The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations: Theoretical Insights and Implications 3030939812, 9783030939816

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
International Relations Theory and the Puzzle of China-Russia Alignment
Scholarship on China-Russia Relations and the Necessity of Theory
Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations
Contributions and Limitations of the Book
Conclusion
References
Typological Theory and Description of China-Russia Relations
Measuring Strategic Cooperation in China-Russia Relations
Introduction
The Military Alignment Framework
An Empirical Assessment of China-Russia Military Alignment
The Early Stage: CBMs and Regular Consultations
Moderate Cooperation: MTC and Regular Military Exercises
Advanced Cooperation: The Growing Interoperability of Military Forces
Conclusion
References
China, Russia and the United States: Balance of Power or National Narcissism?
Balance of Power vs. National Narcissism
Balancing Coalition?
A Case Study in Cooperation: Shanghai Cooperation Organization
A Case Study in Dissonance: Diverging Sino-Russian Interests Over Ukraine
The Sino-Russian Anti-American Balancing Assumption
Conclusions: A Fragile but Quite Robust Strategic Partnership
References
Partnering Up in the New Cold War? Explaining China-Russia Relations in the Post-Cold War Era
Introduction: A New Cold War in the Making?
The 1994 “Constructive Partnership”—Reducing Mutual Fears
The 1996 Strategic Partnership: Driven by a Common Threat
The 2001–2004 “Aloof Relations”: Economy, not Security
The 2010 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership: US Threats Plus Economic Interests
America’s New Cold War with China and Russia
Conclusion
References
Deductive Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations
China’s and Russia’s New Status Relationship
Status and Identity
Russia’s Tilt Toward China
China’s Interest in Cooperation with Russia
Status Accommodation in Central Asia
Conclusion
References
China and Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony
Introduction
China, Russia, and the West
Evidence
Containment and Rollback of Liberal Democracy
Beijing and Moscow Explicitly Call Liberal Democracy a Threat
Better Relations with Authoritarian States and Actors
Cooperation Against Human Rights Criticism
Russian Election Interference in the United States in 2016 and 2020
Objections to the Argument
Implications
Works Cited
The Paradox of Sino-Russian Partnership: Global Normative Alignment and Regional Ontological Insecurity
Sources of Sino-Russian Global Normative Alignment
Non-Interference in Authoritarian States and Information Sovereignty
Opposition to the U.S. Alliance System and Its Extension into Asia
Partnership Narratives
Competing Elements
Lack of Regional Integration: Explanations and Examples
The Sino-Russian Border Regions
COVID-19 and Sino-Russian Relations
Conclusions
Works Cited
Inductive Theory Building from China-Russia Relations
The US Factor in China’s Successful Reassurance of Russia
Effect of Third-Party Threat on Credibility
Mechanism 1: Reduced Incentives to Misrepresent
Mechanism 2: Increased Constraints
Theoretical and Empirical Implications
China’s Post-Cold War Reassurance of Russia
Behavioral Third-Party Threat and Credibility by Constraint: China’s Reassurance of Russia Under Yeltsin
Fundamental Third-Party Threat and Credible Signals of Compatibility: China’s Reassurance Toward Russia Under Putin
Implications for China-Russia-US Relations in the Post-Trump Era
Conclusion
References
Bargaining, Nuclear Weapons, and Alliance Choices in US-China-Russia Relations
Choosing Sides
The Bargaining Approach
Bargaining Between Three Players
The Nuclear Angle
Conclusion
References
Sino-Russian Logrolling and the Future of Great Power Competition
Background and Literature Review
Logrolling in International Relations
A General Model of Cross-Regional Revisionist Logrolling
Do the Conditions for Revisionist Logrolling Exist Between Russia and China?
Sino-Russian Relations: Logrolling in Practice?
Bibliography
Prescriptions and Predictions for U.S.-China-Russia Relations
America’s Growing Agreement on Countering Russia-China Challenges
Context
Russian-Chinese Relations: Status, Trajectory, and Negative Implications
America’s China Policy Debate—Bridging the Gap
Hardening Policy Targeting China, 2017–2020
Recent Developments: Biden’s Tough Approach to China
Conclusion
References
Conclusion: Explaining the China-Russia Partnership
Implications for IR Theory
Implications for US-China-Russia Relations
Conceptualizing China-Russia Relations
The Centrality of the US in China-Russia Cooperation
The Balance of Power
Material Interests
Identity
Information
IR Theory and Explanation of the China-Russia Partnership
Predictions and Prescriptions
The Durability of Sino-Russian Alignment
No Half-Measures? The US Response to the China-Russia Challenge
References
Index

Citation preview

The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations Theoretical Insights and Implications Edited by

br a n d on k . yode r

The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations “This ambitious and well-organized volume argues convincingly that IR theory is crucial for understanding Sino-Russian relations, while also drawing on this critically important, understudied case to further develop IR theory. No other collected volumes address the topic in a theoretically rigorous way and very few independent studies even attempt to do so. The chapters in this volume are critical reading for scholars of IR and Russian and Chinese foreign policy, but are also accessible to area experts or policymakers that may not be familiar with specific IR theories. Given the crucial importance of the subject matter, and the quality of the scholarship, the book will inform scholars and policy practitioners for years to come.” —Andrej Krickovic, Associate Professor, Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

Brandon K. Yoder Editor

The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations Theoretical Insights and Implications

Editor Brandon K. Yoder Australian National University Canberra, ACT, Australia

ISBN 978-3-030-93981-6 ISBN 978-3-030-93982-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For my parents, Olen C. Yoder and Barbara Kneen Avery

Acknowledgements

The inception of this volume was a conference in August 2017 titled “IR Theory and China-Russia Relations after the Cold War” organized by the Centre for Asia and Globalisation (CAG) at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) School of Public Policy. Since then, despite a rapidly changing geopolitical context, the theoretical arguments advanced at the original conference have held up remarkably well. Versions of several of the papers were published in a special issue of International Politics (Volume 57, Number 5) in 2020, from which the authors have substantially adapted their chapters to account for recent developments and extend their theoretical reach to new puzzles that are constantly emerging in US-China-Russia relations. I want to express my deep gratitude to the participants at the Singapore conference, the contributors to this volume, and the anonymous reviewers for constructive comments that have helped sharpen our arguments along the way. The original conference and this book would not have been possible without generous financial support from the LKY School and CAG, and especially from the backing of the Former Dean of the LKY School, Kishore Mahbubani, and the former Director of CAG, Huang Jing. In addition to the contributors to this volume, the original conference benefitted from the participation of Kanti Bajpai, Paul Fritz, Selina Ho, Alexander Lukin, Robert Ross, Sun Xuefeng and Tao Wenzhao, and from insightful discussant comments by Ja Ian Chong, Thomas Gold, Ted Hopf and Chin-Hao Huang. Byron Chong and Khasan Redjaboev

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

provided invaluable research assistance. Finally, special thanks to Geetha Chockalingam, Anca Pusca and the rest of the editorial staff at Palgrave Macmillan for their patience and belief in the project and for guiding it through the publication process. Canberra, Australia

Brandon K. Yoder

Contents

International Relations Theory and the Puzzle of China-Russia Alignment Brandon K. Yoder

1

Typological Theory and Description of China-Russia Relations Measuring Strategic Cooperation in China-Russia Relations Alexander Korolev

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China, Russia and the United States: Balance of Power or National Narcissism? Gregory J. Moore

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Partnering Up in the New Cold War? Explaining China-Russia Relations in the Post-Cold War Era Huiyun Feng

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Deductive Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations China’s and Russia’s New Status Relationship Deborah Welch Larson

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CONTENTS

China and Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony John M. Owen IV The Paradox of Sino-Russian Partnership: Global Normative Alignment and Regional Ontological Insecurity Elizabeth Wishnick

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Inductive Theory Building from China-Russia Relations The US Factor in China’s Successful Reassurance of Russia Brandon K. Yoder

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Bargaining, Nuclear Weapons, and Alliance Choices in US-China-Russia Relations Andrew Kydd

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Sino-Russian Logrolling and the Future of Great Power Competition Kyle Haynes

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Prescriptions and Predictions for U.S.-China-Russia Relations America’s Growing Agreement on Countering Russia-China Challenges Robert Sutter

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Conclusion: Explaining the China-Russia Partnership Brandon K. Yoder

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Index

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Notes on Contributors

Huiyun Feng is Associate Professor in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University. She is a Co-CI of a three-year MacArthur Foundation project “Understanding China’s Rise through the Eyes of Chinese IR Scholars” and a Co-CI of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project “Decoding Revisionist Challenges to the International Institutional Order.” Her publications have appeared in European Journal of International Relations, Security Studies, The Pacific Review, Chinese Journal of International Politics, among other journals. Her recent publications include co-authored books How China Sees the World: Insights from China’s International Relations Scholars (Palgrave 2019), Contesting Revisionism: China, the United States, the Transformation of International Order (Oxford University Press, 2021), and a coedited volume, China’s Challenges and International Order Transition: Beyond Thucydides’s Trap (University of Michigan Press, 2020). Kyle Haynes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Purdue University. His work focuses on international security, US foreign policy, great power politics, and interstate signaling. He has published his research in leading journals, including the American Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Security, Conflict Management & Peace Science, and International Interactions, among others.

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Alexander Korolev is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He received an MA in International Relations from Nankai University, Zhou Enlai School of Government (2009), and Ph.D. in Political Science from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2012). His research interests include international relations theory and comparative politics with special focus on China-Russia relations, great power politics, and small and middle powers under the conditions of intensifying great power rivalry. He has published on the related topics in various academic journals, including International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Studies Review, Journal of Strategic Studies, Pacific Affairs, and Asian Security, among others. Andrew Kydd received his Ph. D. in political science from the University of Chicago in 1996 and taught at the University of California, Riverside and Harvard University before joining the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 2007. His interests center on the game theoretic analysis of international security issues such as war, terrorism, trust and conflict resolution. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, World Politics, and International Security, among other journals. His first book, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations, was published in 2005 by Princeton University Press and won the 2006 Conflict Processes Best Book Award. His second book, International Relations Theory: the Game Theoretic Approach, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. Deborah Welch Larson is professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. at Stanford University. Her publications include Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); Anatomy of Mistrust: US-Soviet Relations during the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997); and “Status Seekers: Chinese and Russian Responses to U.S. Primacy,” International Security 34, no. 4 (Spring 2010): 63–95 (with Alexei Shevchenko). She has most recently published Quest for Status: Chinese and Russian Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), with Alexei Shevchenko.

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Gregory J. Moore (Ph.D. University of Denver) is Professor of Global Studies and Politics at Colorado Christian University. Formerly with the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China (2015–2020), and a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington (2019–2020), his research interests include international relations and security, Chinese foreign policy, US foreign policy, Sino-American Relations, East Asian IR/security and politics. He is the author of numerous articles on international relations and Northeast Asian security issues, is author/editor of North Korean Nuclear Operationality: Regional Security and NonProliferation (Johns Hopkins, 2014), the author of Niebuhrian International Relations: The Ethics of Foreign Policymaking (Oxford, 2020), An International Relations Research Methods Toolkit (forthcoming, Routledge), and is working on a book on Sino-American relations. He is a member of the (U.S.) National Committee on United States-China Relations and President of the Association of Chinese Political Studies. John M. Owen IV is Taylor Professor of Politics and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Owen is author of Confronting Political Islam (2015), The Clash of Ideas in World Politics (2010), and Liberal Peace, Liberal War (1997). He has published scholarly papers in the European Journal of International Relations, International Organization, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, and other journals. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, National Interest, New York Times, and USA Today. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of Security Studies and has held fellowships at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Oxford, the Free University of Berlin, the WZB Berlin Social Science Research Center, and the University of British Columbia. He is a recipient of a Humboldt Research Prize (2015). He holds an AB from Duke, an MPA from Princeton, and a Ph.D. from Harvard. Robert Sutter is Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University (2011–). His earlier fulltime position was Visiting Professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University (2001–2011). Sutter’s government career (1968–2001) saw service for Congress as senior specialist and director of the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division of the Congressional Research Service, and for the Executive Branch as the National Intelligence Officer for

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East Asia and the Pacific. A Ph.D. graduate in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University, Sutter has published 22 books (four with multiple editions), and hundreds of articles and government reports. His most recent books are Chinese Foreign Relations: Power and Policy of an Emerging Global Force, Fifth Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and US-China Relations: Perilous Past, Uncertain Future, Fourth Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). Elizabeth Wishnick is Professor of Political Science at Montclair State University and Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Her book, China’s Risk China’s Risk: Oil, Water, Food and Regional Security (forthcoming Columbia University Press) addresses the security consequences of energy, water and food risks in China for its Eurasian neighbors, a topic she explores in a related policy blog, www.chinasresourcerisks.com. Dr. Wishnick is known for her research on Sino-Russian relations and China’s Arctic strategy. She is the author of Mending Fences: The Evolution of Moscow’s China Policy from Brezhnev to Yeltsin (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001, 2014), articles on Chinese and Russian foreign policy, and a series of policy studies on Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Arctic. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies from Yale University, and a B.A. from Barnard College. Brandon K. Yoder is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of Politics and International Relations at Australian National University, and a non-resident Research Fellow in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. His research centers on international relations theory and the politics of China and East Asia, and employs a combination of formal models, historical case studies and laboratory experiments. He is the editor of a special issue of International Politics titled “International Relations Theory and China-Russia Relations after the Cold War” (Vol. 57, No. 5, 2020). His work has been published or is forthcoming at leading journals in IR, such as the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution.

List of Figures

Measuring Strategic Cooperation in China-Russia Relations Fig. 1

Stages of alignment formation

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China and Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Causal logic by which liberal hegemony promotes China-Russia cooperation (Reproduced from Owen IV, John M. 2020. Sino-Russian Cooperation Against Liberal Hegemony. International Politics 57 (5): 809–833) Freedom House ratings for China, Russia and the United States

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The US Factor in China’s Successful Reassurance of Russia Fig. 1

Spatial graph of rising state types

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Bargaining, Nuclear Weapons, and Alliance Choices in US-China-Russia Relations Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

The bargaining model Three way threats: Before Chinese growth Three way threats: After Chinese growth

215 218 219

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Fig. 4

Three way threats: After Chinese growth, with US nuclear primacy

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Conclusion: Explaining the China-Russia Partnership Fig. 1

Synthesis of causal arguments in the book

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List of Tables

China, Russia and the United States: Balance of Power or National Narcissism? Table 1 Table 2

China-Russia trade statistics, 2005–2020 (Billions of U.S. dollars; China’s data) China-U.S. trade statistics, 2005–2020 (Billions of U.S. dollars; China’s data)

71 71

China and Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony Table 1

CINC scores

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International Relations Theory and the Puzzle of China-Russia Alignment Brandon K. Yoder

It has been widely noted that China and Russia have grown progressively closer over the last two decades, with some going so far as to suggest that the two are already informal allies or that formal alliance is imminent (Korolev 2019; Kashin 2019; Blank 2020). Experts on the bilateral relationship have documented dramatic increases in cooperation on virtually all dimensions. Diplomatically, China and Russia have issued numerous treaties and joint declarations signifying increasingly positive relations,1 and face-to-face meetings among their top leaders have become quite frequent (Fu 2016; Saradzhyan and Wyne 2018). Their economic cooperation, though still not extraordinary by global

B. K. Yoder (B) School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia 1 The two countries’ official characterization of their relationship in treaties and joint declarations has progressed from one of “good-neighborliness” in the early-1990s, to “constructive cooperation” in the late-1990s, to “comprehensive strategic partnership” in 2001, to “comprehensive strategic partnership and coordination” in 2012, to “comprehensive strategic partnership of equality, mutual trust, mutual support, common prosperity and long-lasting friendship” in 2016. Most recently, Vladimir Putin declared in May 2021 that “Russian-Chinese relations have reached the highest level in history.”

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_1

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standards, has increased rapidly, more than tripling from 2005 and 2014 and expected to double again by 2024 (Elmer 2019; TASS 2021). China is now Russia’s largest trade partner, including a $400 billion energy agreement in 2014, and there remains plenty of untapped potential for cooperation, e.g., in the Russian Far East, the Arctic, and in Central Asia through the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (Fu 2016; Charap et al. 2017; Stronski and Ng 2018; Saradzhyan and Wyne 2018; Stent 2020, 3–4; Lukin and Novikov 2021, 36–41). Relations have also steadily grown more institutionalized, characterized by increasingly structured and binding bilateral treaties, and by the two countries jointly occupying key positions in emerging international groupings such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICs (Cox 2016; Cooley 2019; Stent 2020, 6–7; Lukin and Novikov 2021). And militarily, China and Russia are increasingly coordinated, conducting joint exercises, extensive exchanges of technology and personnel, and high-level consultations that are moving substantially toward integrated military command (Fu 2016; Yu and Sui 2020; Korolev 2020). Understanding the causes of this cooperative trend is of critical practical importance. Given the combination of China’s massive and growing economic power, Russia’s still-formidable military power, and the two countries’ geographic and demographic gravity, a China-Russia “axis” is uniquely capable of challenging the power of the US and its allies or revising important aspects of the US-led international order (Cox 2016; Steinberg 2018; Blank 2020; Kendall-Taylor and Shullman 2021). Yet whether and to what degree China and Russia will do so, and the resulting effect on the shape of the international order, depends greatly on the depth, breadth, and durability of their partnership. This, in turn, depends on the two countries’ motivations for their cooperation: What are the national goals, beliefs, and external incentives that have pushed them together over the last 30 years? There remains a great deal of dissonance on these questions in the literature on China-Russia relations. Some see China-Russia cooperation as an “axis of convenience” that belies preferences and values that conflict as much as they accord (e.g., Lo 2008, 2017, 2020; Gabuev 2016b; Freeman 2018; Steinberg 2018; Stronski and Ng 2018; Baev 2019; Kaczmarski 2020). Others see it as a deep and enduring relationship based on common identities, economic interests, and/or geopolitical goals (e.g., Rozman 2014; Cox 2016; Wishnick 2017; Medeiros and Chase 2017; Wilson 2019; Rolland 2019; Stent 2020; Kendall-Taylor and Shullman

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2021; Lukin and Novikov 2021). Yet these disagreements have been largely unproductive: Despite a wealth of excellent scholarship on this relationship that has thoroughly documented its evolution and identified many potential factors at work, little progress has been made in reaching consensus regarding the character and causes of China-Russia cooperation. This introductory chapter argues that answering these questions requires careful attention to theory. Yet theory has been sorely lacking from existing scholarship on China-Russia relations. This has caused scholars to talk past each other, basing their arguments on unstated assumptions and unspecified causal mechanisms that inform which evidence is considered and how it is interpreted. The lack of explicit theory precludes evaluation of competing hypotheses against the empirical record, and thus the formation of logically coherent and empirically supported explanations for increasing China-Russia cooperation. The chapters that follow develop and apply well-specified theories to post-Cold War China-Russia relations to explain empirical phenomena that are puzzling for baseline versions of the three main theoretical approaches in IR: realism, liberalism, and constructivism. Importantly, this volume is not intended to be the last word on the China-Russia relationship, but rather as a first step toward productive, theoretically informed scholarly debate. It builds on the previous work of area specialists by introducing theories of international conflict and cooperation, which can then inform subsequent empirical work. The chapters in this book present hypotheses for increasing post-Cold War ChinaRussia cooperation and test them against the default alternative, structural realism. This lays the groundwork for subsequent scholarship to test these hypotheses, and others, against each other in order to assess the applicability, compatibility, and relative weights of alternative causal mechanisms. Furthermore, the novel theoretical contributions in this volume advance IR scholarship more broadly and introduce important mechanisms that may generalize to other cases. This introduction first reviews the scholarship on China-Russia relations through the lens of the methodological literature on causal inference and explanation in qualitative research, to demonstrate the necessity of theory for explaining outcomes in a single case. Next, it shows that baseline versions of the major IR paradigms are inadequate to explain increasing China-Russia cooperation over time and lays out the volume’s goals in introducing novel theories to this case. Finally, it summarizes

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the individual contributions to the book, and, while acknowledging their limitations, argues that they collectively represent a major contribution to scholarship on China-Russia relations and IR theory more broadly.

Scholarship on China-Russia Relations and the Necessity of Theory Despite its centrality to contemporary international politics and the extensive attention devoted to it by area specialists and policy experts, the marked improvement in post-Cold War Sino-Russian relations has been the subject of very little scrutiny using rigorous theory.2 Myriad ad hoc explanations of this cooperative trend have been advanced, with correspondingly diverse predictions about the durability and implications of Sino-Russian cooperation. Many of these explanations center on the role of the US, which has adopted several policies that have been purported to drive China and Russia closer together, including NATO expansion, democracy promotion abroad, the development and deployment of US missile defense systems in Europe and Asia, and American denial of Chinese and Russian identity goals by insisting on a “unipolar” rather than a “multipolar” international order (e.g., Lo 2008, 2020; Lukin 2015; Cox 2016; Charap et al. 2017; Medeiros and Chase 2017; Bolt and Cross 2018; Rolland 2019; Stent 2020; Lukin and Novikov 2021). But additional causes of increasing China-Russia cooperation have also been put forward. These include shared illiberal regime types and common preferences regarding norms of sovereignty and human rights (Rozman 2014; Lukin 2015, 2018; Cox 2016; Charap et al. 2017; Bolt and Cross 2018; Rolland 2019; Lo 2020), compatible political models and national identities (Kerr 2005; Ferdinand 2007; Rozman 2014; Wishnick 2017; Lukin 2018; Wilson 2019; Larson and Shevchenko 2019), mutual concerns about ethnic separatism (Kerr 2005; Lo 2008; Odgaard 2017;

2 A rare exception is Andrej Krickovic (2017), who applies the theoretical logic of power shifts developed by Dale Copeland (2000) to explain why Chinese and Russian interests currently align. China uses Russia to oppose aspects of US hegemony it dislikes without bearing the costs of a direct challenge that would jeopardize its rise, while Russia needs China’s support to mount its challenge and stave off decline. Other exceptions include the essays in a special issue of International Politics upon which a subset of the chapters in this volume are based (for an overview see Yoder 2020).

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Saradzhyan and Wyne 2018), prospective gains from economic cooperation (Swanström 2014; Lukin 2015; Charap et al. 2017; Medeiros and Chase 2017; Freeman 2018; Rolland 2019; Lukin and Novikov 2021), and personal affinity among national leaders (Ferdinand 2007; Lo 2008, 2020; Gabuev 2016a; Wilson 2019; Baev 2019; Stent 2020; Foot and King 2021). Problematically, however, few of these explanations for increasing China-Russia cooperation are grounded in explicit theoretical terms, and those that are gain little explanatory leverage from the theories upon which they draw (see below).3 Yet theory is a logically essential component of explanation.4 Thus, any claim about the causes of increasing China-Russia cooperation necessarily rests upon a theoretical framework, even if the underlying theory is left implicit or underspecified. Theories are general statements about the causal relationship between two (or more) variables, which specify how change in the cause(s) produces change in the outcome (Van Evera 1997). Theories allow observers to simplify an infinitely complex reality that could not otherwise be understood. In other words, facts cannot simply “speak for themselves” in explaining events, as practitioners who reject theory often assert.5 Theories are necessary to identify which of the innumerable potential causal factors are likely to affect the outcome of interest, and, just as importantly, to specify causal mechanisms: How particular factors generate their effects, individually or in combination. An explanation, as opposed to an

3 Merely referring to theory explicitly is obviously no panacea—it must be done in a way that carefully specifies causal mechanisms and observable implications of competing theories, so that their hypotheses can be appraised against the empirical record. Although there have been a handful of works that advance explanations of post-Cold War ChinaRussia cooperation that draw explicitly on IR theory (Kerr 2005; Ferdinand 2007; Li 2007; Odgaard 2017; Wishnick 2017; Wilson 2019; Lukin and Novikov 2021), most of these attempts share the shortcomings of the atheoretical literature, as discussed in detail below (for exceptions see Krickovic 2017; Yoder 2020). 4 This claim is axiomatic in the philosophy of science literature. For particularly trenchant explications of the logical necessity of theory for explanation in social science, see Brady (1995) and Waldner (2007). 5 On the widespread resistance to theory in both policy and academic circles, see Walt (2005) and Mearsheimer and Walt (2013).

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inference, must identify the causal mechanisms by which one set of variables affects another, not simply establish that a causal relationship exists (Miller 1987; Brady 1995; Waldner 2007).6 In principle, there is no reason that these essential functions of theory for explanation cannot be accomplished implicitly, and thus no inherent reason to disqualify explanations that leave theory implicit. As detailed above, scholars of China-Russia relations have clearly been able to identify many plausible causes of increasing bilateral cooperation. Moreover, it is certainly possible that the mechanisms by which these hypothesized causes have produced Sino-Russian cooperation can be specified in terms specific to the China-Russia relationship, without reference to the general theory from which they are derived. In practice, however, when theories are left implicit it tends to be because analysts are not conscious that they are employing theory at all, and thus are doing so non-rigorously via analogy or “folk wisdom” (Walt 2005). Correspondingly, explanations built on implicit or underspecified theory tend to suffer from two major problems, each of which is manifested in the literature on ChinaRussia relations: (1) biased or arbitrary selection of causal factors and (2) underspecification of causal mechanisms. Each of these practices results in failure to critically evaluate proposed explanations against alternatives, and hinders convincing explanation of the observed outcome: increasing China-Russia cooperation. The first of these problems—arbitrary consideration of causal factors— can be manifested in two ways: omission and overdetermination. The former refers to explanations that focus on a single causal factor while failing to consider alternatives or to seek falsifying evidence. Examples from the China-Russia literature include explanations that privilege, inter alia, status motivations (Deng 2007), balance of power (Li 2007), international norms (Kaczmarski 2015; Odgaard 2017), economic complementarity (Swanström 2014; Freeman 2018), and national identity (Rozman 2014; Wilson 2019) to the exclusion of any alternative hypotheses. Yet much of the evidence cited in such works—e.g., China’s

6 An explanation accounts for a specific outcome in a particular case and includes

a complete causal mechanism that explicates how the independent (causal) variable(s) produce the outcome. In contrast, inference means establishing that a causal relationship between independent and dependent variables exists in general terms, but it need not account for the outcome in any particular case, nor identify the mechanism the underpins the causal relationship.

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and Russia’s common dissatisfaction with the status quo order, joint membership in the SCO and the BRICS, concerns over NATO expansion, and increasing bilateral trade and investment—is observationally equivalent; that is, it supports multiple alternative hypotheses. These authors vindicate their favored arguments by fiat, not by contested evaluation of their causal propositions against the empirical record. The latter would require specification of the theories underpinning both their favored explanations and competing alternatives. A related manifestation of omission bias is the invocation of an overly broad causal factor that is consistent with multiple competing explanations. For example, Bobo Lo famously refers to the increasingly cooperative China-Russia relationship as an “axis of convenience,” arguing that China and Russia are cooperating primarily due to a shared interest in “countering American ‘hegemonism’” rather than to compatible identities or ideologies (Lo 2008, 16, see also pp. 5–6, 43–44, 180–182 as well as Lo 2017, 2020). Yet, as the contributions of John Owen and Deborah Larson to this volume illustrate, from a constructivist point of view the impetus for China and Russia to cooperate in opposition to American power can be intimately linked to their identities and ideologies. For Larson, China and Russia are cooperating to satisfy their identity goals of regaining great power status, which the US has denied them, while for Owen their shared illiberal ideologies have constituted the liberal US as a common threat, and impelled Sino-Russian balancing. Furthermore, joint Sino-Russian opposition to US power could also result from either commercial factors identified by liberalism (i.e., a desire to revise the rules of the international economic order) or realist security concerns, which can be further disaggregated into concerns about American power and American intentions. Lo states his argument in a way that does not differentiate between alternative motivations for China-Russia cooperation and therefore does not permit adjudication between competing hypotheses. Explicit attention to theory makes this problem clear. The second way in which arbitrary selection of causal factors is manifested is overdetermination. This refers to “kitchen sink” explanations, which assign causal salience to a litany of factors without attempting to adjudicate between these potentially competing hypotheses or assign them relative weights. In other words, these kinds of explanations present laundry lists of plausible hypotheses and imply, without rigorous specification or evaluation, that “everything matters.” For example, Alexander Lukin (2015, 32–34) lists eight factors that have motivated China-Russia

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cooperation (shared preferences for multipolarity over unipolarity, strict Westphalian sovereignty, outcomes regarding Korea, Syria, and Iran, revision of international financial rules, expanded bilateral trade, development of their eastern borderlands, stability in Central Asia, and illiberal values). Bolt and Cross (2018) identify security, border stability, authoritarian legitimacy, internet governance, opposition to US missile defense systems, and the personalistic relations between leaders as salient causes of ChinaRussia cooperation. Angela Stent (2020) variously points to China and Russia’s shared domestic systems, opposition to the US-led order, motivations to combat terrorism/separatism, and their growing economic and energy interdependence. None of these works specify how much each of the factors they cite have mattered, how they relate to each other (e.g., whether they are complementary or competing, their causal status in terms of necessity and sufficiency, and whether they interact to enhance or mitigate each other’s effects), or what other potentially competing hypotheses might exist. These tasks require disciplined attention to theory and are crucial for the initial step of merely establishing causal hypotheses, prior to evaluation of those hypotheses against empirical evidence. Importantly, this criticism of overdetermined “kitchen sink” explanations should not be confused with a rejection of multicausal explanations. Of course it is possible and indeed is almost certainly true, that multiple causal factors are at work in explaining China-Russia cooperation. The real world is overwhelmingly complex, and thus it is likely that “lots of stuff matters.” But it is precisely because of this overwhelming complexity that rigorous theory is needed to simplify reality and get at the causal factors that are most important. “Kitchen sink” assertions do not explain because they do not simplify; they do not make choices about which causal factors to focus on and why, and therefore merely reproduce a reality that is too complex to be understood. Such “explanations” that lack theoretical underpinnings are little better than pure description for advancing our causal understanding of China-Russia relations. Moreover, we do not want to presume, without careful examination, that every plausible explanation for China-Russia cooperation is necessarily correct, as kitchen sink arguments implicitly do. Rather, we want to examine which factors matter and which do not, and among those that do matter, how much. Most importantly, we want to know why each factor matters, i.e., the causal mechanisms underpinning the causal effects. Rigorous specification of causal mechanisms is crucial for adjudicating between competing hypotheses (Waldner 2007). Causal mechanisms tell

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analysts what evidence they should expect to find if a particular causal hypothesis is correct, and, conversely, what evidence would lead them to reject that hypothesis (e.g., Van Evera 1997; George and Bennett 2005; Waldner 2015). In other words, mechanisms define the observable implications of a hypothesized explanation, thereby making causal claims falsifiable and allowing contested appraisal of alternative hypotheses against the empirical record. Without well-specified causal mechanisms— i.e., without rigorous theory—we cannot adjudicate between competing hypotheses for China-Russia cooperation. Causal mechanisms are not only essential for evaluating competing hypotheses, but also for combining complementary ones into a coherent multicausal explanation for a specific outcome in a particular case— what Katzenstein and Sil (2008) term “analytical eclecticism.”7 First, mechanisms identify which causal factors are parts of mutually exclusive explanations, versus which potentially have complementary or interactive effects. Second, mechanisms define which aspects of the outcome each variable can account for and thus which variables are necessary to explain the outcome and which conjunction of variables is jointly sufficient. This allows analysts to assign causal weights to each necessary factor and to avoid overdetermination by establishing when a sufficient explanation has been reached (Waldner 2015). Existing explanations for increasingly cooperative China-Russia relations, built on implicit theory, omit or underspecify causal mechanisms, with stark consequences. For example, one of the most important early works on China-Russia relations is Deng Yong’s (2007) argument that Sino-Russian cooperation has been primarily driven by status concerns and not realist balance-of-power dynamics. Yet despite presenting a deep descriptive narrative centered on status, the theoretical underpinnings of why and how states seek status and how status concerns promote cooperation are left unspecified. Moreover, the rival realist hypothesis and its accompanying causal mechanisms, which Deng (2007, 865, 881) summarily rejects, are left entirely unstated. It is therefore impossible to know what evidence would falsify Deng’s status-based argument, or which aspects of Deng’s descriptive narrative are observationally equivalent (i.e., consistent with both the realist and status-based alternatives). Indeed, 7 As defined in the philosophy of science literature, an adequate explanation must combine plausible causal mechanisms that are jointly sufficient to produce the observed outcome (Miller 1987; Waldner 2007).

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this characterizes much of the evidence he cites—e.g., shared revisionist preferences for the international order, joint membership in the SCO, Russian concerns over NATO expansion, and a “non-zero sum” characterization of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership vis-à-vis the US. In the absence of clearly stated mechanisms, Deng cannot adjudicate between his favored explanation and its rivals. In contrast, the contribution by Deborah Larson in this volume makes a similar overall causal claim to Deng’s favoring status over material factors, but presents the mechanisms and observable implications of these two competing hypotheses. This allows Larson to convincingly marshal evidence that is consistent with her favored explanation and inconsistent with its main rival. Bobo Lo (2008, 2017, 2020) advances roughly the opposite claim as Deng and Larson in his seminal work: Shared interests (implicitly, material interests) on an important subset of issues have driven ChinaRussia cooperation, rather than compatible identities. But Lo likewise fails to specify the theoretical mechanisms that connect his causes of ChinaRussia cooperation—opposition to US hegemony, opposition to liberal domestic norms, and prospective economic benefits—to the outcome of increasing China-Russia cooperation over time that he describes. How have US hegemony, which has been diminishing, and liberal ideas, which appear to be constant, impelled increasing China-Russia cooperation? If the prospect of economic benefits has motivated greater cooperation, why did it not emerge sooner? Absent causal mechanisms, Lo has no basis for addressing these questions. But most importantly, it is also unclear why Lo sees a lack of ideological motivation for this cooperation, whereas other well-qualified area experts viewing the same evidence (e.g., Kerr 2005; Deng 2007; Rozman 2014; Kaczmarski 2015, 2020; Wishnick 2017; Larson and Shevchenko 2019; Wilson 2019; Krickovich and Zhang 2020) view ideology as a central cause (see below). Theoretical underspecification prevents these scholars from productively engaging each other’s arguments and precludes adjudication of their competing causal claims. Most recently, Lukin and Novikov (2021) attempt to combine these two perspectives, but fail to do so coherently. Though claiming to employ an “English School” approach to explain the emergence of a cooperative Eurasian “international society” led by China and Russia, they state their deductive logic in an unfalsifiable way: “an international society…does not necessarily have to be based on cultural unity, common values, and other non-institutional components”; rather, it is “common interests that play

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a decisive role in forming an international society” (Lukin and Novikov 2021, 30). Yet without defining the content of the interests in question or even excluding cultural factors, this statement is consistent with almost any causal story. As such, their explanation of China-Russia cooperation is essentially tautological: Institutionalization of [China and Russia’s cooperation], combined with their will to protect their spheres of influence and the need for coexistence, serves as drivers for the interstate relations to be regulated not just through balance of power mechanisms, but rather through norms and platforms of international cooperation. We also argue that external geopolitical pressure and having a certain hegemonic state/states inside international communities serve as a clear leader are the standard mechanisms of fostering the emergence of an international society. (Lukin and Novikov 2021, 30)

To paraphrase, institutionalization causes institutionalization (the “norms and platforms of international cooperation”), but so do any or all of the following factors: hegemonic power, external geopolitical pressure, and the needs to protect spheres of influence and to achieve “coexistence.” This is not a well-specified synthesis, but simply a kitchen sink claim that everything matters, deflecting the crucial questions of which causal factors are primary either in weight or in the causal sequence, and how exactly they interact.

Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations To be clear, the foregoing discussion does not imply that any of the causal claims in prior scholarship are necessarily wrong; indeed, many of the same broad arguments are advanced in this volume. Rather, it is that they are unconvincing, because there are gaps in the causal logic underpinning how the purported causes produce their effects, a corresponding ambiguity about what evidence would support or disconfirm the proposed explanation, and inattention to rival hypotheses that might be equally or more consistent with the empirical record. The task at hand in the current volume is to provide the theoretical underpinnings that are necessary to (a) rigorously evaluate these competing hypotheses against the available evidence and (b) aggregate complementary causal factors into a coherent and sufficient multicausal explanation.

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This volume introduces well-specified theories to the analysis of contemporary China-Russia relations, which is a necessary first step toward achieving these aims. The chapters that follow identify causal variables that are present in the China-Russia relationship and lay out clear causal mechanisms that plausibly link these variables to the outcome of increasing bilateral cooperation since the end of the Cold War. However, the authors do not rigorously test these arguments against each other or attempt to expand the corpus of empirical knowledge surrounding ChinaRussia relations. Rather, they attempt to establish the plausibility of their proposed explanations by drawing heavily on the empirical literature cited above, to show that these are consistent with the available evidence in ways that the default alternative—mainstream neorealism—is not. The establishment of multiple well-specified theoretical explanations for China-Russia cooperation is an essential first cut that then lays the groundwork for more rigorous testing of these alternatives against new evidence gathered by area and policy experts, who are best equipped to gather and interpret the facts on the ground. This, in turn, will almost certainly prompt additional theoretical development and refinement to account for novel empirical findings. Thus, the current volume is not intended to “solve” China-Russia relations, but rather to engender an ongoing dialectic between theory and evidence that that will facilitate scholarly progress. Indeed, far from dismissing the contributions of area specialists such as those cited above, the theoretically oriented contributors to this volume depend on them, both for descriptive inferences that generate empirical puzzles and facilitate inductive theory building, and for uncovering evidence that can delimit and adjudicate between alternative hypotheses. Yet, as argued above, theorization is an equally essential component of the scholarly division of labor: It guides area experts and practitioners to what causal factors they should consider, what evidence they must marshal to evaluate those causes, and how to combine them into a satisfying explanation. This role has heretofore been absent from the literature on contemporary China-Russia relations. Thus, although the arguments in this book do not necessarily offer complete explanations of China-Russia cooperation, they make an outsized contribution to advancing our understanding of this crucial case by introducing wellspecified theories that can be productively evaluated against each other, as well as other alternatives that are subsequently proposed. Not only does this project advance our understanding of China-Russia relations specifically, but it also makes a substantial contribution to IR

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theory more broadly. The cooperative post-Cold War trend in the bilateral relationship seems puzzling for baseline versions of each of the major paradigms of international relations theory: realism, liberalism, and constructivism. The basic assumption of mainstream realism is that states seek to maximize their security. The primary mechanism realists have advanced for doing so is balancing. When threatened by a more powerful state, less-powerful states align with each other to balance the common threat, thereby enhancing their security. Thus, realists explain state behavior primarily by the distribution of power in the international system (Waltz 1979). The straightforward realist hypothesis is that China-Russia cooperation is a classic balancing response to the threat posed by the morepowerful US.8 In static terms, this would make sense. As an explanation of the dynamic puzzle of increasing China-Russia cooperation over time, however, the realist balance-of-power mechanism lacks plausibility. According to balance-of-power logic, China’s rising power, coupled with its geographic proximity and longstanding border disputes with Russia, should have made it a growing threat to Russian security after the Cold War, while the US, in decline relative to China, should have become relatively less threatening. Yet China’s rise has coincided with SinoRussian rapprochement, rather than Russian balancing against China and increasing bilateral hostility.9 In contrast, systemic-level liberalism focuses on the role of institutions in allowing states with imperfectly overlapping interests to overcome coordination problems and concerns about cheating to achieve mutually

8 The only work to explicitly advance this hypothesis (Li 2007) exemplifies nonrigorous application of theory. Li champions a naïve realist balance-of-power argument and dismisses all alternatives solely on the grounds that Waltz and other neorealists have argued that “it is only a systemic approach that focuses on…the changing distribution of power…that can provide a sound explanation for world affairs” (Li 2007, 490). In other words, Li does not test realism against alternatives; rather, his analysis proceeds tautologically from the assumption that realism is correct. 9 An alternative variant of realism is “balance of threat,” which adds perceived intentions to the baseline balance of power mechanism (Walt 1987). However, as John Owen points out in his chapter, even if perceived intentions can be considered a realist variable (which is heavily contested; see Legro and Moravcsik 1999), the sources of these perceptions clearly fall outside a realist framework. Non-realist theories are therefore necessary to identify when and how perceptions of intentions change and to yield determinate hypotheses about the balance of threat in the US-China-Russia triangle.

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beneficial cooperation (Keohane 1984).10 The absolute gains from this cooperation, in turn, have a pacifying effect by increasing the opportunity costs of military conflict (Rosecrance 1986). Yet immediately following the Cold War, institutionalization of the China-Russia relationship was virtually non-existent, whereas both countries were (initially) becoming increasingly integrated into the US-led international order. Moreover, China and Russia were far more economically interdependent with the West than with each other, a gap that has only grown. From a liberal perspective, China and Russia should therefore have moved steadily closer to the West politically after the Cold War, while holding each other at arm’s length. Their increasing bilateral institutionalization despite meager economic ties is itself a puzzle for liberalism that its proponents have not addressed.11 Finally, constructivism relaxes the assumptions of realism and liberalism about states’ goals, and adopts an ideational, rather than a materialist, ontology. States can pursue any ends, depending on their own national cultures (Katzenstein 1996) and their intersubjective identities vis-à-vis other states, which are informed by their past interactions (Wendt 1999). The tradeoff of this ontological flexibility, however, is that it is often difficult to conceptualize and measure ideational causes separately from the outcomes they are purported to produce, and to make ex ante predictions about the effects of ideas, which have many sources and take many forms. From a constructivist perspective, the stark differences in Chinese and Russian political ideologies and national cultures, as well as their long history of antagonism, presaged continued post-Cold War animosity. Existing constructivist works on China-Russia relations have struggled to account for how these historical animosities and ideological rifts have been mitigated or overcome. Consequently, these works have described normative convergence between China and Russia, but not

10 This definition contrasts with the domestic-level theory of liberalism introduced by Moravcsik (1997), which excludes international institutions while including elements of national identity that are categorized here under constructivism. 11 Like Lukin and Novikov (2021) discussed above, Liselotte Odgaard (2017) draws

on the “English School” (a close cousin of systemic liberalism) to explain that China and Russia have created institutional structures in order to advance “their common interest in peace and security” (54), particularly in Central Asia. Yet since conflict is costly, such interests presumably apply to all states at all times and cannot explain the change in the degree of bilateral institutionalization over time.

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successfully disentangled it from the outcome of increasing bilateral cooperation that they claim it explains (Kerr 2005; Ferdinand 2007; Wishnick 2017; Wilson 2019).12

Contributions and Limitations of the Book The chapters in this volume pursue its twin goals—explanation of increasing China-Russia cooperation and advancement of broader IR theory—in three interrelated ways. In Part 1, “Typological Theory and Description of China-Russia Relations,” the contributions by Korolev, Moore, and Feng present typologies—theoretically informed descriptions—that characterize and categorize recent developments in ChinaRussia relations.13 These chapters serve to establish empirical puzzles in China-Russia relations, which the subsequent chapters then attempt to explain. In Part 2, “Deductive Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations,” the chapters by Larson, Owen, and Wishnick do this by applying nuanced versions of existing theories to the China-Russia case. These novel applications also serve as important hypothesis tests that augment confidence in the generality and explanatory power of their causal logics. Conversely, the chapters by Yoder, Kydd, and Haynes in Part 3, “Inductive Theory Building from China-Russia Relations” develop novel theoretical explanations for Sino-Russian cooperation, which can then be generalized to other cases. Both the deductively and inductively derived theories are syntheses and/or extensions of the baseline versions of realism, liberalism, and constructivism characterized above, and account for key aspects of the China-Russia partnership that existing alternatives do not.14 The concluding chapter then integrates these 12 For example, Peter Ferdinand (2007, 850) argues that improvements in ChinaRussia relations are due to “new efforts to view their foreign policies through the lens of constructivism, rather than realism.” For Ferdinand, this change occurred due to contingent decisions made by individual leaders, which he acknowledges that his deductive framework would not have predicted ex ante (Ferdinand 2007, 848). Thus, Ferdinand’s assertion that Chinese and Russian leaders decided to reframe their relationship merely describes the outcome; it does not meaningfully explain it. 13 On the value of typologies and their role in hypothesis testing and explanation, see George and Bennett (2005, Chapter 11). 14 Synthesis refers to combining variables from different theoretical perspectives to show how disparate theoretical mechanisms can systematically complement each other to produce novel causal effects. Extension refers to the introduction of new “auxiliary”

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theoretical mechanisms to provide a fully specified, sufficient explanation for increasing Sino-Russian cooperation, which, along with Robert Sutter’s Chapter 11, yields predictions and policy prescriptions for USChina-Russia relations. The contributions to this book therefore work in combination to both improve our understanding of a crucially important contemporary case, while also advancing IR theory in substantial ways. Alexander Korolev’s chapter, “Measuring Strategic Cooperation in China-Russia Relations,” draws on a series of objective indicators to establish the main outcome that the other contributions seek to explain: the secular trend of increasing cooperation between China and Russia since the end of the Cold War. Although many scholars of China-Russia relations have noted this trend, they have relied on ad hoc measures of cooperation that are neither systematic nor logically or empirically justified. Korolev, in contrast, develops a theoretically informed typology of military alignment, a concept that has never been systematically defined and operationalized despite its centrality to IR scholarship. Drawing on primary Chinese and Russian sources, Korolev then applies his multidimensional index to measure China-Russia military cooperation over time. His chapter therefore not only makes an essential contribution to the current volume by establishing the core dependent variable, but also contributes a novel typology and empirical index that will be of general importance in IR. As Korolev acknowledges, this typology is a first cut that remains imprecise. Nevertheless, his application of the framework to China-Russia relations demonstrates its value as a systematic measure of this crucial variable and as a baseline for further refinement in subsequent work. An alternative typology and a very different conclusion are advanced by Greg Moore in Chapter 3, “China, Russia and the United States: Balance of Power or National Narcissism?,” which introduces the concept of national narcissism to characterize the trilateral relationship between China, Russia, and the US. In contrast to balancing, which involves a high degree of cooperation, national narcissism implies a system of atomistic, uncoordinated states who pursue narrow self-interest in their bilateral relations with each of the others. Examining the impact of SinoRussian defense and trade ties, the degree of bilateral policy coordination in the Ukraine crisis, and the potential role of the SCO in anti-American variables or reexamination of existing theoretical mechanisms to derive novel implications from an existing ontological framework. See Elman and Elman (2003).

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balancing, Moore argues that Sino-Russian solidarity in the face of European and Western pressure is utilitarian and shallow. Although China and Russia both oppose the US on major questions of global order, he contends that they have continued to behave self-interestedly in their relations with each other, not as partners attempting to bolster each other against a common opponent let alone as ideological compatriots who identify with each other’s interests. Thus, Moore concludes that neither mutual balancing nor concert, but rather narcissistic opportunism, is the best description of current China-Russia-US relations. Whereas Korolev and Moore develop typological theories to characterize the outcome the other contributors seek to explain, Chapter 4, “Partnering Up in the New Cold War? Explaining China-Russia Relations in the Post-Cold War Era” by Huiyun Feng focuses on a key independent variable, the convergence in Chinese and Russian threat perceptions of the US, which pervades each of the subsequent arguments. For Feng, the US has driven China and Russia together in four ways, each of which she locates within mainstream theoretical paradigms: (1) NATO expansion and support for Taiwan’s de facto independence; (2) US democracy promotion and humanitarian intervention in the Middle East and Central Asia; (3) US deployment of missile defense systems; and (4) US opposition to China’s and Russia’s “assertiveness” in what they perceive as their respective spheres of influence in the former Soviet Union and maritime East Asia. The subsequent contributions to this volume specify the theoretical mechanisms connecting these US behaviors to China-Russia alignment and subject them to preliminary empirical evaluation. Feng’s chapter thus serves as an important overview that helps to tie the volume together. Part 2, “Deductive Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations,” begins by introducing an additional factor linking US behavior to SinoRussian cooperation. In Chapter 5, “China’s and Russia’s New Status Relationship,” Deborah Larson applies her pioneering social identity theory (SIT) to explain the nature and extent of China-Russia cooperation. Through careful process tracing, Larson offers qualitative evidence that China and Russia are not simply balancing against American power, but rather trying to restore their great power status while maintaining a distinctive identity separate from the West. She argues that China and Russia are engaged in social cooperation, whereby each recognizes the other’s superiority in a different area—economic wealth for China, military power projection for Russia—in order to enhance their respective

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status in the eyes of the US. In contrast to the status-based explanations advanced in the current China-Russia literature, Larson specifically identifies foreign policy behaviors that are consistent with SIT, but not with competing materialist explanations. Whereas Larson rejects realism wholesale, Chapter 6, “China and Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony” by John Owen advances an innovative synthesis of material and ideational factors to explain why China and Russia are increasingly balancing against the US, instead of each other. Building on Feng’s theme of democracy promotion, Owen argues that American liberal hegemony—the combination of preponderant material power and a liberal ideology—threatens the Chinese and Russian regimes in two ways: Firstly, by attracting adherents within each country and threatening to undermine their legitimacy, and secondly by pulling liberal third-party states out of the Chinese and Russian spheres and into alignment with the US. In response, China and Russia have fought back, supporting one other as each works to undermine liberal hegemony according to their respective strengths, e.g., Russia’s electoral interference and disinformation campaigns in liberal democracies, and China’s use of its economic clout to promote and preserve neighboring authoritarian regimes. Importantly, however, Owen predicts that if the post-Trump US continues to retreat from its liberal ideology, then the US threat to China and Russia will fade, and with it the impetus to Sino-Russian cooperation. In Chapter 7, “The Paradox of Sino-Russian Partnership: Global Normative Alignment and Regional Ontological Insecurity,” Elizabeth Wishnick agrees with Owen and Larson that China and Russia enjoy normative alignment at the global level, but argues that their relations are simultaneously characterized by regional apprehension. The two states adopt competing regional narratives, stemming from differences in their historical experiences, understandings of borders, and perceptions of their own regional roles. These competing narratives, in turn, engender an “ontological security dilemma,” wherein China and Russia’s conflicting identities cause them to forego opportunities for mutually beneficial regional integration. The barriers to regional cooperation were laid bare during the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw rapid border closures and stark interruptions of bilateral trade in key sectors, despite high resource complementarities. Nevertheless, Wishnick maintains that China and Russia’s regional insecurity from each other is unlikely to yield opportunities for the US or other states to wedge them apart on global issues. Although China and Russia have eschewed greater interdependence, they

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also have quelled the open competition over their border and regional spheres that plagued their relations during the Cold War, which allows them to cooperate in opposing the common threat they perceive from the US. Interestingly, then, China and Russia have more trouble navigating their own complex border history than in jointly confronting the challenges of the current global order. In Part 3, “Inductive Theory Building from China-Russia Relations,” the chapters by Brandon Yoder, Andrew Kydd, and Kyle Haynes introduce novel rationalist theories that transcend the realist/liberal/constructivist ontological debate. Yoder adopts an informational approach in Chapter 8, “The US Factor in China’s Successful Reassurance of Russia,” to explain China’s reassurance of Russia in the late 1990s and 2000s despite high initial distrust. Yoder shows how the presence of a third-party threat can increase the credibility of a rising state’s reassurance signals in two ways: (1) It reduces incentives for hostile risers to misrepresent their intentions, making it easier for the decliner to identify truly benign risers; (2) it places enduring constraints over the riser’s behavior that will induce it to cooperate in the future even if its preferences do not perfectly align with the decliner’s. Thus, like Feng and Owen, Yoder attributes Russian alignment with China to its threat perceptions of the US, but only insofar as those threat perceptions have allowed China to credibly signal its benign intentions to Russia. In Chapter 9, “Bargaining, Nuclear Weapons and Alliance Choices in US-China-Russia Relations,” Kydd advances a novel extension of balancing theory to explain sustained China-Russia alignment against the US. He presents a trilateral bargaining framework, in which one country (representing China) is growing in power relative to two others (representing Russia and the US). The model shows that as China gains power, it acquires a credible threat to fight both against the US and against Russia, with whom it has significant conflicts of interest. This incentivizes Russia to first adopt a “non-aligned” posture such that all three states balance against each other dyadically, but then to eventually put aside its differences with the US and align against China. Yet empirically, Russia has been drawing ever closer to China even as the latter rises. To account for this, Kydd extends realist balancing logic by introducing a crucial overlooked variable: the balance of nuclear forces. As the US has steadily and dramatically upgraded both its offensive and defensive nuclear capabilities (a factor Feng emphasizes), China and Russia have grown increasingly concerned about the security of their nuclear forces against a US first

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strike and their resulting vulnerability to American coercion. This has sustained Russia’s incentive to remain aligned with China beyond what typical balance of power or threat would predict. Kyle Haynes builds a rationalist argument in Chapter 10, “Sino-Russian Logrolling and the Future of Great Power Competition,” that China and Russia are engaged in a form of logrolling at the international level. Although Chinese and Russian preferences diverge from those of the US, the two states also hold broadly incompatible preferences for the shape of the international order—both seek to impose more hierarchical orders in their local regions that would subordinate the interests of external parties, including each other. Yet China and Russia value these regions asymmetrically. Whereas China prioritizes East Asia and the Pacific, Russia prioritizes Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Thus, China and Russia have incentives to support the other’s revisionist actions in its home region in exchange for reciprocation in their own home region. Haynes concludes that although Russia and China have few shared positive interests, the two states could very well maintain their limited but highly consequential “axis of convenience” for the foreseeable future. Part 4, “Prescriptions and Predictions for U.S.-China-Russia Relations,” begins with Chapter 11, “America’s Growing Agreement on Countering Russia-China Challenges” by Robert Sutter, which looks to theories of domestic politics to explain major shortcomings in US foreign policy for dealing with the increasingly urgent problem of Russia-China cooperation. At the root of these shortcomings is a longstanding lack of consensus among American elites, interest groups, and broader public opinion on how to deal with China. By contrast, since 2014 there has been widespread agreement among US leaders favoring tough measures against Moscow’s challenges to American interests. However, there was a remarkable convergence of views during the Trump presidency in favor of an across-the-board hardening of US policy toward China—including over China-Russia cooperation—and that newfound consensus remains strong, with the Biden government’s adoption of the goals and many of the means of the Trump administration’s tough policy approach toward China. As a result, Sutter argues, the current US approach toward China and Russia is more unified than in the past and no longer encumbered with elite-public and interparty misalignment. The concluding chapter attempts to adjudicate debates and resolve apparent contradictions among the preceding arguments to arrive at a complete, synthetic explanation of China-Russia cooperation. However,

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although this collection is a substantial advance in scholarship on ChinaRussia relations, it also contains important limitations. It does not adjudicate between the alternative hypotheses advanced in the preceding chapters by rigorously testing them against each other. Rather, the more modest empirical goal is to show that the hypotheses in each chapter are more consistent with the available evidence than the default alternative hypothesis of mainstream neorealism. Moreover, the synthetic argument that emerges in the conclusion is not intended to be the final word on the China-Russia relationship, but rather a first cut at a complete and sufficient causal explanation. By advancing well-specified theories, the arguments that follow are amenable to contested appraisal against the empirical record, and thereby facilitate cumulative scholarly progress that has been lacking in previous work on China-Russia relations. Subsequent empirical work on China-Russia relations will now be able to draw on the theories advanced here to derive clear hypotheses about the causal variables and mechanisms driving increasing post-Cold War China-Russia cooperation, and identify precisely what evidence would support or reject these arguments. Finally, the theories advanced in this volume also contribute to IR scholarship beyond the China-Russia relationship. The three applications of existing theories to this novel case help to increase confidence in the generality and explanatory power of the causal mechanisms for which the authors find empirical support. The three original theories potentially make an even greater contribution, by identifying novel causal processes that may be operating in other cases. Kydd’s theory of nuclear balancing is an important generalization of existing realist balance of power that may account for many other cases that have previously been considered anomalous for realism. Yoder contributes to the burgeoning literature on the general conditions under which foreign policy signals are credible. And Haynes’s logrolling mechanism seems likely to be a common facilitator of cooperation among states with seemingly incompatible preferences. Thus, even if subsequent empirical scholarship were to cast doubt on these theories as explanations of post-Cold War China-Russia cooperation, they remain important contributions to IR that may have explanatory power in other cases.

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Conclusion Theory is an essential component of explanation. This is true regarding both the average causal effects of a single set of factors across multiple cases or for a multicausal account of a specific outcome in a single case. Yet in the large and growing literature seeking to account for increasing China-Russia cooperation since the end of the Cold War, theory has been either underdeveloped or absent entirely. This has precluded both the rigorous evaluation of competing hypotheses against evidence and the identification of how various causal factors have worked in combination to produce the observed outcome. The chapters that follow are a first step in filling this theoretical lacuna, introducing well-specified theories that can account for empirical puzzles in the China-Russia relationship that mainstream IR theories cannot. In doing so, the volume facilitates scholarly progress in understanding a crucially important contemporary case, while also advancing international relations scholarship more generally.

References Baev, Pavel K. 2019. Three Turns in the Evolution of China-Russia Presidential Pseudo-Alliance. Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies 6: 4–18. Blank, Stephen. 2020. The Un-Holy Russo-Chinese Alliance. Defense & Security Analysis 36 (3): 249–274. Bolt, Paul J., and Sharyl N. Cross. 2018. China, Russia, and Twenty-First Century Global Geopolitics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brady, Henry E. 1995. Symposium on Designing Social Inquiry, Part 2: Doing Good and Doing Better. The Political Methodologist 6 (2): 11–19. Charap, Samuel, John Drennan, and Pierre Noël. 2017. Russia and China: A New Model of Great-Power Relations. Survival 59 (1) (February–March): 25–42. Copeland, Dale C. 2000. The Origins of Major War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Cooley, Alexander. 2019. Tending the Eurasian Garden: Russia, China and the Dynamics of Regional Integration and Order. In Sino-Russian Relations in the 21st Century, ed. Jo Inge Bekkevold and Bobo Lo, 113–139. Cham: Palgrave. Cox, Michael. 2016. Not Just ‘Convenient’: China and Russia’s New Strategic Partnership in the Age of Geopolitics. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 1 (4): 317–334. Deng, Yong. 2007. Remolding Great Power Politics: China’s Strategic Partnerships with Russia, the European Union, and India. Journal of Strategic Studies 30 (4–5): 863–903.

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Typological Theory and Description of China-Russia Relations

Measuring Strategic Cooperation in China-Russia Relations Alexander Korolev

Introduction Assessing strategic cooperation in post-Cold War China-Russia relations appears to be a difficult task. In 2000, the pervasive question was “Rapprochement or Rivalry?” (Garnett 2000); twelve years later, the question had barely changed to “Rivalry or Partnership?” (Bedeski and Swanström 2012). Numerous contrasting terms have been used to describe this bilateral relationship. China-Russia relations have been referred to as “partnerships”—simply “partnership” (Kerr 2005), “limited partnership” (Garnett 1998), “strategic partnership” (Wilson 2004), or “limited defensive strategic partnership” (Li 2007)—and a variety of “axes”—“axis of convenience” (Lo 2009), “axis of necessity” (Kuchins 2014), or “axis of insecurity” (Brenton 2013). To add to the lexical confusion, the term “alliance” has also often been a reference point in scholarly discussions of China-Russia relations.1 Some observers have raised straightforward

A. Korolev (B) University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] 1 For specific references to the “alliance” in discussing China-Russia relations, see: Voskressenski (2003), Nemets (2006), and Wishnick (2001).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_2

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questions, such as “is there a China-Russia alliance?” (Goldstein 2017) and “Are China-Russia relations an alliance or not?” (Zheng 2016). However, all these terms have not been specified enough to make them amenable to systematic empirical examination. There have been multiple studies of various empirical aspects of China-Russia strategic interactions (Wilson 2016; Cox 2016; Ambrosio 2017; Kaczmarski 2017; Odgaard 2017; Wishnick 2017). However, attempts to develop an analytical framework to assess the degree of alignment between the two countries have been scarce and lacked objective measurements.2 There has been no comprehensive framework for assessing military cooperation that would demonstrate the level of China-Russia military cooperation and its progress over time. Thus, our knowledge of the strength of contemporary China-Russia strategic cooperation has been rather limited and unmethodical. Referring to the international relations (IR) literature does not resolve the confusion and reveals even more problems for defining and measuring interstate strategic cooperation. A careful look at the “alliance” literature results in more than 30 different definitions of the term (China-Russia relations meet some, but not others) and only two attempts to develop an objective indicators-based taxonomy, both of which are now quite dated (Fedder 1968; Russett 1971). Walt (1987, 1) uses “alliance” interchangeably with informal “alignment” and does not provide indicators for either. Ward (1982, 14) documents that “much written work use the three different orientations – alliance, alignment, and coalition – as though they were identical.” According to Wilkins (2012, 54), despite multiple publications, there is little understanding of “alliances” and other “alignments” between states, and there is no credible taxonomy. At the same time, “strategic partnership,” which is the official name for China-Russia relations, has been surrounded by even greater confusion and presented as “simply a rhetorical device used by diplomats to help them around the rough edges of shifting global politics” (Kay 2000, 17). In this context, there are two related goals of this chapter, one narrow and one broad. The narrow one is to accurately assess the degree and trajectory of strategic cooperation in post-Cold War China-Russia relations, particularly to measure the change in cooperation over time, while 2 A rare attempt to conceptualize without objective measures is Wilkins (2008, 358– 383). For a point that what China-Russia strategic cooperation might be even better than an alliance, see Blank (2020).

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also providing a rough point estimate of the absolute degree of cooperation.3 Yet because there are no current frameworks for assessing alignment, this narrow goal requires first fulfilling a broader one: to construct an objective and deductively justifiable framework to assess strategic cooperation. The framework introduced below is preliminary, but it represents a necessary attempt to fill a crucial gap in the IR literature, which is the scarcity of attempts to measure alignment. The suggested framework offers a way to systematically assess the degree of military alignment between states by introducing the definitions of “early,” “moderate,” and “advanced” stages of alignment. To trace the trends over time more effectively, the framework qualitatively assesses changes within each stage. It focuses on military cooperation as the backbone of strategic alignment in general and between China and Russia in particular. The chapter is organized as follows. Section one develops an ordinal and empirically operationalizable framework that assesses military cooperation and is based on the existing knowledge of alliances, alignments, and strategic partnerships. Section two applies the framework to demonstrate the developmental trajectory since the end of the Cold War and the current state of China-Russia military alignment. Section three concludes. The analysis demonstrates that post-Cold War China-Russia relations have, from a low starting point, grown steadily stronger and started surpassing what is defined here as the “moderate” stage of alignment. There exists a strong basis for more advanced forms of bilateral cooperation.

The Military Alignment Framework As emphasized by Snyder (1997, 123) and other scholars, discussions of alliances and strategic cooperation more broadly must not be limited to formal alliances because “what we really want to understand is the broader phenomenon of ‘alignment,’ of which explicit alliance is merely a subset.” Alliance “merely adds formality and precision” to alignment (Wilkins 2012, 56). Alignments are “not signified by formal treaties but are delineated by a variety of behavioral actions” (Ward 1982, 7). Relying only on formal alliance treaties can be misleading. At the same time, the 3 The primary focus here is on describing and measuring China-Russia alignment. The explanation is done by other chapters in this volume.

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Ordinal indicators of strategic cooperaƟon

formation of a functioning alignment takes time, and strategic cooperation must pass a moderate stage before it moves into an advanced stage or tighter alliance. Greater institutionalization of an alignment over time affects its reliability, credibility in deterring challenges, and performance in potential military conflicts (Morrow 1994; Smith 1995; Fearon 1997; Leeds and Anac 2005). Formal alliance is a more advanced stage of alignment because it primarily serves “to strengthen pre-existing alignments by introducing elements of precision, legal and moral obligations and reciprocity” (Snyder 1991, 124). Given these considerations, the present study develops a framework to assess trends in bilateral military cooperation over time, which it then applies to post-Cold War China-Russia relations. Figure 1 identifies seven indicators of military cooperation and groups them into the three clusters of early, moderate, and advanced cooperation. Each indicator is ordinal, that is, the early-stage indicators precede the moderate and advanced indicators. In turn, the presence of advanced indicators, even at lower levels, indicates a higher overall degree of military cooperation. In other words, the degree of cooperation is determined by the highest stage that is manifested, and higher stages subsume lower stages. At the same time, some early-stage indicators, such as confidence building measures, can be expected to fall off when they are no longer necessary. It is the expansion of higher-level indicators that reflects increasing alignment.

Fig. 1

7

Common defence policy

6

Joint troop placement/ military bases

5

Integrated military command

4

Regular military exercises

3

Military-technical cooperaƟon

2

Mechanism of regular consultaƟons

1

Confidence building measures

Stages of alignment formation

high low high low

Advanced stage

high low high low high

Moderate stage

low high low high low

Early stage

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This framework can offer only a rough assessment of military alignment because it does not provide more fine-grained measures of the degree of cooperation within each category and a weighting system to aggregate degrees of cooperation. The goal here is to take the first step of systematically identifying and operationalizing the indicators of military cooperation with rough ordinal weights, which establishes a baseline typology that can be built upon in subsequent work. CBMs (confidence building measures) are the first early indicator of a cooperative trend. This is an indicator of weak alignment because via implementing CBMs, the parties are attempting to overcome initially high degrees of mistrust or resolve highly contentious issues, e.g., border disputes, and thus remove them from bilateral agendas. Early, lowlevel CBMs can be “emergency contacts” that are aimed at preventing dangerous military activities or resolving border disputes. When these problems become resolved and the cooperation moves forward, higherlevel CBMs can include measures of demilitarization and de-securitization of the common border, the routinization of mechanisms for resolving disputes or regularly sharing defense-related information, which indicates higher levels of trust. Mechanisms of inter-military consultations follow CBMs as indicators of early alignment. According to Snyder (1997, 350–362), consultation among allies is an indispensable aspect of an alliance. This mechanism enhances mutual understanding and increases the predictability of intraalignment dynamics, which can be important assets when joint actions are required. The transition from CBMs to regular consultations is marked by a shift in the agenda from the existing problems between the consulting parties to broader issues of regional and global politics. A shift from low to high levels of cooperation in terms of consultation occurs when the parties begin to create unique platforms that they do not have with other foreign states, which provide for regular meetings and deeper cooperation. The third indicator, which reflects the beginning of the moderate stage of strategic cooperation, is military-technical cooperation (MTC). MTC increases mutual dependence and the compatibility of military hardware, which may be crucial for allies in times of war when shared supplies of equipment and logistical and technological support may determine the alliance’s performance. Simultaneously, exposure to technological expertise requires a considerable amount of trust. Moreover, the proper organization of MTC requires a high level of coordination across multiple

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institutions (research centers, manufacturers, and various government agencies), shared procedures, and standardized training. The progress from low to high levels of cooperation within MTC is indicated by the transition from only providing technical training and assistance related to purchasing arms, to actual military technology transfers and longterm projects for joint design and the production of arms and their components. The fourth indicator, which closes the moderate cooperation stage, is regular joint military exercises. These are important for the alignment’s functioning because they reflect a specific degree of military compatibility and interoperability, increase coordination, and provide practice for joint techniques. Thus, they open the door to more advanced forms of military cooperation. They also often send important signals, admonitions, or assurances to certain countries or groups of countries. The progress from low to high levels occurs with changes in the geographic range and the content of military exercises. Expanding the geography of exercises from the parties’ immediate geopolitical environments to distant seas, especially in response to new developments in international politics, would indicate a significant advancement. Similarly, changes from simple joint maneuvers to the actual establishment of joint military command centers and the introduction of command code sharing systems, as well as other forms of interoperability, would reflect a high level of cooperation. The advanced stage of military cooperation is assessed using three criteria—an integrated military command, joint troop placements or military base exchanges, and a common defense policy. The integrated military command provides the organizational framework for fulfilling joint military tasks by the aligned parties. In these circumstances, each country’s military forces, which regularly remain under respective national controls, become available to the joint operations and are placed under the responsibility of either one side’s commanders or a joined command structure on an agreed basis. Examples of integrated military command could include the introduction of a shared system of command codes or adopting an operating language allowing the transmission of orders and communications between the involved militaries; episodes of merging the allies’ army units into a single operational grouping with a purpose of practicing joint interoperability; and/or establishing joint command centers staffed with officers from both sides working together. A relatively low degree of integration would occur episodically and without long-term commitments, as characterizes joint military exercises. A higher

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level, in turn, would be characterized by permanently operating command structures that are consistently deployed, and thus would entail long-term commitments. Joint deployments and base sharing are a step forward because these measures include sensitive issues of territorial sovereignty. The establishment of military bases abroad enables a country to project power in the recipient country and influence political events there. Also, the existence of bases abroad implies rights to military facilities in the foreign territory. These are highly sensitive issues in general, and in the context of China-Russia relations in particular. A low degree of base sharing occurs when mutual deployments are small and do not include air force or other sophisticated weapons, whereas high-level base sharing occurs when the size of the deployed contingent is large and accompanied by the significant allocation of advanced military hardware. Finally, the highest form of military cooperation is a common defense policy at the executive and strategic levels. It requires the most binding commitments between allies with the purpose of joint fulfillment of the most demanding military missions. This also involves pooling resources for defense equipment acquisition as well as obligations to supply combat units for jointly planned missions within a designated period of time. Most importantly, this level of cooperation requires synchronized and harmonized actions with regard to the alligned parties’ national security. This indicator may also be manifested at higher and lower degrees, depending on the scale and content of cooperation, but it always requires extensive investments in joint actions and indicates in-depth military cooperation. The decision to enter this stage requires strong incentives and resolve from policy makers, and cannot occur without first achieving a high degree of cooperation on the more moderate indicators described above.

An Empirical Assessment of China-Russia Military Alignment Since the end of the Cold War, China-Russia relations have progressed from “good neighbourliness” in the early 1990s, to “constructive partnership” in 1994, to “strategic partnership” in 1996, to “a comprehensive strategic partnership” in 2001, then to “a comprehensive strategic partnership and coordination” in 2012, and to “a comprehensive strategic partnership of equality, mutual trust, mutual support, common prosperity and long-lasting friendship” in 2016 (Korolev and Portyakov 2019). At

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the same time, the bilateral military relations have been further institutionalized with the signing of a new roadmap for military cooperation in 2017 (TASS 2017a). A new upgrade took place on 5 June 2019, when Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin declared China-Russia relations to be “a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era,” which intends to highlight consistent consolidation of China-Russia alignment, its immunity to exogenous shocks, and willingness on both sides to deal with the challenges of the future (Xinhua 2019). The two sides were also reportedly discussing a new defense cooperation agreement, which may be signed in the near future (Kashin 2019). While the upward trend is clear, how close are China and Russia based on the indicators of military cooperation discussed above? The Early Stage: CBMs and Regular Consultations As suggested by our alignment framework, most of the CBMs in ChinaRussia relations are concentrated in the 1990s. The earliest, low-level CBMs were joint attempts to normalize relations through a series of measures that were aimed to settle the China-Soviet border dispute and demobilize military forces along the 4300 km-long joint border. These were highly sensitive issues, and their resolution was necessary before there could be progress in the relationship. In this context, on December 18, 1992, Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin signed “The Memorandum of Understanding on the Guiding Principle for the Mutual Reductions of Armed Forces and the Strengthening of Trust in the Border Region,” which intended to create a “common border of trust” (President of Russia 1992). In July 1994, the two countries signed “The Agreement on the Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities,” with the main goal of further de-securitizing the border and creating procedures for dealing with “accidental border crossings.” This agreement also established regular information exchanges regarding the movements and activities of the two countries’ border army units (Government of Russia 1994). During Jiang Zemin’s visit to Russia two months later, the two countries signed two additional documents: the “Joint Statement on No First Use of Nuclear Weapons against East Other and Not Targeting Strategic Nuclear Weapons at Each Other” and the “Agreement on the Western Part of China-Russia Border,” which successfully settled the western segment of the border (Zhongguo Falv Fagui Zixun

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Wang 2010). As a result, the bilateral relations were upgraded from “good neighborliness” to “constructive cooperation.” On November 10, 1997, at a summit in Beijing, Yeltsin and Jiang signed a new border agreement, which settled the demarcation of the longest eastern sector of the China-Russia border, with the three islands that were in the border rivers being subject to future negotiations. This diplomatic breakthrough indicated that almost the entire China-Russia border had been settled. This was also a turning point that introduced bilateral CBMs of a higher level—which were aimed toward demilitarizing the border and information sharing. In August 1998, the two countries signed the “China-Russia Protocol on Border Defense Information Exchange,” which enhanced the procedures for mutual notifications about military activities that were close to the border. In December 1999, there were agreements for the complete removal of Chinese and Russian operational army units to 100 km away from the border, which created a vast demilitarized area (Wu 2002). The formal and final resolution of the border issues occurred on October 14, 2004, through signing the “Agreement on the Eastern Segment of the China-Russia Border,” which resolved the issue of the two islands—the Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island and Bolshoi Island—and closed the book on territorial disputes in China-Russia relations. With the border issues resolved, there was a considerable decrease in the number and frequency of bilateral CBMs in China-Russia relations, with the CBMs simultaneously becoming more sophisticated and gaining a broader, non-contentious agenda, thus gradually evolving into regular consultations. Subsequently, these consultations developed into a comprehensive, routinized mechanism of contacts at all levels. The mechanisms of consultation developed into a multi-level institutionalized infrastructure of contacts that guaranteed regular information exchanges among almost all major government agencies and organizations—from the top decision makers and their administrative apparatuses to the Defense Ministries and their subdivisions as well as regional military districts and border garrisons and military educational institutions. Formally, China-Russia military consultations began in 1992, when the then-Chinese Defense Minister, Qin Jiwei, visited Moscow and established official relations between the militaries of the two countries. On October 11, 1993, during the Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev’s visit to Beijing, the two countries signed the “Military Cooperation Agreement between the Ministries of Defense of China and Russia,”

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which laid the formal foundation for bilateral inter-military cooperation.4 The mechanisms of regular consultations that were first established were the Regular Meetings Between Defense Ministers of Russia and China, established in 1993, and Annual Strategic Consultations among Chiefs of the General Staff , established in 1997. Both mechanisms are annual meetings that occur in Moscow and Beijing on a rotating basis with regular agendas that range from issues of general strategic orientations and military strategies in the two countries to military-technical cooperation. These mechanisms facilitated a stable flow of information between top military officials and assisted in attaining a joint understanding of foreign policy orientations. However, given their relatively broad agenda and the presence of similar consultation practices in China’s and Russia’s interactions with other countries, they do not reflect actual high-level cooperation. A shift to the high level of cooperation in terms of military consultations began in the early 2000s and manifested in creating more focused mechanisms that China and Russia do not have with many foreign states. An important step in this direction was establishing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001, which significantly expanded and institutionalized the interface of China-Russia military consultations. It introduced multiple platforms for regular interactions between Defense Ministers and other military officials of different levels and generated what can be called the Mechanism of Inter-Military Consultations within the Functioning Structure of the SCO. This mechanism includes the SCO’s Annual Summits, which have been held each year in one of the member states’ capital cities since the day that the SCO was established, the Regional Anti-Terrorism Structures (RATS), which were established as a permanent body within the SCO in June 2004, the Meetings of Heads of Ministries and Departments, which provide an extra platform for consultations between the two countries’ Defense Ministers, and the traditional bilateral military consultations “on the sidelines” of the SCO—which are similar to the already routinized special “Putin-Xi forums” that regularly occur during multilateral meetings to demonstrate the special relationship

4 For full Russian text of the agreement, see: Official Portal of Legal Information (1993).

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between the two leaders (Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation 2015).5 Additional progress occurred with the establishment of a new mechanism focusing on China’s and Russia immediate national interests in October 2004—Russia-China Consultations on National Security Issues (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 2004). This mechanism operates at the level of Heads of the Security Council (on the Russian side) and State Council representatives (on the Chinese side) and became a format that China only has with Russia. According to China’s State Council representative, Tang Jiaxuan, the new mechanism is “the first precedent in which China creates an interstate mechanism of consultations on its national security issues with a foreign state” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 2005a). This indicates the “convergence of Russia’s and China’s positions on major global and regional security issues” and “the transition of bilateral security cooperation into a new quality” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 2005b). According to the documents, both countries intend to use the new communication channel to jointly react to the new challenges and protect their national security interests (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 2005b). On December 8, 2009, at the fourth annual consultation in this format, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, and Chinese State Council member Dai Bingguo announced that this bilateral security dialogue should occur no less than four times a year (Sputnik News 2009). The breadth and depth of China-Russia security consultations continued to increase, in response to the contingencies of the international environment in the Asia Pacific. The case in point is the ChinaRussia Northeast Asia Security Dialogue—a new platform for regional security consultations, which was launched in April 2015 and aimed to “create effective security mechanisms in Northeast Asia” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 2015). This is the most tightly scheduled format, with the frequency of meetings varying based on the urgency of regional issues, and, at times, having a bimonthly schedule,

5 With large number of contacts, the words of greeting by Putin and Xi evolved from “dear President” to “dear friend,” and later to “my old friend.” See the Chronology of Putin-Xi meetings with description of settings and full text speeches, available at the President of Russia web portal: http://kremlin.ru/catalog/persons/351.

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which immediately occurred after the US decision to launch the THAAD missile shield in South Korea. Since the early 1990s, China and Russia have been launching new or enhancing existing consultation mechanisms every 3–4 years. Currently, all the mechanisms combined generate a frequency of 20–30 high-level security-related consultations per year; this number excludes the entire body of regional cooperation formats that occur between provinces and cities, educational exchanges, and military exercises. Thus, a high-level inter-military contact between China and Russia occurs almost every two weeks. Most of these end with a joint statement or declaration that reflects the two countries’ shared view on the issues of international politics. These mechanisms have been consistently operating since the date of their establishment, and none have ceased to function. Moderate Cooperation: MTC and Regular Military Exercises While episodic military-technical exchanges between China and Russia began to occur in the 1990s, MTC fully flourished in the late-2000s, after bilateral consultations were already institutionalized. Around this time, regular joint military exercises began to be launched. In the early 1990s, when Russia was experiencing severe economic hardships, China-Russia military-technical exchanges contained some barely legal practices, which created a large and hard-to-assess “grey area” in their bilateral relations. An attempt to regularize the ChinaRussia MTC occurred in 1992, with the signing of the “MilitaryTechnical Cooperation Agreement” and establishing the “Russia-China Mixed Intergovernmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation,” which became a formal platform for discussions of arms sales to China and contributed to the overall normalization and regulation of the bilateral MTC. By 1996, the two sides agreed on the Su-27 project—hitherto, the largest agreement for defense technology transfers from Russia to China—according to which China’s Shenyang Aircraft Corporation procured a license to assemble 200 Russian supermaneuverable Su-27 jet fighters. The acquired technology has subsequently been exploited for developing the Chinese Shenyang J-11 B fighter (Cheung 2009, 141). These episodes of MTC were signs of significant progress, albeit sporadic ones. Vladimir Putin’s accession to power in 2000 began a complete overhaul of Russia’s arms export agencies and supervisory bodies.

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The Russian Federation Committee for Military-Technical Cooperation with the Foreign States was established and empowered with broad control and supervisory functions.6 This measure allowed for an increase in the volume of arms exports and improved quality controls. In addition, it set the stage for more advanced forms of MTC. As a result, by the mid2000s, technology transfers and joint ventures amounted to 30% of the overall transfer and sales of Russian military equipment to China (Cheung 2009, 141). In 2006, Russia’s former Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov emphasized that in the sphere of MTC, China is Russia’s “privileged partner” and that MTC constitutes the backbone of the China-Russia strategic partnership, which elevates the entire spectrum of the bilateral relations. An important turning point was on December 11, 2008, during the 13th meeting of the Mixed Intergovernmental Commission on MilitaryTechnical Cooperation in Beijing, for the signing of the “Agreement of Intellectual Property in Military-Technical Cooperation,” which significantly alleviated Russia’s concerns about the Chinese replicating its weapon systems and facilitated exports of more advanced arms and technologies to China. Since then, the China-Russia MTC has transitioned to a high level, as the actual military technology transfer and long-term cooperation projects became more frequent. According to Rosoboronexport (Russia’s sole state intermediary agency for military exports and imports), the largest China-Russia MTC programs are currently related to aircraft engines and anti-aircraft weapons, which constituted 90% of Russia’s arms-related exports to China in 2012. The Chernyshev Moscow Machine-Building Enterprise and the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation are performing a joint program to modernize the Russian Klimov RD-33 turbofan jet engine for a lightweight fighter jet that has become the primary engine for the Chinese CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder lightweight multirole combat aircraft. In 2011, the Russian Military Industrial Company launched the assembly of GAZ “Tigr” (Tiger) multipurpose, all-terrain infantry mobility vehicles in China (TASS 2015). In August 2015, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Dmitry Rogozin, named the four primary joint projects in the China-Russia MTC (People’s Daily 2015). The first addresses the space program and includes building 6 For more on Putin’s early policies in the area of defense exports, see Kozyulin (2001) and Makienko (2001).

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a joint base on the moon, producing Russian rocket engines in China, and joint projects in satellite navigation, remote earth sensing, producing electronic components and space equipment, human spaceflight, and other activities (Krecyl 2014). The second project is the joint construction of a large military helicopter, which was signed into an agreement by Xi Jinping and Putin in May 2015, when Xi was attending the May 9th Victory Parade. According to the Chairman of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, Lin Zuoming, who visited the “Russian Helicopters” company to meet with its General Director Alexander Mikheev in 2015, the two parties agreed to accelerate the process and specified the tasks needed to do so (People’s Daily 2015). The third project addresses the two countries’ agreement for jointly designing and producing a wide-body aircraft, which was signed into an agreement during Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Moscow in 2014. Finally, the fourth project is exports to China and maintaining Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft weapon system. Given Ivanov’s reference to China as a “privileged partner,” China became the first foreign purchaser of the previous generation of these systems—the S-300. In addition, according to officials from Rosoboronexport, the J-31 Chinese fifth-generation aircraft, which is considered an export program for competing with the US on regional markets, will be powered by Russian RD-93 engines (Krecyl 2014). Landmark contracts for the sale of Russian Su-35 multirole combat aircraft and S-400 air defense systems worth $5 billion were signed in 2015, which became the year of resumption of large-scale arms transfers between China and Russia. These contracts were followed by other transactions involving the transfer of helicopters, aircraft engines, and submarine technology, indicating that Russian arms sales are giving way to technology transfers. According to some assessments, these deals marked the end of Russia’s earlier policy of withholding sales of its most advanced weapons to China (Schwartz 2021). As a result, joint technology projects have been expanding into new areas, becoming of greater strategic importance. Russia is reportedly cooperating with China on the development of new weapons for land, air, and naval use, space technologies, and artificial intelligence (Schwartz 2021). Russia’s changing attitude toward comprehensive military-technical cooperation with China has been characterized by a disappearing caution about relying on China in this area. When meeting with the Chinese Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xu Qiliang, the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoygu, stated that “The level of our

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relations demonstrates that we do not have unsolvable problems. Our work will be aimed at the realization of our MTC projects” (Krecyl 2014). In turn, Sergei Kornev from Rosoboronexport stated that the forefront of the China-Russia MTC is increasingly represented by the joint production of weapons in Chinese territory (Krecyl 2014). According to the chief editor of the Moscow Defense Brief, Vasili Kashin, “if previously Russia was constrained by political factors in its MTC with China, now those factors have disappeared. We are now too interlinked with the Chinese.” Moreover, China currently has much to offer, for example, electronic components (including those for the space program), composite materials, drone technologies, and engines for warships. Transitioning to the next sub-stage in the moderate stage of strategic cooperation occurred by introducing joint military exercise. The first exercise—“Peace Mission 2005”—occurred on August 19–25, 2005, in China’s Shandong Peninsula and Russia’s Vladivostok, and engaged 10,000 soldiers and officers (8000 Chinese and 2000 Russians). “Peace Mission”-type large-scale joint military exercises became a regular practice and now occur every one or two years. Some were held within the SCO format, and most included strategies and tactics for resisting the danger of “color revolutions” and curbing political turmoil in Central Asia. It is important to note the “Peace Mission-2009,” which occurred in China and after which the first Chinese calls to abandon the “non-alignment strategy” could be heard (Huangqiu Shibao 2009). “Peace Mission2010” was the longest exercise and lasted 17 days, from September 9 to September 25, 2010, and included approximately 5000 servicemen, more than 300 military vehicles, and an excess of 50 aircraft and helicopters (Korolev 2019). During the subsequent “Peace Mission-2012” and “Peace Mission-2014,” the militaries from the two countries further practiced cooperation and interoperability and solidified the mechanism of joint military exercises. While the “Peace Mission” is predominantly ground and air exercises, the “Joint Sea” aims to achieve better coordination between the two countries’ navies. The first “Joint Sea” occurred on April 22–27, 2012 in the Yellow Sea, and included practicing convoying, anti-aircraft and anti-submarine warfare, anti-piracy and rescue activities, and naval logistics. The “Joint Sea” naval exercises occur every year in different locations. “Joint Sea-2015” was a geopolitical game changer, as it became the largest naval exercise undertaken by the PLA Navy with a foreign navy. Occurring after the 2014 Ukraine crisis, the second stage of it was

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located in the Mediterranean, which is considered the heart of NATO. Before heading out with Russian ships to the Mediterranean, Chinese military vessels entered the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. This military visit was also the first in the history of China-Russia relations and was symbolically connected to Xi Jinping’s attendance at the Victory Parade in Moscow on May 9, 2015. During the drills, the two navies demonstrated a high level of coordination in foreign waters (Bondareva 2015). In turn, “Joint Sea-2016,” which occurred on September 12–19, 2016, included surface ships, submarines, fixed-winged aircraft, helicopters, and amphibious vehicles and became the first major exercise of its type that included China and a second country in the disputed South China Sea after the Hague-based tribunal overruled China’s claims on the waters under its nine-dash line claim (Panda 2016). Combined, the “Peace Mission” and “Joint Sea” exercises guarantee that every year China and Russia have one to two large-scale joint military exercises, which include thousands of servicemen and hundreds of military vehicles, aircraft, helicopters, and naval ships. In May 2016, China and Russia launched a new joint military exercise, “Airspace Security 2016,” which took place in the Central Research Institute of the Russian Armed Forces and became the first Russia-China computer-simulated missile defense drill. “Aerospace Security 2017” was located in Beijing in December 2017. According to China’s Defence Ministry, the main task of the exercise is “to work out joint planning of combat operations when organizing air missile defenses, operation and mutual fire support” (TASS 2017b). While both countries emphasize that the drills are not directed against third countries, they occur in the context of China-Russia joint opposition against the American global defense system and seek to strengthen bilateral military interoperability. Other joint exercises include regular exercises for internal security troops, which includes Russia’s National Guards and China’s police units. The inclusion of these activities increases the number of Chinese-Russian joint military drills to 5–6 per year. Advanced Cooperation: The Growing Interoperability of Military Forces The problem with assessing advanced levels of military cooperation is the lack of data. One way to address this situation is to examine the details of joint military activities more carefully. Although there is no

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current evidence of either military base exchanges (indicator 6) or a common defense policy (indicator 7), the increasing comprehensiveness and regularity of China-Russia military exercises reveal certain elements of episodic military interoperability and an integrated military command (indicator 5). According to some assessments, there is a modest degree of compatibility and interoperability between Chinese and Russian forces (Trenin 2015). Thus, during the above-mentioned “Peace Mission-2005,” a new system of command codes was introduced to allow for the transmission of orders and communication between Russian and Chinese pilots. “Peace Mission-2009” was also characterized by the improved coordination of military forces with elements of a joint defense simulation. More elements of interoperability and integrated command were observed during “Peace Mission-2010,” in which two Russian Mig-29s and three Chinese H-6 jet bombers were merged into one squadron and performed joint tasks to practice joint command codes and interoperability (China Military Online 2010). It is also worth emphasizing that all China-Russia joint tasks during the drills operate in the Russian language.7 During “Joint Sea-2014,” the exercises included the joint defense of warships in anchorage, convoying and rescuing captured naval ships, elements of anti-aircraft warfare, and several rescue operations. All operations were coordinated from a joint command center. “Joint Sea-2015” marked a step forward because it included the joint command of warships in the foreign waters of the Mediterranean Sea. For that purpose, a joint command center was established in the Divnomorskoye Coordination Center of the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk (Parffit 2015). According to the Chinese Defense Ministry, one of the aims of the exercise was “to increase our navies’ ability to jointly address maritime security threats” (Reuters 2015). After the Hague tribunal ruling against China over disputed territories in the South China Sea, “Joint Sea-2016” occurred in the South China Sea, in which the Chinese and Russian navies engaged in a range of activities. These included search and rescue drills, anti-submarine warfare, and, remarkably, “joint island-seizing missions,” which appear to be a new addition to the “Joint Sea”-type drills. A new development in strategic-level cooperation and integration of command systems was the announcement by President Putin in October 7 Author’s interview with an expert on China-Russia military relations, Singapore, 11 October 2016.

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2019 that Russia was actively helping China to create a missile attack early warning radar system. This, as Putin himself noted, “is a very serious thing that will fundamentally enhance the defence capability of China because currently only Russia and the United States have such a system” (Korolev 2020). China and Russia were reported to have signed multiple contracts to develop software for the new system, which is expected to be based on the Russian “Tundra” satellites and “Voronezh” modular groundbased radar stations set up in Chinese territory. As such the system will provide advance warning on potential incoming missiles’ trajectory, speed, time-to-target, and other critical information needed for an effective interception (Korolev 2020). Thus, China and Russia have constructed comprehensive mechanisms of inter-military cooperation that have started to move into the initial stages of advanced cooperation, as defined in the present framework.

Conclusion To date, such important case as China-Russia relations has produced very little in conceptualization and theory-building that can transcend the case itself. The present study attempts to address this problem by synthesizing both the existing theoretical knowledge about alliances and the empirical analysis of China-Russia relations. While it does not claim to fully resolve the debate about how close China and Russia are to a real alliance and what such terms as “alliance” or “alignment” mean in contemporary international politics, it makes a necessary step in enhancing our understanding and measurement of alignment, in general, and China-Russia alignment, in particular. Empirically, the analysis above shows that since the end of the Cold War, China and Russia have constructed comprehensive military cooperation, all aspects of which have progressed over the last two decades. A comprehensive and multi-level mechanism of inter-military consultation, which is responsive to international contingencies, has been put in place and institutionalized. Large-scale MTC and military personnel exchanges have increased the level of inter-military compatibility. Since 2005, due to regular joint military exercises, China and Russia have achieved a certain degree of interoperability of their military forces. Overall, the inter-military cooperation has started to move into the advanced stage. At the same time, the current upward trend in China-Russia strategic cooperation should not be viewed as irreversible. Snyder has emphasized

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that depending on both external and internal factors alignments may start to move in the opposite direction vis-à-vis the prior pattern (Snyder 1991, 125). Therefore, it is not impossible for Moscow and Beijing to start moving apart. At the same time, China-Russia strategic cooperation should not be viewed as ad hoc or impulsive. The two countries have traveled a long way, and where they are now in terms of alignment allows them to have a significant impact on international politics and should be taken seriously. Given the geopolitical parameters and military capabilities of China and Russia, their evolving alignment is an important factor that has a direct bearing on the entire structure of the contemporary international system and can challenge the existing US-led international order in the most fundamental ways. Russia can gain access to more instruments for promoting its agenda of balancing the United States and enhancing its version of multipolarity in Europe. China, in turn, receives Russia’s political backing and access to Russia’s energy resources and military technologies, which are essential assets for China in its growing tensions with the United States in Asia. Closer alignment between China and Russia can also accelerate the merging of their flagship geopolitical projects, such as China’s Silk Road Initiative and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which has a potential to strategically reshape the Eurasian space.8 Closer China-Russia relations can also mean very limited RussiaUS and China-US cooperation on issues of crucial strategic importance for the United States. Thus, without methodical assessment of ChinaRussia strategic alignment, the field might be miscalculating the overall tendency of power relations within the international system as well as the current dynamics of China-US and Russia-US relations. Theoretically, this chapter offers a framework for assessing interstate alignment dynamics that can be applied to various cases. To test and further refine the suggested framework, the next step would be applying it to the cases of, e.g., US-India and China-Pakistan alignments, which would allow locating China-Russia cooperation in a comparative context and further generalizing the indicators of alignment suggested in this research. The US-India alignment is a new development in the postCold War international politics that can also be interpreted as an ad hoc 8 On May 8, 2015, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping signed the Joint Statement on Cooperation and Connection between the Silk Road and EEU. According to Putin, “The integration of the EEU and Silk Road projects means reaching a new level of partnership, and actually implies a common economic space on the continent.” See RT (2015).

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phenomenon (as a reaction to China’s assertiveness in the Asia–Pacific region), whereas China-Pakistan alignment is an important regional security arrangement that requires better understanding and invites more research efforts. Both provide useful reference points for assessing the relative depth of China-Russia strategic cooperation. The list of potential cases to which the suggested framework can be productively applied can also include multilateral alignments, such as Shanghai Cooperation Organization, US-Japan-Australia Security Dialogue, and the ASEAN Security Community, for a more systematic understanding and comparative mapping of alignment dynamics in different regions.

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China, Russia and the United States: Balance of Power or National Narcissism? Gregory J. Moore

Does balance of power explain relations between the world’s three foremost military powers—China, Russia and the United States? What do current trends in relations between the three suggest about future relational dynamics between them? Are China and Russia likely to create balancing coalition against the United States or will they simply follow atomistic, self-interested policies of national narcissism? Balance of power is one commonly held approach to IR, one which leads some observers to entertain a Sino-Russian anti-American balancing assumption that China and Russia will balance (or are balancing) against the preeminent power in the international system, the United States (Dittmer 2018; Gelb and Simes 2013; Korolev 2018; Mearsheimer 2015; Paul 2005, 46–71). Yet is this the right way to understand relations between these three powers now or in the near future? This chapter will proceed as follows. It will start with a brief review of the pertinent balance of power literature to set up a theoretical framework for the study. Given that the US is the preeminent power in the

G. J. Moore (B) Global Studies and Politics, Colorado Christian University, Lakewood, CO, USA

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_3

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international system today, the study will focus on the present and future balancing potential of China and Russia against the US, while looking back at the historical pattern of the Sino-Russian relationship. It concludes with an assessment of today’s Sino-Russian relations and the likelihood of a robust balancing move by Moscow and Beijing in the near future. In the process, it will consider the impact of defense ties and trade, a brief case study on the 2014 Ukraine crisis in light of Sino-Russian ties, and a brief assessment of the potential role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in any anti-American balancing move. Finally, the chapter draws conclusions about the nature of China-Russia-US relations and the question of the applicability of the Sino-Russian anti-American balancing assumption.

Balance of Power vs. National Narcissism Are China and Russia currently balancing against the United States? The question is an important one because international relations’ most important theory/approach, Realism, predicts conflict in some form between a status quo hegemonic power (in this case the US) and a rising power (in this case China) as the latter’s power increases enough that the challenger can in fact challenge, balancing against the preeminent power (Mearsheimer 2001, 402). If we want to understand balancing, we must look at how other powers react to the preeminent power(s) (Chan 2012). In this case, the United States is the preeminent power in terms of material capabilities, so questions of balancing in today’s systemic context must focus on China and Russia and their choices in response to the power hegemony of the United States. The hypothesis offered here is that balance of power does not provide a very accurate picture of China-Russia relations in the last decade. Instead, what I call here national narcissism seems to more accurately describe what we’ve seen. Narcissism describes actors with “an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others” (Mayo Clinic). This probably describes the leaders of Russia and China, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, even more accurately than their national foreign policies, but given that both are authoritarian leaders who dominate their countries’ foreign policy, it is nor far-fetched to project the term beyond the men to their nation’s foreign policies. Moreover, noting the “troubled relationships” and hypersensitivity toward slights to the nation in both

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countries, and given the lack of true friends/alliances both countries have, I argue that this term aptly describes both Russia’s and China’s foreign relations. More specifically, national narcissism here denotes an ultraRealist (not conventional Realist), hyper-utilitarian, extremely nationalist, only-if-it’s-in-our-interest, commitment-avoiding policy, eschewing in this case more deeply binding Sino-Russian relations. This chapter will analyze Sino-Russian relations with an eye toward testing this hypothesis against balance of power. So what is balance of power and how does one know it when one sees it? This paper defines balancing according to what Richard Little calls the “adversarial” form of balancing, wherein states monitor each other’s material power capabilities and tend to work the distribution of power in their favor so as to enhance their chances of survival (Little 2007, 11). This (as opposed to the more cooperative “associational” form) is the traditional concept of balancing associated with Realism, and that which is most commonly used in the literature on balance of power (Little 2007, 46). A problem arises with “measuring” balancing, however, for one dyad’s “special relationship” may be more of a committed military alliance than another dyad’s “strategic partnership,” as is certainly the case in the U.S.– U.K. relationship and the China-Russia relationship, respectively. As Bobo Lo (2008) argues, the Sino-Russian “strategic partnership,” while not to be entirely discounted, is not by any means a military alliance. There is an immeasurable, non-quantifiable social aspect to alliances, partnerships and the like, and where the chips may fall in a given international conflict scenario is unclear until they do fall. However, it is still possible to assess balancing in particular cases, as most observers would agree was the case when China “leaned to one side” in the 1950s (allying with the Soviet Union), or when Mao and Nixon/Kissinger brought China and the United States into a “tacit alliance,” as Kissinger called it, in the 1970s and 80s (Moore 2014). In most cases, we know balancing when we see it, because of leader statements, treaties/resolutions/agreements signed, joint military exercises, common stands at the U.N. and in defense of common causes, etc. This basket of factors provides an indication of strategic cohesion. Let us move to a consideration of Sino-Russian relations in recent years. Since the winding down of the Cold War, starting in earnest in 1989 and culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 31, 1991, it has been the common expectation among many

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in the Realist community that Russia and China would balance against the lone remaining superpower, the United States. This seemed all the more plausible as the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the latter occurring over the strong protests of both Russia and China, seeming to reflect unabashed, unrestrained American boldness in its “unipolar moment.” The advent of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2001 seemed to many to be the obvious form that this anti-American balancing had taken, given the prominent roles the two powers have taken within the SCO, the importance both have attached to it, the security role the organization has taken on, the 2005 SCO statement demanding a timetable for the closure of American bases in Central Asia, and the fact that regular Sino-Russian military exercises have been held under the auspices of the SCO, including those in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2019. But is this the right way to view Sino-Russian relations? In fact, relations between Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) and China have always been complicated and unpredictable, and they remain no less so today, though one might argue they are quite stable at present (Korolev 2018; Lukin 2018; Dittmer 2018; Fu 2016). Other chapters in this volume (e.g., Sutter; Feng) summarize the history of Sino-Russian relations, so suffice it to say here that since 2014, the two have faced great pressure from the West. This includes Russia being put under significant sanctions for the annexation of Crimea and its subsequent involvement in the partition of the Donbas (eastern Ukraine) from Kiev’s control, and Western backlash against China’s island reclamation efforts in the South China Sea and its alleged corporate espionage schemes (BBC 2019). Since 2014, both Moscow and Beijing have been feeling the ire of the Western powers on many different fronts, and these trends have done much to bring the two closer together.

Balancing Coalition? Yet how far will the Sino-Russian strategic partnership go? In 2018, building on his earlier (1981) work on strategic triangles, Lowell Dittmer said China and Russia had formed a strategic “marriage” while reinvigorating the China-US-Russia strategic triangle (2018, 98). Alexander Korolev (2018) has made a similar case about the close rapprochement between China and Russia, calling their military relationship one “on the verge of alliance.” Russian President Putin likes to see the China-Russia

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relationship as an alliance, calling Russia and China “natural partners and natural allies” (2014, as cited in Korolev 2018, 1). Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also described the Sino-Russian relationship in glowing terms, though stopped short of calling it an alliance, instead calling the relationship “a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination not because it’s convenient; it’s a strategic decision reached by both sides on the basis of our fundamental interests…It is as strong as it’s ever been and our mutual trust has reached a historical high” (2017, as cited in Lukin 2018, 189–190). In a widely quoted Foreign Affairs piece, Chinese official Fu Ying made it clear, however, that China and Russia are not allies (2016). Despite the growing warmth between Moscow and Beijing, especially since 2014, most observers of Sino-Russian relations still seem to agree that there are deep-seated differences between the two, placing limits on their cooperation, and that a full Sino-Russian alliance against the United States is still unlikely (Kaczmarski 2018). Gilbert Rozman agrees and notes that despite their common communist history and tendencies toward exceptionalism and cultural alterity, China and Russia have diverging national identities which will make it difficult for them to be close relationally (Rozman 2014, 13). Despite warm rhetoric to the contrary such as Wang Yi’s and Putin’s above, in the end neither trusts each other deeply and both are too dependent on Europe (Russia) or the United States (China) for various reasons to completely throw in their lot with the other. Russians in the very under-populated Russian Far East fear being overrun by Chinese émigrés, though there is no solid evidence that this is indeed happening at present (Khodarkovsky 2016). Russian military contractors have often dragged their feet on business with China because of Chinese infringements on Russian intellectual property rights. The Chinese feel discriminated against because the Russians have at times refused to give China their best hardware (e.g., India has sometimes received more advanced versions of Russian arms than the Russians have allowed the Chinese; Yu 2005, 240). This is a problem for China given the remaining post-Tiananmen sanctions still in place against China and the West’s continued reluctance to share its best defense technology with Beijing. Russians are also suspicious that China’s Belt and Road Initiative seeks to intrude into Russia’s sphere of influence among Central Asia’s former Soviet provinces. Despite the progress made in the bilateral relationship, there is still a lack of real trust and underlying bitterness and suspicions given the breakdown in the relations between the two powers

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in the 1960s, among other things. Clearly, if there is to be anti-American balancing behavior or even an alliance between Moscow and Beijing, the SCO might be a likely structure through which to manage such a relationship.

A Case Study in Cooperation: Shanghai Cooperation Organization With the formation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2001, many observers saw a nascent Sino-Russian anti-American balancing move in the making. These concerns grew when in 2005 Sino-Russian military exercises were held under the auspices of the organization. Concerns in the US and Europe, among others, have continued since, as the SCO military exercises commenced eight times between 2007 and 2019. Is the SCO, as one American put it, “the most dangerous organization that Americans have never heard of” (Brown 2005, as cited in Lo 2008, 108), or is it, as the organization describes itself, simply “a permanent intergovernmental international organisation” (SCO Official Website 2021)? The answer to that question depends in part on one’s perspective, but here are some facts. In its mission statement, the organization is clearly not billed as an alliance structure of any kind (SCO Official Website 2021). Its focus has been threefold: terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. Nor is it first and foremost a collective security organization, though it has been the basis of military exercises between member states on a regular basis since 2005. Rather, its legacy has been to promote and manage the peaceful resolution of border disputes and border control issues, and to foster cooperation on security issues in the realm of antiterror initiatives between the member states. It has been quite successful in these issue areas. However, as with other areas in Sino-Russia cooperation, there are limits to Sino-Russian cooperation under the rubric of the SCO. The same lack of trust that pervades broader Sino-Russian relations is at work in the SCO as well. Russia has marked historical, cultural and linguistic advantages in Central Asia given the Soviet legacy. The Central Asian states all rely on Russian for basic communication and are therefore prone to the socializing effects of Moscow’s pro-Russia media. In fact, many of the old Soviet era practices and links are still in place in the post-Cold War world

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order. Institutionally and infrastructurally, the region is in many ways still oriented toward Moscow. China shares none of these advantages. What it does share is its economic wealth, and the attractive power of access to the Chinese market. With its Belt and Road economic policy initiative, its use of the carrot has reached new heights as promise of vast infrastructure projects have reached Central Asia, as well as many other parts of Asia and Africa. Its Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is another important source of China’s economic pull on the Central Asian states. However, Russia has countered China’s bold moves in the region and resisted Beijing’s overtures to deepen the SCO’s economic impact. Russian President Putin has inaugurated both a Collective Security Treaty Organization, which ties Russia to the Central Asian states (minus Turkmenistan, and without China), and the Eurasian Economic Union, which is a Russian attempt to spread the economic union between Russia and Belarus eastward to Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian states. Russia clearly sees Beijing as a competitor and views Central Asia as a zerosum game in some respects (Krasnopolsky 2019). President Putin has preferred to keep the CSTO under Russian leadership and has kept China out, and he has preferred to advance the Eurasian Economic Union (again, without China) instead of allowing Central Asian economic integration to proceed under the SCO or the Belt and Road framework which China dominates. Kaczmarski et al. depict China-Russia relations in Central Asia as in effect an informal “spheres of interest” agreement, with China conceding to Russia largely on security issues, and Russia having made many concessions to China on economic issues (Kaczmarski et al. 2018, 41). It is clear that both Russia and China have sought at times to use the SCO as a tool to warn Washington that they now have a nascent framework within which they can deepen their security cooperation, and the SCO can indeed serve that purpose should they deem to use it as such. However, the SCO is not, in and of itself, an anti-American organization, nor is it a Sino-Russian-Central Asian alliance. Nor are the SCO military drills an indication of a military alliance. As Richard Weitz (2014) puts it: One should not exaggerate the significance of these SCO exercises. In principle, SCO members might come to one another’s defense in case of an external invasion, but the organization’s charter does not formally authorize collective defense operations. In practice, China would likely prove

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reluctant to make such a defensive commitment since Beijing has shunned formal military alliances, while the other [then] five governments belong to the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is explicitly tasked with providing for the mutual defense of its members from external attack.

The limited utility of the SCO for military purposes should be even clearer now that India and Pakistan are members of the SCO, for India’s presence would make it difficult to forge a unified anti-US position. It is possible that the organization could take a position against the US on certain issues with the abstention of India (and possibly Pakistan). In fact, in the first SCO summit after India’s accession to the SCO, Qingdao 2018, India declined to sign the SCO joint declaration because it endorsed China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Despite these challenges, China and Russia have real interests in making the SCO work that have nothing to do with the US. These were and are the issues that brought the Shanghai Five, and later the rest of the members, together in the first place. However, if China and Russia are driven yet closer together by mutual fears of the US, the SCO could be a forum for Russian and Chinese foreign policy leaders to formulate a common agenda to deal with a potential American threat.

A Case Study in Dissonance: Diverging Sino-Russian Interests Over Ukraine Highlighting the lack of deep affinity between the two powers has been their differing views on the conflict over Ukraine [Editor’s note: this chapter was completed before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022]. One of the important subtexts in the clash between Russia and the Ukrainian government in Kiev has been the importance to both Moscow and Beijing of the significant and well-developed Ukrainian military industrial complex, located primarily in eastern and southern Ukraine. According to SIPRI data, Ukraine was the world’s eighth largest arms exporter between 2009 and 2013, and Ukraine’s military industrial complex is clearly one of the reasons Moscow does not want to let go of Ukraine. Yet, it is also one of the most important reasons Beijing cannot support Moscow in its bid to expand its influence in Ukraine, and why China abstained instead of voting to veto a UN Security Council draft resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

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China needs Ukrainian expertise in aircraft and helicopter engines, shipbuilding, landing craft, missile/space technology, etc., and a full Russian takeover of Ukraine would make China even more beholden to Russia for its defense needs. What are the more important aspects of the Ukrainian military industrial complex? For starters, Ukraine makes the Antonov AN225 (the world’s largest airplane), medium size transport planes, gliders and regional (short range) jets at a facility near Kiev. Motor-Sich, based in southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia, is a leading producer of aircraft and helicopter engines, and nearly all of Russia’s military helicopters are powered by Motor-Sich engines. In fact, competition for a possible takeover of Motor-Sich recently erupted between Beijing and Washington, for the US does not want China to take over the valuable company (Prince 2019). Located in Dnepropetrovsk (also in southeastern Ukraine), Ukraine has an excellent space rocket and missile design and production industry, which produced rockets for the Soviet space program, and today produces/services Russia’s primary intercontinental ballistic missile, the SS18, as well as parts for Russia’s famous Soyuz rockets. Located along its Black Sea coast, Ukraine is also home to an impressive shipbuilding industry, one which produced the Varyag, which China purchased and retrofitted into the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier. According to Russian analyst Vladimir Voronov, of the 54 surface warship acquisitions the Russian navy has currently planned, 31 would have Ukrainian engines in them. Ukraine also has an important armored vehicle-producing facility in Kharkiv, maker of the BTR-4 armored personnel carrier and the T84 main battle tank (a tank competitive with and having a more powerful engine than Russia’s primary main battle tank, the T-90, according to experts). Ukraine also produces airto-air missiles for fighter jets and scores of parts and services for military applications, including some for Russia’s top of the line fifth generation fighter plane, the Su50 PAK/FA (Krasnopolsky et al. 2011). What are the implications of this for China? Most importantly, because China has been behind the curve in military technology when compared to Russian, European and American competitors, among others, having/maintaining access to the Ukrainian arms market and its expertise is important to the Chinese arms industry. Ukraine has some high quality technology/products, which are often sold at cheaper prices than comparable Russia technology/products. Moreover, Ukraine does not appear to be as bothered as Russia by China’s tendency to buy military

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hardware abroad, and then reverse-engineer and manufacture copies of it at home. The latter issue has caused considerable tension between Russia and China, most notably in China’s purchase of the Su27 fighter aircraft from Russia. Russia says China copied the Su27 in its entirety when China produced its own J-11B fighter, leading to Russia ceasing coproduction agreements with China for several years and making Russia very reluctant to sell China its newer technologies. Ukraine also sold China one Russian Su33 prototype which China used as the basis for its own J15 navy aircraft, and sells China jet engines and helicopter engines. China is in dire need of good aircraft and helicopter engines/technology/know-how, so Ukraine’s assistance in this respect is very important to China. Ukraine has also been a source of advanced air-to-air, surface-to-air and cruise missiles for Beijing, and of good shipbuilding, which has included not only the aforementioned Varyag but also the Xue Long (Snow Dragon), China’s only ice-breaking ship. Changes in Ukraine’s status could spell trouble for China’s defense procurement and development in a number of ways. If Ukraine were to remain whole (sans Crimea) and join the EU, it might have to give up its military trade with China, because (like the US) the EU maintains post-Tiananmen sanctions against China. On the other hand, if Ukraine (or eastern Ukraine) is brought under Russian control, some or all of Ukraine’s arms deals (especially those that undermine Russia’s position in arms trade) may be halted, dialed down or at least become subject to the ups and downs in Sino-Russian arms trade that have been the norm in recent years. China has an interest in seeing a maintenance of the political status quo in Ukraine, for changes in Ukraine’s orientation threaten China’s significant arms trade with Ukraine and may complicate China’s military modernization plans. Russia’s interventions in Ukraine have important implications for China, and most are not positive from Beijing’s point of view. Another important factor here is that given China’s aversion to “interference in the domestic affairs of states,” a mantra proclaimed by Beijing quite regularly, it cannot in principle be happy about Moscow’s takeover of parts of Ukraine. National People’s Congress Foreign Affairs Committee Chairperson Fu Ying said, “In fact, after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated unequivocally that Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity should be respected…China did not take any side…” (Fu 2016). That is diplomatic-speak for “China does

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not support it.” In like manner, Beijing declined to sign off on a Russiainitiated SCO statement of support for Moscow’s 2008 intervention in Georgia, to Moscow’s consternation. China’s leaders have deep sensitivities about such outside interventions because of China’s own domestic political sensitivities about foreign interventions in Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan, for example. Beijing might be able to accept Russia’s occupation of Crimea given the historical Russia presence there, but it has been rather quiet about this and the even more problematic Russian interventions in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region (and other places like Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, none of which China recognizes, again to Moscow’s chagrin). Beijing’s silence (compared to the more public—but still rather passive—opposition to Russia’s Georgia intervention) can be seen to be indicative of the importance Beijing puts on its relations with Moscow, not wanting to air its “dirty laundry” with Moscow publicly.

The Sino-Russian Anti-American Balancing Assumption The argument advanced here is that Sino-Russian relations are closer than they have been since the 1950s, but that they are not an alliance, which would be a full-on balancing move against the US, at this time. Does that mean they are not balancing the US at all? Not necessarily. One might argue that in their own way they are making subtle balancing moves, tightening their relationship as their respective relationships with Europe and the US have become more strained in recent years. Leaders of both China and Russia have emphasized the importance of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership; and, as Alexander Korolev has argued persuasively, there are indeed formal alliances such as that between the US and Thailand that are less robust than the strategic alignment between Beijing and Moscow today (2018, 16). Why are they holding back from full-on alliance and from full-on balancing against the US? There are a number of issues that the SinoRussian Anti-American Balancing Assumption (or SRAABA—ineloquent but expeditious) overlooks. First is a basket of Sino-Russian animosities, fears and complicating historical factors. Second is politics, in terms of both domestic and foreign policy dynamics that work against the formation of a balancing relationship. And third is the pushes and (primarily in this case) pulls of international trade. Finally, these factors and trends culminate in, and at the same time draw from, what I’ve called national

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narcissistic tendencies that mitigate against trust and deeper levels of SinoRussian cooperation that would be needed for China and Russia to work together to balance the US. First, the assumption that China and Russia will seek to balance the United States in an obvious and forceful way, the SRAABA, overlooks what is conceived of here as a basket of historical fears, animosities, and history-driven ideational constructions about the other that have mitigated against a stable Sino-Russian partnership. These factors make it unlikely that Moscow and Beijing will engage in a robust effort to balance against the US short of extraordinarily aggressive actions from the United States itself. Unpacking this a bit, let us take a look at these factors more closely. Though Russians and Chinese have built a stable relationship in recent years, there is no denying a fear in Russia of what has been known historically as “the yellow peril,” the notion of millions of Chinese overrunning Russia either militarily or by a more subtle economic, neo-colonial takeover. This line of thinking is significant in the Russian Far East, where despite huge tracts of land less than seven million Russians reside facing several hundred million Chinese across the border in China’s northeastern provinces. While this fear is certainly often overblown, and the Chinese have shown no inclination toward reacquiring these vast tracts of land (which were ceded to imperial Russia during China’s “century of humiliation” in the late nineteenth century), even President Putin has made public statements affirming his own concerns about such matters. In July 2000, he said, “If in the short term we do not undertake real efforts to develop the Russian Far East, then in a few decades the Russian population will be speaking Japanese, Chinese and Korean…The real issue is about the existence of the region as an inalienable part of Russia” (Lo 2008, 56). Lo traces this fear back to the devastating invasion of the Mongol hordes, the original “yellow peril” during the times of the Khans, a time in which China too was overrun (Lo 2008). The difference between the Mongols and the Han Chinese may be lost on the average Russian citizen, but in the Russian Far East this fear of potential invading hordes is palpable. This is particularly the case as China continues to gain in economic and military capabilities and its population continues to grow, while the Russian Far East languishes and its population continues to decline. Many in Russia, experts in such matters included, believe that the greatest threat to Russia in future is a powerful China that will threaten Russia’s Far East, treat Russia as its neo-colonial

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master and marginalize Russia’s role in regional and even global politics. Anecdotally, I have personally heard senior Chinese IR experts make claims that at least parts of Russia’s Far East historically belonged to China and should be returned at some point in future, a disturbing thought to Russians and the sort of thing that gives credence to such Russian fears. The SRAABA also misses out on the overriding historical animosities of the last century or so. Imperial Russia made a number of land grabs at China’s expense, from the areas north of China’s northeastern provinces to parts of Xinjiang Province, which China got back when Stalin and Mao “traded” Xinjiang holdings to China for Outer Mongolia (to the USSR). Russia was a part of the eight-country force that stormed Beijing and humiliated the Chinese in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, and Russian forces invaded northern and central Manchuria, securing Mukden/Shenyang for Russian use. Although the Russians lost these territories to the Japanese with Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, the Chinese got it back at with the defeat of Japan in 1945. Soviet advisors played an important role in equipping and supporting the young communist movement in China in the early twentieth century, though they sided with the Chinese Nationalists against the Chinese Communists on a number of occasions and always seemed to treat the Chinese Communists as inferior subjects of Soviet Russia rather than as co-equal revolutionaries. And although China did “lean to one side” with the Soviet Union in the 1950’s, the Soviet mistrust of Mao, in particular the withholding of nuclear secrets and technology from China, sewed seeds of bitterness among the Chinese. This contributed to the bloody border clashes between Chinese and Soviet troops in 1969 and laid the foundation for a new Chinese lean toward the United States in the following years, cementing the Sino-Soviet fallout. In more recent times, the Chinese believed the Russians again treated them like secondclass global citizens as the new Russian Federation sought out European and American suitors while keeping the Chinese at arm’s length even as the Chinese suffered international isolation in the wake of the Tiananmen Square fallout. There is a lot of bad history between the Chinese and the Russians. In fact, the relatively positive relationship they now enjoy is not something that anyone should take for granted, but is more so a function of the isolation that both feel given European and North American sanctions against Russia and increasing western balancing against China given China’s assertiveness in its maritime policy and corporate espionage in recent years.

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The SRAABA also misses the roles of ideas, mistrust and perceptions (or misperceptions) of the other in both Russia and China. Russians as a whole entertain certain perceptions of China that are often quite antiChina, for example, that China is a land of uneducated, unskilled laborers who will do anything to get Russian natural resources, etc., and who will eventually have designs on getting Russia’s Far East. Many Russians believe millions of Chinese are living illegally in Russia’s Far East, taking away jobs and resources from Russians. In fact, China has cooperated closely with Russian authorities to limit illegal Chinese emigration to Russia, and Russian government statistics put the numbers of Chinese living in all of Russia at somewhere between 150,000 and 400,000 (Lo 2008, 60).1 Russians tend to view themselves as a great European civilization and China as a lesser civilization that is today still under despotic orientalist rule. Chinese have a lot of preconceived notions about Russians as well, calling them historically “lao maozi” (old hairy ones) and viewing them as just one of many “barbaric” peoples to their north, along with Mongols, Jurchens and others. They tend to view the Russians as historically (and today economically) inferior. Yet the Chinese also perceive the Russians as always looking down on them, treating them as just another people group among “Asia’s hordes,” as second-class citizens in the communist world in the Cold War era, and as a second or third-rate military power up until the present. The Chinese view the Russians as often quite unreliable historically, whether the example is Soviet support of the Chinese communists’ enemies the Nationalists at times in the 1920s, or Soviet reneging on its promise to help Mao develop Chinese nuclear capabilities during the Sino-Soviet alliance days, or even the recent Russian vacillation over whether it would provide an oil pipeline from Siberia into Northeast China’s Daqing refinery. The pipeline finally opened in 2011 after years of uncertainty as to whether the Russians would pipe the oil into China or bypass China for the sea of Japan (it did both in the end, building a pipeline to the eastern coast of Russia for oil sales to Pacific Asia, with a branch going to Daqing). Moreover, according to Kaczmarski et al.,

1 See documentary by Director Robert Prost called, “When Siberia Will be Chinese” (2018).

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Another element that could disrupt Sino-Russian relations in the long term is the growing nationalism in China and related feelings of superiority, if not chauvinism. This is mirrored in Russia in the fear of Chinese expansionism underpinned by feelings of superiority, if not outright racism. (Kaczmarski et al. 2018, 28)

Indeed, as Chinese incomes rise, it becomes less and less palatable for most Chinese to desire living in an environment like the Russian Far East, which most Chinese see as an undesirable environment in which to live and raise a family (many Russians have agreed, hence the net population exodus out of the Russian Far East since the fall of the USSR). These ideas, fears, animosities and historical grievances play an important role in undermining trust on both sides, and some degree of trust is required for a stable strategic partnership and the sort of security relationship necessary for successful balancing behavior. Yet, despite many common interests, such trust is sorely lacking between Moscow and Beijing, no matter what their leaders say. Second, the SRAABA overlooks the issue of politics in both China and Russia. Moscow is drawn inexorably toward the West, where it finds its own identity as quite distinct from that of Asia, and this often guides its policy choices. This was made particularly clear during the early Yeltsin years when the liberal, pro-Western Andrei Kozyrev was Foreign Minister of Russia. By the mid-1990s, Russians had grown weary of what they saw as double standards and empty promises from the West. Thus, Yevgeny Primakov took over Kozyrev’s spot and turned Russia down a new path toward a more assertive and at times confrontational foreign policy toward the West, which Russians had come to believe was taking advantage of it in its post-Soviet fits and starts. With Vladimir Putin taking over as president from Yeltsin in 2000 and the rise of the siloviki (former KGB/FSB intelligence/security specialists whom Putin led and whom he installed in many of Russia’s highest positions), a more hawkish approach to foreign policy became institutionalized in the Kremlin. This built on the new direction Primakov had taken several years earlier, while showing a pragmatism à la Beijing that nurtured state led capitalist reforms, a growing energy sector and an emphasis on positive relations with its neighbors. Despite the pragmatism Putin has exhibited toward China, the SRAABA fails to account for the momentum of Russian politics domestically and the trends of Russian policy internationally that such political

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changes in Moscow have meant for Russian foreign policy, and the way in which politics impacts foreign policy generally.2 After the US invasion of Iraq despite firm Russian and Chinese protests, and what Russia saw as overt US support for “colored revolutions” in former Soviet territories, Moscow began to take a harder line against Washington and the European Union. All of this led Russia to seek closer relations with Beijing. In addition, we should not overlook the role of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), for as important as the SCO is to Beijing and to Moscow, the CSTO is also informative of the politics of security between China and Russia. To the Russians, the CSTO is the preeminent security organization in Central Asia, with membership including Russia, Belarus, Armenia and the four Central Asia states minus Turkmenistan.3 Russia is the leading state therein and China’s attempts to privilege the SCO, with which it shares the leading role with Russia, butt against Russian proclivities to prefer the CSTO for security issues. From a balancing and security perspective, it would make more sense to get China into the security-centric CSTO to add a little heft to it, which is the idea behind balancing.4 However, because of Russia’s desire to remain the key player in Central Asian security issues, it has preferred to put the most important security “eggs” into the basket of the CSTO (where China is not a member) rather than the SCO, keeping Beijing’s security influence at bay. Moscow sees Beijing as an aspiring Central Asian power broker and does not want to cede the leading role in Central Asia to any other power, whether Beijing or Washington. Third, the SRAABA overlooks the pushes and pulls of trade on SinoRussian and Sino-American bilateral relations and the obstacle it poses to Sino-Russian anti-American balancing (Tables 1 and 2).

2 For a good discussion of the domestic politics of Russia’s foreign policy and its relations with China in particular, see Gabuev (2015). For a good discussion of the rise and impact of Putin on Russian politics, see Gessen (2017). 3 Though Uzbekistan left the CSTO in 2012, a good summary of the CSTO can be found at GlobalSecurity.org (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/int/csto. htm). 4 Though, as Peter Krasnopolsky pointed out to me, China would be unlikely to want to join the CSTO in its present incarnation because of its more overt anti-Western slant.

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Table 1 China-Russia trade statistics, 2005–2020 (Billions of U.S. dollars; China’s data)a Total Export Import Balance Total Export Import Balance

2005 29.1 13.2 15.9 −2.7 2013 89.3 49.6 39.7 9.9

2006 33.4 15.8 17.5 −1.7 2014 95.3 53.7 41.6 12.1

2007 48.2 28.5 19.7 8.8 2015 68.2 34.8 33.3 1.5

2008 56.9 33.1 23.8 9.3 2016 66.1 38.1 28.0 10.1

2009 38.7 17.5 21.2 −3.7 2017 84.2 42.8 41.4 1.7

2010 55.5 29.6 25.9 3.7 2018 107.1 48.0 59.1 −11.1

2011 79.3 38.9 40.4 −1.5 2019 110.8 49.7 61.1 −11.3

2012 88.2 44.1 44.2 −0.1 2020 107.8 50.6 57.2 −6.6

a “Balance” here is China-centric, so negative numbers mean China had a negative trade balance, and

positive numbers mean China had a positive trade balance Source www.stats.gov.cn/ (2006–2021)

Table 2 China-U.S. trade statistics, 2005–2020 (Billions of U.S. dollars; China’s data)a Total Export Import Balance Total Export Import Balance

2005 211.5 162.9 48.6 114.3 2013 520.7 368.4 152.3 216.1

2006 262.7 203.4 59.2 144.2 2014 555.1 396.1 159.1 237.0

2007 302.1 232.7 69.4 163.3 2015 557.0 409.2 147.8 261.4

2008 333.7 252.4 81.3 171.1 2016 578.6 462.8 115.8 347.0

2009 298.3 220.8 77.5 143.3 2017 583.7 429.7 153.9 275.8

2010 385.4 283.3 102.1 181.2 2018 633.5 478.4 155.1 323.3

2011 446.6 324.5 122.1 202.4 2019 541.4 418.7 122.7 296.0

2012 484.7 351.8 132.9 218.9 2020 586.7 451.8 134.9 316.9

a “Balance” here is China-centric, so negative numbers mean China had a negative trade balance, and

positive numbers mean China had a positive trade balance Source www.stats.gov.cn/ (2006–2021)

Sino-Russian trade averaged 15.7% of Sino-American trade over this time frame.5 Though some political leaders, whether in Washington, Beijing or Moscow, might say trade is not about politics, trade is an 5 Sino-Russian trade, as a percentage of Sino-American trade, was as follows: 2005 = 14%; 2006 = 13%; 2007 = 16%; 2008 = 17%; 2009 = 13%; 2010 = 14%; 2011 = 18%; 2012 = 18%; 2013 = 17%; 2014 = 17%, 2015 = 12%, 2016 = 11%, 2017 = 14%; 2018 = 17%; 2019 = 20%; 2020 = 18%; averaging 15.7%.

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important part of interest calculation. Moreover, there are important political implications. If a policy pursued damages a trade relationship, such as the Sino-American trade relationship, this is fundamentally important to China’s modernization program. It might even be considered a core interest for Beijing. The US is an important destination for Chinese exports, and without this market, China’s economic modernization and the political stability that underpins it could be seriously threatened. While Chinese leaders occasionally use rhetoric that suggests an alignment with Russia against the US, the trade numbers above speak volumes. They suggest that Chinese leaders face an important impediment to any robust anti-American balancing moves, for Russia could not replace the US in terms of trade for China. This rings truer than ever since 2016, as since then China’s growth rates have remained below 7%, the lowest in years for Beijing, driven even lower in 2020 as a result of the covid pandemic. While China’s growth numbers have rebounded somewhat in late 2020 and in 2021, a continued downward turn in growth rates could threaten stability in China. This is a challenge for Beijing, and even more so with the current China-US trade war, which has at time of writing shown no signs of abating under President Joe Biden. Beyond the pushes and pulls of trade and other interests, balancing behavior seems to need a degree of trust. As Lieberthal and Wang (2012) have famously argued, strategic trust is not in great abundance between Moscow and Beijing. Although certainly Washington is a bigger danger to either of them than any concerns they may have about each other, the political will for a full balancing alliance is not in evidence yet. While there is nothing saying Beijing and Moscow will not at some future date decide to move closer together strategically, the evidence collected here suggests that in the near term this seems unlikely short of something dramatic like a war over Taiwan involving the US (which would very likely drive Beijing further into Moscow’s arms). Moreover, even if events in global politics went in a direction such that China and Russia decided they needed to cooperate in an anti-American coalition, it would not be easy for them to do so, or to maintain such a balancing coalition for long.

Conclusions: A Fragile but Quite Robust Strategic Partnership In trying to understand the dynamics between China, Russia and the United States, a number of factors seem salient. Domestic political trends

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in China and Russia seem to be quite important. What kind of regimes will they become? If they move in democratic directions, it is more likely that a happy triumvirate is possible. If either China or Russia, or both, remain in an authoritarian state of affairs, tension between them and the US (and possibly between them also) seems more likely, and a triangular or Hobbesian dynamic will likely prevail between them and the US. The direction and fate of the global economy also seems important here, for surely crisis and scarcity make relations more difficult between any set of agents than is the case in times of stability and plenty. The ability (in China and Russia in particular) of these three nations to manage nationalism will also be important. Both China and Russia have invested heavily in engendering in their people a strong sense of national narcissism so as to buttress the legitimacy of their leaders and to keep them in power. This is at the core of the narcissistic tendencies in both countries, a function of both Moscow’s and Beijing’s regime insecurity. This may be expedient in the short term, but highly risky in the longer term. Intense nationalism propagation tends to create higher tensions and higher stakes, leaving less room for compromise when conflicts do arise. Also important will be trends in the United States, given the stillover-arching power advantage the US holds. The rise of Donald Trump brought to the United States a new form of nationalism of its own. Although concerned more with the economy, border security and identity politics than power projection, this trend made the US quite prickly at least in the area of trade, as Beijing discovered with the ushering in of the Sino-American trade war and the high-profile prosecutions of charges of Chinese corporate malfeasance concerning the US. With the coming of the Biden Administration, there may be a return to a softer US foreign policy from the perspective of Moscow and Beijing, and there is some evidence to date for that, but it ultimately remains to be seen. If under Biden the US continues its more historically characteristic liberal internationalist baseline foreign policy, it may make amicable relations between the three powers easier to come by. If the US, with motivations coming from either the left or the right, again moves in its foreign policy proclivities in a more interventionist, proactive direction, it will make relations between the three nations more complicated and likely more challenging. In the same way, a China that becomes more aggressive will complicate matters in the trilateral relationship. While it does not appear likely right now, there are some on the right in the US (apparently Donald Trump was among them) who find much to like about Russia, and so it

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is not impossible to imagine the US and Russia coming together at some point in the future as China and the US did in the 1970s and 1980s. This is particularly so if the Ukraine crisis were positively resolved, Russia got new leadership, and/or China proved to be even more assertive in its foreign policy. Though unlikely at present, this is China’s nightmare scenario, and for this reason China will be careful to avoid provoking it. Likewise, a more aggressive Russia, paired with a softer turn in Chinese domestic and international politics policy choices (unlikely as that seems at the present) could tighten the China-US relationship as in the Nixon-Kissinger-Mao days. Yet the problem with a new Sino-American rapprochement is that it assumes away the lingering tensions between China and the US over Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, the South China Sea, cyber-security, intellectual property, trade/fiscal disagreements, etc., all of which make more difficult the strategic cooperation of the sort the two powers enjoyed in the 1980s (Moore 2020). Trade is an important indication of the quality of relations between states as well, and in the realm of trade, it is clear that China and the US have much more at stake presently than do Russia and China. China-US trade in 2019 before Covid totaled US$541.4 billion, while China-Russia trade that year totaled just US$110.8 billion (Chinese State Statistical Bureau 2020). Consequently, while there are many more variables at stake than this, the material pull of trade relations is an important one. Based on recent trade data, while China is Russia’s number one (2012, 2014, 2018; Xinhua 2012) or number two (2017; Workman 2017) trading partner, the relationship between China and Russia is asymmetric. Russia needs China more than China needs Russia, and China is much less dependent on Russian arms today than in the past, as its own arms production has increased (and with a little help from Ukraine). Put another way, it would be very difficult for China to run away from the US and into the arms of Russia given the importance of its trade relations with and investments in the United States. Consequently, despite warm Sino-Russian relations currently, it does not seem that full-on China-Russia alliance or a triumvirate (all three united) will be likely any time in the near future. Most likely is a continuation of the current fragile but extensive strategic partnership between China and Russia. It seems most likely that China and Russia will continue to follow paths of national narcissism, pursuing their own national interests in a utilitarian, hyper-nationalist sort of way, drawing close to each other when it is expedient, but pulling back when it is expedient as well.

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More specifically, while Russia and China appear to have strong antiAmerican solidarity at present and we must take seriously the arguments of scholars like Lukin and Korolev about the robustness of the relationship, we must also remember, as Gilbert Rozman has put it, “Sino-Russian relations may be warm on the outside, tepid on the inside, and chilly underneath” (Rozman 2014, 267). Currently, there is considerable SinoRussian solidarity in the face of European and Western pressure, but their solidarity is fragile and does not have deep roots.

References BBC. 2019. Oxford University Suspends Huawei Donations and Sponsorships, January 17. Available at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46911265. Brown, Christopher. 2005. China’s Central Asian Reach, Statement to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, House International Relations Committee, Washington, DC, December 14. Chan, Steve. 2012. Looking for Balance: China, the United States, and Power Balancing in East Asia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Chinese State Statistical Bureau, Foreign Trade Statistics (2006–2021). Beijing. Available at www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2006/indexch.htm. Dittmer, Lowell. 1981. The Strategic Triangle: An Elementary Game-Theoretical Analysis, World Politics 33 (July, 4): 485–515. Dittmer, Lowell. 2018. China’s Asia: Triangular Dynamics Since the End of the Cold War. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Fu, Ying. 2016. How China sees Russia: Beijing and Moscow Are Close, but Not Allies. Foreign Affairs, February 1. Gabuev, Alexander. 2015. Russia’s Policy Towards China: Key Players and the Decision-Making Process. Carnegie Moscow Center, March 5. Available at http://carnegie.ru/2015/03/05/russia-s-policy-towards-china-keyplayers-and-decision-making-process-pub-59393. Gessen, Masha. 2017. The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. New York: Riverhead Books. Gelb, Leslie, and Dmitri Simes. 2013. A New Anti-American Axis? New York Times, July 6. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opi nion/sunday/a-new-anti-american-axis.html. Hall, Gregory O. 2014. Authority, Ascendancy and Supremacy: China, Russia and the United States’ Pursuit of Relevancy and Power. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Kaczmarski, Marcin. 2018. The Sino-Russian Relationship: Fellow Travellers in the West-Dominated World. China Quarterly 236: 1197–1205. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0305741018001649.

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Partnering Up in the New Cold War? Explaining China-Russia Relations in the Post-Cold War Era Huiyun Feng

Introduction: A New Cold War in the Making? The world is seemingly moving into a new “Cold War” in the 2020s, featuring more geopolitical confrontation and competition than cooperation.1 2021 opened with the major states continuing to fight the COVID pandemic while pandemic-damaged economies are struggling to recover. Hopes of new Biden policies engendering more stability in USRussia-China relations have only met with signs of further deterioration thus far, with more continuity of the Trump era policy toward China and more American sanctions on both China and Russia (Tucker and

H. Feng (B) School of Government and International Relations, Nathan Campus, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] 1 There has been constant reference to the Cold War analogy in the policy and academic world. However, there are also scholars who clearly point out that this Cold War with China is not the same as the original one with Russia (the Soviet Union), because Russian power was never so close to America’s and the economies of China and the US (as well as the rest of the world) have never been so interconnected. For the new Cold War discussions, please see Tisdall (2021) and Rachman (2021).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_4

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Madhani 2021). Recently, Russia deployed and later withdrew 100,000 troops close to the Ukraine border, despite the US/NATO affirmation of support for Ukraine (Cooper and Barnes 2021) [Editor’s note: this chapter was completed before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022]. China flew more sorties over Taiwan’s ADIZ in response to the open American support for Taiwan. After the US-China Anchorage diplomatic showdown, top diplomats from Russia and China met to reiterate their close partnership against the US. Putin and Biden’s meeting in Geneva in June 2021 could not save the relationship from hitting rock bottom. The triangular relationship has tilted, in a different way from the late 1970s, more against the United States, with the China-Russia relationship at the highest point in history (ABC News 2021). 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation. China and Russia have agreed to renew the treaty while emphasizing the principle of non-alliance. However, as China and Russia are coordinating to counter American pressure and threats, is a formal military alliance far from sight? This chapter examines the evolution of Sino-Russian relations after the Cold War to highlight how the convergence and divergence of leaders’ perceptions of threats and economic interests can shape the nature of partnership between two nations. It argues that close economic and military ties between China and Russia have moved them toward “soft balancing” or “soft alliance” (Pape 2005; Paul 2005; Lieber and Alexander 2005; Art et al. 2006) against the United States, although neither of them would officially adopt the discourse of “alliance” (in Chinese 结盟) to define their relationship. Since the establishment of Sino-Russian diplomatic relations after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, the two countries have officially established three types of partnerships: the “constructive partnership” in 1994, the “strategic partnership” in 1996, and the “comprehensive strategic partnership” in 2010. In June 2011, China and Russia established the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, which entered into a new stage in 2014 (Juan 2019). The comprehensive strategic partnership has been moving much closer since 2015, and the Trump administration further pushed Russia and China closer by listing them as strategic competitors in the US National Security Strategy in 2017.

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This chapter suggests that the interplay of external threat perceptions and economic interest perceptions has shaped the level/closeness of the China-Russia partnership versus the United States. Whether China and Russia will move to a hard or formal military alliance largely depends on US policies toward Russia and China in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific, respectively.

The 1994 “Constructive Partnership”---Reducing Mutual Fears After the collapse of the Soviet Union, bilateral relations between China and Russia were dominated by suspicions and fears. As a consequence of the Cold War’s bitter ideological antagonism, China and Russia treated each other as their respective top enemy for over two decades. Although Gorbachev started the Sino-Soviet normalization process through his 1989 visit to Beijing in the middle of student demonstrations, the ensuing demise of the Soviet Union as well as the rise of the anti-communist Yeltsin overshadowed their bilateral relations with both ideological antagonism and strategic distrust. Beijing’s conservative groups were prepared to publicly criticize Gorbachev and condemn the pro-West Yeltsin in the aftermath of the regime change in Moscow. Deng Xiaoping vetoed the conservative groups’ proposal and insisted on normalizing bilateral relations with Russia (Dittmer 2001). Russian foreign policy under Yeltsin was nothing but pro-Western as Yeltsin saw himself as a “democratic hero” against the old communist regime. Given the huge ideological gap and historical antagonism, “few observers anticipated the emergence of close ties between China and Russia in the 1990s” (Wilson 2015, 4). However, in reality, leaders of both countries adopted pragmatic policies toward each other. In December 1991, China recognized the government of the Russian Federation after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Both agreed to fulfill previously arranged obligations, including joint communiqués signed by Gorbachev in 1989 and 1991. In December 1992, Yeltsin paid a state visit to Beijing, and the two countries signed a joint statement declaring that China and Russia regarded each other as “friendly states” who would not allow differences in social systems and ideology to obstruct normal relations between them (Dittmer 1992). The mere fact that the two countries emphasized “friendly states” in the joint statement reveals their deep suspicion and distrust toward each other.

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In September 1994, Jiang Zemin visited Moscow and signed a joint statement to establish a “constructive partnership” with Yeltsin. Although the joint statement covered four areas of bilateral cooperation—political, economic, military, and international—the major purpose of the “constructive partnership” was to reduce mutual fears originating from reciprocal uncertainties and threats. One major document during Jiang’s visit declared that the two countries would not target their strategic nuclear weapons against each other. In addition, the two sides reached an agreement to continue mutual reduction of armed forces in their border area. Along with the continuous border demarcation between the two states that originated in the 1991 agreement, the two countries gradually reduced direct military threats between each other along their 7000 km long border. Second, this “constructive partnership” was not rooted in common external threats and economic interests between the two countries, but rather in the domestic needs of both. China was recovering from Western economic sanctions after Tiananmen. Deng’s famous “Southern Tour” kept China on the course of economic reform and opening-up. Maintaining a peaceful external environment for economic modernization remained the top priority for the Chinese leadership in the early 1990s (Zhao 1993). Therefore, reducing mutual distrust and threats with its northern neighbor fit China’s national strategy of economic growth and reform. In Russia, the harsh reality of an economic downturn after Yeltsin’s failed marketization and privatization programs, and the cold shoulder from the West, damaged Yeltsin’s reputation and credibility as a democratic fighter in Russian domestic politics. Consequently, Yeltsin was caught in a power struggle with members of the legislative branch over control of the government. Yeltsin ordered the military to shell the parliament building during the famous “constitutional crisis” in October 1993. Yeltsin’s hardline approach helped consolidate his power, and the later constitutional referendum further strengthened his control of the Russian government. Being preoccupied with domestic struggles, Yeltsin hoped to maintain a good diplomatic relationship with China (Mankoff 2009; Tsygankov 2010; Hopf 1999). Therefore, Yeltsin proposed the “constructive partnership” with China in his New Year’s letter to Jiang in December 1993 because a peaceful border with China would save him much time and energy to focus on domestic challenges.

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China and Russia did emphasize economic, political, and even strategic cooperation in international affairs in their joint statement along with the “constructive partnership” pledge. However, these proposals seemed more rhetorical and diplomatic in nature given Russia’s domestic disarray and China’s inward-looking foreign policy after 1989. Bilateral trade reached US$7.67 billion in 1993 but dropped dramatically to US$5.08 billion as a result of Russian-government-imposed visa restrictions on the Chinese (Wilson 2015). Although Russian arms sales to China increased dramatically in the 1990s, as some scholars point out, it was by no means the “driving force of the relationship” (Wilson 2015, 12; see also Donaldson and Nogee 2009; Donaldson and Donaldson 2003). Obviously, arms sales alone were not sufficient to form common economic interests between the two nations.

The 1996 Strategic Partnership: Driven by a Common Threat Soon after China and Russia formed the “constructive partnership” in 1994, the security situation dramatically changed for both. While China experienced the third Taiwan crisis from July 1995 to March 1996, which nearly escalated into serious military confrontation with the United States, Russia faced tremendous strategic pressures from both NATO’s eastward expansion and the first Chechen War. Consequently, the common threat from the West, especially the United States, pushed China and Russia to move closer on the security front. The Taiwan crisis was triggered by Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui’s visit to Cornell University in 1995. Under the “one China” policy, the US government assured the Chinese Foreign Minister that Lee would not be issued a visa (Lampton 2001). However, the US Congress pressured the Clinton administration, which eventually broke its promise to the Chinese government. Lee visited the United States in June and delivered a speech on “Taiwan’s democratization experience,” which was treated by the Chinese government as Taiwan’s pro-independence statement. Consequently, China conducted a series of military exercises and missile tests across the Taiwan Straits from July 1995 to March 1996 to demonstrate its military resolve against Taiwan’s independence movement, particularly targeting Taiwan’s presidential election in March 1996, in which Lee was a front runner (Ross 2000). The Chinese government may have hoped

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that China’s military intimidation would dissuade Taiwanese voters from supporting the pro-independence Lee. However, China’s military intimidation proved counterproductive. Lee won the election and the United States also intervened. Because 1996 was also an election year in the United States, Clinton did not want to appear weak facing China’s hawkish policy toward Taiwan. On March 8, Clinton sent two aircraft carriers to the Taiwan Straits area to show US support for Taiwan. Although the Taiwan crisis finally calmed down when Beijing ended its military intimidation, the China-US relationship dropped to its lowest point since Tiananmen (Garver 1997; Suettinger 2003; Mann 2000). On April 17, the United States signed a joint declaration with Japan to strengthen the US-Japanese security alliance. Although both the United States and Japan publicly denied that the US-Japanese alliance targeted China, for Chinese leaders the United States had become the most threatening state to China’s security (Yan 2000). The United States also vexed Russia in Europe. Yeltsin was proWestern and pro-US, hoping to join the Western club to boost his domestic status. However, Yeltsin and other Russian elites soon realized a declining Russia was not welcomed by either the European Union or NATO. Instead, the Russian traditional sphere of influence was penetrated by Western powers led by the United States. The Council of Europe admitted six former Soviet satellites in 1993 and opened the door for them to join the European Union. In 1994, NATO proposed to admit three former Eastern European satellites, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1997. However, when Yeltsin suggested that Russia be considered for memberships in both the European Union and NATO, the answer was a clear “no” (Goldgeier and McFaul 2003). To a certain extent, Yeltsin and other Russian elites felt betrayed by the West, especially the United States. This disappointment toward the West gradually turned into strong resentment in Russian society. A public opinion survey showed that 44% of the elites and 75% of the population believed that the Russian economy was essentially in foreign hands. In addition, during 1993–1995, the number of those viewing the United States as a threat increased from 26 to 44% among the general public and from 27 to 53% among elites (Zimmerman 2002, 91). The common security threat from the United States convinced China and Russia to form a “partnership of strategic coordination based on equality and trust and oriented toward the 21st century” during Yeltsin’s

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summit in Beijing on April 25, 1996. The timing of this strategic partnership could not be more symbolic, because it was one month after the Taiwan crisis and about one week after the US-Japanese joint declaration of strengthening their security alliance. Although China and Russia claimed that their strategic partnership did not target any third party, the joint statement advocated the development of the trend “toward a multipolar world” (Chinese Foreign Ministry 1991). Compared to the military alliance between the United States and Japan, the Sino-Russian strategic partnership was only symbolic in nature. However, it reflected a shared perception of external threats from the United States and indicated further security-oriented cooperation between China and Russia. On April 26, China and Russia signed a treaty to enhance military confidence-building measures together with three Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in Shanghai. This so-called Shanghai Five signed another treaty of reduction of military forces in border regions in Moscow in April 1997. The significance of the Shanghai Five and the security arrangements along the borders was to further reduce mutual distrust among these five neighboring states, especially between China and Russia (Chung 2010, Chapter 5). In December 1996, Russia and China reached a series of arms sales agreements, including the Su-27 licensing and the sale of Sovremennyi class destroyers to China. Moreover, they also signed a military technology transfer agreement. However, economic cooperation and trade volume did not move along with increased security-oriented cooperation, which indicates a lack of common economic interests in bilateral relations. For example, the total trade volume in 1999 was $5.7 billion, which was even less than that in 1992 ($5.8 billion) (Wilson 2015, 33). Although the 1998 Asian financial crisis was one of the key reasons for the sudden downfall of bilateral trade in 1999, the low level of bilateral trade through the 1990s reflected divergent economic interests between the two countries. Another example is the fruitless discussions and negotiations on energy cooperation between China and Russia. Although Russian oil and gas are two major commodities that China demanded and longed for, neither the government nor the energy sector in Russia had high hope on the prospects of energy collaboration with China (Yu 2007). Clearly any meaningful economic cooperation needed them to work together. However, either bureaucratic or strategic reasons precluded Russia from being on the same page with China regarding economic cooperation, especially on energy, in the 1990s.

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This threat-rooted security partnership continued to strengthen in the second half of the 1990s. The US-led Kosovo intervention and NATO’s expansion in 1999 despite Russia’s furious opposition cornered Yeltsin strategically and politically (Goldgeier and McFaul 2003). In 1999, Russia’s National Security Council drafted a new version of the National Security Concept, which was officially signed by Putin in January 2000 after Yeltsin resigned. The document claimed that “NATO’s assumption, as its strategic doctrine, of the practice of the use of (military) force beyond the alliance’s area of responsibility and without the sanction of the UN Security Council may destabilize the strategic situation in the world” (in Tsygankov 2005, 134). The invocation of NATO’s military action without UN authorization is a clear reference to the Kosovo War. China originally refrained from direct involvement in the Kosovo War, the “embassy bombing” incident dragged it into the crisis. Chinese leaders were also deeply concerned that Kosovo-style “humanitarian intervention” might happen in China’s separatist regions, such as Tibet, Xinjiang, and even Taiwan (Yan 2001; Jia 2005; He 2009). Moreover, Chinese leaders and the public were furious about the “embassy bombing” and the US wrong-map excuse. Soaring nationalist sentiments triggered large-scale anti-America protests in China, during which US embassy and consulates were damaged by angry protesters (Swaine and Zhang 2006). The Chinese government quickly reversed the downfall of Sino-US relations and reached a WTO accession agreement with the United States in 2000 after long and tough negotiations. However, the 2001 EP-3 mid-air collision further confirmed the threat perception of Chinese leaders and general public toward the United States (Swaine and Zhang 2006). Coincidentally, China and Russia signed a “Treaty of GoodNeighborliness and Friendly Cooperation” in July 2001 about three months after the EP-3 incident. Although the treaty included nothing new except reemphasizing their “strategic partnership,” it laid a legal foundation for the two countries to strengthen their security-oriented cooperation. For example, the treaty stated that both countries were committed to “upholding the global strategic balance and maintenance of security… strengthening the role of the United Nations in the maintenance of peace and development” (Chinese Foreign Ministry 1991). These commitments implied a common strategic stand in opposing US missile defense systems and the Kosovo intervention.

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The 2001–2004 “Aloof Relations”: Economy, not Security The 9/11 terrorist attack changed the world as well as Sino-Russian relations in the early 2000s. Both Russia and China supported the US “War on Terror.” They adjusted their threat perceptions of the United States, which undermined the security bond in their bilateral relations. Although tactical security cooperation continued, they appeared aloof from each other, barely sustaining an economic partnership with lethargic and unimpressive economic interactions. Putin turned his attention to domestic development, including economic growth and regional stability. High oil and gas prices allowed him to sustain high economic growth for his first two presidential terms until 2008 (Sputnik International 2008). Putin’s major headache in the early 2000s was Chechen separatism and related terrorist attacks. In the 1999 Chechen War, Putin as Russian Prime Minister played a leading role in directing military actions. From 2000, Putin as President continued to rank separatism and the associated terrorism as a top national security priority. It is arguable whether Putin had inputs from key decision makers, senior leaders, or military officers earlier in office, but he was able to quickly consolidate power and assemble strong support around him. On international affairs, Putin adopted a “multivectored” foreign policy, aimed at developing relations with all countries, including the United States (Lo 2004). After the September 11 tragedies, a similar bitter experience against terrorism moved Putin closer to the United States. Although threats from the United States and NATO may have never disappeared in Putin’s mind, the common interests in counterterrorism reduced or diverted Putin’s threat perceptions regarding the West. As some scholars pointed out, Putin’s support of the United States in fighting terrorism was not “tactical, but came from his principal belief system” (Tsygankov 2005, 132). Policy-wise, Russia not only agreed to share intelligence information on terrorism and open up airspace to relief missions, but also endorsed the US military presence in Central Asia. China’s threat perception regarding the United States also changed, although not as dramatically as Russia’s. Since the 1995–1996 Taiwan crisis, the Taiwan issue has been the major obstacle in US-China relations. The Kosovo War heightened Chinese leaders’ suspicions and even fears about US policy toward Taiwan in the future. During his presidential

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campaign in 2000, Bush named China a “strategic competitor” rather than a potential “strategic partner” as the Clinton administration did in the late 1990s. On assuming office in 2001, Bush even publicly stated that he would offer “whatever it took” to help Taiwan defend itself if China invaded the island (Sanger 2001). Although the US State Department clarified within hours after Bush’s statement that the United States had not changed its Taiwan policy, Chinese leaders were still put on alert to a possible US policy shift with implications for China’s security in the future. Soon after the September 11 attacks, China expressed support for the US fight against terrorists. China voted for the anti-terrorism resolutions in the UN Security Council, which granted the US a rationale to conduct military actions in Afghanistan. China helped the United States freeze financial transactions of terrorist suspects in Chinese banks. At the 2001 APEC summit, China supported the US request to include the antiterrorist cause in the joint statement. Moreover, China permitted the US to open its first FBI office in Beijing, to facilitate “cooperation and coordination of US efforts on counter-terrorism, trans-national crime, and drug trafficking” (US Department of State 2004). Nevertheless, China’s support for the US War on Terror did not change Chinese leaders’ threat perception of the United States, especially on the Taiwan issue. Unlike Chechnya and the related terrorist activities for Russia, the Taiwan issue is in a different category from global terrorism. While Putin might share a similar feeling against terrorism with the United States, Chinese leaders were more concerned over what the United States would do after its victory over terrorism. American superior military capabilities shown in both the Kosovo War and the anti-terrorism campaign deepened Chinese leaders’ threat perceptions regarding the United States; therefore, China started to increase its defense budget after the Taiwan crisis and continued to do so into the 2000s in order to modernize its military capabilities (He 2009). The divergent threat perceptions between Russia and China led to a temporary “aloof” status in their partnership. Although the 1996 strategic partnership statement mentioned that Russia and China would coordinate in security affairs, it was reported that there was “only minimal consultation” between Moscow and Beijing when Russia encouraged the Central Asian republics to provide military facilities for the US war on terror (Lo 2004, 299). Since Central Asia is close to China’s Xinjiang autonomous region, US military presence and power penetration in the

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region would have indicated a higher threat to China than to Russia. In January 2002, the United States formally announced its withdrawal from the ABM treaty. Putin’s “relaxed attitude” surprised China because the US action was a clear challenge to the common stand between China and Russia against US anti-missile defense systems. Moreover, in May 2002, Russia signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty with the United States. As a “strategic partner” of Russia, China felt betrayed by Russia’s “sole dancing” with the United States (Lo 2008). As one scholar points out, Putin’s pro-American policy after September 11 “caused genuine consternation in Beijing” (Merry 2003, 29). However, Sino-Russian trade increased dramatically after Putin came to power. Bilateral trade rose from US$8 billion in 2000 to US$21.2 billion in 2004 and continued to grow through most of the 2000s. During Putin’s 2001 visit to Beijing, the two states signed an agreement to conduct a feasibility study for the construction of a 1,700-km oil pipeline and to give the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom permission to construct a gas pipeline in China. This agreement was a breakthrough for RussianChinese energy cooperation in the early 2000s. Even though China had a huge demand for oil and gas, Russia had appeared reluctant to start the pipeline construction with China. Furthermore, the development of energy cooperation was by no means smooth between China and Russia, because Russia started to play the energy card between China and Japan. Japan as a net energy importer was also eager for Russian oil and gas. Therefore, Japan offered Russia billions of dollars for a pipeline to Russia’s Pacific coast instead of one to northeastern China. In 2003, Russia finally decided to build two pipelines to both China’s Daqing province in Northeast China and Russia’s Pacific port of Nakhodka, which can provide oil to China and other Asian markets, including Japan and Korea (Jakobson et al. 2011). A major reason for the rapid growth of bilateral trade and economic cooperation is Putin’s “authoritarian” control of energy sectors during his presidency. After the Beslan hostage crisis in September of 2004, Putin gained legitimacy to tighten Moscow’s central control. Consequently, the central administration also started to regain control over the dispensation of natural resources. Since natural resources, including oil and gas, are the major trading commodities from Russia to China, increasing central control over the energy sector had in reality facilitated economic cooperation between the two nations because the disruptions

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from local authorities over bilateral economic cooperation were minimized (Lotspeich 2010). The energy deals as well as the increasing trade volume in the early 2000s indicated gradually converging economic interests between Russia and China. However, Russian economic difficulties and suspicions of Chinese immigrants in the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia regions shadowed and constrained the emerging common economic interests. Soon after the US initiated the war in Iraq in 2003, Russian and Chinese threat perceptions converged once again over the intentions of the United States. Russia joined France and Germany in the Security Council to block US attempts to seek authorization from the UN for its war in Iraq (Cheng 2009). In 2004, NATO admitted seven countries, including three former Soviet Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as new members after the 1997 enlargement. Russia’s furious opposition to such an enlargement terminated the short honeymoon between Russia and the United States after 9/11. As Reuben Steff and Nicholas Khoo (2014) point out, Russia therefore started its internal “hard balancing” against the American threat, especially regarding the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems in the 2010s. The end of the Russian-US rapprochement unleashed new momentum in the Sino-Russian partnership. The two states started to strengthen their security-oriented cooperation. In June 2005, China and Russia exchanged ratifications of the Supplementary Agreement on the Eastern Section of the China-Russia Boundary Line. This agreement conclusively settled their border demarcation problems. In July 2005, Hu and Putin released a Sino-Russian Joint Statement on New World Order in the twentyfirst century. In the joint statement, the two countries called on the United Nations to “play a leading role in global affairs” and stated that “the international community should completely renounce the mentality of confrontation and alliance; there should be no pursuit of monopoly or domination of world affairs” (People’s Daily 2005). Apparently, the implicit target of this joint statement was the United States and the US-Iraq War. If the 2005 joint statement was only rhetorical, substantial Russian and Chinese military cooperation followed in the second half of the 2000s. For example, the two countries conducted their first-ever joint military exercise “Peace Mission-2005” in August 2005. In 2007, China and Russia with all other members in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conducted a joint anti-terror military exercise—“Peace Mission

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2007.” It was the first joint military exercise within the framework of the SCO. Although publicly denying that the SCO was a military alliance, it was the only regional security arrangement without direct involvement of the United States. The military exercise among the SCO members was to strengthen their military ties with one another. Despite disagreements and even competition (Lo 2008), Russia and China’s close military cooperation in the SCO served the security interests of both countries well, especially against US threats.

The 2010 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership: US Threats Plus Economic Interests The 2008 Georgian War further strained the relationship between Russia and the West, especially with the United States. Although China’s relationship with the United States stabilized in Bush’s second term and at the beginning of the Obama administration, it deteriorated in 2009 when China’s assertive diplomacy was widely criticized and the United States started its “pivot toward Asia.” The Sino-Russian relationship entered a new phase of “full partnership” driven by convergent perceptions of external threats and economic interests. The 2008 Georgian War between Russia and Georgia was a proxy “war” between Russia and the West, although the West, especially the United States, did not send troops to the battlefield (Asmus 2010). The Georgian War originated from the “colored revolutions” in the former Soviet republics, such as Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan in 2003–2005, in which pro-Western opposition politicians overthrew the pro-Russian incumbent leaders. During the war on terror, the United States had established military bases in Central Asia and dispatched military advisors to Georgia. Georgia adopted a pro-Western policy and tried to bid for NATO membership at the end of 2008. Two weeks before the outbreak of the Georgian War, the United States and Russia conducted two parallel military exercises in the region. In the later Russian-Georgian military conflicts, Russia invaded the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. Soon after the conflict, Russia claimed to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. Although the United States strongly condemned the Russian invasion, it did not get directly involved. Instead, the United States led NATO to send humanitarian aid to Georgia. Soon after the Georgian War, Russia publicly claimed that it had privileged interests in

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certain regions, implying the CIS region (Mankoff 2009, 31). This statement can be seen as Russia’s “Monroe doctrine,” which aimed to push the United States and European countries out of its sphere of influence. From the Georgian War, Russian relations with the West have continued to deteriorate. The 2013 Ukraine crisis and the later annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014 were further evidence of Russian concerns over its sphere of influence against Western penetration. Western economic sanctions after the Ukraine crisis led to massive devaluation of the Russian currency and the later economic crisis. Russian relations with the West dropped to a post-Soviet nadir after the 2013–14 Ukraine crisis. Since 2008, many Western scholars and politicians have criticized Beijing’s assertiveness in its diplomacy toward the outside world (Shambaugh 2010; Mann 2010; Bisley 2011). Economically, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao lectured the US on its economic mismanagement during the 2008 financial meltdown and refused to re-value the Chinese currency as the US requested (Pomfret 2010). Diplomatically, China responded furiously to Obama’s decisions on arms sales to Taiwan and meeting with the Dalai Lama in early 2010 with a threat of sanctions on American companies. Politically, China reluctantly cooperated with Western countries, especially the United States, to punish North Korean and Iranian nuclear provocations to the international order. Many other examples, from the diplomatic standoff between China and the Philippines to its announcement of the East China Sea “Air Defense Identification Zone” (ADIZ), have been listed as indications of China’s assertive behavior since 2008 (Swaine 2010, 2011; Swaine and Taylor Fravel 2011; Perlez 2012; Johnston 2013). Starting in 2009, President Obama initiated the US “pivot” or “rebalancing” toward Asia, aiming to strengthen US multi-dimensional engagement in the region. Militarily, the United States boosted its ties with traditional allies—Japan, Australia, and South Korea. Politically, the United States joined the East Asian Summit and backed ASEAN countries in the South China Sea disputes with China. Economically, Obama promoted the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with its Asian allies and close economic partners, while intentionally excluding China. For Chinese leaders, Obama’s “pivot” to Asia clearly aimed to contain China’s rise despite the US government’s denial (Nathan and Scobell 2012a, b; Wang and Lieberthal 2012; Yan 2013). The Georgian War for Russia and Obama’s rebalancing to Asia for China again demonstrated that the common threat perception from the

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United States can move Sino-Russian relations dramatically closer. In September 2010, Russia and China signed a joint statement to upgrade their “strategic partnership” to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” and Russia confirmed that the bilateral relationship with China was one of the priorities of its foreign policy. Meanwhile, trade ties also strengthened shared economic interests. China has become Russia’s top trading partner since 2009, while Russia was China’s seventh biggest trading partner in 2014. In February 2009, China and Russia signed their largest-ever energy cooperation agreement in Beijing. According to the agreement, China would loan US$15 billion and US$10 billion, respectively, to OAO Rosneft Oil Company (Rosneft) and Russia Oil Pipeline Transport Company (Transneft), while Russia would export 300 million tons of crude oil from 2011 to 2030 and build an oil pipeline heading to China (Guan and Sha 2009). In 2014, the two countries signed a US$400 billion natural gas agreement. Compared to the stagnant energy cooperation in the 1990s and 2000s, these two deals represent a real breakthrough in economic cooperation between the two nations. Their economic relations are no longer the “weakest link” in bilateral relations, as some scholars indicated in the 1990s and the 2000s (Wilson 2010; Yu 2007). In 2012, Putin made China his first state visit destination after he reassumed the presidential office (Ding 2012). In 2013, Xi returned the honor with his first state visit to Russia. This “first-state-visit” tradition implied the significance of bilateral relations on both countries’ foreign policy agenda (Ding 2013). During his visit, Xi signed 20 agreements with Russia on a wide range of issues: trade, economy, energy, investment, local cooperation, cultural exchange, and environmental protection. The two countries also emphasized mutual support for each other’s core interests concerning sovereignty and territorial integrity. In practice, China and Russia also conducted coordination and cooperation on many international issues. For example, they held a common stand on the Iran and Syria issues in the United Nations. Since 2007, China and Russia have vetoed resolutions together six times in the United Nations and four times on the resolution related to the West-initiated draft resolutions against Syria (the other two vetoes China used were on Myanmar in 2007 and Zimbabwe in 2008).

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America’s New Cold War with China and Russia In the late 2010s, American pressure on China and Russia intensified toward a New Cold War phase,2 featuring multiple fronts: militarily with Russia over Ukraine and with China over Taiwan, East China Sea and South China Sea, an economic/tech competition front with China, as well as a human rights front with both Russia and China. The intensified perception of a common threat from the United States has pushed China and Russia to further strengthen their comprehensive strategic partnership and stand strong against the US and the West. Ukraine is a main turning point in the US perception of Russia. As McFaul (2020, 95) notes, “After Putin annexed Crimea … Russia and the US, as well as Russia and the West, have clashed.” The USRussian relationship was at its worst when Trump took office, and the two powers almost ran into military conflict in Syria (Trenin 2019). Despite personal warmth between Trump and Putin, the Russian meddling in the 2016 American presidential election, and the investigations into Trump’s Russian connection rendered the 2017 Hamburg G20 meeting of Trump and Putin fruitless. Congress passed new sanctions on Russia and there was not even a meeting of the two leaders at the 2019 Argentina G20. As Trenin (2019) points out, there seems to be only one item left on the agenda between the US and Russia, which is to avoid “a direct military collision between the two countries’ militaries, either as a result of an incident—say, in Syria, or of an escalation of the simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine.” [Editor’s note: this chapter was completed before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.] Russian withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty on January 15, 2021, following the US pullout in November 2020. The Russia-US relationship is presently showing no signs of improvement because “Putin and his close associates have consistently argued that the United States is out to get them and that the current international order is unfair to Russia” (Taylor 2021). As the long-time Russia watcher Goldgeier (2021) points out, even good diplomacy cannot smooth a clash of interests between the two nations.

2 The Trump administration’s policy toward Russia presents a more complicated picture than the one documented by media reports. However, the general tone from Trump was conciliatory toward Russia from the beginning, although it changed to more confrontational after the relevant Russian collusion investigations.

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After Biden assumed office in Washington, the bilateral relationship between the US and Russia further deteriorated. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that relations between Moscow and Washington have “hit the bottom” (MacKinnon 2021a) with Biden’s new sanctions for Russian interference in US election in 2020 (again), cyberattacks on US federal agencies and corporate entities, the poisoning and imprisonment of Alexey Navalny, and above all, the emerging military crisis on the Ukraine front. The April 2021 American new sanction measures include the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and intelligence officers in Washington and sanctions on six technology companies for supporting Russia’s foreign intelligence service. However, “the new sanctions are hardly a body blow to the finances of Russian President Vladimir Putin” (MacKinnon 2021a), and Russia retaliated by recalling its Ambassador to Washington and sanctioning American diplomats. For China, the American threat intensified into the late 2010s too. In order to realize “America first,” Trump initiated an all-out confrontation with China. Despite early summit meetings between Trump and Xi, Trump was determined to take on China, particularly China’s trade surplus. In 2018, Trump started a trade war with China. A tech war between the two nations followed, with Huawei and over three dozen Chinese companies on the US government blacklist. Despite the high level of interdependence between the world’s largest economies, the trade war escalated, with ripple effects on American allies (for instance, Australia). On the security front, Trump reinvigorated the QUAD protoalliance to contain China with American close allies and partners in its new Indo-Pacific strategy. The COVID pandemic further exacerbated the US-China confrontation, with Trump referring to COVID-19 publicly as the “China Flu” or “China Virus,” challenging the origin of the virus and criticizing the Chinese government for spreading the pandemic to the world. America increased the frequency of freedom of navigation operation rounds (FONOPs) in the South China Sea, sent in the 7th fleet to the Taiwan Straits, and conducted more joint military exercises with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region. President Biden is largely continuing the Trump administration’s policies toward China. Although both Beijing and Moscow challenge the rules-based international order, Beijing is threatening the international leadership of the United States in the long run. As Biden clearly stated, “we [the US and China] need not have a conflict.” But there will be “extreme competition” (AP News 2021) and “We [the US] must

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prepare together for a long-term strategic competition,” with Beijing (Ashford 2021). Consequently, the United States elevated its relationship with Taiwan through arms sales and exchanges of high-level official visits, supported small Southeast Asian claimants against China in the South China Sea disputes, reinforced the US-Japan alliance in view of the East China Sea disputes, and touted support for Australia in its trade disputes with China. In June 2021, the Biden administration ordered the intelligence agencies to look into the Wuhan lab theory of COVID origin. Strategically speaking, the United States seems to continue taking on both Russia and China under the Biden administration. As David Sanger (2021) said, “Competition with China and containment of Russia were the subtext of the president’s call for action.” Biden’s administration has mostly continued Trump’s policy toward China and Russia, and in March 2021 published the “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance” highlighting “the strategic challenges from an increasingly assertive China and destabilizing Russia” (White House 2021), while in April 2021 the “National Threat Intelligence Assessment 2021” identified China and Russia as threat (Office of the Director of National Intelligence 2021). Furthermore, the United States framed its confrontation with Russia and competition with China as democracy versus authoritarian regimes. Facing intensified common threats from the US, China-Russian relations have been further strengthened. A joint Chicago Council on Global Affairs-Levada Analytical Center survey shows that Russians see little downside in Russia’s relationship with China (Sneltz et al. 2021) and for Russia, “Closer alignment with Beijing is, pragmatically, a strategic imperative for Moscow: as a counterweight offsetting Russia’s post-2014 estrangement from the US and European Union, and the associated negative political and economic ramifications” (Hill 2021). In addition to joint military exercises and collaboration in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, China and Russia coordinated their efforts in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasian Economic Union (Wilson 2019). Each side is careful in their stands on the sensitive issues of the other side, such as Ukraine and the South China Sea. Each supported the other side’s military parades celebrating the World War II victory. Each kept the other informed about their respective meetings with the US and reassured the other party before and after such communications with the US. For example, Lavrov visited Guilin after the US-China Alaska meeting and Xi and Putin signed a nuclear station deal when Putin and Biden were to meet in Ireland at the Arctic Council meeting. Russia and

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China are also developing a joint lunar space station in the new space competition. Interestingly, the increasing threats from the United States also encouraged Russia and China to find more common interests in economic cooperation. The bilateral trade between Russia and China retained at around $100b in 2020 despite the COVID impact and looks set to reach $200b in 2036 (TASS 2021). As Putin said, Russia and China have a lot of coinciding interests, and one of the key areas is economic cooperation (TASS 2021). In a phone call at the end of 2020, Xi and Putin vowed to strengthen “strategic coordination” as the world enters “an era of global turbulence,” in a reference to the challenges posed by the US (Bloomberg News 2021). Besides moving closer to one another, both China and Russia are turning more assertive, and even confrontational toward the US (Hoang and Nguyen 2021). The early April 2021 Russian military build-up near Ukraine’s border is the largest since 2014 [Editor’s note: this chapter was completed before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022]. It seems Russia is preparing for war in response to Ukraine’s declaration of its intention to retake Crimea (MacKinnon 2021b).3 But it might also be a show of force to the Biden administration. Although an all-out invasion was not deemed likely at the time, “Western leaders are clearly rattled” (MacKinnon 2021b).4 Russia also humiliated the European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell on his trip to Moscow and showed strong resolve with the decision to indefinitely recall the Russian ambassador to the United States for consultations (MacKinnon 2021b). China also turned much more aggressive over Taiwan through large-scale military exercises and frequent aerial incursions. A Guardian (Tisdall 2021) article even indicates that the Russian and Chinese actions are coordinated to challenge the US—who is fighting internal crises, COVID, and political divisions. The balance of the geopolitical picture seems to be tilting toward the Sino-Russian alignment against the weakening US, despite the latter’s efforts to rebuild its relationship with partners and allies.

3 Ukrainian President Zelensky signed decree No. 117/2021 on March 24, 2021, making the retaking of Crimea official Ukraine policy, and also starting military preparations. 4 As MacKinnon (2021b) points out, “The reason for the build-up remains unclear, but experts point to domestic factors in Russia, Ukraine, and the United States.”

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Conclusion Looking at the China-Russia relationship in the post-Cold War era, this chapter suggests that the ups and downs in the partnership are shaped by two perceptual factors: external threats and economic interests. When the two countries do not have shared external threats and economic interests, their partnership mainly aims to reduce mutual distrust and fears generated by the anarchical logic of the international system in the early 1990s. When the two countries faced a common security threat from the US, their “strategic partnership” of 1996 was oriented more toward security cooperation. When the two countries shared a convergent view on economic interests after the 9/11 tragedies, the partnership focused more on economic cooperation due to the divergence of threat perceptions regarding the United States. Finally, when the two countries held convergent views on both external threats and economic interests, their comprehensive strategic partnership was more about strengthening cooperation in both security and economic arenas. Sino-Russian relations after the mid-2010s moved toward increasing cooperation as both countries faced mounting pressures and threats from the United States and NATO.5 The sanctions on Russia and the trade war with China from Trump’s time have certainly injected new momentum, and both Chinese and Russian leaders and elites agree that their bilateral ties have reached the “best level in history.”6 The common threats and economic interests have mutually reinforced the strengthening of bilateral relations between the two nations. Will this partnership become a formal military alliance against the United States or challenge the Western order in the future? The answer depends on what the United States will do. If the United States continuously pushes Russia through NATO, as happened with the British destroyer in Crimea, as well as challenging China on the Taiwan issue, it will certainly drive Russia and China toward as fast a “military alliance as possible” (Isachenkov 2020). As Putin stated at the 17th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in 2020, “China and Russia don’t necessarily need a military union, but it could be a possibility to imagine it” (Wenwen and Hui 2020). In other words, if the United States tries to take down both 5 NATO named Russia an existential threat and China a systemic threat. See Nikkei Asia (2021). 6 See also Bloomberg News (2021).

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Russia and China simultaneously, it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy: the current soft alliance by China and Russia might lead to a real military alliance against the United States. The coming Cold War will accelerate US decline instead of saving US hegemony.

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Deductive Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations

China’s and Russia’s New Status Relationship Deborah Welch Larson

On May 9, 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping stood beside Russian President Vladimir Putin to watch the Victory Day parade of 16,000 soldiers and 140 aircraft streaming overhead to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the Soviet victory over Germany. Only 27 dignitaries attended, less than half the number that had observed the previous ceremony a decade earlier. Xi was clearly the guest of honor, the most eminent of the world heads of state who did attend. With Western leaders boycotting the event in protest against the Russian annexation of Crimea, Putin dramatized his close relationship with Xi as if to convey the impression that he had a much more powerful partner than the Western countries (Hille et al. 2015). Chinese media emphasized that President Xi was seated in the first row next to Putin at the Red Square parade, and that he was “the most honorable guest of honor.” Some Chinese reports translated a quote from a Russian news agency: “The attendance of Xi Jinping is much more important than the absence of Obama and European leaders.” In September 2015, Putin attended a lavish military parade

D. W. Larson (B) Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_5

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in Beijing to commemorate the World War II victory, although most countries sent lower-level officials. A Russian NTV journalist observed that “Putin is the main guest of the celebration—number one among twenty other official guests of the parade” (Repnikova 2015, 810). What explains recent Sino-Russian cooperation? Is the friendship between Xi and Putin the beginning of an alliance designed to balance against the United States? Cooperation between China and Russia is the most recent shift in a relationship that has oscillated between friendship and enmity (Radchenko 2009; Larson and Shevchenko 2019, 97–101, 110–118). Given a history of ups and downs, many scholars have regarded the Sino-Russian relationship as an “axis of convenience,” based on pragmatic considerations and shifting interests (Lo 2008). Yet relations between Russia and China have become warmer under the joint leadership of Putin and Xi. Xi’s first foreign visit after becoming president was to Russia. In May 2014, after a decade of negotiations and despite Western sanctions, Putin and Xi signed an agreement estimated at $400 billion whereby Gazprom pledged to provide the China National Petroleum Corporation 38 billion centimeters (bcm) of gas per year over 30 years and to construct a pipeline to China, the Power of Siberia, with Chinese financing (Perlez 2014). In 2015, Moscow agreed to allow Beijing to purchase its advanced S-400 air defense system and SU-35 fighter jets (Gabuev 2016b, 23– 24). While China and Russia had carried out military training since 2005, they began joint naval exercises in 2012, the Mediterranean in 2015, the South China Sea in 2016, and in the Baltic Sea and Sea of Japan in 2017 (Unlikely Partners 2017). In September 2018, Moscow conducted its largest war games in Russia since 1981, involving 300,000 Russian troops in Siberia and eastern Russia, with participation of 3,200 Chinese troops (Foy 2018a, b). As their troops carried out simulated conflict against a notional enemy, Putin and Xi Jinping ate caviar and pancakes and toasted each other with vodka. They pledged their cooperation in international affairs and opposition to unilateralism and trade protectionism (Russia and China 2018). The two states formally designate their relationship as a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era” (Hale 2021). According to offensive realists, a rising China will eventually try to dominate East Asia (Mearsheimer 2001; Friedberg 2011). As the weaker power, Russia should therefore try to align with the United States, or at least refrain from assertive actions. Defensive realists (Glaser 2015), on

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the other hand, predict that China’s rise will be peaceful because of the constraints of the international system and nuclear weapons. Balance of threat theory (Walt 1987) might explain Sino-Russian cooperation as an attempt to balance against the most threatening state in the international system—the United States. But neither state can support the other’s predominant geopolitical interests: China’s military power is oriented toward Asia and the Pacific, while Russia’s forces are concentrated against NATO and the Western front (Baev 2019). Putin’s assertive policies toward the United States are not motivated by security concerns but rather the desire to reassert Russia’s status as a great power, despite its loss of territory and client states after the Cold War (Larson and Shevchenko 2010, 2019, 200–204, 227). Liberals (Ikenberry 2018) view China and Russia as “authoritarian capitalist states,” outsiders challenging the liberal world order established by the United States without providing an attractive alternative. China, however, is deeply integrated into the global economy, dependent on overseas markets for exports of manufactured goods and advanced communication technology, making it reluctant to offend the United States for fear of disrupting the liberal international order. Neorealists would argue Russia had no choice but to lean toward China after the West imposed economic sanctions in retaliation for Crimea and Ukraine. While Western sanctions may have increased Putin’s initial motivation to seek Chinese investment and markets, Putin’s “pivot to the East” preceded the cooling of relations with the West due to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2014 (Mankoff 2015). Moreover, because of Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas, Western sanctions did not apply to its hydrocarbon exports (Spiegel and Gordon 2014). Meanwhile, Russia’s sizeable foreign exchange reserves and avoidance of debt allowed Russia’s economy to withstand the impact of lower oil prices and Western sanctions (Miller 2018). The sanctions have failed to isolate Russia from the world economy. India and Turkey have signed agreements to purchase the S-400 missile defense system. Russia has increased its influence in the Middle East, with renewed ties to old friends Israel and Iran and improved relationships with Turkey and Saudi Arabia (Foy 2019). Other scholars have viewed the relationship as a strategic partnership, based on shared interests in maintaining regional stability and preventing US intervention (Nadkarni 2010). The term “strategic partnership,” however, is artfully vague. Russia entered into a variety of partnerships in the 1990s as part of a multi-vector policy to enhance its influence

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through flexible diplomatic alignments, which fell short of true alliances (Lo 2008, 40). Since 1996, China has established partnerships with Brazil, France, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Italy, Nigeria, Algeria, India, Argentina, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, and Portugal (Garver 2016, 549–550). Whatever the cause, the partnership between China and Russia is a matter of concern for US officials. China and Russia are frequently lumped together as the principal threat to US security, described as “great power competition” in the Department of Defense 2018 national security strategy (US Department of Defense 2018). I argue that China and Russia are using their relationship to influence Western perceptions as part of an effort to restore their great power status while retaining a distinctive identity separate from the West. By joining together, the two outsiders from the liberal world order have established a positive identity, positioning themselves against the West, consistent with Social Identity Theory (Larson and Shevchenko 2010, 2019) and the need for “ontological security” (Zarakol 2010, 2011; Steele 2008). While Russia and China are in part rivals for global standing and preeminence in Central Asia, they have learned how to manage their competition through recognition of the other’s superiority in different domains—military power and security for Russia, economic investment and trade for China. Sino-Russian social cooperation indicates that status-seeking not need be zero-sum. In what follows, I explain why Sino-Russian cooperation fulfills deepseated needs for a positive and secure social identity. The second section discusses the reasons behind Putin’s “turn to the East.” The third section explains China’s motives for cooperating with Russia. The fourth section focuses on Chinese and Russian status cooperation in Central Asia, a “most likely” arena for strategic competition. The conclusions draw implications for global governance and managing status rivalry in an era of power transitions.

Status and Identity Social Identity Theory (SIT) posits that people derive part of their identity from their membership in social groups—such as ethnicity, nationality, gender, occupation—along with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership. Because it is part of the self-concept, people want their social group to have a positively distinctive identity—to be not

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only different, but better than other similar groups (Tajfel 1978; Tajfel and Turner 1979). Group members compare their group to a similar but slightly higherstatus reference group (Brown and Haeger 1999). Inferiority undermines collective self-esteem and morale and motivates the group to adopt an identity management strategy to improve their relative standing—social mobility, social competition, and social creativity. The group’s selection of one identity management strategy over another depends on the permeability of higher-status group boundaries and beliefs about the legitimacy and stability of the status hierarchy (Tajfel and Turner 1979). If the higher-status group’s boundaries appear to be permeable or open to new members, the group is likely to choose social mobility. A social mobility strategy entails emulation of the values and norms of the higherstatus group in order to be accepted into elite clubs (Tajfel 1978, 93–94; Blanz et al. 1998; Onu et al. 2015). For a state, a social mobility strategy would involve adoption of liberal capitalism in order to be admitted to prestigious clubs such as the European Union (EU) or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). If elite group boundaries are closed and the lower-status group regards the existing status hierarchy as illegitimate or unstable, it is likely to pursue a strategy of social competition. Social competition tries to equal or surpass the dominant group in its domain of superiority, and if possible, to reorder the status hierarchy (Tajfel and Turner 1979; Turner 1975). States that are too weak to challenge the existing status hierarchy may act as spoilers, trying to frustrate the dominant power’s efforts to maintain the existing order (Larson and Shevchenko 2010, 72–73; Larson and Shevchenko 2019, 10). But if existing status distinctions appear to be legitimately based and stable, a group may try to find new criteria for status, exercising social creativity. Social creativity may involve either reevaluation of a negative trait as positive or identification of a new area in which the group is superior (Tajfel and Turner 1979). An illustration of reframing is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s revival of Confucianism as the progenitor of Chinese culture, although Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong condemned the philosophy as feudalistic (Confucius Says 2015). Since Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and opening” policy in 1978, China has followed a social creativity strategy of seeking preeminence in economic production and promotion of new norms of international relations, such as “win–win” cooperation and “peaceful rise” (Deng 2008, 119–127;

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Larson and Shevchenko 2019, 189–195). Social creativity raises the possibility that two groups may each have positive status, that their relationship need not be zero-sum. With social cooperation, each group acknowledges that the other is superior in a different domain (van Knippenberg 1984, 575; van Knippenberg and Ellemers 1990). For example, a higherstatus high school might have superior academics, while a lower-status one might have better athletic teams (Oldmeadow and Fiske 2010). SIT and “ontological security theory” have some common elements, in particular, the reactions of denigrated states to being categorized as “inferior” or “backward” and the psychological need for recognition and identity. Ontological security refers to the need to have a consistent sense of “self” and to have that identity affirmed by others (Zarakol 2010, 3). Similarly, in SIT, refusal by the out-group to accept a group’s status claims constitutes a threat to its identity (Ellemers et al. 2002). Drawing on the work on stigma by sociologist Erving Goffman (1965), Zarakol (2011, 107) suggests that states that have been treated as “backward” or “uncivilized” may enact two types of responses—acceptance or rejection of the normative order. This typology of responses does not include cooperation by devalued states against the dominant powers, although Goffman (1965, 113–114) allowed for the possibility that those stigmatized may take militant actions against society. According to SIT, minority group members that have been rejected by society may preserve their self-esteem by forming a new group identification (Jetten et al. 2001). For example, international students at the University of Kansas who felt that they had been discriminated against identified with other international students instead of their home countries (Schmitt et al. 2003). Applied to states, rejected states may double down on their identities as outsiders while appealing to the international community for recognition. Actions that are aimed at status-aggrandizement may also have economic or strategic benefits, which raises the problem of how to determine the relative weight of alternative explanations. In addition, great power status elicits deference to the state’s interests, removing the need for it to expend resources in exercising power (Renshon 2017, 47–49; Krickovic 2017, 311). One means of discriminating between rival explanations is that status-driven behavior is primarily concerned with how a state is perceived by others, especially the reference group, whereas actions motivated by economic or strategic goals are oriented toward concrete

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benefits. The importance of status motivations relative to material interests, therefore, can be assessed by the degree to which actions were substantive as opposed to rhetorical or political grandstanding. If motivated by the desire for status and recognition, leaders could be expected to play up or exaggerate their accomplishments for an international audience, often using grandiose rhetoric to characterize agreements or behavior. In addition, some actions aimed at enhancing a state’s prestige may have substantial economic or security costs, which makes material explanations less persuasive. To be sure, as mentioned above, higher status may yield additional benefits, which can compensate for expenditures used to obtain them. But the future rewards from other states’ deference to a state’s economic or security interests are difficult to predict or to quantify. In addition, to attain material benefits from status-seeking policies requires that such efforts succeed in raising the state’s reputation, rather than backfire by demonstrating incompetence. One might also ask whether China or Russia could increase their domestic stability, security, or prosperity more efficiently and directly by means other than SinoRussian cooperation. Face indicators of status-seeking behavior include statements by national officials about being entitled to greater respect and equality. The expression of grievances over past humiliations or disrespect is also an indication of status motives.

Russia’s Tilt Toward China Both Russia and China are former great powers and civilizations trying to restore their rightful place in the world. Both have a sense of aggrieved victimhood and nostalgia for the glorious past. Russia has a “national humiliation complex,” going back to its occupation by the Mongols for three centuries, reflected in insecurity about being backward relative to the West (Lo 2015, 20). Russians are cognizant of the “time of troubles” (1598–1613) when Russia suffered civil war, foreign invasion, and famines. Many Russians view the 1990s, when Russia was riven by organized crime and economic weakness, as another “time of troubles” where the West exploited Russia’s weakness by advocating economic “shock therapy,” which reduced popular living standards and enlarged NATO to include former members of the Warsaw Pact (Hill and Gaddy 2015, 23). Similarly, since the end of the Cold War, China has been preoccupied with the “century of humiliation” (1842–1949) when China lost its

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sovereignty and part of its territory and was invaded by foreigners (Wang 2012). Despite the end of the Cold War, both China and Russia were viewed as outsiders from the Western liberal community. In the 1990s, Russia was aggrieved over the expansion of NATO to include former members of the Warsaw Pact and NATO’s intervention in the Balkans, while China was subject to US economic pressure on human rights and military coercion in the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. United by their outlier status positions and grievances over the US neglect of their interests and arrogance, both countries viewed their partnership as a means to elicit greater respect (Deng 2008, 138–141; Wishnick 2001, 123, 129, 131). As Yeltsin commented in 1994, “We can rest on the Chinese shoulder in our relations with the West. In that case, the West will treat Russia more respectfully” (Lukin 2003, 305). Putin’s primary objective is to attain recognition for Russia as a global great power and a regional power with a sphere of privileged interests. In his first address to the Russian people, Putin (1999) declared that “Russia is and will remain a great power.” After unsuccessful efforts at a partnership with President George W. Bush in the “war on terror” (Lo 2008, 51–52) and a brief “reset” in US-Russian relations with the Obama administration, Putin veered back toward China in 2012 after his return to the Russian presidency and the ascension of Xi Jinping to the top leadership positions in China. In May, Putin announced a “turn to the East,” sometimes referred to as a “pivot,” involving more extensive participation in East Asian multilateral organizations, solicitation of Asian investments in Siberia and the Russian Far East, and the development of energy markets in Asia (Mankoff 2015). Economic motivations alone are insufficient to explain Russian actions, however, which were far from optimal in a material sense but were consistent with Russian status goals. For the May 2014 gas agreement, the Chinese reportedly bargained hard on the price of Russian gas, taking advantage of Putin’s eagerness to reach an agreement to show that Russia had alternatives to the European market (Lo 2015, 142). On the other hand, partnership with China did compensate psychologically for the political isolation imposed by the Obama administration after the 2014 Ukraine crisis. As Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian Duma foreign affairs committee commented, “Barack Obama should give up the policy of isolating Russia: it won’t work” (Hornby et al. 2014).

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The EU continues to be Russia’s largest trading partner (European Union 2021; World Bank 2021). Despite the publicity given to the 2014 gas pipeline deal, even after the Power of Siberia reaches its maximum capacity, Russian gas exports to Europe will be several times greater than those to China (Kaczmarski 2020, 204–205). In the long run, China will not substitute for Western markets for Russian hydrocarbon exports; the PRC does not want to be dependent on Russia or any other country for energy sources and has developed a network of other suppliers, including Central Asian countries (Lo 2015, 147, 220–221, 223). After the 2014 Ukraine crisis, Russia reconsidered its ten-year policy of withholding its most sophisticated military technology, which had been intended largely to prevent the Chinese from reverse-engineering the designs and competing with Russian arms manufacturers. Moscow agreed to sell the S-400 Triumph Air Defense complex and Su-35 fighter jets to China (Gabuev 2016b, 23–24). On the other hand, Moscow sells more technologically advanced weaponry to India and diversifies its exports by selling military equipment to Vietnam, Indonesia, and Turkey (Lo 2020, 317). Since the 2014 Ukraine crisis, Putin has pursued a strategy of social competition with the United States, acting as a spoiler to undermine US global management and to sow division in NATO and the EU (Trenin 2014; Lo 2015, 177–180; Hill and Gaddy 2015, 305–307). Cooperating with China against the United States furthers the impression of a multipolar world in which Russia is viewed as one of the poles, one of Putin’s key goals. Putin envisions a world of competing power centers, each with its own sphere of influence. These major powers would form a great power concert, in which each member would recognize the other’s right to make the rules in its region. While the great powers do not have equal capabilities, they would have equal influence (Lo 2015, 43–44). Putin favors an “equal partnership of unequals” (Stent 2014, 69). As part of Russia’s attempts to encourage the belief that the world is evolving toward multipolarity, Moscow has played up the importance of various clubs and non-Western organizations since the mid-2000s, in particular the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Group of 20 (G20). The BRICS is a club, where membership is a private, excludable good (Buchanan 1965; Sandler and Tschirhart 1997). Because membership is limited and a valuable resource, elite clubs also confer status (Larson et al.

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2014, 7–9). Yet rationalist institutional theories do not explain the emergence of this grouping, since it has no clear or fixed purpose (Koremenos et al 2001). Despite its ambitious declarative goals, the BRICS club lacks a substantive agenda or policy proposals (Stronski and Sokolsky 2020, 19). Despite the rhetoric about Russia’s “turn to the East,” the economic benefits that Russia derives from its relationship with China have been limited mostly to strengthening the position of important state assets— Gazprom, Rosneft, and the Yamal liquefied natural gas complex (Stronski and Ng 2018). Chinese financial institutions have not compensated fully for loss of Western financing for Russian companies. The Big Four Chinese commercial banks have been reluctant to lend to high-risk Russian firms in part because they do not wish to risk US retaliation for violating Western sanctions, especially when they have stable markets in the United States and Europe (Gabuev 2016a). Similarly, Chinese firms are motivated by profit rather than geopolitics (Kaczmarski 2020, 201). Chinese direct investment in the underdeveloped Russian Far East has been especially disappointing. While Russia and China play up announcements of billions of dollars of Chinese investment in areas other than hydrocarbons such as infrastructure and secondary industries, realized investments have been a fraction of the pledged amounts (Stronski and Ng 2018). Despite Russian efforts at diversification, Sino-Russian trade largely entails exchange of Russian raw materials in return for manufactured products from China. Russian elites do not want to be a “raw material appendage” for China, which would place Russia in the status position of a Third World developing state (Lo 2015, 145). Contrary to the neorealist argument that Russia is aligning with China to balance against US hegemony, it appears that Russia in its pursuit of great power status is placing its long-term security at risk by strengthening a potential rival militarily and economically. Mitigating the risks, according to Alexander Korolev (2016), is Russia’s hedging on the regional level by selling weapons to Vietnam and India while balancing with China on the global level against the United States. As Russia’s economic dependence on China increases, however, it may become more difficult for Russia to cooperate militarily with states that have territorial disputes with China, such as Vietnam, India, and Japan (Blank and Kim 2016, 123–126). In 2020, for example, Russia abandoned an oil-drilling

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project with Vietnam because of pressure from Beijing, which claims the area as part of the South China Sea (Clark 2020).

China’s Interest in Cooperation with Russia China cooperates with Russia to increase its standing as a global power while casting doubt on the legitimacy of the US-led international order. China also allows Russia to take the brunt of US hostility for opposing initiatives that China also opposes, such as humanitarian intervention or interference in other states’ internal affairs (Krickovic 2017, 301). Nevertheless, China does not share Russia’s policy aims and tactics. Russian elites believe that the current US-led world order has harmed Russia’s development and undermined its national security. Consequently, Russia tries to work outside the system to disrupt it (Krickovic 2017, 301; Karaganov and Suslov 2018). Conversely, as the world’s second-largest economy, China is deeply embedded in the international economic system and has benefited from loans from the World Bank and its membership in the World Trade Organization. Economic interdependence constrains the Chinese from engaging in much provocative behavior. China would like to exercise a greater role in leading institutions of global governance and has increased its involvement in UN institutions as well as establishing its own organizations, whereas Russia has no such aspirations (Shambaugh 2017, 145; Lo 2020, 314). The importance that the Chinese place on their relationship with Russia since the accession of Xi Jinping is evident in their practice of “first visits,” reflective of China’s emphasis on symbolism and protocol. Xi Jinping’s first foreign visit after being elected as Hu Jintao’s successor in 2010 was to Russia. In 2012, the new Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang also made his first visit to Russia. After returning to the presidency in 2012, Vladimir Putin chose to visit China as part of his first visit abroad. In 2013, Xi reciprocated by visiting Russia on his first foreign trip as president of China and secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (Kaczmarski 2015, 18–19). Since 2007, China has taken a more assertive stance in cooperating with Russia in vetoing UN Security Council resolutions sponsored by the Western powers instead of simply abstaining. China has joined with Russia in vetoing ten resolutions relating to Syria (UN Research Guide 2021). But China has been less confrontational and emotional than Russia in its rhetoric and diplomatic stance (Zheng and Hang 2020).

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In the case of Syria, both Russia and China wanted to register their disapproval against outside intervention in other states’ internal affairs, a longstanding position that was reinforced by anger over the outcome of the Libyan intervention, where the “no-fly” zone morphed into the murder of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi (Swaine 2012). Partnership with Russia also helps to insulate China from criticism from the West over its human rights abuses. Russia’s support has become particularly important, as China’s moral standing has suffered greatly due to its mass internment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, repressive security law in Hong Kong, aggressive “wolf warrior” diplomacy, and secretive handling of the coronavirus (Lo 2020, 309). A Spring 2021 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 15 out of 17 countries held negative views about China, despite its successful handling of the coronavirus, largely due to concerns about China’s human rights practices (Negative Views 2021). China needs Russian acquiescence for its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI aims to build pipelines, bridges, roads, railroads, and ports to increase “connectivity” between China and Europe. The land component seeks to link China to Europe via the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. The marine component connects China’s coast with Southeast Asia and Europe via the Indian Ocean, Suez Canal, and the Mediterranean. China’s “Polar Silk Road” which seeks establish connections between China and Northern Europe through the Arctic also requires Russian approval (Hillman 2020, 62, 74). Russia is cooperating with China on a “prestige project”—exploration of space. Russia and China are planning to work together on a robotic mission to an asteroid in 2024 and, more ambitiously, a permanent research station on the south pole of the moon by 2030. Their potential contributions are complementary. Russia has substantial expertise and history as a space power, but its space program has been plagued by corruption and lack of funding. China has the financial resources to fund an ambitious space program (Kramer and Myers 2021). Material benefits have been less important as a motive for China’s cooperation with Russia. To be sure, China has gained an overland source of oil and gas, providing an alternative route to the Strait of Malacca, which could be vulnerable to a US blockade. On the other hand, China already has a network of suppliers eager to sell gas to the Chinese market. Beijing has signed long-term contracts for Central Asian gas and developed terminals for LNG that can be used for imports of gas

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from Australia, Qatar, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Finally, China has invested heavily in renewable energy (Gabuev 2016b; Lo 2015, 142, 147). Advanced Russian military technology, such as the S-400 air defense system and Su-35 bombers, is important in strengthening the capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army. But the desire to balance against US nuclear superiority is not persuasive as an explanation for SinoRussian cooperation (cf. Kydd, this volume). It is highly unlikely that Russia would go to war with the United States—a nuclear war—to defend China (Lo 2020, 321). In recent years, China has modernized its nuclear forces, including the introduction of road-mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), silo-based ICBMs with Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), and improved nuclearpowered ballistic missile submarines. China’s medium-range missiles greatly complicate the US effort to deter attacks against its allies in Asia. China’s nuclear modernization increases the survivability of its deterrent against the United States (Heginbotham et al. 2017, 40–43, 156–157). Most Chinese foreign policy elites do not favor allying with Russia. Russia is oriented toward Europe, while China is concerned with the Asia Pacific (Fu 2016, 99). Ideology is less important a bond than might be expected. While China and Russia are often lumped together as authoritarian capitalist powers, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is still the ruling party in the PRC, whereas Russia supports traditional values. On the one-hundredth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, in his October 18 speech to the 19th CCP Congress, Chinese President Xi repeated Mao’s words: “The salvoes of the October Revolution brought Marxism-Leninism to China.” In the birthplace of that revolution, however, Putin was more ambivalent. In an October 19 address to the Valdai Forum, Putin described the Bolshevik Revolution as a “largely utopian social model and ideology” with “ambiguous” results (Yu 2018, 122). Russian support helps to shield China from international criticism for human rights. Russia is also willing to take the lead in opposing the United States, which shields China from antagonizing its trading partners. Each offers the other a partner in clubs such as the BRICS and SCO. Both states play up the strength of their collaborative relationship when it suits their status goals. China’s motivation to preserve its partnership with Russia is manifest in its policy toward Central Asia, where it has made strong efforts to accommodate Russia’s status aspirations.

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Status Accommodation in Central Asia The importance of mutual status accommodation in developing a cooperative relationship is apparent in Central Asia, a former part of the Soviet Union considered by Russia to be part of its sphere of “privileged interest.” Central Asia is perhaps the last region in which Moscow can claim primacy (Cooley 2012, 51; Torbakov 2016, 245, 252). Moscow is, therefore, wary of China’s recent rapid political and economic expansion in the region. For China, Central Asia is important because of its geographic proximity to Xinjiang as well as its resources in oil and gas. If Central Asia prospers economically, it could become an economic partner with Xinjiang, helping to power the region’s economic development and reduce support for Uighur separatism (Zhao 2016, 180). After the 2008–2009 financial crisis, China took advantage of the collapse of global energy markets, which harmed Russia’s economy and created a dire situation in Central Asia, to increase its economic presence in the former Soviet states, replacing Russia as the region’s largest trading partner. China constructed two pipelines across Central Asia that did not cross Russian territory to deliver gas and oil to China. Chinese companies entered into profitable agreements with energy corporations in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Through large loans to the Central Asian governments, China increased their economic dependence on Beijing (Cooley 2012, 86–94; Freeman 2018). Making Chinese economic dominance more palatable to Russia, the Chinese have gone out of their way to recognize Central Asia as a Russian sphere of “privileged interest.” China and Russia have worked out a division of labor, a form of social cooperation. Russia is primarily responsible for maintaining security and geopolitical stability in the region, while China provides economic investment and know-how. In other words, Russia is the “sheriff” while China is the “banker” (Gabuev 2016b, 26; Trenin 2015, 13–14; Krickovic and Bratersky 2016, 194–195; Rolland 2019). This division of labor is manifested in regional organizations. In 2001, China took the initiative in establishing the SCO, including Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO has the mission of combatting the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism (Cooley 2012, 51–52, 81; Zhao 2016, 173). Because of opposition from Russia, which is concerned about China’s economic

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dominance, the SCO has not been able to acquire any additional responsibilities for economic integration or regional development. The SCO’s achievements thus far are more symbolic than substantive, combatting terrorism and narcotics trafficking (Stronski and Sokolsky 2020, 14–18). Russia prefers for the principal security structure in the region to be the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), to which China does not belong. In May 2002, Russia sponsored the formation of the CSTO, which initially included Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan and was joined by Uzbekistan in 2006. The CSTO provides justification for Moscow’s military bases in the region, tangible symbols of prestige (Cooley 2012, 56–59). Putin sponsored the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in part to preserve its great power status against the potential threat to its sphere of influence posed by China’s economic growth and expansion. In an article before the 2012 presidential election, Putin (2011) argued that the EAEU would be one of the poles in a multipolar world and a bridge between Europe and the Asia–Pacific region. The EAEU would also show that Russia was also capable of sponsoring regional integration—a distinguishing characteristic of a great power. In 2015, the EAEU officially came into existence, with Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia as the initial members (Wilson 2016, 115–116, 123; Dragneva and Wolczuk, 2017). That economic considerations matter less than geopolitical status is indicated by Russia’s minimal trade with its members, compared to China and the EU (Stronski and Sokolsky 2020). The EAEU’s potential value in enhancing Russia’s regional status was called into question by China’s BRI, first announced in Kazakhstan in October 2013 (Rolland 2019). Having deep apprehensions about losing its sphere of influence in Central Asia, Russian analysts initially refrained from endorsing the project. Chinese officials almost immediately took steps to reassure Russia about their intentions. In May 2015, during Xi’s visit to Moscow, he and Putin signed an agreement providing for cooperation between the EAEU and the BRI, emphasizing Russia’s role as a partner (Gabuev 2016b, 25–26). Little has been done since then to implement cooperation, suggesting that the agreement may have been intended largely to placate Russia’s status concerns in a public forum (Stronski and Ng 2018). Despite China’s economic penetration of Central Asia, Russia still has a substantial presence in the region due to history, language, culture, media,

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and infrastructural links. Moscow allows millions of Central Asians to immigrate to Russia without a visa, and their remittances home constitute a major source of the countries’ GDP and foreign exchange (Stronski and Ng 2018). There is still substantial Sinophobia among states in Central Asia that Russia could exploit if Moscow chose to do so (Skalamera 2017, 135). Sino-Russian status accommodation in Central Asia does not preclude continuing status tensions in the relationship stemming from the inherent asymmetry of partnership between a rising economic power and a former great power that is overly dependent on hydrocarbon exports. Social cooperation does not imply that the two parties are equal —merely that each recognizes that the other has valued characteristics. Cooperation between the two outsiders allows Russia to punch above its weight globally while shielding China from marginalization and ostracism. Given the asymmetries in the Sino-Russian relationship, social cooperation between the two former communist powers is necessary to avoid confrontation over Central Asia, even though in the long run, Russia is strengthening a potential adversary in its own backyard, and possibly Eastern Europe as well.

Conclusion Russia’s and China’s accommodation indicates that the quest for status need not be zero-sum. In contrast to the EU’s attempt to integrate former Soviet states such as Ukraine through its Eastern Partnership program without consulting with Russia, China has sought to reassure Russia about the BRI megaproject (Samokhvalov 2018). By showing sensitivity to Russia’s concern for maintaining its “privileged interests” in the region, China has managed to intrude in Russia’s backyard without provoking conflict. While the SCO, EAEU, and CSTO might superficially appear to be “balancing” organizations, they are primarily means of projecting Russia’s and China’s status in the region. In the security area, the SCO is a “paper tiger” with modest accomplishments in confidence building and counterterrorism. The EAEU could become increasingly costly to Russia, if continued economic integration requires subsidizing the economies of the poorer states in the organization. Their creation of institutions in Central Asia is evidence that Russia and China are more likely to contribute to global governance if they gain status by doing so.

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Since the end of the Cold War, Russia and China have both been outliers from the international community. Both require recognition from the West to fulfill their aspirations for great power status, but are unwilling to adopt Western notions of individual human rights and civil society. Through their partnership, they avoid isolation or marginalization by the West and establish a shared identity. As outsiders, they have doubled down on their status while rejecting attempts by the Western countries to condemn their lack of respect for human rights or rule of law. China has less to fear in this regard because of its centrality to the world economy. The two states have worked out a rough division of labor in Central Asia: while China specializes in economic investment and trade, Russia highlights its role in providing regional security and military technology. China seeks to gain status through enhancing connectivity—financing and constructing railways, roads, bridges, tunnels, and ports. Russia provides military security and technology to its Central Asian partners, helping to stabilize the region. So long as their partnership benefits Russia and China psychologically, their cooperation will continue.

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China and Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony John M. Owen IV

Introduction Why has Sino-Russian cooperation broadened and deepened, erratically but markedly, since the late 1990s? Why has cooperation accelerated since Xi Jinping gained power in 2012? International cooperation is difficult to measure,1 but treaties are surely a mark of it. China and Russia signed partnership agreements in 1994 and 1996 (the latter a “strategic partnership”). In 2001, they entered a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, each pledging that “[w]hen a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that peace is being threatened and undermined or its security interests are involved or when it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats.” The 2001 agreement gave China access to Russian military technology (Ministry of

J. M. Owen IV (B) Department of Politics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected] 1 For an innovative set of measures of international cooperation, leading to the conclusion that Russia and China are moving closer to an alliance, see Alexander Korolev’s article in this volume. For corroboration of improving Sino-Russian relations, see Larson, this volume, and Yoder, this volume.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_6

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Foreign Affairs, PRC 2001). In 2012, the two states entered a “comprehensive strategic partnership of equality, mutual trust, mutual support, common prosperity, and long-lasting friendship” (Korolev, this volume); in 2014, a more robust agreement of the same name superseded that agreement. The 2014 partnership emphasizes increasing bilateral military, political, and economic cooperation. Grabbing world headlines was a historic $400 billion, 30-year agreement for Chinese purchases of natural gas from Russia. The two countries have injected resources into the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), an international security organization that excludes the United States and Japan (Chen 2014). From 2014 through the end of 2017, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin met more than twenty times (Cunningham 2017). “Russia is the country I have visited the most times,” declared Xi in 2019, “and President Putin is my best friend and colleague.” China has become the second-biggest purchaser of Russian military hardware. The two countries participated in large joint military exercises in 2018 and 2019, and have conducted long-range aerial patrols in the Indo-Pacific in order to “strengthen global stability,” in the words of Russia’s Ministry of Defense. The two giants cooperate extensively in the development of artificial intelligence and other strategic technologies. On the United Nations Security Council, where both are permanent members with veto power, each routinely backs the other’s assertive military moves (Stent 2020, 2–7). At the same time, each country’s relations with the United States have become testier, particularly in the area of security. The Obama administration’s attempted “reset” with Russia was an infamous failure. If hopes in the Kremlin and the Trump administration were high for improvement in 2017, those have been dashed, as Russia continues to hold onto Crimea and to intervene in the Donbass region of Ukraine, and the U.S. Congress voted overwhelmingly to maintain sanctions against Moscow [Editor’s note: this chapter was completed prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine]. China persists in pressing its claims in the South and East China seas, while the United States continues to oppose those claims and to build relations in the “Indo-Pacific” by continuing old alliances and nurturing new ones. The Trump National Security Strategy of 2017 identifies China and Russia as “revisionist powers” that “want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests” (Trump 2017, 25). The Biden administration’s diplomatic style is more conventional

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than that of its predecessor, but it has surprised some by continuing the confrontational stance toward both China and Russia. Realism, our pre-eminent theory of balancing and coalition formation, is of little help in explaining these related trends of Sino-Russian cooperation and U.S. alienation from both powers. Elsewhere in this volume, Andrew Kydd notes that simple balance-of-power theory is static and would expect China and Russia to counter-balance American power, since the United States remains the world’s pre-eminent military state by far. But Copeland (2000) argues persuasively that rational states anticipate power trends. The Correlates of War’s Composite Index of National Capabilities (CINC) (National Material Capabilities v5.0 2012) data point to significant shifts in global power since 1990 (Table 1). It is difficult to credit the claim that China became more powerful than the United States in 1995 or had 57 percent more power than America in 2012. But CINC scores are useful as measurements of relative power trends. The general trends are clear: Russian decline, American constancy, and Chinese increase. A dynamic balance-of-power theory would expect increasing Sino-Russian tensions and Russo-American cooperation. Some academic realists have called for just such a diplomatic shift (Mearsheimer 2014a, 360–400), but such calls have met with disappointment. The subtler measures of Brooks and Wohlforth (2008), which include means of projecting offensive force rapidly, technological criteria, and economic strength, show American power as still much greater than Chinese (Brooks and Wohlforth 2016). But their trends show gains in relative power for both China and Russia, and it is difficult to infer any prediction from their measures for Sino-Russian cooperation. Many realists find balance-of-power theory too simple. Walt’s more complex balance-of-threat theory would say that Sino-Russian cooperation is increasing because the American threat has increased. For Walt, Table 1

CINC scores

United States China Russia

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2012

0.141 0.112 0.130

0.140 0.146 0.063

0.143 0.162 0.052

0.157 0.171 0.041

0.148 0.207 0.039

0.139 0.218 0.040

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threat is a function of not only power, but also perceived intentions.2 It is certainly arguable that U.S. intentions toward Russia have become more offensive. In 2008, Ukraine became a candidate for NATO membership. Ukrainian membership in NATO would have given the U.S. Navy access to the port of Sevastopol (Mearsheimer 2014b). Yet NATO’s flirtation with Ukraine could itself have been a reaction to prior Russian offensive moves. The Russian attack on Georgia in 2008 might have presaged more Russian assertions against other former Soviet republics, including the Baltic states. More generally, in Walt’s theory, offensive intentions (or the perception thereof) are exogenous. But if Russia and the United States are in a security dilemma, the question is, how did they get there? Offensive realism (Mearsheimer 2014a) has an answer—that offensive intentions are endogenous to international anarchy itself—but the claim that all great powers perpetually have offensive intentions toward one another is difficult to defend both logically and against the historical record.3 What of nuclear offensive power? Kydd (this volume) makes the important point that America is seeking nuclear offensive and defensive capabilities that would disable a Chinese or Russian nuclear second strike. Hence both fear a U.S. first strike and thus have an incentive to align so as to raise the cost to Washington of launching such a strike. Kydd’s logic is sound. In principle, however, advancing U.S. offensive and defensive nuclear capabilities also threatens the nuclear deterrents of Britain, France, Israel, and India, yet none of those is counter-balancing American power because none fears a U.S. first strike. Other conditions must be causing some nuclear powers to fear the United States and others to be complacent. In what follows, I argue that two conditions explain increasing SinoRussian cooperation and the decreasing cooperation of each with the United States. First is the constant condition in recent history of liberal hegemony, a combination of American material power, prestige, and the ability to set and enforce rules. Second is Russia’s steady twenty-year departure from liberal democracy and hence toward ever-greater fear of 2 Walt’s concept of threat also includes geographic proximity and offensive military capabilities. Andrew Kydd (this issue) argues that advances in American nuclear technology have increased its relative offensive capabilities and can explain the cooperative trend in Sino-Russian relations. I address this argument below. 3 See, e.g., Brooks (1997), Snyder (2002), Glaser (2010), Kirshner (2012), and Yoder and Haynes (2015).

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liberal hegemony and willingness to align with market-Leninist China. The first condition requires more explication. I lay out an argument for why governments are vitally concerned to defend their regimes against opposing ideologies instantiated by powerful foreign states. The United States is a liberal democracy and remains the world’s only superpower (notwithstanding its increasing diffidence about its global role); China and Russia have different regimes but neither is liberal, and Russia has become more authoritarian since 1999 (China is now becoming even more so). Owing in part to the successes and influence of the United States and other liberal democracies, liberalism has active adherents in many countries, including Russia and China. These real and potential ideological cohorts make liberalism a genuine threat to both the domestic power and the foreign influence and power of the rulers of China and Russia. Moscow and Beijing do not have the same regime type or positive ideology; what they do share is a fear of liberal universalism backed by American power. The threat of liberal hegemony at once eases cooperation between Beijing and Moscow and hinders cooperation between either of them and Washington. I submit the argument to several qualitative tests, demonstrating among other things that (1) both Beijing and Moscow consider liberal democracy a serious threat; (2) both regimes are trying to roll back liberalism and prevent “color revolutions”; (3) both have better relations with authoritarian states than with liberal democracies; and (4) the 2014 SinoRussian energy pact quickly followed the liberal Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine. I consider briefly two counter-arguments and conclude with a few implications.

China, Russia, and the West4 Mutual fear of liberal hegemony is an important attractor between China and Russia and a repellant between those two states and the United States. By “liberal hegemony” I mean the multifaceted power produced by the interaction between liberal ideas and the material power of the states that instantiate them in North America and Europe—pre-eminently, U.S. material power. Liberal ideas and American material power make each 4 For a more systematic presentation of the logic of the argument, see Owen IV, John M. 2020. Sino-Russian Cooperation Against Liberal Hegemony. International Politics 57 (5) (October): 809–833.

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other more threatening to Beijing and Moscow. Hegemony is a combination of material power, prestige (high position in a social hierarchy), and the ability to set and enforce rules (Gilpin 1981, 28–37). A hegemon has all three of Steven Lukes’s types of power—coercive, agenda-setting, and power over preferences (Lukes 1974). An international hegemon is able to shape its political, economic, and social environment in its favor because significant actors in other states share its values and acquiesce to its leadership. They generally consider the hegemon benign, at least compared to plausible alternatives; they ascribe it prestige and find its rules legitimate. Actors who reject the hegemon’s values, on the other hand, see it as a threat. They resent its prestige, find its rules biased, and fear that it empowers their own domestic and transnational enemies (Owen 2002). Russia and China have different interests and a long history of mistrust, and bilateral cooperation on various issue areas can be difficult. But their rulers know they live in a world where the richest countries per capita, and the most powerful country of all, are liberal democracies. They know that liberal democracy attracts elites in authoritarian states, including their own, and that these elites would prefer for their countries to become more liberal and democratic and to align more with democracies in Europe, North America, and East Asia. The presence of these elites and their potential to gain converts and mobilize their populations makes them threatening to the Putin and Xi governments and to the regimes through which they rule. Putin and Xi know that liberal elites provide a source of dissent and influence for the United States and other Western countries and that that is one reason why the West presses authoritarian governments to respect human rights: those helped by human rights advocacy often are pro-Western. Beijing and Moscow are not irrational to hold these fears. Research has confirmed that political elites look for successful policies and regimes— those that produce stability, security, and wealth—and try to copy them (Fordham and Asal 2007; Miller 2016). This evolutionary mechanism is profoundly important: it means that a regime is more likely to flourish in one state if it manifestly flourishes in other states, and more likely to founder in one state if it manifestly founders in others (Mattes and Bratton 2007). It also is clear that great powers, including the United States, often exploit their “fifth columnists” in other countries to steer policy or to create unrest and even carry out regime change (Owen 2010).

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The interdependence of states with a given regime type means that, ceteris paribus, the Xi and Putin governments prefer cooperation with fellow authoritarians over cooperation with democracies. Two pathways link regime type and international cooperation (Owen 2010, 43–46; Haas 2014, 722–723). The domestic path derives from the fact that the Xi and Putin governments face different versions of the same ideological threat, and thus have a common interest in weakening that threat. The international path derives from the domestic path: the Xi government knows that the Putin government has this interest and thus that the Putin government is more likely to reciprocate cooperative gestures (and the Putin government knows the same about the Xi government); a virtuous cycle of authoritarian cooperation can ensue. Two conditions make the bias in favor of authoritarians especially appealing. First, when liberal democracies are especially successful at doing the things a modern state is supposed to do: grow economically, remain stable politically, and enjoy freedom from foreign domination. Second, when knowledge of liberal democracies’ success is wide and deep across authoritarian societies.5 Although the United States is not physically located in Asia or Europe, it remains the world’s military “unipole,” accounting for 39 percent of global military spending (Mehta 2021). With its exploitation of the knowledge economy of the twenty-first century (Brooks and Wohlforth 2016), America is the only country with the potential to command the global commons of sea, air, and outer space (Posen 2003). Its network of formal and informal alliances is global and moving closer to both Russia (via NATO’s eastward expansion) and China (via non-treaty security arrangements with various Southeast and South Asian states). And the United States is a liberal democracy, often using its money and power to promote human rights, democracy, constitutionalism, and free markets when doing so will make countries more pro-American.6 Tony Smith calls the long-standing U.S. strategy national-security liberalism (Smith 2000). No doubt other liberal democracies find American unipolarity something less than the best of all possible worlds, but they are not sufficiently worried or offended by it to engage in counter-balancing (Owen 2002).

5 I thank Brandon Yoder for helping me think through these conditions. 6 It was not so during the Cold War, in what was called the Third World. See Owen

and Poznansky (2014).

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The European Union comprises liberal democracies, and its acquis communautaire (EU law) is liberal in nature. Its economy is larger than that of the United States. The EU has expanded eastward since 1989 and has used its economic, political, and social leverage to press still more countries to liberalize and democratize. Its Eastern Partnership, launched in 2009, aims to build economic and political relations with the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine and to foster civil society within them (European Union 2017). Five EU members—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland— border Russia,7 and the former Soviet states of Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova, which Russians consider part of their cultural sphere, border EU members Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. European and North American NGOs also promote democracy abroad, and the multilateral international order these countries have built and maintained since the Second World War is biased in favor of free-market democracies. Although the domestic regimes of China and Russia are different in a number of ways—Russia’s ruling party still tolerates some dissent and opposition parties and is tied to the Orthodox Church, whereas China’s ruling party disallows organized dissent and is officially atheist—the two are both essentially controlled by a single political party, each ruling party is dominated by a single man, and both have mostly capitalist economies but with large state-owned sectors. China’s regime is variously called market-Leninist (Kristof 1993), authoritarian capitalist (Gat 2007), the “Beijing Consensus” (Halper 2010), or democratic-meritocratic (Bell 2015). However labeled, China clearly is not a liberal democracy. Its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses various means to maintain its monopoly on power, thereby avoiding the multi-party competition that is constitutive of liberal democracy. Xi Jinping has centralized power since he became the CCP’s General Secretary and China’s President in 2012 (Zhao 2016). In early 2018, the CCP rescinded terms limits for China’s President, clearing the way for Xi to serve three or more terms. China’s state-owned enterprises account for 40 percent of its economy; Xi has increased CCP control over private firms as well (Livingston 2020). China today lacks a fully articulated ideology, but a body of “Xi 7 Lithuania and Poland border Kaliningrad Oblast, a small slice of Russia on the Baltic Sea separated from the rest of the country. Ironically, Kaliningrad (under its German name Königsberg) was home to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose thought remains so influential to liberal internationalism.

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Jinping Thought” is emerging to ground and justify the regime (and Xi’s centralization of power) (Buckley 2017). In Russia, Putin’s United Russia party does not monopolize power, but since his 1999 accession he has gradually consolidated his rule. He has served as either president or prime minister every year since. Putin has struck bargains with some powerful actors and entities in Russia—pre-eminently law-enforcement—and weakened or eliminated others (Silitski 2009, 44). He has established new federal districts throughout the country, headed by his appointees. He has taken power from the Duma, established virtual state control of the news media, and rid himself of oligarchs who oppose his aggrandizement (Ambrosio 2009, 34–49). Russia’s economy was heavily privatized in the 1990s, but roughly 4,100 state-owned enterprises, particularly in the energy sector, remain (Export.gov 2017). Russia’s hazy ideology contains elements of nationalism, a mission to support Russian Orthodox Christianity, and anti-Westernism (Laqueur 2014, 73–75). Figure 1 depicts the causal logic by which liberal hegemony, centered in the United States, predisposes Russia and China to align with each other against the United States. Since the 2008 financial crisis, liberal hegemony has not increased; it has at best remained constant and so, by itself, cannot explain increasing Sino-Russian cooperation. But as measured by Freedom House, Russia has become more authoritarian since 1996, giving Putin a stronger common interest with China’s CCP in opposing liberal hegemony (Fig. 2). Putin’s moves away from liberal democracy have further alienated his regime from the United States, and they have heightened the notion held by Westerners, Russians, and Chinese alike that Russia and China are converging on a regime type of authoritarian capitalism.

Evidence Various types of evidence are implied by my argument. Some of this evidence would be difficult to explain if ideology and regime type were inconsequential.8

8 For more on these qualitative tests (hoop tests, smoking gun tests, etc.), see Bennett (2010), Collier (2011), and Mahoney (2015).

Fig. 1 Causal logic by which liberal hegemony promotes China-Russia cooperation (Reproduced from Owen IV, John M. 2020. Sino-Russian Cooperation Against Liberal Hegemony. International Politics 57 (5): 809–833)

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Fig. 2

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Freedom House ratings for China, Russia and the United States

Containment and Rollback of Liberal Democracy Russia has been energetic in trying to keep democracy away from its western border. It has deployed tools ranging from interference in elections (through propaganda and various positive and negative economic sanctions) to covert military action. The Kremlin has protected the ruling regime in Belarus, rated by Freedom House as the “least free” country in Europe (Freedom House 2017), from electoral defeat. Russia has provided Aleksandr Lukashenko with robust diplomatic and rhetorical cover against Western criticism of corrupt elections (Ambrosio 2009, 105–112), helping him stave off a “color revolution” in 2006. With an election approaching, Russia propagandized for Lukashenko, sent a team of “political technologists” to Minsk, provided financial assistance to Lukashenko’s party, and guaranteed that gas prices would remain at their low (highly subsidized) levels. Russia’s FSB cooperated with Belarus’s KGB to harass the opposition, which also was shut out from publishing literature (Tolstrup 2015, 683–685). Russia used similar techniques in Moldova in 2003 and in Ukraine in 2004 on behalf of Viktor Yanukovich, but without success (Horvath 2013, 22–27; Ambrosio 2009, 145–146; Tolstrup 2015). Putin also has spent resources to support anti-liberal parties in Western Europe. In 2015, his United Russia party lent Marine le Pen’s National Front e9 million. In December 2016, it entered a five-year “cooperation

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agreement” with the far-right Freedom Party in Austria. RT and a host of state-employed Internet trolls routinely propagandize against liberal parties and in favor of populist parties in Western countries (NBC News 2017). The Chinese government has aided authoritarian leaders in Burma, Cambodia, and Mongolia by targeting them with goods that they then redistribute to their constituencies (Bader 2014, 66–85). Of course, Western democracies routinely invest in and trade with authoritarian countries too. More important are the Chinese government’s exports of digital surveillance technologies and techniques to authoritarian governments that receive infrastructure investment through the Belt and Road Initiative (Segal 2020, 87). The CCP also has been promoting the “China model” by bringing to Beijing bureaucrats from Africa and Southeast and Central Asia to learn about “co-opting entrepreneurs into the Communist Party,” state favoritism of certain companies, and party control of the judicial system. Ties have strengthened with Putin’s United Russia party, which is eager to learn more about how to have a capitalist economy without multi-party constitutional democracy (Kurlantzick 2013). Beijing and Moscow Explicitly Call Liberal Democracy a Threat At least since Xi’s accession in 2013, the CCP’s leaders have considered liberal democracy their chief ideological foe. In that year, the CCP circulated Document No. 9, explicitly declaring that party officials must reject and combat various principles of “Western constitutional democracy, such as universal human rights, a free press, and civil society,” that have entered Chinese discourse and destabilize China’s government and society (China File 2013). Xi has taken active steps to renew CCP authority, including forbidding criticism of the Maoist era. In 2020–2021, he effectively ended the “one country, two systems” arrangement with Hong Kong. In Russia, Aleksandr Dugin, called Putin’s court ideologist, maintains that “Russia’s main enemy is (democratic) liberalism, and its geopolitical and ideological future lies with Asia, not the West” (Laqueur 2014, 76). Putin has attacked Western states and NGOs that criticize Russia’s human rights record as those who jut their “nose into other people’s affairs and declare the whole world as their sphere of influence” (Shlapentokh 2009, 312–313). Putin’s 2013 Address to the Federal Assembly offered an unmistakable critique of liberalism: “Today, many nations are revising

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their moral values and ethical norms, eroding ethnic traditions and differences between peoples and cultures” (Putin 2013). The Russian military is convinced that for many years the United States and the West have been waging gibridnaya voina (hybrid warfare) by promoting liberal revolutions in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East (Galeotti 2016). The Xi and Putin governments openly declare their shared commitment to fending off liberal revolutions and assert that such changes are stirred up by the United States. In 2021, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, marked the twentieth anniversary of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation by announcing that the two countries will carry on fighting “color revolutions” and the “political virus” that causes them. The Party-run Global Times stated that unrest in Hong Kong “was essentially an attempted Color Revolution backed by the US and West” (Xu 2021). In 2019, Geng Shuang stated that “a certain country has added instability and uncertainties to the world by following unilateralism and bullying practices as well as blatantly interfering in other countries’ domestic affairs” (Stent 2020, 3). No one need doubt that that “certain country” is the United States. Better Relations with Authoritarian States and Actors The Kremlin maintains better relations with Russia’s authoritarian neighbors Belarus and the Central Asian republics than with the EU states as a whole. It is especially striking that since 2009 relations between Russia and Ukraine have improved when the latter was moving away from democracy and deteriorated when it was becoming more democratic. In 2010, Yanukovich was elected Ukraine’s President. He quickly shifted power from parliament and prime minister to president and began to restrict the media and assembly. Freedom House downgraded Ukraine in 2011 and again in 2012 (and the overall rating fell from Free to Partly Free) (Freedom House 2011, 2012). In 2013, Yanokovich rejected an agreement for associated status with the EU in favor of one building greater economic ties to Russia. (It was this policy shift that triggered the Euromaidan Revolution.) But we should not be surprised that leaders whom Russia helped place in power are friendlier to Russia. More helpful are cases of Chinese relations with authoritarian Southeast Asian neighbors, because China had no direct role in placing their regimes in power. In 2014, a military coup

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toppled Thailand’s democracy; in 2016, Rodrigo Duterte was elected President of the Philippines. There is no open-source evidence that China had any role in either event. Following the 2014 Thai coup, democracies such as Australia, India, the Philippines, the United States, and Canada expressed dismay, while China welcomed it as evidence that constitutional democracy did not work in Asia. The new Thai junta soon reached out to governments in China, Myanmar, and Cambodia in hopes of improving relations (Allen 2014). In 2015, Thailand, long a destination for Chinese defectors, extradited to China approximately 100 ethnic Uighurs. Reports of growing numbers of Chinese agents in Bangkok are frequent. The two countries’ militaries carried out joint military exercises for the first time (although Thailand continues the Cobra Gold exercises with the United States as well) (Beech 2016). Following his 2016 election in the Philippines, Duterte quickly carried out thousands of extra-judicial killings (as part of his draconian war on drugs) and threatened journalists and civil society activists. Freedom House gave the country a “downward trend arrow” in its 2017 report. As if on cue, Beijing has defended Duterte’s violent anti-drug policies (Manila Journal 2018). Duterte also has announced on several occasions that the Philippines’ alliance with the United States is over and has predicted America’s collapse. He has openly praised China and Xi. In contrast to his predecessors, he refused to press the Filipino case against China’s incursions into international waters in the South China Sea. Cooperation Against Human Rights Criticism The Russian and Chinese governments, like most authoritarian governments, are endlessly irritated by the steady stream of reports from governmental and non-governmental organizations criticizing their human rights records. Since 1998, China has published an annual report on human rights in the United States. The 2017 report noted in the first paragraph, “With the gunshots lingering in people’s ears behind the Statue of Liberty, worsening racial discrimination and the election farce dominated by money politics, the self-proclaimed human rights defender has exposed its human rights ‘myth’ with its own deeds” (People’s Republic of China 2017). Russia’s government-run international news agency promoted the report, as it has with past such reports (RT 2017). At least twice, in 2012 and 2014, Russia’s foreign ministry has issued

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a scathing report on human rights practices in the EU. “The European Union continues to position itself as the main outpost in the struggle for human rights in the world,” reads the 2014 report. “But its own legal activity in this area does not correspond to these claims” (Russian Federation 2014). More seriously, while serving simultaneously on the UN Human Rights Council (2009–2016), Russia and China have cooperated to try to block all country-specific items on the council’s agenda. For the first twenty council sessions, Russia and China voted alike 99 percent of the time (120 resolutions) (Sceats 2012, 21). Moscow and Beijing also have attempted (without success) to block meetings of the UN Security Council concerning North Korea’s human rights practices (Nichols 2016). In 2020, both countries were elected again to the Human Rights Council (Nichols 2020). Russian Election Interference in the United States in 2016 and 2020 Although Donald Trump and his advisors and supporters vehemently denied that the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government, the evidence is irrefutable that Russian agents worked to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. A 2020 U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Russian intelligence officers had extensive contacts with Trump campaign officials (Mazzetti 2020). A 2021 report by the U.S. intelligence community claims that Russian agents fed Trump campaign associates hacked information to undermine the Biden campaign (Barnes 2021). A report of a Special Counsel appointed by Trump himself found an extensive Russian social media campaign to aid Trump in 2016 (Mueller 2019). Why the Russian support for Trump in both election campaigns? If all that worried the Putin government about the United States were the effectiveness and location of the U.S. military, as realism expects, it is not at all clear that Putin would have favored Donald Trump. Trump made clear in his 2016 run that he wanted to increase America’s military budget by $500 billion over ten years (Diamond 2016). While in the White House, he maintained sanctions against Russia over its ongoing intervention in Ukraine and redeployed 1,000 U.S. NATO troops from Germany to Poland, bringing the total in Poland to 5,500 (BBC 2020)— both policies that the Putin regime despised. Speculation has been rife that the Russian security service has incrimination information about

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Trump and planned to blackmail him, but all public efforts to confirm that speculation have failed. The most plausible explanation for Russian support of Trump is his open hostility toward many elements of America’s liberal hegemony, including free trade treaties, international institutions, U.S. military alliances with Europe, Japan, and South Korea, and democracy promotion. As President, Trump took a number of steps to weaken cooperation among wealthy liberal democracies, lambasting longtime allies and cultivating personal relations with despots including Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, and Putin himself. Evidently, Putin’s government judged that the overall benefit to Russia from weakening Western solidarity and hence liberal hegemony made the price worth paying, particularly since both Clinton and Biden were confirmed supporters of the U.S.-sponsored liberal international order. (China, meanwhile, did not interfere significantly in either election, evidently judging that its overall interests would be unaffected regardless of the winner and also that the costs of exposure would be too high [National Intelligence Council 2021].)

Objections to the Argument Notwithstanding the evidence in its favor, one could object that the argument contains a tension concerning the rise of China. On the one hand, I posit that China is rising in power so sharply that realism predicts the beginnings of a Russo-American coalition against China. On the other hand, I maintain that the United States remains successful enough (including in terms of power) to continue to attract imitators and maintain its hegemony to the point that the Chinese and Russian regimes are thrown together to oppose it. The difference is that realism looks to material power alone, whereas my argument is about the interaction of material power and ideas. China’s relative power has grown vis-àvis America’s, but although China and Russia share a 4,200-kilometre border, Chinese power simply does not threaten the Putin regime as much as the United States and EU do. The most important trend—and the one driving Russia and China closer together—is depicted in Fig. 2: Russia’s serial lurches away from liberal democracy against a backdrop of global American and Western power. So long as that remains the backdrop, it will be an intersubjective fact that Russia and China are moving closer together ideologically.

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A second possible objection is that the 2014 Sino-Russian energy pact—a crucial moment in the deepening of bilateral cooperation—may be explained by realism. The pact followed a rise in the Western or American threat to Russia, inasmuch as the Euromaidan Revolution made more likely Ukrainian membership in NATO, at least in the minds of Ukrainian liberals and perhaps Putin and his government. Without doubt, that last claim is true. But realism cannot answer the pivotal question of why a regime change in Ukraine would make NATO membership more likely. For realism, alliances are a product of changes in material power, not in domestic regime type. Ukraine’s power position in the international system did not change after the Euromaidan Revolution; thus, realism insists that neither Ukrainian nor Russian interests changed, and Russia and Ukraine were as likely to strike a deal after the revolution as before. Clearly, that is not how Putin, or Ukrainian liberals, has seen the matter. Viktor Yanukovich was pro-Russia and was overthrown by pro-Western Ukrainian activists and politicians. All concerned recognized that liberal democracy is a carrier of Western, and ultimately American power, and hence a solvent of Russian power (so long as Russia remains authoritarian).

Implications Liberal hegemony is only one of a number of factors affecting greatpower alignment patterns. A number of factors make Sino-Russian cooperation difficult. Given their lengthy shared border, the Russians are bound to fear China’s growing wealth, military, and demographic dominance. The two have real cultural differences, including differing attitudes toward governmental corruption; the Chinese are reportedly baffled at Putin’s indifference toward Russia’s dependence on oil and gas exports, and regard as reckless his military moves to Russia’s west (Baev 2020). To date neither government evinces interest in a military alliance, and no doubt neither wants the other to entrap it into a dangerous crisis with the United States. Nothing in my argument rules out limited security cooperation between Washington and Beijing or Washington and Moscow, or tensions between Moscow and Beijing. To date, however, Russia and China have progressively deepened cooperation while the relationship of each with the United States has worsened. It appears that the interaction of U.S. material power and liberal-democratic ideas is facilitating Sino-Russian cooperation and inhibiting cooperation between

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each of those countries and the United States. As Angela Stent writes about Russia, the needier party, “those who believe that Russia would be willing to distance itself from China and align itself with Washington against Beijing underestimate the extent to which China’s unequivocal support of Russia’s domestic system is an existential issue for the Putin regime” (Stent 2020, 2). One way to tease out implications is to think about counterfactuals. Ceteris paribus, were China or Russia to become more liberal-democratic, its relations with the United States would improve. Were America to become less liberal-democratic, the same would result. The Trump administration threatened to bring just such a result in the United States, and Donald Trump or a protégé may occupy the White House in the future. Should either mode of convergence—Chinese or Russian liberalization or American “autocratization”—come to pass, a more realist trilateral relationship should emerge in which each power responds more to shifts in material power and the rise of China eventually presses Washington and Moscow into a coalition. There are, of course, reasons to doubt that any of these changes will come to pass. Russia still has some openly liberal elites, and the dissident class within China doubtless includes some admirers of liberal democracy. But both regimes are adept at both suppressing dissent via state monitoring and coercion, and marginalizing it via the successes described above. America’s domestic institutions, meanwhile, were robust enough in 2020–2021 to withstand a clumsy yet serious threat to the country’s constitutional regime. More likely is that China continues to rise, to the point where it becomes a security rival to the United States in the Asia–Pacific and perhaps the Indian Ocean, the Arctic, and beyond. Assuming China’s market-Leninist regime endures throughout this period, Beijing could eventually accrue enough soft power abroad—elite admirers in other countries who want to imitate China and align with it—that countries with different regimes, including Russia, might begin to regard Chinese power as more of a threat and U.S. power as a lifeline. China’s regnant communist ideology and its official atheism might come to seem more repulsive and threatening to Russia’s leaders, who have staked their power on kleptocratic capitalism and tight links with the Russian Orthodox Church. Not global power shifts alone, but the interaction of those shifts with the distribution of ideology—that is, shifts in the global power of various ideologies—would bring about the Russo-American partnership long predicted and hoped for by realists.

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Acknowledgements The author thanks Brandon Yoder, Ted Hopf, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter, and Thomas Billebault for research assistance. Any errors of fact or reasoning are the author’s sole responsibility.

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The Paradox of Sino-Russian Partnership: Global Normative Alignment and Regional Ontological Insecurity Elizabeth Wishnick

The Sino-Russian partnership presents a paradox for analysts and policymakers in that contemporary Sino-Russian relations can be characterized on the one hand by global normative alignment and on the other by regional ontological insecurity. This chapter begins by examining the Chinese and Russian narratives that lead to global alignment. Next, their competing regional narratives, identities, and regional integration strategies are examined. These stem from differing historical experiences, understandings of borders and border states, and views of their own regional role. The chapter argues that these competing self-concepts and strategies lead to an ontological security dilemma on the regional level. This dilemma contributes to a lack of regional integration, which the pandemic experience has highlighted, with relatively few cases of COVID19 transmission occurring across the Sino-Russian border. The chapter concludes with policy implications for the U.S. and other concerned states

E. Wishnick (B) Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University, New York, NJ, USA

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_7

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and argues that the insecurity on the regional level is unlikely to translate into opportunities to weaken the Sino-Russian global alignment.

Sources of Sino-Russian Global Normative Alignment Sino-Russian global normative alignment stems from overlapping domestic and security concerns. Ever since democratic movements threatened Eurasian autocratic regimes in the “color revolutions” of the 2000s, both China and Russia have opposed foreign interference in authoritarian states. While agreeing to disagree on the implementation of specific policies (Russia’s takeover of Crimea, for example, or China’s actions in the South China Sea), officials of the two countries largely refrain from direct criticisms of one another. Non-Interference in Authoritarian States and Information Sovereignty Both Xi and Putin have capitalized on the disarray in Afghanistan to vindicate their position on non-interference. Prior to the withdrawal, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin accused the United States of bringing trouble to Afghanistan “in the guise of liberal democracy” (sohu.com 2021). After the U.S. forces withdrew, Russian President Vladimir Putin echoed this view, commenting that U.S. efforts to impose their norms and standards on Afghan society resulted in tragedy, both for Afghanistan and the United States (Kommersant 2021). To stem the tide of foreign information influence in their own countries, Russia and China are staking a claim to internet sovereignty. They have done this by restricting the activities of foreign NGOs within their borders as well as domestic groups receiving foreign funding. In China, internet censorship and a more restrictive social media environment have also been important tools, especially during Xi Jinping’s rule. China and Russia, along with six members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), proposed a code of conduct on information sovereignty at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in 2011, which they amended in 2015. Their efforts served to deepen the divide among countries regarding the aims of internet governance. In 2018, the UNGA’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security approved two separate resolutions, one advocating a free and open internet and the

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other, a resolution from Russia, China, and several other authoritarian states, arguing for greater control over content and infrastructure (De Tomas Colatin 2018). China and Russia have also signed two bilateral treaties on internet activity, a cyber non-aggression pact and an agreement to regulate “illegal” content (Moscow Times 2019). Opposition to the U.S. Alliance System and Its Extension into Asia Both Russia and China have benefited from the stabilizing effects of the U.S. alliance system in Asia, although they have criticized the U.S. and its allies for seeking to contain their legitimate interests and interfering in the affairs of other countries. For China, U.S. deployments and policies have served as obstacles to Chinese territorial aims in the South China Sea and China’s priority to reunify Taiwan. Nevertheless, in other respects, U.S. policies have supported China’s interests, for example, by preventing Japanese remilitarization and maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Straits and the Korean Peninsula. Even in Afghanistan, after decrying the presence of NATO forces in the country for years, Chinese officials now criticize the U.S. and its allies for the instability created by their departure (Reuters 2021). The Trump Administration’s elaboration of a vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific and the subsequent elaboration of the Quadrilateral Strategic Alliance (the Quad) including the U.S.,Japan, India, and Australia, policies continued by the Biden team, have led to new angst in Beijing and Moscow. While Chinese and Russian officials claim on one hand that the U.S. is in decline, on the other they see new threats from the U.S. and its allies in the Indo-Pacific. For China, the key concern is about encirclement and efforts by the U.S. to work with China’s opponents to contain its rightful place in the region (fmprc.gov.cn 2021). Chinese officials typically downplay the concept of the Indo-Pacific—some refuse to utter the words at all (Feng Liu 2020)—and see the U.S. strategy as an effort to create Cold War-style divisions. Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed (rather poetically) that the notion of the Indo-Pacific was as ephemeral as foam in ocean: It seems there is never a shortage of headline-grabbing ideas. They are like the sea foam in the Pacific or Indian Ocean. They may get some attention, but soon will dissipate. Contrary to the claim made by some academics and media outlets that the “Indo-Pacific Strategy” aims to contain China, the

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four countries’ official position is that it targets no one. I hope they mean what they say, and that their actions will match their rhetoric. Nowadays, stoking a new Cold War is out of sync with the times and inciting block(sic) confrontation will find no market. (xinhuanet.com 2018)

For Russia, the role of India in the Quad is most concerning, since India has been a longstanding bilateral partner, as well as a participant in BRICS and the SCO, and a recipient of cutting-edge Russian military technology. At a time when India’s relations with China are at a low point due to their simmering border conflict, the new dynamism in U.S.-India ties has complicated Russia’s security picture. Moreover, the concept of the Indo-Pacific would shift the focus of activity to maritime spaces, thereby marginalizing Russia as an Asian actor, since its primary role remains on the Eurasian continent (rusi.org 2021). Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, like his Chinese counterpart, sees the IndoPacific strategy and the Quad as efforts to divide and contain, which contrast with consensus-building approaches common in ASEAN (mid.ru 2020). Partnership Narratives Faced with a security environment that they see as both more threatening and potentially providing more opportunities, Chinese and Russian leaders have been sending mixed messages about the nature of their partnership. Putin, for example, said in October 2020 that while Russia does not need an alliance with China, one was theoretically possible (apnews.com 2021) this has fueled speculation about the development of a Sino-Russian alliance, which both Putin and Xi have never formally proclaimed. Nevertheless, the speculation about the existence of a SinoRussian alliance has its own deterrent value, which may lessen the need for an actual alliance agreement, and may even be superior to such a formal bond because of the deniability option. The joint statement released by the two countries on June 28, 2021, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the 2001 Sino-Russian friendship treaty, sidesteps the alliance issue. It states that “The Sino-Russian relationship is not similar to the military and political alliance during the Cold War, but transcends this model of state relations” (guancha.cn 2021). This language echoes the Chinese position that there should be “no limits” to the development of Sino-Russian relations, while avoiding

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directly challenging China’s longstanding position rejecting alliances (css.ethz.ch 2021). Xin Zhang, a professor at Shanghai’s East China Normal University, has noted that there is a competing narrative in China about the SinoRussian partnership, one that argues that domestic drivers (“endogenous forces”) need to be taken into account in creating dynamism in the relationship, but also in setting limits to it. Confusingly, Xi Jinping has equivocated, supporting the “no limits” position on some occasions, but also the “endogenous forces” viewpoint on others (css.ethz.ch 2021). In Russia, too, there are those like Vassily Kashin of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies who argues that there is a “tacit alliance” emerging as a result from Sino-Russian military cooperation (carnegiemoscow.org 2019), while Alexander Lukin of the Higher School of Economics contends that Sino-Russian partnership may have hit a ceiling due to increasing Chinese assertiveness and will remain rooted in pragmatic cooperation based on the individual interests of both states (Lukin 2021, 170).

Competing Elements Coming just one year before the 2014 Ukraine crisis, China’s launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 coincided with the period of Russian enthusiasm for regional integration. In addition to the Eurasian efforts noted above, beginning in 2012, Putin unveiled a “turn to the East” [povorot na vostok] a series of new efforts to engage with Asia–Pacific countries involving new efforts to boost the economic development of the Russian Far East, economic integration with the Asia–Pacific via energy and transportation infrastructure networks, and greater involvement in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy in the region (Kuhrt and Østevik 2018, 77). Russian experts initially were wary of China’s parallel integration project which overlapped geographically with the Moscow-led EEU. They disagreed over the consequences of the BRI for Russian interests, with some seeing complementary features and hoping for greater Chinese investment in Russia, and others viewing the Chinese initiative in zero-sum terms, contributing to a reduction of Russian political influence in Central Asia and competition for transport routes (Kaczmarski 2017, 1035). One immediate challenge for China was where to fit Russia in the BRI agenda. Early maps of the Silk Road Economic

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Belt appeared to circumvent Russia, as Tsinghua University scholar Yan Xuetong commented: We once planned to have railways and oil and gas pipelines bypass Russia. But it seemed that we would compete with Russia. So we revised the plan and have them run through Russia. Only by this will the country join the economic belt. The move eased Russia’s concerns and offered other countries a way out of the dilemma of having to side with China or Russia. (Yan Xuetong 2014)

In the aftermath of Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2014, which led to sanctions, lower oil prices, and a weakened economy, in May 2015 Putin and Xi agreed to connect their two initiatives when the Chinese leader traveled to Russia for the celebration of 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, ceremonies that most Western leaders boycotted. The agreement created a semblance of parity between the BRI and EEU and avoid tensions with Beijing over Central Asia, at least in the short term (Peyrouse 2017, 100). Concretely it took another three years to negotiate the details of a trade and customs agreement among the parties. The slow pace of progress stemmed from a variety of sources, as Alexander Gabuev detailed based on interviews with Russian and Chinese officials. While ostensibly an agreement among multilateral initiatives, both countries approached the negotiations bilaterally, in a top-down way, relying on government agencies to take the lead, rather than business interest driving the direction of cooperative projects. This has made it more difficult to determine a joint EEU-BRI list of projects, especially since some EEU members like Kazakhstan had different interests from Russia, for example, in developing transportation routes (Gabuev 2016, 75). Gabuev and Vladivostok-based analyst Ivan Zuenko note that beginning in 2015 two trends emerge. Russian expectations for substantial BRI investment were largely disappointed, and Russian analysts focused more on the geopolitical consequences of the BRI, than on its potential economic benefits (Gabuev et al. 2018, 158–159), the opposite of Chinese commentary. Russian experts were disappointed in the (lack of) concrete results but satisfied with the geopolitical consequences—an appearance of Sino-Russian harmony at a time of Western pressure. As one Russian observer interviewed by the author noted the BRI is not in Russia’s interest, as Moscow seeks to maintain “a security belt around

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the country” [poyas bezopasnosti vokrug strany] and its own influence in Eurasia. In 2016, in response to Russia’s deepening isolation from the West, Putin proposed a “Greater Eurasian Partnership” to open up the membership beyond the BRI and EEU to other multilateral organizations, including the SCO, ASEAN, and potentially even the EU down the road. This is Russia’s rejoinder to Xi’s vision of a China-centered trade and transit network, though it will require Chinese investment in the framework of the BRI. China, for its part, needs Russia’s tacit agreement, if not its cooperation, with its economic (and political) agenda for Eurasia (Wilson Center 2020). In May 2017, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed to a proposal by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to cooperate in the transportation, infrastructure, and energy projects in the Arctic, an initiative known in China as the “Ice Silk Road” (or Polar Silk Road) (Wang Yi 2017). It was Putin at the 2011 Arctic Forum who first floated the idea of the Northern Sea Route as a new shipping artery linking Europe and Asia (Reuters 2011), though China later popularized the idea of creating a “blue corridor” between Asia and Europe, and linking up with the Belt and Road (in a rather roundabout way). Russian-China experts Andrei Dikarev and Alexander Lukin claim that Russia has privately objected to the “Ice Silk Road” because it runs through the Northern Sea Route, which Russia claims the right, under UNCLOS 234, to administer and has sought to prevent the term from being included in bilateral documents.1 (Dikarev and Lukin 2021, 22) UNCLOS Article 234 gives coastal states the right to adopt and enforce regulations on ice-covered areas within the limits of their exclusive economic zone (un.org n.d.). While some Russian experts interviewed by the author dismiss all of the various Eurasian integration projects with or without China as “just labels”, the Polar Silk Road has shown some results. The Arctic has become a bright spot in Sino-Russian economic cooperation with Chinese state-owned companies acquiring a 20% stake in both the Yamal 1 and 2 LNG projects, contributing drilling technology, and contributing to the development of infrastructure for the Payakh oil fields, potentially one of Russia’s richest (Wishnick 2020).

1 They further claim that China’s position on the Ice Silk Road makes Russia less likely to support Chinese positions in the South China Sea.

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Nonetheless, it was Russia (as well as Canada) that held out longest in opposition to China’s acquiring observer status in the Arctic Council and insisting on its recognition of UNCLOS and the sovereignty of Arctic states as a precondition (Wishnick 2017, 33). Two years after China acceded to the Arctic Council, in 2015, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu noted that “developed countries without an outlet to the Arctic seek to expand their territories at the expense of Arctic regions” (Redakci tvzvezda.ru 2015). At issue is China’s recognition of Russian authority to administer the still ice-covered Northern Sea Route above its long Arctic coastline. As long as this waterway and the central Arctic Ocean remain ice-covered, Russia serves as China’s gatekeeper to the Arctic. The rapid pace of climate change in the Arctic (with 100 F° temperatures reported in Verkhoyansk in the Russian Arctic in June 2020) may enable China to act more independently in the Arctic, which may put it at odds with Russia. The Arctic has the potential for clashing interests between Russia and China but also for competing identities. To justify its right to participate in Arctic development and governance, China officially terms itself a “near-Arctic state” (gov.cn 2018). China justifies its “near-Arctic status” by the impact of Arctic climate change that it experiences as well as its growing presence in the economic and scientific life of the Arctic. For Russia, however, Arctic identity is multifaceted and deeply felt. Russia has the longest Arctic coastline of Arctic states and a large swath of its territory, oil and gas resources, and GDP are concentrated in the region. Over the centuries, the Arctic has held different meanings for Russian leaders, but today it is a key component of Russian nationalism and fits with the portrayal of Russia as a unique Eurasian bridge between East and West. Marlène Laruelle speaks of the messianism in contemporary portrayals of the Russian Arctic as a place of respite from encroachments by competitors, East and West, and a refuge where Russia could rebuild its great power status. She notes: The Arctic metanarrative is well received in a Russian society marked by a growing xenophobia and identification with a “white” identity. The public discourse, fed by both politicians and the media, about “threats” coming from the South—including instability in the North Caucasus, migrations from Central Asia, and a form of Chinese “yellow peril” in Siberia and the Far East—reinforces a spatial representation of Russia in which the “south” is the region from where all danger arises, while the

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“north” is the place where the Russian nation will be able to take refuge and preserve itself. The growing Europeanization of identity narratives in Russia therefore opens new niches for a Nordic/Arctic metanarrative to develop. (Laruelle 2020, 42)

As Laruelle describes it, China poses a double threat to Russian identity, in the Arctic where China now claims legitimate status, and in the Russian border regions with China. Ever since the normalization of Sino-Soviet relations in 1989, the Chinese government and regional officials in Northeast China have viewed the border between the Russian Far East and the Chinese Northeast as an opportunity for mutually beneficial economic cooperation. Chinese dreams for border cooperation zones have not borne fruit, however, for the most part thanks to stubborn suspicions on the Russian side and China’s unwillingness to address them, beyond attributing them to “China threat” views (Christoffersen and Zuenko 2018, 217–218). Franck Billé argues that China and Russia today have a profoundly different understanding of borders, with Russia viewing them as fixed points that need to be protected, while China sees them more expansively as frontier zones (Billé 2012, 12).2 The Greater Tumen Initiative, launched in 1995 to develop regional economic cooperation among Russia and China in their territories bordering on the mouth of the Tumen River, failed to generate enthusiasm on the Russian side because participation would involve relinquishing some sovereignty to create a border zone.3 The border in question was settled by the 1860 Treaty of Peking according to which China lost territory to Russia, including its access to the sea from the Tumen River. The threat of millions of Chinese migrants pouring across the RussianChinese border has long fueled the imagination of Russian citizens despite the lack of evidence of Chinese foreign workers in Russia harboring such intentions or any centralized effort by Beijing to resettle former Qing dynasty territory. Nevertheless, Vladivostok historian Alexander Golikov 2 The 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk established a frontier zone, based on geographical features, rather than a boundary, while the 1860 Treaty of Peking sets a border. See Neville Maxwell, “How the Sino-Russian Boundary Conflict Was Finally Settled from Nerchinsk 1689 to Vladivostok 2005 via Zhenbao Island 1969,” Critical Asian Studies 39:2, 2007, 231. 3 This project also includes North Korea, which borders on the Tumen, and Mongolia which seeks outlets to the sea.

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outlines the “sinicizing” impact of colonialism by migrant farmers during the Qing dynasty’s approach (Golikov 2013, 108). Fears of Chinese (as well as Korean and Japanese) migrants have inspired crackdowns at various points in history and “Yellow Peril” narratives. Chinese settlers were required to leave the Russian Far East first in the latter part of the nineteenth century and then again during the 1930s when Stalin forced out most Asians living in the region out of concern over foreign spies (Stephan 1994, 213). After the reopening of the Sino-Soviet border in the late 1980s to trade, chaotic flows of “shuttle traders” in the 1990s were gradually controlled by the mid-2000s with new legislation and enforcement. Many explanations have been offered to account for the persistence of concern in the Russian border regions about a threat from Chinese migrants. The obvious population imbalance is one key factor—there are 110 million people in China’s dongbei (the three northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning) but just six million in the Russian Far East, which has lost two million residents since the 1990s. The expansion of the region to include the Baikal region has given the appearance of a population boost, but has not altered the reality of a sparsely populated expanse of territory, one-third the size of the United States. In the 1990s and early 2000s, during the height of concern about what was termed China’s “quiet expansion” (tikhaya ekspansiya), Russia and China were negotiating outstanding issues on their eastern border, including areas which had been the locale for the 1969 Sino-Soviet border clashes. Moreover, at this time, governors were elected in Russia, and the media was less politically constrained than it is today, providing both incentive for local politicians to use the China threat to political advantage and for local news media to cover the issue. Some experts argued that concern with Chinese migration reflected a lack of confidence by Russians in their government—under those circumstances worst-case scenarios (involving massive Chinese migration) seemed plausible (Alexseev 2006, 46). Corruption on both sides of the border and a deficit of reliable figures about Chinese migration only exacerbate Russian concerns. In reality, a Russian regional official contends that there are 550,000 Chinese now living in Russia, half of them in the Moscow region (Gabuev and Repnikova 2017). Chinese estimates are even lower—the Chinese Consul in Vladivostok stated that there were no more than 300,000 Chinese in Russia as of early 2020 (Global Times 2020). There has been a marked

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increase in Chinese tourism in Russia in recent years—one out of every ten visitors is Chinese—but 72% were tourists who stayed for fewer than 30 days, according to Russian official statistics. This data also shows that just 4,700 Chinese received temporary residence permits from 2017 to mid-2019 (365.info.kz 2019). At least publicly, in the 1990s and early 2000s, Chinese officials also refused to take Russian concerns about Chinese migration seriously, attributing such fears to the influence of “China threat” views. Chinese officials termed their nationals who worked in Russia waipai laowu (foreign labor) rather than yimin (migrants) (Wishnick 2008, 93). Indeed, despite fears that Chinese sought to occupy land and establish families in Russia, public opinion surveys the author carried out in July 2004 showed that most Chinese who worked in Russia were ambivalent about staying on permanently, experienced many hardships while working there, and hoped to return to the families most of them left behind in China (Wishnick 2008, 94–95). Chinese Northeastern provinces (known as dongbei, the Northeast) have faced difficult economic conditions as aging rust belt enterprises laid off workers and the region experienced GDP decline. Many residents looked for work elsewhere, mostly in China (where they have faced discrimination due to stereotypes about their association with petty crime) (globaltimes.cn 2018) but also in the Russian Far East. Dongbei has the dubious distinction of being the province with the greatest population outflow, losing one million people from 2000 to 2010 and 240,000 more since then (Dongbei Diaspora 2019). It was discovered in 2015 that these provinces were masking their poor economic indicators, among the lowest in China, by falsifying their economic data (South China Morning Post 2015), which led some Western scholars to conclude erroneously that push factors were insignificant in migration from the region (Repnikova 2009). Chinese migration lost its appeal as a political issue by the mid2000s. In 2007, new policies were implemented to regularize migration, involving stiff fines for hiring foreign workers illegally and prohibiting foreigners from selling goods in markets (Wishnick 2010, 63). The appointment of governors for nearly a decade beginning in 2004 depoliticized the issue and today Russian media is more compliant in following the official line on Sino-Russian partnership. A 2017 survey of opinion in four regions of the Russian Far East found a marked decline in perception of a threat from foreign migration—24% saw this a threat in 2017,

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compared to 51% in 2010 (Larin and Larina 2018). This same study saw support (50%) for China as a key partner (Larin and Larina 2018, 15) especially in Primorskiy Krai, which shares a border with China, though opinion in the region was evenly split over whether or not Chinese investment was a threat (39% thought it was and an equal number disagreed) (Larin and Larina 2018, 17). By comparison, opinion in Moscow is more positive about China. In the Levada Center’s January 2020 poll, 65% of respondents had favorable views of China, 24% negative, and 11% difficult to answer. These results from the COVID-19 period showed a decline from November 2019, when China had a 72% favorability rating, with 17% expressing negative views and 11% reporting they didn’t know (levada.ru 2021).4 Nonetheless, the cost of Chinese laborers on official construction contracts has made their employment less profitable now and now we see Chinese investors in businesses in Russia hiring local people for their enterprises. Where Chinese vendors used to staff the market stalls in Vladivostok, today we see Uzbeks who were induced to move the region with new government subsidies for Russian speakers from the former Soviet space. Nonetheless, there is still underlying criticism of those Chinese working in the region, for example, of the use of pesticides by Chinese farmers and the activities of Chinese sawmills. In part, the migration issue is connected to concerns about the demarcation and security of the Sino-Russian border. In May 1991, Jiang Zemin and Gorbachev agreed to most of the eastern border between Russia and China, transferring Damanskii/Zhen Bao Island, the site of some of the 1969 border clashes, to China. The 1991 border settlement was largely based on an agreement that had largely been completed in 1964, until Mao complained in an interview that “there are too many places occupied by the Soviet Union… Some people have said that Xinjiang province and the territory north of the Amur River must be included in the Soviet Union… China has not yet asked the Soviet Union for an account about Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka, and other town and regions east of Lake Baikal, which became Russian territory about 100 years ago.” (cited in Wishnick 2014, 28). This led Khrushchev to retort that Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia were occupied by the Chinese emperors and that

4 By comparison, 49% of respondents had a favorable view of the EU and 42% had a favorable view of the U.S.

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the Soviet Union supported their self-determination (see Wishnick 2014, note 39, 210). In 2004 China and Russia would agree to the final demarcation of the eastern border, including the transfer of two smaller islands in the Amur River to China and splitting the larger Black Bear Island/Heixiazi Dao, which had eluded the 1991 agreement. According to this agreement, Russia retained the part of Black Bear Island facing the city of Khabarovsk, the seat of its Far East Military District, and China gained access to the Kozakevich/Fuyuan Channel at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers (Maxwell 2007, 252). Despite the appearance of what Chinese officials would term a “win– win” result, this border settlement still rankles in China, where the details of Sino-Russian border demarcation have not been publicized. To the contrary, Chinese nationalists—now joined by “wolf warrior” diplomats—continue to lament the loss of territory to Russia in the nineteenth century. A run-of-the mill post on the Chinese social media platform Weibo by the Russian Embassy in China regarding the 160th anniversary of the city of Vladivostok, prompted Shen Shiwei, a Chinese journalist on state-run CGTN TV, to retort that this brought back memories China’s century of humiliation. He was joined by Zhang Heqing, Cultural Counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan, who recalled that Vladivostok was once the Chinese city of Haishenwei (South China Morning Post 2020). As Dominik Mierzejewski notes, China’s leaders shape Chinese identity in Northeast China and encourage patriotism by highlighting collective memories of past injustices in relations with Russia (Mierzejewski 2012, 65). This exchange led the Russian Embassy to remove the “offending” post and Hu Xijin, then the editor of the usually nationalist tabloid, Global Times , to reply that the inviolability of borders is an underlying principle of international relations that must be respected. Nonetheless, he noted that Chinese have bitter memories of the Tsarist expansion into previously Chinese territory east of the Amur, as commemorated in a current exhibit in Heihe. Hu pointed out that there were those in Russia and China who looked for indication of enmity in the other and that this only benefits Washington. While considering the Russian post about Vladivostok to be unfriendly, Hu told his readers that they cannot advocate for the return of lost territories as this would only contribute to confrontation and undermine the common mission Russia and China share to develop a strategic partnership (mp.weixin.qq.com 2020). Russian media covered the weibo

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exchange in a measured way, pointing out that the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship and Good-Neighborly Cooperation committed to the inviolability of borders and that such nationalistic opinions were only shared by a minority in Chinese society (Russian-nakanune.ru 2020). Interestingly, Chinese analysts attribute Russian fears of Chinese migration to nationalism and xenophobia in Russia (Luo and Dai 2018, 121; Han and Wang 2015, 125). Chinese Russia experts are aware of Russian dissatisfaction with what they perceive as an asymmetrical economic partnership with China and are concerned that it will create obstacles to it. While some Chinese observers are optimistic that the factors bringing Russia and China together (cultural exchanges, win–win economic cooperation, Western pressure) (Luo and Dai 2018), others note that Russia seeks diverse partnerships in Asia beyond China and that a desire for cooperation with China won’t necessarily lead to Sino-Russian cross-border ties. Chinese experts on Russia’s regional politics interviewed by the author acknowledge that Russia values security over development in its border regions. Moreover, since Russia identifies as a European state, a future improvement in Russia’s relations with the West may affect Sino-Russian economic cooperation (Han and Wang 2015, 125). In the short term, Chinese experts address the many economic risks China faces in its relations with Russia due to the inadequate rule of law, imperfect market mechanisms, high taxes, and environmental rules (Yin Min 2018, 125). Some experts interviewed by the author note that Russians feel that China takes advantage of it by emphasizing resource deals, but point out that Russia has many economic problems that impede wider ranging cooperation, particularly a changeable business environment which Chinese firms find challenging. Russia may fear becoming a resource appendage, but some Chinese analysts interviewed argue that the Sino-Russian economic relationship is not substantial enough for this to be the case and that, for China, Russia is viewed as more of a transit country than a focal point.

Lack of Regional Integration: Explanations and Examples If Chinese exhortations about “win–win” cooperation on the regional level fall flat, it is because China and Russia lack a shared sense of regional identity, leading to incompatible security interests, at least where identity issues are concerned. This means that even projects that provide mutual

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benefit may raise challenges to Russia’s identity, undermining its commitment to regional integration (Russo and Stoddard 2018, 34). Jennifer Mitzen argues that states seek identity security, not just physical security. In fact, Mitzen argues that states may be willing to forego cooperation and tolerate interstate conflict if the price is greater stability in their identity (Mitzen 2016, 342). Security dilemmas may emerge when a group’s action, taken to secure its identity, cause a reaction in another group, thereby resulting in the insecurity of both (Olesker 2011, 382). The Sino-Russian Border Regions While Chinese officials and experts may be frustrated by what they call “China threat” views—regarding their country’s purported intentions to take over neighboring lands and encourage migration there, China, too, has its own identity concerns with respect to its neighbors on the Steppe. Historians explain how China’s identity was formed in opposition to these neighbors who are portrayed as starkly different, despite commonalities (MacKay 2016, 472–473). In the neighboring countries, narratives of history and memories of border displacements create dissonance with Chinese interpretations and underlie suspicions of China’s current intentions. For Russia, identity is rooted in a geopolitical space, a conceptualization that has led to misunderstandings with the EU and its conception of borderless Europe (Akchurina and Della Sala 2018, 1651) as well as with China. Place names became flashpoints in relations with China, as residents of the Russian Far East see territorial ambitions in the persistence in China of Qing era names for Russian cities (Wishnick 2014, 54).5 Border demarcation agreements, which involved some give and take of territory, were negotiated and announced with little transparency in all involved countries, fueling suspicions, heightened by widespread corruption in China and its neighbors. The changes in China’s borders with Kazakhstan and Russia in the nineteenth century reflect China’s declining fortunes in the Qing dynasty.

5 After the Sino-Soviet split, the Soviet government became preoccupied by what they saw as the inaccurate portrayal of border history in China and enlisted Soviet historians to refute Chinese positions on Russian seizure of Chinese land. A series of decrees required that cities in the Russian Far East restore their original Russian names.

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The codification of these borders in twentieth-century border demarcation agreements, as China began its resurgence, represent a necessary but bitter pill for Chinese leaders. As S.C.M. Paine points out, the SinoRussian border represents for China “the failure to fend off the predations of European civilization” (Paine 1996, 9). Russians, in particular, question whether Chinese leaders have ever abandoned the hope of retrieving territories lost in the Qing era. Deng Xiaoping told Gorbachev in their historic meeting in 1989 that they must “close the past and open the future,” but in a less quoted passage, he went on to discuss the unequal treaties that support the relationship he just agreed to normalize. Deng Xiaoping: Now I would like to express my thoughts on two issues: first, to touch on the question of the losses, inflicted on China by a number of powers, and, second, to say from where China was threatened in the last thirty years. Then [Deng Xiaoping] named, among countries who inflicted damage on China, first and foremost Great Britain and Portugal, because they first occupied the Chinese territory, created concessions, captured Aomen (Macao). He spoke at length about the losses inflicted by Japan, tsarist Russia, which obtained the largest gain from China, and about the Soviet Union. With this he had in mind that Russia, up until the October revolution, had a sphere of influence in Northeastern China, centered on Harbin. And in general, [Deng Xiaoping] stressed, Russia, through unequal treaties, received more than 1.5 million square kilometers of Chinese territory. And already after the October revolution, in 1929, the Soviet Union captured the islands on the Amur and Ussuri rivers near Khabarovsk]... (www.wil soncenter.org n.d.)

In this statement, Deng highlights the importance of Chinese territorial integrity, which succession of Chinese leaders have since identified as a “core” nationalist interest. At the same time, over the past several decades, Chinese officials also have sought to promote various cross-border integration schemes, most recently under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In this situation, China promotes a vision of borders as bridges (Foot 2016, 5). Instead of insisting on borders as fixed barriers, protecting the national interest, the BRI, for example, promotes a more fluid vision of a transnational space involving civilizational, rather than interstate, connections. (Summers 2020, 812; Grant 2018, 400). It is the latter that worries Russia.

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COVID-19 and Sino-Russian Relations COVID-19 has highlighted the anemic state of Sino-Russian cross-border exchanges. (chinasresourcerisks.com 2021) Although Russia and China share a 4000 km shared border, there were relatively few cases of COVID19 in the Russian border regions in the first few months of the pandemic, attesting to the overall weakness of Sino-Russian regional relations, rather than to the effectiveness of Russian public health measures. Indeed, the virus appears to have traveled more circuitously to Russia from China to Europe and then to European regions within Russia (Zuenko 2020). The Russian government closed the land border with China on January 30th, 2020, followed by border crossing points (February 1) and rail traffic (February 3). As of September 2021, the Sino-Russian border is still only open to cargo. In bilateral talks, Putin and Xi Jinping have expressed mutual support and pledged to cooperate against the pandemic (Weitz 2020) but reactions across Russia’s regions were mixed. Some Russian regions bemoaned the loss of Chinese visitors (meduza.io 2020) while others quarantined them or monitored them using facial recognition technology, prompting protests of ethnic profiling (Light 2020; Sixth Tone 2020). A February 2020 poll by Ipsos-MORI found that 37% of Russians polled said they would avoid individuals with a Chinese appearance (Beaver 2020). Once the pandemic was under control in China later in the spring of 2020, this time it was the Chinese government that shut down border crossing points on its own side of the border. This move ended up stranding Chinese nationals seeking to return home and created new health risks for the Russian Far East, where infected visitors faced 28-day quarantines (Shah 2020). Although most experts argue that the pandemic was most likely transmitted by a bat to a wild animal sold in China (McKay et al. 2021) in an effort to raise questions about the pandemic’s origin in China, Chinese officials have claimed that the virus can be transmitted by frozen food, including fish from Russia (as well as Maine lobsters!) (Hernández 2021/Woodcock 2021). Since approximately 60% of Russian fish, mostly from the Russian Far East (Russian primamedia.ru 2021) is exported to China, this has crippled Russian fish exports. China has refused to accept imported Russian fish since COVID-19 traces were found on frozen fish imported from Russia to Jilin, China. This has forced Russian fish exporters to seek out other markets in Southeast Asia and even in

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Africa, as officials try to negotiate an end to the Chinese ban (Solovieva 2021). China’s eagerness to uncover a foreign origin for the pandemic has created a new irritant in Sino-Russian regional relations, always the weakest link in their partnership.

Conclusions The COVID-19 pandemic clearly displayed the limits of Sino-Russian regional relations—despite the lengthy border, the transmission route from China to Russia took a circuitous turn through Europe. Both countries quickly closed their side of the border to travelers. Moreover, the Chinese government had no trouble sacrificing fish imports from the Russian Far East, contributing to an economic disaster for the sector which had been highly dependent on the Chinese market, in the interest of supporting their country’s narrative that the virus originated outside of China. Competing border history narratives also continue to impede Sino-Russian regional cooperation, despite apparent resource complementarities, due to the ontological security dilemmas they create and the different understandings of the shared border that Russia and China demonstrate. These differences over regional cooperation do not provide the daylight that some fans of Kissingerian strategy are seeking in an effort to drive a wedge between Russia and China, however (Allott 2019). Regional-level ontological security dilemmas may impede regional cooperation but the overall normative alignment persists. Although the border regions may never be the centerpiece of Sino-Russian economic cooperation, the border itself remains a peaceful one, no small achievement, and one with great strategic significance for both countries, enabling them to focus on the primary threats they perceive from the West. With Putin and Xi Jinping likely to remain in power for some time, protecting the norms of authoritarian governance domestically and charting out new forms of global governance that protect their interests, in the information sphere, for example, are all the more important. There are some small signs of thaw in U.S.-Russia relations, with the launching of dialogue about arms control and strategic stability, as well as military-military dialogue between the U.S. and China, but these make sense in their own terms, not as some sort of card to be played in an outdated triangular game (Rumer and Sokolsky 2021). What the contrast between the regional and global dimensions of Sino-Russian relations shows us is that these two great

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neighbors have more difficulty dealing with their complex border history than in confronting the uncertainties of the present global system.

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cdb49eb80700ef20ed66219455&chksm=fc357cc7cb42f5d1402a1684f70ee1 f26969348cad374d0673b72e46a67ce8b51f7a8beb0d2f#rd. Nakanune.ru. 2020. bile Bladivoctoka Heoidanno Pazbydil Kitacki Hacionalizm [Vladivostok’s Anniversary Unexpectedly Awakened Chinese Nationalism] www.nakanune.ru https://www.nakanune.ru/ news/2020/07/06/22577929/?utm_source=yxnews&utm_medium=des ktop&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fyandex.ru%2Fnews (Accessed 6 July 2020); Bladivoctok He Daet Poko Kitackim Hacionalictam, ng.ru, https://www.ng.ru/world/2020-07-05/1_7902_china.html (Accessed 6 July 2020). Olesker, Ronnie. 2011. Israel’s Societal Security Dilemma and the IsraeliPalestinian Peace Process. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 17 (4) (October 1, 2011) https://doi.org/10.1080/13537113.2011.622641. Paine, S.C.M. 1996. Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Their Disputed Frontier. Armonk: ME Sharpe, 1994. Peyrouse, Sébastien. 2017. The Evolution of Russia’s Views on the Belt and Road Initiative. Asia Policy; Seattle, no. 24 (July 2017): 100. Redakci tvzvezda.ru. 2015. “Xogu: voennoe prisutstvie v Arktike – vopros nacionalno bezopasnosti,” Telekanal «Zvezda», (February 25, 2015) https://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201502251 655-6b5l.htm. On this point also see https://warontherocks.com/2016/05/ friends-if-we-must-russia-and-chinas-relations-in-the-arctic/. Primamedia.ru. 2021. Ppedloeni Poccii po pybe octalic v Kitae bez otveta — polpped ppezidenta v DFO [Russian proposals on fish remained unanswered in China—Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District] February 9, 2021. https://primamedia.ru/news/1058712/. Repnikova, Maria. 2009. Chinese Migration to Russia: Missed Opportunities. 29. https://www.academia.edu/37753724/Chinese_Migration_to_Rus sia_Missed_Opportunities (Accessed 2 July 2020). Reuters. 2011. Russia’s Putin Says Arctic Trade Route to Rival Suez. Reuters, September 22, 2011. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-arctic-idU STRE78L5TC20110922. Reuters. 2021. China’s Foreign Minister Slams ‘Hurried’ U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan. Reuters, August 16, 2021, sec. World. https://www.reu ters.com/world/us-secretary-state-discussed-afghanistan-with-top-chinese-rus sian-diplomats-2021-08-16/. Rusi.org. 2021. Russia and the Indo-Pacific Security Concept. 12. https://rusi. org/explore-our-research/publications/emerging-insights/russia-and-indopacific-security-concept (Accessed 29 September 2021). Rumer, Eugene and Richard Sokolski. 2021. Kissinger Revisited. Can the United States Drive a Wedge Between Russia and China? Carnegie Moscow Center.

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Inductive Theory Building from China-Russia Relations

The US Factor in China’s Successful Reassurance of Russia Brandon K. Yoder

A central focus of China’s grand strategy has been to reassure other states that its rise is non-threatening. Yet a large theoretical literature indicates that rising states’ reassurance signals should not be credible. Rising powers with hostile intentions have a strong incentive to misrepresent by behaving cooperatively, in order to avoid a balancing response from other states. This chapter identifies two ways in which the United States, by posing a threat to Russia, has facilitated China’s credible reassurance of Russia since the end of the Cold War. First, the presence of the US has reduced China’s incentive to misrepresent any hostile intentions toward Russia it might hypothetically hold, making China’s cooperative actions toward Russia more credible signals of its long-term intentions. Second, the US places enduring constraints over China’s behavior, which incentivizes China’s continued cooperation with Russia. These novel theoretical mechanisms help account for both Russia’s increasingly optimistic beliefs about China’s intentions and increasing China-Russia

B. K. Yoder (B) School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_8

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cooperation in the post-Cold War era, which realist balance of power and threat mechanisms cannot. In the decades following the end of the Cold War, Russian power declined dramatically as China enjoyed sustained double-digit economic growth. This, of course made Russia increasingly vulnerable to China, and would seem to presage Russian balancing against China. Strikingly, however, Sino-Russian relations steadily improved over the course of the 1990s and 2000s. Official characterizations of the relationship have progressed from “good neighborliness” in the early 1990s, to “comprehensive strategic partnership” in 2001, to “comprehensive strategic partnership of equality, mutual trust, mutual support, common prosperity and long-lasting friendship” today, with correspondingly dramatic increases in concrete military, economic, and diplomatic cooperation (Korolev 2020; Larson 2020). Moreover, this cooperation does not appear to simply be transactional, as Russian leaders’ expressed beliefs about China’s intentions have concurrently improved during this time period. According to Yong Deng (2007: 871), “Clearly, growing political trust explains the success” of Sino-Russian rapprochement, and recognition of their shared preferences for international order is “at bottom what drives Sino-Russian strategic partnership” (Deng 2007: 881–882). A recent assessment concurs that “historic Russian distrust of China has abated” (Charap et al. 2017: 25), and leading Russian officials have been explicit that “If we work in China’s interests, that means we also work in our interests” (quoted in Gabuev 2016: 24). Moreover, these beliefs are manifested in Russia’s increased willingness to accept military and economic vulnerability to China. China is now Russia’s largest trade partner and an indispensable source of demand for Russia’s two main exports, weapons and energy, and Russia has abandoned longstanding limitations on Chinese trade and investment that are now further increasing its dependence on China (Gabuev 2016). Russia has also integrated its tactical and strategic military planning with China to a degree characteristic of a de facto military alliance (Korolev 2020; Menon 2009: 113–114). This deep-rooted cooperative trend in China-Russia relations is puzzling for mainstream IR theory. The realist “balance of power” literature holds that because states cannot be certain of each other’s intentions, they must base their foreign policy decisions strictly on each other’s capabilities (Mearsheimer 2001, 2014; Rosato 2015). Thus, balance of power theory would predict that as China rapidly gained power during

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the 1990s and 2000s, Russia should have increasingly taken measures to balance against it. The alternative “balance of threat” version of realism might counter that Russia’s response to China’s rise depended on its perceptions of China’s intentions—Russia should only balance against a “hostile” China, but maintain cooperation with a “benign” one (Walt 1987).1 However, balance of threat theory is indeterminate regarding China-Russia relations, because it says nothing about how states form beliefs about each other’s intentions. Liberal and constructivist theories do identify sources of threat perceptions based on shared or divergent identities, economic interests, or institutional constraints. Yet in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, China and Russia had longstanding territorial disputes, divergent political ideologies, and deep historical animosities, coupled with a dearth of economic or institutional ties. Russian leaders therefore held distinctly negative initial post-Cold War beliefs about China’s intentions, implying that China’s rising power right on Russia’s border should have elicited increasing balancing from Russia. Indeed, post-Cold War scholarship explicitly predicted this (e.g., Betts 1993; Friedberg 1993; Mearsheimer 2006).2 In sum, the major IR paradigms fail to adequately explain the observed pattern of Russia’s post-Cold War beliefs and strategy toward a rising China. The puzzle is how China was able to overcome Russia’s initial distrust to begin to build economic cooperation, institutional linkages, and common identities, when none of these things were in place in the aftermath of the Cold War. A large theoretical literature on reassurance goes at least part of the way toward addressing this puzzle, examining how states are able to send credible signals of their intentions to overcome distrust and achieve cooperation (Fearon 1997; Kydd 2005; Glaser 2010). This signaling literature suggests that China’s reassurance was effective

1 Intentions refer to the actions an actor plans to take in the future under a given set of external incentives and constraints. They contrast with goals, which are a state’s ultimate ends; that is, goals are primitive preferences that inhere to the actor and are exogenous to the incentives and constraints of its external environment (Glaser 2010: 32). Two states’ goals are compatible to the extent that the realization of one’s goals advances (or at least does not impede) the other’s. Similarly, an action is cooperative to the extent that it advances the receiver’s goals, whereas non-cooperative actions impede the receiver’s goals. Benign intentions therefore imply that the sender will behave cooperatively under an anticipated set of future conditions, whereas hostile intentions imply non-cooperative future behavior. 2 On this claim, see Ross (2020).

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in convincing Russia that China’s intentions were benign, thereby facilitating cooperation to balance the common US threat despite China’s rising power. As has been widely noted, however, reassurance is particularly difficult in the context of shifting power (Copeland 2000; Edelstein 2002; Yoder 2019a, b; Haynes 2019; Haynes and Yoder 2020). This is because rising powers such as China have strong incentives to misrepresent any hostile intentions they might hold toward a declining state while still relatively weak, in order to avoid a balancing response from the still-powerful decliner that could jeopardize their future power gains. Thus, a hypothetically hostile China that intended to exploit Russia in the future would still be expected to exhibit cooperative behavior toward Russia in the short term. Yet if cooperative signals would be sent by China regardless of whether its intentions toward Russia are benign or hostile, these signals would carry little credibility—Russian leaders should not be convinced by a rising China’s attempts at reassurance. Why then do we see clear evidence that Russian leaders did indeed update their beliefs about China in the 1990s and 2000s, allowing the erstwhile rivals to achieve increasing levels of cooperation?

Effect of Third-Party Threat on Credibility This chapter argues that China’s successful reassurance of Russia can be explained by the presence of the United States as a long-term threat to Russia.3 Fundamentally, the credibility of a rising China’s cooperative signals to Russia depends on how much incentive a hypothetically hostile China would have to misrepresent—that is, how likely it is that China would send dishonest cooperative signals in the present, only to turn on Russia and align with the US against it in the future. Such misrepresentation constitutes the main barrier to credible cooperative signals under shifting power, because it means that the rising state’s cooperative behavior in the present does not distinguish its future intentions as being benign to the declining state.

3 This theoretical argument is adapted from Yoder (2020).

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Hostile Moderate

Benign

Misrepresent

r ●

} }

}

} 0 ●

Openly Challenge

t ●

Declining State’s Ideal Point

Rising State’s Ideal Point

Third Party’s Ideal Point

[RUSSIA]

[CHINA]

[US]

Fig. 1

Spatial graph of rising state types

In general terms, there are two mechanisms by which a third-party threat to a declining state increases the credibility of a rising state’s cooperative signals, each of which are elaborated below.4 First, the presence of the third-party threat reduces incentives for hostile rising states to misrepresent their intentions by behaving cooperatively. Consequently, since cooperative signals are less likely to be sent by hostile types, cooperation becomes more credible as a signal that the rising state is truly benign. Second, the presence of a hostile third-party places long-term constraints over benign and moderate rising states, which induces them to sustain cooperation into the future even though their basic goals do not align with the decliner’s. This makes the riser’s cooperation in the present more credible as a signal of its benign future intentions, even if the decliner is not necessarily confident that the riser’s underlying goals are compatible with its own.5 In short, a third-party threat enables rising states to signal more credibly that their goals are not extremely hostile, while simultaneously constraining moderately incompatible risers to continue their cooperative behavior in the future. This logic, in turn, suggests that increasing post-Cold War China-Russia cooperation was a function of Russia’s increasingly optimistic beliefs about China’s intentions, given sustained Chinese cooperation in the shadow of a growing US threat. To illustrate the intuition of the argument, we represent the compatibility of the three actors’ goals as the distance between their ideal points for the international order, depicted in Fig. 1. The decliner’s ideal point is the status quo, represented as 0. The third-party threat has an ideal 4 For a formalization of these mechanisms, see Yoder (2020). 5 See the distinction between intentions and goals in note 1.

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point that differs from the decliner’s by a value of t. The rising state’s ideal point, represented as r, is somewhere in between 0 and t. Thus, t captures the degree of third-party threat to the declining state, whereas the distance between t and r captures the threat posed by the third party to the rising state. Revision of the international order from 0 toward r advances the rising state’s interests and commensurately detracts from the decliner’s. Thus, the larger r is, the less compatible the riser and decliner are. The rising state’s type falls into three categories depending on how compatible its goals are with the decliner’s. First, when the rising state is benign, its goals are relatively compatible with the decliner’s. Benign risers therefore cooperate in the present and then fully align with the decliner against the third party in the future. Thus, benign types exhibit honest short-term cooperation that accurately reflects their future intentions. Secondly, when the riser is moderately incompatible, it initially cooperates with the declining state, then “hedges” between the riser and decliner in the future—only partially aligning with one or the other—which allows the moderate riser to achieve its ideal settlement. Finally, hostile risers are those that will fully align with the third party against the declining state in the future, when the power shift is complete. The most extremely incompatible hostile types are unwilling to delay pursuit of their immediate goals to sustain short-term cooperation. Instead, they challenge the decliner in the present, even though doing so incurs opposition that curtails their power gains. In contrast, hostile types that are slightly less incompatible forego their short-term goals by cooperating in the present, in order to avoid opposition—in other words, they misrepresent through dishonest short-term cooperation that belies their hostile future intentions. It is this misrepresentation that hinders credible reassurance, because it make it difficult for the declining state to distinguish benign risers from hostile ones. Mechanism 1: Reduced Incentives to Misrepresent How does the presence of a third-party threat to the declining state reduce the incentive for hostile rising states to misrepresent? First, consider the riser’s incentives in a bilateral context. In the absence of a third-party threat, hostile rising states have strong incentives to misrepresent, because incurring opposition from the decliner would reduce the riser’s future power and diminish its future payoffs. To avoid this costly

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opposition, hostile states are likely to behave cooperatively in the short term while still rising. This dishonest cooperation by hostile risers, in turn, reduces the credibility of cooperation as a signal of benign intentions. In a trilateral context, however, conflict between the rising and declining states in the present would weaken both relative to the third party. In other words, by challenging the decliner in the present, the riser undermines its own power gains, but augments the third party’s power relative to that of the declining state. For moderately incompatible risers whose goals are somewhere near the middle of the range between the decliner’s and the third party’s, this is a bad deal—they absorb costs of conflict while either not affecting the future settlement or shifting it away from their ideal point toward the third party’s. Benign and moderate risers are therefore just as likely to exhibit initially cooperative behavior in the presence of a third-party threat. However, for highly incompatible risers, the third-party threat to the decliner makes challenging the decliner immediately more attractive. This is because hostile risers’ goals are substantially closer to the third party’s than the decliner’s. They therefore benefit from initiating conflict with the decliner in the present, which increases the third-party’s power relative to the decliner’s. Doing so allows the third party to bargain more effectively against the declining state in the future and shifts the eventual settlement in the common direction of the riser’s and the third party’s ideal points. Thus, immediate conflict between the riser and decliner results in relative power gains for the third party that may outweigh the hostile riser’s own loss of power. Furthermore, the larger the third-party threat—that is, the less compatible the third party is with the decliner—the more hostile risers benefit from augmenting the third party’s relative power. All else equal, then, the presence of a third-party threat to the declining state reduces hostile risers’ incentives to misrepresent. Instead of behaving cooperatively toward the decliner to avoid conflict, a sufficiently large third-party threat allows hostile types to have their cake and eat it too: they can pursue their short-term bilateral goals by challenging the decliner in the present, while still retaining their ability to shape the broader global order in combination with the third party in the future. Thus, hostile risers that counterfactually would have misrepresented in the absence of a third-party threat instead challenge the decliner immediately in the presence of a third party that largely shares the hostile riser’s goals. Furthermore, as described above, benign and moderate risers do not benefit from the third-party’s power gains and so become no less likely

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to send cooperative signals. Thus, as hostile types become less likely to send cooperative signals, it becomes increasingly likely that risers that do so truly share the decliner’s inherent goals. Mechanism 2: Increased Constraints A third-party threat also constrains moderately incompatible risers to sustain cooperation with the decliner, even if they do not actually share its underlying goals. Consider the effect on a moderate riser’s incentives as the third-party threat increases. Initially, when the third party’s ideal point is close to the riser’s, the riser will fully align with the third party against the decliner in the future. However, as the third party’s goals become more extreme, the riser does best by hedging between the decliner and the third party and exhibits a higher degree of future cooperation with the decliner. Furthermore, past a certain threshold of third-party threat, a moderate riser will fully align with the decliner against the third party in the future, in order to pull the eventual settlement as close to the riser’s ideal point as possible. Thus, an increase in the degree of third-party threat raises a moderate riser’s average degree of future cooperation with the decliner, even though its underlying goals remain relatively incompatible with the decliner’s. Importantly, only risers that cooperate in the present become more likely to cooperate in the future as the third-party threat increases. Hostile risers that challenge the decliner in the present always fully oppose it in the future. This point is a crucial distinction with a pure realist balancing mechanism, in which the presence of a third-party threat would increase the incentives for all risers to cooperate with the decliner against the third party, regardless of their goals. In the present argument, the third-party threat instead has an informational effect on a rising state’s ability to credibly signal its benign intentions, i.e., that it will maintain cooperative future behavior.6 Thus, contrary to the realist assertion that intentions cannot be reliably inferred, cooperation in the shadow of a third-party threat yields credible information that the riser will continue to behave cooperatively in the future.

6 Importantly, this definition of intentions is taken from the realist literature that claims that intentions are fundamentally unknowable, and therefore engages balance-of-power realists on their own terms. See Rosato (2015: 52–53).

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Theoretical and Empirical Implications As the foregoing discussion implies, this argument is distinct from realist balancing mechanisms, which do not identify how states form beliefs about each other’s intentions. The assumption of “balance-of-power” realism that intentions are inherently unknowable implies that states must respond only to the distribution of power. Moreover, although perceptions of others’ intentions are central to “balance-of-threat” realism, which is compatible with liberal and constructivist ontologies, balanceof-threat treats the degree of threat as an exogenous factor, and cannot explain what causes it to vary. Thus, balancing theories would predict increased China-Russian competition as relative power shifted toward China and away from the United States. Existing signaling theories similarly have difficulty accounting for China’s successful reassurance of Russia in the context of shifting power, given a rising China’s strong incentives for dishonest short-term cooperation -- even if its intentions were hostile -- in order to avoid conflict with Russia that would jeopardize China’s power gains. In a bilateral context, Russian leaders should have seen such signals as having low credibility, maintained pessimistic beliefs about China’s intentions, and balanced against China’s rising power. By introducing a multilateral setting, the argument in this chapter effectively turns realist balancing logic on its head. Rather than the rising and declining states cooperating to balance against a common threat despite fixed beliefs, third-party threats allow benign and moderate rising states to credibly signal their intentions, which facilitates cooperation with the declining state beyond a pure balancing motivation. Moreover, this argument can account for empirical puzzles in post-Cold War ChinaRussia relations that existing theories have struggled to explain: (1) the trend of increasing China-Russia cooperation during the course of China’s rise and (2) Russia’s increasingly optimistic beliefs about China’s intentions. It predicts that as the US threat to Russia increased, China’s cooperative behavior toward Russia should have become more credible as a signal that China’s goals were not highly incompatible with Russia’s, like those of the US were. In addition, Russian leaders should have become more confident that even a moderately incompatible China was likely to sustain cooperative behavior into the future. The next section marshals empirical support for these hypotheses, documenting the variation in Russian threat perceptions from the US since the end of the Cold War

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and demonstrating that periods of high threat corresponded to Russian perceptions of Chinese reassurance signals as credible.7

China’s Post-Cold War Reassurance of Russia Both of the mechanisms presented above are manifested in this case; Mechanism 2 primarily in the 1990s and Mechanism 1 since 2003. During the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Russian leaders perceived that the greatest long-term threat to China came from the US, giving China a strong and enduring incentive to remain conciliatory and restrained in its bilateral disputes with Russia. This constraining mechanism continued to operate under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. In addition, however, as Russia developed increasingly illiberal goals that were fundamentally at odds with the US-led liberal order, China’s cooperation with Russia in opposition to the US-led order credibly signaled to Russian leaders that China did not share US goals, and therefore that Chinese preferences were significantly more compatible with Russia’s than US preferences were. Thus, in keeping with Mechanism 1, although Russian leaders could not be confident that China’s goals were closely aligned with their own, China’s sustained cooperation since 2003 credibly demonstrated that its goals were at least moderately compatible with Russia’s. Behavioral Third-Party Threat and Credibility by Constraint: China’s Reassurance of Russia Under Yeltsin Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian leaders initially held negative beliefs about China’s intentions. The liberal Yeltsin viewed Communist China, which had recently opted for violent repression over liberalizing political reforms in 1989, as having largely incompatible preferences for the international order (Wishnick 2001a: 121). Furthermore, China was perceived as a rising threat across numerous bilateral issues, including territorial disputes, Chinese migration and economic activities in the Russian Far East, economic influence in Asia, and great power status (Lo 2008). Russian strategists even held genuine concerns about a Chinese military invasion (Kuchins 2010: 38).

7 For an expanded version of this case study, see Yoder (2020).

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Yeltsin, a liberal reformer, initially expected US cooperation with Russia but was quickly disappointed (Stent 2014: Ch. 1). The US and its allies withheld substantial economic aid and declined to integrate Russia into the liberal economic order (Li 2007: 491; Kuchins 2007: 325; Stent 2014: 10–11). Furthermore, over Russian objections, the US began exploring NATO expansion into former Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe (Li 2007: 492; Deng 2007: 875), which was particularly disturbing to Russian leaders in conjunction with US interventions in Serbia in 1995 and 1999 and intense Western criticism of Russia’s wars in Chechnya in 1996 and 1999, which Russia saw as impingement of its security interests and evidence of Western hypocrisy (Stent 2014: Ch. 2). Thus, the US threat to Russia increased from low to moderate by the mid-1990s. US unilateralism and military interventions in Eastern Europe and the Taiwan Strait were threatening to China during this period as well, and China’s antagonistic relations with the West in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre meant it could ill-afford simultaneous confrontation with Russia (Wishnick 2001a: 126–131; 2001b: 799; Rozman 2010b: 142–143). Yeltsin therefore recognized that China would be constrained to adhere to mutually beneficial compromises with Russia. This is evidenced by the mid-1990s Russian foreign policy consensus that Russia could safely “present itself as a legitimate partner to all leading players in Asia,” including China, on the grounds that China would be constrained by the US threat to cooperate with Russia: “Should there be a confrontation between China and Russia, the Western countries and Japan would side with the latter…It is for this reason that both China and Russia would prefer neutrality and mutually-beneficial cooperation” despite what each side perceived as incompatible basic preferences (quoted in Kuchins 2010: 40). This increase in the threat posed by the US to both Russia and a hypothetically benign or moderate China corresponded to substantial improvements in China-Russia relations over the course of the Yeltsin era. In the early 1990s, this largely entailed leadership summits, confidence-building measures (CBMs), and amelioration of longstanding border disputes to mitigate the likelihood of costly conflict that neither side could afford. In 1996, China and Russia then declared their relations a “strategic partnership,” and in November 1997 issued a joint statement which expressed their shared commitment to multipolarity, non-interference and respect for sovereignty. These diplomatic statements

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corresponded to concrete military and institutional developments over the same years, as the two countries deepened military CBMs and expanded them into the “Shanghai Five” security grouping that would form the basis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Central Asia (Korolev 2020). In sum, Russia’s increasing willingness to cooperate with China in the Yeltsin era was driven largely by Mechanism 2 from above. Seeing that US behavior on economic and sovereignty issues was threatening to both Russia and a hypothetical China whose goals were at least moderately compatible with Russia’s, Yeltsin and his advisors perceived that China would be substantially constrained by the presence of the US for the foreseeable future even as it grew more powerful, and thus could be trusted to maintain cooperation with Russia even if Chinese and Russian goals diverged on many issues (Wishnick 2001a: 124, 2001b: 799). Fundamental Third-Party Threat and Credible Signals of Compatibility: China’s Reassurance Toward Russia Under Putin Under Putin, the US threat to Russia was more fundamental than the purely behavioral threat the US had posed in the Yeltsin era. The growing divergence in Russian and US preferences for the international order created opportunities for China to take actions that credibly conveyed that its underlying goals diverged from those of the US, and were therefore closer to Russia’s than was initially perceived. At the end of 1999, liberal reformers of the Yeltsin era were replaced by an increasingly illiberal government under Vladimir Putin. Putin initially perceived China’s underlying goals quite negatively and saw excessive risk in facilitating China’s rise (Wishnick 2001b: 801–802). He feared Chinese economic and demographic encroachment in the Russian Far East, as well as Chinese domination of northeast and especially Central Asia (Lo 2008: 11, 47–50, Ch. 4 & 6). Thus, in his first few years after entering office, Putin pushed strongly for Russian integration with the West while eschewing Chinese appeals for deeper cooperation (Wohlforth 2002: 202–206; Kuchins 2010: 40–41), and established the sevenmember Collective Security Treaty Organization in 2002 as a hedge against growing Chinese influence in Central Asia and the SCO (Lo 2008: 99; Rozman 2010b: 143–144). Importantly, China’s reassurance efforts were sustained, and even invigorated, during Putin’s early years, but were evidently not credible

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(Rozman 2010b: 143–144). As Rozman (2010a: 14) notes, “Only from 2003 do we observe a notable quickening of the pace of improvement” in China-Russia relations. Indeed, it was not obvious a priori that Chinese goals diverged from those of the US and were relatively compatible with Russia’s. As part of the strategy of “keeping a low profile” in the 1990s and early 2000s, China avoided challenging the US on any particular issues (Lo 2008: 163–165). Thus, as Peter Ferdinand (2007: 849) writes, as of 2003 Russian leaders lacked “confidence in Chinese willingness to live up to its proclaimed support for the UN and multipolarity, if this risked the economic ties with the United States that were so crucial to [China’s] development.” Moreover, China was significantly less mercantilist than Russia and often expressed dissatisfaction with Russia’s degree of state intervention and lack of market forces (Rozman 2010a: 18). As the theory above suggests, China’s reassurances were non-credible in the early 2000s in part because of the absence of a pronounced US threat to Russia. Putin’s first few years constituted a “honeymoon period” in US-Russia relations, during which Russia weakened its opposition to NATO expansion, provided technical and diplomatic support for the US War on Terror (Wohlforth 2002: 202–206; Kuchins 2007: 323), and even expressed interest in joining NATO and developing a joint missile defense system with the EU (Wishnick 2001b: 801–802). As in the 1990s, however, the West did not reciprocate Russian cooperation in the early 2000s. From 2001–2003, the George W. Bush administration announced further NATO expansion into former Soviet states, launched the Iraq war, and withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. These actions demonstrated to Putin that his efforts at cooperation were futile, and that US democracy promotion (including support for the “color revolutions” in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan in 2004– 2005) directly threatened his autocratic regime (Li 2007: 494–495; Deng 2007: 876; Menon 2009: 106; Kuchins 2010: 42). Consequently, by 2004 Putin was convinced that the US was implacably hostile to Russia, threat perceptions that were only exacerbated by announcements of NATO missile defense systems in Eastern Europe and planned expansion into Georgia and Ukraine in 2008. Indeed, it is no stretch to view Russia’s military interventions in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 as direct responses to this threat (Stent 2014: 163–168). The shift in Russian beliefs about China’s intentions described at the outset of the chapter is explained in large part by Mechanism 1 above.

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The rapid reemergence of the US threat to Russia generated opportunities for China to credibly reassure Russia that their underlying goals were at least moderately compatible. China’s credible cooperative signals took two general forms. First, China offered diplomatic support for Russian policies and preferences in opposition to those of the US. Second, China resisted US pressure for economic and political liberalization and instead proposed significant revision to the US-led order that accorded with Russia’s own authoritarian, state-capitalist model. As Mechanism 1 implies, these actions credibly reassured Russia because they would not be taken by a hostile China whose preferences accorded with those of the US. Instead, China showed itself willing to absorb substantial costs of American backlash by cooperating with Russia to overtly oppose particular aspects of the US-led liberal order. Russian leaders could therefore conclude that China held at least moderately compatible goals and was unlikely to side with the US against Russia’s interests in the future. In 2003, China joined Russia in opposing the “illegal” US invasion of Iraq, which “amply demonstrated” to Russian leaders China’s commitment to “restraining the United States through the UN\mechanism” (Deng 2007: 883). Since 2007, China has also repeatedly joined with Russia in the UN to block Western-backed sanctions against authoritarian states for human rights and weapons proliferation violations (Kuchins 2007: 324; Cox 2016: 325). Even more concretely, China and Russia have formed their own institutions, most notably the SCO, to promote shared goals that diverge from those of the US. Importantly, China and Russia have framed their opposition to crucial components of the US-led international order around a “wider debate about the kind of international system they sought and the role the SCO might play in creating [it]”—one without American “monopoly and domination in world affairs” or interference in “the internal affairs of sovereign states,” according to their 2005 joint statement. Thus, China’s cooperation with Russia in the UN and SCO signaled that it shared Russia’s preference for security norms of sovereignty and non-interference “very different to those found in the liberal and democratic West” (Cox 2016: 326; see also Deng 2007: 881–884). Consequently, Russian leaders have formed genuine beliefs that China’s intentions are benign. This is evidenced by Russia’s investment

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in the expansion of the SCO, which facilitates Chinese political and economic influence in a region Russia considers a core national interest:8 Russia has decided that the strategic complementarity of the two countries’...foreign policies outweighs any concerns about Chinese involvement in post-Soviet Eurasia. China and Russia share threat perceptions about...Western attempts at fomenting popular revolt in order to install more popular governments. China (unlike the West, in Russia’s view) would never attempt to overthrow sitting governments or pursue a democratisation agenda. (Charap et al. 2017: 34)

China’s resistance to liberalizing economic reforms also credibly signaled that it supports an international economic order conducive to the mercantilist “state capitalism” that Russia’s authoritarian regime requires for its political survival. China’s vigorous 2004 support for Russia’s WTO membership “dispell[ed] suspicion in Russia about China’s sincerity” in sharing an illiberal Russia’s economic preferences (Deng 2007: 885). China and Russia have both openly opposed US international liberalization efforts such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and increasingly expressed alternative visions through their “BRICs” grouping with India and Brazil (Cox 2016: 326–327). These alternative preferences allowed Russia to observe that, although China’s international economic preferences may not be as mercantilist as Russia’s, China is distinctly closer to Russia than to the liberal US. In sum, the presence of a US threat whose preferences are highly incompatible with Russia’s gave China the opportunity to demonstrate the “ceiling” on its own incompatibility with Russia: by cooperating with Russia in opposition to the US, China demonstrated that its goals are significantly more compatible with Russia’s than with those of the US. Russia’s resulting optimism about China’s intentions—not merely the incentive to balance a common US threat—is therefore crucial for understanding the increase in China-Russia cooperation since the end of the Cold War.

8 This is also borne out in Russia’s more recent support of China’s “Belt-and-Road Initiative” for regional infrastructure investment that includes Central Asia (Charap et al. 2017).

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Implications for China-Russia-US Relations in the Post-Trump Era After 2016, the US threat to Russia became potentially mutable due to a sea change in American politics: the Presidency of Donald Trump. In principle, Trump’s election seemed to dramatically reduce the degree of threat posed by the US to the current regime in Russia, which was the hope of Russian policymakers in supporting his 2016 campaign (Blank 2019; Stanovaya 2020). Trump was quite explicit in his position that the US should pursue warmer relations with Russia, and he unapologetically admired authoritarian strongmen, including Putin (Gabuev 2019; McFaul 2021; Medeiros and Chase 2017). He sought to reduce the US military presence abroad, retreating into “America-first” isolationism and was particularly critical of the liberal internationalism that gave rise to the wars of democracy promotion in Iraq and Afghanistan that encroached upon Russia’s aspirational sphere of influence in Central Asia and the Middle East. He was at best ambivalent, and at worst openly hostile, toward continued US participation in NATO and the Atlantic community more generally, institutional arrangements which Putin of course viewed as being aimed at the subordination and containment of Russia. Furthermore, not only did Trump think that the US should refrain from promoting liberal values or investing in institutional arrangements that marginalized Russia, but he was also clearly intent on undermining liberal norms in the United States (Freedman 2018). In short, rather than making Russia look and act more like the US, as his predecessors had sought to do, Trump’s vision was to transform the US to look and act more like Russia (Snyder 2018; Hill 2021). One might expect that having “his man” in the White House would dramatically reduce Putin’s threat perceptions of the US, and thereby forestall the credible signaling mechanisms presented above that had given rise to successful Chinese reassurance. This, in turn, might seem to suggest a downturn in China-Russia relations, or at least a pause in their upward trajectory. This has not been the case, however, for three reasons. First, within the US Trump was virtually alone in seeking rapprochement with Russia, and—partially in reaction to Trump’s own illicit ties to Russia—US policies toward Russia actually became even more hostile during Trump’s presidency. As a result, Russia’s perceptions of the overall US threat have, if anything, increased, since even a president as improbably pro-Russia

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as Trump could not assuage bilateral tensions, and his successors are likely to take a harder line (Stanovaya 2020; McFaul 2021). Second, USChina relations deteriorated dramatically under Trump, allowing China to further signal its opposition to the US-led order and cementing Russian perceptions that China largely shares its goals. Finally, even if the US threat had actually been reduced, the longstanding perceptions of US threat before Trump had already allowed China to reassure Russia of its benign intentions, and those beliefs would remain in place even if the signaling mechanisms that gave rise to them were subsequently removed. On the first point, the Trump administration’s Russia policy has actually been less cooperative than it was previously. Not only did the US confrontation with Russia over Ukraine persist, but less than a year into the Trump presidency US relations with Russia had reached a new nadir. In response to overwhelming evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 US election on Trump’s behalf—possibly, though inconclusively, in collusion with his campaign—US sanctions against Moscow were expanded by a bipartisan supermajority in Congress in August 2017, which Trump could not ease without congressional approval. In addition, Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty, while his State Department obstructed construction of Russian gas pipelines (Stanovaya 2020) and expelled scores of Russian diplomats (Feng 2019). These policies made it clear to Russian leaders that US animosity was an entrenched reality, one that not even the most extremely pro-Russia president could overcome, and prompted Moscow to move even closer to Beijing (Blank 2019: 219; Gabuev 2019; Stent 2020; Stanovaya 2020). Second, preexisting US tensions with China degenerated under Trump into open rivalry, creating even greater opportunities for China to signal its opposition to the US, and thus the convergence of its strategic and normative preferences with Russia’s. Most obvious is the $500 bn trade war with China that Trump launched in 2018–2019 while demanding fundamental changes to China’s industrial policy and state-led economic structure. This trade war may well have triggered a shift toward a more mercantilist Chinese economic policy, as Chinese leaders now recognize that the vulnerability that accompanies its high degree of interdependence with the US is likely to be exploited in the future (Lake and Weiss 2018). This, of course, brings China’s international economic preferences more in line with Russia’s and sends a credible signal of compatibility. But the

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trade war was just one part of a broader policy of outright US containment toward China.9 The Trump administration publicly declared a state of economic and military competition with China and Russia both in official documents (e.g., Trump 2017) and public statements by officials such as Vice-President Mike Pence (Pence 2018; Swanson 2019) on the basis of the fundamental threat the two countries pose to US-led institutions and norms (Feng 2019). This multifaceted antagonism has generated an even greater “impetus for an authoritarian alliance between Moscow and Beijing” (Lo 2019; see also Stent 2020). Instead of responding with a “charm offensive” or by “laying low” as it had in previous decades, China under Xi adopted even more assertive diplomacy and authoritarian practices. As Economy (2021: 3–5) notes, “China’s lack of transparency around the origins of the virus, aggressive ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and repressive approach to Hong Kong undermined” its legitimacy in the eyes of the West. But this signaled to Russia that China was uncompromisingly committed to its authoritarian system and to defending sovereignty claims even in the face of opprobrium from the West that jeopardized China’s ambitions for global influence. Moreover, Trump’s abdication of US international leadership has afforded China space to pursue economic, military, and maritime territorial expansion in Asia and execute regional institutional initiatives such as RCEP, AIIB and BRI (Foot and King 2021: 215). In doing so, China is raising the risks of provoking long-term strategic confrontation with the US, which sends a very costly, credible signal to Russia of China’s commitment to their joint goals of creating a “multipolar,” non-liberal alternative to the US-led order. As Stephen Blank observes, “these developments reinforce closer security and strategic ties between Moscow and Beijing…by highlighting their convergent views on many international issues” (Blank 2019: 221). As such, the warming of China-Russia relations continued apace during the Trump era. Putin himself denies any possible threat from China, and recently characterized the China-Russia dynamic as “an allied relationship in the full sense of a multifaceted strategic partnership” (Putin 2019). This new de facto China-Russia alliance rests firmly on Russian 9 In addition, the Trump administration escalated US confrontation with China over cybersecurity issues, the South China Sea, China’s treatment of the Uyghur population of Xinjiang province, and the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic (Busby and Monten 2021).

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recognition that China’s strategic and ideological preferences are in stark opposition to traditionally liberal American values and institutions, and thus congruent with Russia’s (Blank 2019: 216). During Trump’s presidency, Russia increased its cooperation with China on several dimensions, including arms sales, energy exports, Arctic exploration and development, infrastructural investment in Central Asia, and Chinese FDI in Russia.10 Moscow now tacitly acknowledges China’s economic primacy in Russia’s proclaimed “sphere” of Central Asia, and no longer even insists that arms control agreements with the United States include China (Blank 2019). Indeed, Russian leaders now believe that China’s rising military strength in East Asia is clearly in Russia’s interests (Yahuda 2017). Going forward, there is a possibility that Trump’s influence on US policy toward Russia could lag his presidency. Trump now so thoroughly dominates the Republican Party that, unlike early in his presidency when enhanced sanctions were passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in retaliation for Russia’s 2016 election interference, Republican politicians can no longer take positions contrary to Trump’s if they value their political survival within the party (Hopkins and Noel 2021). Thus, if Trump or another Republican beholden to him were to capture the presidency going forward, it is very likely that Republican legislators would support Trump’s sympathetic position toward Russia. Furthermore, partisan polarization has become so extreme in the US that advocacy of a hard-line policy toward Russia by Democrats could in itself be sufficient to consolidate Republican support around a policy of accommodation (Schultz 2017). Would a future US-Russia rapprochement undermine China’s reassurance efforts and cause a deterioration of China-Russia relations? This is unlikely, because China’s credible signals are already banked. Over the last two decades, Russian leaders have been able to form confident beliefs about China’s intentions in response to China’s reassurances under a pronounced US threat. These beliefs should endure even if the US threat were to suddenly dissipate going forward (Stent 2020). Indeed, a diverse array of Chinese motivations are now apparent to Russia and others, “spanning Chinese perceptions, interests, and preferences about global security, economic, and diplomatic affairs [that] touch on broad 10 Since 2016, China and Russia have also negotiated linkages between China’s BRI and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union and reached numerous agreements on trade, finance, and energy (Foot and King 2021: 216).

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conceptions of the global order…the areas of convergence in Chinese and Russian interests are broad and substantive.” Thus, Russian beliefs about the compatibility of China’s preferences is already “more enduring than ephemeral. This suggests a robust basis for Sino-Russian cooperation” going forward, “regardless of the trajectory of the U.S.-Russia and U.S.-China relationships” (Medeiros and Chase 2017: 4, 11).

Conclusion This chapter has identified two novel mechanisms by which the credibility of a rising state’s reassurance signals to a declining state is enhanced by the presence of a third-party threat to the decliner. First, the third-party threat constrains moderately incompatible risers to maintain cooperation with the decliner into the future. Second, it reduces incentives for hostile rising states to misrepresent by cooperating with the decliner in the present. Instead, they are more likely to openly challenge the decliner, thereby weakening it relative to the third party that largely shares a hostile rising state’s goals. This makes benign and moderate risers’ cooperative signals more credible. These signaling mechanisms help to account for both the increase in China-Russia cooperation and Russia’s increasingly optimistic beliefs about China’s intentions since the end of the Cold War. In the 1990s, enduring American hegemony constrained China to not challenge Russia in their bilateral disputes. Yet because US and Russian goals under Yeltsin did not dramatically diverge, China’s cooperation toward Russia did not credibly signal that its underlying goals were compatible with Russia’s. Vladimir Putin’s illiberal regime was heavily threatened by the liberal US-led order, however. In the face of a large and ingrained US threat, China’s sustained cooperation with Russia became increasingly credible as a signal that its underlying goals were at least moderately compatible with Russia’s. In short, the threat to Russia from the US and the liberal order has both created the opportunity for China to cooperate with Russia in opposition to US preferences and made that cooperation a credible signal of China’s benign future intentions toward Russia.

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Medeiros, Evan and Michael Chase. 2017. Chinese Perspectives on the SinoRussian Relationship. National Bureau of Asian Research, Special Report no. 66: 1–12. Menon, Rajan. 2009. The Limits of Chinese-Russian Partnership. Survival 51 (3): 99–130. Pence, Mike. 2018. Remarks at the Hudson Institute. October 4th, 2018. https://www.hudson.org/events/1610-vice-president-mike-pence-s-remarkson-the-administration-s-policy-towards-china102018. Putin, Vladimir. 2019. Speech to the Valdai Club. October 3, 2019. http://en. kremlin.ru/events/president/news/61719. Rosato, Sebastian. 2014/2015. The Inscrutable Intentions of Great Powers. International Security 39 (3): 48–88. Ross, Robert. 2020. Sino-Russian Relations: The False Promise of Russian Balancing. International Politics 57 (5): 834–854. Rozman, Gilbert. 2010a. The Sino-Russian Strategic Relationship: How Close? Where To? In The Future of China-Russia Relations, ed. James Bellacqua, 13–32. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Rozman, Gilbert. 2010b. Chinese Strategic Thought toward Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Schultz, Kenneth. 2017. Perils of Polarization for U.S. Foreign Policy. Washington Quarterly 40 (4): 7–28. Snyder, Timothy. 2018. The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. London: Vintage. Stanovaya, Tatiana. 2020. A Farewell to Trump? Russia’s Elite Braces for U.S. Elections. Carnegie Moscow Center commentary, October 21. Stent, Angela. 2014. The Limits of Partnership: U.S.-Russian Relations in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton University Press. Stent, Angela. 2020. Russia and China: Axis of Revisionists? Brookings Series on Global China, 1–13. Swanson, Ana. A New Red Scare Is Reshaping Washington. New York Times, July 20th, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/20/us/politics/china-redscare-washington.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share. Trump, Donald J. 2017. National Security Strategy of the United States of America. Washington, DC: White House. http://nssarchive.us/wp-content/ uploads/2017/12/2017.pdf. Walt, Stephen. 1987. The Origins of Alliances. Cornell University Press. Wohlforth, William. 2002. Russia. In Strategic Asia 2002–03: Asian Aftershocks, ed. Richard Ellings, Aaron Friedberg, and Michael Wills, 183–222. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research. Wishnick, Elizabeth. 2001a. Mending Fences: The Evolution of Moscow’s China Policy from Brezhnev to Yeltsin. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

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Wishnick, Elizabeth. 2001b. Russia and China: Brothers Again? Asian Survey 41 (5): 797–821. Yahuda, Michael. 2017. Japan and the Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership. National Bureau of Asian Research, Special Report no. 64: 1–10. Yoder, Brandon. 2019a. Hedging for Better Bets: Power Shifts, Credible Signals and Preventive War. Journal of Conflict Resolution 63 (4): 923–949. Yoder, Brandon. 2019b. Retrenchment as a Screening Mechanism: Power Shifts, Strategic Withdrawal and Credible Signals. American Journal of Political Science 63 (1): 130–145. Yoder, Brandon. 2020. Power Shifts, Third-Party Threats and Reassurance: Explaining Russia’s Response to China’s Rise. International Politics 57 (5): 885–917.

Bargaining, Nuclear Weapons, and Alliance Choices in US-China-Russia Relations Andrew Kydd

When it comes to power politics, three aspects of the current global system are especially noteworthy. First, the US and China are the two strongest powers. The US-Chinese lead is especially pronounced in economic size and military spending. US GDP in 2018 was $21.4 trillion, China came in second at $14.1 trillion, and Japan was number three at $5.2 trillion.1 The US led the world in military spending in 2018 at $643 billion, China was second at $168 billion and Saudi Arabia was third at $82.9 billion.2 Only in the nuclear domain does Russia still clearly outrank China and approach the US. Russia and the US have approximately the same number of warheads (7,290 vs. 7,000) and deployed warheads (1790 vs. 1930), and both are far ahead of China at 260 warheads.3 However, qualitative improvements in the US arsenal put it far ahead (Lieber and Press 2017).

A. Kydd (B) University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA e-mail: [email protected] 1 International Monetary Fund data, https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper. 2 International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2018. 3 SIPRI Trends in World Nuclear Forces, 2016.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_9

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Second, China is widely, but not universally, expected to overtake the US for the top spot at some point in the future.4 According to purchasing power parity, the Chinese economy already outranks the US.5 Although China is still far behind the US in the military sphere, its higher economic growth rate and enormous latent power suggest that it is only a matter of time before China becomes the most powerful country in the world. Third, US-Chinese relations are hostile. The Chinese shift to the US side after the Sino-Soviet split came to an end with the Cold War, and tensions have increased as China becomes more assertive in the South China Sea, over Taiwan, and other issues (Mastro 2015). For its part, the US has raised tariffs against Chinese goods and sought to reduce USChina trade. This pattern of confrontation has continued from the Trump administration into the Biden administration. The re-emergence of competition between the two leading states, so reminiscent of the US-Soviet Cold War, may reanimate some of the debates about international relations that went dormant after its end. In particular, the debate about alliance choices is ripe for reconsideration. If US-Chinese relations continue to deteriorate, third parties will face a choice between siding with China, siding with the US, or attempting to remain neutral.6 Balance-of-power theory suggests that they will choose the weaker side, to preserve their independence from the stronger (Waltz 1979, 127). Bandwagoning theorists argue that states will join the stronger side either in order to appease it or in hopes of making gains at the expense of other status quo powers (Schweller 1994). Balance of threat theory argues that they balance against the most threatening side, where threat is comprised of aggregate power, geographic proximity, offensive capabilities, and aggressive intentions (Walt 1987, 22). Finally, liberal theorists argue that “birds of a feather,” particularly democracies, tend to ally together (Lai and Reiter 2000). These theories were designed to explain alliance choices under static balances of power, but can be extended to the dynamic context of the present US-Chinese relationship. According to balance of power theory, the “power transition” point, in which the power of the rising state

4 See Beckley (2011) for a dissenting view. 5 https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPGDP@WEO/CHN/USA/RUS. 6 For analyses of alignment choices of the secondary powers on China’s periphery see Lin (2015) and Han (2018).

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equals that of the declining state should be crucial (Organski and Kugler 1980). Third parties should switch from the rising to the declining state at the point of power transition, siding with the weaker state in both cases. Bandwagoning theorists should predict the opposite pattern, states should jump ship from the declining to the rising state as the rising state surpasses the declining state. Balance of threat theory, somewhat more ambiguously, predicts that states should abandon the rising state for the declining state when the rising state becomes more threatening. This might or might not correlate with a power transition point. Finally, birds of a feather theory would suggest that shifts in relative power should have little impact on alliance choice, which should remain stable unless the regime type of the actors changes. In a previous paper,7 I tried to further develop balance of threat theory for a dynamic setting (Kydd 2020). By analogy to power transition theory, I argued that there should be a “threat transition” in which the rising state becomes more threatening than the declining state. I identified two phases, the changing power phase and the consolidation phase. In the changing power phase, one state declines and another rises. In this phase, the main danger is that the declining power will launch a preventive war to block the rise of the challenger (Copeland 2000; Fearon 1995; Powell 2006). Bystanders should therefore ally with the rising power to deter the declining power. In the consolidation phase, the declining state has bottomed out and the rising state has grown stronger. However, the newly risen state now wishes to alter the status quo to its liking. There is a mismatch between the distribution of power and the distribution of goods, which also makes for a high likelihood of conflict (Fearon 1995; Powell 1996). Third parties should ally with the now declined power to stop the newly strong power. A potential critique of this theoretical approach is that preventive war is fairly rare and may be off the table in the current, US-China case. Preventive war is thought to require large and rapid shifts in the balance of power (Powell 2004). While China has been rising rapidly, the US has shown no interest in preventive war. The cost of a large scale war designed to destroy the sources of Chinese power is prohibitive, and the US appears to be only considering if it is worth resisting Chinese expansion, not whether Chinese power should be destroyed by force. Schweller (1992)

7 From which this one borrows the previous two pages and literature review.

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has argued that democracies are unlikely to wage preventive wars and Edelstein (2017) argues that democratic leaders have an incentive to under react to rising challengers because of time horizon issues. If preventive war is off the table, then in the model of the previous paper there are no threats to balance, the only threat comes from China and the question is when and if Russia will choose to resist it. In order to shed more light on the question of alliance choice under shifting power when preventive war is off the table, in this chapter I develop an analytical approach based on bargaining theory. Fearon (1995) argued that when the distribution of power and the distribution of goods are aligned, then war is unlikely because the status quo will be in the range of deals that both sides prefer to war (see also Powell [1996]). When a state becomes more powerful, it may eventually prefer fighting to the status quo, in which case it will have a credible threat to fight. I apply this approach to the multilateral case by making the following points. When two states have a credible threat to fight against a third, they may want to form an offensive alliance against it to make joint gains easier (Schweller 1994). Conversely, when one state has a credible threat to fight against two other states, they may want to form a defensive alliance to deter or defend against the common threat. A dilemma arises for a state that has a credible threat to fight against one state, but must simultaneously defend against a credible threat to fight from a third country. In that case, they are balancing, not threats against threats, but threats against ambitions. If they prize their ambitions more than they fear their threats, they may pursue their antagonism against the first state while making concessions to the second. If they worry about the threat more than they care about their ambitions, they may negotiate a deal with the first state in order to form a defensive alliance against the third. An important variable determining which course they choose is the value of the stakes in each interaction. If the stakes in dispute between two states are low, then almost any deal will be preferable to war, and so it will be easy for them to form an alliance against a third party. If the stakes in dispute are high, a country is likely to seek allies to bolster its position rather than make concessions. The role of nuclear weapons is also crucial in great power relations in the twenty-first century. The US, China, and Russia all have nuclear arsenals. Alliance theory has never really grappled with alliances between

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nuclear powers, focusing instead on alliances between nuclear and nonnuclear powers.8 I argue that secure second strike capabilities reduce the incentive to form alliances, but advanced offensive and defensive nuclear capabilities increase them. In the US-China-Russia relationship, Russian and Chinese second strike capabilities reduce the threat they pose to each other, but US first strike capabilities increase the threat that the US poses to each of them. As in the previous paper, I apply the theory to the US-China-Russia case. Current US allies like Japan and South Korea have only limited conflicts of interest with the US and serious disputes with China and so are likely to remain allied to the US. Russia, by contrast, has important conflict of interests with the US and limited conflicts with China. It is therefore reasonably pursuing its revisionist aims against the US without worrying about the Chinese threat. In fact, given that China is also pursuing revisionist aims against the US, Russia and China can be said to have an offensive alliance against the US (Korolev 2020). From the U.N. Security Council to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Russia and China work together and often are on opposite sides of salient political issues from the US. For instance, Russia and China blocked U.N. action against the Assad regime in Syria at several junctures in the civil war that started in 2011.9 However, Russia and China have no particular shared interests in terms of ideology or mutual trust, apart from a shared antipathy to liberal democratic norms (Lo 2008; Ellings 2018; Owen 2020). As China grows, therefore, there may come a point where China develops a credible threat to fight against Russia. At that point, Russia will face a choice between making a concession to China in order to continue to pursue its aims against the US, or seeking an anti-Chinese alliance with the US and abandoning or negotiating its aims against the US. In what follows I will first briefly review alliance theory and then sketch a theory of alliance choice under shifting relative power influenced by bargaining theory. I then discuss US-China-Russian relations in light of the theory.

8 For an exception, see Talmadge (2022). 9 For many more examples, see Larson (2020).

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Choosing Sides Alliance formation is one of the fundamental concerns of international relations theory. As Kenneth Waltz put it, “If there is any distinctively political theory of international politics, balance-of-power theory is it” (Waltz 1979, 117). Waltz argued that the search for security would lead states to form balances of power. The weak should ally together against the strong, because the strong pose the greatest threat to their independence. In the current era, he would expect Russia to ally with China against the US, at least as long as the US retains its edge over China. Perhaps the greatest empirical challenge to balance-of-power theory was the Cold War alliance system which pitted an enormous and wealthy coalition of democratic capitalist countries including the US, Western Europe, and Japan, against a much weaker coalition led by the Soviet Union. While the Soviet Union maintained parity or even superiority in realized military power on land and in the nuclear realm, the Western coalition far outpaced it in potential power and at sea. Some analysts argued that states might be bandwagoning rather than balancing, flocking to the stronger side rather than the weaker. For weak states, bandwagoning might be a matter of necessity.10 Alliance partners capable of helping against the dominant power may simply be unavailable. Some states may bandwagon voluntarily in hopes of reaping gains, as Italy did in allying with Germany in World War II (Schweller 1994). Stephen Walt offered an alternative explanation for the Cold War imbalance of power, dubbed balance of threat theory (Walt 1987). He argued that states balance not just against aggregate power but against threat, which includes proximity, offensive capabilities, and malign intentions. The Soviet Union’s near-by offensive land capabilities, coupled with communist expansionism, were judged more threatening by Europe, Japan, and eventually China, than the US’s more distant aggregate power, coupled with less hostile intentions. Walt’s theory rescued the concept of balance, but by introducing aggressive intentions, rendered the theory difficult to falsify and hard to distinguish from liberal theories that focus on state motivations and institutions (Legro and Moravcsik 1999).11

10 Ross (2020) argues that Russia lacks the power to balance against China in the far

East. 11 See Walt (1997) for his views on why alliances collapse.

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A simpler explanation of the Cold War alliance pattern is that states choose partners based primarily on ideology, rather than balance of power or the military components of threat. The “birds of a feather” hypothesis holds that democracies should ally with democracies, authoritarians with authoritarians, etc. Democracies may ally with democracies in order to protect and extend the sphere of liberal democratic states and because they make more reliable alliance partners. (Gaubatz 1996). Authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping may ally together to defend their legitimacy against the corrosive influence of the liberal democratic order (Owen 2020). Putin and Xi both feel threatened by democratic norms involving free elections, a free press, and open trade and communication across borders. They share an interest in undermining this order, questioning its legitimacy, and attempting to generate popular dissatisfaction and disillusionment with it. Creating new organizations and new international ties that are explicitly not based on Western norms, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, also serve this shared interest.12 The quantitative literature on the birds of a feather hypothesis finds mixed results. Lai and Reiter (2000) find that similar regimes are more likely to ally than dissimilar regimes, but only after 1945, while Gibler and Wolford (2006) find that although democracies are not necessarily more likely to ally in the first place, alliances tend to promote democracy by reducing threat. In addition to these factors, the role of nuclear weapons may affect alliance patterns. A state that has a secure second strike against another should feel a reduced threat from that state, and so a reduced need for allies against it. For instance, as the number two nuclear state, Russia has a secure second strike capability against China. This may enable the Russians to feel that territorial threats from China are off the table, and so China’s rise can be viewed with equanimity, whereas in the pre-nuclear era, it would have been a mortal threat. For China’s part, they either already have or will soon acquire a second strike capability against Russia,

12 Steven David (1991) argues that leaders balance against the greatest threat to their tenure, whether that threat is foreign or domestic. Daniel Drezner applied this perspective to the Trump administration, “Trump, Russia and Omnibalancing: What Happens if Trump Views His Domestic Threats as More Dire Than Any Foreign Threat?” The Washington Post, June 15, 2017.

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so they have no worries on that score either. Nuclear weapons may, therefore, have dampened the security competition between Russia and China that would otherwise have caused Russia to seek US assistance. In contrast, if a state develops advanced nuclear capabilities, it may have a more credible threat to fight. For instance, the US program of strategic modernization, a combination of strategic missile defense and improvements in targeting, has given the US first strike capabilities that take us back to the early days of the Cold War (Lieber and Press 2006, 2009). For the first time in recent memory, US leaders may feel that they can eliminate Russian or Chinese nuclear forces in a first strike without suffering nuclear retaliation. This places the second strike capabilities of Russia and China in question, and increases the chance that the US could resist challenges to the point of conflict with them. The nuclear aspect of the current international system therefore simultaneously alleviates Russia’s fear of China and heightens their shared sense of threat from the US. The nuclear dimension therefore provides additional reasons to think that the Russian-Chinese alignment against the US may be long lasting.

The Bargaining Approach The canonical bargaining approach is illustrated in Fig. 1. I label the two players the US and China, I will bring in Russia below. The US and China have a dispute over an issue, x, worth VU S,C to the US and VC,U S to China. This issue is specific to the two countries and may be valued differently by each side.13 I show the case in which China cares more about the issues in dispute than the US does, so VC,U S > VU S,C , because this is probably the case with respect to current disputes such as the South China Sea and the future of Taiwan. China, being close to these regions and invested in them for historical and nationalist reasons, cares a lot about who dominates them. The US, being more distant and less historically connected, cares less. The countries have linear utility functions such

13 By explicitly considering the value of the issue at stake between the two powers, the theory presented here departs from a simple structural realist framework, in which all states are assumed to want to conquer the world. In the structural realist framework, alliances are motivated by the desire to avoid conquest and all wars are total. In this model, they may be motivated lesser desires and wars need not be total. In this model, therefore, power disparities can be peaceful, so long as war is costly in comparison with the stakes, which is puzzling in a structural realist context.

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VC,U S

VU S,C

WU S,C SU S,C

US

Fig. 1

BU S,C

pU S,C BC,U S

WC,U S China

The bargaining model

that the US utility over issue resolution x is x VU S,C (the positively sloped line), and for China it is (1 − x)VC,U S (the negatively sloped line). Each country has an absolute level of military power, denoted m U S and m C . The probability that the US wins a war between them is pU S,C = mU S mC m U S +m C and China’s chance of winning is pC,U S = m C +m U S = 1 − pU S,C . I show the case where the US is more powerful than China, m U S > m C to reflect current realities. Each side has a cost of fighting equal to cU S,C and cC,U S . These costs are also specific to each country, in the context of a war with the other one, and so are subscripted by the country that feels them, and the country against whom the war is fought. These costs may differ between the countries, just as the values for the issue at stake do. The war payoffs are therefore the following. wU S,C = pU S,C VU S,C − cU S,C wC,U S =(1 − pU S,C )VC,U S − cC,U S The US war payoff against China is illustrated as a dotted line, China’s against the US as a dashed line.

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Each side’s bottom line is the deal that will make it at least as well off as going to war. This is the point where their utility function for deals crosses their war payoff for each state. The US bottom line with respect to China is denoted BU S,C and China’s against the US is BC,U S . For the US this is solved as follows. x VU S,C =wU S,C x VU S,C = pU S,C VU S,C − cU S,C cU S,C BU S,C = pU S,C − VU S,C This is illustrated to the left in Fig. 1, where the dotted line of the US war payoff meets the upward sloping line of the US utility for x. For China we solve the following. (1 − x)VC,U S =(1 − pU S,C )VC,U S − cC,U S cC,U S 1 − x =1 − pU S,C − VC,U S cC,U S BC,U S = pU S,C + VC,U S China’s bottom line is shown to the right in Fig. 1, where China’s utility for x meets China’s bottom line. In addition, the relative power between the two states, pU S,C , is shown in between the bottom lines. The region between the bottom lines, shaded in gray, is the set of deals both sides prefer to conflict. This is sometimes known as the bargaining range. Note that in this region, the utility of each side for x is higher than their war utilities. What determines the location of the bottom lines? The balance of power between the two sides, pU S,C , anchors the two bottom lines. If the US becomes more powerful, the range shifts to the right, against China’s interests. If China becomes more powerful, the range shifts to the left, against US preferences. In addition, each side’s value for the good at stake and cost of fighting determine the edges of the range. In this case, I assume that China both cares more about the issue at stake than the US, VC,U S > VU S,C , and cares less about the potential cost of war than the US, cC,U S < cU S,C . This implies that the cost/interest ratio is much lower c c S < VUU S,C , which results in China’s bottom for China than the US, VC,U C,U S S,C line being much closer to pU S,C than the US bottom line is.

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The existence of a region of deals that both sides prefer to war implies that they should rationally choose such a deal rather than fight about the issue. Other complicating factors, most importantly uncertainty, can prevent the two sides from locating such a deal (Fearon 1995). Rather than complicate the model with uncertainty, I will simply take the size of the bargaining range as a proxy for how hard it is to avoid war over the issue. If the range of deals that both sides prefer to war is large, war should be easier to avoid than if it is narrow. The current status quo, SU S,C , is shown on the axis as well, and I have placed it close to China’s zero point, in terms of its utility for x. Empirically, this reflects China’s “century of humiliation” in which Chinese weakness allowed other powers, such as Britain, Japan, and the US, to dominate its periphery and invade its territory. By 1945 China had defeated Japan and by 1950 had ended its civil war and begun to rebuild. But it was only with the economic growth following the death of Mao that China could begin to consider regaining what it considers its lost territories and rightful control of its neighborhood. I have placed the status quo to the right of the set of deals both sides prefer to war. This indicates that China, despite being much weaker than the US, has a credible threat to fight because it has such a poor valuation of the status quo, combined with a high valuation for what is at stake with the US and a low cost of war. China therefore poses a threat to the US, because it is willing to use force to overturn the status quo, particularly over Taiwan.

Bargaining Between Three Players There have been a number of studies of tripolar systems in international relations (Goldstein et al. 1990; Schweller 1993, 1998). Here, I apply the bargaining approach to the tripolar setting and deduce some implications for alliance formation and change in response to shifting power. In Fig. 2, I add Russia to the illustration from Fig. 1. To make the picture clearer I leave out the utility functions and war payoffs, showing only the relative power, bottom lines, bargaining ranges, and status quo payoffs in each of the three relationships. The US-China axis is the same as before. Now, however, we have a US-Russia axis and a China-Russia axis. In the US-Russian case, I posit that the balance of power favors the US, but, as in the US-China case, the status quo is so bad for Russia that it has a credible threat to use force to alter it. In the Russian case, this is due to the unprecedented collapse in Soviet power and satisfaction with

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Russia

BR,U S

sU S,R

pU S,R BR,C BU S,R pC,R

sC,R

sU S,C US

Fig. 2

BU S,C

BC,U S

BC,R China

pU S,C

Three way threats: Before Chinese growth

the status quo in 1991, when it lost vast territories to new independent states. Russian leader Putin has made no secret of his view that this was a betrayal of Russian interests and he has since used force to alter the status quo in his favor, primarily against Ukraine, and secondarily in Syria. Revealing the fact that the US is not willing to use force to keep the prior status quo, the US did not contest these Russian uses of force. It is an open question as to whether Putin has a credible threat to use force to further alter the status quo in Ukraine, or perhaps Belarus, but I illustrate the case where he does to highlight Russia’s shared interest with China in scoring gains at US expense. [Editor’s note: This chapter was completed before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.] The second new axis is the China-Russia dimension. I illustrate the case where Russian power is greater than China’s, reflecting Russian technological and nuclear advantages over China. However, in this case I also assume that the values in dispute are relatively small compared to Russian and Chinese values for the issue in contention with the US. As a result, their cost/interest ratio is high, which means that the range of deals both sides prefer to war is large. I also assume that the status quo

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is currently in that range, since neither side is pursuing territorial claims at the other’s expense. Thus the China-Russia relationship is illustrated as currently amicable, only small issues dividing them and a status quo well within the range of deals that both sides prefer to war. In Fig. 2, therefore, I illustrate a case where two states, Russia and China, have credible threats to fight against a third, the US. In addition, they have little conflict of interest between them, so they can afford to focus their hostility on their common enemy. The natural outcome would be a revisionist alignment, in which Russia and China support each other’s revisionist claims, while avoiding incurring any real costs on each other’s behalf. Note, this is not a “bandwagoning” alliance as traditionally conceived by analysts such as Schweller where weak states flock to the side of a strong aggressor to make gains. Russia and China are both weaker than the US, so it is “balancing” in that sense. However, Russia and China are arguably the revisionist powers because, though the balance of power is against them, the status quo is so miserable from their point of view that they have credible threats to use at least low levels of force to shift it back in their favor. Russia

BR,U S

BR,C

sU S,R

pU S,R

pC,R

BC,R

BU S,R sC,R

sU S,C US

Fig. 3

BU S,C

BU S,C

pU S,C

Three way threats: After Chinese growth

China

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What is the impact of Chinese growth on this picture? The post-growth case is illustrated in Fig. 3. China’s absolute military power, m C , has grown. As a result, the US chance of winning against China, pU S,C , has declined, and the Chinese chance of winning against Russia, pC,R , has increased. This shifts the bargaining ranges in China’s favor, away from China’s vertex of the triangle and toward those of the other states. How does this change the picture? Between the US and China, the bargaining range shifts in China’s favor and against the US. The status quo is now even more isolated and indefensible. Revision is certain, the only question is if the two sides will be able to arrive at a deal that both sides prefer to war or if they will fight it out. As Powell (1996) argues, the further the status quo is from the bargaining range, the more likely is war. Between the US and Russia, nothing has changed. If the absolute power of the US and Russia, m U S and m R , is unchanged, so is their relative power. If nothing has changed to alter their valuations for the issues at stake or their evaluation of the costs of war, then their axis should look the same, which is how I have illustrated it. Finally, in the China-Russia case, China has also pushed back the bargaining range toward the Russian vertex. In this case, that is a consequential development, because now the China-Russia status quo is no longer in the bargaining range. China, being stronger, now has a credible threat to fight against Russia on the issues that divide them. Russia, for the first time, faces a threat from China. The new situation is therefore different from before. China is now a doubly revisionist power, seeking gains against both the US and Russia. Russia, meanwhile, still seeks gains against the US. What should the alliance patterns be in this new world? In particular, should the US and Russia form a defensive alliance against China? The US now has an opening. If the US were to allow the status quo to move against it with Russia enough to get it in the bargaining range, it would no longer have a meaningful conflict of interest with Russia. In that case, nothing would stand in the way of a US-Russian combination against China. The Anglo-French entente negotiated in 1904 that settled their colonial disputes and enabled them to unite against Germany is an example of this process. The key question then would be if the US valued what was at stake against China enough to grant Russian demands in Europe. These demands would probably amount to a return of Russian domination of its near abroad.

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If the answer were no, an unaligned system would probably obtain, in which Russia sought gains against the US while attempting to fend off China on its own, while the US attempted to fend off both China and Russia. Such individualistic, antagonistic systems are so common as to be the default in diplomatic history.

The Nuclear Angle An important factor to consider in twenty-first-century alliance politics is the nuclear variable. Interestingly, balance-of-power theory has never been fully integrated with nuclear deterrence theory. In the context of alliance politics, nuclear weapons are usually only considered in the context of nuclear umbrellas. The subject of study is a nuclear power allying with non-nuclear protege in order to protect it or at least keep it out of the adversary’s orbit, sometimes called the extended deterrence problem (Schelling 1966, 35). The analysis focuses on when nuclear umbrellas are credible, that is deter predation on the ally, and conversely whether they embolden the ally to act more recklessly than it would if it were on its own (Benson 2012). Few considerations of alliance politics with nuclear weapons focus on states that all have substantial nuclear arsenals. How do nuclear weapons factor into the bargaining approach discussed above? The central effect of nuclear weapons is to raise the cost of war. This will raise the cost/interest ratio, which will lower each side’s bottom line and widen the bargaining range, making war less likely. Rational nuclear states have little incentive to fight, because the potential costs begin to dwarf the stakes of any dispute as more nuclear weapons are added to their arsenals (Sagan and Waltz 2012; Kydd 2019). Also, since nuclear weapons are very hard to defend against, they give their owners the ability to strike enemy cities even if they are losing a conventional war. As a result, nuclear deterrence is relatively insensitive to the conventional military balance between states. Some nuclear strategists argue that nuclear deterrence is also robust to fluctuations in the balance of nuclear capabilities (Jervis 1990). There is a lively debate as to whether nuclear advantages give any additional leverage in crisis bargaining (Kroenig 2013; Sechser and Fuhrmann 2013). However, nuclear theorists tend to believe that the more nuclear weapons, the more any dispute is turned into a contest of risk taking or resolve, rather than a contest of forces (Powell 1990, 2003, 2015). Since states are believed to be highly

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motivated to retain control of their homeland, and much less strongly motivated to take territory from others, nuclear theorists hypothesize that nuclear weapons tend to freeze the territorial status quo and make large scale wars of conquest such as World War II very unlikely between nuclear powers. The fear, instead, is that nuclear powers will blunder into war in a crisis due to accidents in the presence of alert forces, and other factors. But if two states have secure second strike capabilities, the ability to retaliate after any conceivable attack, they should have less fear of territorial aggression. An implication for alliance theory is that nuclear states should be less inclined to ally with each other than non-nuclear states are, since they can ward off threats to their vital interests with nuclear weapons, and therefore do not need to pay the costs involved in allying with other states. If nuclear weapons widen the bargaining range and eliminate credible threats to fight, why bother allying? If you have already paid the cost of developing nuclear weapons, and nuclear weapons secure your territorial integrity, why form the kind of alliance that France and Russia did in 1893 to defend themselves against Germany? Oye (1995) argued that the Soviet Union was willing to decline gracefully and democratize at the end of the Cold War because nuclear weapons provided it with the kind of security that only island nations enjoyed previously. The same security blanket reduces the incentive to form alliances. An exception to this general theoretical proposition arises when one or more states have developed advanced offensive or defensive nuclear capabilities (Waltz 1993, 51). Offensive nuclear capabilities are designed to target opposing nuclear forces. These counterforce capabilities need to be numerous, fast, accurate, and adaptable in the case of mobile targets. Defensive nuclear capabilities are anti-aircraft and especially anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems capable of shooting down incoming rockets. Advanced offensive capabilities offer the promise of destroying enemy nuclear forces on the ground in a surprise attack. Advanced defensive capabilities offer the hope of destroying the adversary’s ragged response after such a first strike. Taken together, they promise the ability to escape the threat of nuclear retaliation and so give a state the ability to make nuclear threats without fear of nuclear response. In terms of the bargaining approach, they would greatly lower the cost of nuclear war for the state possessing them, raising their bottom line and making them willing to fight where otherwise they would not be.

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The possibility of advanced offensive and defensive capabilities highlights an often under-appreciated aspect of secure second strike capabilities, namely that they are (directed) dyadic. State A may have a secure second strike capability against state B, but not against state C. State A may have a secure second strike against B’s arsenal, but B may not have a secure second strike against A. In the context of the Cold War, theorists usually focused on the US-Soviet dyad and did not consider interactions between multiple nuclear powers, or after the 1960s, between greatly asymmetrical ones. In the current era, however, full consideration must be given to the implications of the nuclear revolution for multipolar, asymmetric systems. How should advanced offensive and defensive capabilities affect alliance behavior? Because such capabilities are so dangerous, they pose a great threat to other states. If they are asymmetrically distributed, therefore, states should balance against them. If state A has advanced offensive and defensive capabilities and states B and C have only normal countervalue capabilities, there will be an incentive for states B and C to ally against state A. For one thing, states B and C do not pose great threats to each other, since their countervalue capabilities are incapable of destroying each other’s forces, and so they are capable of deterring attacks upon their homelands from each other. In other words, B and C have secure second strike capabilities vis a vis each other. State A’s advanced offensive and defensive capabilities, however, pose a direct threat to both state’s nuclear capabilities. States B and C do not have a secure second strike against A, or at least their second strike is much weaker against A. Therefore, B and C share a common threat from A and have a natural incentive to join together to meet it. How does an alliance between B and C strengthen their hand? At a minimum it prevents A from thinking that it will have the support of one state against the other. In more extreme cases, where B and C pledge to defend each other against A, A may have a more difficult strategic problem if it contemplates a first strike against both B and C. If A thinks it has to take out both B and C’s nuclear forces at once, this may pose a greater technological challenge. That is, it is possible that B and C individually do not have a secure second strike against A, but the BC alliance does because of the increased number of targets. It may also be more costly diplomatically to launch a nuclear first strike against B and C over a dispute that only involves A and B. Of course, such a nuclear alliance between B and C would face all the credibility problems of extended

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deterrence that were so thoroughly explored during the Cold War in the context of US pledges to defend Western Europe with nuclear weapons if necessary. But it was commonly believed that US nuclear deployments to Europe at a minimum created the possibility in the Soviet mind that a conventional invasion would be met with a nuclear response. With this in mind, let us turn to the nuclear dimension of the USChina-Russia relationship. The nuclear capabilities of the three countries are very asymmetrical. For many decades, China had a very modest intercontinental nuclear force, consisting of 20 liquid fueled rockets. Even with recent strategic modernization involving solid fueled mobile missiles, their force is modest by Russian and US standards. They have historically embraced a second strike retaliatory policy (Cunningham and Fravel 2015). Therefore, China can be coded as lacking advanced offensive and defensive capabilities with respect to both the US and Russia. Russia’s rocket forces are more substantial, with estimates that Russia has 256 intercontinental range missiles of a variety of types. However, Russian offensive and defensive capabilities cannot be classified as advanced, certainly in comparison with the US, and so the Russian strategic arsenal cannot realistically threaten to disarm either China or the US in a first strike. Therefore, we can code Russia and China as having secure second strike capabilities against each other. The US, on the other hand, is energetically pursuing nuclear primacy, advanced offensive, and defensive capabilities that will enable it to disarm Russia and China in a first strike and defeat retaliatory attacks. The most visible manifestation of this is the ABM system that has been pursued since the Regan administration, which began to be deployed under the George W. Bush administration. More broadly, the US has been devoting substantial resources to improvements in accuracy, communications, sensing, etc., to improve its ability to destroy distant targets with precision (Lieber and Press 2006, 2009, 2017). While there is room for debate about how successful these programs are, it is clear that the resources devoted to them and the results so far achieved place the US in a different category from China and Russia. They present a real threat to the security of Russian and especially Chinese second strike capabilities, and so reduce the US cost to value ratio, raising its bottom line and making it more willing to fight over any issues in dispute between the US and these two countries. This factor may be most important in the case of Taiwan. As an island, Taiwan is close to being an “indivisible good” between the US and China.

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It is hard to imagine partitions of it being stable or effective. This makes bargaining over Taiwan more likely to fail (Fearon 1995), as illustrated in Fig. 4. Here, Taiwan is shown on the US-China axis and is considered indivisible, the only resolutions are toward the China side or toward the US side. China may decide that it has a credible threat to fight rather than not have Taiwan. It may hope that the US does not, and so would not really resist a Chinese invasion. If China could threaten nuclear retaliation for US intervention, that might be the case. US advanced nuclear capabilities, however, may blunt that threat, lowering the US expected cost to intervening, narrowing the bargaining range, and so giving the US a credible threat to fight as well.14 In this case, the indivisibility of Taiwan combined with US advanced nuclear capabilities and consequent low cost of war would mean that China is unwilling to leave Taiwan as it is and the US is unwilling to let China take it. The bargaining range between

14 US costs of war are also lower in the US-Russian axis, narrowing the bargaining range there as well.

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the US and China exists, but it lies entirely within Taiwan, and no such partitions are feasible. Nuclear weapons therefore strongly affect the alliance incentives present between the US, China, and Russia, and they reinforce the existing incentives for China and Russia to ally against the US. Chinese and Russian nuclear capabilities give them assured second strike capabilities against each other. Russia therefore may feel that it does not need to worry about its long, difficult to defend Siberian frontier against rising China. Nuclear weapons may help alleviate the security dilemma between these two countries. However, US pursuit of primacy poses a nuclear threat to both. As a result, the nuclear factor reinforces the incentive for Russia to delay its shift toward the US camp. Russian President Putin has declared that a nuclear attack on Russia’s “allies” would be considered an attack on Russia, echoing President Kennedy’s statement during the Cuban Missile Crisis.15 It is not clear if China counts as one of those allies, or if the statement was meant in the context of the states of the former Soviet Union. If China were to pursue US style counterforce and missile defense capabilities with success, Russia’s calculation could shift, but such a development would take decades to bring to fruition, so is not likely to move Russia in the near future.

Conclusion How should states make alliance choices under shifting relative power? States that have a credible threat to fight need to be either appeased or confronted with greater power. If a state has a credible threat to fight against two states, those states have an incentive to ally against it. However, if the potential allies have disputes among themselves they may be reluctant to do so. As the first state gets more powerful, the incentive for the other two to resolve their differences grows. Nuclear weapons, however, can alter the picture. If the rising power does not have advanced offensive nuclear capabilities but one of the other states does, the third state may feel secure from the rising state but still fear the offensively capable state. China’s rise may eventually give it a credible threat to fight against Russia. This would create an incentive for the US and Russia to align 15 Neil MacFarquar and David E.Sanger, “Putin’s ‘Invincible’ Missile Is Aimed at U.S. Vulnerabilities.” The New York Times, March 1, 2018.

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against China. However, this development may be delayed by the nuclear factor. Nuclear weapons increase the cost of war between China and Russia, reducing their incentive to fight over their differences. US force modernization lowers the US cost of war with both states, making the US more likely to resist their encroachments. Thus nuclear weapons make Russia more secure against China and less secure against the US, prolonging the China-Russia alignment. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Brandon Yoder for comments.

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Sino-Russian Logrolling and the Future of Great Power Competition Kyle Haynes

Observers of contemporary China-Russia relations have long been skeptical of the depth and durability of the Sino-Russian “strategic partnership,” especially as a form of meaningful geopolitical balancing against the United States (Brooks and Wohlforth 2002, 2008; Ikenberry 2010; Lo 2008, 2017). American preponderance, even if not immediately threatening, has proven a significant obstacle to both China and Russia expanding their regional influence and achieving great power status on par with the United States in the twenty-first century. But Beijing and Moscow have few common interests beyond a shared aversion to the constraints imposed by American hegemony and mutual opposition to American efforts at promoting democracy abroad. The conventional wisdom suggests that their generally incompatible preferences should render the Sino-Russian partnership both superficial and unstable. As American unipolarity recedes, so would the lone common interest underlying their partnership. China and Russia would therefore likely be unable

K. Haynes (B) Department of Political Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_10

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to continue cooperating to fashion a revised international order, as they do not agree on their ideal shape of this new order. Recent trends belie this expectation. Sino-Russian economic interdependence continues to deepen, as bilateral trade grows and Russia expands the share of its foreign currency reserves denominated in Renminbi. Chinese purchases of Russian weapons are also continuing, potentially including the sale of the advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system. Recent military exercises have seen Chinese and Russian troops working alongside one another from the Baltics to the South China Sea. Russia’s cooperation with China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) suggests a strategic element to this partnership. The conventional theoretical wisdom in international relations struggles to explain this trend. I argue that existing research emphasizing the fragility of Sino-Russian cooperation underestimates their incentives for continued collaboration as American hegemony declines. I agree that Chinese and Russian substantive preferences are largely incompatible. But I argue that their shared “negative” interests in opposing American hegemony might actually support sustained cooperation because they each prioritize revising the US-led order in different regions. A basic asymmetry in the importance that China and Russia attach to Europe and East Asia means that they could be willing to support one another’s revisionist actions in their respective home regions, even if each side’s revisionism is contrary to the other’s interests. In effect, a “logrolling” dynamic could sustain their strategic partnership beyond what a baseline balance of power logic might predict.1 Therefore, Russia and China may be willing to reciprocally support, or at least acquiesce to, one another’s regional revisionism, even though the order that each one seeks to construct is largely harmful to the other’s interests. The incentives for reciprocal support are enhanced by the fact that China and Russia are both pushing against the same hegemonic power, whose resources are increasingly strained. As American global preponderance erodes, its leaders face stark, almost zero-sum choices in terms of the regional disposition of its military and diplomatic resources. With defense budgets highly constrained, any US military buildup in Europe must come in part at the expense of its presence in East Asia, and vice versa. Both Russia and China might therefore reap significant indirect 1 This coordinated revisionism differs from simple balancing primarily in that it is driven by revisionist preferences rather than perceptions of an external threat.

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benefits from the other’s revisionism, even if they do not support the actual substance of the other’s revisionist goals. I argue below that we are already observing this type of logrolling as Russia seeks to roll back the integration of Eastern Europe into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) while China works to establish military control over the South and East China Seas. Although China likely suffers economically from Russia’s destabilizing policies, and Russia incurs serious risks from China’s increasing domination of international waterways, both sides have played an important role in undercutting global diplomatic efforts to oppose the other’s revisionist actions. Russia has maintained a strict policy of “non-interference” in the South China Sea disputes, hindering US-led efforts to rally a diplomatic coalition against Chinese expansion. Similarly, China has adhered to a policy of “friendly neutrality” with respect to Russia’s ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere. I argue below that these strategies may be driven in part by a logrolling logic. And importantly, to the extent that Sino-Russian cooperation is motivated by logrolling dynamics, it may prove significantly more durable than conventional theories based on a simple balance or power logic would predict.

Background and Literature Review I first draw out the conceptual distinction between “positive” and “negative” shared interests among states. A group of states has shared negative interests when they each oppose something, irrespective of the reasons for that opposition. The example of a shared threat is instructive here. The United States and Soviet Union shared negative interests in World War II in opposing Nazi Germany. But importantly, the United States and USSR did not share much in the way of positive interests, defined as shared support for a given set of substantive policies, norms, institutions, or ordering principles. Positive shared interests thus refer to states’ truly held, internally derived preferences for the rules and content of an international political order. Scholars of international politics have long recognized that powerful states potentially pose serious threats to others and often provoke counterbalancing alignments (Waltz 1979). Realist theory holds that such balancing alliances are unlikely to outlast the threats that motivated their creation (Mearsheimer 1990). Other scholars have highlighted significant

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shortcomings of these baseline realist analyses, as illustrated by the persistence of NATO following the Soviet Union’s collapse (McCalla 1996; Wallander 2000; Williams and Neumann 2000). Continued cooperation between the North Atlantic allies cannot be explained solely by negative interests such as a shared threat. Overlapping interests and preferences, especially when supplemented by robust international institutions, can sustain cooperative relationships even in the absence of a hegemonic actor to provide order or a common enemy to rally collective action (Keohane 1984). Related work on hierarchy in international politics describes the nature and causes of different types of hegemonic orders. For instance, Lake (2009) writes extensively on the reasons why great powers might impose “spheres of influence” over weaker states in their home regions. These orders may vary from more coercive to more cooperative, but are always marked by relations of super- and sub-ordination between a hegemonic actor and others within its sphere. Importantly, however, Lake does not explain when or why other, coequal great powers would acquiesce to a state’s imposition of a sphere of influence. This research does not speak to the conditions under which great power cooperation, defined in terms of agreeing upon a stable geographical division of hegemonic influence, is possible. In sum, the existing literature suggests somewhat restrictive conditions for the establishment and persistence of great power cooperation, at either the global or regional level. More specifically, in the absence of a shared threat, some salient form of shared positive interests is required to sustain interstate cooperation. And even when shared positive interests exist, it is still possible that acting upon, or even simply recognizing these shared interests is extremely difficult. Applied to recent Sino-Russian relations, mainstream theoretical paradigms in IR can readily explain both the creation of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership in 1996, and the fact that it has not developed into a full-fledged alliance over the subsequent 22 years. American unipolarity throughout the 1990s imposed severe constraints on both Russia and China, impelling some form of bilateral cooperation between them. But whether due to geography (Walt 1987; Wohlforth 1999), international institutional constraints (Ikenberry 2001), domestic politics (Martin 2000), or perceived intentions (Walt 1987; Kydd 1997), American power was not sufficiently threatening to push Moscow and Beijing into a formal alliance. Still, the potential threat and constraint inherent

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in American preponderance are generally seen to be the major factor propelling Sino-Russian cooperation in the post-Cold War period. This interpretation struggles, however, to explain the persistence, and apparent deepening, of Sino-Russian cooperation over recent years as American relative power has declined and a period of strategic retrenchment has been initiated (Korolev 2016). Indeed, Sino-Russian cooperation in recent years has developed to the point that some call it a “veritable alliance” (Blank 2016). Vladimir Putin recently claimed that the term “strategic partnership” no longer does the bilateral relationship justice, suggesting that “comprehensive partnership and strategic collaboration” is more appropriate. Arms sales and energy trade have continued uninterrupted, despite Western sanctions on Russia and tension with China over its trade policy and growing regional assertiveness. Balancing theories would expect Sino-Russian cooperation to be deteriorating, given the lack of shared positive interests between them and ongoing decline of American relative power. As Bobo Lo (2017) writes, while Moscow and Beijing “agree on the need for change to the international order…they differ in their visions of how a new or reformed world order might look.” Both Russia and China have chafed under American hegemony and fiercely oppose US democracy promotion efforts. But if each were to design their ideal international order, there is little reason to believe the other would find much to like about it (Lo 2008, 2017). Russian leaders have explicitly stated that their ideal regional order would entail “a privileged sphere of influence” in both its “border region, but not only” there (Kramer 2008). Such an order would, of course, strongly prioritize Russian interests at the expense of both weaker actors within the sphere, but also outside actors with interests in the region, including China (Cooley 2017). Similarly, China’s ideal order in East Asia would likely seek “to restore the regional hierarchy of imperial China and maximize China’s security by expanding influence and control over its immediate neighborhoods” in a way that would impinge upon Russian regional interests (Zhao 2015, 963). Given their “varied agendas” and the absence of positive shared interests, the decline of American power would be expected to erode the basis for Sino-Russian cooperation (Mead 2014). So while the United States clearly remains strong enough to impel significant Sino-Russian cooperation, we should expect this cooperation to show signs of stress as American relative power declines. In a directional sense, at least, we should expect China-Russia cooperation to already be

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on the wane. But as described above, recent events belie this expectation. Indeed, cooperation between China and Russia has seemed to deepen in recent years even as America’s global preponderance waned. How can we explain continued Sino-Russian cooperation despite the decline of the shared enemy that originally motivated their partnership? I suggest below that the existing literature has underestimated the ways in which strictly negative shared interests can motivate counterhegemonic cooperation. I argue that the literature on “logrolling” within legislatures, bureaucracies, or even international institutions can help shed light on the diffuse cooperation that persists between Beijing and Moscow, even as American hegemony erodes. In particular, the greater levels of importance that China and Russia attach to East Asia and Europe, respectively, facilitate a form of geopolitical revisionist logrolling. This logrolling, in turn, can sustain Sino-Russian cooperation for longer than the conventional wisdom might suggest, even if based entirely on negative rather than positive shared interests. Logrolling in International Relations Theories of logrolling are commonplace in analyses of legislative voting behavior and coalition formation in American and comparative politics (Arrow 1951; Buchanan and Tullock 1962; Tullock 1970; Carrubba and Volden 2000). Logrolling can be done either implicitly, based on diffuse and nonbinding expectations of reciprocity, or explicitly, and predicated on formally agreed upon or legally binding mutual obligations. In either instance, logrolling involves multiple actors “trading favors” with one another in order for each to achieve a preferred outcome on an issue that is of unique and disproportionate importance (Tullock 1970, 422). In doing so, each actor makes concessions on an issue of secondary importance to herself (but primary importance to the other) in order to gain the other’s support for her own primary interest. The reciprocation of this behavior by multiple actors constitutes logrolling. This logic has been usefully applied in studies of international relations and foreign policy. Jack Snyder’s (1991) landmark work on imperial expansion highlighted the ways in which domestic logrolling can impact foreign policy and the likelihood of interstate conflict. More recent work in international relations has applied the logic of legislative vote trading to issue linkages and cooperation within international institutions (Martin

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1993). Christina Davis (2003, 2004) has shown that multilateral institutions encourage issue linkage in ways that facilitate logrolled cooperation at the international level. Deniz Aksoy (2012) extends this analysis in the context of the European Union. But these treatments typically emphasize more explicit forms of vote trading within formal institutions, either at the domestic or international level. These institutionalized settings facilitate credible commitments and reciprocity in ways that enhance logrolled cooperation. Comparatively little work in IR has examined what Gordon Tullock (1970, 422) calls “implicit” logrolling. This more diffuse form entails no overt, explicit agreement to trade votes or coordinate actions in a formal institutional setting. Rather, it involves implicit reciprocity across seemingly unrelated issue areas. I suggest below that this type of implicit logrolling may help explain why the Sino-Russian strategic partnership has seemingly deepened despite the ongoing deterioration of American hegemony.

A General Model of Cross-Regional Revisionist Logrolling At the most basic level, logrolling dynamics depend upon several preconditions. There must be multiple actors with divergent interests interacting across multiple issues. Each actor’s behavior must impact the outcome across each of the relevant issues. Finally, the actors must prioritize these issues differently.2 Logrolling entails these two actors mutually conceding on an issue of secondary importance in order to receive a reciprocal concession that meaningfully increases the probability of a favorable outcome on an issue of primary importance. This is impossible if the actors have identical rankings of issue importance, as neither actor would be willing to make concessions or act against their true preferences on the most important issue. Applying this logic to revisionist actors in international politics is relatively straightforward. Assume two states, A and B, that each wants to revise the status quo order in their home region. Both A and B oppose the status quo, but their underlying preferences sharply diverge such that they 2 The precise nature of this asymmetric prioritization depends on the number of players and issues. But in the hypothetical two-player, two-issue logrolling scenario described above, all that would technically be required is for the two players’ ordinal ranking of issue importance be reversed.

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would prefer the status quo to a revision toward the other revisionist’s ideal point. In other words, while A would like to revise its regional order to match its own preferences, all else equal it would prefer to remain at the status quo rather than shift toward B’s ideal point. A and B thus share negative interests in opposing the status quo, but lack positive interests in terms of what type of order should replace it. Next, assume that A and B have distinct “home” regions, which they prioritize over any other region.3 Assume also that A and B have interests in the other’s region (i.e., A has interests in B’s home region, and vice versa), but these interests are subordinate to interests in their own home region. In the logrolling outcome, state B could help state A achieve its ideal order in region A, in return for state A helping B impose its ideal order in region B. Both A and B would be actively supporting an outcome that is harmful to their own interests in the region of secondary importance. But in doing so, they would elicit the other’s reciprocal support in achieving their own ideal outcome in the region of primary importance. As indicated above, in order for logrolling to actually occur, both A and B must be able to meaningfully impact political outcomes in the other’s home region, such that their support or opposition might tip the balance for or against revision there. For A to support B’s revision of its home region, A must expect B’s reciprocal support for its own revisionism, and it must expect this support to substantially improve A’s likelihood of successfully accomplishing its desired revision. Even if state A knows that state B would reciprocate, A has no incentive to support B unless B’s reciprocation would actually improve A’s chances of success in its home region. Likewise, B must actually value A’s reciprocal help and cooperation in order to support A. To be clear, I am defining “support” quite broadly here, and am not even implying a scenario in which the two logrolling states actively aid one another or positively promote their efforts. I define support here to mean only a more cooperative policy than we would expect based on alternative sources of the actors’ strategies. If both actors reciprocally shift their responses to the other’s revisionism in a more cooperative direction, either from opposition to neutrality, or from neutrality to active support, this would effectively constitute logrolling. In effect, the type of support could take three forms. First, the logrolling actors take positive, costly 3 This general logic would operate similarly if A and B prioritized distinct issues, rather than geographic regions.

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action to support the other’s efforts. This is perhaps the most conventional definition of “support.” Second, the logrolling states might simply forgo attempts at opposition that they might have been inclined to pursue under a purely balance of power perspective. While falling short of active support, this would represent a more cooperative and supportive stance than conventional theories might expect. Finally, support might take the form of actively undermining others’ attempts at opposition. While not positively furthering a revisionist action, running this type of interference might still increase its overall chances of success. In sum, the discussion here purposefully adopts a capacious definition of “support” that implies only a more cooperative stance than we might otherwise expect. As an example, this definition might include “underbalancing” as a form of support or cooperation (Schweller 2006; Mastro 2019). Underbalancing is not typically thought of as a type of support. But importantly, it represents a type of policy that is more supportive or cooperative than what a baseline balance of power perspective would expect. Whether or not we define this as “support,” strictly speaking, it has similar implications in promoting another’s interests and bolstering its actions relative to these baseline expectations. Indeed, arguments about the fragility of Sino-Russian cooperation are often based on a pure balance of power logic. To the extent that China and Russia behave more cooperatively toward one another than balance of power theory would expect based on the capabilities, intentions, and proximity, we are observing an instance of underbalancing. Within the framework I adopt here, this passive support, acquiescence, and underbalancing would constitute “support” relative to the baseline strategy we might expect under a balance of power approach. Again, I am consciously using a broad definition of support to highlight the perhaps unanticipated ways that the Sino-Russian comity might persist longer than many would anticipate. To recap, in a successful revisionist logroll, A and B would each work to revise the order in their home region toward their own ideal point. Both revisionists would reciprocally support one another’s actions or at least undermine others’ efforts to resist them. Both sides make concessions and incur costs in a region of secondary importance in order to garner reciprocal support in their home region, which is of paramount importance. The benefits of this support in their home region outweigh the costs of promoting a revision away from their ideal point in the region of secondary importance.

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Do the Conditions for Revisionist Logrolling Exist Between Russia and China? The discussion above showed that logrolling requires multiple actors with divergent preferences to trade favors across asymmetrically weighted issues. It then applied this logic to a generalized model of cooperation between incompatible revisionist states across regions. This section argues that relations between China and Russia over the past decade meet the conditions for successful logrolling, as described above. These logrolling dynamics, I suggest, can sustain cooperation between Beijing and Moscow despite the potential threat they pose to one another and history of mistrust between them. I argue that China’s and Russia’s distinct “core” regions—East Asia and Europe, respectively—satisfy the asymmetric issue weighting criterion for successful logrolling (Hill and Lo 2013). China’s prioritization of East Asia is obvious. The country is geographically situated squarely in East Asia, and the bulk of its foreign trade is with other states in the broader Asia–Pacific region. China is clearly making significant inroads in other regions across the world as its power grows. Its “One Belt, One Road” initiative is creating new interests across Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Likewise, China’s interests in Africa and Latin America are rapidly expanding. But as an East Asian power, China’s physical security and economic well-being still depend primarily on outcomes in its home region. Russia is a somewhat different matter. Its massive territorial breadth ensures that it retains vital interests across Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Asia. But on balance, Russian interests are more intertwined with Europe than East Asia (Gabuev 2015, 8). Over ¾ of Russia’s population live in the European part of Russia west of the Ural Mountains. And although China recently became Russia’s single largest trading partner, the EU as a whole still outstrips East Asia in terms of commerce with Russia. Furthermore, with Russo-American tensions ticking back up to nearly Cold War levels, Russian security concerns are increasingly focused on Europe and the NATO alliance (Hill and Lo 2013). So while Russian interests are, compared to China’s, more balanced across Europe and East Asia, Russian leaders still clearly view East Asia as a region of “secondary” importance relative to Europe (Lo 2014, 3).

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Furthermore, Russia and China hold largely incompatible preferences with respect to their ideal regional orders. As discussed above, if Russia and China shared positive interests such that they generally agree on the rules and norms that should replace the US-led global order, then continued cooperation between them should be comparatively unproblematic despite American decline. And indeed, Russian and Chinese-led regional orders would incorporate several common features. The regimes in both Beijing and Moscow seek to secure their hold on power by entrenching generally similar models of authoritarian capitalism at home (Friedberg 2017, 12–13). Similarly, both Moscow and Beijing seek to shift the rules of international order toward stronger protection of state sovereignty and away from promoting liberal norms of democratic governance and universal human rights. But critically, these “commonalities” are likely to be a source of tension, rather than cohesion between China and Russia. For instance, despite their rhetoric, neither Beijing nor Moscow truly adhere to norms of strict sovereignty and non-interference in states’ internal affairs.4 Both sides, and especially Moscow, have been quite willing to intervene in the domestic politics of their neighbors when doing so suits their own interests. Indeed, their support for state sovereignty largely springs from tactical efforts to protect their own security interests and push back against Western interference in their own internal affairs, or those of their neighbors and allies. This rhetoric thus appears to mask a willingness to subvert others’ sovereignty in pursuit of self-interested objectives. As such, in situations where Chinese and Russian substantive interests diverge, there is little reason to suspect that a shared commitment to strict norms of state sovereignty will ease tensions between them. More generally, evidence indicates that both Chinese and Russian regional orders would be far more hierarchical, and thus less hospitable to outside political and economic engagement, than the status quo (Wright

4 For instance, Alexander Gabuev (2017a) argues that neither Russia nor China are

“visionary” superpowers that hold truly coherent visions of what an ideal international order would look like (Gabuev 2017a). Similarly, Aaron Friedberg (2017, 9) suggests that neither Beijing nor Moscow “sees itself as the standard bearer for a transnational creed.” In short, there appears to be little basis for Sino-Russian geopolitical compatibility based on shared normative commitments.

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2017; Friedberg 2017, 39).5 There is little reason to believe that institutional structures or normative restraints would impinge upon the exercise of power under Chinese or Russian regional orders.6 And while the status quo liberal order of course confers special privileges on the hegemonic power, the rules governing economic engagement are comparatively transparent and a dense web of multilateral institutions limits the “returns to power” in regional political matters (Ikenberry 2001). In contrast, it is likely that regional orders under Russian or Chinese hegemony would, even compared to the status quo, reduce the influence of outside actors and privilege the interests of the hegemonic power. Russian influence would be constrained in a Chinese-led East Asian order, and Chinese interests would be impinged upon in a Russian-led order in Eastern Europe. Beyond the direct potential threat they pose to one another, China and Russia each harbor ambitions in their home region that would do significant harm to the other’s interests there. Russia under Putin seeks to effectively reconstitute the old Soviet sphere of influence, as far as possible, in a way that strongly privileges Russian security interests, political influence, and economic opportunities (Mead 2014; Friedberg 2017, 40; Radin and Reach 2017). Even Boris Yeltsin claimed that Russia was entitled to a privileged sphere of influence in its near abroad. But since 2008, Russia has pursued these claims more forcefully as it effectively annexed Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia during Dmitri Medvedev’s lone presidential term (Kramer 2008). Continuing “frozen conflicts” over the Transnistria region in Moldova and the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan further demonstrate Moscow’s insistence on retaining effective veto power over the economic and geopolitical orientations of its weaker neighbors. Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and continued intervention in Eastern Ukraine removed any doubt as to 5 This is not to argue that American hegemony is necessarily or uniformly more egalitarian, or less self-interested, than Russian or Chinese hegemony would be. Indeed, much of this claim rests on the fact that the United States is not itself a European or East Asian state. American-led order in the Western Hemisphere has generally been more hierarchical than it is in Europe or East Asia in large part because the United States physically exists within the former region. China and Russia, as East Asian and (primarily) European states, could thus be expected to impose more hierarchical orders in their own home regions, much as the United States did in Latin America throughout much of its history. 6 Cooley (2017) argues, for instance, that Russian-led institutions serve mainly to “giv[e] Russia a veto” over other members’ policies.

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Moscow’s pursuit of a domineering, and if necessary highly exclusionary strategy in its near abroad. And while Russian policies in this regard have to date focused primarily on excluding Western influence, there is every reason to believe that Moscow would be similarly determined to exclude Chinese influence within its sphere. It is highly unlikely that Chinese interests, if in conflict with Russian objectives, would be treated any more favorably than American interests in Russia’s near abroad. Likewise, Chinese leaders are often thought to be pursuing a modern reincarnation of the old “tributary” system, in which regional actors recognize Chinese hegemony, defer to Beijing’s wishes on important matters, and great powers outside the region refrain from intervening in the “privileged Chinese sphere” across East Asia (Friedberg 2017, 39). Historical metaphors harking back to a coherent and consistent regional tributary system are, of course, radically oversimplified (Dreyer 2015). Nevertheless, China’s contemporary grand strategy does seek to establish preponderant influence, and thus prevent others from operating militarily, within its first (and ultimately second) offshore island chains (Friedberg 2011). This would allow China to impose greater control over Hong Kong and possibly Taiwan, dominate maritime transit and natural resource extraction in the South and East China Seas, and largely dictate outcomes in regional security matters. The degree of hierarchy would likely exceed the status quo, if only by virtue of the fact that East Asia is China’s home region, and great powers are apt to demand more disproportionate influence in their near abroad compared to more distant regions. In sum, Chinese and Russian foreign policy ambitions are, by all indications, inimical to the other’s interests. Regional orders in East Asia and Eastern Europe, if dominated by Beijing and Moscow respectively, would likely be more hierarchical and exclusionary than the status quo. And while both Russian and Chinese-led orders would look similar in important ways, this does not mean that they would be mutually beneficial. In fact, both sides’ key interests would suffer as a result of the other attaining hegemony in its own home region. As such, the conditions for cross-regional revisionist logrolling between China and Russia seem to exist today. Their distinct “core” regions effectively establish the asymmetric issue weighting necessary to make logrolling operate. Furthermore, Russia’s and China’s substantive preferences for their respective regional orders are at odds such that each side’s achievement of its core objective would actually harm the other’s

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interests. But as described earlier, logrolling dynamics could substitute for compatible interests and sustain Sino-Russian cooperation well into the period of US decline. I argue that these dynamics can operate even in the shadow of the potential threat China and Russia pose to one another. Essentially, I argue that it is likely that the prospective benefits of securing their regional ambitions outweigh the potential increase in perceived threat that would result from providing reciprocal assistance. This is particularly true because each side’s assistance is likely to redirect the other’s ambitions in ways that reduce bilateral threat perceptions. Chinese support for Russian revisionism in Europe will encourage Moscow to focus its efforts in the west, rather than in East or Central Asia. Likewise, Russian support for Chinese efforts in the South China Sea may help ensure that Beijing’s attention is focused on areas where vital Russian interests are less likely to be impinged. So although each side’s logrolling behavior is costly and potentially exacerbates threat perceptions between Russia and China, I argue that these costs are largely offset by the strategic benefits of eliciting reciprocal support and redirecting the other side’s revisionist efforts toward their own core regions. Furthermore, in the revisionist logrolling dynamic described here, there might be additional payoffs for each revisionist actor in supporting the other, even if the substantive goals they pursue are completely at odds. Specifically, China and Russia would each gain significant indirect, but entirely predictable, benefits from the other’s revisionist actions. This would arise because China and Russia are both attempting to expel the same hegemonic power, the United States, from their home region. And because the United States must divide up its military and diplomatic resources across multiple regional theaters, all else equal, anything that causes the United States to commit more resources to one region will necessarily cause it to de-emphasize another. Essentially, Russian revisionism in Europe soaks up American resources, which cannot then be used elsewhere. This diminishes American capacity to resist Chinese efforts to revise the status quo order in East Asia. Therefore, Russian revisionism in Europe indirectly facilitates Chinese revisionism in East Asia, increasing Chinese incentives to support Russian adventures in Europe. The same dynamic operates in reverse. Chinese revisionism in East Asia occupies American resources that could otherwise be used to deter Russian hostility toward the European regional order. These effects are indirect, meaning they occur as a result of the

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American reaction to Russian/Chinese revisionism. But they are entirely predictable and could easily be taken into account when Russia/China are determining whether or not to support the other’s revisionist actions. Indeed, there is already substantial evidence that Chinese policymakers tacitly supported Russian actions in Crimea and Ukraine in 2014 in order to “distract the US, which would pay less attention to Chinese moves in Asia–Pacific” as a result (Gabuev 2015, 3). As Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner (2018, 70) recently argued, “[t]his strategic distraction has given China the opportunity to press its advantages” in reshaping the East Asian regional order. Importantly, reaping these indirect benefits does not require any actual coordination between Moscow and Beijing.

Sino-Russian Relations: Logrolling in Practice? Cooperation between China and Russia has deepened significantly over the past decade, with energy and arms sales at the core of their expanding partnership. A $270 billion deal on oil and gas trade, signed in 2013, enhanced economic ties between Moscow and Beijing. Furthermore, the Chinese Navy (PLAN) and Air Force (PLAAF) both continue to purchase large amounts of Russian arms. Recent agreements could see Beijing purchase 4th generation SU-35 fighter planes, and S-400 surface-to-air missiles, significantly enhancing China’s local defense capabilities. As such, Chinese president Xi Jinping recently claimed that China-Russia relations are at their “best time in history,” (Xinhua 2017) while Russian president Vladimir Putin recently upgraded the bilateral relationship to a “comprehensive partnership and strategic collaboration” (RT 2016). Some of the more bullish analyses of Sino-Russian relations have begun describing the relationship as “a veritable alliance” (Blank 2016). Most importantly, China and Russia have provided diplomatic and rhetorical support for one another’s territorial expansion and taken measures that effectively undermine multilateral efforts to resist that expansion. China’s island reclamation and militarization campaign in the South China Sea represents the greatest challenge to the US-led order in East Asia in decades. Likewise, Russia’s brazen annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, covert invasion of Eastern Ukraine, and continued harassment of NATO allies and assets in Eastern Europe constitute the greatest threat to the US-led order in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union [Editor’s note: This chapter was completed prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine].

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Crucially, China and Russia have provided important political support and diplomatic cover for one another in these efforts. Mostly notably, Russia has maintained a strict policy of “non-interference” in the South China Sea, while resisting American efforts pushing China to resolve the dispute through the ICJ or international arbitration. Even more overtly, Putin strongly supported Beijing’s refusal to recognize the Hague’s arbitration ruling in favor of the Philippines’ protests against Chinese claims.7 This is “analogous to the Chinese response to the [2014] Ukraine crisis,” which entailed “benevolent” or “friendly” neutrality in the face of united Western opposition (Lo 2017). These positions help each side avoid unanimous resistance from other permanent five UN Security Council members and provide cover for weaker regional states looking to bandwagon by supporting the revisionist’s actions. Even without offering full-throated support, Russia and China are able to reduce the costs one another are likely to suffer for their revisionism simply by refusing to join multilateral condemnations of it. In short, Russia’s “non-interference” and China’s “benevolent neutrality” help one another deflect criticism of and opposition to their territorial revisionism. This, I argue, has significantly reduced the costs of such revisionist actions. Their cooperation has gone beyond mere rhetoric. Chinese banks have provided crucial financing to Russia, helping Putin’s regime sustain the impact of Western sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea (Gabuev 2017b). Likewise, Russian energy sales provide a crucial backstop, reducing the expected costs of periodic crises likely to result from Beijing’s expansion in the South China Sea, and which might otherwise disrupt Chinese oil supplies. In short, both Russia and China are implementing policies that reduce the costs the other is suffering as a result of their territorial revisionism. Again, even if not actively supporting the other’s actions, both Beijing and Moscow are actively undermining efforts to stop them. To the extent that these policies of neutrality and non-interference are motivated in part by the expectation of reciprocity, they would constitute logrolling. Through such policies, each side undermines the norms and principles that might impede their own territorial ambitions. But more importantly, it incentivizes their counterpart to provide reciprocal cover for their own expansion. An implicit quid-pro-quo is unlikely to

7 See transcript at: http://en.special.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/52834.

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be publicly acknowledged, as it would undermine the principles supposedly motivating their position and potentially jeopardize its reciprocation. And importantly, both Russia and China could have imposed relatively steep costs on the other in retaliation for their revisionist actions, if they had decided to do so. Nevertheless, given that both Russia and China are providing political cover for policies that likely undermine their immediate interests, the existence of cross-regional logrolling here seems entirely plausible. In sum, it appears that both Beijing and Moscow are willing to support, or at least forgo overtly opposing, the other’s regional revisionism so long as this support is reciprocated. China has taken a position of benevolent neutrality regarding Russia’s actions in Ukraine and has continued providing crucial investment to Russia despite Western sanctions. Likewise, Russia has adopted a position of non-interference in the South China Sea and undermined multilateral efforts to condemn Chinese behavior. Even more, Russia may be taking on some of the burden of watering down US-led efforts to isolate and punish North Korea “at a time when doing so has become costly for China” (Gabuev 2017b). For both Russia and China, this support has the effect of eliciting the other’s reciprocal approval, while also serving to “distract” and divert the United States from opposing their own revisionist efforts (Gabuev 2017a, 3). Importantly, this cooperation does not rely on compatible interests, and thus may prove more durable than the conventional wisdom would suspect. According to this framework, Sino-Russian logrolling would break down if the United States completely retrenches from either Europe or East Asia. But such a wholesale withdrawal is extremely unlikely, even over the medium to long term. US decline and retrenchment is likely to be a lengthy and ultimately limited process. As such, the benefit each derives from the United States being diverted toward other regions, and thus the motivation for revisionist logrolling, is likely to persist. Insofar as logrolling dynamics are actually driving Sino-Russian cooperation, it may last well into the future. Still, there remain important limits to the revisionist logrolling dynamic described here. First, while Russia and China clearly attach differing levels of importance to Europe and East Asia, they each have significant interests in both regions. Furthermore, the effect of secondary regions, like the Middle East and Central Asia, is somewhat unclear. China’s and Russia’s interests in these regions are in tension, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. China’s growing economy remains highly dependent

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on cheap energy, while Russia’s long-term fiscal health requires increases in the price of petroleum. Beijing and Moscow thus face starkly different incentives in terms of maintaining stability in the Middle East and Central Asia (Mead 2014). Indeed, Putin has already “quietly torpedoed Chinese proposals” to integrate Central Asian economies into a multilateral framework led by China (Gabuev 2015, 7). Furthermore, both sides seem to value these regions relatively equally, so it is not clear ex ante that either Russia or China would be willing to systematically offer greater concessions in these regions. Still, it is important to remember that these regions are of secondary importance to both Beijing and Moscow, relative to East Asia and Europe respectively, and thus may not be a source of insurmountable tension. These headwinds may intensify in the aftermath of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Taliban’s return to power could portend greater instability in south and central Asia, especially if the country remains mired in a civil war similar to the one that occurred throughout the 1990s. To be sure, there is no massive “power vacuum” emerging in the region, and neither Russia nor China faces strong incentives to sink significant resources into Afghanistan in the wake of American withdrawal. But the opportunity to exploit natural resources in the area and establish greater influence over the Taliban could draw increased attention from both Beijing and Moscow. To the extent that this increased engagement produces geopolitical competition, effective logrolling may become somewhat more difficult. Finally, it is uncertain how these revisionist logrolling dynamics will evolve as the United States foreign policy establishment increasing coalesces around the conclusion that China is a deeply revisionist rising power. Early analyses of the “return” of great power competition suggested that China and Russia would be coequal focuses on American policy (Mead 2014). While Russia’s capabilities lagged far behind China’s, Russia’s intentions seemed more clearly malign. China’s large and growing capabilities were a clear concern, but many policymakers held out hope that leaders in Beijing were still willing to work largely within the status quo security and economic order in East Asia. Recent years have seen a significant decline in such optimism. China’s continued militarization of the South China Sea, repression in Hong Kong, and egregious human rights violations in Xinjiang have caused a massive and rapid shift in US perceptions (Campbell and Ratner 2018; Friedberg 2020). China is now widely viewed as a highly revisionist power, and as

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such, its massive capabilities are perceived as a significantly larger threat than Russia (Colby and Mitchell 2020). This shift in US perceptions of China’s intentions could have important implications for the trilateral US-China-Russia relationship. According to a balance of threat logic, increased US hostility toward China and reduced focus on Russia would undermine Russia’s perception of the shared threat that has been driving China and Russia together. This would lead Sino-Russian cooperation to begin deteriorating in the near future. But according to the logrolling logic presented above, it is possible that even a large and sustained shift in US threat perceptions would fail to seriously undercut Sino-Russian cooperation. Russia would certainly have reduced need for Chinese support, but this would perhaps be offset by China’s increased need for Russian support. If Russia faced less US opposition due to Washington’s increased focus on China, it would be less willing to incur costs in supporting China in order to induce China’s reciprocation. But China, in facing stronger US opposition, would likely be willing to offer even more benefits to Russia in order to maintain Russia’s current level of support. In short, a more single-minded US focus on China could shift the balance of burdens that China and Russia face in the logrolling relationship, with China having to offer more than Russia. But to the extent that Sino-Russian cooperation is driven by these logrolling dynamics, neither US decline nor a shift in US grand strategy toward a clearer focus on China would necessarily portend the demise of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership.

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Prescriptions and Predictions for U.S.-China-Russia Relations

America’s Growing Agreement on Countering Russia-China Challenges Robert Sutter

This chapter first explains how and why greater Russia-China cooperation has become an increasingly important problem for the United States. It finds a major shortcoming in effective U.S. policy dealing with this problem in a lack, until recently, of consensus among American elites, interest groups, and broader public opinion on how to deal with China. By contrast, in the wake of the Russian takeover of Crimea in 2014, it finds strong agreement among U.S. administration leaders (with the notable exception of President Donald Trump) and bipartisan congressional majorities, media and public opinion in favor of tough measures against Moscow’s challenges to American interests. Referring to Robert Putman’s argument known as “Two-Level Games” (Putman 1988) and endeavoring to apply its implications in understanding recent U.S. policy toward China and Russia, the chapter judges that effective U.S. policy toward China and toward the problem of China-Russia cooperation has been weakened by disagreements between

R. Sutter (B) Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_11

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administration leaders focused on U.S. foreign policy concerns and congressional representatives more reflective of domestic U.S. opinions and interests on how to deal with China. It finds that this weakness was reduced in two stages in recent years. First, there was a remarkable convergence of administration and congressional views during the Donald Trump administration in favor of an across-the-board hardening of U.S. policy toward China, including over China-Russia cooperation. That administration-congressional consensus arose in Washington in 2018 and remained strong. However, mainstream U.S. media, public opinion, and skeptical Democratic presidential candidates including Joseph Biden registered more moderate views and were not in agreement with the hardening of U.S. policy toward China until 2020. Their transition marked the second stage, setting the scene for the Biden government’s remarkable agreement with the goals and many of the means of the Trump administration’s tough policy approach toward China featuring strong support from mainstream media and public opinion (Galtson 2021). As a result, the chapter views the current U.S. approach toward China and Russia as more unified than in the past and no longer encumbered with misalignment as explained by the Two-Level Games theory defined by Putnam. While this author favors the recent toughening of U.S. policy toward China and Russia, whether or not a more unified American approach of hard-edged competition toward these two opposing powers will endure or is the best path to follow is beyond the scope of the argument and remains to be seen.

Context American government and non-government specialists along with many international colleagues have had long experience in assessing the twists and turns of the relationship between Moscow and Beijing and what they mean for U.S. interests. The enormous academic and specialist literature in this field is captured in reference works (Sutter 2011; Saul 2014; Sullivan and Paarlberg 2018). It highlights U.S. attention in the 1950s on the implications of the Sino-Soviet alliance for the American war effort in Korea, the extent of Soviet support for China during the Taiwan Strait crises of 1954–1955 and 1958, the extent of Sino-Soviet backing for the Vietnamese Communists defeating the French in Indochina, Soviet support for Chinese economic and particularly military modernization

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(including nuclear weapons), and signs of friction emerging in the alliance relationship. In the 1960s, the Sino-Soviet split came into public view and grew. It was accompanied by major U.S. involvement in combat operations in Indochina facing Vietnamese and neighboring communist forces backed by China and by the USSR, increasingly in competition with China. The U.S. military commitment and broader government involvement in Southeast Asia became the top preoccupation of American foreign policy during the Lyndon Johnson administration (1963–1969). Related was U.S. concern with China’s nuclear weapons program which had received significant Soviet support in the 1950s and which came to be viewed by Moscow as a major threat once Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated in the 1960s. The Richard Nixon administration (1969–1974) carried out secret efforts to open official relations with China amidst acute tensions in Sino-Soviet relations, which prompted forecasts of Sino-Soviet war (U.S. National Intelligence Estimate 1969). The successful opening of U.S.-China relations by Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong set the stage for a new framework for analyzing the trilateral U.S.-China-Soviet relationship which remained a focus of U.S. government and non-government assessments until the end of the Cold War. Sometimes characterized as the “Great Power Triangle,” the trilateral relationship became a focal point of U.S. specialists and policy makers who gave careful attention to America’s relationships with Moscow and Beijing, and the implications for U.S. interests of their relations with one another (Christopher 1977). In general, the U.S. was seen in an advantageous position particularly as Moscow and Beijing remained seriously opposed to one another for various reasons. American specialists and policy makers remained alert in particular to the implications of China’s sometimes siding with the United States against the USSR and sometimes seeking a thaw in relations with Moscow. The American imperative to monitor changing Russian-Chinese relations seemed to decline for a time with the end of the Cold War and demise of the Soviet threat. The end of the Soviet threat terminated what had been the main common ground of strategic collaboration between the U.S. and Chinese governments. This important development coincided with the Tiananmen crackdown in China which shocked Americans and led to an abrupt reversal in U.S. policy from positive engagement to hostile opposition toward the Chinese government and its practices. America now seemed ascendant, Russia was in decline and China was

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preoccupied; against that background the danger of Russian-Chinese collaboration at odds with U.S. interests got less attention (Lampton 2001). As China’s economy experienced very rapid growth beginning in 1992, Beijing was successful in ending most Western sanctions caused by the Tiananmen crackdown and in expanding diplomatic and other relations throughout Asia and the world. China resorted to nine months of offand-on live-fire military exercises in the Taiwan Strait in 1995–1996 in response to the Bill Clinton government (1993–2001) granting a visa for the president of Taiwan to visit the United States. Clinton administration leaders were alarmed; they became much more attentive to Chinese concerns, seeking to reassure and positively engage China. In this context, the extent of Russian arms sales and military collaboration with China was viewed with concern by U.S. government and other analysts. Often intense U.S. disagreements with Russia and China over the war in Kosovo, U.S. plans for national and theater ballistic missile defenses, NATO expansion, and U.S. military presence and policy in the Middle East saw leaders in Moscow and Beijing align together against the United States. In response, U.S. government analysts were repeatedly tasked with assessing the possible significant implications of such cooperation. These were accompanied by various non-government assessments (U.S. National Intelligence Estimate 2000; Sutter 2018a, 102–107). These studies—including U.S. government estimates—some now declassified—of post-Cold War Russia-China relations and their strategic implications often show a variety of significant military, political, and economic cooperative developments but they also depict elements of competition and reservations by one side or the other. In the late 1990s, when Russia and China were both weaker and seemed reluctant to challenge the United States despite anti-hegemony rhetoric and diplomatic activism to the contrary, such Russia-China cooperation appeared to not have major strategic implications for U.S. interests. In recent years, China is much stronger and Russia is somewhat stronger. Russian leaders and increasingly Chinese leaders have demonstrated much more willingness to challenge U.S. interests, particularly in their respective primary areas of interest. Those areas notably include Russia in Europe and the Middle East, and China in the Asia–Pacific. Meanwhile, the Barack Obama administration (2009–2017) tried to withdraw from major wars in Southwest Asia and the Middle East and

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placed a higher priority than the George W. Bush administration (2001– 2009) on avoiding military involvements or onerous economic and other international commitments seen as not in America’s longer-term interests. Against this background, the United States recently has faced more direct challenges from Russia and China in a period of perceived American international retrenchment (U.S. National Intelligence Council 2017, x, 31, 33). And the concern in the United States over the implications of the developing Russian-Chinese collaboration is now deemed much greater than it was at the turn of the century (Kendall-Taylor and Shullman 2021; Graham and Legvold 2021).

Russian-Chinese Relations: Status, Trajectory, and Negative Implications The partnership between Moscow and Beijing has matured and broadened after the Cold War, with serious negative consequences for American interests, as discussed in recent surveys (Ellings and Sutter 2019, xiii–xiv, 175 fn.4). The relationship has significantly strengthened during the past decade. The dispositions of President Vladimir Putin (2000–) and President Xi Jinping (2012–) support forecasts of closer relations over the next five years, and probably beyond. The momentum is based on (1) common objectives; (2) perceived Russian and Chinese vulnerabilities in the face of U.S. and Western pressures; and (3) perceived opportunities for the two powers to expand their influence at the expense of U.S. and allied countries seen as cautious, distracted and in decline. The relationship has gone well beyond the common view over a decade ago that Russian-Chinese ties represented an “axis of convenience” with limited impact on U.S. interests (Lo 2008). Today, Russia and China pose increasingly serious challenges to the U.S.-supported order in their respective priority spheres of concern— Russia in Europe and the Middle East, and China in Asia along China’s continental and maritime peripheries. Russia’s challenges involve cyber and political warfare undermining elections in the United States and Europe, European unity, and NATO solidarity. China’s cyberattacks have focused more on massive theft of information and intellectual property to accelerate China’s economic competitiveness in order to dominate world markets in key advanced technology at the expense of leading U.S. and other international companies. Russia and China work separately and

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together to complicate and curb U.S. power and influence in world politics, economics, and security. They support one another in their respective challenges to the United States and its allies and partners in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. These joint efforts also involve diplomatic, security, and economic measures in multilateral forums and bilateral relations involving U.S. adversaries in North Korea, Iran, and Syria. The two powers also support one another in the face of U.S. and allied complaints about Russian and Chinese coercive expansion and other steps challenging regional order and global norms and institutions backed by the United States (Sutter 2021a, 251–255). The U.S. ability to deal with these rising challenges is commonly seen as in decline. The U.S. position in the triangular relationship among the United States, Russia, and China has deteriorated, to the satisfaction of leaders in Moscow and Beijing opportunistically seeking to advance their power and influence. Russia’s tension with the West and ever deepening dependence on China, and until recently active U.S. constructive engagement with China, gave Beijing the advantageous “hinge” position in the triangular relationship that the United States used to occupy (Sutter 2018b, 4). Recent Russian and Chinese policy calculations show that the importance of improved relations with the United States is low for President Vladimir Putin and the Russian leadership. Their world view focuses on dealing with the American threat with coercive means short of war including military deployments, cyberattacks, and security assistance to American adversaries. President Xi Jinping’s government continues to balance strong opposition to U.S. international leadership and perceived U.S. encirclement in Asia against managing differences with the United States in order to avoid confrontation and conflict. China has a greater stake in the U.S.-led international order than does Russia. But Beijing strikes the balance in ways that seriously undermine America. Notable in this regard are coercive advances to control disputed territory along its rim in ways that undermine the American position as regional security guarantor and an ever expanding military budget that supports increasingly sophisticated weapons systems seeking to turn the military balance of power in Asia against the United States (Sutter 2018b, 5). The two powers have demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice interests for the sake of comity with each other. Thus, Putin defers to China’s priorities in Korea and the South China Sea at the expense of significant Russian interests in Korea and in Vietnam. And China risks relations with

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European and Middle Eastern countries when it repeatedly joins Russian military exercises designed to intimidate those countries. The comity even applies to Central Asia, where China expands its influence but avoids direct challenges to Russian leadership and Putin accepts the ever larger Chinese role in this area of strategic importance for Russia (Sutter 2021a, 253–255). The drivers of Russian-Chinese cooperation overshadow the brakes on forward movement at America’s expense. The influence of U.S. policy on key areas of Russia-China cooperation, notably sales of advanced weapons, energy related trade and investment and cooperation in the United Nations and elsewhere against various Western initiatives, is low. U.S. and allied leaders preoccupied with troubles at home and abroad create a balance of international power favoring further advances and challenges by a rising China and resurgent Russia adverse to the U.S.-backed international order (Sutter 2018b, 5). The Russian-Chinese relationship is not an alliance with formal obligations to come to one another’s assistance. Still-limited engagement reflects the two powers’ negative Cold War history and conflicting contemporary interests. In particular, asymmetries in the relationship make Russia, with national wealth only one tenth the size of China’s increasingly modern economy, ever more dependent on China and consequently more distant from the widely supported goal of reestablishing Moscow’s great power status.

America’s China Policy Debate---Bridging the Gap Through effective economic and military strengthening and adroit statecraft, the United States could lead efforts to counter the challenges of Russia-China cooperation against it. A significant impediment to effective U.S. policy has been posed by the absence of domestic American consensus on China policy. In contrast, U.S. policy toward Russia since the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 has reflected a consensus among administration foreign policy and defense leaders, with the notable exception of President Trump, along with bipartisan majorities in Congress, mainstream media, and broad public opinion favoring tough U.S. countermeasures against challenges coming from Vladimir Putin’s government. A review of administration-congressional interchange on the array of sanctions imposed on Russia and other legislative actions underlines support for

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a hard line. An impressive array of repeatedly updated Congressional Research Service reports graphically demonstrate congressional leadership and support for the U.S. government sanctions and other punitive and related measures to counter Russian challenges since the Russian takeover of Crimea in 2014 (Congressional Research Service 2020a, b). Annual public opinion polls show a massive increase in public disapproval of Russia following the Crimea takeover that has remained at very high levels of disapproval ever since. The authoritative Gallup poll, done each February for many years discerning American opinion on various countries, showed an increase in disapproval of Russia by almost 30 percent, from a percent level in the low 40s prior to the takeover in Crimea to over 70 in every year following the takeover (Gallup 2020). Against this background, mainstream American media arguing for moderation toward Russia has been rare in recent years. On China, meanwhile, American debate has continued strongly until the past few years. Attempting to explain enduring differences over China policy, some American specialists highlighted the relevance of different international relations theories in demonstrating sometimes clashing determinants of U.S. relations with China since the start of the Nixon administration (Sutter 2018a, 95–96). Tenets of realism in international relations theory explained shifts from negative to positive and vice versa in Sino-American relations, especially since the Cold War. The kinds of cost–benefit analysis seen in realism seemed evident in decisionmaking in Beijing and Washington during key episodes, notably the breakthrough under Nixon and Mao in the 1970s, Deng Xiaoping’s pull back from pressing the Reagan administration in the 1980s, the mutual accommodation in line with China’s avowed “peaceful rise” during the George W. Bush administration, and the Chinese government’s greater international assertiveness at U.S. expense in the past decade (Sutter 2018a, 95–164). Liberalism in international relations theory was employed to explain promoting cooperation through increased engagement, notably economic interchange. Liberalism also was used to explain the strong U.S. disapproval of the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989 as Chinese leaders reversed nascent politically liberal trends in the period of reform. U.S. disappointment also was registered in the face of the Xi Jinping government’s tightening of control over Chinese civil society. Constructivism in international relations theory was used to explain the positive significance of mutual learning by participants on both sides as they discerned and acted upon areas of common ground and mutual

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interest. At the same time, constructivism also explained the distinct and often strongly divergent identities of China and the United States that seriously impeded improving relations, especially in sensitive policy areas involving ideology, sovereignty, and security. Prominent international relations scholar Aaron Friedberg offered a comprehensive assessment usefully showing how different American and other foreign international relations specialists viewed China’s rising power and influence through the lenses of realism, liberalism, or constructivism (Friedberg 2005). Thus, the complex American relationship with China had many features that might best be assessed using different perspectives from international relations theory. Deepening strategic competition and a massive security dilemma between China and the United States in the Asia–Pacific region underlined forces and phenomena that seem best understood through a realist lens. At the same time, American stress on open trade and investment, related social and political liberalism, and deepening Chinese engagement with the existing world order seemed best assessed through a liberal perspective. In addition, a fundamental reason why U.S. efforts to engage and change China’s policies and practices have occurred on the U.S. side and have been resisted on the Chinese side was a profound gap between the national identity in China and that in the United States, a topic well explained by constructivism. This long-lasting American debate on China policy featuring individuals and groups viewing China differently through lenses reflecting realist, liberal, or constructivist views had practical impact on U.S. policy making. In particular, U.S. administrations following the opening of relations under President Nixon generally favored approaches of accommodation, moderation, and engagement with China seen as in the broad foreign policy interests of the United States. These approaches repeatedly met with sometimes assertive and more often passive opposition from Congress, reflecting the interests of domestic constituencies. The evidence shows that in practice, congressional disagreement repeatedly has slowed or altered administration initiatives toward greater accommodation of and engagement with China at the expense of U.S. domestic constituencies represented by and working closely with Congress. There were notable examples of such congressional opposition during deliberations over the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979, the George H. W. Bush administration’s continued high-level engagement with Chinese leaders after Beijing’s harsh crackdown on dissent in 1989, and the Clinton administration’s

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efforts to grant China permanent normal trade relations and to facilitate its entry into the World Trade Organization (Sutter 2018a, 75–77, 101–107, 116–118). As noted at the outset, this chapter attempts to apply Robert Putnam’s Two-Level Games theory in order to explain better the significance of this congressional-executive branch split on U.S. policy toward China. Putnam’s theory has been commonly used in understanding the causal links between domestic and international determinants of foreign policy (Noone 2019). It appears to support the judgment that foreign policies of administrations without adequate domestic political support are less effective and often unsustainable. This chapter supports that judgment in the case of recent American policy toward China and toward ChinaRussia relations in the past decade. It argues that a recent congressionalexecutive branch consensus on “whole of government” efforts to counter various Chinese challenges to U.S. interests including growing ChinaRussia ties has gradually won broad U.S. domestic support. This advance has brought U.S. policy on China into line with U.S. policy toward Russia allowing for a more broadly supported, sustainable, and effective policy toward China-Russia cooperation. The record of the American debate about China in the recent decade shows continued and sometimes sharp differences, but a broad consensus favoring a much tougher and highly competitive U.S. approach to China emerged in 2018 and remains prevalent today. The transition went through two stages. The first involved building a consensus between Trump administration leaders and bipartisan majorities in Congress in favor of multifaceted U.S. government countermeasures against challenges posed by Chinese foreign behavior. This “inside the beltway” Executive-Congressional convergence emerged and remained strong from 2018 onward. However it was not well understood or supported by American media, public opinion, and some state and local governments. And the prevailing view of the Democratic presidential candidates throughout much of the 2019–2020 campaign reflected little of the urgency of the Washington discourse urging strong countermeasures against Beijing. With the sharply negative American reactions to the role of the Chinese government in the COVID-19 pandemic, these important American domestic constituencies increasingly came around to the tough posture toward China favored by the Trump administration leaders and majorities in Congress, thereby aligning domestic constituencies with the

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foreign policy interests of the administration as far as China was concerned (Sutter and Limaye 2020, 5–9). Republicans in Congress registered increasing dissatisfaction with the perceived weakness of the Barack Obama administration (2009–2017) in countering the range of challenges to U.S. interests coming from the much more assertive Chinese foreign policy behavior under Chinese President Xi Jinping (2012–). The Chinese challenges involved more support for Russia and a wide range of other authoritarian and/or corrupt governments attracted by Chinese economic largess and undemocratic governance. Beijing used international financing, trade, and investment to build economic dependencies on China, which it has then used to compel deference, including support for China’s mercantilist economic practices focused on dominance of high technology, and thereby representing an existential threat to the existing free trade system. China’s military prowess weakened America and opened the way to China’s expansion at neighbors’ expense, notably rapidly building fortified outposts in the South China Sea. Unconventional and often hidden measures of Chinese statecraft influenced and exerted control on foreign governments. Targeting the 2016 presidential election campaign, Republicans in Congress and the Republican Party platform were harsh in condemning various Chinese practices (Sutter and Limaye 2016, 4–5, 18–19). Officials and specialists in Beijing saw negatives with both the Democratic nominee Secretary Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump. They judged that relations would worsen at least to some degree if Secretary Clinton were elected. Overall, a common view was that China could “shape” President Trump to behave in line with its interests, as Trump was seen as less ideological and more pragmatic than Secretary Clinton (Sutter and Limaye 2016, 21).

Hardening Policy Targeting China, 2017–2020 U.S. government hardening against Chinese challenges to American interests emerged erratically in the first year of the Trump administration. The new tough line against China was first articulated clearly in the National Security Strategy in December 2017, almost one year after the start of the administration. That release was overshadowed by the afterglow of President Trump’s lavish treatment by Chinese President Xi during the U.S. president’s visit in November. In a departure from his normal practice

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in reaction to foreign hosts, President Trump was effusive in his public remarks of appreciation throughout the Chinese visit (Lo 2017). Momentum against China’s challenges developed after that, reaching and maintaining a high level during the heat of the 2020 presidential election campaign, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic surged in the United States in March 2020. The groundwork for the American government effort against China developed through close collaboration between the administration and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Extraordinary administration and bipartisan congressional cooperation broke the mold of past practice where the U.S. Congress usually served as a brake and obstacle impeding U.S. administration initiatives in dealing with China. The close alignment of the administration and bipartisan congressional majorities provided the key driver of the new tougher U.S. policy approach to China (Sutter 2018c). Nonetheless, this alignment of government policy makers “inside the beltway” faced major uncertainties. Most immediate was the absence of a push toward a tougher China policy on the part of the American public and many state and local officials who remained largely ambivalent on China. They often appeared intent on maximizing commercial benefits of engagement whether from foreign students or exports or even inward foreign direct investment. They disapproved of many Chinese government actions, but they also sought to avoid confrontation and to develop constructive ties. Mainstream U.S. media initially gave less attention to the broad policy change taking place in Washington than they gave to President Trump’s swings from approving Chinese leaders to condemning Chinese trade practices, often concluding that the president’s actions were tactical maneuvers seeking “protectionist” trade deals with China that would appeal to his political supporters. Indeed, President Trump’s unpredictable discourse on China supported this media judgment and clearly complicated the broader administration-congressional collaboration on an effective strategy toward China. Finally, when significant costs of the tougher approach toward China materialized with the administration’s punitive tariffs starting the so-called trade war beginning in 2018, they were widely criticized by Democratic presidential candidates seeking to appeal to farmers and others subject to Chinese retaliation against U.S. tariffs. Such behavior suggested that these American leaders not only saw the tariffs as misguided but also that they may be unwilling to pay significant costs in countering Chinese challenges (Sutter 2020).

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On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates and the American media registered little urgency over the China danger. Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang and control in Hong Kong were duly criticized, usually without calling for strong U.S. countermeasures to punish China. President Trump’s tariffs were criticized for causing economic loss for American farmers in Iowa and other early primary states. China received low priority treatment in the Democratic candidates’ debates. Media interviews with the candidates saw issues with China addressed toward the end of the discussion, not in the beginning, if they came up at all (Sutter 2020). Vice President Biden backed away from his remarks earlier in the campaign about the insignificance of the challenges posed by China, but he repeatedly emphasized Chinese weaknesses in comparison to U.S. strengths, asserting that China was in a much worse position than, and no match for, America. Meanwhile, Senator Amy Klobuchar saw utility in well-managed U.S.-allied pressures to get China to stop its trade and economic practices harming the United States. However, among the 100 steps she proposed to take in the first 100 days of her presidency, only one—against Chinese steel dumping—was about China, and it came far down the list (Wright 2020; Biden 2020; Sutter 2020). Public opinion registered in concurrent polling data suggested that the episodic disapproval of Chinese government practices by Democratic Party candidates was an appropriate approach. Jake Sullivan, a veteran policy advisor to Secretary Clinton, President Barack Obama, and Vice President Biden, judged in June 2019 that the “inside the beltway” discourse about the acute danger posed by China was not shared by the American public. He said public opinion polls showed that “the bottom line is there’s a broad view that China shouldn’t be our enemy, that we can work with this country, that we can trade with this country, and that we can seek investment from this country.” Looking ahead, he advised that “five years from now we could be talking about a broader American electorate that does view China as a rival or a foe or an enemy” (Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy 2019). Polling from the Chicago Council of Global Affairs in September 2019 underlined trends showing public ambivalence toward China. A Brookings Institution study in November 2019 judged that the absence of clear public support for the ongoing whole-of-government approach against China made substantial attention to the China debate unlikely in the 2020 campaign. The Center for a New American Security viewed the gap

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between the harsh view of China held by the Trump administration and congressional leaders and the much more ambivalent public as complicating the formation of an American consensus to deal with the challenges posed by China (Kafura 2019; Hass 2019; Fontaine 2019). Both Trump’s and Biden’s presidential campaigns were upended with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the United States with devastating consequences beginning in March 2020, resulting in more than 200,000 deaths by October, and the deepest dive in economic growth and employment since the Great Depression ninety years earlier. The need for a campaign message that would help reelect the president coincided with an increase in leadership invective on U.S.-China relations. With the Phase One trade deal duly celebrated in the administration, the whole-of-government counters to Chinese challenges resumed with greater prominence. As COVID-19 hit the United States with a vengeance beginning in March, Beijing sought the global leadership spotlight as a benefactor supplying needed protective personal equipment abroad and providing a model of efficient methods in checking the spread of the virus in China. The Chinese narrative ignored China as the source of the virus that led to devastating consequences for other countries, including the United States. A tipping point came when the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman and other Chinese diplomats abroad suggested in March that the virus was clandestinely planted in Wuhan by visiting U.S. military delegates. The very strong U.S. reaction saw President Trump emphatically call the virus the “Chinese” virus for several days, even though American opinion leaders judged the term racist. The president temporarily stopped this practice but Secretary Michael Pompeo pressed international bodies to examine the source of what he called the “Wuhan” virus (Department of Justice 2020; Qi 2020; Glaser and Flaherty 2020a). The acrimonious charges and countercharges influenced American opinion of the Chinese government. A wide variety of polls showed unprecedented levels of disapproval of the Chinese government, even more than following the brutal Chinese military crackdown against peaceful demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and other Chinese cities in 1989. Chinese President Xi was viewed with no confidence by over 70 percent of Americans. China was seen as a threat by nine in 10 Americans. Republicans were more supportive than Democrats in calling for tougher U.S. measures in response to Chinese responsibility for

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the COVID-19 crisis, but all registered broad antipathy for the Chinese government and its leadership (Devlin et al. 2020). By April 2020, the Trump administration and associated political action committees set an agenda for the campaign that featured President Trump standing up firmly to Chinese challenges and depicting Vice President Biden as a holdover from the failed China policies of the past. President Trump seemed to relish this depiction as the savior of America against the Chinese menace when he highlighted in tweets in 2019 that he “was the chosen one” to “take on” China. Underlining this point, the president in May 2020 tweeted a picture of all the living former presidents posing with Barack Obama in the White House in January 2009 with the caption “You can thank these men for allowing Communist China to grow to the dominant dictatorship superpower that it is!” (Martin and Habberman 2020; Davis 2019; May 10, 2020 Trump retweet received by author). President Trump now avoided direct communication with President Xi. In May, he threatened to “cut off the whole relationship” and advised in regard to negotiations with President Xi that “right now I don’t want to speak to him.” He was ambivalent about the Phase One trade deal with China, advising that “I feel differently about that than I did three months ago” (Martin and Habberman 2020; Rauhala et al. 2020; Phillips 2020). Concurrently, the administration went forward with what one senior U.S. official privately characterized as “an explosion” of measures over the next months targeting the Chinese Communist Party-state as a predatory and powerful systemic opponent of U.S. interests and influence whose advance fundamentally endangered the American “way of life” and those of U.S. allies and partners. Senior official speeches laid out frameworks involving a Cold War-style ideological struggle with China; the administration imposed serious political and economic sanctions and economic restrictions over political and economic disputes; military shows of force were more prominent in support of allies and partners disputing Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea; and stepped-up engagement and support for allies and partners came, with the sensitive partnership with Taiwan receiving extraordinary attention. The focus of all these measures was to push back and more effectively deter Chinese advances at others’ expense and to impose serious costs when China is not deterred (Glaser and Flaherty 2020b). The unprecedented American steps against Beijing fit in well with the Trump re-election campaign depicting the president as a strong protector

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of U.S. interests against China’s challenges and portraying Vice President Biden as responsible for what was seen as failed U.S. policies of the past. Media reports also said they were in line with plans by Trump officials to make it very difficult for a Biden administration to reverse the recent course of U.S. policy toward China in the event that President Trump was not reelected (Glaser and Flaherty 2020b; Rogin 2020). To counter, Vice President Biden went on the offensive. As Beijing moved to impose a national security law on Hong Kong despite U.S. and other international opposition, Vice President Biden said on May 23 that Trump has given China “a pass on human rights”; he added, “it’s no surprise China’s government believes it can act with impunity to violate its commitments. The administration’s protests are too little, too late—and Donald Trump has conspicuously had little to say.” In response, President Trump signaled he was willing to scrap his trade progress with China in order to punish China over the coronavirus and Hong Kong, adding in a tweet on May 26 that “Nobody in 50 years has been WEAKER on China than Sleepy Joe Biden. He was asleep at the wheel. He gave them EVERYTHING they wanted, including rip-off trade deals. I am getting it all back!” (Biden and Trump tweets received by author). Beijing remained defiant in the face of U.S. pressure. It reportedly no longer showed preference for President Trump, though it remained cautious in response to various U.S. affronts, seeking to avoid further deterioration. Congress did its part in stoking anti-China measures, notably in the 388 pieces of legislation on China pending in 2021 and in the draft National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 passed later in the year. U.S. and international commentators commonly depicted U.S.-China relations taking on the attributes of a Cold War, with enhanced danger of a hot war conflict over Taiwan or the South China Sea where the U.S. and Chinese military forces faced and challenged each other frequently, sometimes more than once a day (Global Times 2020; The Economist 2020).

Recent Developments: Biden’s Tough Approach to China The departure of the Trump government left a legacy of American countermeasures against Chinese challenges that were hard to reverse, especially because the U.S. Congress continued bipartisan support for such measures and Mr. Trump was determined to remain a major force

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in American politics. China’s refusal to halt its challenges added to factors precluding significant thaw in U.S.-China competition. And the Biden administration gave higher priority than President Trump to Chinese human rights violations, the promotion of democracy in countering growing authoritarian rule, and reshaping American economic and trade policy to benefit job creation in the United States—all reinforcing U.S. resolve to counter China (Sutter 2021b). Some moderation in U.S. countermeasures against China seemed likely as the most important administration priorities involving the pandemic, economic recovery and climate change, saw China as a needed partner. Nevertheless, the Biden administration overall sustained and sometimes advanced existing U.S. government strictures involving trade, human rights, and other disputes with China. It demonstrated the priority of allies and partners as U.S. leaders delayed high-level interchange with Chinese leaders until after high-level U.S. consultations with those likeminded governments. China’s challenges figured prominently in highlevel U.S. discussions with developed countries of the G-7, NATO, the European Union, and with Indo-Pacific allies and partners including members of the Quad (Australia, Japan, and India) as well as South Korea and Taiwan. U.S. leaders repeatedly asserted their intention to deal with China’s challenges from “a position of strength” (Glaser and Price 2021). President Biden repeatedly warned that the main inflection point facing America is the fourth industrial revolution with China, which is confident that its authoritarian system will overtake America’s because of what Beijing views as the less efficient U.S. democratic decision making process. He argued “we can’t let them win” (U.S.-China Policy Foundation 2021). Echoing the president was an enormous congressional enterprise with remarkable bipartisan support led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to pass multifaceted bipartisan legislation in 2021 to improve U.S. high technology industries and advance other measures to counter China. As Schumer advised, “we can either have a world where the Chinese Communist Party determines the rules of the road [in high technology development] – or we can make sure the United States gets there first” (U.S.-China Policy Foundation 2021).

Conclusion Strong U.S. rivalry with China now dominates global developments, and this test of strength could last for years. Of course, there is no guarantee

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that the recent convergence of U.S. administration-congressional collaboration on policy toward China and accompanying support from media and public opinion (Galtson 2021) will last in uncertain conditions going forward. This chapter argued that such broad agreement on a tougher policy toward China meshes well with existing tough U.S. policy toward Russia and makes U.S. policy on the challenges posed by China and Russia less fractious and more efficient. And it showed this policy consensus is strong for now. Unfortunately, such great power struggles have multiple serious consequences, making lasting forecasts very difficult.

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Conclusion: Explaining the China-Russia Partnership Brandon K. Yoder

Theory is an essential component of explanation. The preceding chapters applied both existing and novel theories of international relations to explain the puzzle of China-Russia cooperation. Collectively, they reach consensus on some aspects of the bilateral relationship, but diverge over others. This concluding chapter characterizes the various theoretical mechanisms advanced by the contributors and attempts to reconcile points of contention. This culminates in a synthetic explanation of the increase in post-Cold War China-Russia cooperation that draws on these well-specified theories to identify how disparate variables interact with each other and what their respective causal weights are. The chapter concludes with the predictions these theories yield about the durability of China-Russia alignment, and the implications of the volume for US foreign policy.

B. K. Yoder (B) School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_12

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Implications for IR Theory Although the primary purpose of this project is to marshal international relations (IR) theory to explain the sources of China-Russia cooperation and derive its implications, in doing so the chapters in this volume make several important theoretical advances in their own right. Alexander Korolev offers an important contribution with his generalizable typology of military alignment, which had previously been absent from the IR literature. Rather, scholars have been limited to the binary classification of states as allied or unallied, which fails to capture any variation in cooperation short of formal alliance. This has led to a slew of ad hoc, unsystematic measures of cooperation in particular cases, which of course is not conducive to objective comparison of bilateral military relationships across dyads or over time. Korolev offers a discrete but finely graduated range of ordinal indicators that allows for such comparison, which can be refined and adopted to analyze degrees of alignment in cases beyond China-Russia relations. Greg Moore also makes a conceptual contribution with his novel characterization of US-China-Russia relations as “national narcissism,” which he defines as the atomistic pursuit of narrow self-interest in relations with other states. This contrasts with balancing, which is mutually beneficial cooperation against a common adversary even in the absence of other shared interests. The concept of national narcissism usefully distinguishes coordinated balancing behavior from simultaneous but uncoordinated competition with a common rival. Whereas the former implies cooperation to enhance the capabilities of one’s balancing partner, national narcissism entails sustained competition between the two states even as they also compete with their shared adversary. John Owen and Andrew Kydd extend and synthesize existing IR theories to produce novel variants of balancing theory. Kydd points out that the literatures on nuclear deterrence and balance of power have heretofore been divorced from each other. He then combines these theories to identify an important threshold effect wherein one state’s acquisition of a nuclear first-strike capability increases its bargaining leverage over the other two and can thus impel a balancing coalition that would not otherwise be predicted by the distribution of non-nuclear capabilities. Conversely, secure second-strike capabilities reduce incentives for alliances. This is a critical addition to the literature on great

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power balancing, which has not adequately theorized alignment patterns between nuclear powers. Owen, on the other hand, augments balancing logic with the concept of regime security, which has an ideological basis. Rather than simply balancing power, states balance threats to the survival of their domestic regime, which has both material and ideological components. A threat to a state’s regime must have both an ideology that is antagonistic to the state’s regime type, and the material capabilities to disseminate that ideology and/or attract converts to it. This is an important specification of a key variable in “balance of threat” theory, which is otherwise indeterminate regarding where threat perceptions come from, by incorporating ideational mechanisms operating at the domestic (or transnational) level of analysis. Kyle Haynes applies for the first time theories of legislative logrolling to international politics. Haynes shows that even in the absence of shared negative interests, e.g., opposition to a common threat, states with conflicting preferences can achieve cooperation by exchanging support across issue areas. This simply requires them to prioritize those issues differently, with one state placing asymmetric value on issue 1, and the other state placing asymmetric value on issue 2. In this way, both states get what they really want while avoiding costly conflict over less important issues. This is a novel motivation for cooperation that charts a third pathway between realism’s focus on negative opposition to a common threat and the positive shared preferences hypothesized by liberal IR theory. Finally, Brandon Yoder introduces a novel theory of credible reassurance, wherein a third-party threat to a declining state opens opportunities for a rising state to signal its benign intentions. By bearing costs to oppose the declining state’s rival, the rising state signals that its interests also diverge from the third-party threat’s and thus that they are more likely to converge with the declining state’s. This is an important contribution to the literature on signaling during power shifts, which has almost universally assumed a bilateral interaction and thus overlooked this signaling mechanism driven by the presence of a hostile third party. Yoder’s argument also speaks to balancing theory by showing that powerful states not only elicit balancing against their power per se, but also enable the formation of balancing coalitions by allowing prospective balancers to reassure each other of their benign intentions and thus achieve cooperation against a common threat.

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Implications for US-China-Russia Relations Conceptualizing China-Russia Relations Most of the arguments in this volume rest on the premise that ChinaRussia relations have been growing closer over time. Yet although the emergence of a China-Russia “partnership” is often asserted and/or supported by anecdotal evidence,1 there remains considerable controversy and confusion over whether and to what extent China and Russia are genuinely cooperating (e.g., Saradzhyan and Wyne 2018; Lo 2020; Baev 2020; Hoang and Nguyen 2021). While some call their partnership a mere “axis of convenience” (Lo 2008) others deem it a tacit alliance that carries meaningful consequences for the US and global order. Thus, a crucial contribution of this book—one that underpins the subsequent chapters—is Korolev’s typology and operationalization of “alignment,” which allows him to draw on a series of objective indicators to confirm that China and Russia have indeed moved steadily closer to each other. On seven dimensions of military cooperation, Korolev shows that China and Russia have become increasingly integrated militarily, progressing from confidence-building measures and military consultations in the 1990s, to technical cooperation and joint exercises which have progressively grown more extensive since beginning in the 2000s, to the early stages of military interoperability and an integrated command structure in recent years. Thus, although they are not allies, the two countries have clearly grown dramatically more closely aligned, at least militarily, since the end of the Cold War.2 Regardless of whether China-Russia cooperation reflects genuine and enduring comity or is merely an instrumental and transient stopgap, this outcome demands explanation, which subsequent chapters attempt to advance. On the surface, Korolev’s position appears to be challenged by Greg Moore’s argument that the trilateral relationship between China, Russia, and the US is characterized by “national narcissism,” i.e., the atomistic

1 For recent examples see Goldstein (2017), Krickovic (2017), Medeiros and Chase (2017), Lukin (2018), Allison and Simes (2019), Ellings and Sutter (2019), Gabuev (2019), Kashin (2019), Wilson (2019), Blank (2020), Stent (2020), and Kendall-Taylor and Shullman (2021). 2 Korolev’s recent work on this topic makes the more expansive claim that China-Russia cooperation has steadily increased on economic and diplomatic dimensions as well. See Korolev (2020).

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pursuit of narrow self-interest in bilateral relations with the other two states. Moore argues that Sino-Russian solidarity in the face of European and Western pressure is utilitarian and shallow, and that China and Russia have continued to be rivalrous in their relations with each other. However, although Moore’s and Korolev’s arguments point in opposite directions, they are not exclusive of each other. Rather, they simply emphasize different dimensions of the bilateral relationship. Korolev establishes that Sino-Russian military cooperation has steadily and markedly increased, but his typology is solely a descriptive theory: he addresses neither the causes nor the consequences of the growing Sino-Russian alignment. Moore tacitly accepts the premise advanced by Korolev (and widely held in scholarship on China-Russia relations), that China and Russia are increasingly cooperative, but makes two additional points. First, there remain significant elements of competition between China and Russia alongside their increased cooperation, a point which Korolev himself has made elsewhere (Korolev and Portyakov 2019). Second, Moore argues that Sino-Russian alignment, though evident, is inconsequential for effective balancing against the US. On the first point, there is broad agreement among the contributors that there are substantial constraints on China-Russia cooperation (see also Lo 2008; Stent 2020). Most obviously, as several authors (Yoder, Larson, Kydd, Owen, Haynes) point out, the trends in the distribution of power promote greater Russian balancing against China. Furthermore, both Wishnick and Feng concur with Moore’s empirical assessment that Russian leaders are increasingly apprehensive about exploitation at the hands of a more powerful China. But other barriers to cooperation loom large as well. Larson and Wishnick agree with Moore that China and Russia have had significant tensions over their relative influence in Central Asia, which both authors argue have been crucial for China and Russia to overcome in order to achieve cooperation on other dimensions. Wishnick further highlights the limits of regional cooperation between the two countries owing to concerns about borders, migration, and economic dependence. Haynes is perhaps the most pessimistic about the alignment of preferences between China and Russia, characterizing their cooperation as driven by purely negative shared interests: the two countries have few substantive issues that they agree on, except that they oppose the US. Owen largely shares this position, noting that China and Russia have little ideological affinity and very different domestic political and economic structures that might otherwise draw them together in the absence of

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a common threat. Indeed, as discussed in the introduction and in Feng’s chapter, these barriers to cooperation stemming from ideological, material, and strategic differences between the two countries are precisely why it is so puzzling that China and Russia have grown steadily closer, which demands well-theorized explanations to account for how those barriers have been overcome. Secondly, Moore examines the impact of Sino-Russian defense and trade ties, the degree of bilateral policy coordination in the Ukraine crisis and the potential role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in anti-American balancing, and concludes that China-Russia cooperation has thus far been ineffective as a balancing mechanism against the US. Moore’s analysis makes several sound points. The SCO is not oriented toward balancing the US; rather, it is more focused on addressing internal security concerns among the member states and dealing with local regional threats, rather than opposition to US operations in the Middle East, Afghanistan, or elsewhere. China did nothing to support Russia in the 2014 Ukraine crisis and has simply maintained what might charitably be called benign aloofness. And, as Elizabeth Wishnick corroborates, China and Russia do not enjoy particularly strong economic ties, and even if bilateral trade and investment have been growing from a low starting point, they have been quite asymmetric in China’s favor. These observations conflict with the views of several of the chapters that follow, which argue that China-Russia cooperation has effectively balanced against the US, at least to some degree. Most directly, Robert Sutter claims that the China-Russia partnership is becoming more intense and a major problem for US foreign policy, and that a rational US response—i.e., one independent of the perturbations of domestic politics—would have been to take a harder line against this adversarial emerging coalition much earlier. John Owen marshals several examples of how China and Russia have successfully promoted or preserved authoritarian regimes and contributed to the erosion of liberal norms and democratic processes in the US and Europe. Andrew Kydd notes that China and Russia have the capability, and have at least hinted at having the will, to draw on their combined nuclear forces to form a joint secondstrike capability against the US. And Deborah Larson shows that China and Russia have been essential to the advancement of each other’s status goals that would otherwise have been obstructed by Western countries. How can these seemingly contradictory positions be reconciled? First, Moore’s definition of balancing appears to be narrower than those of the

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other authors. Rather than the ability to challenge the US militarily or in a direct economic confrontation, the other authors consider the effect of China-Russia cooperation on particular substantive issues. Indeed, if Moore is right that China and Russia have not enhanced their ability to balance the US, then logically there must be some other motivation for their increased cooperation. For Owen it is regime security, whereas for Larson it is status. In fact, the ineffectiveness of the SCO as a balancing mechanism is a crucial point for Larson, as it implies that non-material motivations are likely at work. But in addition, the means by which China and Russia might balance go beyond those that Moore examines, as Kydd points out in highlighting the potential effects of a joint nuclear deterrence posture.3 The Centrality of the US in China-Russia Cooperation The contributors to the volume are nearly unanimous that shared opposition to the US is the key factor motivating the increase in China-Russia cooperation. This point is made most emphatically by Huiyun Feng, who adds important nuance to Korolev’s conclusion that China-Russia alignment has greatly increased over time by showing that this trend has not been inexorable, and indeed that it has been distinctly a function of China’s and Russia’s convergent threat perceptions of the US. When China and Russia have both seen the US as their primary threat, they have moved toward a “soft alliance” against the US, as Korolev describes. Their “strategic partnership” formed in the mid-late 1990s in response to dual US threats in the form of NATO expansion and lack of economic assistance to Russia, and the 1996 Taiwan Straits crisis and the 1999 US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Kosovo for China. After 2003, US democracy promotion efforts in Iraq and Central Asia (including in

3 There remains a crucial empirical question, which should be the subject of subsequent scholarship, about the effectiveness of China-Russia military cooperation as a balancing tool against the US. Although Korolev carefully documents that such cooperation has increased, he does not evaluate its effectiveness, which seems to be a crucial factor in the US policy calculus for how to respond to the China-Russia partnership. This is clear from Sutter’s chapter, the prescriptions of which are based on the premise that China-Russia cooperation does indeed increase their capacity to challenge vital US interests. If instead Moore is correct that China-Russia military cooperation is of marginal consequence, the case for a whole-of-government US confrontation with China and Russia would become far more tenuous.

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former Soviet republics) again brought China and Russia into alignment over what they perceived as an existential threat to their domestic regimes. These threat perceptions were subsequently augmented by US development of missile defense systems and, especially after the 2014 Ukraine crisis, by US obstruction of Russia’s and China’s “vital interests” in what they perceive as their respective spheres of influence in the former Soviet Union and the South China Sea. However, when Chinese and Russian threat perceptions have been misaligned, and only one state or neither has been primarily threatened by the US, their progress toward partnership has stalled. Thus, as Yoder’s chapter also documents, there was a crucial pause in China-Russia rapprochement in the period from 2001 to 2004. In these years, China and Russia each found common ground for cooperation with the US over the war on Islamic terrorism in the Middle East and Central Asia, Vladimir Putin was pursuing his own “reset” with the West in his first years in office, and the George W. Bush administration briefly dropped its anti-China rhetoric, admitted China to the WTO, and adopted a probusiness attitude toward US-China relations. This period goes a long way toward establishing the counterfactual that in the absence of a substantial US threat, the impetus for China-Russia cooperation would have been strongly reduced, and the barriers to cooperation that Moore and others identify would have been decisive in forestalling the partnership that has emerged. Of course, as Feng emphasizes, “threat” is not exclusively a realist concept, as it was framed in its original formulation in the balancing literature (Walt 1987). Even in that framing, the US threat to China and Russia is a function of not just US power, but also Chinese and Russian perceptions of American intentions, which can be dictated by the non-security motives of the US (Legro and Moravcsik 1999). Moreover, the US poses threats not only to Chinese and Russian security, as balance of threat theory assumes, but to their non-security goals as well. Thus, as Feng points out, the factors that contribute to Chinese and Russian threat perceptions of the US are drawn from across realist, liberal, and constructivist perspectives. The chapters in this volume each develop distinct mechanisms to explain how the US foreign policy behaviors that Feng identifies can account for patterns of China-Russia cooperation in ways that the baseline realist balance of power theory cannot.

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The Balance of Power The most obvious component of the US threat is its military power. Yet as established in the introduction and several other chapters (e.g., Haynes, Kydd, Larson, Owen), shifting power alone cannot explain the increasing alignment between China and Russia, for the simple reason that the trend lines point in opposite directions. If China and Russia were only balancing US power, they should have cooperated most closely in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, when US unipolarity was most pronounced, and gradually drifted farther apart as China’s capabilities increased and approached those of the US. Combined with China’s geographic proximity to Russia and US remoteness, a pure realist analysis clearly predicts waning rather than expanding Sino-Russian cooperation. Nevertheless, the distribution of power is obviously an important factor in explaining China-Russia cooperation, as each of the authors recognize. Indeed, the persistent US power advantage may be a necessary condition for China-Russia cooperation, even though it is clearly not sufficient. The closest to a pure realist analysis is Kydd’s chapter, which argues that China and Russia are balancing against US power, but not in terms of comprehensive national capabilities, as prior realist analyses hold. Rather, Kydd explores the balance of strategic nuclear capabilities, arguing that on this dimension of power, the US has actually been rising relative to China and Russia. Thus, conceiving of military power in nuclear terms, it makes sense that China and Russia would be moving closer together as the US approaches nuclear primacy, necessitating a China-Russia partnership to deter what might otherwise be a secure US first strike on either state. Nevertheless, as discussed below, Kydd’s flexible model allows nonsecurity motives as well as pure security motives, which may be necessary to explain China-Russia nuclear balancing. The balance of power is evident across other chapters as well. For Owen, American hegemony is necessary to understand why the US poses a common threat to the security of the Chinese and Russian regimes. Likewise, for Larson, US power is crucial for explaining both why China and Russia see the US as a key reference point by which they derive and measure their own international status, and why the US has the capacity to frustrate Chinese and Russian status goals. Yoder argues straightforwardly, like Feng, that US power is a necessary condition underpinning the US threat to Russia, but also that the acuteness of this threat accounts for China’s ability to credibly reassure Russia of its benign intentions.

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Finally, Haynes points to the enduring threat posed by US power as an important motivation for China and Russia to put aside obvious disagreements in their regional interests. However, the chapters collectively indicate that a sufficient explanation of China-Russia cooperation requires the interaction of power with other variables. These fall into three general categories: The balance of the actors’ material interests, their identities, and the information they have about each other’s intentions. Material Interests The role of material interests is evident in several respects. The logrolled tacit bargain that China and Russia have made across different regions is underpinned by the differential values that Russia and China place on the regional orders in Central Asia and maritime East Asia. As Haynes points out, Central Asia is of primary importance to Russia, which has attempted to carve out a special economic and security relationship with the former Soviet states in the region, whereas China places highest priority on its territorial claims in the East and South China Seas, and of course Taiwan. Thus, although China and Russia have different preferences on many region-specific issues, their overall interests align because they are willing to concede, and even support, each other’s goals in regions of minor importance in exchange for concessions/support in their region of primary importance. Furthermore, as Larson argues, China and Russia not only have complementary interests in terms of regional priorities, but also in terms of issue areas. In China and Russia’s shared neighborhood of Central Asia, Russia has prioritized its political leadership and its role as security provider, which China has respected, while giving China license to take the lead on economic investment and the rules of the regional economic order. Going even further, Elizabeth Wishnick argues that China-Russia cooperation is actually propelled by complementary material interests in both the global and regional domains. Both China and Russia enjoy the prospect of large mutual gains from the inclusion of Russia in China’s Eurasian economic integration project, the Belt-Road Initiative (BRI), the inclusion of China in the development of an Arctic trade route and energy resources, and Chinese investment in the economic development of the Russian Far East region on China’s northern border. Indeed, Wishnick argues that if these complementary regional interests were not obscured

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by competing regional identities, the China-Russia partnership would be even more robust than it currently is. Finally, although Kydd’s chapter is broadly realist in its emphasis on the balance of nuclear power and the actors’ security motivations, his theoretical framework very importantly incorporates non-security interests as well. In doing so, he formally models something akin to Greg Moore’s “national narcissism,” in which all three states are engaged in separate bilateral bargaining interactions with the other two. Here, they are not simply seeking power as a means to security, but also for bargaining leverage over any other issues that they might have in dispute with another actor. Thus, for Kydd, like for Moore, when China and Russia balance against the US, it is to gain leverage over the US on non-security issues such as the status of Taiwan and of Ukraine. Lacking a nuclear secondstrike capability means that China and/or Russia may not be able to deter the US from intervening in hypothetical Chinese operations against Taiwan, or a Russian invasion of Ukraine or elsewhere. Conversely, having a joint second-strike capability means that China and Russia can likely deter the US and achieve their goals on “vital” issues without a fight. This is important for Kydd, because it is otherwise difficult for him to explain why China and Russia would align together against the US, given the implausibility of American offensive aims against China or Russia that would entail a nuclear first strike. Identity Along with complementary material interests, ideational factors are clearly necessary to fully explain the rise of China-Russia cooperation. As Feng, Wishnick, and Owen all emphasize, China and Russia jointly oppose the US in large part because American liberal ideology threatens their regime security. Although this accords with the realist focus on security and balancing common threats, the nature of the US threat is impossible to understand without accounting for the ideological divergence between the US on one hand, and Russia and China on the other. Owen argues that the US dissemination of liberal ideology threatens the Chinese and Russian regimes by undermining their legitimacy from within, while also depriving China and Russia of allies as liberal states align with the US against authoritarian powers. Self-preservation, therefore, dictates that China and Russia must cooperate to balance against the advance of liberal

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ideology to preserve and promote authoritarianism both at home and abroad. Larson agrees that Chinese and Russian rejection of Western liberalism is key, but for a different reason. Rather than concerns over regime security, she points out that China’s and Russia’s illiberalism obstructs status goals: they cannot gain recognition and membership in international great power “clubs” because of their illiberal character, and so they have had to support each other to avoid marginalization by the West and reject/deflect Western condemnation of their violations of human rights and rule of law. Partnership with China gives Russia support to challenge the US and assert its continued geopolitical relevance, while partnership with Russia allows China to deflect criticism that would otherwise jeopardize its ascent in status-conferring international organizations such as the IMF and WTO. Furthermore, in aligning for status reasons China and Russia have developed a shared identity as authoritarian outsiders, which has further facilitated their burgeoning partnership. Wishnick concurs with Larson and Owen that China and Russia have developed a shared identity in opposition to the US at the global level which propels their cooperation, but an apparent point of contention emerges regarding the role of identity in Sino-Russian cooperation at the regional level. As noted above, Larson argues that China and Russia have reconciled their competing regional identities, particularly in Central Asia, in service of their complementary status goals, with Russia adopting a role as regional security provider and China adopting the role of economic leader. In contrast, Wishnick argues that Chinese and Russian identities serve as a brake on regional cooperation, stemming from differences in their historical experiences, understandings of borders, and perceptions of their own regional roles. Yet a synthesis of these two arguments appears possible: although China and Russia have put aside contentious issues in pursuit of status and global ideological goals, as Wishnick explicitly recognizes, their underlying disputes still remain in place and prevent the development of cooperation where it might otherwise be expected to occur. Nevertheless, the tension between these arguments suggests a potential avenue for further theoretical refinement exploring how status motives and historical identities interact to generate cooperation and competition.

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Information Several chapters also show how ideational and structural variables interact with informational factors to determine China and Russia’s beliefs about each other’s intentions. For Wishnick, the disputes between China and Russia that limit their regional cooperation are illusory, rather than borne of objective conflicts of interest. She characterizes China-Russia competition as an “ontological security dilemma” (Mitzen 2006), wherein states falsely perceive each other’s actions as a threat to their own identity. In particular, China and Russia have constructed each other as threats to their imagined regional roles (especially on the Russian side). For instance, Russia sees itself as a great power and a European power and so is reluctant to accept Chinese economic investment and migration into the Russian Far East that would seem to challenge that self-conception by “Sinicizing” Russia and rendering it a junior economic partner to China. Yet from China’s perspective, its proposals and activities are not intended to threaten Russia at all, and if anything should be seen as “win–win” cooperation. Thus, perceptions of intentions are dictated in part by China and Russia’s incongruent identities, which affect the degree of threat with which each side perceives the other’s actions. Conversely, where congruent aspects of Chinese and Russian identities are concerned, a countervailing ideational signaling mechanism emerges. Owen argues that because China and Russia are both authoritarian, and thus both threatened by the combination of US power and liberal ideology, they have been able to infer that they share a negative interest in opposing the US-led international order and promoting authoritarianism abroad. As such, they are aware of each other’s benign intentions and unlikely to be drawn into a security dilemma of competition due to mistaken identity. Similarly, Kydd argues that China and Russia’s assured nuclear second-strike capabilities against each other allow Russia to feel confident that China’s rise does not pose a substantial material security threat to Russia despite its long, difficult to defend border with China. Nuclear weapons thus help alleviate the security dilemma between the two countries by assuring Russia that China’s intentions—at least concerning territorial issues—will remain benign. Each of these informational mechanisms entails reading intentions off of systemic structure or intrinsic national characteristics. Yet Russia and China did not initially trust each other following the prolonged antagonism between China and the Soviet Union in the last decades of the Cold

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War. Rather, they had to build trust through foreign policy behavior that credibly signaled benign intentions. But since a rising China would potentially have incentives to misrepresent itself as being benign, this kind of credible signaling was not straightforward. As Yoder argues, it was the presence of the US as a threat to Russia that opened up space for China to signal that its preferences were closer to Russia’s than to those of the US, which was not initially apparent. Although their authoritarian regime types pointed to common interests, China’s economic and institutional integration into the US-led liberal order and the trajectory of its liberalizing political reforms pointed in the opposite direction. It was only China’s consistent opposition to the US in favor of Russia that credibly signaled the convergence of Chinese and Russian preferences and allowed the two states to largely overcome the security dilemma. Regardless of the mechanism, however, Owen, Yoder, and Kydd are in agreement that the presence of a common US threat was necessary for China and Russia to infer each other’s benign intentions toward each other and achieve cooperation. IR Theory and Explanation of the China-Russia Partnership In sum, the US has driven China and Russia together through multiple theoretical pathways, illustrated in Fig. 1. Explicit attention to the development and application of theory in the preceding chapters allows their insights to be synthesized into a plausibly sufficient explanation for China and Russia’s increasing cooperation since the end of the Cold War. This is only possible because the causal mechanisms have been well specified: in the absence of theory, we would be unable to identify the interactions between different variables or the causal role of those variables as necessary or jointly sufficient. A necessary but insufficient condition has been the asymmetric power of the US relative to Russia and China, which has produced a constant incentive for China and Russia to balance. But it must be combined with other factors to explain the trend of increasing Sino-Russian cooperation in conjunction with China’s rise. One possibility is that the US is actually rising in terms of nuclear capabilities, which has prompted ChinaRussia alignment to balance the US and maintain bargaining leverage over important issues (Kydd). But this argument is also insufficient because it presupposes that China and Russia have significant issues in dispute with the US. To account for the source of China and Russia’s shared antipathy

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Asymmetric US power

US threat to authoritarian regimes’ security & status

Fig. 1

Secure China-Russia nuclear 2nd-strikes

US liberal ideology

China’s opposition to US-led order

Credible signal that China-Russia preferences converge

Russian trust of China’s intentions

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Complementary prioritization of different regions/issues

Low China-Russia threat

Regional disputes do not outweigh global balancing incentives

Sino-Russian cooperation against US Common distrust of US intentions

High US threat

Qualitative increase in US nuclear technology

US nuclear 1st-strike capability

Synthesis of causal arguments in the book

toward the US, we must look to the threat Western liberalism poses to the security of their regimes (Owen, Wishnick) and to their common goal of increasing their international status as authoritarian “outsiders” (Larson). In addition, the shared negative preference in opposition to the US-led order had to be signaled, since China and Russia held initially pessimistic beliefs about each other’s intentions at the end of the Cold War (Feng). This reassurance was facilitated by the increasing threat that the US posed to Russia, which allowed China to credibly signal its compatibility with Russia over time by adopting policies and positions in opposition to the US (Yoder). Finally, given the number of bilateral disputes and insecurities that China and Russia still have between them (Wishnick, Moore, Feng), we might expect that even shared opposition to the US would not be sufficient to explain their escalating cooperation. Thus, an account of countervailing compatibility in the two countries’ bilateral interests might be a final necessary condition underpinning their partnership. This includes complementary comparative advantages, with Russia as a supplier of energy, military technology and security public goods, and China a source of economic investment and regional economic integration that has the potential to greatly benefit Russia’s development, particularly in their bordering region of the Russian Far East (Wishnick). Moreover,

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where their interests conflict, they are able to readily compromise because they prioritize different regions, with Russia valuing Central Asia and China valuing maritime East Asia (Haynes). Obviously, this synthetic explanation that emerges from the chapters in this volume is not the last word on China-Russia relations and can certainly be challenged or revised on empirical grounds. But the great advantage of well-specified theoretical mechanisms is that falsifying evidence should be readily apparent, facilitating criticism. Moreover, explicit theories can then be refined or replaced by alternatives when they are contradicted by evidence, yielding progress in subsequent work toward a fuller understanding of the China-Russia relationship and its implications.

Predictions and Prescriptions The Durability of Sino-Russian Alignment Finally, the causal story presented above has real-world implications, both for the future of China-Russia cooperation and for the appropriate policy response from the US. A common thread running through the volume is that the Sino-Russian partnership is likely here to stay, insofar as each of the mechanisms engendering it should be expected to endure. Several of the authors make this case explicitly. Kydd holds that the overlooked qualitative rise in US nuclear capabilities will cause China-Russia alignment to endure much longer than would be expected from the overall balance of power, which increasingly favors China and makes it a relatively greater threat to Russia. As Kydd notes, US nuclear forces, both offensive and defensive, are so far ahead of China’s that it might take decades for China to reacquire a secure second-strike capability against the US. Similarly, Wishnick argues that China and Russia are unlikely to be wedged apart by their perceived bilateral differences at the local regional level, because their cooperation in opposition to the US-led liberal order at the global level is so valuable to each side. This position also implicitly follows from Larson’s logic, as she argues that China and Russia have been able to put aside material disagreements over influence in Central Asia in service of their common status goals vis-à-vis the US. Perhaps the most equivocal author is Owen, who suggests on the one hand that China and Russia are likely to continue to be threatened by US liberal hegemony for the foreseeable future, but also notes

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that both components of liberal hegemony—America’s power and its liberal ideology—show signs of decay, especially in the post-Trump era. The Republican party is on the verge of outright rejection of democratic norms even within the US itself, and Trump, who at the very least remains tremendously influential within the party if not fully in control of it, has a distinct affection for authoritarian leaders and their domestic practices, and disdain for the democratic leaders of US allies. Moreover, both the Democratic and Republican parties have renounced the liberal crusading of the George W. Bush era that begat the catastrophic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are thus less inclined to intervene, either militarily or economically, to promote democracy abroad. Additionally, as the US abrogates its global leadership role, exhibits political paralysis stemming from extreme partisan polarization, and flounders in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic, it becomes less attractive as a model for others to follow. Thus, it is not difficult to envision, as Owen acknowledges, that the threat from liberal hegemony may cease to push China and Russia together as strongly in the future as it has in recent years. Yoder also recognizes that if the threat from the US wanes, the signaling mechanism that gave rise to China’s credible reassurance of Russia would no longer be operative. However, he marshals strong reasons to think that US-Russia relations, which failed to improve in the Trump era with a staunchly pro-Russia US President, are unlikely to do so in the post-Trump era either (see Goldgeier 2021). Moreover, even if the signaling mechanism is inapplicable to China-Russia relations going forward, the credible reassurance signals that China has already sent are now banked, such that Russia’s confident beliefs in China’s benign intentions should be expected to endure. Likewise for Haynes, logrolling suggests that even as US power wanes, China and Russia still have common interests in maintaining their partnership to support the other’s goals in a region of low importance to themselves, in exchange for the other’s support for their own goals in their region of high importance. Haynes acknowledges that the impetus for partnership will be reduced absent the US threat, but argues that because the values China and Russia place on different regions are complementary, the two states may still be inclined to continue their cooperation despite incompatible preferences over the shape of the regional orders. Finally, the arguments of Sutter and Feng imply, in combination, that the US threat itself is likely to endure and push China and Russia closer together. If indeed US decision makers have arrived at a consensus in favor

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of a hardline foreign policy against China and Russia as Sutter argues, then it will continue to take the kinds of actions that Feng shows have corresponded to increases in China-Russia alignment. No Half-Measures? The US Response to the China-Russia Challenge Sutter’s chapter implies that US foreign policy in response to the increasingly urgent problem of Russia-China cooperation has suffered from general incoherence, owing to a longstanding lack of consensus among American elites, interest groups, and public on how to approach China. In contrast, since at least 2014 there has been widespread agreement among US policymakers favoring a hard line against Russia. Yet Sutter argues by containing only Russia and largely accommodating China in practice, while adopting inflammatory slogans such as the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” and rhetorical criticism over China’s unfair trade policies and human rights violations, the US has gotten the worst of both worlds. It has pushed China and Russia closer together in response to the US threat, in all the ways presented above, but also not implemented any sustained measures to mitigate the deleterious effects of an antagonistic China-Russia combination on US interests. For this reason, Sutter welcomes the new (and unusual) bipartisan consensus now emerging in the US in favor of a more confrontational policy toward China. If indeed the implication of the previous chapters is that China-Russia cooperation is likely to endure and be at odds with US goals, then there is little the US can do to forestall it without sacrificing its own key interests (Medeiros and Chase 2017). For instance, Owen’s mechanism holds that the US might wedge China and Russia apart by failing to espouse liberal values and demonstrate the appeal of democratic governance, but this would hardly be a policy option for the US to advance its national preferences, which are presumably liberal in character. In a similar vein, Yoder and Haynes each note that China and Russia have now established compatible or complementary preferences independently of their negative shared preference in opposition to the US-led order, and so their cooperation going forward might not be conditional on US policy according to these arguments. On the other hand, some causes of China-Russia cooperation are within the control of the US. It could abandon its pursuit of nuclear primacy, which would eliminate the source of Sino-Russian affinity in Kydd’s theory. And for Larson, China and Russia have been driven

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together by US and Western obstruction of their status goals. Thus, a more accommodating policy of allowing China and/or Russia to achieve their status goals within the existing order would remove the incentive for them to support each other in challenging that order for status motives. Feng implicitly hints at a security dilemma between the US and China/Russia, highlighting specific actions that the US has taken that have been seen as threatening by the other two states, but usually were not intended to be. This implies that a consistent, coordinated policy in the opposite direction of the containment strategy Sutter observes and tentatively endorses, i.e., a redoubled US effort to reassure China and (to a lesser extent) Russia, might still be fruitful. Nevertheless, the overarching point Sutter makes still potentially applies: the contested and erratic US approach toward China and Russia in the pre-Trump era was neither sufficiently accommodating nor sufficiently tough to either forestall the China-Russia partnership or mitigate its effects. A more unified approach in either direction, unencumbered by elite-public and interparty misalignment, therefore has the potential to be more efficacious.

References Allison, Graham, and Dimitri Simes. 2019. A Sino-Russian Entente Again Threatens America. The Wall Street Journal, January 29. Baev, Pavel K. 2020. The Limits of Authoritarian Compatibility: Xi’s China and Putin’s Russia. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Blank, Stephen. 2020. The Un-Holy Russo-Chinese Alliance. Defense & Security Analysis 36 (3): 249–274. Ellings, Richard, and Robert Sutter, eds. 2019. Axis of Authoritarians: Implications of China-Russia Cooperation. National Bureau of Asian Research, Seattle. Gabuev, Alexander. 2019. Unwanted but Inevitable: Russia’s Deepening Partnership with China Post-Ukraine. In Sino-Russian Relations in the 21st Century, ed. Jo Inge Bekkevold and Bobo Lo, 41–66. Cham: Palgrave. Goldgeier, James. 2021. U.S.-Russian Relations Will Only Get Worse: Even Good Diplomacy Can’t Smooth a Clash of Interests. Foreign Affairs, April 6. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2021-04-06/usrussian-relations-will-only-get-worse. Goldstein, Lyle J. 2017. China-Russia Alliance? The National Interest, April 25. Retrieved October 6, 2017, from http://nationalinterest.org/feature/chinarussia-alliance-20333.

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Hoang, Vu Le Thai, and Huy Nguyen. 2021. The Modern China-Russia-US Triangle—Why We Can’t Expect a Stable “Two Vs One” Dynamic This Time Around. The Diplomat, June 4. https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/ the-modern-china-russia-us-triangle/. Kashin, Vassily. 2019. Tacit Alliance: Russia and China Take Military Partnership to New Level. Moscow Carnegie Center, 22 October. https://carnegie.ru/ commentary/80136. Kendall-Taylor, Andrea, and David Shulman. 2021. Navigating the Deepening Russia-China Partnership. Washington, DC: Center for New America Security, January 21. Korolev, Alexander. 2020. How Closely Aligned Are China and Russia? Measuring Strategic Cooperation in IR. International Politics 57 (5): 760– 789. Korolev, Alexander, and Vladimir Portyakov. 2019. Reluctant Allies: System-Unit Dynamics and China-Russia Relations. International Relations 33 (1): 40–66. Krickovic, Andrej. 2017. The Symbiotic China-Russia Partnership: Cautious Riser and Desperate Challenger. Chinese Journal of International Politics 10 (3): 299–329. Legro, Jeffrey W., and Andrew Moravcsik. 1999. Is Anybody Still a Realist? International Security 24 (2): 5–55. Lo, Bobo. 2008. Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Lo, Bobo. 2020. The Sino-Russian Partnership and Global Order. China International Strategy Review 2: 306–324. Lukin, Alexander. 2018. China and Russia: The New Rapprochement. Cambridge: Polity. Medeiros, Evan, and Michael Chase. 2017. Chinese Perspectives on the SinoRussian Relationship. National Bureau of Asian Research, Special Report no. 66: 1–12. Mitzen, Jennifer. 2006. Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma. European journal of international relations 12 (3): 341–370. Saradzhyan, Simon, and Ali Wyne. 2018. China-Russia Relations: Same Bed, Different Dreams? Why Converging Interests Are Unlikely to Lead to a Full-Fledged Alliance. Harvard University Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, June. Stent, Angela. 2020. Russia and China: Axis of Revisionists? Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Walt, Stephen. 1987. The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Wilson, Jeanne L. 2019. Russia’s Relationship with China: The Role of Domestic and Ideational Factors. International Politics 56: 778–794.

Index

A Abkhazia, 65, 91, 242 ABM treaty, 89 Afghanistan War, 88 Africa, 61, 110, 142, 240 Air Defense Identification Zone, 80, 92 alignment, 16–19, 30–33, 36, 46, 47, 72, 97, 110, 147, 156, 208, 214, 219, 227, 233, 266, 277, 278, 281, 283, 285, 292, 294 alliances, 132, 137, 146, 147 China-Russia, 131, 144, 147 U.S. alliances, 157 America-first, 198 Amur River, 166, 167 analytical eclecticism, 9 Anchorage meeting, 2021, 80 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, 195, 222 Arctic, 2, 96, 118, 148, 161–163, 201, 286 Armenia, 70, 121, 138, 242 arms control, 82, 172, 201

artificial intelligence, 42, 132 ASEAN, 48, 92, 158, 161 Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), 61 Asia-Pacific. See Indo-Pacific Asia-Pacific Economic Council (APEC), 88 assertiveness (in China’s foreign policy), 108, 109, 117 assumptions (theoretical), 3, 14 Australia, 48, 92, 95, 96, 119, 144, 271 authoritarian capitalism, 109, 119 authoritarianism, 135–139, 142–144, 147, 288, 289 Azerbaijan, 138, 242 B balancing, 133, 134, 137, 210, 212, 219 adversarial, 57 balance-of-power theory, 133, 212 balance-of-threat theory, 133 behavior, 60, 69, 72

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3

297

298

INDEX

hard, 90 soft, 80 Baltic (region), 232 Baltic Sea, 108 Bandwagoning, 208, 209, 212, 219, 246 bargaining range, 216, 217, 220–222, 225, 278 bargaining theory, 19, 210, 211 Belarus, 61, 70, 121, 138, 141, 143, 218 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 2, 59, 62, 96, 118, 142, 159, 232 Biden, Joseph, 72, 80 administration, 73, 79, 95–97, 132, 146, 208 campaign, 145, 268 Black Sea, 63 BRICS, 2, 7, 115, 116, 119, 158, 197 Bush, George H.W., 263 Bush, George W., 88, 91, 114, 195, 224, 259, 262, 263, 284, 293 C Canada, 110, 144, 162 causal inference, 3 causal mechanisms, 3, 5, 6, 8–10, 12, 21, 290 causal weight, 3, 7, 9, 290 Central Asia, 2, 8, 17, 20, 43, 58–61, 70, 87, 88, 118–123, 142, 143, 194, 198, 240, 247, 248, 284, 286, 292 century of humiliation, 66, 113, 217 Chechen Wars, 83, 87 Chechnya, 88 wars in, 193 China-Russia axis, 2, 217 China-Russia border, 138, 141, 146, 147 China-Russia cooperation

energy, 85, 89, 93 military, 90 China-Russia relations arms sales, 83, 85, 96 asymmetry in, 232 border disputes, 13 durability of, 277 foreign investment, 93, 109, 110, 116, 120, 123 joint military exercises, 43, 46, 96 leadership visits, 93 migration, 68, 164, 168, 192 military exercises, 83, 91, 97 natural gas agreement, 2014, 93 normative, 199, 242 in outer space, 97 racism in, 69 resource dependancy and, 35 trade, 83, 85, 89, 90, 93, 95–98 Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 117, 119, 138, 139, 142, 269, 271 Clinton, Hillary, 145, 265 Clinton, William J., 83, 84, 88 Cold War, 79–81, 94, 98, 99, 208, 212, 213, 222–224 new, 79 post-Cold War era, 184 collective security, 60 Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), 61, 62, 70, 121, 122, 194 color revolutions, 43, 135, 141, 143, 195 common defense policy, 34, 35, 45 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 92 communism, 59, 67, 68, 81, 122 compatibility (of foreign policy goals), 187

INDEX

comprehensive strategic partnership, 35, 36, 59, 80, 93, 94, 98, 132, 184 confidence building measures (CBMs), 32, 33 Confucianism, 111 constraints, over foreign policy, 164 domestic, 65, 264 external, 47 institutional, 69, 185, 234 constructive engagement, 260 constructivism, 3, 13, 14, 262, 263 corruption, 118, 147, 164, 169 counterterrorism, 87, 122 Covid-19, 18, 79, 95, 155, 166, 171, 172, 264, 266, 268, 293 credibility, 19, 32, 82, 191, 202, 223 of reassurance, 19, 183, 293 of threats, 186, 192 Crimea, 58, 62, 64, 92, 94, 97, 98, 132, 156, 245, 255, 262 cybersecurity, 95 Czech Republic, 84 D Dalai Lama, 92 decline of U.S., 99 democracy, 4, 18, 96, 134–139, 141–144, 146–148, 198, 213, 231, 235, 271, 283, 293 Democratic Party (U.S.), 267 Deng Xiaoping, 81, 111, 170, 262 deterrence, 221, 224 extended, 278 nuclear, 134, 278, 283 Donbass region (Ukraine), 132 Duma, 114, 139 E East China Sea, 92, 94, 96

299

Eastern Europe, 20, 122, 143, 193, 195, 233, 242, 243, 245 economic asymmetry, 122 economic growth rates, 72 economic sanctions, 82, 92, 109, 141, 269 elections, U.S. presidential 2016, 145 2020, 95, 145 partisan polarization and, 201, 293 Russian interference in, 95 encirclement, 157, 260 energy, 2, 135, 139, 147 English School, 10, 14 EP-3 incident, 2001, 86 Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), 47, 61, 96 Eurasian integration, 161 European Union, 70, 84, 96, 97, 111, 115, 138, 143, 145, 146, 233, 237, 271 exceptionalism, 59 explanation, 3–9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 212, 213 multicausal, 8, 9, 11 overdetermination of, 6, 7, 9

F falsifiability, 6 Financial crisis, 2008, 139 fisheries, 171 foreign exchange reserves, 109 France, 90, 134, 222 freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), 95

G Gazprom, 89, 108, 116 Geneva meeting, 2021, 80 Georgia, Republic of, 134, 138

300

INDEX

Germany, 90, 107, 145, 212, 220, 233 Global Times (periodical), 143, 164, 167, 270 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 81 Greater Tumen Initiative, 163 great power concert, 115 H Hague Tribunal, 246 hedging, 116, 190 hegemony, 10, 18, 56, 116, 134, 135, 139, 146, 147, 236, 243, 285, 293 hierarchy (in international politics), 234 historical narratives, 18 Hong Kong, 118, 142, 143, 243, 248, 267, 270 Huawei, 95 human rights, 4, 94, 114, 118, 119, 123, 136, 137, 142, 144, 145, 196, 200, 241, 248, 267, 270, 294 Hungary, 84, 138 hypothesis, 213 formation, 3, 5–13, 21, 22 testing, 3, 12, 13 I identity security. See ontological security India, 62, 109, 116, 134, 144, 157, 197, 271 Indonesia, 110, 115, 119 Indo-Pacific, 81, 95, 132, 157, 158 integrated military command, 2, 34, 45 intellectual property, 59, 74 intelligence, 145 Russian, 145

U.S., 145 intentions, 7, 19, 134, 163, 169, 183, 185–188, 190, 191, 195, 201, 202, 208, 212, 239, 279, 289, 293 interaction effects, 8, 11 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), 119 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, 199 International Court of Justice (ICJ), 246 international order normative, 112 rules-based, 95 US-led, 2, 14, 47, 117, 196, 260, 289 internet governance, 8, 156 interoperability, military, 34, 43–46, 280 Iran, 8, 92, 109, 260 Iraq War (2003), 90 island building, 37, 166 issue indivisibility, 237 issue salience, 237 J Japan, 67, 84, 85, 89, 92, 96, 132, 146, 157, 271 Jiang Zemin, 36, 82, 166 joint military exercises, 34, 40, 43, 44, 144 K Kashin, Vasili, 43 Kazakhstan, 61, 85, 110, 120, 121, 160, 169 kitchen sink explanation, 7, 8, 11 Korean war, 256 Kosovo, 86–88 embassy bombing, 86

INDEX

Kosovo War, 86–88 Kyrgyzstan, 85, 91

L Latin America, 240, 242 leadership summits, 193 leadership visits, 81, 93 Lee Teng-hui, 83 liberalism, 134–139, 141–143, 146–148 in IR theory, 109 Libya, 118 Li Keqiang, 42, 117 liquefied natural gas (LNG), 116 logrolling, 20, 21, 232, 233, 236–238, 240, 243, 244, 246–249, 293 Lukashenko, Aleksandr, 141

M Macao, 170 Malaysia, 119 Maoism, 142 Middle East, 17, 109, 143, 198, 240, 247, 258, 259, 282, 284 military consultation, 37, 38, 280 military exercises, 132, 144 military-technical cooperation (MTC), 33, 38, 42 misrepresentation, 186 Missile Defense, 90, 214, 226 missile defense systems, 86, 89 Moldova, 138, 141, 242 multicausal, 8, 9, 11, 22 Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), 119 multipolarity, 8, 47, 85, 115, 193, 195

301

N narcissism (national), 16, 55–57, 74, 278, 280, 287 nationalism, 69, 73, 139 National Security Strategy (of U.S.), 80, 110, 132, 265 NATO, 4, 7, 10, 17, 44, 80, 83, 84, 86, 87, 90, 91, 98, 109, 111, 113–115, 134, 137, 145, 147, 157, 193, 195, 240, 271, 283 Navalny, Alexey, 95 necessity (causal), 3, 5, 8 negative interests, 232–234, 238, 279 New Cold War, 94 NGOs, 138, 142, 144 9/11. See September 11 terrorist attack non-alliance principle, 80 non-interference policy, 233, 241, 246, 247 Northern Sea Route, 161, 162 North Korea, 145, 247, 260 nuclear, 134 first strike, 134 Nuclear weapons counterforce, 222, 226 countervalue, 223 first strike, 214, 222–224 second strike, 211, 213, 214, 222–224 warheads, number of, 207 nuclear weapons, 109 O Obama, Barack, 92, 107, 114, 258, 267, 294 October (Bolshevik) revolution, 119 oil and gas, 85, 87, 89, 109, 118, 120, 147, 160, 162, 245 omission bias, 6, 7 One Belt, One Road. See Belt and Road Initiative

302

INDEX

ontological security, 110, 112, 155, 172 Open Skies Treaty, 94 order, 90 international, 131, 132, 138, 146 normative, 112 overdetermination, 6, 7, 9 overstretch, strategic, 232

P Pakistan, 62 peaceful rise narrative (for China), 111 Peace Mission joint military exercises, 43 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 119 Phase One trade deal, 268, 269 Philippines, 92, 144, 246 pivot to Asia, 91 Poland, 84 Polar Silk Road, 118, 161 Pompeo, Michael (U.S. Secretary of State), 268 Power transition/shift, 110, 208, 209 prestige, 113, 118, 121 preventive war, 33, 209, 210 public opinion polling, 118 Putin, Vladimir, 36, 40, 42, 45, 56, 58, 59, 61, 66, 69, 80, 86–90, 93–98, 132, 213, 226 Putin-Xi forums, 38, 213

Q Qing dynasty, 163, 164, 169 QUAD, the, 95

R rationality, 19, 20, 116 realism, 3, 13, 18, 21, 133, 134, 145–147, 262, 279 reassurance. See credibility

rebalancing. See pivot to Asia reciprocity, 32, 232, 238, 239 reference group (for status), 111, 112 reform and opening, 82, 111 Regional Anti-Terrorism Structures (RATS), 38 Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), 200 Renminbi, 232 Republican Party (U.S.), 265 reset with Russia, 114, 132, 284 resolve, 30, 33, 46, 221, 226, 271 retrenchment, 235, 247 revisionism, 232, 233, 238, 244, 247 rule of law, 123, 168, 288 rules-based international order, 95 Russian economy, 84 Russian Far East, 2, 59, 66, 69, 90 Russian-US rapprochement, 90 S S-400 air defense system, 42, 108, 119 S-400 surface-to-air missile system, 232 sanctions, 132, 141, 145 satellites, 46, 84 Saudi Arabia, 109, 207 Sea of Japan, 108 securitization, 33 security, 131, 132, 134, 136, 137, 145, 147, 148 security dilemma, 18, 169, 226, 263, 289, 290, 295 separatism, 4, 8, 60, 87 September 11 attacks, 88 Serbia, 193 Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 211 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), 2, 38, 48, 56, 58, 60, 85, 90, 96, 115, 156, 194, 282

INDEX

Shanghai Five, 62 shock therapy (economic), 113 signaling, 185, 191, 198, 199, 202, 279, 290, 293 sinicization, 164, 289 Sinophobia, 122 Sino-Russian cooperation, 131, 133, 134, 139, 147 Sino-Russian Anti-American Balancing Assumption (SRAABA), 55, 56, 65 Sino-Russian partnership, 66, 90 Sino-Soviet alliance, 68, 256 Sino-Soviet normalization, 81 Sino-Soviet split, 257 Social Identity Theory (SIT), 17, 110 social media, 145, 156, 167 social mobility strategy, 111 soft power, 148 South China Sea, 44, 45, 58, 74, 92, 94–96, 108, 117, 132, 144, 214 Southeast Asia, 118, 137, 142, 143, 171, 257 South Korea, 40, 92, 146, 211 South Ossetia, 65, 91, 242 sovereignty, 4, 8, 35, 64, 93, 156, 193, 200, 241, 263 Soviet, 134, 138 Soviet Union, 222, 226 collapse of, 80, 81, 212 spheres of influence, 11, 17, 115, 121 Stalin, Joseph, 67 state capitalism, 197 state-owned enterprises, 138, 139 status, 6, 7, 9, 18, 110–112, 116, 143, 208–210, 217–220, 231, 259, 288, 295 Strait of Malacca, 118 strategic competition in US-China relations, 96

303

strategic partnership, 10, 29–31, 35, 57, 93, 131, 234, 283 Su-27 fighters, 85 sufficiency (causal), 8 Syria, 8, 93, 94, 211, 218

T Taiwan, 80, 83–88, 92, 94–98, 208, 214, 217, 225, 226 independence movement, 83 Taiwan Straits crisis (1996), 283 Taiwan crisis, 83–85, 87, 88 Taliban, 248 terrorism, 8, 60, 87, 88 theory assumptions in, 3, 14 implicit vs. explicit, 6 typological, 16 underspecification of, 10 third-party threat, 19, 187–191, 279 threat perceptions, 17, 19, 81, 87, 88, 90, 98 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, 1989, 82, 84 Tibet, 65, 86 trade protectionism, 108 trade war, US-China, 72, 95, 98 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 92, 197 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, 131 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, 80, 86 triangular diplomacy, 73 triangular relations, 80 tributary system, 243 Trump, Donald J., 132, 145, 146, 148 "China Virus", and, 95 America First and, 95 election campaign, 145

304

INDEX

Relations with Putin, 94 Trump-Xi summit, 95 trust, 33, 35, 59, 69, 184, 211, 290 Turkey, 109, 115 Turkmenistan, 61, 70 turn to the East (by Russia), 109 two-level games, 255 U Uighurs, 118, 144 Ukraine, 132, 134, 135, 138, 141, 143, 145, 147, 218 crisis, 92 uncertainty, 68 UNCLOS, 161, 162 underbalancing, 239 underspecification, 6, 10 unequal treaties, 170 United Nations, 145 Human Rights Council, 145 Security Council, 62, 86, 88, 117, 132, 145, 211, 246 United States, 132–139, 143–148 U.S. Congress, 132 US-Japan alliance, 84 US-Japan-Australia Security Dialogue, 48 US National Security Strategy, 80 US-Taiwan relations arms sales, 92

V Valdai Discussion Club, 98 Valdai Forum, 119 Victory Day parade, 107 Vietnam, 115, 116

W War on Terror, 87, 88 Warsaw Pact, 113, 114 Weibo (social media platform), 167 wolf warrior diplomacy, 118, 167, 200 World Bank, 115, 117 World Trade Organization (WTO), 86, 117, 264 World War II, 108, 138, 222

X xenophobia, 162, 168 Xi Jinping, 36, 42, 44, 56, 107, 108, 111, 114, 117, 131, 132, 136–139, 142–144, 146, 213 Xinjiang, 65, 67, 86, 88

Y yellow peril, 66, 162, 164 Yeltsin, Boris, 36, 37, 69, 81, 82, 84, 86