Russia and China: From "Marriage of Convenience" to Strategic Partnership

Prof Glenn Diesen at the China Academy

I was interviewed by the China Academy regarding the strategic partnership between Russia and China. The strategic partnership was formed by two profound historical changes in the international system that occurred around the same time: Russia’s decoupling from the West and the rise of China as the soon-to-be world’s leading economy.

The first historical shift is the end of Russia looking to the West for modernisation and development. Russia has pursued a Western-centric foreign policy for the past 300-years, and after the Cold War pursued the overarching objective of creating an inclusive European security architecture based on the vision of Gorbachev’s Common European Home. The project of Greater Europe died in February 2014 with the Western-backed coup in Ukraine, which ended all hopes of a gradual integration with the West. Over the past 300 years, there have been several attempts in the West to push Russia back into Asia - although this time the East is no longer an economic backwater. Russia subsequently replaced “Greater Europe” with the “Greater Eurasia Initiative” as it began reorganising its economy toward a more accommodating and economically vibrant East.

The second historical shift is the rise of China, which has outgrown the US-administered international economic system. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-9 was a wake-up call as the US demonstrated it would not restore fiscal discipline, which implied that the stability of the system would continue to erode. China demonstrated both the intention and ability to challenge US geoeconomic leadership by pursuing ambitious industrial policies to assert technological and industrial leadership, investing trillions of dollars into physical connectivity with the Belt and Road Initiative, and new financial architecture with development banks, payment systems and de-dollarisation.

The West assumed the partnership of China and Russia was a “marriage of convenience” as the common interests of opposing US hegemony was superficial and they would likely clash over the dominance of Central Asia. This prediction failed to recognise that both China and Russia need each other to develop a new international economic architecture, and as neither side pursues hegemony they have the ability to accommodate each other’s strategic interests. The efforts by the US to break both Russia and the China at the same time has pushed these two giants together in what can only be described as Kissinger’s worst nightmare. The strategic partnership has also laid the foundation for a new international economic architecture that pulls in other centres of power.

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The China Academy: https://thechinaacademy.org/russia-and-china-beyond-a-political-marriage-of-convenience/