Chinese President Xi Jinping makes a landmark state visit to Russia from Monday to Wednesday for meetings with Vladimir Putin. The trip, just before the G20 summit in Germany, will underline the growing bilateral dialogue between Beijing and Moscow, including on key regional and global issues such as the Korean nuclear stand-off and the Syrian conflict. Coming after May’s Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, attended by both Xi and Putin, the primary emphasis of the visit is to try to deepen the bilateral political and economic partnership. Here China and Russia already enjoy relatively extensive economic cooperation, in particular, which has warmed in several areas since the crisis in Ukraine which has seen Moscow’s suspension from the G8.
In the period following escalation of those tensions, Russia has for instance announced plans for numerous cooperation projects with China including a new method of inter-bank transfers, and a joint credit agency that seeks to create a shared financial and economic infrastructure that will allow them to function independently of western-dominated financial institutions.
China and Russia are also among the states involved in creating alternative fora to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, including the New Development Bank. This will finance infrastructure and other projects in the BRICS states, and as well as coming up with a related $100 billion (Dh367.3 billion) special currency reserve fund.
Moreover, in the energy sector, the two states have signed a $400 billion natural gas supply deal which will see an approximately 2,000 mile (3,218km) gas pipeline from eastern Siberia to north-east China. And they have agreed to construct a second major gas pipeline from western Siberia to China’s Xinjiang province.
Moscow has also opened parts of its upstream oil and gas sector to direct investment from Beijing. Moreover, Chinese firms have also stepped in to provide Russian counterparts with technology, and Chinese banks have become an important source of loans for Russian businesses, in the wake of western sanctions.
Stronger common positions
While the warming in ties since the Ukraine crisis can be overstated, with little substantial progress made so far on the array of economic and financial projects announced in recent years, the boost to the bilateral cooperation agenda has helped enable work toward stronger, common positions on key regional and global issues too. And both parties are looking to the summit to enhance their strategic coordination from the Middle East to the Asia Pacific and the Americas, including the Syrian conflict.
The top item on the agenda here is likely to be North Korea nuclear tensions. Both China and Russia know that the security problems on the Korean peninsula have no easy resolution: both are grappling with how best to respond to not just the regular missile launches by Pyongyang, but also its nuclear tests.
Recent US rhetoric has given Beijing, in particular, heightened concerns that Washington might now be thinking, much more seriously, about a pre-emptive strike on Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities. Only last Monday, US President Donald Trump asserted that North Korea “is causing tremendous problems and is something that has to be dealt with, and probably dealt with rapidly”.
This builds on his comments several weeks ago — prior to his meeting with Xi in Florida — that if Beijing “is not going to solve North Korea, we [the United States] will”. This upped the ante from US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s striking announcement earlier this year that the two decades-long US policy of “strategic patience” towards Pyongyang is now over and “all options” are on the table.
This US rhetoric is one reason why Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Li has asserted that “China’s priority now is to flash the red light and apply the brakes to both [the US and North Korean] trains” to avoid a collision. Both Beijing and Moscow are concerned that the tensions on the peninsular could spiral out of control and have previously indicated support for a UN Security Council initiative that would build on the UN vote last year to tighten some sanctions in response to Pyongyang’s fifth nuclear test.
THAAD opposition
The UN measure favoured by Russia and China would require the United States and South Korea to halt military drills and deployment of the controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defence missile system (THAAD). China vehemently opposes THAAD which it fears could be used for US espionage on its activities, as much as for targeting North Korean missiles.
Russia shares this concern and Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov asserts that THAAD is a “destabilising factor” asserting that it is “in line with the vicious logic of creating a global missile shield”. He also warned that it also undermine “the existing military balance in the region”.
The UN initiative would also put further pressure on North Korea to stop its missile and nuclear testing. It is feared that Pyongyang may be preparing for a new nuclear test, and the regime recently unveiled in a major military parade what appear to be new inter-continental ballistic missiles.
However, unlike the United States, China has been reluctant to take more comprehensive, sweeping measures against its erstwhile ally. The key reason why Beijing has differed with Washington over the scope and severity of actions against Pyongyang largely reflects the fact that it does not want to push the regime so hard that it becomes significantly destabilised.
From the vantage point of Chinese officials, this risks North Korea behaving even more unpredictably, and/ or the outside possibility of the implosion of the regime which would not be in Beijing’s interests. This is not least as it could lead to instability on the North Korea-China border, and ultimately the potential emergence of a pro-US successor nation.
Taken overall, Xi’s visit will highlight the growing willingness of both sides to develop a significant cooperation agenda. However, despite positive mood music at the summit, the warming of ties should not be overstated, as is underlined by limited progress made so far on an array of bilateral projects announced in recent years.
Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.
