From Beijing and Moscow as each pursues expansion.
But the US and other Western states do face serious threats
over the Amur River to link heihe in heilongjiang Province and the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk, which could further facilitate transport of agricultural products from Russia to China.
in response to the escalation of trump’s trade war, China significantly reduced its imports of liquefied natural gas from the us in 2019. Only two vessels made the trip from the us to China in early 2019 — one in January and one in February — compared to 14 during the first four months of 2018, before the trade war accelerated. Meanwhile, us trade with Russia, never very substantial, also declined.
today’s sino-russian flirtation could be fleeting. the greater likelihood is that each party will keep its options open. Journalist Melinda Liu, writing in Foreign Policy, Oct. 3, 2019, suggests that, for Chinese leaders, the three-way geopolitical dynamic between Beijing, Moscow and Washington was anticipated in China’s classic tale, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. in this 14th-century epic, Luo Guanzhong tells a story of warfare and deceit among three competing fiefdoms 2,000 years ago. After the fall of the han dynasty, the kingdoms of shu, Wu, and Wei battled and circled one another in a dance of alliance, betrayal, enmity and realignment. this tale of human ambition and ruthlessness describes each king’s personality traits and traditional battlefield tactics that still pop up in Chinese diplomacy, corporate negotiations and popular internet games. it seems the opening lines from the revised 1679 edition of the Romance cannot be far from Xi’s mind: “the empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. thus it has ever been.” Neither unity nor division is permanent; they are forever feeding and promoting each other.
the National Bureau of Asian
Research has published a collection of articles entitled u.s.-china Competition for Global influence edited by Ashley J. tellis and others (seattle and Washington, 2020). in a chapter on us-chinese competition in the postsoviet space, Chris Miller notes that Moscow may welcome Chinese actions that weaken us influence. On the other hand, the Kremlin worries that Chinese expansion into Central Asia could eventually threaten Russian interests. For now, however, Moscow sees China’s rise more as opportunity than as menace. in a world of zero-sum politics, the Kremlin’s view may prove naïve—as happened in the late 1950s as the sino-soviet honeymoon collapsed.
looking ahead
the future? Given their negative experiences with each other in the past — reinforced by their asymmetrical material assets and diverse security interests — it is unlikely that China and Russia will collaborate in any deep sense against the us and its allies. But the us and other Western states do face serious threats from Beijing and Moscow as each pursues expansion. Both Xi and Putin insist on keeping and, where possible, expanding their empires regardless of the wishes of their subject peoples and vulnerable neighbors. Beijing’s repression of uighurs and other ethnic minorities creates a cancer in world affairs. Ditto Russian repression of Dagestan and the other “republics” of the Russian “Federation.” But the greatest threat to world security comes from each country’s outward expansion — Beijing’s claim to most of the south China sea and militarization of several islands; the Kremlin’s occupation of transdniestria, south Ossetia, Abkhazia, eastern ukraine and its purported annexation of Crimea.
to deal with these threats to international security, the united states and its partners should formally resurrect the “stimson Doctrine” expressed by the us secretary of state in 1932. After Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, secretary stimson declared that the us would not recognize political or territorial changes accomplished by force. Many League of Nations members took the same position. After stalin seized the three Baltic states in 1940, Washington refused to recognize them as parts of the soviet union. Most Western countries followed the us example.
today, there is some external resistance to China in the south China sea and to Russia in ukraine, but it is sporadic and not co-ordinated. Washington and its allies sanction Russia for seizing Crimea. the White house has raised tariffs on Chinese goods as they pass through us customs. the us Navy on occasion sends warships through the south China sea close to Chinese occupied islands to demonstrate that those waters remain “international” and open to all peaceful shipping. But none of these countermeasures are sufficiently strong to compel Beijing and Moscow to pull back. None are as strong as those the united Nations security Council has mandated against North Korea for its weapons tests. Of course, no one wishes to risk a major war with China or Russia. But a common front is made more difficult also by trump’s deference in many domains to Putin and Xi, with each of whom he claims to enjoy a special relationship.
the bargaining power of Washington and its allies is weakened not only by the sauve qui peut tendency of each partner; the failure of most us allies to pay a fair share for mutual security; and the inconsistent and emotionally driven policies of today’s us president.
Neither China, Russia nor the us needs more hard power or wealth to improve the quality of life for its people. each could profit from equitable trade and collaboration on common problems such as climate change. Mutual gain — not exploitation — should be their guiding principle — at home and worldwide. For now, however, each country behaves like the hard-line aggressors in the Prisoner’s Dilemma of game theory who defect and then lose, when co-operation would have netted consistent if moderate gains. walter C. Clemens, jr. is associate, harvard university davis Center for russian and Eurasian studies and Professor Emeritus of Political science, boston university. his most recent book is north Korea and the World: Human Rights, Arms Control, and Strategies for negotiation
(university Press of Kentucky, 2016). Email: wclemens@bu.edu