The Unbalanced Triangle

Title Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics

Author Bobo Lo

Publisher Brookings Institution Press

Year 2008

Pages 277 pp.

ISBN 0815753403

Price $32.95

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Bobo Lo, a former Australian diplomat in Moscow and the director of the China and Russia programs at the Center for European Reform, in London, has written the best analysis yet of one of the world's more important bilateral relationships. His close examination of Chinese-Russian relations -- sometimes mischaracterized by both countries as a "strategic partnership" -- lays bare the full force of China's global strategy, the conundrum of Russia's place in today's world, and fundamental shortcomings in U.S. foreign policy.

China's shift in strategic orientation from the Soviet Union to the United States is the most important geopolitical realignment of the last several decades. And Beijing now enjoys not only excellent relations with Washington but also better relations with Moscow than does Washington. Lo calls the Chinese-Russian relationship a "mutually beneficial partnership" and goes so far as to deem Moscow's improved ties with Beijing "the greatest Russian foreign policy achievement of the post-Soviet period."

Precisely such hyperbole drives the alarmism of many pundits, who believe that the United States faces a challenge from a Chinese-Russian alliance built on shared illiberal values. But as Lo himself argues, the twaddle about Russia being an energy superpower was dubious even before the price of oil fell by nearly $100 in 2008. Even more important, Lo points out that the Chinese-Russian relationship is imbalanced and fraught: the two countries harbor significant cultural prejudices about each other and have divergent interests that are likely to diverge even more in the future. More accurately, the Chinese-Russian relationship is, as Lo puts it, an "axis of convenience" -- that is, an inherently limited partnership conditioned on its ability to advance both parties' interests. 

But even Lo does not go far enough in his debunking of the Chinese-Russian alliance: he argues that it "is, for all its faults, one of the more convincing examples of positive-sum international relations today." This is doubtful. The relationship may allow the Chinese to extract strategically important natural resources from Russia and extend their regional influence, but it affords the Russians little more than the pretense of a multipolar world in which Moscow enjoys a central role.

STRATEGIC MISTRUST

The year 2006 was the Year of Russia in China, and 2007, the Year of China in Russia, with both states hosting a slew of exhibits, cultural programs, trade talks, and state visits. At the opening ceremony in Moscow in March 2007, Chinese President Hu Jintao remarked, "The Chinese National Exhibition in Russia is the largest-ever overseas display of Chinese culture and economic development." (It is worth noting that every year could be called the Year of China in the United States and that the U.S. consumer market is essentially one endless Chinese National Exhibition.)

By showcasing in Moscow 15,000 Chinese products from 30 industries -- machinery, aviation, ship building, information technology, home appliances -- Beijing sent the message that regardless of the substantial role the Soviet Union played in China's post-1949 industrialization, there is now a new ascendancy, with China enjoying the dominant position. This, in fact, is a return to the historical paradigm -- China has generally set the agenda for relations between the two countries. The Chinese-Russian relationship dates from the Russian conquest of Siberia in the seventeenth century. The Russian empire, then not very rich, sought to trade with China, then the world's wealthiest country. The two empires also discovered a common but often rivalrous interest in crushing the Central Asian nomads, leaving China and Russia with a 2,700-mile border, the world's longest. Since then, this shared border has shifted numerous times and served as a source of intermittent tension. As recently as 1969, the two countries clashed along the Ussuri River, which separates northeastern China from the Russian Far East, and Soviet leaders discussed retaliating with nuclear weapons if China launched a mass assault.

Now, as Lo writes, their relations are, in many ways, better than ever. In June 2005, both sides ratified a treaty settling their border disputes. Cross-border business and tourism are brisk. In 2006, two million Russian tourists went to China and nearly one million Chinese visited Russia.

Still, as Lo subtly demonstrates, the Chinese-Russian "axis of convenience" is bedeviled by "pervasive mistrust" rooted in historical grievances, geopolitical competition, and structural factors. Moreover, it is a secondary axis. China and Russia talk about being strategic partners, but neither actually is central to the other's concerns. China's indispensable partner is the United States; Russia's is Europe or, more specifically, Germany. In 2007, Chinese-Russian trade reached $48 billion, up from $5.7 billion in 1999, making China Russia's second-largest trading partner after the European Union. But current Russian-EU trade exceeds $250 billion -- the lion's share of it being between Russia and Germany -- and Chinese-U.S. trade exceeds $400 billion. China and Russia, Lo demonstrates, "pay far more attention to the West than they do to each other." Their relationship is opportunistic. As Lo puts it, the two giants "share neither a long-term vision of the world nor a common understanding of their respective places in it."