Washington International Law Journal
Abstract
Abstract: In April 2024, Biden Administration officials revealed that in the year 2023, about 90% of Russia’s microelectronics came from China, which Russia has used to make missiles, tanks, and aircraft. Nearly 70% of Russia’s approximately $900 million in machine tool imports in the last quarter of 2023 also came from China.[1] U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently stated at the G7 meeting that “[w]e see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, [and] other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base.”[2] This demonstrates how far China is willing to go in defiance of the sanctions on Russia, seemingly vindicating an increasingly popular view characterizing China’s relations with Russia as an alliance in the “New Cold War” (NCW) literature.[3] This essay aims to question this claim.
To its credit, the NCW provides a necessary correction to the naivete and wishful thinking of the 1990s during the globalization era—best exemplified by the Bill Clinton administration in the United States and the Gerhard Schröder chancellorship in Germany. However, learning the lessons takes more than a moment of intellectual reflection. Two years into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europe is caught by two fears related to decoupling: one is China’s retaliatory measures[4] and the other is the possible second presidential term of Donald J. Trump in the United States.[5] Prompted by the urgency on the battlefields, the NCW offers reasons for unity between United States and Europe, in response to an emerging alliance between China and Russia. However, this essay argues that it jumps too quickly to claim a Russia-China alliance and, therefore, misses another aspect of Russia-China relations after the invasion of Ukraine: the imperial collision. This essay aims to provide a preliminary framework for examining the driving forces that work to divide and eventually undermine the Russia-China alignment.[6]
The essay starts in Part I by examining the anti-Western ideology shared by Presidents Putin and Xi Jinping. Despite their common objectives, shared values, and personal commitments, fundamental cracks in the ideology can still be detected – primarily due to the different approaches adopted by Russia and China. Part II examines the economic alignments between Russia and China following the invasion of Ukraine. The goal of this section is to contextualize the ideological cracks within three specific areas: trade, finance, and investment. While both Russia and China, on one hand, and NCW pundits, on the other, highlight the high level of economic complementation—either by celebrating or raising alarms—a closer look at the data reveals how ideological cracks translate into discontent and risks for both countries. Part III discusses the lack of institutions in the Russia-China relations that undermine stable and long-term cooperation. The essay will conclude with some remarks on the ramifications of the debates on decoupling or de-risking policy that this symposium is focused on.
First Page
76
Recommended Citation
Dongsheng Zang,
Imperial Collision: Future of China's Relations with Russia,
34 Wash. Int’l L.J.
76
(2024).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wilj/vol34/iss1/5