defence Missile System,” n.d.).

With the delivery of the Kilo submarines, China acquired increasingly more advanced Russian torpedoes (wake-homing 53-65KE, TEST-71M, and MK wire-guided, and then TE-2-01 and TE-2-02). The wake-homing device has apparently been introduced in the Yu-6 national torpedo (“Yu-6 Torpedo,” 2010, March 25). China has also reportedly purchased the ASM APR-3E light torpedo that it has adapted for a national anti-submarine missile. A new 130 mm single gun turret (H/PJ-45A) was reverse-engineered from the Russian AK-130 twin-tube gun and fitted onboard Type 052D and Type 055 destroyers, while the Type 054A frigates, Type 056 corvettes, and Type 071 landing ship docks feature a compact 76 mm single turret (H/PJ-26), reverse-engineered from the Russian AK-176. By contrast, the 30 mm H/PJ-13 multi-tube turret is the stealth-enhanced licensed production version of the Russian AK-630 M. For fire support against land targets, the PLA Navy uses a local version of the Russian 122 mm rocket launcher BM-21 (Grad), type 81H (Gallois & Sheldon-Duplaix, 2022).

As for radars, more than half of the main current systems in the PLA Navy inventory are derived from Russian radars (see Fig. 1):

• The Type LJQ-366 microwave active/passive over-the-horizon target designation radar is an improved copy of the Mineral-ME (NATO Band Stand). It appears to have been reverse-engineered and not license-produced or jointly developed unless there was a secret protocol. It corresponds to an improved design with five working frequency bands that can cover 360-degree azimuth work if not for the superstructure. When working in active mode, the maximum number of processed targets is three times that of the passive mode. This radar is installed on at least 62 platforms, the Chinese Navy’s 054A 31 frigates and 31 of the 052 series destroyers (“Weikepu: Zhongguo haijun,” 2015, March 16).

• The 382 or three-dimensional Sea Eagle, an improved copy of the MR-710 Fregat (NATO Top Plate), was apparently developed without a license agreement, unless this development took place within a secret protocol (the maximum power of the Type 382 was increased to 100 kW from the 90 kW of the original MR-710, while the maximum range against a fighter-sized target was increased to 250 km from the original 230 km of the MR-710). This radar is installed on at least 34 platforms, the Chinese Navy’s 054A 31 frigates and 3 of the 051 series destroyers (Gallois & Sheldon-Duplaix, 2022).

• The 352 Fire Control, a version of the NATO-designated Square Tie.

• A Chinese version of the MR-90 (NATO Front Dome), which ensures target designation for the benefit of the anti-aircraft missile HHQ-16.

Fig. 1

Major Russian naval sensors and their Chinese derivatives produced without apparent license or under a secret agreement

3 Intellectual Property Issues

The resumption of arms relations with Moscow helped Beijing to achieve the technological revolution envisioned by Liu Huaqing and significantly improve the PRC’s military and industrial capabilities. Chinese engineers didn’t just duplicate imported pieces of equipment; they reverse-engineered them to understand them, adapt them to Chinese requirements, and sometimes innovate and improve their performance (see Fig. 1). As a result, after 2007, Russian arms sales to China slowed down, with the Chinese industry itself now producing most systems (Gallois & Sheldon-Duplaix, 2022, pp. 303–429).

In some cases, Chinese weapons have been the product of joint developments with Russia. Some sources report that the Hong Qi-9 (HHQ-9) air defense system was developed with Russian assistance and benefits from Russian technology transfers, supplemented with technology allegedly provided by Israel (“HQ-9,” n.d.; Gallois & Sheldon-Duplaix, 2022). It includes an anti-missile variant, the HHQ-9A on earlier destroyers 052C and the HHQ-9B as the main air defense system for destroyers 052C, 052D, and 055. In the field of anti-ship missiles, China might consider itself sufficiently advanced to replace its Russian Moskit missile for the Type 956 destroyers with the Ying Ji-12A missile apparently derived from the Russian air-launched Kh-31 (“Yingji-12,” 2020, October 11).

Chinese practices are raising intellectual property issues with Moscow. Russia and China have established an intergovernmental commission on military-technical cooperation (MTC) to address those issues. In 2008 a delegation led by then Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov signed an agreement with the Chinese side on the protection of intellectual property in the field of military-technical cooperation (“Kitay poobeshchal,” 2008, December 12). But Russian experts doubted that the document would solve the problem of China counterfeiting Russian military equipment (“Zarubezhnyye konkurenty,” 2019, December 13; Nersisyan, 2016, December 12). They quoted sources in the Russian foreign ministry listing cases of violation of intellectual property by China. The S-602 cruise missile is very similar to the Russian X-55. The Tai Hang WS-10 engine is analogous to the AL-31F for Su fighters. The most blatant case is China duplicating the Su-27 fighter-bomber. In 1995, the Russian and Chinese sides signed an agreement on the licensed assembly of 200 Su-27SK aircraft (in the Chinese version: J-11) at a plant in Shenyang. From 1998–2004, China received about a hundred assembly kits, but refused the second delivery. It became apparent that China had managed to produce the components in order to assemble its own version of the Su-27, the J-11B. Chinese media even acknowledged the creation of the J-11B with a Chinese engine and radar of its own design (“Shanzhai zhi wang,” 2009, July 30, Hangzhou dianshitai, 2016, December 23). Based on the J-11B, the Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark carrier-borne fighter-bomber is also an illegitimate copy of the Soviet Su-33 from a prototype purchased in Ukraine. In 2009, at MAKS, the general manager of the Russian arms export company, Rosoboronexport, Anatoly Isaykin, declared that Russia and Sukhoi “would investigate the J-11B case as being a Chinese copy of the Su-27” (“Zarubezhnyye konkurenty,” 2019, December 13).

In the same year, Beijing signed a contract with Kiev for the purchase of two Project 1232 Zubr hovercraft and the construction of two more in China. Renamed project 1232.2/type 958 Bison, the first was delivered in May 2013, followed by the second in March 2014. The intellectual property was owned by Russian designer Almaz of St Petersburg, and Moscow accused Kiev of copyright infringement, arresting a Russian engineer who had transferred technical data to Ukraine. China continued production with a fifth and a sixth unit. The annexation of Crimea where the production site is located led to the withdrawal of the Ukrainian supervisors, while Kiev suspended delivery of the MT70 gas turbines replaced with Chinese gas turbine QC70.

Moscow has seemed to come to terms with the patent issue because it has now taken over Ukraine’s role of supervising the construction. But the problem is more general. On December 14, 2018, Yevgeny Livadny, head of the intellectual property protection service of the Rostec state defense conglomerate, accused China of illegally copying a wide range of Russian weapons and other military materials: the licensing of our equipment abroad is a huge problem: “There have been 500 cases in the past 17 years … China alone has copied aircraft engines, Sukhoi fighter jets including fighters on aircraft carriers, air defense systems including an analogue of the medium range Pantsir system.” Highlighted by those who do not believe in the Sino-Russian partnership, the issue of intellectual property seems to have been set aside by the need for a security partnership (Simes, 2019, December 20; see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

Current imported Russian naval weapons and their Chinese derivatives: license produced (blue), without license (purple), without apparent license or unknown (pink)

4 Simulating an Alliance

On April 26, 1996, a treaty on deepening confidence-building measures was signed in Shanghai between China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. On April 24, 1997, the same countries signed a treaty on the reduction of military forces on their borders. On June 15, 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was formed with a sixth partner, Uzbekistan. On July 16, a Sino-Russian treaty of good neighborliness, friendship, and cooperation was signed. It enshrines a “strategic partnership” between the two countries, with Moscow aligning itself with Beijing on the Taiwan issue (article 5 of the treaty), the two parties committing to peacefully settle the remaining border issues. The first Russian-Chinese military exercises took place in 2003 in Kazakhstan, following the establishment of the Shanghai security organization in 2001 (Allen et al., 2017). From 2005 on, China and Russia joined forces for the major Sino-Russian “Peace Mission” exercises. Since May 2016, the Russian and Chinese armies have been engaging in cooperation in the fields of aerospace security, missile defense, and staff exercises. In 2018, Moscow invited Beijing to the big quadrennial Vostok exercises, traditionally oriented against China (Felgenhauer, 2008), for the first time. Bilateral naval exercises between the two countries began in April 2012 near Qingdao. These Sino-Russian games have been repeated annually ever since: in July 2013 (off Vladivostok), in May 2014 (on the Yangtze River’s estuary), in May 2015 (in the Mediterranean), in August 2015 (off Vladivostok), in September 2016 (off Zhanjiang), in July–September 2017 (in the Baltic and Sea of Okhotsk), and in April–May 2018 and 2019 (off Qingdao) (Chang & Liu, 2019).

5 Shared Security Interests and Perceptions of Inferiority

Moscow and Beijing have condemned the 2011 Western intervention in Libya as twisting a UN Security Council mandate they had not vetoed. Both have denounced as destabilizing, unilateral Western interventions made possible in their view by US technological superiority. In July 2019, the Chinese Defense White Paper stated: “Through technological and institutional innovation, the United States is committed to the pursuit of absolute military superiority” (State Council Information Office, 2019). Russia has denounced the United States’ exit from the framework of treaties concluded during the Cold War. In 2002 and 2019, respectively, the United States abandoned the treaties signed with the USSR in 1972 and 1987 on the limitation of anti-ballistic missiles and prohibition of intermediate-range missiles, citing Russian treaty violations of these limitations. In November 2016, during a military council in Sochi, president Putin declared: “while the United States is engaged in the creation of advanced weapons systems, we have strictly and constantly respected the international obligations; unfortunately […] some countries [the United States] now deny the agreements that had been reached, for example, in the field of anti-missile defense. Of course, this is all done with the idea of gaining a one-sided advantage” (Kremlin, 2016, November 18).

The Chinese and Russians stress that they spend much less on defense than the United States. China insists on the relatively low percentage of its military budget compared to the volume of its economy, that is, about 1.3% of its GDP from 2012 to 2017. In comparison, the United States spends around 3.5% of its GDP and Russia about 4% (Tian & Su, 2021; Funaiole & Hart, 2021, March 5). If the Chinese document highlights the first place of Russia in terms of percentage of military spending in relation to GDP or government spending, it ignores the economic weakness of Russia, whose GDP represents only one eighth of Chinese GDP and one twelfth of US GDP. The Russian defense budget remains between seven and ten times lower than American defense spending and four times lower than Chinese and European defense spending (Wezeman, 2020, April 27; “Military budget of Russia,” 2021, September 17). Those figures are in nominal terms and there is also a difference between officially declared and actual defense expenditures.

China has blamed Washington for maintaining military pressure on them, in particular through freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea. The Russians have reacted negatively to the extension of NATO to the east, accompanied by a rejection of Russian membership proposed between 2000 and 2010. In 2011, NATO and Russia even carried out their first air and naval exercises, following annual FRUKUS exercises with the American, British, and French navies, BALTOPS with Baltic nations and BLACKSEAFOR with Black Sea neighbors (Swartz, 2016, p. 237). It all ended in 2014 with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which gave a new dimension to the Sino-Russian rapprochement.

The core of the problem was Russian opposition to future NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, culminating in the Maidan instant recognition by Western powers without inviting Russia to co-organize a transition toward new elections. This instant recognition of the Maidan government led to the bloodless takeover of Crimea and bloody insurrection in Eastern Ukraine (“Spiker krymskogo parlamenta,” 2014, February 20; Parliament of Crimea, 2014, January 24). While Russia cited the precedent of Kosovo to justify the referendum and its annexation of Crimea, the Western members of the UN Security Council voted not to recognize the results, while China abstained and Russia imposed its veto. The UN Ambassador from China explained that the situation in Crimea involved a “complex intertwinement of historical and contemporary factors.” While Beijing rejected the Kosovo partition, analysts explained that China abstained to oppose the Western double standard in Crimea where a majority supported a return to Russia (Zhang, 2015, April 1; Matsuzato, 2016).

6 Seeking Political and Strategic Benefits

China and Russia have used naval exercises to signal their willingness to cooperate in sensitive strategic or political areas. Bilateral Sino-Russian naval exercises began in April 2012 near Qingdao 1 year after 10 Western and 19 Arab countries intervened in Libya. In September 2013, in accordance with the decision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Russian and Chinese navies participated in the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons in accordance with resolution 2181 of the United Nations Security Council. The Chinese frigate Yancheng (relieved by the Huangshang), joined Danish, Norwegian and Russian ships tasked to escort these weapons from Syria to an American ship for their ultimate destruction. In May 2015, the two navies carried out their annual naval exercise in the Mediterranean Sea, displaying an unexpected Sino-Russian partnership on the Syrian question (“Chinese Warship in Cyprus,” 2014, January 4).

In September 2016, the exercise was held in the northern part of the South China Sea near Hainan, affirming Russian solidarity toward China after the July 2016 Hague international tribunal ruling favoring the Philippines against the Chinese and Taiwanese arguments. This show of solidarity is relative: Moscow does not recognize Beijing’s claim to the South China Sea. Russia just criticized the fact that the decision was forced upon China.

In November and December 2019, China and Russia stepped up the political stakes of their cooperation by conducting trilateral naval exercises for the first time with South Africa in the Cape of Good Hope and with Iran in the Arabian Sea. The exercise with South Africa enabled the two partners to work with a navy aligned with NATO standards. The exercise with Iran followed the mysterious attack on a Saudi oil field and tensions between Tehran, Washington, and London over freedom of navigation, with another mysterious attack on a Japanese tanker and the Iranian seizure of a British tanker. Moscow and Beijing’s posture suggested that they might oppose by force an attack on Iran while proclaiming that the security of the Arabian Gulf is assured despite evidence of Iranian involvement in the previous disturbances (Song, 2021, August 24).

7 Operational Benefits

In 2016, the American Defense University calculated that Russia was China’s most assiduous partner for combat exercises (4.8%). With Russia, the PLA participates in more training and competitions related to combat than with any other country. This peculiarity is not surprising considering that Western countries are reluctant to share their tactical expertise with the PLA. Since 2005, the Peace Mission exercises of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have focused on counterterrorism and combat (air defense, bombing, air refueling). Since their inception in 2012, the Sino-Russian Joint Sea series (hai shang lianhe) exercises have focused on combat and combat support. As two Chinese researchers wrote, “The Joint Sea series of bilateral exercises have been held eight times consecutively [and they will] become a ‘model’ of military exercises between China and Russia. The themes relate to… counterterrorism, escort, search and rescue, air defense, anti-ship and anti-submarine activities, submarine rescue, and combat training.” The two authors added that these “joint command” exercises saw the participation of a large number of personnel over a very long period of time. According to the authors, “the level of mutual trust and military cooperation has reached an unprecedented level” (Chang & Liu, 2019).

Indeed, the PLAN’s most complex bilateral exercises are the Joint Sea (haishang lianhe) exercise series with the Russian navy, which includes well-prepared, combat-related drills.

The April 2012 edition near Qingdao included combined air defense, maritime replenishment, combined anti-submarine warfare, combined search and rescue, and the rescue of a hijacked ship, as well as surface-to-surface, anti-submarine, and surface-to-air live-fire practice. The hospital ship Peace Ark participated, visiting Vladivostok and conducting an exercise in Peter the Great Bay in the Sea of Japan.

The 2013 edition in the Sea of Japan involved 18 ships from both sides performing similar activities to the ones from the previous year. The PLAN deployed four destroyers, two frigates, one comprehensive replenishment ship, three helicopters, and one special operations detachment, the Chinese navy’s single largest overseas deployment for exercises with a foreign country.

The 2014 edition included joint verification and identification for use in the Chinese-declared air defense identification zone in the East China Sea and also featured combat drills without a preplanned scenario, a first for any PLA service in a combined exercise (Allen et al., 2017, p. 3). Also for the first time, ships from both navies operated in joint formations against a common adversary by sharing tactical data from their combat systems. In 2016, the exercise in the South China Sea involved an anti-submarine dimension and the landing of 90 Russian and 160 Chinese marines. The two navies once again shared tactical data for the anti-submarine and anti-aircraft phases. From July to September 2017, the exercises in the Baltic, Japan, and Okhotsk seas still focused on submarine rescue, air defense, and anti-submarine operations.

Similar exercises were repeated in 2019 and 2021. The 6-day Sino-Russian “Joint Sea-2019” military exercise “completed all objectives” according to the official statement and concluded on May 4 off Qingdao. For the first time, the two navies realized mutual underwater rescues of submarine crews and joint anti-submarine maritime air patrols. Two 636 Russian-made Kilo submarines participated. The two navies also carried out the rescue of a hijacked ship at the Qingdao Dagang Wharf (“Zhong E ‘haishang lianhe-2019,’” 2019, May 4). The tenth Sino-Russian “Joint Sea-2021” military exercise started on the 14th of October off Vladivostok. Zhang Junshe, a former Chinese naval attaché in Washington, underlined the level of trust reached by the two sides: “the time, scenarios, and equipment involved in this exercise all reflect the high level of strategic mutual trust between China and Russia. The two navies continue to deepen mutual understanding. [As a consequence] the region is safe and stable.” Once more, the two navies conducted air defense and anti-submarine drills, joint maneuvers, and live fire at sea targets. The topic of this 2021 edition was “maintaining the Security of Strategic Maritime Channels.” Zhang Junshe believes that this shows that the nature of the Chinese and Russian naval exercises “is defensive,” the main purpose of the exercise being to enhance the capabilities of the Chinese and Russian navies to jointly respond to maritime security threats and maintain regional peace and stability. Zhang Junshe believes that throughout the years China and Russia have gradually formed more mature and standardized methods for the organization of joint exercises, improving their joint operations capabilities. Zhang Junshe stressed that “air defense, anti-submarine and other exercises require the two sides to open up their ships to each other. Such exercises can only be conducted between the two militaries with a relatively high degree of strategic mutual trust.” Zhang Junshe noted the participation of the Nanchang super destroyer, the latest addition to the Chinese fleet (“Zhuanjia jiedu ‘haishang lianhe-2021,’” 2021, October 17).

It is a fact that Sino-Russian naval exercises are far more sophisticated than simple PASSEX (exercises between ships passing by). Their sophistication implies that the two fleets share tactics and procedures, facilitated in this specific case by common sensors and combat and data link systems. Chinese destroyers and frigates share common or very similar sensors such as the MR 710 (Top Plate)/382 three-dimensional radars and the Mineral-ME (Band Stand)/366 beyond the horizon targeting sensors with Russian platforms (“Shendu: Zhongguo xin zhanjian,” 2016, July 1). Taking advantage of the particular propagation of waves on the layers of the atmosphere, the latter provides detection ranges for anti-ship warfare, nonexistent in Western navies. This commonality and tactical privacy suggest scenarios where a Sino-Russian fleet could intimidate Western navies with the greater range of its supersonic anti-ship missiles and the detection ranges of the Mineral-ME. Common systems also facilitate air defense, both strategic on land and tactical at sea.

Strategically, Russia has reportedly pledged to help China acquire the technology for advanced warning systems to detect ballistic missile launchings. An American author reported that China had asked Russia for the possibility of deploying submarines to the Arctic (Goldstein, 2019, June 1). With China working on technologies that allow submarines to break the ice, these two reports suggest that Russia and China may be planning to coordinate their naval deterrents against the United States one day (“China and Russia plan to boost,” 2019, December 28).

8 Lasting Distrust

While Zhang Junshe insisted on the trust that such exercises implied, we have shown that since the two navies’ main systems were of Soviet/Russian conception, Sino-Russian exercises don’t compromise too much sensitive information (“Zhuanjia jiedu ‘haishang lianhe-2021,’” 2021, October 17). They certainly reveal procedures and practices, but most of the systems are well-known by both sides. The submarine area is probably different. While Russia has leased a project 971 (NATO Akula) nuclear attack submarine to India for 9 years (2012–2021), Moscow does not appear to be committing its nuclear-powered submarines to naval exercises with China, an area in which its lead over China must be preserved. So far, pictures have just revealed the participation of 877/636 NATO-designated Kilo-class submarines, in service both with the Russian and Chinese fleets. The participation of other classes of submarines would be an interesting development.

The prosecution of a retired Russian naval officer with an irreproachable reputation, the head of the St Petersburg’s Arctic Academy, accused of sharing hydroacoustic information on Russian submarines with China, illustrates the limits of the Sino-Russian naval cooperation in the underwater domain (see also Chapter “Sino-Russian Scientific Cooperation in the Arctic: From Deep Sea to Deep Space” by Frank Jüris). The scientist is being prosecuted for having betrayed state secrets in his annual conferences on hydroacoustics at the Dalian Maritime University and is accused of having been tasked to do so by Chinese intelligence. The accusation seems remarkable because according to his defense, the scientist no longer had access to classified data and was just using open-source material. While the accusations against this outstanding scientist who apparently gained nothing appear extraordinary, the frontline publicity given to this case demonstrates the distrust that persists between the two countries.⁹ It signals redlines not to be crossed by Russian specialists and defiance to Chinese espionage methods against Russia.

In 2017, a Chinese academic gave his opinion on the superficiality of this new partnership: “Concerning Russia, our first consideration is purely bilateral, we need a good relationship; it may not bring much benefit to China, but if the relationship is bad, it could be the biggest threat to our security. It’s all about negative interests, avoiding trouble. But there are also economic interests. They are our primary supplier of oil and we need their natural gas. On a human level, we don’t love each other. We don’t trust each other and the partnership is unreliable. It’s just that we don’t have a choice, because we are great neighbors. Russia’s strategic position is isolation. The Russians only like Europe and the United States, but it is not reciprocal because nobody likes them.”¹⁰ The same year, at the Sorbonne, at the international relations seminar of Alain Gauthier, then secretary general of national defense, the Russian diplomat Alexander Lukin, delivered the Kremlin’s standard portrayal of the reasons for the deterioration of Russia’s relations with the West, blaming the United States followed by its European allies for ignoring Russia’s strategic interests, for cancelling the treaties on strategic armaments, for seeking to extend NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, for destabilizing Ukraine, and for imposing sanctions on Moscow after its annexation of a predominantly ethnic Russian Crimea from Ukraine, setting a double standard with Kosovo detached by NATO from Serbian sovereignty under the very same justification. According to Lukin, this policy led Moscow into its partnership with Beijing, a partnership “born from disenchantment” (Lukin, 2018a, 2018b, February 26). Putin had previously stated, “Russia is part of European culture … I don’t imagine my country isolated from Europe … So it is difficult for me to see NATO as an enemy.”¹¹ He has, however, also stated that Russia is not just simply another European country but had some separate “Eurasian” identity and that he considers NATO and its eastern enlargement as a violation of Russia’s national interests.

It is also a fact that Russia has not stopped its cooperation with China’s foes, while China maintains its military cooperation with Ukraine. Vietnam and India are two of the most important military customers for Moscow (see also Chapter “Russian-Chinese Military-Technological Cooperation and the Ukrainian Factor” by Sarah Kirchberger). A state-owned company, the Russian gas group Rosneft is working with Vietnam and the Philippines and has not suspended its activities in the South China Sea as requested by Beijing (“Rosneft says South China Sea drilling,” 2018, May 17; Pearson, 2018, May 17). The “special and privileged strategic partnership” between India and Russia seems to be much deeper than the Sino-Russian security relationship. In the event of a Sino-Indian conflict, it is almost certain that Moscow would remain neutral or side with New Delhi.

9 Conclusions

On the strategic level, the Kremlin describes the Sino-Russian military cooperation as “special relations.... including (on) the most sensitive (areas) linked to military-technical cooperation and security and defense capabilities.” In 2019, Moscow committed itself to help Beijing build an early warning system to detect missile attacks. The same year, those “special relations” were exemplified by Russia holding its largest military drills since the Soviet Union, inviting China to take part, a move seen as signaling much closer military ties (Balmforth, 2019, October 4).

On the naval side, since their inception in 2012, we have witnessed increasingly sophisticated annual exercises between the two navies. However, no known documents or frameworks exist to formalize this naval cooperation. Meanwhile, Russian arms sales to China have declined dramatically, amounting to 3 percent of the current trade between the two countries. While some alleged Chinese patent breaches are actually secret Russo-Chinese joint developments, the intellectual property issue remains a concern for Moscow. As for NATO, it has arguably never contemplated such a big picture. Its offering a MAP for ultimate NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia has generated lasting distrust in Moscow, explaining Russia’s reaction to the West supporting the Maidan revolution in Kiev, while large numbers of Ukrainian citizens of Russian decent opposed the new rulers in Crimea and Donbass. Earlier, Russia had manifested its interest in joining NATO, very clearly to balance the Chinese challenge to the vastness and emptiness of its Siberian spaces, as noted in its 2001 maritime doctrine. It is the Alliance’s ignorance of Russian interests that served as a catalyst for Moscow and Beijing to partner. Once a potential Western associate for blocking the Iranian nuclear program and perhaps deterring Beijing from invading Taiwan, Russia now goes to China like the Athenians to the Romans. Both continental nations also see themselves as maritime nations. Both are forging a defensive non-committal partnership to better protect their interests from the sea.

Commenting on the Sino-Russian relationship, a Russian analyst observed that “new challenges and common threats are unlikely to lead in the foreseeable future to the creation of a Russian-Chinese military-political alliance”… such as the start of the Cold War imposed on us. We will be “together, but different,” concluding “our cause is just” (Tavrovsky, 2019, June 4). A Taipei-based Russia specialist observed: “what Americans have been unable to understand is that Russia, like China, would have gladly traded this Russia-China partnership for better relations with the United States.”¹² Indeed, without refraining from cooperating with each other’s foes, Moscow and Beijing are developing a common military capacity for political and strategic use, essentially against the United States and its anti-Russia/anti-China unequivocal stand. The Sino-Russian military and naval partnership is almost exclusively aimed at counterbalancing US actions. It is claimed by Moscow and Beijing to be born out of necessity and rejection and that it is the product of the US military pressure.

While demonstrating that freedom of navigation is a legitimate goal, the media coverage given to American FONOPS in the China seas or off Russia plays into the hands of hawkish factions in Beijing and Moscow and helps secure more funding for their respective navies. By contrast, other American FONOPS go unreported in most areas of the world. It can be argued that the publicity given to US FONOPS near Chinese and Russian waters has been a factor in the new Sino-Russian naval partnership. The United States fails to see that by ignoring Russian interests, it has made Russia an unnecessary adversary while stimulating the PLAN developments through a succession of naval incidents on the Chinese maritime borders. Publicizing the Air-Sea Battle doctrine in 2009 was also a factor in forging the defensive Sino-Russian partnership.

The Sino-Russian partnership is fragile, but its potential cannot be underestimated. It can be speculated that in the future, the Sino-Russian partnership may seek to prevent a Western coalition from carrying out an intervention that Moscow and Beijing would deem destabilizing. Russia and China may be capable of blocking a Western intervention against Iran, a new partner in those naval exercises. As a consequence of this partnership, Russia would probably abstain from opposing China if Beijing were to seek a military solution to the Taiwanese stalemate.

While the United States is struggling to keep up with a growing Chinese fleet, it fails to acknowledge or understand its own miscalculations in the making of this Russo-Chinese naval partnership. As a consequence, the US submarine fleet is clearly insufficient to tackle a combined Chinese and Russian underwater challenge augmented by North Korea and Iran. This acute challenge explains why Washington has offered Canberra its nuclear submarine technology.

For reasons hard to understand, the United States has ignored the 1997 premonition of George Kennan, its Veteran Cold Warrior and Russian specialist:

[…] expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking. (Kennan, 1997, February 5)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine comes as a consequence of Western refusal to acknowledge Moscow’s security concerns, repeatedly stated since 2000 (cf. Voyennaya doktrina, 2011). While Beijing denounces NATO’s expansion as the cause for the War, China deplores the violence, expressing signs of disapproval which may call into question the intimacy of Russo-Chinese military and naval cooperation (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2022, April 12).