On September 3, 2019, at the Central Party School of the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping gave an important speech on “struggle,” where he referred to recent Chinese history: under Mao Zedong Chinese people stood up, under Deng Xiaoping and his predecessors Chinese people became rich, and under Xi Jinping Chinese people will become powerful.¹ Vladimir Putin had already said in 2011 that the “main struggle is for world leadership, and here Russia is not going to argue with China.”²

Despite the declaration of “limitless partnership” there are obvious limitations to Sino-Russian” cooperation: historical territorial claims, population disparity, espionage and technology transfer, conflicting interests in Central Asia and the Arctic, trust and distrust issues, and a seniority dilemma caused by China’s ascent and Russia’s decline, to name just a few. This essay neither focuses on analyzing the limitations of the partnership nor provides a detailed overview of actual cooperation between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia. Instead, it focuses on the rationale for cooperation as seen by Chinese scholars who are assessing Russia’s strategic use for China in its rise to global dominance. It is difficult to assess how widespread these ideas are and how much traction they have received in Beijing, but they are nevertheless important for understanding the significance of Sino-Russian cooperation and the PRC’s continuing and deepening support for Russia in the war in Ukraine.

Shared Assessment of the West’s Imminent Decline

Chinese and Russian leaders and scholars seem to share the perception that the U.S.-led Western world is in decline and in its descent attempting to restrain China’s and Russia’s rise, which creates a strategic opportunity for both countries to improve their global standing. In 2010, before ascending to power, Xi Jinping stated at the China-Russia Ruling Party Dialogue in Moscow the CCP’s reflections on the global financial crisis: “many countries and regions are seriously analyzing the deep-seated causes of the global financial crisis…and seriously reflecting and actively adjusting their own development models.”³ According to Xi, the CCP came to the conclusion that China needs to balance export dependency with domestic demand.

With various initiatives and cooperation formats from the Belt and Road Initiative to the BRICS grouping (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), China has created alternative markets for its goods that enable it to weather potential Western sanctions in case of war in the Taiwan Strait. According to the Economist’s reporting, since 2008 China has actively signed free trade agreements with non-Western countries that as of October 2023 made up close to 40% of its yearly total exports.⁴

Chinese scholars have in detail analyzed the impact of Western sanctions on Russia in the war in Ukraine.⁵ Russia’s example could help the PRC evade economic sanctions or mitigate risks in future tensions with the West over either an attack on Taiwan or military aid to Russia in Ukraine. According to Admiral Mike Studeman, former commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence, the PRC has taken preemptive measures to counter Western economic sanctions by legalizing the nationalization of foreign assets. He also points out that since 2018 the PRC has been gradually selling its U.S. Treasury bonds, which have declined from $1.2 trillion to less than $800 billion. In addition, over the past sixteen months it has been buying gold from international markets.⁶

Chinese scholars perceive the U.S.-led West to be in decline and attempting to hinder Beijing’s and Moscow’s rise through color revolutions, technology and trade wars, the formation of blocs, and the reinforcement of alliances.⁷ In 2023, Xi’s farewell statement to Putin in Moscow confirmed their shared assessment of the West’s inevitable decline: “Right now there are changes the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years. And we are the ones driving these changes together.”⁸

China’s View of Russia

Even before the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, Chinese scholars valued the partnership with Russia for its strategic benefits, ranging from avoiding two-front war to security cooperation and shared resistance against the United States’ dominance. Yet they were concerned about the perception of China as being in an alliance with Russia.

China has established various partnerships with 110 countries and regional organizations.⁹ According to Wang Xiaoquan, the deputy director at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Belt and Road Research Center, China prefers partnerships for pragmatic reasons. He believes that China forms partnerships instead of alliances to avoid rivalry with the United States, limiting options for cooperation but also the unnecessary cost that confrontation entails.¹⁰ The fact that its relationship with Russia is a partnership rather than an alliance is important for China because this makes the rivalry with United States less obvious, does not limit the choice of economic partners (e.g., in the European Union), and in the event of Russian aggression does not include costly obligations for assistance (e.g., in Ukraine).

In 2018, Wang Xiaoquan and Wang Haiyun, a retired major general and the executive director of the Sino-Russian Strategic Cooperation think tank, respectively, argued that China and Russia should form a quasi-alliance to enhance military cooperation.¹¹ With Sino-Russian joint patrols near Alaska in August 2023, military exercises and patrols involving the two countries have covered the whole Eurasian landmass and in time have grown in complexity, frequency, and size, just missing the level of interoperability demonstrated by the United States and its allies.¹² Sino-Russian cooperation in the space domain holds strategic significance and shows a high level of mutual trust, exemplified by Russia’s assistance in developing the PRC’s early-warning system. Yet it does not reach the level of an alliance, as the will for developing a joint early-warning system is currently missing. Nevertheless, building ground stations in each other’s territory and improving interoperability between BeiDou and GLONASS will develop both countries’ resilience against U.S. attempts to deny or deter satellite navigation, while at the same time increasing the risk for the United States of a conflict with both countries at the same time.¹³

According to Wang Xiaoquan, “China and Russia may form a quasi-alliance or a strategic alliance (nonmilitary alliance) relationship—that is, deepen cooperation in the fields of military security and nontraditional security, and provide strategic support for each other.” Under this arrangement, however, they would “not assume binding international military obligations, engage in camp confrontation and division of spheres of influence.” They would also not “divide the world market and undermine economic globalization” or “abandon cooperation with Western countries, including the United States.”¹⁴

China’s official position on the war in Ukraine has remained ambiguous and contradictory: supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty and at the same time respecting Russia’s security concerns.¹⁵ The PRC’s “ambiguous neutrality” creates fertile ground for wishful thinking in favor of either Ukraine or Russia. In the war in Ukraine, the PRC’s support for Russia has increased over time from assistance in spreading disinformation to selling dual-use technology and allegedly providing lethal aid.¹⁶ Chinese scholars’ articles that have reached Western audiences criticizing Russia, even if expressions of true concern, have a limited impact on decision-making in Beijing. Nevertheless, they enable the CCP to distance itself from Putin’s regime and inject doubt in the stability of the partnership between China and Russia.¹⁷

Russian military aid and arms sales have historically helped the PRC modernize its military. Chinese purchases and voluntary and involuntary technology transfers include Russian missiles, aircrafts, engines, submarines, and air-defense systems, which play a vital role in improving China’s capabilities in the Taiwan Strait. In recent years, Russian arms sales have decreased partly due to the Chinese military industries’ increased sophistication, Russia’s increased fears over espionage, and concerns over angering other important clients like India and Vietnam.¹⁸ In 2018, Wang Haiyun argued that partnering with Russia is strategically necessary to hedge against the hegemony of the United States: “Even from the basic military law of avoiding a two-front war, China cannot afford to be at war with Russia in the face of the U.S. strategic siege. It is the strategic need of China’s rise, to do everything possible to draw in Russia and use its factors.”¹⁹

China’s Strategic Use for Russia

Russia is China’s most important strategic partner. Not only do both countries advocate for multipolarity, but positive relations with Russia are crucial for China’s efforts to modernize its military, secure its borders, and avoid confrontation in both the east and west. Russia is also a source of alternative trade routes, natural resources, and food supplies.

Retired colonel, military expert, and commentator Yang Xiaolin is specifically concerned about China’s geostrategic disadvantages in the maritime sphere. The Malacca Strait dilemma and the relatively shallow waters in the Yellow and East China Seas hinder access to the oceans for commercial and naval vessels alike. In the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, a maritime blockade by the United Sates and its allies would have a negative impact on China’s trade, food, and energy security, which could seriously undermine the country’s economic security and limit its stamina for a prolonged war over Taiwan.

One way for China to evade the Malacca dilemma is to cooperate with Russia in the construction of the Polar Silk Road. Li Jingyu, a senior researcher at the Kunlun Research Institute and the chief expert of Dalian Ocean University, argues that due to the United States’ increased pressure on China’s strategic space from the sea, China and Russia should enhance maritime cooperation on the Polar Silk Road and in the security of sea corridors.²⁰ Bilateral relations have come a long way in the Arctic. Russia was reluctant to accept China as an observer on the Arctic Council until 2013. Since then, however, the two countries have increased their cooperation on maritime security through naval patrols in the Arctic and memoranda of understanding (MOUs) on maritime law enforcement and search and rescue, which could pave way for greater Chinese presence in the Arctic.

In April 2023, for example, the China Coast Guard (CCG) and Russian Federal Security Service signed an MOU at the Arctic Coast Guard Forum in Murmansk. The agreement pledges to strengthen maritime law-enforcement cooperation “in combating terrorism, arms and drug smuggling, countering illegal migration, preventing illegal fishing of marine bioresources, as well as carrying out rescue operations at sea.” After signing the MOU, the CCG participated as an observer at the maritime security exercise Arctic Patrol 2023, potentially hinting at joint exercises in the future. Sino-Russian joint naval patrols already take place regularly, but in August 2023 for the first time a flotilla of eleven vessels reached the Arctic Ocean when it sailed near Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. In April 2024 the Chinese and Russian navies signed an MOU on search and rescue operations, which could facilitate their cooperation in the harsh conditions of the Arctic Ocean.

China has had less success in gaining access to the critical infrastructure of Arctic ports. This could change, however, as the war in Ukraine keeps dragging on and maintaining life in Russia’s Far North and East becomes increasingly difficult and costly with worsening environmental conditions and decades of underinvestment. For over a decade, Chinese experts on the Arctic have through academic diplomacy and people-to-people exchanges advocated to their Russian counterparts and local leaders from Russia’s Far East for the construction of the Polar Silk Road. China has been interested in developing ports in Russia’s Arctic, and Chinese scholars have particularly highlighted the ports at the estuaries of rivers that they believe could enable China to project development deeper into Russia’s hinterland.²¹ The Russian government has so far been reluctant to consider Chinese proposals for the construction of critical infrastructure in the Arctic. For example, the minister of development of the Far East and the Arctic, Aleksey Chekunkov, made the following comment at the Far Eastern Forum held in Vladivostok in September 2021: “To attract Chinese money, do you think Russia should allow China [to] gain ownership of infrastructure facilities, similar to how Greece sold its main port, Piraeus, to China?”²²

Chinese regime stability and national security are closely linked with food security, which has come under pressure due to climate change and environmental pollution, among other factors.²³ According to Chinese scholars, the war in Ukraine has had an impact on global food security, hampering both Ukraine’s agricultural production and exports. Russia has become a viable alternative in China’s pursuit of food security as a source of agricultural products and fertilizers.²⁴ Shortly before the start of the war in February 2024, China lifted restrictions on imports from Russia of wheat and barley.²⁵

In 2016 the Russian-Chinese Fund for Agro-Industrial Development was established, and by 2023 it was worth 13 billion rubles (around $140 million). Demonstrating Chinese companies’ interest in grain production, 90% of contributions to the fund are from Chinese investors. Chinese direct investment in agriculture is the second-largest destination for Chinese investment in Russia after mining. Besides grain, the production of soybeans in Russia’s Far East is seen as a priority area for cooperation to advance both China’s food security and Russia’s integration into the Indo-Pacific.²⁶ In June 2022, China and Russia agreed to build the New Land Grain Corridor Group consisting of land-based logistical hubs for grain trade. In October 2023, they signed a grain supply contract, which decreased China’s dependence on Western wheat imports by half.²⁷

Considering China’s export-oriented economy’s high dependence on imports of natural resources, Russia could play a much bigger role than it currently does. Lu Nanquan, an honorary member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the chief expert of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at Shandong University, notes that even though the federal districts of Siberia and the Russian Far East make up 75%–80% of Russia’s total natural resources, the full potential of cooperation with China in this region has not yet been reached. Several obstacles continue to hinder joint development of the region: the low level of economic development, corruption and an unsupportive legal system, low administrative efficiency, fear of mass migration and a “China threat theory,” and Russia’s diversified approach to partnering with countries from Asia.²⁸ Nevertheless, according to Erica Downs, a scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Russia is already China’s most important partner from the perspective of energy security. It is one of China’s biggest energy suppliers and has helped the country diversify away from global chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca.²⁹

A paper by Yun Shi argues that the true reason Russian leaders have so far been reluctant to cooperate with China in developing Russia’s eastern region is the fear of the emergence of an alternative political power base far from Moscow that would be prone to align with China due to economic interests. Yun argues that in order for Russia to survive the confrontation with the West and avoid a second disintegration, it must open up this region for joint development to provide China with cheap, stable, and safe access to raw materials for industry and agriculture.³⁰

Conclusion

China and Russia are drawn together by their shared perception of the decline of the U.S.-led West as well as the efforts of the United States and its allies to deliberately hinder China’s and Russia’s rise. This pragmatic partnership short of an alliance is valued by Chinese scholars for its strategic benefits, which range from avoiding the threat of a two-front war to engaging in security cooperation to resist the United States’ dominance. In addition, the partnership with Russia is strategically important for China because it provides an alternative trade route to European markets and a source of natural resources and food supplies independent of global chokepoints.

---

Frank Jüris is an independent researcher focusing on China’s domestic and foreign policy and EU-China and Sino-Russian relations. He has worked as a researcher at the International Centre for Defence and Security, studied in Estonia and Taiwan, and lectured at the University of Tartu and Tallinn University. In a recent publication for the European Parliament, he exposed the involvement of party-state agencies in the EU’s and NATO’s critical infrastructure projects.

---

IMAGE CREDITS

Banner illustration by Nate Christenson ©The National Bureau of Asian Research.

ENDNOTES