{"id":83707,"date":"2023-11-22T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2023-11-21T19:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=83707"},"modified":"2023-11-21T16:27:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T05:27:29","slug":"from-the-bookshelf-china-and-russia-four-centuries-of-conflict-and-concord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/from-the-bookshelf-china-and-russia-four-centuries-of-conflict-and-concord\/","title":{"rendered":"From the bookshelf: \u2018China and Russia: four centuries of conflict and concord\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In recent years, publishers have released a deluge of new books on relations between China and the United States, some predicting conflict and others offering formulas for maintaining peace. Surprisingly, however, there have been few fresh analyses of Sino-Russian relations, whose warming over the past 30 years has significantly changed the global geopolitical balance.<\/p>\n

The relationship is often seen as one of convenience driven by Russia\u2019s need for support for its war of aggression on Ukraine, on the one hand, and China\u2019s interest in Russian energy resources, on the other. The \u2018honeymoon\u2019 between the two communist powers in the 1950s was brief; Chairman Mao Zedong and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin disliked each other, and the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s was followed by years of mutual suspicion. As a result, analysts tend to dismiss the prospects of the current warming turning into a longer-term entente.<\/p>\n

In China and Russia: four centuries of conflict and concord<\/em><\/a>, Philip Snow takes a long-term view, noting that historically the two great powers have existed in relative equilibrium, occasionally threatening each other, frequently skirmishing, but never fighting a major war. Snow is a Hong Kong\u2013based historian and has published several acclaimed books<\/a> on China\u2019s international relations.<\/p>\n

The fact that China and Russia have a long common border on the Eurasian landmass sets their relationship apart from China\u2019s historical relations with Western powers, which approached China from the sea with a focus on trade. Snow traces Sino-Russian relations back to the caravan trade of the 1600s and details the territorial push and pull between tsarist Russia and Qing dynasty China in the 1800s in the border regions of Manchuria, Outer Mongolia and Xinjiang.<\/p>\n

Snow anchors his narrative firmly in geopolitical realities, including the ambitions at different times of the Western powers, Imperial Japan and Hitler\u2019s Germany. The rise of Bolshevism in Russia brought with it an element of ideological affinity and a swarm of White Russian refugees. In the 1920s, the Soviets micromanaged the rise of China\u2019s first political parties, the Nationalists and the Communists, and encouraged them to cooperate. Russia wanted to keep the colonising powers out of China and prevent their intervention in support of the Whites in its civil war.<\/p>\n

Once the People\u2019s Republic was established, the Soviets worked hard to control the levers of power. They helped set up China\u2019s administration and provided hundreds of advisers to assist the newly established ministries. The Soviets even taught the guerrillas-turned-diplomats how to wear Western clothes and dance. In 1951, China set up a Soviet-style State Planning Commission and introduced the hukou<\/em> household registration system, which was modelled on the Soviet propiska<\/em>. Soviet technical advice provided the backbone for China\u2019s industrial development.<\/p>\n

Snow also recounts how the Soviets directly helped China\u2019s leaders, providing mine detectors to ensure their security in the leadership compound, Zhongnanhai, and Russian toxicologists to check the dishes they were served. It later turned out that the advisers also bugged the leaders\u2019 private residences.<\/p>\n

Stalin\u2019s death in 1953 marked a turning point in Chinese attitudes, and a feeling that Mao should take over as the leader of the Marxist\u2013Leninist camp. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev\u2019s denouncement of Stalin in 1956 put a further dent in relations, as Mao\u2019s authoritarianism was based directly on the model of his Soviet mentor. Mutual accusations accelerated, and by 1960 the countries were on a collision course and Moscow had withdrawn its advisers.<\/p>\n

Snow describes the myriad plots and subplots underlying the relationship, and peppers his narrative with little-known facts. At an early stage, Mao tried to learn Russian but was unable to master its alphabet or grammar. And on Khrushchev\u2019s first visit to China, Mao kept him waiting, partly in retaliation for the shoddy reception Stalin had given him in Moscow years earlier. Mao eventually received Khrushchev in his private swimming pool, knowing full well that the Soviet leader couldn\u2019t swim and would have to use an inflated rubber ring.<\/p>\n

The relationship is underpinned by common authoritarian values. These include respect for each other\u2019s borders and \u2018the right of national rulers to do what they want with their populations within their borders\u2019, which flies in the face of Western notions of political accountability. The current \u2018comprehensive strategic partnership\u2019 between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin has been three decades in the making, and shows no signs of weakening, with China refusing to condemn<\/a> Russia\u2019s intervention in Ukraine. The partnership is bolstered by the fact that US relations with both countries have been at an all-time low.<\/p>\n

That said, the relationship is one of \u2018surface unanimity masking a persistent underlying friction\u2019. The countries\u2019 economic and demographic imbalance is a particular hazard. China sees Russia as a \u2018resource appendage\u2019, and China\u2019s built-up northeast borders directly on the resource-rich and sparsely populated Russian Far East. Geopolitical movements among the major powers\u2014or leadership change\u2014could easily trigger a shift.<\/p>\n

Sweeping in scope, thoroughly researched and elegantly written, Snow\u2019s book fills a major gap in the literature and is well placed to become the definitive text on Sino-Russian relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent years, publishers have released a deluge of new books on relations between China and the United States, some predicting conflict and others offering formulas for maintaining peace. 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