The integration of China’s Belt
and Road and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union will have major implications.
By Enrico Cau* | The Diplomat
In the late 1950s the
deterioration of Sino-Russian relations paved the way for the historic meeting
between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong in 1972. The offspring of
that meeting was the Shanghai Communiqué, and the onset of the Sino-American
détente on one side and that Soviet containment in the Asia-Pacific on the
other, a divide that would define the relations between the two communist
countries for decades to come.
It was only at the end of the
Cold War that, despite remaining challenges like territorial disputes and illegal immigration in the
Russian Far East, Sino-Russian relations began to thaw. The two
countries left ideological divisions behind for a more pragmatic approach based
on the pursuit of shared interests and countering common threats as the guiding
leitmotif of their renewed cooperation. This process of rapprochement, despite
the more pessimistic expectations, has steadily improved over time.
In 1992, President Boris Yeltsin
visited China. In 1993 the two countries signed a military agreement, followed in 1996 by their first strategic
cooperation agreement, and by a number of other agreements: the 2001 Treaty of Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation;
the founding of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization; and the 2012
Strategic Partnership, further upgraded in 2014. Meanwhile, a close personal relationship has
developed between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir
Putin.
The closer ties marked by this
expanding and complex network of agreements and personal relationships have
come to fruition, in particular, in the areas of arms sales, military technology transfers, and energy deals. Important progress was made also in the area
of military relations where, despite the need to keep
a credible level of deterrence, China and Russia have shown
an unprecedented level of mutual trust, as confirmed by China’s ambassador to Russia, Li Hu, and
by the growing number of joint military exercises between the two countries.
But what really epitomizes the
increasing trust the two countries have toward each other was the signing of
an agreement for the integration of the Eurasian Economic
Union (EEU), Putin’s pet project, and the China-led Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI). If successful, the BRI-EEU in Central Asia will mark one more step
toward the consolidation of Sino-Russian relations, with important implications
for both Asia and the West.
The BRI and the EEU: Opposites
Attract
When Xi announced the launch of
the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, both Russia and the West were
caught off guard. In particular, a sanction-stricken Russia seemed to have good
reason to worry that the BRI could further weaken its position in Central Asia,
Russia’s backyard, negatively affecting the EEU. Various assessments pointed in the same pessimistic direction,
especially in the light of the fact that the two initiatives appear to differ remarkably in terms of institutional setup and
strategic goals. The two initiatives are indeed very different. The BRI is a
global open trade-focused project, embodying the essence of the Chinese “going
out” strategy and a herald of globalized trade and multipolarism with Chinese
characteristics. The EEU instead is an “inward-looking” trade integration project devised to allow
Russia to keep hold of its Central Asian neighbors, and contain the expansion
of the EU or the United States in those regions. Despite the pessimistic
outlook, the relationship between China and Russia has, nonetheless continued
to thrive, and so have their plans to create an area of co-prosperity under
Sino-Russian control in Central Asia.
Dynamics of Sino-Russian
Cooperation
The nature of the Sino-Russian
entente appears to rest on a high level of complementarity, reciprocity, shared
interests, and common threats. In this relationship, China and its BRI play the
role of the global enabler, with China advancing its model while also providing
a much-needed lifeline for Russian economy and the EEU. The role of Russia,
instead, is seemingly shaping to be that of a regional stability provider, to
the mutual benefit of both countries.
For China, Russian support in
Central Asia offers multiple advantages. First, Russian influence and knowledge
of regional dynamics can translate into a substantial mitigation of risks and
the removal of several obstacles for BRI projects, reducing costs and
maximizing benefits. China would also enjoy direct access to Central Asia,
providing a unique opportunity to develop new markets, manufacturing centers,
and even new cities along the path of the Silk Road Economic Belt
(SREB). Second, Russian acceptance of Chinese intervention in Central Asia will
allow the Middle Kingdom to play a direct role in the securitization and regime
formation of the region, especially with regards to counter-insurgency
initiatives aimed at preventing Uyghur from establishing safe havens in the region. Finally, this model of
relationship has the potential to lay the foundations for the establishment of
a core geopolitical space under exclusive Sino-Russian control in Eurasia,
beyond the reach of EU and American influence, in a region strategically
positioned between the developing markets of South, East, and Southeast Asia
and the wealthy European markets.
What’s in it for Russia?
The sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and
the European Union as a consequence of its annexation of Crimea, and the ongoing
actions against Ukraine, combined with a downturnof oil prices, have caused enormous damages to
Russian trade and to its relations with Europe and the United States. The
resulting downward spiral is pushing Russia down the path of a
political-economic isolation. This has forced Russia to shift away from the
West and find alternative markets in other regions of the world, to bypass the
sanctions and find new outlets for the Russian economy.
For these reasons, Russia has
started to look at the Asia-Pacific as a viable way to expand its markets and
those of the EEU. In this perspective, integration with the BRI can offer the
EEU a privileged trade channel to the markets of Asia-Pacific, providing Russia
with a unique opportunity to boost its “going east” strategy. Helped by a relative decline of the
United States, whose vacuum is being filled by growing Chinese influence in the
region, Russia’s shift toward the Asia-Pacific has resulted in a row of
successful deals. That includes the signing of several important trade agreements
with the Philippines and Indonesia; an important free trade agreementbetween the EEU and Vietnam; as well as
closer trade relations with South Korea, one of the countries that has refused to enforce sanctions against Russia, a
decision that has provided a boost to South Korean-Russian trade relations.
The Russian expansion in the
Asia-Pacific has occurred with the friendly support of China. This mutual
interpenetration in the two countries’ areas of geopolitical influence, on a
seemingly equal basis, seems to point at a relationship marked by symmetricity,
complementarity, and reciprocity.
The Rise of the Beijing-Moscow
Consensus
The creation of an abiding
Sino-Russian entente in Central Asia could eventually place a huge swath of
Eurasian landmass under the influence of the two countries. In such a scenario,
the role of Russia in China’s grand strategy appears to be not that of a
spear-carrier for Beijing — a role that a proud country like Russia, with its
past as a Cold War superpower, would never accept — but rather that of a key
partner with an equal role in a common grand strategy aiming at reshaping the world
order. This relational model, although in a different form, bears a vague
resemblance to the one adopted by imperial China with its tributary states,
where a mild Chinese influence at the periphery can be compensated for by the
strong influence of a reliable ally.
The two countries seem to share
the common goal of shaping a two-dimensional Beijing-Moscow Consensus. China is
tasked with expanding its model at a global level, while Russia consolidates
its power in the Eurasian region, acting as a strong stabilizing regional force
and enforcing increasingly converging policies in a geopolitical space that is
crucial for both Russian and Chinese interests. The advantage of this model is
that its complementarity can appease both Chinese global ambitions and Russian
regional and global goals, allowing both countries to co-prosper and enjoy
virtually unchallenged dominance over a huge stretch of Eurasian territory,
with significant consequences for farther regions, such as South, East and
Southeast Asia and Central and Eastern Europe; all regions where, we have seen,
Western influence is fading.
Another peculiar feature of the
Beijing-Moscow entente is the resilience offered by its “multi-modality.”
Unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Sino-Russian system would be
able to coexist side by side with the current Western-led international system,
with a high degree of interdependence in a multipolar, globalized regime. It
would also have the capacity, however, to remain functional as a self-contained
ecosystem. This is because the system is designed to control a large,
resource-rich swath of Eurasian and Asian land, where China and Russia could
enforce their model, replicating the features of the current international
order complete with its own institutions, markets, security
infrastructure, currency, and payment mechanisms, bypassing the dollar-based system if necessary.
This type of redundancy seems to be devised to grant the survivability and
sustainability of the core Sino-Russian ecosystem, should the level of
antagonism between China, Russia, and the United States escalate to the point
where the West seeks to enforce an economic and political isolation of China as
it already does with Russia today and as it did with the Soviet Union during
the Cold War.
Such a setup has the potential to
cripple Western influence in Central Asian countries where the activities of
the BRI, the EEU and the EU currently overlap, with game-changing shifts in the regional dynamics
and important consequences for the EU and the United States. The fallout of
Sino-Russian dominance in Central Asia could be felt also in other regions. In
South Asia, countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan could benefit from the
geopolitical stability and credibility brought by a Sino-Russian entente and
the trade continuity offered by BRI-EEU integration. In some Central and Eastern European countries, China’s
growing economic outreach and the establishment of a solid
Sino-Russian bloc in Central Asia could threaten EU cohesion and cause a geopolitical conundrum for the
United States and NATO. In the Asia-Pacific, the Chinese influence-building
strategy, driven by an artful combination of economic influence, public
diplomacy, and occasional assertiveness, is contributing to hasten the decline
of American influence. China is filling the vacuum left an American leadership
that has failed to deliver on several important initiatives, including the
lackluster outcome of the “Pivot to Asia,” the termination of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as
well as the lack of leadership the United States has displayed vis-à-vis the
Chinese encroachment of a number of maritime features in the South China Sea, which China turned into militarized
artificial islands virtually unchallenged.
Conclusion
Despite all odds, Sino-Russian
relations have evolved into increasingly closer cooperation underpinning the
existence of a complex multidimensional geopolitical project driven by mutual
interests and common threats. The two countries seem to have learned from the
past that divisions don’t play well in face of common threats, in particular
when it comes to their major competitor, the United States.
While at present Russia and China
enjoy a very different type of relationship vis-à-vis the United States, the
recent statements made by President Donald Trump and the
posture of the new American National Security Strategy, where both China and Russia
were defined as revisionist countries, may be a harbinger that China and its
vagaries have been given too much leeway. The Chinese model, with all its
incongruences, may be becoming too different from the U.S.-led system for the
two to coexist under the same roof. Should this be the case, it is logical to
assume that the cooperative-competitive relationship that has characterized
Sino-American relations since the Obama administration will come to an end.
The Chinese rapprochement with
Russia seems to indicate that the country has become aware that the expansion
of the Middle Kingdom and its peculiar model may at some point become a threat
serious enough for the West to justify the return to a more conservative
strategy of containment. While far-fetched in a time characterized by the
primacy of trade and markets, globalization, and high interdependence over ideology
and protectionism, this course of action may become a viable option should the
West decide that China and Russia have become a serious threat to the survival
of the current international order.
*Enrico Cau is a Ph.D. candidate
at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies
(GIIASS) of Tamkang University, a member of the Taiwan Strategy Research
Association (TSRA) and a member of the Philippine International Studies
Organization (PHISO).
Image Credit: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office
