{"id":33566,"date":"2017-08-16T06:00:32","date_gmt":"2017-08-15T20:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=33566"},"modified":"2017-08-15T22:04:08","modified_gmt":"2017-08-15T12:04:08","slug":"pax-russica-sinica-making-world-safe-authoritarians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/pax-russica-sinica-making-world-safe-authoritarians\/","title":{"rendered":"Pax Russica-Sinica: making the world safe for authoritarians"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

On 3 July, two of the planet\u2019s three most powerful leaders met in Moscow. It was their 20th encounter at least since March 2013 and the latest in a long Sino-Russian discourse that began in 1618. The Russians and Chinese don\u2019t leak transcripts, but Xi and Putin presumably welcomed a 37% increase<\/a> in two-way trade in the first quarter of 2017\u2014especially as the value of trade for 2016, US$66 billion, had fallen from US$88 billion in 2012.<\/p>\n

They doubtless passed over the reality that in recent years Chinese investment in Russia\u2014as opposed to credits\u2014has been under US$2 billion. That\u2019s less than in countries in Africa and Latin America and in Kazakhstan, according to Andrei Klepach, chief economist at Vneshekonom Bank. The reason given<\/a> by Xin Zhongyi, of Gerzhouba Corporation, is \u2018the very specific Russian business culture\u2019, to which the Chinese \u2018hope to grow accustomed in 10\u201315 years\u2019. Russia\u2019s 2016 GDP was one-tenth of China\u2019s (the figure was 15% when measured in purchasing power parity) and China now accounts for 14% of Russia\u2019s trade, so commerce, though growing, is not the mainstay of the present propinquity.<\/p>\n

The relationship carries a heavy sediment of history, with a tangle of unresolved tensions<\/a> (see pg. 3\u201310). For now it rests firmly on converging perceptions of national interest. Both leaders present as tough men who deal ruthlessly with any threat to their pre-eminence. Putin has used military force externally four times (with at least 10,000 deaths in Ukraine alone). Xi has, in effect, changed China\u2019s maritime borders, and is trying something similar on the Sino-Indian border, so far without bloodshed. Both depict their rule as the only alternative to anarchy and foreign depredation. Both control massive domestic paramilitary forces, suggesting that both, however oddly, feel insecure.<\/p>\n

Under a constitutional amendment he oversaw in 2008, Putin can rule until 2024, and could be president for life. Xi shows an intent to emulate him. Both have built a cult of personality: a Russian poll<\/a> nominated Putin as the second-greatest figure in world history, after Stalin. The Chinese media was referring to Xi as \u2018Uncle Xi\u2019, until it was decided that that sounded undignified. As the ANU\u2019s China in the World Centre has noted that Xi has become \u2018COE\u2014Chairman of Everything\u2019.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an important ideological dimension: under the guise of defending \u2018traditional values\u2019, both promote a cultural relativist challenge to the notion of universal human rights, and oppose humanitarian intervention and democratic revolutions or reforms anywhere, stigmatising them as a \u2018Western\u2019 conspiracy. Both will have been gratified by the swelling ranks of the dictators\u2019 club. Their shared neighbour, Mongolia (the only country to have defeated them both), looks like the newest candidate member. And both share a view of how the world should look that recalls Orwell\u2019s 1984<\/em>, where the planet is divided into three spheres of influence. Putin has repeatedly called<\/a> for NATO to be disbanded and Lavrov for the building of a post-America world<\/a>. For Putin, the US has no legitimate interests anywhere on the Eurasian continent. Xi, too, may wish the US to leave East Asia, though presumably in an orderly way.<\/p>\n

Even given both men\u2019s innate caution, when they met in Moscow they may have shared a wink of Schadenfreude over the most acute crisis in the US since the Civil War. For both Putin and Xi, former students of Marxism\u2013Leninism, Trump may be proof that the contradictions of US capitalism are shunting it into the dustbin of history. That prospect might give Putin an inner glow, but Xi\u2019s attitude may be ambivalent\u2014he sent his daughter to study at Harvard, and in 2015 \u00a0the US took 18% of China\u2019s exports<\/a>. And both leaders would presumably much prefer a competent foe to the wrecking ball they now face.<\/p>\n

Names matter, which is why Beijing and Moscow insist they are partners, not allies. In their view, alliances are hostile to someone, but, apart from their critics, they\u2019d say they aren\u2019t hostile to anyone, other than terrorists and separatists, as they define them. So they can\u2019t be in an alliance.<\/p>\n

But content matters too. They surely share intelligence on terrorists and \u2018splittists\u2019, and experience in bridling the internet. Russia has much to offer on cyber warfare, email hacking and fake news. But even the Russians must be impressed by the capacity for social control that China\u2019s two million web-police demonstrated in erasing the death of Liu Xiaobo. In less than a second, Chinese face- recognition technology can check hundreds of thousands of images from ubiquitous video cameras against databases of all suspect people, nationwide.<\/p>\n

At the Hamburg G20 meeting<\/a>, for the first time Xi and Putin collaborated<\/a> against the EU, rejecting a proposal by Donald Tusk to ease refugee pressure on the EU by imposing UN-level travel bans and asset freezes on people smugglers. Similarly, the unprecedented joint naval manoeuvres in the Baltic<\/a> look like reciprocation for Russia\u2019s partnering with the Chinese navy in the South China Sea and around the Senkaku Islands. In Vasily Kashin\u2019s view<\/a>, \u2018the actual level of defense cooperation and policy coordination is that of an alliance\u2019.<\/p>\n

But as Bobo Lo has argued, crucial in determining the essence of Sino-Russian ties is that they remain less important to each than each\u2019s relations with the US. And despite their confidence that their interests now converge, crucial too is the legacy of four centuries of dealings: a complete lack of illusions about each other. Both would endorse the Leninist principle of kto-kogo<\/em>: all that matters is who will dominate whom. Today, the dominant party looks set to be China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 3 July, two of the planet\u2019s three most powerful leaders met in Moscow. 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