Authors: Wang Li & Nodir Boboev
Since 1992 when the former Soviet Union was dissolved, China and Russia have moved to each other more closely than ever before. Although they never forge formal alliance in the classical terms, the two countries have actually established strategic partnership covering all of the essential features as allies. If we take the term of alliance defined by Stephen Walt, it is clear that Beijing and Moscow perceive the United States and its allies as “the significant external threat that is increasingly impairing their individual and common core interests as well.”
On April 4-5, Chinese FM Wang Yi’s visited Moscow as the special envoy of Chinese President Xi. During the meeting with his Russian counterpart, two FMs once again highlighted that as neighboring countries and natural partners, the two countries have established the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination as a result of careful consideration and not expedient measures. True, China and Russia have agreed to strengthen coordination on the Korean Peninsula and further committed to promote world peace and stability. Consider the sensitive moment when Britain and its allies followed each other to expel Russian diplomats as “to show solidarity and as a signal of unity”, China’s demonstration of its strong partnership with Russia is more than a symbolic. In public rhetoric, China proposed that Britain and Russia should be able to resolve their bilateral disputes by themselves rather than by external pressure. This indicates China’s support to Russia in safeguarding its national conditions and its justified rights by any legitimate means.
Literally speaking, the term of “coordination” is a flexible mechanism of syntax, known as conjuncts or conjoins that links together two or more elements. In history, there are some similar relationship between the great powers like entente that means a type of treaty or military alliance where the signatories promise to consult each other or to cooperate with each other in case of a crisis or military action. In light of this, China and Russia have enhanced their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination that has kept operating at a high level. As Chinese FM admitted, since it is now at its historical best, the strategic mutual trust between Beijing and Moscow have been continuously strengthened and fruitful outcomes achieved in various fields. Now at a crucial stage of their national development respectively, the leaders of China and Russia, Xi and Putin, have shared their personal friendship on many occasions and vowed to maintain steady coordination in playing a greater role in international affairs. For example, in view of the trade friction between China and the United States, Beijing has fought back resolutely in the name of safeguarding multilateralism and free trade. Consider that there remains only a desire of the United States to ensure by all means its global hegemony, Russia stated that it will surely not leave this current and any new anti-Russian attack without a harsh answer.
Looking into the immense resources and capacities of the two countries, it is unwise for any ruling power(s) to ignore that China and Russia have their legitimate rights in the world politics. As permanent members of the UN Security Council, the growing complex and unpredictable international reality requires China and Russia to work together to strengthen their cooperation and coordination. Meanwhile, the two powers have reiterated that the United Nations should play more commanding role in foreign affair. To that end, a multipolar world order rather than unilateralism is legitimately accepted and unwaveringly maintained.
There is no doubt that both China and Russia have their own disadvantages in terms of the great power’s status. China is still a developing country in terms of the domestic issues and high-tech innovation. Russia is regarded as an emerging power since it has relied on too much natural resources export and has been evidently behind in overall productivities. Yet, both China and Russia have huge potentials which are compatible with each other in strategic weaponry system and vast manufacture. In a geopolitical sense, the two sides are neighboring countries that bestows them a huge strategic depth to coordinate and support each other, including the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. As the key members of the emerging powers bloc—BRICS, China and Russia have actually acted“ to preserve the current rules rather than violating them. For example, they both oppose the U.S. practicing trade protectionism, which is shaking the global trading system based on rules, violating the WTO rules and hitting the just-revived world economy.” Chinese FM Wang Yi even appealed to the international community to oppose the U.S.’s attempt to use ‘America first’ as an excuse to run unilateralism.
Another pressing issue affecting China’s and Russia’s core interest is the current Korean Peninsula situation with the denuclearization of the Peninsula as a key priority. China and Russia are both close neighbors of the Peninsula and are members of the Six-Party Talks, so the Peninsula’s peace and tranquility are closely related to the interests of China and Russia. Evidently, Beijing and Moscow welcome and support the positive signals from the Peninsula and appreciate the efforts made by the South and the North. In terms of the scheduled summit between the two Koreas, China hopes this meeting could bring nuclear issues back to the forefront of dialogue and negotiations. Accordingly, China lists three points as the fundamental tenets of how to solve the Korean Peninsula’s nuclear issues through political means. Firstly, all sides should commit to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Secondly, a peace mechanism should be directed to reduce the North Korean legitimate security concerns. Finally, all parties involved would work to solve the issue in stages.
In sum, China and Russia no doubt need each other in the vicissitudes of the world affairs, including jointly safeguarding their common interests and maintaining regional and world peace and stability. Yet, the test of the statecraft in both Beijing and Moscow is not how to jointly and initially challenge the ruling power’s status, instead of demonstrating the deterrence through their military capabilities and diplomatic talents in order to make the adversaries act rationally.