The Rise of China and RussoChinese Relations in the New
Global Politics of Eastern Asia
Alexei D. VOSKRESSENSKI

Preface
There has been pointed discussion about the character and the orientationof global leadership after the post-Cold War world in the international
analytical community over the last ten years. This theoretical discussion
became even more poignant, with many more practical considerations,after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Clearly, the terrorist
acts in the US and elsewhere, and the decision of the administrations ofPresident Bill Clinton (Yugoslavia) and, more recently, President George
W. Bush (Afghanistan, Iraq) to begin acts of revenge as well as the power
restructuring of the new post-bipolar world based on American
unilateralism have complicated the situation and sharpened the discussion
on the character of global leadership.1 The problem of a peaceful rise of1

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan andYugoslavia; A Diary of Three Wars (London: Verso, 2004); Zbigniew Brzezinski, The
Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership (New York: Basic Books, 2004);
George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American
Power (London: Phoenix, 2004); Will Hutton, A Declaration of Interdependence: Why
America Should Join the World (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003); James F. Hoge Jr. andGideon Rose, eds., American Foreign Policy: Cases and Choices (New York: Council on
Foreign Relations, 2003); Nancy E. Soderberg, The Superpower Myth: The Use andMisuse of American Might (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2005); Clyde Prestowitz, Rogue-3-

ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

China and its accommodating stance toward the existing global order in
its new capacity as an economic giant, or its power to subvert or partly
restructure it, occupies one of the main places in this discussion.2 Indeed,
it is more or less clear to the majority of the international analyticalcommunity that the rise of China will sooner or later emerge as the mostformidable regional security challenge in East Asia3 and also, as somehave argued, globally, because there is no historical precedent for apeaceful rise and fall of a major power together with alteration of theworld system. Thus, many are concerned that this regional and probably
global restructuring may proceed at the expense of their countries’ status
and interests. There are also very influential alternative views that are
mainly, but not necessarily, associated with researchers from the PRC whoargue that China can rise regionally and globally without posing any threat
to the international community or the international system (heping jueqi or
the “peaceful rise” concept).
However, this problem is interesting not only from the viewpoint ofpractical geopolitics and diplomacy as generally assumed, but also from atheoretical angle regarding how to assess the applicability of theoreticalconstructions in international relations theory as to what extent China can
aspire to acquire regional and even world leadership (or hegemony?), inwhat spheres, and at what pace. Questions that are usually asked in thisconnection are: Does China really represent a new pole of politicaleconomic power that emerged after the collapse of the USSR and isdeveloping as a major competitor with Japan and the United States
regionally and perhaps also with the United States globally, both
economically and strategically? Or should we decouple economic andstrategic development in the case of China as happened with Japan?
Should China be integrated into the political economic development of
Asia-Pacific as a benign pole as liberal theoretical approaches propose, or
should it be balanced, contained, encircled, and deterred as realists
suggest? Should China be given a chance for a peaceful rise that probably
Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions (New York: Basic
Books, 2003).
2
Ronald Keith, “China as a Rising World Power and its Response to ‘Globalization,’ ”
The Review of International Affairs 3, no. 4 (June 2004).
3
NAM Changhee and TAKAGI Seiichiro, “Rising China and Shifting Alliances in Northeast
Asia: Opportunities and Challenges Facing America and its Allies,” The Korean Journal of
Defense Analysis 16, no. 2 (2004): 154.

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

will also mean giving China an opportunity for democratic development?
Should the international community ignore the possibility of China’s
having good intentions in this peaceful rise? Or is China’s rise a priori
malign, and thus, requiring security precautions be taken against it? How
can China readjust the regional environment in practice in view ofstrengthened US-Japan and US-ROK alliances, mostly, as some argue, in
the realm of Russo-Chinese strategic partnership coupled with thestrengthening of the Russia-China-India triangle? What will be theconsequences of diplomatic moves in this new direction? How should theregional asymmetries of China and Japan be addressed in view of theirrelative strategic and economic positions, while taking into consideration
China’s development trends? Or are traditional theoretical perspectives
and the security worries associated with them perhaps simply too shallow
to address the most current international and regional developments?
I would argue in this essay that in a new global context, relations
between the United States, Japan, Russia, and China need not be
adversarial as the four countries may search for areas of cooperation ineconomic and security areas. The United States, the European Union,
Japan, Russia, China, and India can, by working together, forge a futureworld and regional order that is beneficial to all states seeking peacefuland just development.4 The chances of a peaceful rise of China must not
be ignored since it may eventually lead to China being more democratic
4

For a detailed understanding of the evolution of this concept, see Alexei D.
Voskressenski, “China in the Perception of the Russian Foreign Policy Elite,” Issues andStudies 33, no. 3 (1997): 1–20; Alexei D. Voskressenski, “Rossiia i Kitai: problemy
dinamiki i preemstvennosti mezhgosudarstvennykh otnoshenii,” in Rossiia i Kitai: perspektivy
partnerstva v ATR v 21 veke (Moscow: Institut Dal’nego Vostoka RAN, 2000), 37–47; Alexei
D. Voskressenski, “Sbalansirovannoe mnogomernoe partnerstvo: optimal’naia strategiia dlia
Rossii,” in Global’noe Soobshchestvo: novaia sistema koordinat; podkhody k probleme, ed., A.
I. Neklessa (St. Petersburg: Aleteiia, 2000), 96–107; Alexei D. Voskressenski, “Russia’s
Evolving Grand Strategy toward China,” in Rapprochement or Rivalry? Russia-China
Relations in a Changing Asia, ed. Sherman W. Garnett (Washington, DC: Carnegie
Endowment of International Peace, 2000), 117–146; Alexei D. Voskressenski,“Mezhdunarodnii Kontext Rossiisko-Kitaiskikh Otnoshenii Posle Kosovo,” in Rossiia i
Kitai v sovremennom mire (Moscow: MGIMO-University, 2000), 43–57; Alexei D.
Voskressenski, “Russian-Chinese Partnership in a ‘New’ Global Context,” in “SinoRussian Strategic Partnership: A Threat to American Interests?” Asia Program Special
Report 99 (September 2001), 8–13; Alexei D. Voskressenski, “ ‘Sterzhen’ aziatskogo
azimuta vneshnei politiki Rossii,” Pro et Contra 6, no. 4 (Autumn 2001): 74–93, etc.

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

and also more responsible for regional and global security burdens.5 This
choice is extremely important for Eastern Asia and Northeast Asia,
particularly due to the predominance of traditional security considerations,a lack of trustworthy multilateral relations, and suspicions in the region
related to a future burdened by a historical past, and also may beendangered by emerging markets with high financial volatility andpolitical risk. Northeast Asia remains characterized by an atmosphere of
distrust between the regional powers, which has already become an
obstacle to any real coordination against common threats to regional
security. The start of six-party talks on the North Korean issue is indeed
an optimistic sign of a more inclusive regional dialogue format beginning,which may help the creation of a new multilateral regional security
environment. However, the transformation of this new regional security
view into a mechanism that can resolve these challenges has not yet beenrealized.
Some analysts have completely ignored the emerging Russo-Chinese
partnership and its influence on a rising China in East Asia.6 Some haveargued informally that the Russo-Chinese partnership generally, andRusso-Chinese military technological cooperation especially, are causing
concern in the West, particularly the United States, and in Japan. 7
American analysts point to the impact of the Russo-Chinese partnershipon the regional strategic balance that comprises the global international
system. They are not happy with the similarity between the official
Russian and Chinese views on East Asia and the Taiwan Strait—i.e., in
5

Bruce Gilley, China’s Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2004); ZHENG Yongnian, Will China Become
Democratic? Elite, Class and Regime Transition (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press,
2004); James F. Hoge Jr. and Gideon Rose, “How Should the United States Deal with a
Rising Power?” in Hoge and Rose, American Foreign Policy, chap. 1.
6
See, for example, Nam and Takagi, “Rising China and Shifting Alliances”; Michael K.
Connors, Rémy Davison and Jörn Dosch, The New Global Politics of the Asia-Pacific(London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004).
7
Robert H. Donaldson and John Donaldson “The Arms Trade in Russian-Chinese
Relations: Identity, Domestic Politics, and Geopolitical Positioning,” presented to the 2001
Hong Kong Convention of International Studies “Globalization and Its Challenges in the
21st Century,” Hong Kong, PRC, July 26–28, 2001; Stephen Blank, “Which Way for SinoRussian Relations?” Orbis 42, no. 3 (1998), 345–360; John J. Dziak, The Military
Relationship Between China and Russia, 1995–2002: Russia’s Role in the Development ofChina’s Strategic Potential (Washington, DC: American Foreign Policy Council, 2002).

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

regions where the interests of the United States and Japan are consideredvital. These analysts view the Russo-Chinese partnership mostly throughthe prism of traditional Cold War-time alliances. At the same time, someJapanese and Korean analysts, ignoring the influence of the RussoChinese strategic partnership on East Asian international development andarguing that Beijing intends to completely accept the rearrangement ofAmerica’s alliances with the ROK and Japan,8 tend to underestimate theimpact of Russo-Chinese military and technical cooperation on thebalance of power in Eastern Asia. There are also new trends worth
consideration: China became Russia’s number one trade partner in 2006
(Chinese-Russian trade surpassing German-Russian trade), 9 and Wen
Jiabao proclaimed that Russo-Chinese bilateral trade would reach $100
billion by 2008–2010, far beyond Russian trade with any other European
or Asian state. The emerging Russo-Chinese energy projects have becomea new and important economic/security factor in regional development inNortheast Asia as this source of energy is becoming an important factor
helping to transform China into a dominant regional power and a global
player.
The reason for this intellectual controversy and underestimation is
not misperception or bias as sometimes happens in academic writings(indeed, no one can blame the scholars for the shallow analysis). But the
speed of the formidable changes in the region, especially in Eastern
Eurasia, which are far beyond reflections in scholarly writings, as well as
the transformation of the former ideological biases of the Cold War period
into post-Cold War prejudices where the future is flexible, can beformatted according to our perceptions. So, the political establishment
tends to be viewed more comfortably through “proved over time,” i.e.,
orthodox, theoretical lenses by the traditionally conservative academic
community.10
8

Nam and Takagi, “Rising China and Shifting Alliances,” 154–155, 173–178.
As China consequently did with Taiwan and the ROK each the preceding year.
10
Indeed, it became normal in the English-language literature on world politics not to cite
current Russian writings that are not suspected of being outdated in their perception oreven misperception regarding current cutting-edge analysis. See, Connors, Davison andDosch, The New Global Politics; Greg Austin and Stuart Harris, Japan and Greater China:
Political Economy and Military Power in the Asian Century (London: Hurst, 2001); Peter
Ferdinand, ed., The New Central Asia and Its Neighbours (London: Pinter, 1999);
YAMAMOTO Yoshinobu, ed., Globalism, Regionalism and Nationalism: Asia in Search of
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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

It must be clearly understood that although some analysts and evenpoliticians point out that there are some signs that the Russo-Chinese
partnership is imposing strain on Russian and Chinese relations with theWest, the United States, and Japan, this must not be seen as the main
purpose of the Russo-Chinese partnership. Instead, it is a by-product of
the necessity to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries
due to Russian attempts to construct new cooperative regionalarrangements more favorable to Russia and also, in part, as a reaction
most recently to the US-Japan and the US-ROK strengthened security
arrangements that are following lines of traditional security considerations.
Notwithstanding all dangers, pitfalls, and challenges to the Russo-Chinese
strategic partnership, it is clearly the strongest constructive trend in thetransformation of Northeast Asia and the Russian Far East in parts thatwere least developed or that even “failed” economically.
I will argue that Russo-Chinese relations are not generally analternative to Russian and Chinese relations with the United States and do
not constitute an “anti-Western” or “anti-Japanese” bloc. The main
rationale of the Russo-Chinese partnership from the Russian side is toconstruct a new type of relationship aimed at promoting a new and justworld community of equals rather than of leaders and followers, where thelegitimate interests of all states (and thus also of Russia) are kept underconsideration, and where all states, notwithstanding their position in theinternational system, can develop peacefully without fear that theirIts Role in the Twenty-first Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), etc. The argument thatmost debate on international relations in Russia is, for certain reasons, for internal
consumption and cannot withstand criticisms because of the lack of understanding on mostcurrent Russian views, at least in academia. Indeed, this trend corresponds with spiritual
unilateralism reflected in the attempts to bury area studies because of a lack of“disciplinary rigorousness.” See, for example, a lively debate at Hokkaido University’s
Slavic Research Center Conference on the rejuvenation of Eurasian studies (December 9,2004) reflected in Klaus Segbers, “Area Studies, Comparative Approaches: Is a Peaceful Coexistence Possible? Or: Can or Should Area Studies Survive?” presentation at a symposiumof the Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, December 9, 2004, http:/userpage.fuberlin.de/~segbers; Alexei D. Voskressenski, “Regional Studies in Russia and Current
Methodological Approaches for Social/Historical/Ideological [Re]construction ofInternational Relations and Regional Interaction in Eastern Eurasia,” in Reconstruction andInteraction of Slavic Eurasia and Its Neighboring Worlds, ed. IEDA Osamu and UYAMA
Tomohiko (Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2006), 3–42. The rare
exception to this trend is Gilbert Rozman, Northeast Asia’s Stunted Regionalism: Bilateral
Distrust in the Shadow of Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONSinternal policies will be heavily damaged by external factors andinfluences.11 The aim of the partnership as seen by the Russian policymaking community is to strengthen regional economies, economic
multilateralism, and also partly the security-economic nexus in Northeast
Asia through bilateral economic ties, and thus to move the regional
Northeast Asian agenda from traditional security cooperation to fostering
regional economic development. This Russian idea basically correspondswith the idea of a Northeast Asian coprosperity zone. These ideas are
extremely important for Russia due to difficulties in envisaging policy
ensuring the stable economic development of the Russian Far East andEastern Siberia and its peaceful entry into the market system of Eastern
Asia.
Since viable structural economic cooperation is shallow between
Russia and Japan and its potential is still low between Russia and the
ROK (and probably close to nil among the Russian Far East, Siberia, andthe United States), 12 the only strategic possibility that Russia could
embrace to aid entering the Eastern Asian and Pacific Community is todevelop strong strategic and economic ties with China, one of the major
economic driving forces in Asia and also a major manufacturing base in
the Asia-Pacific region. Regional cooperation between Russia and China
has obviously greatly increased in Northeast and Central Asia since theirjoint leadership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, yet there has
been no strategic partnership of Japan or either of these two countries on acomparable level,13 making in Russian eyes the Northeastern economicsecurity nexus shaky and thus detracting from the regional economic
cooperation that is key to the rejuvenation of the Russian Far East andSiberia as well as for Russia entering the East Asian markets.

11

Alexei D. Voskressenski and Nikolai Maletin, eds., Aziatsko-Tikhookeanskii region i
Tsentral’naia Aziia: kontury bezopasnosti (Moscow: MGIMO, 2002); Alexei D.
Voskressenski, ed., Kitai v mirovoi politike (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2001); Alexei D.
Voskressenski, ed., Rossiia, Kitai i novyi miroporiadok XXI veka: problemy i perspektivy(Moscow: MGIMO, 2001).
12
The share of eleven Asia-Pacific countries (PRC, North Korea, South Korea, Japan,
Taiwan, Honk Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Mongolia, Vietnam, and India) in Russian
foreign trade is 13.4 percent and the share of the US and Australia is 4.3 percent.
“Buduschee Azii i Politika Rossii,” Rossia v Global’noi Politike 4, no. 2 (2006): 118–119.
13
Austin and Harris, Japan and Greater China, chap. 9.

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Indeed, the Russo-Chinese partnership is quickly evolving from a
traditional security arrangement to a broader bilateral, regionalarrangement. The broader structure of these future arrangements iscurrently the only benign external leverage for the speedy development of
the Russian Far East and Siberia. In this sense, the most current trend in
Russo-Chinese strategic partnership vividly contradicts the most current
trend in US-Japan and US-ROK relations that during the second term of
President Bush are quickly moving to strengthen the traditional security
agenda dominated by the perception of a malign China that needs to beencircled. 14 Thus, the new free trade agreements between the UnitedStates and Taiwan, and the trade arrangements between the United States
and Japan, detract from strengthening the economic stability of Northeast
Asia and helps the separation of the region into Russo-Chinese and JapanTaiwan “zones.”15
In constructing a new world order and also reconstructing a new
regional order, interaction between the United States, Russia, Japan, andChina need not be purely competitive or adversarial. At least, the Russianpolitical elite does not currently desire such a situation, although the moredisappointed and disillusioned with cooperation with Western countries
the Russian political elite becomes, the greater the incentive it has forfostering cooperation with China as well as with countries that are also
disappointed by the cooperation with the Western world that is moving theworld to new and dangerous levels of polarization. However, the UnitedStates, Russia, Japan, and China can and must find areas of cooperation,
especially in the spheres of economic development and security inNortheast Asia, although the rise of China does constitute a real challenge
to the existing international and regional order based on unilateralism. But
this challenge is not necessarily malign, and thus must be properly andcarefully addressed from regional and global perspectives. However, thesolution to an ascending China may not necessarily lie only withcontainment policies through the US-Japan and the US-ROK security
arrangements and the presence of US military bases in Central Asia. A
rising China can be also balanced by strengthened Russo-Japanese, RussoKorean, and Russo-American economic partnerships, multilateral regional14

Nam and Takagi, “Rising China and Shifting Alliances,” 153–180.
East Asian Strategic Review, 2006 (Tokyo: The Japan Times for the National Institutefor Defence Studies, 2006).

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

economic agreements, and also by encouraging new levels of economic
cooperation between Russia and ASEAN countries and between Russia
and the Western world in general.

The Rise of China and Its Meaning for the Structureof Global Leadership in the Twenty First Century16
One of the major points of international debate on the meaning of the riseof China for the structure of the international system is usually the successof Chinese reforms, which, if projected into the future, would raise manyquestions about which state will be responsible for the majority of world
economic growth and what the global market share of the United States,
the EU, China, and Japan will be. This question is also indirectly
connected to the question of possible economic/military coupling or
economic/military decoupling as a theoretical question related to how we
consider the world: as a world of interdependence with multiple
opportunities where rising economically does not necessarily coincidewith a rise in military power or a global balance of power where an
economic rise inevitably leads to military build-up.17 However, this is
only part of a whole set of provocative arguments pro et contra. One of
the key structural points in elaborating a framework of arguments, I
believe, is in fact a new strategic assessment of China’s Asia-Pacificregional strategy that is being transformed into China’s new leadershipapproach to multilateralism and thus constitutes a sort of global strategy
that has started to compete intellectually with a strategy proposed by the
US to the rest of the world.
The major standing points of this new Chinese approach are:• Rejecting the deliberate exaggeration of declining state sovereignty
in the face of globalization;
16

Arguments for this section were developed in Alexei D. Voskressenski, “The Rise of
China and Its Meaning for the Structure of Global Leadership in the 21st Century: A
Russian Perspective,” in Readings in European Security, ed. Dana H. Allin and Michael
Emerson, vol. 3 (Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies; London: International
Institute for Security Studies), 107–119.
17
Alexei D. Voskressenski, Russia and China: A Theory of Inter-State Relations (London:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2003).

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI• Suggesting the state’s innovative capacity to adapt to basic changes
in international conditions and consequently having more respect for
self-determination (especially compared to Russia);• Influencing the rules of international organizations and regimes toensure maximum benefit for the priorities of China’s own
development;• Accenting multilateralism and multipolarity as an indirect
predisposition of China to take on international responsibility
compared to the American unilateralist approach;• Elaborating the sophisticated “third world” strategy that consists ofmaximizing opportunities for economic globalization, while a stateretains its own sovereign options in order to offset the malignconsequences of the uneven effects of globalization;• Proclaiming multilateralism an important instrument to achieve
domestic economic goals;• Stressing concepts of “comprehensive security” consisting of two
integral parts, “common security” and “common prosperity,” as anecessary condition to create a security community based onsovereign equality and not on “absolute security” or the “balance ofpower” as the United States proposes.18
If we agree not only with the emergence but also with the importanceof these concepts for a structural understanding of regional and, to acertain extent, global international developments, we would start toconsider what the cumulative structural effect of these developments
together with China’s projected economic development trends would be in
the medium-term future.
It is more or less clear that the epoch of straight, crude “hegemony”
in the global international system has passed. As the globalization process
has been much more complex and includes the process of regionalization,
regionalism, and fragmentation of the world,19 the essence and concept of“hegemony” has become much more refined by its contents and18

See, for example, Keith, “China as a Rising World Power,” 2–4.
See the extended argumentation by the Indian scholar Rajan Harshe in Alexei D.
Voskressenski, ed., Vostok/Zapad: regional’niye podsistemy i regional’niye problemy
mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002), 44–60.

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

terminology. The international hegemon in the past was understood as astate that responded with military force and with the creative potential for
unilaterally structuring and restructuring the global international system
according to its interests. The twentieth century has added anotherimportant characteristic—it could be not one state but two: a hegemon anda counter-hegemon. After the disintegration of the USSR and thestrengthening of the arguments of the school, which argues for a declineof the classical hegemony, concepts of “structural hegemony,” “softhegemony,” and “global dominance” have also appeared. If the hegemonhas military force and the creative potential to unilaterally change theglobal system, these parameters are insufficient for a “global dominant”
state. In the new post-bipolar system of international relations, the “global
dominant” state (compared to the hegemon) or a large majority of its
political elite must additionally have the desire and the conscious supportof the international community to structure a global system and worldpolitics. The support of the international community may be rendereddifferently: in the form of resolutions by the UN Security Council, formal
or informal global coalitions such as the initial antiterrorist coalition,formal or informal international consensus on strategic international issues,
etc.20The emergence of the EU and Eurozone, and later the new ad hoc
diplomatic coalition of France, Russia, and Germany opposing the US
unilateral view on the future of Iraq, which is transforming gradually into
the “new European axis” with a broader diplomatic agenda, and theIslamic offence on the West and the US in particular may show thetransition of the US as a world leader from the category of “hegemon” tothe category of a “global dominant” state. Other informal arguments infavor are the necessity of benign leadership, and the structural, soft
leadership of the United States itself. It seems that in addition to theabove-mentioned conditions, the main structural difference between a
20

An extended summary of the arguments is presented in Alexei D. Voskressenski,“Bol’shaia Vostochnaia Aziia”: mirovaia politika i energeticheskaia bezopasnost’(Moscow: URSS, 2006); Alexei D. Voskressenski, Rossiisko-kitaiskoe strategicheskoe
vzaimodeistvie i mirovaya politika (Moscow: Nikitskii Club, 2004); Voskressenski, Kitai v
mirovoi politike; Voskressenski, Rossiia, Kitai i novyi miroporiadok v XXI veke; Alexei D.
Voskressenski, ed., Severo-Vostochnaia i Tsentral’naia Aziia: dinamika mezhdunarodnykh imezhregional’nykh vzaimodeistvii (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2004); Voskressenski,
Vostok/Zapad.

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

global dominant state and a hegemon is that the global dominant state
loses the potential for unilateral control and for determining theparameters of the extended reproduction and construction of the armed
forces of large regional states.
A state should meet three major conditions to be a hegemon or a
global dominant state in the international system:
1. It must have an effective economic mechanism based on the
manufacture of innovations, financially dominate the system of world
currencies, and have a leading position in global trade and dominate
in large transnational corporations.
2. Such a state must have military power capabilities on a global scale,unilaterally lead, create, or control powerful military coalitions, andcarry out effective global military policy.
3. It must create and promote a society that is internationally attractivefrom the viewpoint of political and civic culture based on open,
competent leadership and a sense of the necessity of significant
public sacrifice or donorship, i.e., the readiness of this society and its
political elite to endow material and nonmaterial resources in thename of global leadership and the international community. Such astate must have an attractive society in terms of ideology, it should be
and simultaneously be perceived as a global center of education andscientific innovation, and must have a vigorous and vibrant
population.
If we consider all these three conditions to be, and to be perceived as,
global hegemony or global dominance with reference to the United States,
the current global leader, we can argue that there has been an erosion of
the undisputed leading role of the US in all these three groups ofparameters mentioned, although the key parameters are still intact; for thisreason, the transition from the category of hegemon to the category of a
global dominant state does not mean the complete loss of US global
leadership.
The next group after hegemons and global dominants consists ofstates that can be called “leaders” (or regional leaders). These states do not
fulfill the criteria for being a global dominant according to all three groupsof these parameters, even if these parameters are eroded, but they have a- 14 -

THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

certain degree of creative global or large regional potential and their own
global or large regional economic and military capabilities, as well as acertain amount of support from other leaders, from a global dominant, orfrom certain peripheral states to direct or to correct global/regional
development, at first in a concrete region/area in which they are locatedgeographically or in which they have historical/geopolitical/economic/
cultural interests. Some researchers simply refer to these states as “large
regional states.”
There is no uniformity in this group of states. There are “leaders” (orregional leaders) in this group, i.e., states that can strengthen their role tobe a global dominant, or even play the principle role of a regional
dominant with the consent of a global dominant, which can be silent andinformal, or fixed through a set of agreements and coalitions (also formal
and informal). There are also “anti-leaders,” i.e., states that can undercertain conditions and to a certain extent resist a global dominant and evenact on certain decisions that may run counter to the policy of the global
dominant.21
Anti-leaders have obvious problems with the transformation of theirdestructive potential into constructive, creative potential. Anti-leaderscannot under any circumstances replace the leader. Under certain
conditions, an “anti-leader” can play the role of regional anti-leader, i.e.,
carrying out in a certain region a policy contradicting (or evenchallenging) the policy of a global dominant. Certainly, a global dominant
will not look neutrally on such an attempt, as the position of regional antileadership is key to the position of a “counter-leader,” and probably to theposition of a “counter-dominant” (and possibly also to the position of a“counter-hegemon”), i.e., a state that is challenging the existing global
dominant and that, in principle, is able to occupy this position in the future.
The basic distinction between an anti-leader and a counter-leader is thebasic impossibility of the first to turn itself into a global dominant or ahegemon. Besides, there are “non-leaders” in the global system, i.e., statesthat are unable under any circumstances to turn themselves into leaders,and accepting as a whole the existing structure of the international system,
notwithstanding their place in it.

21

For these arguments in detail, see Voskressenski, “Bol’shaia Vostochnaia Aziia”;
Voskressenski, Rossiisko-kitaiskoe strategicheskoe vzaimodeistvie i mirovaia politika.

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

Because of the steady economic growth that has been ongoing for the
past three decades and because of its shear size, enormous market, huge
potential, and alternative ideology, the PRC occupies the most important
place in this theoretical discussion about the character of the evolving
leadership. However, the phenomenal planned economic growth of thishuge state over three decades in view of realizing reform policies and its“special” foreign policy position has moved this theoretical discussion
into practical spheres related to diplomacy and, in particular, to foreign
policy forecasting as well as to the calculation of military projections
related to the foreign and economic policy of states like China.
It is expected that more than 50 percent of global economic growth
will be related to the Asia-Pacific region where China is playing an
increasingly important role, and also to China itself. The emergence of the
PRC among the major trading states and possible world economic
superpowers may question the existing global economic and politicalorder because China habitually complains that it suffers from thestructural/economic leadership of the West, never hiding its discontent
with the past economic and political order. For this reason, both theWestern and Chinese analytical communities today are intensely
discussing China’s “peaceful entry” into the system of global relations.
Chinese analysts, accordingly, are discussing the question of the futurerole of China as it is acquiring the status of daguo (a “great power”) andwhether it should simultaneously become fuzeguo (a “responsible state”),
and what this last notion means in Chinese terminology compared toWestern political science and international relations. 22 China has
formulated itself flexibly enough, and different from the Soviet model, thesocialist model with Chinese characteristics, having successfully
integrated socialist ideas with a Confucian ethical system and with at firstrudimentary, and later quite sophisticated “capitalist” market mechanisms,
while attempts to create a new system of “socialist morals and ethics” andof a “socialist economy” obviously failed in the USSR.
In this connection, the actual essence of the Chinese economic
system, i.e., how much “socialism” is actually in it, is less important than
22

LI Wuyi, Daguo Guanxi yu Weilai Zhongguo [Great Power Relation and Future China](Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2003); East Asian Strategic Review, 2004,
2005, 2006 (Tokyo: The Japan Times for the National Institute for Defense Studies, 2004,
2005, 2006); HU Angang, ed., Zhongguo da zhanlue [Great Strategy of China] (Hangzhou:
Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 2003).

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

China’s economic system being perceived as an alternative to the “purecapitalist” Western market system. In this sense, mainland China or, more
precisely, Greater China (mainland China plus connected territories
inhabited partly and influenced mainly by the Chinese diaspora) is quite
capable of challenging Western trading blocs (NAFTA and EU) and theUnited States not only economically, but also through its formulation of a“spiritual alternative” to the Western system of values and the Western
system of economic structure and management.
However, it is clear that this challenge is different from those faced in
the Soviet era, and for this reason, it will be very difficult to formulate an
acceptable answer to meet this challenge.
First of all, communist China is not unanimously perceived as theleader of the “third world” or the developing world. The major argument
here is economic: China, contrary to the USSR that argued that thesocialist Soviet economic system was developing according to socialist
economic rules/laws that were different from those of a market economy,
has incorporated into its mainstream theory of international politicaleconomic neo-Marxist innovation the idea that the world economy has
three interconnected structures: a united and uniform global market; apolitical system of independent competing states; and a three-layer spatial
structure consisting of, first, a “center” that specializes in manufacturing
the most effective high-cost goods and technologies and thus fully uses
the effect of freeing the resources needed for its own super-fastdevelopment, second, a “periphery”—i.e., less developed countries
specializing in exporting raw materials and goods made with manual labor,
acquiring mostly luxury goods for the price of that export, investingmoney in the “center,” and transferring its capital to offshore zones, and,third, a “semi-periphery.”23
The “semi-periphery” is not homogeneous. It consists of countries
relatively industrially advanced, which as a whole cannot specialize in the
production of economically “more effective” high-cost goods, but can still
produce technology that can be sporadically sold at relatively low prices
in the periphery in those niches where it is possible to compete with the“center”; of the new industrialized countries (NIC), which have based
their modernization on the innovational model but oriented their
23

Voskressenski, “Bol’shaia Vostochnaia Aziia,” 20–22; Voskressenski, Rossiiskokitaiskoe strategicheskoe vzaimodeistvie i mirovaia politika, 10–25.

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

production toward exporting goods to the “center”; and of countries
exporting crude oil. From a neo-Marxist viewpoint, which has beeneffectively applied in China, economic relations in the modern world are
independent from political relations. Thus, Chinese economists have cometo the conclusion that the market is a notion not only intrinsic to thecapitalist way of production, but also to all others including socialism.
Thus, it was possible in theory to separate the state, the economy, andsociety. This conclusion made it possible to exclude, or minimize, the roleof the state in the economy. But this minimization is not from theviewpoint of its role in principle, but from the viewpoint of its functioning
separately in the economic system where it should help functioning
economic laws, and in politics where it can form a civil society indemocratic states or rigidly structure society on the basis of ideologicalconcepts in authoritarian states with a market economy. In practice, it may
be possible to transform totalitarian states into authoritarian models of
industrial development. These ideas in theory were first elaborated andapplied by Chiang Kaishek in Taiwan, and in other regions, for example,in Latin America—by Augusto Pinochet. In the PRC, these ideas madepossible the successful effectuation of reform policies. However, theChiang Kaishek and Pinochet models of authoritarian development bothconsciously paved the way for further political reform and politicaltransformation toward democratic rule, but there are still no pervasive
arguments that the PRC will follow this model.24
If the global “capitalist” economy is based on the fragmentary
possession of capital and competitiveness, the global (globalized)
economy requires a “center” (or “leader”). This means that there are two
ways of overcoming the status of being a “periphery” or a “semiperiphery”: it is possible to form a global (or macro-regional) economic
system according to one’s interests, or to carry out unilateral adjustment of
the internal sphere of the state according to the requirements of theinternational globalized economic system. The specificity of China is thatit successfully develops in both directions, understanding that is possible
to be integrated into a global system as a part of the “periphery” or as alarge, developing country from which a new nucleus (part of the center, or
24David Shambaugh, ed., Is China Unstable? Assessing the Factors (Armonk, NY: M.E.
Sharpe, 2000); Charles Wоlf Jr., “Fault Lines in China’s Economic Terrain,” in “China’s
Economy: Will the Bubble Burst?” Asia Program Special Report 111 (June 2003): 4–7.

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

an alternative center) can crystallize. What distinguishes the center fromthe periphery and the semi-periphery, and what is very well understood by
the Chinese leadership, is the necessity of creating conditions for selfcentered accumulation of capital, i.e., a definition of the conditions ofaccumulation through national control of the reproduction of labor, thenational market, and the centralization of profit, capital, resources,
technologies, etc.
It is clear that crystallization of new centers is very difficult today,that models of “catching-up development” are not working smoothly, andthat external forces have become more important than internal forces or
can very strongly influence internal factors. Systemic, carefully elaborated
policy can nevertheless bear fruit. And the fruit of these reforms is visible
throughout China. The rate of GNP growth in China in 1979–2006
surpassed nine percent, i.e., it was two times higher than during thepreceding thirty years, and the GNP volume in 2002 exceeded $1.2 billion
with a per-capita GNP of about $1,000. It is expected reach $1,300 dollars
by 2020 or even earlier. Exports over the last 20 years have increasedsome twenty fold. If the existing trend prevails, by 2012, China could
possibly have a volume of GNP, counted in terms of purchasing power, ona level with the United States.25
At the same time, the transition of China from the status of a “closed”
continental power to the status of the largest national economy and thelargest trading state of the world (or one of the two largest) means that thisstate will try to secure the sea communications lines around its bordersthat could be the inevitable cause of conflict with the US and/or Japan.26
It is clear that the PRC does not yet possess military capability
comparable to that of Russia, notwithstanding that of the US. And as themilitary capability of China grows, its economic capability and interests inthe very near future could be much more significant than those of Russia.
But the capability of China is dictated by the cumulative size of its
economy and its geographic and demographic resources, not by its percapita GNP, a parameter that is still low by international standards. So, the“Soviet” type of leadership that China can conduct in the foreseeable
25

Vitalii Mel’iantsev, “Razvivaiushchiesia strany: rost, differentsiatsiia, ekonomicheskii
vyzov,” Vestnik Moscovskogo universiteta, Seriia XIII: Vostokovedenie, no. 2 (2006): 14–46, esp. 15–17.
26
WU Lei, Zhongguo Shiyou Anquan [Oil Security of China] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui
kexue chubanshe, 2003).

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

future may not be recognized by the whole global community. However,
the Chinese leadership does not even try to pretend that it may realize thistype of leadership. The above-mentioned theoretical considerations haveenabled China to reject the idea of declining state sovereignty in the faceof globalization and suggest as an alternative the state’s capacity to adapt
to fundamental changes in international conditions.
The character of the economic transformation that is taking place in
China and its foreign policy strategy are aimed at updating the rules of the
global system and the formation of a huge zone of “close interaction with
China.” China argues that, as a world power, it will be more predisposedto accept international responsibility than the US because of its adherence
to multilateralism and multipolarity. Russia and Central Asia areparticularly responsive to these ideas. The Chinese approach respects
national self-determination and thus hails “comprehensive security”
consisting of “common security” and “common prosperity” where theneed for a security community is based upon sovereign equality. Thus,
China is proposing a strategy to offset uneven globalization, which
consists of maximizing opportunities for economic globalization while
retaining the sovereign option of the state. This strategic policy canessentially correct and maybe even completely transform the system ofinternational and regional relations. It is clear that this transformation willtake a lot of time and will be attenuated by numerous “ifs.” Nonetheless,such a trend is more possible than it was ten years ago.
The three conditions for obtaining the position of a hegemon or a
global dominant as formulated above cannot be met by China in the near
future, and may not be achievable at all as some have argued. But it only
seems so at first sight. Today, the Eurasian continent produces
approximately 75 percent of the world’s GNP, is home to some 75 percentof the world’s population, and has 75 percent of the world’s resources,
which could be key to the future of global development. Forty-seven years
was required for the US to double its per-capita GNP, thirty-three years,
for Japan, ten, for South Korea, and seven, for China. The GNP of Asian
countries grows six percent per year on average, i.e., the rates of growth in
Asia are twice the world’s average. It is expected that by 2020, Asia willproduce 40 percent of the world’s GNP and have sixteen of twenty-five of
the world’s largest cities, while five of seven of the largest national or
supra-national economies will reside in Asia. And in terms of GNP
volume, the Chinese economy may occupy first place. In 1950, the PRC- 20 -

THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

produced 3.3 percent of the world’s GNP, and by 1992, this figure had
increased to 10 percent and continues to grow, although not as fast as
before. In terms of GNP volume (the size of the economy), China from2003 occupied third place behind Japan and the United States, fourth
place in the world as measured by export volume, and third place, by
import volume. The PRC currency reserves occupy more than 11 percentof the world’s currency reserves and have grown steadily, making China
the largest holder of currency reserves in the world. Communist China has
opened its economy to foreign direct investment, welcomed large-scale
imports, and joined the World Trade Organization on a larger scale andwith greater speed than the USSR, and did so earlier than democratic
Russia, spurring prosperity within China and across the region.27
If the contribution of China’s economy to global economic growth iscalculated by purchasing power parity, the US from 1995 to 2002
contributed 20 percent China, 25 percent, and other industrial countries ofAsia contributed some 18 percent. If the economic and politicalunification of the PRC and Taiwan were to take place, all the trends
mentioned earlier would become even more obvious with much greater
strategic consequences.
China has obviously managed to create a viable economic model thatdiffers from Western forms of capitalism. Thus, it is not very important
what it is called; what is more important is the fact of its viability and its
alternative character. By 2025, 21 percent of the global population will
live in the area of Greater China or within the area of the Chinese
civilization. There will be obvious attempts by the PRC to structure thiseconomic space in various ways (free economic zones, custom unions,
ASEAN+3, creation of a yuan currency zone, etc.).
China also has sought to preempt a potential regional US-led
coalition by deepening economic ties with American allies such as Japan,
South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia. These countries would pay a
considerable economic price if they were to openly support any US-led
policies aimed against China. China has adroitly exploited every
manifestation of regional dissatisfaction with America’s obsessive andoverbearing “war on terror,” seeking to cast itself as a friendly, noninterfering alternative to US power in the region. It is even proposing new
institutional arrangements wherein China can exercise a leadership role
27

Voskressenski, Kitai v mirovoi politike.

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

that excludes the US, such as the East Asian Economic Zone and theShanghai Cooperation Organization. China is now intensively creatingtransnational corporations and buying world brands, making its economy
global and thus more globally competitive.28 China is doing this at a pace
and with an ability incomparable to any other large developing states,
states with restructured market economies, or states with emerging market
economies (e.g., India, Brazil, and Russia).
The Chinese army is the largest in the world in terms of the numberof soldiers, although it has been reduced according to its new tasks. The
PRC military budget is increasing in real figures, and there is a strategictask to double it, or even triple it, in the long term in view of thedevelopment of double-use technologies and their commercial
implementation. In Asia as a whole, military expenditure has increased by
50 percent.
According to a white paper on China’s national defense, China will
maintain the size of its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at 2.3 million
members through this current restructuring, aiming at optimal force
structure relations and better quality. China plans to build a streamlined
military with fewer numbers but higher efficiency. Under the current
military restructuring, China will achieve streamlined forces through suchmeasures as reducing the number of PLA officers and the number of
personnel by about 15 percent, and reducing the number ordinary troops
that are technologically backward while strengthening its navy, air force,and second artillery force (rocket forces).
In its drive towards modernization, the PLA takes informatization as
its strategic focus. Computers and other IT equipment have been gradually
introduced into routine operations. The ability to provide operational
information support has been greatly enhanced, while more and more IT
elements have been incorporated into the main Chinese battle weapon
systems. In its drive for informatization, the PLA adheres to the criterionof combat efficiency and the direction of integrated development, theenhancement of centralized leadership and overall planning, thedevelopment of new military theories and operational theories while
28“The US-Japan-China Triangle: Who’s the Odd Man Out?” Asia Program Special
Report 113 (July 2003); Asia-Pacific Response to U.S. Security Policies (Honolulu, HI:
Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2003); Asia-Pacific Security Outlook, 2002;
Gennady Chufrin, ed., Russia and Asia: The Emerging Security Agenda (Solna: Oxford
University Press for SIPRI, 1999).

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

optimizing the management system and force structure, updating systemsof statutes and standards, and emphasizing training in informationalization.
The PLA is accelerating the modernization of weaponry and equipment,
depending on national economic development and technological advances.
Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia has emerged as China’s
principal source of advanced military hardware and technology. By themid-1990s, Russia’s need for hard currency forced a restructuring ofmilitary trade with China to trade conducted on a cash basis. However, theRussians are now increasingly hard pressed to come up with something
new for China, and this pressure may grow due to possibly emerging
competition for the hard currency that may arise between Russia and theEU, if the EU arms embargo on China is lifted.
China is eager to renew defense cooperation with Western countries.
During his EU tour, the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao pressed for adecision to lift the ban, arguing that the embargo was a form of
discrimination. He argued that the maturation of China’s ties with the EU
made the arms embargo a meaningless artifact, a remnant of the Cold War.
He was encouraged by French president Jacques Chirac’s remark that theban “no longer corresponds to the political reality” and “makes no sense,”a view that was supported by German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Wen
may also have thought that European arms industries would push for ashare of the $11 billion in arms agreements that China has signed since1999. So, if some countries are complaining that they have a tradeimbalance favoring China, they may try to correct it by selling weapons to
China.
It is clear that since the early 1990s, the PRC has been upgrading its
conventional and nuclear forces and improving its operational capabilities
to match the standard of the US armed forces. China’s defense budget has
increased at a double-digit annual rate since 1995. The entirety of China’s
defense spending is virtually concentrated on strengthening its ability to
project power in its immediate south and southeast neighborhood. If thecurrent trend in China’s military modernization continues, the balance ofpower in East Asia will shift in China’s favor. However, there is no
unanimous view in the international analytical community on the probable
impact of China’s rapidly growing economic and military power on theregional and international order. Is it possible for China to use that powerin an attempt to establish new spheres of influence in areas where
civilized ties with the Chinese diaspora are strong or where China can- 23 -

ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

claim a historical legacy especially if it would support its energy needs?29
Or does China’s military modernization simply mean the necessity to
streamline and modernize its military forces according to its new
economic status, thus ensuring and strengthening regional security?
From the point of view of achieving regional leadership in thespheres of science and ideology, this presents a more difficult task for
China. Communist ideals can hardly inspire the masses; however, China
does try to dynamically modernize these ideals and to adapt them to meetmodern ideological purposes, reducing the most odious of them andcombining them with a Confucian system of values and ethics. Confucian
ethics can be compared with Protestant ethics in its creative potential. In
this updated Chinese ideology, ideas of paternalistic authority andstoicism are very important. There is a vigorous hailing of Asian culture in
regions that adhere to Asian values: diligence, discipline, respect forfamily values, respect for authority, subordination of individualistic ideas
to collective values, a belief in a hierarchical society, the importance ofconsensus, and the aspiration to avoid confrontation by any means. Such asociety preaches the domination of the state above society and society
above the individual, but the Asian individual is inspired by the absence ofinternal social conflict and the support of the community. Thus, thisrelatively benign enlightened authoritarianism helps to develop societiesthat currently feel demographic and ecological tension. Of course, not allof these values are universal, but the developing East Asian half of theworld has found them inspiring.
In 2003, Chinese president Hu Jintao’s advisors put forward a newtheory. Called China’s “peaceful rise,” it held that, in contrast to thewarlike behavior of ascending great powers in the past, the economic ties
between China and its trading partners not only made war unthinkable but
would actually allow all sides to rise together. The theory did not survive
the internal power struggles within the Communist Party, but the generalidea lives on in new and updated formulations such as “peacefuldevelopment”, “peaceful coexistence” of “harmonious society” (hexie
shehui).
In addition, China has started to actively position itself as a stateencouraging science and innovation. There are 120 so-called technoparks
29“China’s ‘Good Neighbor’ Diplomacy: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?” Asia Program
Special Report 126 (January 2005).

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

in the country, and in 1995, a special state program for the development ofChina’s high-tech industry was elaborated. The following priority fields inthis program included: electronics, computer science, space and opticfiber communications, and energy-saving technology. The state has
already invested more than 10 billion yuan for the development of thisprogram. The Chinese state actively invests in the development of theinfrastructure of universities. China became the third country to
successfully effectuate a manned space flight program, which has become
a symbol of China’s technological and innovation leap. It is clear that the
space program also has certain military, surveillance, and intelligencecomponents aimed at developing continuous surveillance capability inEast Asia comparable to that of the US.
Thus, intentionally or not, China has succeeded in transforming itself
into a dominant regional power with certain global interests, and has
achieved globally perhaps even more than any other large regional state(for example, Russia, India, or Brazil). China has done this so cautiously
and smoothly that this policy has not yet caused any open counteraction
from other states or the formation of any anti-Chinese coalitions.30
We should explore in this connection how developed China’s
relations with its most important land border partner—Russia—are, andhow both Russia and China have adapted to the new situation in Eastern
Asia following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence ofChina as a possible new regional leader.

The International Milieu of Russo-Chinese Relations

31

A decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and China
established a relatively weak but growing alliance comprising military and30
Except for new trends in the US-Japan and the US-ROK security arrangements, which
are not necessarily aimed against China but are aimed forward strengthening regional
security arrangements. However, they are considered as a threat in the PRC. Nam andTakagi, “Rising China and Shifting Alliances.”
31
The aim of this paragraph is to summarize from the Russian perspective the major
arguments elaborated in the literature on Russian-Chinese strategic partnership publishedin Russia, China, the US, and elsewhere since the appearance of Garnett, ed.,Rapprochement or Rivalry? This is the reason for my heavy reliance on the appraisals andopinions presented in the literature. For the literature published before 2002, see Alexei D.
Voskressenski, Russia, China and Eurasia: A Bibliographic Profile of Selected International
Literature (New York: Nova Science, 1998); Voskressenski, Russia and China.

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

economic cooperation. Russia and China signed the Treaty on Good
Neighborly Friendship and Cooperation on July 16, 2001. The treaty was
not a traditional alliance because its signatories insisted that the agreement
was not directed against any third country and thus did constitute a
structural challenge to the traditional security alliances of the US-Japan or
the US-ROK security agreements. However, contrary to the heads ofstates of China and Russia, many independent analysts have argued that
Russia and China’s relationship is indeed intended to counterbalance US
dominance in the world. However, different from past alliances (including
the former Russo-/USSR-Chinese alliance), the military component of the
Russo-Chinese alliance is weak, notwithstanding their first joint military
exercise in 2005. American analysts have pointed out that neither side canreasonably expect the degree of commitment from the other needed tobalance US power, especially under conditions of open hostility. Other
analysts believe that the treaty is marked by intermittent efforts on bothsides to reach out to the United States, even as each work to resolve
mutual differences with the other.
However, these explanations seem to be a clear misperception of the
new and emerging type of alliance in the new multipolar world. This new
type of alliance is established not “against,” but rather “for,” a common
cause (stable economic development, a just and equal world withcollective pluralistic leadership based on a multipolar world system andwithout differentiation between leaders and followers), and not necessarily
strictly for rebuffing common military threats as it was before, althoughrebuffing military threats could also be a goal of such an alliance undercertain circumstances.32 The creation of this new type of alliance, called“strategic partnership,” seems to be one of the new characteristics of the
post-bipolar world.33
For many analysts, the alliance of such powers as Russia and China
was and is surprising because of the intrinsic structural problems in theirrelationships that some analysts believe exist. They argue that Russia’s
China problem stems from the fact that today, China already surpasses
32

Sergei Lavrov, “Pod”em Azii i vostochnyi vektor vneshnei politiki Rossii,” Rossiia v
global’noi politike 4, no. 2 (2006): 135–137.
33
These arguments are developed in detail in Vladimir N. Baryshnikov, ed., Kitaiskie
analitiki o sovremennom sostoianii kitaisko-rossiiskikh otnoshenii i o politicheskom iekonomicheskom polozhenii v Rossii (Moscow: Institut Dal’nego Vostoka RAN, 2002), 8–27.

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

Russia in aggregate national power. World Bank estimates show that interms of purchasing power parity, China has the world’s third-largest GDP
behind America and Japan. This is equivalent to about 35 percent of thetotal GDP of the US.34 By the mid-1990s, China’s Purchasing Power
Parity (PPP) GDP was four times the size of Russia’s. According to otherdata, Chinese GDP increased some twelve fold from 1950 to 1997.35
However, as Chinese reforms deepen, it will be harder to sustain highrates of growth, and extensive development will be limited.36 The needfor deeper economic reforms in China, the gradual yet painful transition
from the use of extensive growth factors to the greater use of intensive
factors, and, finally, the overall development of Asian financial markets
will determine the slowdown in the growth rate of China’s GDP. Even if
the Chinese growth rate were to drop to six percent in the near future andRussia were to ascend economically with a growth rate of four to six
percent a year, within ten years, the gap between the two countries’ GDPlevels would increase six to tenfold, making Russia much more reactive toChinese influences. This reflects the larger size of China as a country interms of population and thus economy, an Eastern power that has neverexisted in Russian history before in terms of economic, political, and evencultural influence on Russia. However, the clear attempts of the Russianpresident to consolidate the means of state power in Russia may reverse
the process of decreasing state power that Russia saw in the late nineties.
This is because the ability of the Russian state and the Russian people torestructure the Russian economy was always underestimated by othercountries and may considerably slow down this inevitable trend. Anotheranswer to the above-mentioned trend is the concept of Russia-China
codevelopment that is intended to use the shortcomings of each state inorder to maximize their joint economic effectiveness and thus joint global
competitiveness.37
34

I think that, basically, the correlation between the US’s and the PRC’s GDP is close to
the correlation of the GDP between the US and the USSR that enabled the USSR to create
a formidable military force to compete with the US militarily.
35
For figures, see Dmitrii Trenin, Kitaiskaia problema Rossii (Moscow: Carnegie
Moscow Center, 1998); Аnatolii I. Utkin, Amerikanskaia strategiia dlia 21 veka (Moscow:
Logos, 2000); Donaldson and Donaldson “The Arms Trade in Russian-Chinese Relations.”
36
Boris Kuzyk and Mikhail Titarenko, Kitai-Rossiia 2050: strategiia sorazvitiia(Moscow: Institut ekonomicheskikh strategii RAN, 2006).
37
Kuzyk and Titarenko, Kitai-Rossiia 2050. However, the concept of codevelopment does

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

If reforms in China fail, there will be even more problems for Russia
and China’s neighboring countries.38 Not only will the Far Eastern andSiberian regions be deprived of their principal source of food andconsumer goods, the Russian authorities will find it practically impossible
to contain the migration of huge masses of unemployed people fromacross the border.39 The population of China is 1.3 billion and growing,
while Russia’s population stands at 146 million and is declining.40
A major limitation to China’s economic growth is its insufficient
resource base. Many sources of extensive development have been or areon the verge of being exhausted. In the 1990s, it became obvious that
China depends on imports of not only advanced technologies but also
food and energy. Russia’s abundance of natural resources, especiallyenergy, is one of the few areas where Russia seems to be securely superior
to China. The terms of China’s access to these resources will be one of the
key problems in future Russo-Chinese relations and a key factor for
China’s new global economic role. The Russo-Chinese strategic
partnership is, indeed, a tool to ensure China’s access to these resources
and is thus vital for China’s status as a new rising Asian power.
Addressing China’s social problems is no less daunting thanaddressing its economic problems. Russian sinologists conclude that thesituation in which everybody stood to gain from the reforms in China is
nearing its end. 41 The forthcoming inevitable reform of state-run
enterprises will create large social groups that will clearly be on the losing
end. The number of unemployed in the country already amounts to 150
not necessarily mean the equal prosperity of both participants, Russia and China.
38
Shambaugh, Is China Unstable?; Wolf, “Fault Lines in China’s Economic Terrain.”
39
Vyzovy i ugrozy natsional’noi bezopasnosti Rossii v Aziatsko-Tikhookeanskom regione.
(Moscow: Institut Dal’nego Vostoka RAN, 2001); Herman Pirchner Jr., The RussianChinese Border: Today’s Reality (Washington, DC: American Foreign Policy Council,
2002), 1–15. For a summary of Chinese migration in Russia from a historical perspective,
see Aleksandr Larin, Kitaitsy v Rossii Vchera i segodania: istoricheskii ocherk (Moscow:
Muravei, 2003).
40
IWASHITA Akihiro, ed., The Sino-Russian “Strategic Partnership”: Current Views fromthe Border and Beijing (Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2003);
ARAI Nobuo, ed., The Russian Far East Today: Regional Transformations under
Globalization (Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, Hokkaido University, 2003); Anatolii
Boliatko, Da’lnii Vostok: v poiskakh strategicheskoi stabil’nosti; problemy natsinal’noi
bezopasnosti Rossii na Dal’nem Vostoke i strategicheskoisrabil’nosti v AziatskoTikhookeanskom regione (Moscow: Institut Dal’nego Vostoka RAN, 2003).
41
See, for example, Voskressenski, ed., Kitai v mirovoi politike.

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

million, slightly more than the entire population of Russia; the pension
system covers only a small sector of the population, while housing
problems remain acute. In the past, China managed to funnel socialpressure into creating millions of small factories and shops and holdingback the growth of personal income in order to make huge economic leaps.
Future economic reform and intensive development will prove morecostly to China as groups within its population who are negatively
affected by these reforms grow.
For China’s neighbors and partners, including Russia, the gradualfading of China’s authoritarian regime has indefinite consequences. On
the other hand, the democratization of Chinese society would be a lengthy
process requiring an entire epoch and would not be without negative
outcomes. The experiences of post-Soviet states reveal a link between theprocess of democratization and the growth of nationalism and outwardly
directed aggression.
To summarize, we must conclude that the seriousness of the problems
in Russia and in China as well as their mutual interdependence or at least
the influence they have on each other have fostered an understanding of
the necessity to formalize ties between each other in order to form analliance; the reason for this, even in view of its complexities, are theinternal factors of their shared development. Here, we will try to elaborateon the understanding of the congruity and incongruity of Russian andChinese interests and find out what the medium-term prospects for the
relationship and its influence on the Northeast Asian development are.

Spheres of Congruity in Russian and Chinese Interests
The United States occupies the most important place in Chinese foreign
policy, and Chinese analysts have proclaimed American-Chinese relations
are its most important bilateral relations in the world.42 During President
Clinton’s era, pragmatic advocates of the friendly involvement of China in
42

JIANG Xiyuan, Daguo zhanlue yu weilai Zhongguo [The Strategy of the Great Powers
and China’s Future] (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2003); LI, Daguo
Guanxi yu Weilai Zhongguo; Iurii Galenovitch, Kitai i sentiabr’skaia tragediia v Amerike(Moscow: Nauchno-obrazovatel’nyi forum po mezhdunarodnim otnosheniiam, 2002);
Benjamin L. Self and Jeffrey W. Thompson, eds., An Alliance for Engagement: Building
Cooperation in Security Relations with China (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimpson
Center, 2002); Asia-Pacific Security Outlook, 2002.

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

the US-led system of international relations have prevailed over both moreconservative advocates of containment of China and liberal upholders ofhuman rights. In the late nineties, Washington proposed a constructive
strategic partnership with Beijing, but China, of course, entertains noillusions that the US will try to curb the power of their potentially mostserious competitor.43 In developing its relations with Washington, Beijing
is seeking to carefully limit or reduce American influence, first of all in
East and Central Asia.
Such actions are based on the notion of a multipolar world, which
entails countering hegemony. This concept is the official basis of the earlystage of the Chinese-Russian strategic partnership. Beijing publicly sided
with Moscow regarding the expansion of NATO, even though its criticism
was much more muted. It seems this is not simply quid pro quo in
response to Moscow’s support of the Chinese position on Taiwan.44 If
long-term relations between Moscow and NATO become more amicable,
it will complicate China’s strategic position. Institutionalized RussiaNATO confrontation serves as a barrier against the encirclement of Chinaby the West. However, it is becoming obvious that Beijing, unlike
Moscow, is mostly concerned with the intensified activities of NATO andthe US in Central Asia.45 China’s strategic interests are concentrated inprecisely this region, which is rich in fuel and energy resources and which
serves as a potential hinterland for Xinjiang separatists. Beijing may haveno sympathy for the growth of US and Western influence in this Chinese
periphery instead of a diminished Russia. The new developments in thisdirection are intriguing: Russia ceased to argue against NATOenlargement, understanding that NATO’s most serious security problem at
the moment is the incorporation of new NATO members; China dropped
its anti-hegemonist stance, arguing now, along with Russia, that US moves,although unilateral, nevertheless serve to strengthen the stability ofCentral Asia and the world as a whole; Russia established military basesin Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Central Asia and the Middle East with theirenergy resources became the focus of the “new” international politics, a
43

For arguments, see, for example, JIANG, Daguo zhanlue yu weilai Zhongguo; LI, Daguo
Guanxi yu Weilai Zhongguo; Galenovitch, Kitai i sentiabr’skaia tragediia v Amerike, andelsewhere in the Chinese and Russian literature.
44
This is explored in detail in Voskressenski, Rossiia, Kitai i novyi miroporiadok XXI veka.
45
See Mikhail M. Narinskii and Artem V. Mal’gin, eds., Iuzhnyi flang SNG: Tsentral’naia
Aziia-Kaspii-Kavkaz; vozmozhnosti i vyzovy dlia Rossii (Moscow: Logos, 2003).

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

situation that was once a major part of the global political landscape in thenineteenth century.
It is also clear that the US intends to abandon the US-Russia-China
triangle model of relations, more often speaking of a regional triangle that
includes Japan.46 The US-Japan-China triangle is clearly dominated by
the US because of its security arrangements with Japan. But that alsomeans that Beijing infers Tokyo’s status as much lower. The Chinese
purpose is thus to weaken the Japan-US alliance in the triangle where
China is the weakest participant. However, if this happens, Tokyo will
have to either accept Beijing’s hegemony or revise its non-nuclear
principles and establish some kind of strategic partnership with Russia, allwith very serious regional consequences.47
Relations with Russia are establishing a favorable external
environment for China. Their main goal is to remove any potential
political-military confrontation with North Korea and help monopolize theenergy resources of the Russian Far East, which are out of the control of
the US and its allies and thus a very important source of resource
diversification.
During the early nineties, Chinese leadership worried about theprospect of Moscow becoming Washington’s partner. However, this did
not happened; moreover, special relations between Russia and China were
established to ensure that there was no threat from Russia in theforeseeable future. The strategic partnership with Moscow guarantees that
Russia will not participate in any potential anti-Chinese coalition, thus
always ensuring a secure buffer between NATO and China and also
46
Gilbert Rozman, “Sino-Japanese Relations: Mutual Images and the Balance between
Globalization and Regionalism,” in “The US-Japan-China Triangle: Who’s the Odd Man
Out?” Asia Program Special Report 113 (July 2003): 8–13.
47
QIU Yongfeng, “Riben 40 Nian Hewu Jihua Juedui Neimu” [40 Years of Underground
Decisive Plans for Japanese Nuclear Weapons], Qingnian Cankao, November 5, 2003, A3–
A4; “ZhongRi Guanxide Bianhua yu Fengqi” [Change in China-Japan Relations and Their
Differences], Huanqiu Shibao, October 17, 2003; “Zhang Huankan: Riben Zaici Dafu
Xiaojian dui Hua Yuanzhu” [Japan Again Greatly Reduces its Aid to China], Guoji Xianqu
Daobao (October 31–November 6, 2003); “Razvitie i stabil’nost’ v Severo-Vostochnoi
Azii,” Svobodnaia mysl’, 2003, no. 11 (total no. 1537): 40–52; Svobodnaia mysl’, 2003, no.
12 (total no. 1538): 29–41; “Razvitie i stabil’nost’ v Severo-Vostochnoi Azii” Materialy
rossiisko-iaponskoi nauchno-prokticheskoi konferentsii, MGIMO, Moscow, April 10–11,
2003; “The US-Japan-China Triangle: Who’s the Odd Man Out?” Asia Program Special
Report 113 (July 2003).

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

probably in Northeast Asia in the absence of any tangible RussianJapanese economic and security arrangements. No matter how relations
between China, Japan, and the West develop in the future, China will
never be isolated because of its special relationship with Russia.
The most positive material result of the Russo-Chinese partnershipfor Russia is the border agreements between Russia, China, and theCentral Asian states.48 For the first time in the history of Russo-Chinese
relations, the entire length of the border is not only accurately defined but
also demarcated. Confidence-building measures and limitation ofarmaments in the 100-kilometer zone on both sides of the border reinforce
political and military stability and make a very considerable contribution
to security in East and Central Asia. Once bound-to-death adversaries overthe border issue, Russia and China have finalized an honorable bordercompromise that removed the last obstacle to fostering of their strategicties.
In contrast to American and even EC attitudes toward Russia, China
has emphasized the equal nature of its relationship with Russia.49 It wasinterpreted in the Chinese mainstream literature on international relations
as confidence of the Chinese people that Russia is suffering temporarydifficulties and that in the future, Russia will become one of the poles in
the new international structure. But this only partially explains the
Chinese attitude. Serious economic and political problems in Russia
would be a source of serious danger to China. This is why, from the midnineties, China has bolstered relations with Russia’s federal government,
not regions or political forces on the left of the Russian political spectrum.
It is clear that China, as well as Russia, is interested in Russian politicaland economic stability in China. It is not clear, in contrast to wonderfulwording, to what extent China (as well as the US) wants Russia to becomea stronger global and regional player; hence, the economic relationshipbetween them started to develop with considerable speed only in the latenineties.50

48

Genrikh V. Kireev, Rossiia–Kitai: neizvestnye stranitsy pogranichnykh peregovorov(Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2006).
49
Voskressenski, Rossiia, Kitai i novyi miroporiadok XXI veka.
50
See, Vyzovy i ugrozy natsional’noi bezopasnosti Rossii v Aziatsko-Tikhookeanskom
regione.

- 32 -

THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONSApart from its geopolitical and geostrategic significance, Russia is
important to China as a source of energy and raw material. 51 China
believes that Russia can play a stabilizing role regarding the Central Asian
countries, including in the economic and political spheres, as well as
countering pan-Turkish tendencies and Islamic political movements trying
to gain control over Xinjiang.
In addition to the interest in Russia energy resources, China isinterested in Russia as a partner in military-technical cooperation. In viewof their relative high quality and low cost, Russian arms may be essential
to the modernization of China’s military. At the same time, China is now
more interested in purchasing licenses for production on its own territory
in order to lower its dependence on Russian arms in the near future.
Another sphere of cooperation, very tempting for China, is the joint
development of advanced weapons systems.52 This is needed for China toachieve a qualitative shift in the military balance in Asia, especially in the
Taiwan Strait, in its favor. However, it must be clear that militarymodernization is not the first priority for China because the twenty-first
century will probably not see large-scale wars. To be a modern state inaggregate power for China means to have a strong economic system and astable political system as its number one goal. This is why the importance(and a danger for other neighboring countries) of Russo-Chinese military
cooperation should not be overestimated.53
China’s strategic partnership with Russia ensures a reliable rear for
China in the north and a certain measure of stability in the northwest.
Russia is not seen in China as either a potential aggressor or as the most
likely theater of a future war. Thus, Beijing has the opportunity toconcentrate on its southern and southeastern flanks.54
51

WU, Zhongguo shiyou anquan; GU Qing, “Bie Wei Shiyou Shangla Youyi” [Do Not Let
Oil Harm Friendship], Huanqiu Shibao, October 20, 2003.
52
For detailed information on Russian-Chinese military-technical cooperation, see
Konstantin Makienko, Voenno-tekhnicheskoe sotrudnichestvo Rossii i KNR v 1992–2002
godakh: dostizheniia, tendentsii, perspektivy (Moscow: Gendal’f, 2002); Dziak, The
Military Relationship between China and Russia, 1995–2002; Ian Anthony ed., Russia andthe Arms Trade (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
53
There is a very intense discussion between military experts and analysts on these issues
reflected in CHEN Yun. “Rossiisko-kitaiskoe strategicheskoe sotrudnichestvo v
globaliziruiushchemsia politzentrichnom mire,” Vestnik VEGU, Special Issue, World ofOrient (Ufa, 2006), 102–113.
54
For detailed argumentation and alternative reservations, see Voskressenski, Kitai v- 33 -

ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

However, somewhere between 2010 and 2015, parity in the numberof nuclear warheads may emerge between the PRC and the RussianFederation, while China’s nuclear capability will have a stronger impact
on the military balance with Russia. However, in terms of nuclear andmilitary technology, Russia is still, and will be in the indefinite future, aformidable power, one of two countries in the world that can initiate a
military disaster for any state on the earth. Also, as most Asians seem toforget, together with the US, Russia has a powerful military presence inAsia of which others still constitute the second tier.55 However, as it isclear from Russia’s new foreign policy strategy, Russia is interested inlooking not only westward when orientating itself, but also increasingly
eastward, and is not seeking to increase its military or traditional security
role in Asia, as it did during the Soviet era, but to act as an indispensable
and reliable economic partner and a stable energy provider to Eastern Asia
and Asia-Pacific.56
In the twenty-first century, due to the obvious trends in its economic
development, China will influence Russia’s foreign, defense, anddomestic policy, its economy, and the development of its demographic
processes more than any other state. 57 This fact is underestimated in
Russia, and also in Asia. This is why Russia is very interested in aprosperous and stable China that can increasingly satisfy the needs of its
population and that will open its market to Russian goods and services.
This strategic Russian attitude to China only strengthens the rationale for
future Russo-Chinese strategic cooperation.
Russia and China established a strategic partnership in order tobalance a number of common threats. Russia and China are clearly
worried about the long-term prospect of any unilateralist actions thatmight threaten Russian and Chinese national interests. Both Russia andChina are concerned about their military shortcomings vis-à-vis the US
although to different degrees. Both sides opposed modification of the
mirovoi politike.
55
Pavel B. Kamennov, KNR: voenno-tekhnicheskie aspekty modernizatsii oborony(Moscow: Institut Dal’nego Vostoka RAN, 2001).
56
Kuzik and Titarenko, Kitai-Rossiia 2050 ; Anatolii V. Torkunov, ed., Vneshniaia politika
i bezopasnost’ sovremennoii Rossii 1991–2002: khrestomatiia v chetyrekh tomakh,(Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002); Anatolii V. Torkunov, Sovremennye mezhdunarodnye
otnosheniia i mirovaia politika (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 2004).
57
Trenin, Kitaiskaia problema Rossii.

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

1972 ABM Treaty, fearing that deployment of missile defenses by theUnited States might diminish their own strategic forces. Another source of
threat that could endanger Russo-Chinese interests is the Islamic extremist
and separatist movements in Central Asia. Each state also has its own
individual security concerns, not necessarily shared by the other. For
Russia, this was an enlargement of NATO; for China this was the US
presence in Central Asia. Washington’s defense arrangements with Taiwan
are a constant reminder to China of the limits in fostering its reunification
with Taiwan. Beijing more strongly than Russia opposes theater missile
defense systems of the type that could be used to protect Taiwan.
Officially, Russia declared its opposition to Taiwan’s independence, but
certainly does not welcome the use of force to impose unification. Chinafeels constrained by the strengthening of the US-Japan and the US-ROK
security alliances although Russia sees them indifferently or even favors
them as a source, among others, of strengthening regional security. The
Russo-Chinese partnership does not hinder either state in addressing theseconcerns individually. However, the main rationale of the partnership is
not balancing common threats but fostering newly evolving bilateral andregional economic cooperation that can redirect regional developmentsfrom traditional security considerations to a new regional economic
cooperation agenda in order to strengthen economic interdependence and,thus, comprehensive security that consists of common security andcommon prosperity.

Spheres of Incongruity in Russian and Chinese Interests
A number of independent analysts suggest that Russia’s political elite aswell as a considerable part of the population, especially in the Russian Far
East, perceives China as a proximate threat58 even though the Russian andChinese leadership have fostered a viable strategic partnership. Three key
variables—aggregate power, offensive power, and especially geographic
proximity—each suggest that Russia could perceive China as a potential
challenge, danger or even threat. Many Russian political and military
figures worry about selling China advanced conventional weapons and58

For arguments, see Viktor Larin, Kitai i Dal’nii Vostok Rossii v pervoi polovine 90-kh:
problemy regionalnogo vzaimodeistvii (Vladivostok: Dal’nauka, 1998); Trenin, Kitaiskaia
problema Rossii; Vilia G. Gel’bras, Kitaiskaia real’nost’ Rossii (Moscow: Muravei, 2001).

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

technologies at a time when modernization of Russia’s naval and nuclear
forces in the East is very slow.59 The source of concern is that the benefitsof this relationship are all too one sided. 60 China appears to bemodernizing its navy and air force at a rapid pace, while in return, Russia
is receiving a modest amount of hard currency at a level far lower thanneeded to modernize its defense industry.61 However, at the same time,
most of these political and military figures present no sound alternative toa cooperative relationship with China in this sphere except military
cooperation with India, who signed new agreements with the US andEurope and now have an alternative to Russian weaponry. Thus, according
to analysts, the most important near-term consequence of the SinoRussian partnership is the Russian contribution to Chinese militarymodernization that may be dangerous to Russia itself in the medium andlong term.
For the foreseeable future, China will have an enduring need for
Russian military technology, while Russia’s own economic reasons andthe ideological motivations of some parts of the Russian foreign policy
and military community create incentives for such sales. 62 The broad
Russo-Chinese defense and technology cooperation that is linked to arms
sales could in the long run alter the regional military balance of power in
East and Southeast Asia or the Taiwan Strait. However, most Russian
analysts prefer to think from short- and medium-term perspectives,
correctly arguing that the most acute short- and medium-term danger for
Russia is its economic shortcomings vis-à-vis other world powers.63 It isalso clear that since Japan is reluctant to ameliorate its tense relations with
Russia, and since China happened to be the only regional power in
Eastern Asia to highly welcome the reemergence of Russian economic
might and influence in the region, Russia needs to pay a price for this kind59
For detailed information on the Russian discussion, see Viktor Larin, Kitai i Dal’nii
Vostok Rossii, 68–71. See also essays in Eksport Vooruzhenii, http://cast.ru.
60
Vasilii Mikheev, ed., Kitai: ugrozy, riski vyzovy razvitiiu (Moscow: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 2005); Andrei S. Kuminov, Kitai: Nadvigaetsia
Voina? (St. Petersburg: 100azh, 2005); Iurii Galenovitch, Rossiia-Kitai-Amerika: ot
sopernichestva k garmonii interesov? (Moscow: Russkaia Panorama, 2006).
61
Chinese counterarguments can be found in CHEN, “Rossiisko-kitaiskoe strategicheskoe
sotrudnichestvo,” 102–113.
62
CHEN, “Rossiisko-kitaiskoe strategicheskoe sotrudnichestvo,” 102–113.
63
Kuzik and Titarenko, Kitai-Rossiia 2050; Rossiia i Kitai: sotrudnichestvo v usloviiakh
globalizatsii (Moscow: Institut Dal’nego Vostoka RAN, 2005).

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

of support, something that it can do in the present situation mostly by
military sales, military technology transfers, military cooperation projects,
and future energy exports.
Another incompatibility of Russian and Chinese interests covers theirstrategic vision, especially regarding the Asia-Pacific region. Russia,
having already experienced a serious decline in its economic, political,
and military strength, is essentially a status-quo power in the region,
clinging to territories and positions that it won during the Soviet period.
Moscow seeks to reduce regional tensions while concentrating on
rebuilding its economic strength. It seeks to minimize or eliminate threatsand maintain its dominant presence within its security zone, which
encompasses the territory of the Russian Federation as well as the entire
Commonwealth of Independent States. Both regionally and globally,
Russia opposes hegemonism and seeks a multipolar balance, with a dualrole for itself as a great power (or great regional power) and as acrossroads between Europe and Asia. Although its military strength has
declined, Russia seeks to maintain its strategic deterrence over all otherstates in Asia. It seeks to integrate its economy with those of the AsiaPacific region, although its major economic orientation is toward the West.
China, on the other hand, is essentially a revisionist power, seeking togather the economic and military capabilities to compete with the UnitedStates and Japan on the regional and, in the near future, on the global
stage. 64 In order to do so, it needs continued access to the energy
64

Arguments summarized in Robert H. Donaldson and John A. Donaldson, “The Arms
Trade in Russian-Chinese Relations.” I agree that both the PRC and the US are revisionist
powers, and because of this, I mention this argument in the section elaborating theincongruity of Russian and Chinese interests. From a theoretical point of view, the analysis
presented by Robert H. Donaldson and John A. Donaldson is very robust and persuading.
However, I do not share their perception of the impossibility of a coalition between Russia
as a status-quo power and the PRC as a revisionist power because one revisionist power,
the PRC, is clearly competing with an ideologically hostile revisionist power—the US, andalso with another revisionist regional power—Japan, and Russian neutrality, at least, could
be critical in maintaining the balance. The current development of Russo-Chinese relations
does not support the skepticism of Robert H. Donaldson and John A. Donaldson. This was
also analyzed as a theoretical possibility in Voskressenski, Russia and China. For further
detailed argumentation and the implications for the US, see also Walter B. Slocombe,“Staying the Course: Opportunities and Limitations in U.S.-China Relations” (policy paper,
The Atlantic Council of the United States, Washington, DC, September 2002); Gang Lin,ed. U.S.-China Relations since the End of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2000).

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

resources of Russia and Central Asia, as well as to Russia’s advanced
military technologies. Having reached a border compromise with Russia
and having demarcated the whole Chinese-Russian border, China isdetermined to gain its territorial objectives in Taiwan and the South China
Sea, while retaining its position in Tibet and increasing its influence over
Mongolia and the states of Central Asia. It seeks to maintain military
superiority in the region, while trying to reduce the US presence
regionally.
In the economic arena, as was already mentioned, Russia and China
have experienced one of the most stunning reversals of economic
position.65 Once one of the most industrially advanced, Russia’s economy
because of the collapse of the USSR and the need for complete economic
restructuring, in fifteen years has declined to almost half of its former
value, indirectly raising the credibility of Chinese arguments for cautious
state-centered reforms. Once among the world’s poorest countries, China,
over the same fifteen years, twice doubled its GDP. Its GDP now ranks
third in the world (second by purchasing parity), and its rate of growth isthe fastest among all major countries. Even with its growing population of
1.3 billion, and Russia’s declining population of 146 million, China is on
course to surpass Russia on a GDP per-capita basis sometime in the future.
So the directions of their economies are diverging, and they still cannot
find a mutually beneficial and complementary economic model except forthe selling of Russian energy and other nonrenewable resources inexchange for the products of Chinese light industries. China seeks tosatisfy its demand for advanced industrial equipment in the West not in
Russia. The main trading goods between them are: Russian energy andarms, Chinese foodstuffs, and cheap consumer goods. There are several
long-term high-technology Russo-Chinese projects, but they are few, andthe level of mutual investment is very low.
The demographic perspective of the relationship over the long term is
not very bright, especially for Russia’s border regions of the Far East.
Capital investment in this area has fallen and remains stagnant. The
region’s labor resources have also declined; it lost some nine percent of its
population in the 1990s, in spite of a large influx of immigrants, both legal
65

For a detailed comparison of Russian and Chinese reforms, see Peter Nolan, China’s
Rise, Russia’s Fall: Politics, Economics and Planning in the Transition from Stalinism(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995).

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

and illegal.66 A policy of open borders was reversed by the Russianauthorities in 1993; however, with a population density ten times larger on
the Chinese side of the border than on the Russian side, it is estimated that
there may be 1–2 million Chinese living in Russia by the middle of the
century. Newspapers in Hong Kong in 2003 reported that there are at least
200,000 Chinese in the Russian border regions. These articles were later
republished by some central newspapers in China without any
comments.67 Although the figure of 1–2 million itself is not too large forthese low-population territories (there were about half a million Chinese
in the Russian Far East at the beginning of the twentieth century), it may
be crucial for Russian local and central authorities in implementing very
tough measures to take into account the considerable loss of the Russian
population in the region.
Another problem is a cultural one. Levels of trust between Chinese(Asians) and Russians in the regions hover near the bottom. These figures
do not show the hatred Russians have toward the Chinese or Japanese orvice versa. The figures show the low level of cross-cultural understanding
and the fragility of benign attitudes that may change very quickly to
distrust or even hatred. Russians still do not show much interest in China,
its language, or its culture, and prefer that the Chinese learn their language
because it is believed to be simpler linguistically. 68 The Russian
government has not done much to change this situation, notwithstanding
the proclaimed 2006, the Year of Russia in China, and 2007, the Year of
China in Russia. Many Russians are afraid of the prospect of a significant
Chinese population appearing in Russia. The situation has improved overthe last two years, but it is not structurally better, mostly because of thetime needed for such measures to take any considerable effect. Similarly,
the situation is not much better in China: Chinese society has a vivid
interest in Russia, but there are still few students learning the Russian
language or Russian foreign policy, politics, and culture. A considerable
part of the Chinese academic community has started to look at Russia
through Western analytical lenses because they can read English but not
Russian and have access to Western literature instead of Russian books or
Russian sources.
66

Larin, Kitai i Dal’nii Vostok Rossii.
Cankao Xiaoxi, 24 October, 2003.
68
Gel’bras, Kitaiskaia real’nost’ Rossii, 141–195.
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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

Most Russian analysts appear to believe that China’s near-term
foreign policy ambitions are directed toward Taiwan and the South China
Sea, and that its interests in the stability of Central Asia parallel those of
Russia. Russian-made equipment may indeed enable Beijing to obtain aregional advantage in force projection capability in a future Taiwan crisisand may someday allow China to test the naval superiority of the UnitedStates in the East China Sea. China’s growing capability and a doctrinethat is oriented toward local and limited wars on or near its borders andthat emphasizes mobility, lethality, and preemption may stimulate a newarms race in the region. Nevertheless, Russian military strategists appear
to perceive no real danger to Russia in such circumstances. Analysts who
argue that the sale of Russian arms risks upsetting the delicate militarybalance in Asia and even meddling in China’s territorial disputes with
Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, and ultimately the US are in a clear minority, andtheir views do not represent the mainstream views of the Russian
academic community.

Policy Implications and Conclusions
It is more or less clear, at the beginning to the twenty-first century, that
China has created the conditions necessary to challenge the existingregional and to some extent the global structure of the international
system in the future. This challenge is of a special sort because it is notdirectly related to the military capability of the PRC, comparable by any
parameter to that of the former USSR. The PRC probably does not evenaspire to have such capability. At the same time, in the very near future,
the combined economic capabilities and the strategic interests of the PRC
may be much more significant than those of the USSR, and its militarycapabilities will no doubtly be increased to reinforce this new economic
status. But the capabilities of China are dictated by the cumulative size of
its economic, geographical, and demographic resources, but not by its percapita GNP, a parameter that is still relatively low. Thus, “Soviet-type”
leadership, which can be carried out in China, will hardly be recognizedby the global community. But China in every possible way tries to evade
this type of leadership role, and this benign intention must not be rejectedby the international community. At the same time, an expanding China,
because of its size (geographic, demographic, and economic) and related- 40 -

THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

problems that are of regional and even global significance, represents
itself as a kind of global challenge. But the problem of China’s global
challenge is not identical to the possibility of China conducting regionaland global leadership or of China becoming a contender to the US
position; thus, if properly identified by the international community andby the Chinese leadership itself, it will not necessarily result in thecontainment of China. A rising China can also be balanced by thestrengthening of the Russo-Japanese, Russo-Korean, and Russo-American
economic partnerships, multilateral regional economic agreements, aswell as by a new level of economic cooperation between Russia and
ASEAN countries and also between Russia and the Western world
generally.
The current unprecedented changes in the world are possibly related
to the crisis of global regulation connected to the transition of the world toa different global entity that is seen differently by different importantinternational and regional actors. This crisis is only partly related to thegeopolitical crisis in that smaller part of the world consisting of the postSoviet territories, and to the problem of the unilateralist, or as some call it,“incompetent and selfish” leadership of the US. However, the crisis ofworld regulation and incompetent leadership, which was exposed to
doubts and discussions with no consensus in the international community,
may result in a situation where an important anti-leader with the support
or the benign negligence of other major regional leaders will proceed tothe category of regional counter-leader, and having become theunconditional regional counter-leader, may move further to become apossible counter-dominant, or may simply be perceived as such. At
present, only China has come close to this position, and has officially or
unofficially pretended or even showed intentions to play this kind of game.
Most, including people from the Chinese analytical community,
understand that having an enormous amount of internal problems, China
should try to solve these internal problems first. However, it is also
understood that the transition to the new status can automatically help
resolve some of these internal problems. It is certain that the Chinese
leadership understands this.
After the 9/11 attacks on the US, there were major changes in theorientation of American foreign policy. President George W. Bushdeclared a “war on terrorism.” Russian president Vladimir Putin wasamong the first foreign leaders to sign up to the coalition against terrorism.

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ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

China also declared some enlistment in the cause.69
In Russia’s case, Putin offered to share intelligence on Afghanistan
and al Qaeda, and he raised no objection to overflights by American
forces or their use of bases in former Soviet states of Central Asia in the
military campaign against the Taliban. China also unequivocallycondemned terrorist activities.
However, some Russian foreign policy analysts warned that if Russia
abandoned the balancing strategy that had characterized its foreign policy
in recent years, Russia risked abandoning its allies.70 China refrained
from attempts to block US military responses to the terrorist attacks inCentral Asia although it obviously felt very intimidated by the American
military presence in its underbelly. Russia and China have also heightened
the issue of antiterrorism, as well as, most recently, economic activity in
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.71
However, during recent years, the relationship of the US with both
Russia and China has deteriorated. Although the rate of economic
interdependence between the US and the PRC is very high, their political
relations have not improved. The strategic partnership between Russia andthe US has eroded and, at present, neither country has an agenda fornegotiation, especially on issues of strategic importance that are broadly
understood. Some Russian experts have successfully argued that the only
goal of the US is to further weaken Russia in order to revert current
international trends that are not to favorable to the US.72 In the case offurther negative international developments, a weak Russo-Chinese
alliance can be easily transformed into a stronger one. If the US and the
EU dash Russia’s expectations of being part of the Western coalition anddeny the anticipated benefits of bandwagoning, Russia still could return toa balancing of threat strategy. So, if Washington chooses to turn aside
Russia’s and China’s interests to negotiate less threatening arrangements
for itself in a unilinear world security system, the threat that Russia and69

Robert M. Hathaway and Wilson Lee, eds., George W. Bush and East Asia: A First Term
Assessment (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2003);
Asia-Pacific Responses to U.S. Security Policies.
70
Some of these arguments are developed in Voskressenski, Rossiia, Kitai i novyi
miroporiadok XXI veka.
71
For more details, see Voskressenski, Severo-Vostochnaia i Tsentral’naia Aziia.
72
Valentin Falin and Gennadii Evstaf’ev, “O veroiatnom stsenarii deistvii SSHA v
otnoshenii Rossii v 2006–2008 godakh,” Moscow News, no. 36, September 22–28, 2006.

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THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

China perceive in the posture of the United States may become ominous
enough to strengthen the Russo-Chinese alliance. The mutual
determination of Russia and China to counter this American threat may
replace arms sales and the need for internal modernization as thefoundations of their relationship. However, to what extent this affects
development in Eastern Asia is still unclear. China sees the reinforcementof the US-Japan and the US-ROK security arrangements as a threat to its
national interests, mostly on the Taiwan issue but also regionally. Russia
at present does not see the reinforcement of the US-Japan and the USROK security arrangements as a threat to its interests, but the situation
may change if Russia feels marginalized both in Europe and in the new
East Asian economic and political arrangements. The inability of Russia
and Japan to enter a post-Cold War economic partnership and thestalemate of multilateral economic development in Northeast Asia where
Russia and Japan could enter mutually beneficial arrangements indirectly
curbs unhealthy trends as the subregional dialogue sticks to hard security
measures and mutual differences.
Another possibility exists. The rise of China economically and also as
a state that plays a crucial role in international and regional security could
give further rationale for the American political elite to consider the USJapan and the US-ROK security arrangements as purely regional ones,
which are inferior to the possible stronger global security arrangementswith China. The same logic was applied to Europe during the Cold War
between the US and the USSR. China’s possible future predominance inthe region could relegate Japan to secondary status as a political as well asa military power. This possibility could bring the national interests ofRussia and Japan closer and also sharpen Sino-Japanese competition overthe Russian Far East, which could lead to new multilateral and bilateral
security and economic arrangements in Northeast Asia. The uncertainty
regarding the multitude of choices imposes strain on Japan’s traditional
foreign policy strategy, once sarcastically described by Irie Akira asalways leaning towards the stronger side.
From the point of view of a major part of the Russian political elite
and interest groups, the Russo-Chinese strategic partnership and a treaty
signed in 2001 between Russia and China is a warranty of the benign
relationship of Russia with its most important land-border neighbor. The
political elite of at least two other major regional players, Russia andFrance, and maybe also even of Germany, obviously look rather- 43 -

ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

benevolently on China as a prospective East Asian regional leader, thus
heightening the prospects of an ASEM with Russian participation.
However, the final decision was to postpone (or even to reject) Russian
membership in the ASEM as well as Russia’s membership into the WTO.
For some time now, China has been trying to raise the level of its
relationship with the EU as it did with Russia, thus showing that it may bepossible to geopolitically counterbalance the US-Japan financial/economic/military knot and the US-ROK economic/security arrangementswith an EU-China and a Greater China-ASEAN financial/economic knot
and a China-Russia security/military/energy knot as a basis for its new
regional status. But the success of China on a more global level will bedependent at least on the desire or the negligence of the EU, the US, Japan,
and Russia as well as China’s own aspirations. The complexity of the newsituation in this equation indirectly raises the rationale for improvement of
Russia-Japan relations as well as Russian-European and RussianAmerican relations as a guarantee against the malign regional balance of apower game that would be detrimental to the region. This complexity also
points to the fact that the divergence of American and Russian strategicinterests in Asia has reached a level where it could endanger regional
development. Improvement of Russo-Japanese relations may help Japanto overcome its recession, and may help Russia find a means towards thesustainable development of the Far East and a way to enter East Asianmarkets, and may help China to rise peacefully without fear of being
encircled, but instead is balanced by a benign multilateral as well as
Russian-Japanese bilateral economic cooperation and not by traditional“hard” security considerations that have become detrimental to theeconomic development of the Northeastern region.
Putin, Jiang Zemin and, later, Hu Jingtao mentioned several times
that their countries’ strategic cooperation is not aimed at any third country.
China and Russia are not working and are not planning to work in concert
against any third country. This strategic cooperation vis-à-vis the outside
world is aimed at present only at deterring any outside policy that might
possibly hurt the national interests of the two countries. The Sino-Russianstrategic cooperation agreement is based on the common interests of thetwo nations. Any unilateral action by Russia or China that injures the twocountries’ strategic cooperation may damage the national interests of thecountry initiating such action. Sino-Russian strategic cooperation cannot
cover all fields of their foreign policy and cannot be the most important- 44 -

THE RISE OF CHINA AND RUSSO-CHINESE RELATIONS

tool to realize their foreign policy goals because the focus of the twocountries’ strategic interests is not completely congruent due to theirdifferent geographical locations and national situations. This means that
China and Russia cannot depend only on their bilateral strategiccooperation to realize their respective strategic goals. However, theirbilateral cooperation may quickly become an important leverage to realize
their strategic goals.
The Russian government has stopped talking about the creation of amultipolar world and opposition to unilateralism, the former theoreticalbase of Sino-Russian strategic cooperation. However, Russia has not
accepted the principle of a unipolar world, and nor did China, although
China has recently also dropped its open anti-hegemonist rhetoric.
Sino-Russia cooperation shifted to purely bilateral cooperation as it
was in the eighties and early nineties. In 2006, China became the numberone economic partner of Russia. After the September 11 attacks, the focus
of Sino-Russian strategic cooperation has shifted from global- andregional-level cooperation to bilateral cooperation. Russia has pressed onwith planning its Eastern gas pipeline project. Russia wants to develop the
economy of its Far Eastern regions. The pipeline project will help energydeficient countries in the region such as China, Japan, the ROK, etc.,
maintain sustainable economic development and energy security.73 The
Russian government has decided to support the Taishet-Perevoznaia
pipeline route with a subdivision line to Daqing as the only route that can
open these regions to multilateral capital-intensive arrangements with thediversified buyers of Russian oil (e.g., China, Japan, the US, India, andSoutheast Asia). Russia and China will also have many other energy
cooperation projects in Russia as well as in Central Asia in the future. This
cooperation is a part of the two countries’ national development strategy.
At the same time, the mechanisms and the huge potential for strategic
multilateral cooperation on global issues and regional security in East Asia
exist and will certainly help to create further multilateral and bilateralpossibilities other than the Russo-Chinese cooperation arrangement,
depending on the destination and pace of future international and regional
development. Thus, the Sino-Russian strategic cooperation, based oncommon needs and interests, was primarily developed as a defense against
power politics and unilateralism. This cooperation may also fully develop
73

Voskressenski, “Bol’shaia Vostochnaia Aziia.”- 45 -

ALEXEI D. VOSKRESSENSKI

into a form of cooperation that could strengthen each side’s international
strategic and economic competitiveness. The full effectiveness of thisstrategic cooperation in the future will depend not only on common needs
and interests, but also on the cooperative diplomatic capacity of the states
as well as on the reactions and propositions of other important regional
players.
* The views expressed in the chapter belong solely to the author and do not represent theofficial position of any organizations to which the author is permanently or was
temporarily affiliated.

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