China-US Relations get rockier, Russia and China sticking together?
Since the Obama-Biden Administration, competition with China has been the main strategic priority for the US. And that is likely to remain so for a long time.
Here is a discussion from last year in which Michael Swaine of the Quincy Institute interviews Kevin Rudd, a former Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister of Australia. 1 The focus is on Rudd’s 2022 book The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China.
In the introduction to his book, Rudd wrote that “the unfolding crisis in the relationship between China and the United States” means:
The 2020s loom as a decisive decade in the overall dynamics of the changing balance of power between them. Both Chinese and American strategists know this. For policy makers in Beijing and Washington, as well as in other capitals, the 2020s will be the decade of living dangerously. Beneath the surface, the stakes have never been higher or the contest sharper, whatever diplomats and politicians may say publicly. Should these two giants find a way to coexist without betraying their core interests - through what I call managed strategic competition - the world will be better for it. Should they fail, down the other path lies the possibility of a war that could rewrite the future of both countries and the world in a way we can barely imagine.2
China in the Russia-Ukraine War has pursued what Michael Clarke and Matthew Sussex call a “straddle” approach, which they believe has worked well for China’s position so far:
Thus far China’s “straddle” has arguably been successful. Its support for Russia – such as repeating Russian disinformation on Ukraine and calling for a “negotiated” resolution to the conflict – has been undertaken “in areas and ways that have incurred minimal cost.” Simultaneously Beijing has also increased its leverage within the Sino-Russian relationship to the extent that some now see Russia as becoming the junior partner. The sanctions and export controls imposed on Moscow, for instance, have undoubtedly left Russia far more dependent on Beijing as a source of technology, like semiconductors, and as a customer for Russian natural resources.3 [my emphasis]
It seems pretty obvious that China is the junior partner at the moment, though Russia’s nuclear arsenal does give it a kind of military strength that China does not have at the strategic level.
But Clarke and Sussex point to a potential alternative change in course they see as conditioned by the centralized nature of the Chinese political structure:
Most significant here is how the centralization of foreign and defense policy under the direct leadership of Xi Jinping and Xi’s close personal investment in Sino-Russian relations may converge to produce an outcome contradictory to a purely interests-based assessment of China’s best course of action. …
Perhaps most troublingly, Xi’s Russia “complex” has resulted in a “selective bias in his judgment about Russia’s national power,” where he is prone to “overestimating Russia’s strengths and reliability, while underestimating its weaknesses and the risks posed to China.”
They point to a Chinese analyst, Feng Yujun, who argues that China’s government’s is being manipulated by Russia on its policy toward the Ukraine War:
Feng Yujun – a lead analyst of Sino-Russian relations for Fudan University – for example, has pointedly critiqued the Sino-Russian partnership as based on a fundamentally flawed assessment of what it contributes to China. He argues that “Chinese elites have not yet soberly realized that there has been a historical reversal in the comprehensive national power of China and Russia” and that while “our national power is ten times that of Russia, many people’s minds are still subservient to it.” As a result, China is “basically led by the nose by Russia.”
Such a mindset, Feng continued, has enabled Russia to manipulate China in the U.S.-Russia-China strategic triangle by “mobilizing” Sino-U.S. “contradictions” to persuade China that it needs close alignment with Russia to mitigate worsening ties with the United States. He concludes that, while China should desire “stable and constructive” relations with Russia, enjoying that type of relationship with Washington is actually more important, as that relationship will “determine China’s overall international environment in the future.” [my emphasis]
Clarke and Sussex see Xi’s current policy as similar to the one they describe here:
What is striking here is how China’s perception of the war in Ukraine intersects with its prevailing view of Sino-U.S. relations. One Chinese analyst from the Center for Strategy and Security at Tsinghua University argues in this context that not only has the war in Ukraine “accelerated and intensified” U.S. “strategic deployment” against China but a “system of strategic suppression” has been formed that “binds China and Russia together.” China thus “sees little benefit to be gained from sacrificing its relationship with Moscow in favor of embracing a Washington that has declared China the greatest external threat to the United States and the ‘rules-based order.’” [my emphasis]
The hawkish-leaning Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSUS) provides a text from January by Feng Yujun in English on Russia’s diplomatic status in this stage of the Russia-Ukraine War. Feng describes the bad news for Russia as follows:
Russia originally wanted to use military action to prevent the further expansion of NATO and subvert the European security structure dominated by the United States and NATO after the Cold War, but the result was counterproductive. The security environment on Russia’s western front has not only failed to improve, but it is instead rapidly deteriorating. Negotiations that were launched in mid-January 2022 concerning the provision of “security guarantees” to Russia by the United States, NATO, and the Organization for Security Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have come to an end. Fear, wariness, and hostility towards Russia have risen rapidly in the EU and NATO. Additionally, Finland and Sweden have applied to join NATO. An “iron curtain” that isolates Russia is being reintroduced in Europe.
For a long period of time in the future, Russia will probably fall into a relatively isolated state, and its status and influence in international politics and the global economic system will further shrink. [my emphasis]
And Feng notes, “During this period of international isolation, Russia is trying to propagate the trend of ‘global north-south division’ in order to realign the world into new camps, and thereby weaken its ‘sense of isolation’ and the strategic pressure it receives.” Clarke and Sussex argue that Feng thinks China would not be well advised to accept Moscow’s framing by aligning itself as a solid bloc with Russia against the West.
He describes his country’s current posture this way: “China also supports equal dialogue between the European side and Russia concerning European security issues, adheres to the concept of indivisible security, and ultimately seeks a balanced, effective, and sustainable European security mechanism.” And he notes, “In the context of the deep evolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the early 2022 expression of ‘boundless, unrestricted, and limitless’ in Sino-Russian relations has also faded out of the official discourse.“
Can China and the U.S. Coexist Productively? Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft YouTube channel 05/09/2022. (Accessed: 2023-15-03).
Rudd, Kevin (2022): The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China. New York: PublicAffairs.
Clarke, Michael & Matthew Sussex (2023): Is China’s ‘Straddle’ on Ukraine Coming to an End? The Diplomat 03/11/2023. <https://thediplomat.com/2023/03/is-chinas-straddle-on-ukraine-coming-to-an-end/> (Accessed: 2023-15-03).