Carnegie Moscow Center
China is quietly exploiting Russia’s rift with the West to expand its influence in the geopolitical, security, technological, and financial domains. Are Russia and its neighbors becoming a testing ground for a new Beijing-centered regional order? Is a Pax Sinica emerging?
Chinese and Russian online propagandists share broadly similar goals and tactics, but they still tend to work separately. Any efforts at greater coordination would have to surmount considerable barriers.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's visit to Beijing on Monday and Tuesday closely follows the just concluded high-level talks between senior Chinese and US officials in Anchorage, Alaska. For his part, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Japan and the Republic of Korea before the Anchorage talks, while US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held talks with Indian officials in New Delhi.
U.S. and European sanctions against Russia, as well as the U.S. trade war with China, are good reasons for Moscow and Beijing to persevere with their plan to build a wide-body airplane, despite their differences.
The emergence of a Pax Sinica including Russia could draw new dividing lines over Eurasia.
As Russia becomes increasingly pulled into China’s tech orbit, the Rubicon will be the Kremlin’s final decision on whether to use Chinese or Western technology to develop 5G networks in Russia—and currently Chinese companies look like the favorites.
Amid the rupture between Russia and the West, Moscow continues to drift toward closer relations with Beijing. Their partnership is becoming deeper and more comprehensive, encompassing security, economics, technology, and global governance.
China needs to replicate its Central Asian success in the Caucasus in order to take another step westward toward implementing its trade and energy dream, away from the control of Russia and the United States.
Podcast host Alex Gabuev is joined by Janka Oertel, director of the Asia program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, to discuss changing attitudes in Europe toward China and Russia, and the evolving relationship between Moscow and Beijing.
China sees security issues in Central Asia as inextricably tied to its own domestic security concerns, and is rapidly establishing a footprint that will allow it to deal with matters as it sees fit in the region.
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