China-Russia partnership is less than meets the eye

Earlier this month, Chinese President Xi JinpinghostedRussian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, where the two leaders observed China’s military parade. Watching it, one could be forgiven for thinking Beijing and Moscow are growing dangerously close to the detriment of the United States.

That’s all the more concerning given the Chinese military might on full display at the parade. And while the People’s Liberation Army is indeed no paper tiger, theBeijing spectacleraised an obvious question: if China and Russia are really marching in “lockstep,” why is none of this fearsome Chinese hardware currently being used on the battlefield in Ukraine?

Washington pundits rarely stop to ponder why Russian forces have not been reinforced with Chinese “volunteers” or military gadgetry and firepower. In fact, China has offered the Kremlin only tepid support for its Ukraine war effort.

While this has frustrated some Moscow strategists, it reflects Beijing’s caution, restraint and a more fundamental conviction that a “new cold war” against the West should be strenuously avoided.

This could be seen at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Tianjin, attended by both China and Russia among other nations, which had diplomatic and economic overtones but very little military agenda.

The major headline from that summit was that Chinese and Indian leaders were finally coming together to dialogue and hopefully get beyond the persistent border dispute that has drastically soured that key bilateral relationship since 2020.

Instead of wringing their hands over a new world order run by an “axis of authoritarians,” Washington should be celebrating a major breakthrough between two formerly hostile nuclear powers with a history of recent and intensive violence.

The SCO, founded in 2001, has traditionally focused on border security and extremism, not minor subjects in the vast expanses of Asia, particularly after the sudden collapse of the USSR. Notably, the organization took a pass on joining the US effort to pacify Afghanistan, despite many calls for it to “step up” in that complex and ultimately futile situation.

The SCO’s member states and its two founding great power leaders, China and Russia, seem leery about major new commitments and content for the organization to exist primarily as a “talk shop.” Newagreementsfrom the Tianjin deliberations to jointly study transnational crime and particularly the narcotics trade hardly presage an organization plotting regional aggression.

Likewise, the agreements inked on a bilateral basis between Moscow and Beijing were focused on the commercial, scientific and cultural realms. The long-anticipated natural gas deal for the building of the ambitious Power of Siberia 2 line linking the two countries is a significant milestone to be sure.

But that project is simply the continuation of a long trend, and mostly reflects Europe’s decision to reject Russian energy imports as part of its sanctions regime.

In fact, Americans could very well benefit from this pipeline agreement, as US air quality was negatively impacted by Chinese air pollutionbeforeChina’s major switch from coal to natural gas. Moreover, such pipeline transits are less likely thanseaborne transitto threaten Alaska’s shores with the possibility of a devastating oil spill.

China-Russia interdependence is growing but not at a particularly hurried pace, and in some respects, the bilateral relationship is still vastly underdeveloped. For example, the first road bridge connecting the two countries over the Amur River was only completed in 2022.

Despite China’s impressive high-speed rail (HSR) system, it is still impossible to ride HSR between Chinese and Russian cities and that will not change anytime soon.

There are reasons for concern, of course. Russian (and Soviet) engineering has played a fundamental role in improving Chinese air and sea power. The two countries have avery ambitious patternof space cooperation that even includes a joint mission to set up a lunar base.

In a development worth noting, Xi and Putin were joined in Beijing by North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, a development which could portend potential China-Russia coordination in the Korean peninsula.

Nevertheless, China and Russia have decided very clearlynotto opt for an all-out military alliance that could threaten the West. While Russia could plausibly be open to such a near-term escalation, China has rejected that approach and Beijing is firmly in the driver’s seat of this bilateral relationship.

With substantial foresight, Chinese leaders have concluded that a new cold war, however overstated, would endanger China’s prosperity and national security.

US pressure, applied continuously against both Russia and China for the last two decades, has unfortunately been a contributing factor to this “quasi-alliance.” Yet if Washington now opts to match Beijing’s restraint, it can make sure the China-Russia relationship remains at its current level, which is to say moderate and non-threatening.

Lyle Goldstein is director of Asia engagement at Defense Priorities.