Russia, China, and the Emerging Greater Eurasia
The shared interests of Russia and China include the following: to break free of a unipolar system, to preserve the principle of the sovereignty of states, at the core of which is the Security Council, to reach similar outcomes on regional conflicts, to r
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Russia, China, and the Emerging Greater Eurasia Alexander Lukin Russia and China drawing together is an unmistakable phenomenon in today’s international relations. Is it a result of deteriorated Russo-US and Sino-US relations or does it have more fundamental origins? How is it altering the evolving structure of international relations? To these questions, both in Russia and abroad, diverse, and at times, contradictory opinions have been expressed. Russians who favor a Western orientation express alarm that these closer relations threaten to turn a weaker Russia into a “satellite” and natural resource supplier to a powerful and aggressive China.1 The fact that the opposite orientation would turn it into a satellite and natural resource supplier to a much more aggressive West is interpreted as “entry into the world economy” and joining the “civilized world.” Opponents of the West, in contrast, write about the necessary and unavoidable establishment of an alliance with China, which strengthens Russia’s position in its struggle for an independent course.2 Both positions draw more from ideological preferences than from analysis of
A. Lukin (*) Center for East Asian and Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies, Moscow State Institute of International Relations MGIMO-University), MFA, Russia Department of International Relations, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia © The Author(s) 2018 G. Rozman, S. Radchenko (eds.), International Relations and Asia’s Northern Tier, Asan-Palgrave Macmillan Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3144-1_5
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the actual situation. Advocates pay insufficient attention to China itself; that would interfere with the construction of a simple, bipolar scheme. In the West, one can observe a similar picture, as two positions have, essentially, emerged. One group focuses on Russo-Chinese contradictions, at times exaggerating them. Typically, belonging to it are supporters of today’s anti-Russian foreign policy course of Washington and Brussels, striving to demonstrate that it will not lead to a dangerous, anti-Western, Russo-Chinese bloc.3 Seeing the danger of the formation of such a bloc, some recommend that the West use these contradictions to draw closer to China against Russia4; others would make peace with Russia for joint opposition toward China, in their opinion, the greater danger ahead.5 The other group is critical of Washington’s current course because it has already led to the formation of a Sino-Russian bloc, based on overlapping views of geopolitical reality and an emerging ideology of the ruling regimes, which will last a long time.6
GEOPOLITICAL FOUNDATIONS OF RUSSIA TOGETHER
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CHINA DRAWING
The above presumptions, as a rule, are based on the authors’ political preferences, not on the real positions and motives of the two countries. The drawing together of Russia and China began long before the Ukraine crisis and has continued already for more than 30 years. The causes are much more fundamental than most observers acknowl
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