The dragon, the bear and the kancil
China and russia aren’t quite ready to carve each other’s names on trees, but they might be getting there and asia must prepare for the day.
FOR the most part, lofty joint statements by nations reveal scarcely a gem of concrete development when examined closely. Most of the shiny stuff turns out to be spin on close examination – stones you can throw away without a great sense of loss.
Yet, the 5,000-plus word statement issued on Feb 4 after the summit meeting in Beijing between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin must surely merit some attention, especially now as the tension in Ukraine escalates further.
In paragraph after paragraph, no doubt painstakingly crafted weeks before the leaders’ meeting, you see the bricks of a cogent worldview being crafted by two nations – one an ascendant power and the other desperate to maintain its global relevance. No, Moscow and Beijing aren’t going to carve each other’s names on trees. Not yet, at least. But both are under a tremendous strategic squeeze and there is much to suggest that a quasi alliance is taking form.
Xi and Putin have now met 38 times. And while Putin’s relationship with Xi is still a tad formal – he is on far more familiar terms with President Emmanuel Macron of France – a cursory reading of the Sino-russian document leaves no doubt that it is time to take this relationship seriously.
It starts with the assumption that both are world powers with rich cultural and historical heritage and, bizarre as it may sound, “long standing traditions of democracy”.
There was no explicit wording on China backing Russia on Ukraine, although the talks must have dwelled on the issue greatly. Given that a decade ago Xi had reportedly signed a secret agreement with the ousted Yanukovich government to offer Ukraine a “nuclear umbrella” in the event of an atomic attack, it could possibly not have done so.
Still, from opposing further expansion of Nato – a key demand of Moscow – to linking the Eurasian Economic Union to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, cooperating in the Arctic, and protecting “core interests” and resisting efforts by external forces to undermine security in their “common adjacent regions”, the two have vowed to work together on everything from space to sea. Indeed, it is a surprise how early in the document the issue of the Arctic appears. Since the region is dominated by Russia, this suggests the topic was a priority issue for China, which clearly seeks more say there with the Russians willing to accommodate that aspiration.
China and Russia also agreed they will remain highly vigilant about the negative impact of the United States’ Indo-pacific strategy. To this end, they went on to express serious concern over Aukus, an alliance sought by Australia that links it in an even tighter strategic embrace with the US and Britain. In turn, Russia won Chinese support for its demand for long- term, legally binding security guarantees in Europe and to oppose Nato’s further expansion.
Interestingly, they have vowed to strengthen Asean’s role in the regional architecture. The sides also intend to develop cooperation within the “Russia-india-china” format, as well as to strengthen interaction on such venues as the East Asia Summit, Asean Regional Forum on Security, and Meeting of Defence Ministers of the Asean Member States and Dialogue Partners. This is interesting if it is sincere; in the past, Beijing has been leery of seeing coherence in Asean’s political structure advance, even as it has had a benign outlook on economic integration. Why now is it for a strengthened Asean? It is an intriguing question.
Payback time
A half-century ago, the Nixon administration played the China card as it focused on bringing down the Soviet Union. Today, Putin, who has called the Soviet collapse the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”, is seeking to pay back that compliment. In doing so, he is moving around the chess pieces, and making some sacrifices.
Take the issue of Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. For months now, his foreign minister – Sergey Lavrov’s prints are all over the joint statement – has been going around the world, knocking the Quad. This is the grouping that bunches the US with treaty allies Japan and Australia, and near-treaty ally India which once had a similar relationship with the erstwhile Soviet Union.
Aukus is the muscle arm of American strategy towards the region. But Quad is the slowermoving play for the long term, a future Nato that comes wrapped with a host of other possibilities, including cooperation in cuttingedge research and standardssetting, and the Russians see its larger potential.
Hence, even as the Quad is an arrangement that clearly targets China, the Russians have sometimes seemed to be more vocal in its criticism than even Beijing. Indeed, Lavrov has been so plain about his distaste for Quad that he even ventured to say it out loud last December while in New Delhi, even as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was hosting Putin for a brief summit.
If his hosts in New Delhi squirmed, they had to grin and bear it; the Modi government saved itself a major military embarrassment on its Himalayan border with China in mid-2020, thanks in part to Moscow’s intervention with Beijing and its decision to provide New Delhi whatever arms and ammunition urgently needed by its No. 1 military customer. Beijing, trying to muscle India on the border issue, could not persuade Moscow to back off. Clearly, some longstanding relationships are sacrosanct, even amid the most convenient of marriages.
At the same time, Moscow hasn’t given up on persuading Beijing and New Delhi to improve their frayed relationship. The Putin-xi statement urges cooperation in the so-called “Russia India China format”. That partly comes from the perception that India, which prizes independence in foreign policy, is the weak link in Quad. Besides, Japan and Australia are firm treaty allies of the US.
Squeezed by the US and its allies, it is clear that Putin is yielding to an asymmetric relationship with China – which is described as a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination”.
Bilateral trade hit a record Us$147bil (Rm615.1bil) in 2021, buoyed by Russian energy exports. Now, US pressure on Germany to cancel the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, even if it ultimately proves unsuccessful, and threats of sanctions, will only deepen Moscow-beijing ties. Back in 2014, when tensions over Putin’s annexation of Crimea ran high, Beijing had already given him an escape valve with a Us$400bil, 30-year deal to sell gas to China.
Last week, he put himself even more deeply in Beijing’s hands; fresh energy deals signed totalled Us$117bil by some counts. More Russian oil and gas is set to flow to China. Equally, China also depends more on Russia. Against a backdrop of the US and allies working on a series of choke points along its traditional oil supply route from West Asia, Russia’s role as an energy provider to China has grown considerably. It is now the second-largest supplier of crude oil to China and the third-largest provider of natural gas. It also supplies high-quality coal.
Not picture perfect
This is not to suggest that everything between China and Russia is picture perfect. Chinese rhetoric about their relationship is decidedly more transactional; Beijing mouthpieces often talk about the two fighting back-toback, a different kind of formulation than the “lips and teeth” analogy China and Pakistan use for their relationship, contemporary words that borrow the late Chairman Mao’s description of Beijing-pyongyang ties in an earlier era.
Growing strategic convergence hasn’t stopped Beijing from trying to covertly get hold of coveted Russian submarine detection technology and military secrets involving hypersonic vehicles, for instance. Likewise, China also has been involved in trying to buy key defence companies in Ukraine. Although the Russians have sold the advanced S-400 missile defence systems to China, they have been extremely guarded about the technology. Moscow is also wary that Chinese nationalism could one day lead to calls to seize the Russian far east and for this reason is widening access to other strategic partners to enter the remote region.
How would Asia need to see all this? For starters it is important to note that although recognised as a European power, much of Russia’s landmass is in Asia; the two-headed eagle in its flag, therefore, looks both ways. Just as the US has pivoted to Asia, Moscow too is making its rebalance to the region – initially in military terms and increasingly, for its economic destiny.
Still, the Sino-russia concord is most likely to impact the extremities of Asia before it impacts the core, South-east Asia.
Ripple effects
Japan, for instance, has been trying to win back control of the Kuril Islands, which it calls Northern Territories. Russia’s predecessor state, the Soviet Union, had seized the islands at the end of World War II. In the evolving circumstances Moscow has less reason to show sympathy for Tokyo’s demands.
Likewise, India and China remain locked in a military standoff over their disputed boundary. Despite Russian persuasion, Beijing has shown no desire to make concessions to India. Indeed, New Delhi, after first declining to join the diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics hosted by Beijing, ultimately announced its own boycott after China named one of its soldiers involved in a Sino-indian border clash as an Olympic torchbearer.
While India empathises with Russia in its own quest for a zone of influence in its periphery, it runs into problems when it comes to the Russian assertions in Crimea and Donbass, claims that rest on ethnic and linguistic affinity.
In West Asia, Iran will probably feel a surge of confidence as it is involved in its own tangle with the US.
In late January, 11 warships of the Iranian navy conducted three days of wargames with three Russian and two Chinese vessels in the Gulf of Oman. Since coming to office in June 2021, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has sought to deepen ties with both Moscow and Beijing. All three nations are the subject of US sanctions; Raisi was in Moscow just last month.
But even South-east Asia will feel the ripples; so far, Russia has been a benign actor in the region, a bear among kancils. Certainly, it does not have a profile matching the US or China. At its current economic size, it would be foolish to even try to build a matching profile.
Still, Russia has been a major supplier of arms to Vietnam and Myanmar and on the latter, clearly has coordinated positions with Beijing since the military junta seized power in Naypyitaw. Latterly, even the Philippines has been a tangential buyer of Russian war equipment - via its recent purchase of the India-made cruise missile Brahmos that was co-developed with Russia. New Delhi could not have made the sale without a nod from Moscow and the two are now working on Brahmos 2, which will be a hypersonic vehicle.
Others, like Malaysia, have been occasionally tempted to look at Russian arms. The current air chief, General Ackbal Abdul Samad, gained fame in the late 1990s as the solo display pilot flying a MIG-29 at the Langkawi aerospace exhibitions. The Royal Malaysian Air Force retired the Migs but retains some Sukhoi Su-30s in its arsenal.
On visits to the region, Lavrov has been talking up possibilities of Russian weapons sales, promising assured supply of parts and even suggesting the weapons could be reliably maintained by Indian engineers on site. While seemingly aligned with China today, there is enough elbow room for Russia, with its energy reserves and military technology, to become a future balancer in Asia.
The Americans have plenty to think about. – The Straits Times/ Asia News Network