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“Best and Worst Time” for Beijing and Moscow?

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“Best and Worst Time” for Beijing and Moscow? CHINA- RUSSIA RELATIONS “BEST AND WORST TIME” FOR BEIJING AND MOSCOW? YU BIN, WITTENBURG UNIVERSITY Between April and early September, top Chinese and Russian leaders met four times: in Beijing (BRI Summit), Astana (SCO Summit), Moscow (Xi’s official visit), and Xiamen (BRICS Summit). Each time, Xi and Putin hammered on the “best-ever” theme for Sino-Russian relations. Meanwhile, the two militaries signed a four-year guideline for military cooperation and conducted their first naval exercise in the Baltic Sea. The world according to Beijing and Moscow, however, was being turned upside-down and inside-out as threats of nuclear war were hurled between the US and North Korea. Moscow and Beijing tried hard to coordinate their Korea policies. In May, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Forum received Russia’s public if not enthusiastic support. India’s unambiguous objection, however, turned out to be the precursor to a protracted standoff between India and China over a remote road on the Doklam plateau. The crisis was defused only a few days before the BRICS Summit in Xiamen. Few, if any, of those gathered at the summit’s 10th anniversary expected to be jolted by North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test on Sept. 3. Welcome to a brave new world of strong, and sometimes strange, leaders whose decisions have serious consequences for the world. This article is extracted from Comparative Connections: A Triannual E-Journal on East Asian Bilateral Relations, Vol. 19, No. 2, September 2017. pp 115-124 CHINA-RUSSIA RELATIONS | SEPTEMBER 2017 115 All BRI roads lead to Beijing? Not so fast says billion in the next few years for the BRI. Some Russia 270 deals/agreements were signed between governments and firms. The number of Chinese On May 14-15, Beijing hosted the first deals with BRI countries totaled 109 in the first international Belt-Road Initiative (BRI) Forum eight months of 2017, compared to 175 in 2016 at the Yanqi Lake (雁栖湖) conference center. Of and 134 in 2015, according to the China Daily. the 28 foreign heads of state at this “Leaders Roundtable of the Belt and Road Forum for Despite China’s huge clout, Russia was no International Cooperation,” President Vladimir passive observer at the BRI Forum. In fact, Putin was the last to show up. His Russian Air Putin’s two-day visit, which was the first for Force One landed at Beijing Airport shortly 2017, was full of symbolism and substance. The before President Xi Jinping started to greet other Russian president was the only head of state participants at the conference center. It was from a major Western nation to come to the unclear why Xi’s chief guest was “fashionably forum, though Italian and Spanish prime late.” Some Chinese netizens speculated that ministers and German and French economic Putin is always busy as president of the ministers were also present, together with 1,200 “fighting nation” (战斗民族). Others thought political and business leaders representing more than 130 countries and 70 international that “Putin the Great”—a phrase first coined by organizations. this author in 2004—was actually on time, but only after Putin’s motorcade raced 45 km in 30 minutes from the airport to the conference site. Xi unveiled the ambitious BRI in Kazakhstan in September 2013. Moscow’s initial reaction was cautious at best, despite Xi’s promised “three Nos” in its BRI drive through Central Asia: no interference with Central Asian countries’ internal affairs; no attempt to seek a dominant role in regional affairs; and no desire to create a sphere of influence in this traditionally Russian sphere. It took almost two years for China and 1Putin and Xi at BRI summit in Beijing (Reuters) Russia to start talks on the integration of BRI and Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). By mid- In his speech at the opening session, President 2016, Putin came around to publicly supporting Putin presented a more ambitious blueprint for BRI. Eurasian integration by urging all participants to establish a large economic space in three Part of the reason for Russia’s turnaround was separate geographic and geo-economic the steady expansion of BRI projects along the domains. The first consists of the Russia-led old Silk Road and beyond. In the past few years, Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), China’s BRI, 50 Chinese companies have invested in nearly the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), 1,700 BRI projects, including the $46 billion and ASEAN; the second is “a common China-Pakistan transportation corridor, a cooperation framework from the Atlantic to the railroad to Singapore, massive oil and gas Pacific – for the first time in history”; and the pipelines across Central Asia, 56 special third was the Northeast (Arctic) Passage economic zones in 20 BRI countries with a total increasingly available as a result of the rapid investment of $19 billion, to mention just a few. melting of Arctic sea ice. Russia would be at the In the medium-term (next 10 years), Chinese center of this vast network, connecting places outbound investment is forecasted to reach $1.5 and players. Meanwhile, China’s BRI would be trillion, a 70 percent increase over the previous “boxed in” by the first scenario, eclipsed in the 10 years (2007-16). second one (by the Trans-Siberian Railway including the Baikal-Amur Mainline), and being The Beijing forum was the logical step toward a one of many users of the newly available “common destiny of human beings” (人类命运共 northern transit presumably with Russia’s 同体), or Chinese-style globalization, against a consent and cooperation. In Beijing, Putin seemed determined to hold backdrop of the West’s retreat from economic Russia’s bottom-line. “We agree only to those interdependence. Xi pledged an additional $113 116 SEPTEMBER 2017 | CHINA-RUSSIA RELATIONS proposals that benefit us,” replied Putin to of, for better or worse, the “clash of journalists’ questions at the BRI Forum. In civilizations.” addition to telling his Chinese host that Russia not only supported BRI but would actively The chemistry of the SCO, however, is far from contribute to achieving it, Putin also stated that smooth. While the Astana Summit hailed the “It is important that all of the existing SCO’s “historical” enlargement, Indian and integration structures in Eurasia and any new Pakistani membership went through years of initiatives be based on universal and generally deliberation (2009-2015) and the two South recognized foundations. They must also take Asian nations would have to wait for almost two into account the specifics of the member states’ more years after the 2015 Ufa (Russia) Summit national development models and be developed finally started the ascension process. In fact, openly and transparently.” Putin, however, India was interested in formal membership in fully understood the downside of not working the SCO as early as 2005 when it received with the BRI. “It would be a shame not to make observer status. From the early days of the SCO, use of the opportunities this cooperation the regional security group has been labeled as creates. Russia is open for cooperation with all a “NATO of the East” in the West. The SCO’s countries, and today China is demonstrating its “survival-of-the-slowest” mode was in sharp openness to the entire world,” added the contrast to the steady eastward expansion of Russian president. NATO, which had, in a matter of 10 years, pushed its eastern border three times (1999, It remains to be seen how BRI will interact with 2004, and 2009) adding 12 new members to the Russia’s EAEU. Given the current trajectory, BRI fold. is set to expand, regardless of what Russia does. Managing this increasingly asymmetrical Russia was the first to propose Indian relationship is an art. Chinese political and membership. China had been reluctant to intellectual elites have so far been careful not to expand the group for at least three reasons. push the envelope in dealing with Russia over First, China believed the SCO should prioritize the BRI, which is in sharp contrast to and improve its own structure and processes, Washington’s Russia-bashing. President Putin particularly the ability to implement numerous remains popular in the Chinese public space as signed agreements and turn those declarations both a strong and capable head of state as well into real policies. The record of the SCO has been as a real man of muscularity. For Moscow, there disappointing at best. Even under the best is perhaps no alternative but to embrace BRI circumstances, the inclusion of India and given a hostile West and recent US sanctions Pakistan would have made the SCO less efficient, imposed by the Trump administration for given that decision-making is based on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US consensus building, not majority rule. election. Between China’s open-ended and promising BRI and the West’s theoretically open China’s second concern was that the tension and but in actuality closed “liberal” international hostility between India and Pakistan would be order, Moscow’s choice for BRI is both rational brought into the SCO. Beijing’s own difficult and practical. relations with New Delhi might have weakened China’s role within the SCO. The expectation A bigger SCO in Astana & growing apart? that the SCO would help resolve the India- Pakistan disputes was perhaps an illusion as The most significant development of the 17th Indian commentators insisted there was no role SCO Summit in Astana was the entry of India for third-party mediation in the India-Pakistan and Pakistan into the group. Seventeen years conflict. after its founding, the regional security group finally took its first step to expand its core Finally, many in China understood that Russia members from six to eight.
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