Despite many years of talk of the Far East’s economic dependence on Chinese capital and labor, the pandemic has revealed that both of those resources can be found in Russia itself.
If Russia and China study each other’s legislation, it’s purely out of practical considerations for the purposes of doing business and protecting the interests of their own nationals.
Moscow knows that the United States’ main concern is the military rapprochement of Moscow and Beijing, in particular anything resembling a military alliance. It’s likely no coincidence that Putin touched on this sore point in recent comments.
Courted by Alexander Lukashenko since the 2000s, China has gradually expanded its presence, economic and otherwise, in Belarus. However, its strengthening position there has not come at Russia’s expense, and, as unrest spreads following last month’s presidential election, there is little reason to expect China to step in to rescue the embattled president.
The inflow of coronavirus cases entering China from Russia won’t ruin the two countries’ flourishing relationship based on pragmatic interests. The Chinese are more disappointed in the anti-China rhetoric coming from the White House than in Russia’s inability to swiftly combat the coronavirus outbreak.
China and Russia act in accordance with their own interests, which are not always identical. For the time being, the creation of a Russo-Chinese military alliance isn’t a viable idea, and cooperation between China and Russia in the Arctic is exclusively economic.
China is gradually laying down the foundations for the construction of a Pax Sinica in Central Asia. This is particularly successful in certain sectors of the economy, but Beijing’s policy has come up against constraints, both within Central Asia and outside of it.
Chinese investment in Russia’s Far East is precisely what it should be given the current level of the region’s development. Most of the Far East is more focused on obtaining subsidies from Moscow than foreign investment.
The outbreak of coronavirus in China has exposed the weak spots of the country’s Big Brother system. It turns out that China’s extensive network of facial recognition cameras is useless in the face of a simple surgical mask.
