BOOK REVIEWS

Sino-Russian Relations in a Changed International Landscape

The ink was barely dry on the new Sino-Russian Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness, Friendship and Co-operation, when the events of 9/11 changed world politics and altered the course of the emerging Sino-Russian partnership. A far cry from the Sino-Soviet alliance of the 1950s, the relationship between China and Russia grew closer in the 1990s in an effort to counter perceived US unilateralist tendencies in international affairs. Due to conflicting foreign policy interests and difficulties in economic and regional relations, the Sino-Russian partnership remained a limited one. Now that US-Russian relations have improved dramatically to the detriment of Sino-Russian strategic co-operation, questions arise about the continued relevance of the Sino-Russian partnership. After providing some background on the development of Sino-Russian relations in the 1990s, this article evaluates the prospects for the partnership between China and Russia in the “post-post Cold War world order”.

Emerging Sino-Russian partnership

By the end of 1991 just two and a half years after the historic meeting in Peking between Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev, the prospects for Sino-Russian relations looked less than promising(1). The Soviet Union had collapsed, bringing to power a new democratic regime that aspired to join the West. Evidence of Chinese support for the coup that toppled Gorbachev in an effort to restore a more authoritarian version of communism turned many democrats in Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s government away from China(2).

Yet within a year Yeltsin showed new enthusiasm for developing relations with Peking, as his hopes for major Western financial assistance were disappointed and economic reform came with enormous social costs. In December 1992, Yeltsin travelled to Peking for a summit with Chinese leaders and took the opportunity to outline a new vision for Russian foreign policy. Forswearing the alliance with the West he had proclaimed just ten months before, Yeltsin advocated instead a foreign policy giving equal weight to relations with European and Asian states(3).

For the Chinese leadership, Yeltsin’s change of heart came at a propitious time. China’s relations with the West had reached a low point with the imposition of sanctions in response to the Tiananmen massacre(4). By the summer of 1992, just as Chinese leaders had made notable progress in restoring relations with a number of Western countries, including the United States, President Bush announced the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, a decision with important consequences for Taiwan’s military and diplomatic position vis-à-vis the mainland(5). To make matters worse, during the presidential campaign in the fall of 1992, Democratic candidate Bill Clinton accused Bush of being “soft” on China, and promised to “get tough,” if elected.

In 1994 Yeltsin and Jiang proclaimed their constructive partnership, and by 1996 Russian and Chinese leaders announced a strategic partnership(6), directed in no small part against what they interpreted as US attempts to dominate the post-Cold War world order. By developing strategic co-ordination and enhancing their bilateral relations, Yeltsin and Jiang sought to create a counter-balance to perceived US pressure and develop a more inclusive multipolar world order, in which Russia and China would play key roles(7). Thus, against all odds, Russian and Chinese leaders now agree that relations between their two countries have never been better since the 1990s(8). In an effort to institutionalise the progress achieved to date, on July 16th 2001, Russia and China signed a treaty outlining the parameters of their relationship, the first friendship treaty between Moscow and Peking since the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance(9).

The strategic partnership in practice

What did Russia and China hope to achieve in signing the 2001 treaty? A detailed examination of the treaty reveals that the strategic partners sought to ensure that Sino-Russian co-operation would be long-lived, to develop relations where they are lacking, and to make a commitment to resolve outstanding problems(10). Unlike the more optimistically-worded joint declarations of the Yeltsin era, envisaging the creation of a multipolar world order and a dramatic improvement in Sino-Russian economic co-operation, the Sino-Russian friendship treaty sets very low benchmarks for international co-operation. Article 12 commits the parties to “work together to preserve global strategic balance and security” and Article 13 notes that the two signatories “will make efforts to strengthen the United Nations as the highest authoritative and most universal organisation in handling international affairs”. In Article 16, Russia and China pledge to enhance their co-operation in a wide range of spheres, including trade, military technology, energy, transportation, nuclear power, finance, aviation, space and electronics.

The treaty falls short of codifying a new alliance, and Russian and Chinese leaders have rejected any such intention(11). Until the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11th 2001 altered the triangular geometry by forging closer US-Russian relations, the Sino-Russian strategic partnership was most effective in the geopolitical sphere. Russian and Chinese leaders saw eye to eye on major international questions, including their opposition to American policies on national and theatre missile defence, NATO expansion and intervention in the Kosovo conflict, and US military action against Iraq.

Military co-operation

Military co-operation has been the most enduring component of Sino-Russian partnership. After the collapF se of the Soviet Union, Moscow’s arms sales to the developing world plummeted and the Asian financial crisis dashed Russian hopes of new markets in South-East Asia. As Sino-Russian relations improved in the 1990s, Russia began selling a wide range of weapons systems to China for largely economic reasons. Thanks to exports to China and India, however, by 1999 Russia had achieved a 6% share of the international arms market and ranked fourth after the US in weapons sales(12). After a decade of steadily increasing arms purchases, China now outranks India as the top buyer of Russian weapons.

Entire factories have been kept afloat in depressed areas of the Russian Far East to cater exclusively to Chinese contracts. The Komsomolsk-na-Amure aviation plant in Khabarovsk Krai, for example, has been the main supplier of fighter aircraft for China. The dependence of this region on exports to China has not only brought in revenue to the local economy, but also has helped counterbalance tensions in Sino-Russian regional relations over the Khabarovsk regional government’s opposition to returning two disputed islands to China (discussed below)(13). Similarly, three factories in the beleaguered military-industrial complex in Primorskii Krai, a region that had vociferously opposed the 1991 border demarcation treaty with China and has decried the threat of Chinese illegal migration to the Russian Far East, will supply electronics and anti-ship missiles for the two additional destroyers China agreed to purchase in January 2002(14).

Arms sales to China have not been without controversy in Russia. Terms of payment have caused the most opposition in Russian political circles. One of the early deals to sell China Su-27s, for example, caused an uproar when it was revealed that the Chinese paid for the first instalment in bartered consumer goods, including canned food products. Although in recent years Russia has required payment in hard currency for weapons purchases, some sales continue to be counted against Soviet debt repayment, as was the case with a $1 billion deal concluded in 2000 to provide China with several dozen SU-27s(15).

Russian policymakers also have been concerned about developing a balance between arms sales and other forms of economic co-operation and have sought to broaden the range of Russian products China purchases beyond weapons. Although by no means a majority view, there are some latent concerns in Russian military and political circles about the potential long-term impact of arming China, particularly for Russia’s increasingly under-populated and vulnerable eastern regions(16).

As of October 2000, China accounted for 49.9% of Russian arms sales and with deliveries of 18 fighter aircraft (10 Su-30MKK and 8 Su-27UBK), and a destroyer in December, China’s share rose to more than 70%. Most recently, on May 3rd 2002, Russia agreed to deliver eight Kilo-class submarines to China over the next five years at a cost of US$1.5 billion(17). Sino-Russian military co-operation is quite extensive and involves much more than arms sales. Over 200 Chinese military officers now pay to receive training in Russia(18). Hundreds of Russian and Chinese defence specialists and scientists participate in exchange programmes. According to some observers, however, Russian-Chinese military ties remain limited and do not include the joint army and navy exercises and other forms of military-to-military co-operation Moscow has with a range of other states(19).

Russian weapons sold to China are modernised versions of 1980s technology and will be outdated in another 10 to 12 years, ensuring that Moscow will retain a technological edge over its main client(20). Initially Russia sold more advanced weapons to India than to China, but by 1999 the Chinese military succeeded in purchasing the Su-30MKK aircraft Russia had agreed to sell India two years before and that China had long sought to purchase. Nevertheless, Russia refused Chinese requests for its more advanced systems such as the long-range Tu-22M Backfire supersonic bombers and Su-35 fighter aircraft, although Moscow had bid (unsuccessfully) on a contract to supply the Su-35s to Seoul(21).

Even though China has purchased the licensing rights for some items such as SU-27 aircraft, now produced in Shenyang, China still requires Russian parts, and all of the Su-27s and Su-30s also receive overhauls in Russia, after approximately 800 hours of flight time(22). China’s continuing dependence on Russian weaponry was an important factor in the Chinese leadership’s decision to ensure a long-term basis for relations with Russia in the form of a friendship treaty(23).

China has become the world’s leading weapons purchaser, accounting for nearly US$3 billion in contracts in 2000, mostly of weapons from Russia and Israel. Chinese purchases of Russian aircraft have been focused on improving overall power projection capabilities. Many US defence analysts view China’s recent acquisition of Sovremenny class destroyers armed with SS-N-22 Sunburn missiles and Kilo-class submarines as an effort to challenge US naval power in the Taiwan Strait and potentially in South-East Asia(24).

Border demarcation issues and territorial integrity

The new Sino-Russian friendship treaty also reaffirms the numerous pledges Russian and China have made in support of preserving national sovereignty and territorial integrity. This time, Russia stated unequivocally in Article 5 that China is “sole legitimate government representing the whole of China and that Taiwan is an indivisible part of China”, and highlighted its opposition to “Taiwan independence in any form”. This was particularly important for Chinese leaders, who had been concerned with the flirtation of Russian democrats and ultra-nationalists with Taiwan in the 1990s.

Article 6 notes the significant progress that has been achieved in border demarcation since the May 16th 1991 agreement on the eastern section of the Sino-Soviet border, calls attention to the absence of territorial pretensions between the two neighbours (an issue of crucial importance to Russian leaders in particular), and pledges to maintain the status quo in remaining unresolved areas until a solution is reached. Since Russia and China share one of the longest borders in the world (nearly 4,200 km), ensuring that the armed confrontation of the 1960s and militarised stand-off of the 1970s and 1980s would never be repeated was an important aim for both countries. By 1997, Russian and Chinese leaders had demarcated almost the entire border, with the exception of three border islands. Two of the islands (Tarabarov/Yinlong and Bolshoi Ussuriiskii/Heixiazi) are located on the Chinese side of the main channel in the Amur River, within minutes by ferry of the city of Khabarovsk. The third, Bolshoi Island, is in the Argun River (the border separating China’s Inner Mongolia from Russia’s Chita Oblast in eastern Siberia).

Ever since the 1969 Sino-Soviet border clashes brought the two neighbours to the brink of war and dramatised for Russia the danger of unchecked Chinese territorial pretensions, Khabarovsk authorities have been taking steps to consolidate their claim to the two islands across from the city, by establishing farms and building summer homes for officials there. For the time being, Russia and China have agreed to set the issue of the still disputed islands aside, although a compromise will prove difficult to reach given the implacable opposition in Khabarovsk (largely supported by federal authorities) to any talk of returning the two islands(25). If they were given back to China, Khabarovsk, the headquarters of the Far East military district and the site of a major air base, would become a vulnerable border outpost.

Apart from this intractable problem in the Khabarovsk area, by and large the Sino-Russian border is a peaceful one. In 1996, the five neighbours—Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan—met in Shanghai to work out confidence-building measures. The so-called Shanghai Five agreed that each would inform the others about troop and weapons movements within 100km of their common border. In 1997 they agreed to limit the troops along the border to 260,800: China could station 130,400 on its side of the border and the remaining 130,400 would be divided among the other four neighbours.

Summit meetings of the Shanghai five have become a regular forum for discussion of confidence-building measures and regional economic co-operation(26). During the June 2001 meeting, Uzbekistan became the sixth member of the group, now called the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, and Mongolia, Pakistan and India have reportedly expressed interest in joining. Concerned by the destabilising influence of the Taliban, refugee flows, drug trafficking and militant Islamic movements in Central Asia, the member states agreed to hold joint military exercises and signed a declaration on joint counter-terrorism, involving the establishment of a centre in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Originally the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation sought to promote economic co-operation among its members, in part to counterbalance growing US interests in the region, especially in the energy sector(27). Due to concerns over access to energy resources and unrest in Xinjiang, China been the more enthusiastic promoter of the organisation. Russian policymakers have tended to view it as a potential vehicle for China to expand its economic and political interests in a region they considered to be Russia’s sphere of influence(28).

Asian security

Despite considerable agreement in Moscow and Peking on major international questions, surprisingly, the 2001 treaty makes no specific mention of Sino-Russian strategic co-operation in Asia. Indeed, the Sino-Russian partnership has not prompted China to press for Russia’s inclusion in great power talks on Korean issues. To the contrary, the Chinese leaders have preferred to maintain their own privileged position—China succeeded in developing a thriving economic relationship with Seoul while maintaining ties with Pyongyang, while Russia lost influence by downgrading ties with North Korea in favour of the south, a policy which diminished Moscow’s value as a partner for Seoul(29). In an effort to regain a prominent role on Korean security, Putin has engaged in high-profile bilateral diplomacy and has attempted to carve out a niche for Russia as a key mediator in inter-Korean relations.

Chinese and Russian positions on Korean issues are far from identical. While the status quo on the peninsula provides more room for manoeuvre for China than would a unified Korea (especially one with a pro-American orientation), Russia has been the more unequivocal supporter of unification(30). Moreover, China and Russia are facing off as competitors on the Korean peninsula, especially in regional economic co-operation projects involving South Korean trade and investment, such as the inter-Korean railway(31).

Although Russia and China have competing interests on the Korean peninsula, bilateral problems in Sino-Japanese and Russian-Japanese relations helped cement the Sino-Russian partnership, at least until the post-9/11 shifts in great power relations. Despite substantial economic co-operation, China and Japan remain divided over bitter historical legacies and territorial issues. In recent years Chinese leaders have become increasingly wary of nationalistic trends in Japan prodding the country to move beyond self-defence, now possibly to nuclear status, and concerned about increasing Japanese-US security co-operation potentially including a theatre missile defence system covering Taiwan. Given the substantial changes in post-9/11 Russian-US relations and, as discussed below, growing Chinese concern that the Sino-Russian partnership is now a lower priority for Moscow, China may now seek improved ties with Japan(32).

Russia and Japan have yet to find a way to resolve their dispute over the southern Kurile Islands despite signs of progress in the late 1990s. Even if this issue were resolved, however, Japanese firms would remain reluctant to make major investments in Russia due to the high level of political and economic risk involved, a factor providing little incentive for Russian diplomats to agree to any compromise on territorial issues(33).

Nevertheless, some liberal voices in Russia call for efforts to resolve outstanding bilateral problems with Japan, which they view as a potential counterbalance to growing Chinese power. According to this minority view, Japan has sought to improve economic relations with Russia in recent years, despite the territorial impasses, in an effort to check China’s rising power in the region. Indeed, despite slow progress on territorial issues and limited economic co-operation, Russian-Japanese military co-operation has been expanding. After a visit by then Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeev to Tokyo in December 2000, the two countries established military exchange programmes and developed confidence-building measures(34).

Economic co-operation

Initially Russian and Chinese leaders had high hopes for achieving significant economic co-operation. At their 1996 summit meeting, Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin pledged to reach US$20 billion in trade by 2000. This turned out to be an unattainable goal—in 1999 bilateral trade only reached US$5.9 billion, far below the peak level of US$7.68 achieved in 1993(35). In 2000, however, Sino-Russian trade reached US$8 billion, surpassing the record turnover achieved 1993 for the first time, and in 2001 achieved an unprecedented US$10.67 billion, a 33.3% increase over 2000(36).

Since the signing of the 2001 friendship treaty, Russian and Chinese officials and business people have redoubled their efforts to expand economic co-operation beyond the natural resources sectors. The Chinese Embassy in Moscow sent 20 diplomats around Russia in the fall of 2001 to hunt for potential investments. A major Russian business delegation toured China in April 2002, and, one month later the Sok Group company, Russia’s third largest car manufacturer, known for its Lada model, announced a deal to launch a joint venture in China to produce a low-priced car for the Chinese market(37). Chinese companies are participating in the technopark in Novosibirsk, a major Siberian scientific centre, and Russia and China plan to establish a joint business incubator in Yantai in Shandong province as well as a joint project to produce nuclear instrument metres in Dantong in Liaoning province(38).

The poor reputation of Chinese goods in Russia has proved an intractable obstacle, although Chinese exports have fared better since the 1998 Russian financial crisis made higher-quality imports from other countries prohibitively expensive. To acquaint Russian consumers with a wider variety of goods than those procured by shuttle traders in the Chinese north-east, Peking opened two large department stores and a trade centre in Moscow. This strategy appears to have paid off, as Chinese exports of machinery and electrical appliances increased by 73.2% in 2000, to US$234 million(39). The quality of Russian goods also is a problem—China postponed participation in a joint project for the design and production of Tupolev-330 transport aircraft, for example, due to concerns over inadequate safety standards.

When China rejected Russia’s bid to provide turbines for the Three Gorges dam project some Russian officials questioned China’s commitment to the Sino-Russian partnership when China selected a European supplier, for economic reasons. Russian officials continued to press their resisting Chinese counterparts to purchase Russian aircraft, and, in September 2001, China finally agreed to purchase 5 Tu-204-120C medium-range transport jets, with an option to buy another ten, which could include passenger jets(40).

Russian leaders see the energy sector as one of the most promising for expanding economic co-operation with China. In June 1997, Russia and China signed an agreement to develop the Kovyktinskoe gas fields near Irkutsk, in eastern Siberia, and feasibility studies are proceeding, although not without disagreements. The China National Petroleum Corporation has insisted on verifying Russian reserves estimates and disagrees with the Russians over the route of the proposed pipeline. The Russian side has proposed constructing the pipeline from Irkutsk via Mongolia to Peking, the shortest route from eastern Siberia to China, but the Chinese want the pipeline to run directly from Russia to Daqing in Heilongjiang Province and then to Dalian in Liaoning Province(41). Questions over the pipeline’s routing and reserve estimates have delayed the project, prompting Russian shareholders to propose rerouting the pipeline to the Russian city of Nakhodka, a major port on the sea of Japan, so as to bypass China entirely and cater to the South Korean and Japanese markets(42).

This would not be the first Sino-Russian deal to collapse after protracted negotiations. Chinese officials turned down a multi-billion dollar project by Russia’s Unified Energy Systems to build an electrical grid, which would have transmitted 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity to northern China over a 20-year period. During a September 2000 visit to Moscow, Li Peng, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, cited the lack of demand for additional power in northern China as the main reason for China’s decision to reject the Russian proposal after three years of talks(43).

Some co-operation in energy is proceeding, however. In 1999, the Russian firm Yukos shipped 1.5 million tons of oil by rail to China and plans to sell up to 10 million tons by 2005. To facilitate shipping the increased volume of oil, Russia and China are discussing the construction of a pipeline from Yukos’ oil fields in Tomsk in eastern Siberia to China, although the two sides still have not resolved differences over pricing(44).

China already purchased oil from Sakhalin and has expressed interest in purchasing gas from the region in the future. During the July 2001 summit, Russia and China reached an agreement paving the way for a feasibility study for a US$1.7 billion pipeline, running from Angarsk in eastern Siberia to Daqing in north-eastern China. The 1,500-mile pipeline could be built as early as 2005 and begin shipping 147 million barrels annually to China(45). The Russian state gas monopoly Gazprom also joined a consortium led by the Royal/Dutch Shell Group to lay a 4,200 km pipeline from Xinjiang to Shanghai.

Apart from Sino-Russian differences over specific projects, the Asian financial crisis has made it more difficult to proceed with energy co-operation due to the depressed demand for energy in Asia. The crisis also has made Asian states more reluctant to commit investment funds to costly new energy projects. Moreover, Russian experts tend to overestimate China’s current capacity to absorb natural gas from Siberia in the Russian Far East and its interest in doing so, especially given the Chinese leadership’s priority on developing domestic resources(46). As a result, there has been much more discussion about Sino-Russian energy co-operation than concrete progress(47).

Regional relations

At first regional economic relations seemed to be the most dynamic component of Sino-Russian relations. The volume of border trade increased steadily in the early 1990s—by 1993 trade between the Chinese and Russian border regions accounted for two-thirds of the overall Sino-Russian trade balance. However, the rapid expansion of Sino-Russian regional economic relations turned out to be a temporary phenomenon stimulated by short-term factors in the economy of the Russian Far East(48). With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Far East suddenly was cut off from traditional suppliers of food products and consumer goods in European Russia due to a combination of interrupted economic links and high transportation costs. Disillusioned by inadequate federal support, regional leaders turned to China for necessary supplies of food and consumer products and had high hopes for Chinese investment in the Russian Far East economy. Regional leaders focused their efforts on expanding trade and joint ventures with China. Much of the trade with China during this period was barter trade, carried out by shuttle traders from China’s north-eastern provinces.

The boom in border trade proved to be short-lived, however. Although the Russian Far East depended on border trade with China for necessary goods, officials and the general public became concerned that excessive reliance on Chinese products could lead to undue dependence on China and possibly invite Chinese economic control over Russia’s weakened peripheries. In response, regional leaders expanded trade with other Pacific Rim countries. By the mid-1990s South Korea, Japan, and the United States began competing with China for a share of the consumer market in the Russian Far East and became key investors in the region. Although China continues to lead in terms of the number of joint ventures established in the region, the amounts invested are quite small and China is not among the leading investors(49).

Moreover, by 1994, Russia’s regional leaders began to view China as the main potential challenge to the regional balance of power. Although they recognised the positive aspects of expanding regional economic relations, they argued that the largely unregulated cross-border ties with China—with its large population, unemployment problem, and historical claims to Russian territory—could have serious consequences for the increasingly sparsely populated Russian border regions(50). Russians who remained in the region faced underemployment in depressed defence and resource industries and resented the introduction of cheap foreign labour, even if the Chinese and North Koreans worked in areas such as agriculture where there was a shortage of qualified workers. By mid-1993, the local press in the Russian Far East was full of articles condemning China’s “quiet expansion” and calling for counter-measures for fear that the continued influx of Chinese workers and traders would become tantamount to a reassertion of de facto Chinese control over areas lost to the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth century.

Just as Moscow began to focus on improving relations with China, regional leaders in the Russian Far East began advocating the need for new regulations to limit the region’s openness to economic co-operation with its Asian neighbours generally, and to control Sino-Russian regional relations more specifically. After two years of visa-free border trade, visas were once again required as January 1st 1994, leading to a 34% drop in the Sino-Russian trade balance in 1994. New restrictions also were imposed on the use of foreign contract labour in Russia for construction and agriculture, and regional authorities in the Russian border regions began conducting police sweeps of markets and tour companies in search of illegal Chinese migrants(51).

Regional officials accuse the Chinese government of harbouring a strategy to encourage illegal migration to the Russian Far East, when corruption in Russia makes it possible for illegal migrants to obtain necessary documents(52). Since the mid-1990s, however, Peking has been keeping a close eye on the regulation of Sino-Russian border trade and called provincial leaders to task for lapses(53). There has been substantial progress in regulating cross-border traffic. According to Russian regional interior ministry data, in 1994 just 64% of foreign visitors to Primorskii Krai left the region within the time allotted by their visas, but from 1997 to 2000, more than 99 % left on schedule(54). Nevertheless, regional leaders, who dominated the local media, have proven adept in manipulating anti-Chinese sentiment in the media to win points in their struggles with Moscow(55).

Since the mid-1990s, press reports claiming that 1 to 5 million Chinese reside in Russia illegally have appeared regularly in the Russian media, especially in Vladivostok. According to estimates from a leading Russian specialist on Chinese migration, there are currently 250,000 to 450,000 Chinese in Russia, including approximately 20,000 to 25,000 in Moscow and a maximum of 20,000 in each of two of the border regions, Khabarovsk Krai and Primorskii Krai(56).

Even in Moscow, the Sino-Russian partnership notwithstanding, many policymakers remain wary of Chinese intentions in the Russian Far East. In June 2001, the Russian Security Council announced a new project on unconventional approaches to security, including a working group on the Russian Far East and Siberia, which is intended to address the area’s continuing population decline and the “yellow peril”. A new bill that would tighten controls on illegal immigration is under consideration in the Russian State Duma. In deference to Russian sensitivities, China reportedly dropped a demand to open the Russian market completely to Chinese labour and service providers as a part of Russia’s accession to the WTO(57).

Problems in regional relations have proven the most intractable since they reflect the legacy of underdevelopment still plaguing the Russian and Chinese border regions two decades after their reopening to cross-border economic relations. Progress will depend, to a large extent, on the fate of economic reform in the Russian Far East and the Chinese north-east. In the interim, Russian and Chinese officials have been working to improve the regulation of regional economic ties, for example, by signing inter-bank agreements facilitating regional transactions. They also have been trying to reach beyond cross-border co-operation, by encouraging China’s more developed southern regions to expand economic contacts with the Russian Far East and promote co-operation between scientific centres in Siberia and China’s north-east.

Sino-Russian relations since 9/11

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States, a strategic realignment took place in international politics, resulting in a closer Russian-US relationship and diminishing the value of the Sino-Russian partnership for Russia. Apart from issuing joint bilateral statements condemning terrorism(58), China and Russia presented no united response to the terrorist attacks either together or through the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. While previously geopolitical agreement sustained the Sino-Russian partnership despite its weaknesses in other areas, now Russia appears to be tilting more to the West, leaving China, and the Sino-Russian partnership, on the sidelines.

Moreover, the weakness of the Sino-Russian partnership is all the more apparent as US forces have acquired an unprecedented foothold near Russian and Chinese borders. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, US officials pressed Central Asian states for assistance with the struggle against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Initially the Central Asian states reacted cautiously to American requests, but ultimately all five states offered to share intelligence and grant US access to their air space. Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan also allowed coalition aircraft to make emergency landings. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan signed basing access agreements with the United States.

At first Russian leaders opposed any US use of bases in Central Asia. Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov stated that he failed to see any “reasons whatsoever, even hypothetical, for any suppositions about conducting NATO operations from territories of Central Asian countries, especially members of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States]”.(59) President Putin tried to pressure the Central Asian leaders to follow Moscow’s lead, by telephoning them on September 17th and urging them to act according to the CIS framework on anti-terrorism issues.

Although initially seeking Moscow’s approval, US officials then went directly to the Central Asian leaders to seek their support. Uzbekistan is not a member of the CIS and extended the use of its bases to the US-led coalition. Kazakhstan, and then Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, after securing Moscow’s approval, also opened up bases and offered their air space for the coalition’s use. Russian officials were then obliged to reverse their previous opposition to US basing in Central Asia(60). Putin, who kept silent on the matter for nearly two weeks, gave a speech on September 24th 2001 in which he pledged Russia’s co-operation with US plans to attack Afghanistan, but only once the UN Security Council had approved them(61).

For Putin, the 9/11 events represented an opportunity to rejoin the superpower club and facilitate domestic reform by seeking closer ties to Western military, political and economic institutions. Since 9/11, Russian-American co-operation has deepened in all areas. Russia and NATO entered into a new relationship in December 2001; Presidents Putin and Bush held successful arms control talks, culminating in a productive summit meeting in May 2002; the US recognised Russia as a market economy and promised support for its accession to the WTO. Without a co-operative US-Russian relationship, President Putin’s acquiescence to a US military presence in Central Asia, viewed by Moscow as its own sphere of influence, would have been hard to imagine(62).

By participating in the US-led anti-terrorism coalition, closing bases in Vietnam and Cuba (albeit in decisions made prior to 9/11) and taking a conciliatory stance on President Bush’s December 13th 2001 decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty, Putin hoped that the US would once again see the need to treat Russia as a great power(63). The Russian president also expected some concessions in return, especially an end to criticism of Russia’s policies towards Chechnya, carte blanche to conduct anti-terrorism operations in Georgia, and perhaps also preferential terms for repayment of Soviet era debt and entry to the World Trade Organisation (WTO)(64).

Yet Putin’s initial failure to show substantial immediate benefits for Russian co-operation with the Washington on Afghanistan and underlying wariness of an increased US military presence in Central Asia made the Russian leader vulnerable to more nationalist critics at home in early 2002. Prior to 9/11, Russian policymakers were already suspicious of US intentions in Central Asia and concerned that Washington was using programmes such as NATO’s Partnership for Peace to squeeze Russia out of the region(65). By early 2002, after the US concluded basing agreements with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, critical voices began to be heard in Moscow. In January 2002, Gennadyi Seleznev, speaker of the Russian Duma, spoke out against any permanent US basing in Central Asia(66).

The Russian president’s immediate concern has been to recoup Russia’s dwindling clout in the region through a series of diplomatic initiatives directed at the CIS designed to reinstate Moscow’s leading role in co-ordinating intelligence sharing and security co-operation by Central Asian states. Many of Russian appeals to enhance CIS integration have largely fallen on deaf ears and Putin has sought a variety of other economic and political levers of influence.

In January 2002 the Russian president called for the formation of a Eurasian gas alliance, including Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Russia. The alliance would export gas to Europe via the Russian state-owned monopoly Gazprom, effectively granting Moscow the power to cut off exports from Central Asian states should they fail to be sufficiently loyal to Moscow(67). At the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit, Putin called attention to a 15-year agreement to export oil from Kazakhstan via Russia and noted the recent improvement in trade relations with Uzbekistan(68). Later on in June, when Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev faced continuous mass demonstrations protesting the treatment of an opposition figure and Kyrgyzstan’s border settlement with China, top Russian officials were dispatched to Bishkek to show their support for the embattled president and offered to improve military co-operation with Bishkek(69).

Moreover, Russia has been competing with the US for influence in Afghanistan. Although Russia did not contribute troops to the war against the Taliban, Moscow dispatched 12 planeloads of “specialists” to Kabul in early December, a move described by Secretary of State Colin Powell as potentially creating tensions in US-Russia relations(70). Russia was the second country (after Great Britain) to re-open its embassy in Kabul and its support for the Northern Alliance ensured it a key role in post-Taliban Afghanistan(71).

Like Putin, Chinese leaders saw participation in the anti-terrorism coalition as an opportunity to find a modus vivendi with the United States and to justify the repression of its own Muslim minority in Xinjiang on the grounds that the region was vulnerable to Taliban-inspired terrorism(72). China has not been as active a supporter as Russia, however, in part due to its own reluctance to sanction US-led intervention in the domestic affairs of another state, but also because of US caution in becoming unduly indebted to China(73).

Initially hopeful that the 9/11 attacks would persuade the United States to abandon unilateral international behaviour in favour of co-operation with the United Nations and multilateral diplomacy, Chinese leaders quickly recognised that their country’s geopolitical situation actually worsened as a result of the war against terrorism(74). China has seen its influence in Central Asia diminish and now faces the prospect of a long-term US military presence on its borders. To make matters worse, the Bush administration has been improving relations with both India and Pakistan; in its October 2001 Quadrennial Review the US Department of Defense advocated a build-up of US forces in East Asia; Washington’s revised nuclear posture included China as a potential target; and Japan has been expanding the military role of its Self-Defence Forces and discussing a possible nuclear option.

Chinese leaders also have been concerned that its strategic partner, Russia, has been pursuing high-profile co-operation with the United States to the detriment of the Sino-Russian partnership. Disappointed by Russia’s muted reaction to the US abandonment of the ABM treaty and taken aback by Putin’s enthusiasm for participating in NATO and the US-led anti-terrorism coalition, Chinese officials have begun to question the Russian president’s commitment to the Sino-Russian partnership. In a June 2002 interview, Renmin Ribao editors asked Putin if any reassessment of Sino-Russian relations had taken place or if the new activity in Russian-US relations was an indication that fundamental changes had been made in Russian foreign policy. Although Putin sought to reassure China of the importance of deepening and expanding Sino-Russian relations, he noted that economic relations with the West are more important for Russia, just as they are for China(75).

China has been making some efforts to re-emerge from its marginalised position, by engaging India and the United States, for example. On January 14th 2002, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji travelled to New Delhi, the first top leader to visit India in a decade. Despite continuing tensions over border issues, Tibet, and India’s 1998 nuclear test, the Chinese leadership decided to try to improve relations with India in an effort to offset Washington’s growing role in South and Central Asia and help reduce tensions between Pakistan and India, which provide an additional pretext for further American involvement(76). China’s overtures towards India make the Russian idea of a tripartite alliance among Russia, China, and India seem less far-fetched(77). In advance of the February 21st 2002 summit with the United States, the Chinese leadership took pains to downplay recent tensions in relations(78).

The dramatic shifts in global politics have prompted Chinese experts to re-evaluate the strategic context of China’s security policy and discuss various possible responses, including greater reliance on multilateral co-operation (to counteract perceived US unilateralist tendencies) or a “readjustment” of China’s security policy in response to mounting US pressures(79). Given that this series of negative developments in China’s security environment has emerged at a time when Chinese leaders have been preoccupied by leadership succession, thus far they have focused their attention on their overriding current concern in US-China relations, the Taiwan issue, and have not directly criticised the US military presence in Central Asia. Nonetheless, Chinese commentary emphasises that Central Asia is likely to be the locus of great power rivalry, especially over energy(80).

Chinese leaders have responded to the increased US military co-operation with Central Asia by reinvigorating Chinese diplomacy in the region and advocating co-operation in regional security frameworks, excluding US participation, a surprising development considering Peking’s usual caution about multilateralism. Jiang Zemin held bilateral talks with Central Asian leaders in May-June 2002. According to Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, Jiang’s Eurasian initiative was a “major diplomatic move” to respond to profound changes in the international security environment of the region(81). Jiang used these meetings to put forward a vision of Central Asian security maintained by Asians(82). In the short term, China is seeking to expand economic co-operation with Kazakhstan in the energy sector and to boost security ties with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan (and potentially with Turkmenistan) by providing military aid(83). Considering Russia’s historical ties to the region, the substantial investment the US has been making there since 9/11, and the wary reaction in Central Asia to Peking’s inroads, Chinese diplomatic efforts are unlikely to bear fruit. While interested in economic co-operation with China, there is concern in Central Asia about the potential for Chinese economic domination(84).

China and, to a lesser extent, Russia are attempting to reinvigorate the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation in an effort to reassert their own dwindling influence over developments in Central Asia and to counter the assertion of US security interests in the region(85). Although members signed an organisational charter at the June 2002 meeting in St. Petersburg, and agreed to establish a permanent secretariat in Peking and an anti-terrorism unit in Bishkek, they remain divided over the group’s priorities(86). Even though existing regional organisations have yet to prove effective, a new Asian security organisation, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), was founded on June 4th 2002, at Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s initiative, in an effort bring together representatives from Central Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East and promote regional economic co-operation and security.

Prospects for Sino-Russian partnership

The Sino-Russian partnership found its greatest strength in efforts by Russian and Chinese leaders to fashion a multipolar world order that would counter US assertions of dominance. Co-operation between Moscow and Peking has resulted in thriving sales of Russian weapons to China and the achievement of a peaceful and almost entirely demarcated border. Now that Russia has chosen a closer alignment with Western interests in the anti-terrorism coalition, the Sino-Russian partnership has been relegated to the sphere of bilateral and regional relations, where co-operation has been most difficult.

Yet as 9/11 demonstrated, the landscape of international relations may change rapidly in unexpected directions. In coming months China will experience major changes in its top leadership, bringing to power a relatively unknown group whose foreign policy agenda remains opaque at this writing. Recent changes in Russian foreign policy have left Chinese officials perplexed about President Putin’s intentions and the new Chinese leadership team will need to take into account an unanticipated area of uncertainty as it develops its foreign policy.

Nevertheless, it is too early to state unequivocally that the Russian-US partnership will be an enduring one. After all, the Clinton administration’s “strategic alliance” with Russia ended in mutual disillusionment by the end of the decade. Former President Boris Yeltsin also initially outlined a vision for a Western-oriented Russia, but soon domestic opponents accused him of selling out Russian interests in return for few benefits. Like Yeltsin, President Putin will have to demonstrate that major concessions on the ABM treaty and the US military role in Central Asia brought Russia major gains in status and support for domestic reforms. Furthermore, Putin’s conception of a Russia situated in the West does mean that he is adopting Western norms of democracy, and fundamental differences of interests with the US will remain. Much like the Chinese leadership’s embrace of capitalism, Putin’s reforms are premised on the maintenance of strong state power, what he has termed the “dictatorship” of law, rather than the Western notion of the rule of law. As Michael McFaul and Nikolai Zlobin noted, “a semi-democratic Russia will remain a semi-ally of the United States”(87).

US foreign policy may be the most important wildcard affecting the future of the Sino-Russian partnership. US policymakers have used the lessons of the war against the Taliban to refashion the US national security framework and revise long-standing concepts of deterrence to address new threats from international terrorism. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld noted that the war in Afghanistan shows that Washington is prepared to take pre-emptive action against states sponsoring terrorism(88). As a presidential candidate George W. Bush had criticised President Clinton for turning the United States into “the world’s policeman”, but the Bush administration is currently revising the US national security strategy to support pre-emptive action against terrorists and the countries that support them(89). Although Russia, and to a lesser extent, China have co-operated with the US-led coalition against terrorism, their support is not unqualified and could easily dissipate in the event the US decides to maintain a long-term military presence in Central Asia or expand the war on terrorism in a major ground attack against Iraq.

President Putin may be able to tolerate limited air strikes, if the US does go forward with a pre-emptive ground attack against Iraq(90), but the Russian president would find himself in a very difficult position politically. After acquiescing to US basing in Central Asia and a US pull-out from the ABM treaty, Russia would be asked to sacrifice its economic interests in Iraq, a move unlikely to garner support in Russian policy circles and, to the contrary, one with the potential to undermine Putin’s support for US policies on other issues. Prior consultation would be insufficient to achieve Russian concurrence to a pre-emptive US ground attack, as Russian leaders would be expecting substantial financial compensation for their losses. Even so, if the US intervened unilaterally in Iraq, domestic opposition in Russia to Putin’s Westward-leaning diplomacy would increase and, as was the case with the US intervention in Kosovo in 1999, would strengthen voices in Moscow advocating a partnership with China and India to counteract Washington’s efforts to impose its will on global affairs. Thus, since bilateral and regional differences serve to limit Sino-Russian relations, reactions by Russian and Chinese leaders to unfolding international developments will play a key role in shaping their partnership in years to come.