MOSCOW — Neither Russia nor China has one inch of coastline on the Mediterranean Sea, which made their decision to hold their first joint naval maneuvers in Europe’s backyard all the more provocative, a pointed demonstration to the West of the global reach of a powerful new alliance being forged by the eastern giants.
Ten days of maneuvers that got under way Monday will include live-fire exercises in the strategic water body connecting Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The war games follow Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow to headline May 9 Victory Day celebrations that were snubbed by Russia’s wartime allies and three days of billion-dollar deal-making with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has been driven into the arms of its communist neighbor by Western sanctions imposed for its role in the bloody Ukraine crisis. The U.S. and European Union acts of censure have cut off Russian businesses and the government from international lending and provoked tit-for-tat trade embargoes to the detriment of both sides.
But the flurry of political, economic and military agreements that emanated from last weekend’s diplomatic upheaval likely signal an enduring pivot by the Kremlin toward China as Putin steers his country away from a U.S.-dominated post-Soviet world order.
The emerging Sino-Russian alliance remains fragile and its partners wary, political analysts note. Russia and China are vying for influence in Central Asia and Putin’s push for collaborative development in those now-independent former Soviet states gained little traction against the reality of Beijing’s head start in sewing up energy contracts and infrastructure projects with the “stans” that flank its western border.
Most telling of trouble in the relationship, though, may be the failure of Xi and Putin to fine-tune the terms of their massive energy deal of a year ago. That $400 billion compact includes plans to develop remote Siberian oil and gas fields and deliver their output to China for the next 30 years.
Missing among the 32 agreements signed by the two presidents on Friday was any progress in resolving disputes over the price China will pay for the natural gas, which projects will take priority and how the supplies will be delivered to China’s far-flung industrial centers.
Russia’s state-controlled media paid little attention to the differences standing in the way of implementing the historic energy pact. But independent analysts suggest the impasse is evidence that Beijing can drive hard bargains with a Russian government isolated by Western sanctions and immersed in an economic crisis.
“Russia is acceding to demands that China has been making for a long time,” Gilbert Rozman, a Princeton University professor who writes and teaches on Northeast Asian affairs, said of the differences between Moscow and Beijing now being papered over. “But people who call this an axis of convenience — masking disputes over territory, migration, Vietnam and other matters — are missing the bigger picture. This is a relationship about national identity and the big efforts in both countries to establish a different kind of international order.”
Russia favors a more bipolar relationship with China, Rozman said, while Beijing appears to prefer simultaneously keeping up the momentum in improving ties with the United States in a “triangular” foreign policy model. But the neighbors have much to gain from their strengthening economic ties and have seen the power of their ability to influence world affairs when wielding their veto authority as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.
“The Russians’ claimed sphere of influence, their domestic characteristics, the revival of pride in the Soviet history, including Stalin — all this is connected — and China is reinforcing that pride, saying, ‘We support your view of the world,’” Rozman said.
The all-smiles presentation of the new relationship at the Moscow meetings ignored the ups and downs of Sino-Russian ties over the last four centuries. A documentary, “Russia and China: The Heart of Eurasia,” that aired on state-run television Friday night did little to dispel the impression that all is rosy now in a relationship that has been hostile more than collaborative at most times.
Among the deals signed during Xi’s visit are a Chinese-financed and Russian-guaranteed investment fund aimed at drawing $25 billion in Chinese projects to Russia, a nearly $6 billion investment by Beijing in a high-speed rail line from Moscow to Kazan, $2 billion for agricultural projects and a $3 billion joint venture to build 100 long-haul Sukhoi jumbo jets for lease to carriers throughout Asia.
Talks are still under way on China’s plan to purchase two dozen Su-35 fighter jets and to jointly upgrade the Mi-26 helicopter. In addition to diversifying Russia’s energy-intensive trade, the deals are forecast to double current Russia-China annual trade to $200 billion within a few years. China trade volume with the United States, its most significant economic relationship, was $592 billion last year.
Despite the upbeat outlooks, the shift from West to East can’t happen overnight.
Russia’s main market for its energy exports has long been Europe, and the pipeline network that carries supplies to the West isn’t going to be easily redirected, said Sijbren de Jong, an analyst of Russian and Central Asian affairs at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies.
“China profits off the fact that the negotiating position of Russia is weak,” said De Jong, explaining that Putin has been unable to prevail in the negotiations to get the energy projects under way with any hope of meeting the target delivery start of 2017.
Putin used the weekend talks to push his Eurasian Economic Union as a component of region-wide collaboration, suggesting the bloc uniting Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan could be extended to the rest of Central Asia and dovetailed with Beijing’s Silk Road Economic Belt aimed at creating more efficient resource extraction and transport to the underdeveloped states on China’s western flank.
An agreement signed Friday by Xi and Putin called vaguely for cooperation between the two countries’ plans for Central Asia, which Putin said “means reaching a new level of partnership that envisages common economic space on the entire Eurasian continent.” Xi was less effusive, saying only that China will “coordinate closely” with Putin’s alliance.
“The Chinese will not want to play second fiddle to Moscow in the quest for primacy in Central Asia,” De Jong said, noting that Beijing has been winning the battle of one-upmanship that shows “China and Russia don’t really trust each other.”
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