Carnegie Moscow Center
In the last two years the warm friendship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping is perhaps the only reason why large deals are still being made.
New freight routes through Kazakhstan have fundamentally altered the logistics of Eurasian commerce. If Russia wants to retain its stake in transcontinental shipping and transport, it must develop its logistics infrastructure in the Far East to accommodate goods moving westward from East Asia.
The future of Sino-Russian finance cooperation is difficult to predict, as is the trajectory of these two large countries. If the current fundamentals are still there we may expect to see deepening partnership.
Two years after the Kremlin’s rift with the West, Moscow’s hopes that a new business relationship with Asia would make up for Russia’s losses have not materialized. President Putin and other members of the elite did not commit themselves strongly to the idea of a “pivot to Asia.” Only certain parts of the private sector have benefited.
The likely evolution of Sino-Russian ties will be towards a partnership, where one side (Moscow) will be more dependent on the other side (Beijing). The picture may be very different if the EU-Russia relationship radically improves, but this is unlikely to happen.
China’s purchase of 24 Russian Su-35 fighter jets may alter the balance of power in Taiwan and give Beijing a measuring stick with which to judge the quality of its domestically produced aircraft
While Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to see much political friction, three economic areas offer possible points of contention: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN, and the Silk Road Economic Belt project.
Sino-Russian digital cooperation is robust and mature. This relationship is much broader than a simple alliance of conspiracy-minded governments seeking to protect their citizens from hostile forces.
China’s ambitious plans for a new Silk Road of railways, highways, and pipelines are driven by both domestic economic needs and geopolitical ambitions. Russia and the states of Central Asia have yet to make a substantial input into the project.
The recent decline in the Chinese stock exchange reveals economic weaknesses that Russia had been trying to ignore. Russia’s relationship to China has too many emotional mood swings and needs to be more pragmatic.