Carnegie Moscow Center
Russian foreign policy is so fixated on the idea of equal partnership that it has lost sight of the pragmatic tasks of how to benefit from the partnership with China most effectively and with minimal risks.
Moscow should stop thinking of the other members of the Eurasian Economic Union as junior partners. Russian and Central Asian weakness vis-à-vis China should inspire consolidation and cooperation rather than competition.
The growing Sino-Russian partnership is spurred not only by growing anti-Americanism, but more importantly by Russia’s quest for external economic support to keep the regime afloat in the wake of Western sanctions.
The Moscow-Beijing partnership is stalling. But Xi is winning over the Russian president’s inner circle with favorable loans and sweetheart energy deals.
A recent memorandum of cooperation signed by Moscow and Beijing has Russians worried about Chinese “colonization” of the Far East. However, a careful analysis of the situation suggests there is little reason for Russians to fear Chinese industrial expansionism.
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.