Chussia's unfounded anxiety in the West

Since Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin announced their boundless friendship in February 2022, on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it has become common among many Western analysts and much of the media to refer to an alliance of autocracies or to an axis of authoritarianism.

In my new book, Great Game On: the competition for Central Asia and global supremacy, I describe this thought as Chussia anxiety, Chussia, of course, being a compression of China and Russia.

In fact, many things bring these great Eurasian powers together, and none more powerful than their shared sour attitude toward the US-led liberal Western world, which both leaders rightly view as a threat existential for their authoritarian regime.

Putin and Xi also appear to have struck up a genuine affection for each other. They have met more than 42 times since 2012, although many of these meetings took place in the context of regional or multilateral meetings.

Both leaders have made it clear that they seek a new, multipolar world order that accommodates authoritarian states. Both seek to present themselves as friends of the Global South, as proposing alternative development models, particularly in the case of China.

Cooperation in all areas between Russia and China has grown significantly since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and fell under increasingly punitive economic coercion from the West. Although mutual military and security support through joint exercises and training dates back to the early 2000s, after the formal establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it has significantly intensified since 2014 and continues to occur after the invasion of Ukraine. It also became more global, extending to the Baltic and the Sea of ​​Japan.

China is steadily increasing its weight in Russia's traditional sphere of influence in Central Asia.

Valiant efforts were made on both sides to sweep outstanding historical issues under the rug, with the censorship and propaganda departments extremely vigilant against any expression of historical grievances.

Increased sanctions following Putin's invasion of Ukraine have significantly deepened economic integration between Russia and China. China, for example, has almost replaced the European Union as the leading exporter of automobiles and machinery to Russia. China is now the second largest export market for Russian crude oil, after India.

All of this points to a significant geopolitical realignment. The question, however, is to what extent are the relatively recent close relations between China and Russia stable and therefore sustainable?

I argue that we are witnessing the second great power shift of our generation. The first occurred in the first two decades of this century across the Pacific, from the United States to China, and, today, in the third decade, particularly with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the second is occurring at an accelerated pace throughout Eurasia.

China is emerging as the undisputed dominant power in Eurasia and, as its power grows relative to Russia, will increasingly undermine Russia's sense of security.

Russia and China's approaches to security are fundamentally opposed, as Kissinger argued many years ago in World Order. Russia derives its security from the colonization of neighboring terrorist territories to make them buffer states. This imperative is as old as the liberation of Muscovy from the Mongols at the end of the 15th century. For China, its security requires maintaining client states that recognize China's geopolitical primacy.

For almost 200 years after the signing of the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, their common borders remained stable, despite Russia's relentless eastward colonial expansion. During much of this period, the Qing dynasty was more powerful. When in the 19th century, following the Opium Wars, the balance of power shifted decisively towards Russia, China had to accept two unequal treaties which ceded large areas to Russia: the northern Amur, under the Treaty of Aijun of 1858, and Manchuria, under the Treaty of 1860. Convention of Beijing.

Today, Russia is the only former imperial power that has not returned territories it conquered from China under unequal treaties in the 19th century. The loss of these lands still angers Chinese nationalists. In April 2023, Beijing decreed that eight major Russian cities located on these lands should be referred to by their old Chinese names on official maps. Before being shut down, Chinese internet bloggers called for the land to be returned as part of Xi's national rejuvenation.

It is not even necessary to mention the Sino-Soviet split (1961-1989), Moscow's support for Delhi in the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the numerous military clashes along the Xinjiang border or the fighting on Ussuri which almost led to a nuclear conflict, bitter memories. along the Amur River, during the massacre of thousands of Chinese by the Russians (1900), or the current fears of Chinese encroachment on the Russian Far East, to understand that with the massive change in the balance of powers towards China, the relationship will become bigger and bigger. charge.

At the same time, China is steadily increasing its weight in Russia's traditional sphere of influence in Central Asia. Last year, for example, it launched the C+C5 agreement with the five Central Asian states and established a permanent secretariat in Xian. This has given institutional form to the deep economic and infrastructural integration that has been occurring for many years.

With their divergent approaches to security and their unresolved historical and territorial questions, is there once again a possibility of what is sometimes called a reverse Kissinger: the United States and Russia lining up against an ever more powerful China? This is highly unlikely because Russia's interests are difficult to reconcile with those of the United States, and for both, China does not pose an existential threat. But Russia will not tolerate its growing vasal status towards China for long.

One possibility, which will be motivated by the search for order in the international system, is that Europe realizes that it needs to re-Europeanize Russia after Putin. Because without it, China will be the dominant power in Eurasia, with no one to counterbalance it. Neither can achieve this without the other, and it will become in everyone's interest to do so.

Meanwhile, just like the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it consolidated its borders and established hegemony over the Western Hemisphere, China will be free to expand its power to on a global scale.