H-Diplo Essay 449- Commentary Series on Putin’s War: “China-Russia Relations and a World Transformed”
by George Fujii
H-Diplo Essay 449
26 July 2022
Commentary Series on Putin’s War: “China-Russia Relations and a World Transformed”
https://hdiplo.org/to/E449
Editor: Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: George Fujii
Essay by Scott Moore, University of Pennsylvania
A favorite observation of American officials is that the United States and its allies, combined, constitute by far the world’s largest concentration of economic and military power, and can therefore present an effective counterweight to China’s own growing power. The same framing is revealing when applied to China and Russia. Though even when combined their resources do not approach those of the advanced liberal democracies, China and Russia offer each other important complementarities, most notably in natural resources, military capabilities, and foreign policy. By some measures, China’s relations with Russia are the most positive of those with any other major power.[1] China alone is a formidable competitor, and potential adversary, for liberal powers. But it is considerably more so if it is durably aligned or allied with Russia.
With this importance in mind, this essay provides an overview of modern China-Russia relations. On this basis it distills some lessons and implications for understanding their evolution following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Its central claim is that, barring dramatic political change in either country, Sino-Russian ties will evolve asymptotically closer to a formal alliance relationship while stopping short of the formal establishment of one. This close military, economic, and diplomatic partnership will continue to pose the most vexing geopolitical challenge for the United States and other liberal powers in the decades ahead.
This essay provides a historical overview of the development of China-Russia relations in the modern period, in the belief that this history reveals key factors that will continue to shape bilateral ties going forward. It admittedly arbitrarily divides this history into two phases, the first of which dates roughly from 1949 to the onset of the first Ukraine crisis in 2014 that was marked by profound tensions and ambivalent attempts to forge a durable partnership. The second phase, dating roughly from 2014 to the present, has on the other hand been marked by significantly closer military and diplomatic ties combined with the addition of more significant economic and ideological dimensions to the relationship. These shifts indicate that China-Russia ties have evolved into something considerably more robust than an alignment of convenience and towards something approaching a formal military and diplomatic alliance.
While this essay is not intended to provide a theoretical treatment of China-Russia relations, it is worth briefly noting this assessment’s relationship to the academic literature. Broadly speaking, the academic analysis of China-Russia relations has taken place within the basic international relations constructs of realism and constructivism. The preponderance of scholarly work has placed relations between Moscow and Beijing within the realist framework and characterized them largely as classic hedging or balancing behavior in response primarily to the actions of the United States.[2] A smaller body of work instead emphasizes constructivist relationships based on shared values, post-communist history and, more recently and more tentatively, trade, migration, and cultural linkages.[3] This essay broadly supports the view that China-Russia relations, while reflecting strong realist influences, have nonetheless also developed some important constructivist dimensions.
Rupture and Reluctant Partnership
By far the most important foreign relationship for the People’s Republic of China in its first decade was with the former Soviet Union. Its first major foreign policy alignment was the 1950 Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance signed in Moscow, which committed the world’s two largest Communist states to a wide-ranging partnership. In the decade that followed, thousands of Soviet advisers flowed into China, playing critical roles in influencing everything from urban planning to military force structure. Moscow also notably provided considerable direct support for China’s military intervention in the Korean War, including supplying and training the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Chairman Mao Zedong’s government, for its part, assented to a major, uncharacteristic concession to Moscow by recognizing the independence of Outer Mongolia, which had been claimed by the Republic of China as part of the previous Qing Empire.[4]
Yet though it is often seen as the apogee of Sino-Soviet bonhomie, even this period was marked by considerable diplomatic and political tensions that presaged a difficult relationship in succeeding decades. Beijing’s diplomacy in Asia, and especially the 1954 Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, soon betrayed friction with Moscow’s priorities, and a putative rapprochement with the United States under Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s leadership was viewed with deep suspicion in the People’s Republic. Mao’s determination to reduce China’s reliance on foreign expertise and technology, both from the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and instead to leapfrog ahead of other industrialized nations, provoked similar ire in Moscow.[5] At the same time, while under Khrushchev Soviet Communism became slightly more liberal, Mao’s own spin on traditional Marxist-Leninist thought was gradually codified into a seemingly competitive theoretical system, challenging Moscow’s ideological leadership over the Communist bloc.[6]
These developments precipitated the Sino-Soviet split of 1960, one of the most dramatic episodes in the diplomatic history of the People’s Republic. All of the Soviet advisers were withdrawn from China, and in the subsequent decade a number of minor confrontations and conflicts occurred between Soviet and Chinese military forces, including the 1962 Xinjiang border crisis.[7] This period in turn set the stage for the equally dramatic 1972 visit of President Richard Nixon to Beijing, launching a rapprochement between China and the United States. Beijing’s continued animosity toward Moscow was sustained by the latter’s intervention in both Southeast and Central Asia, provoking a fear of encirclement that was strikingly similar to that which was directed at the United States in subsequent decades. Sino-Soviet relations did, however, improve considerably in the 1980s. In 1982, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev called for an end to the two countries’ hostile relationships and recognized Beijing’s claim over Taiwan. Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, meanwhile, proposed the expansion of cooperation in a range of areas including space, hydropower, and rail. This thawing in relations did not last and was quickly interrupted in 1989 by both the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Tiananmen Incident in China.[8]
Following these epochal events for both Russia and China, it was only in the mid-1990s that China-Russia relations were substantively renewed. Though in its early years the newly independent Russian Federation enjoyed close ties with the West, it quickly expressed dissatisfaction with many aspects of Western policy and turned once more toward China. The foundation for the contemporary China-Russia relationship was set by the 1996 summit between Presidents Jiang Zemin and Boris Yeltsin, which established a “strategic partnership” between the two nations – the strongest expression of bilateral ties since the 1950 treaty. This was followed by the 2001 Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, which notably featured a mechanism for the two nations to share military technology and expertise.[9] The same year, Russia became a founding member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which included an anti-terrorism focus.[10]
Throughout this period, China-Russia relations in the military and security spheres continued to expand. In the decade prior to 2007, Russia accounted for some 80% of China’s arms imports, including highly sophisticated fighter jets and submarines. In 2005, the two countries carried out joint military exercises for the first time in decades and appeared to simulate operations against a sophisticated adversary like the United States. During a 2008 visit by President Dimitry Medvedev, Beijing expressed support for one of Moscow’s foremost security priorities, countering a missile-defense system planned by the United States.[11]
The early 2010s, meanwhile, witnessed the addition of an important economic as well as diplomatic dimension to China-Russia relations. In 2010, China replaced Germany as Russia’s largest trading partner.[12] In early 2011, meanwhile, an oil pipeline between China and Russia, with a capacity of 30 million tons per year commenced operation.[13] Yet economic matters also stoked considerable tension. Chinese migration and economic influence in the Russian Far East registered as a significant political and geopolitical concern. Moreover, the considerable economic imbalance between China and Russia continued to cause friction in Moscow.[14] Russian leaders reacted coolly to Chinese proposals to re-orient the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) towards economic development, and instead began to promote alternative frameworks for Eurasian economic integration that effectively excluded China.[15] These tensions set the stage for a period of closer alignment amidst an autocratic revival in both China and Russia during the 2010s.
Autocratic Revival and Alignment
In a speech to the Munich Security Conference in 2007, President Vladimir Putin surprised many observers with a tirade against the western-led world order. Four years after the US invasion of Iraq, Putin lambasted the United States for unleashing an “uncontained hyper-use of force” and “disdain for the basic principles of international law.” He then turned his attention to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which, he charged “has put its front-line forces on our borders,” a move that “represents a serious provocation.”[16] The following years witnessed a cascade of increased tensions between Russia and western countries, including American recognition of an independent Kosovo in 2008 and the NATO Summit of the same year, where the alliance declared its intention to eventually admit Georgia and Ukraine as members. The decision proved to be a fateful one, as Russia unleashed a military operation against Georgia the same year and resolved to prevent Ukraine’s drift into the orbit of the west.[17] The latter had especially serious consequences when, following the ouster of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych as a result of mass protests, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and instigated an insurgency in eastern Ukraine.[18]
The impact of political upheaval in Ukraine and other nations bears further mention for the impact it had on decision-makers in both Beijing and Moscow. The 2011-2014 period was marked by political upheaval around the world, including in Syria, where Russia later became a critical player, and in China, where President Xi Jinping’s accession to supreme power was marked by the dramatic fall of rising Communist Party star Bo Xilai. Russia also witnessed protests around the re-election of Putin to the presidency, but of more importance were the “color revolutions” that swept across Russia’s near abroad, most consequentially in Ukraine. This political upheaval raised alarm bells for the autocrats both in Moscow and Beijing, guiding them once again closer together as the first phase of the Ukraine conflict approached.[19]
Following the imposition of western sanctions and the suspension of some high-level Russia-western engagement, Beijing was quick to affirm its support for Russia – a resolve that appeared to strengthen even as the Ukraine crisis deepened. The 2014 crisis revealed a critical element of Beijing’s orientation toward Moscow: “China does not want to see Russia fail.”[20] During a presidential summit the same year that included discussion of events in Ukraine, Xi noted that China’s position was that “responsible parties should deal with the roots of the problem and that China supported a comprehensive political solution of the Ukraine crisis.” During a subsequent meeting, Xi went much further, pledging “evergreen” friendship and that “No matter how the international landscape shifts, we must insist on giving priority to the development of Sino-Russian ties.”[21]
It quickly became apparent that neither side viewed events in Ukraine as a barrier to expanded economic ties: an October visit by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev witnessed the launch of 38 agreements in areas ranging from rail to banking. Indeed, for Moscow, it was evident that China was quickly becoming an alternative source of investment and trade opportunities in the face of western sanctions. At least one significant tension persisted, however: Beijing continued to be frustrated by the slow pace of economic integration via the SCO, which remained in its view one of the most important mechanisms for China-Russia relations.[22]
Perhaps the most important outcome of Beijing’s support for Moscow during the 2014 Ukraine crisis was a more fulsome and deliberate discussion in both countries about the long-term future of their strategic partnership, including whether it should extend to building a formal alliance relationship. Russian analysts increasingly viewed China as an important source of investment and economic opportunities, but government officials were careful to temper the scope of Russia’s expanded partnership with Moscow. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for example, declared that while western “sanctions spur on relations with partners in the East…we would like to do so not as a replacement but as a process simultaneous with the normal development of traditional interaction with the west.”[23] For China’s part, an alliance with Russia appeared to contradict longstanding tenets of foreign policy, including a suspicion of mutual defense agreements. Leading Chinese commentators accordingly expressed ambivalence towards the notion of alliance, with one leading security analyst arguing that China should pursue a “quasi alliance” with Russia that would avoid burdening Beijing with any responsibility for contributing to Russia’s security while preserving the opportunity to pursue a full-fledged alliance in the future.[24]
These tensions and ambiguities continued to be reflected in China-Russia ties. Importantly, during the first Ukraine crisis Beijing offered to extend financial aid to Moscow. Specifically, in December 2014, Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledged to “provide necessary assistance within our capacity.”[25] Days later, the two sides signed a currency-swap agreement worth US$24 billion. Yet Moscow welcomed this support with tempered enthusiasm. In an interview, Russia’s ambassador to China declared that “Russia does not need China’s assistance but [its] support.”[26] Moscow’s aims for expanded economic cooperation with China appeared to be considerably more ambitious and extend to advanced technologies. In November 2014, Lavrov gave a speech in which he gushed that “We can now even talk about the emerging technological alliance between the two countries.”[27] Chinese state media, however, featured several pointed criticisms of Russian policy, including its sale of advanced submarines to Vietnam – criticisms that were widely viewed as veiled expressions of displeasure from Chinese officialdom at Moscow’s seeming attempts to play multiple sides in Asian geopolitics.[28]
China-Russia ties in between the 2014 and subsequent 2022 Ukraine crises were on firmer ground in the diplomatic and military spheres. China proved a reliable vote on the United Nations Security Council to stymie attempts by western powers to impose sanctions on the Assad regime in Syria, which was a close Russian ally. China vetoed at least four such Security Council resolutions and compiled a 99% record of voting alongside Russia on matters before the United Nations Human Rights Council.[29] Military ties also continued to expand. In 2013 a joint naval exercise became the largest that the People’s Liberation Army Navy had ever undertaken with a foreign force, and in 2015 the two countries’ navies pointedly conducted an exercise in the Mediterranean, which was widely seen as a provocation against NATO. The most visible sign of deepening military-military ties was Xi’s historic participation in Moscow’s highly symbolic annual Victory Day parade, which featured the striking sight of Chinese soldiers marching in the former Red Square.[30] In 2018, meanwhile, Russia launched its largest military exercises since the fall of the Soviet Union which involved significant participation by Chinese forces.[31]
A few other developments in the 2015-2022 period bear mention. Several important China-Russia infrastructure projects were completed in 2019, including the 38 billion cubic meter-capacity “Power of Siberia” gas line.[32] United States policy toward Iran under the Trump Administration, especially the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in early 2020, was criticized by both Beijing and Moscow. During the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, an ugly spate of xenophobic incidents against Chinese nationals in Russia caused a temporary flare-up in bilateral tensions. These actions, while noteworthy, soon subsided in the midst of generally warm Sino-Russian relations for the duration of the pandemic.[33] By the end of 2021, Xi reportedly used a string of superlatives to describe China-Russia relations, including that they had achieved “the highest level in history” and were in “a league of their own.”[34] Putin, for his part, observed admiringly that “China is moving quickly towards superpower status.”[35] Sino-Russian ties also appeared to be reinforced by the perception of political and policy instability in the United States, including the turmoil surrounding the 2020 presidential election and the Biden Administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan the following year.[36] These developments set the stage for Beijing’s reaction to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
The 2022 Invasion of Ukraine and its Implications for China-Russia Relations
Beijing’s response to the most serious international security crisis of the post-war period was, for the first few months at least, similar to that of 2014, with China offering fulsome support to Russia. Only a few weeks before the invasion, Xi famously pledged that Sino-Russian relations had “no limits.”[37] Publicly at least, Beijing continued to express support for Russia and China-Russia relations despite Russia’s near-total isolation from the west and as the human and economic costs of the Ukraine invasion mounted. Echoing language deployed in 2014, Beijing called in June 2022 for all parties to seek a “proper settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”[38] At the same time, Xi went further, saying that “China is also willing to work with Russia to promote solidarity and cooperation among emerging market countries…and push for the development of the international order and global governance towards a more just and reasonable direction.”[39] Even so, Beijing’s support did appear to have some limits: despite reports that Russia had specifically requested military assistance from China, United States and other officials were quoted as saying that there were no signs any such assistance was being provided to Russia.[40]
The most pressing question, of course, is whether this alignment will last. Here previous features of Sino-Russian ties provide important clues. First, and most fundamentally, it is apparent that in the post-1945 period China-Russia relations have been principally shaped by the state of their respective relations with the west, especially the United States. A consistent dynamic has been that Moscow’s periodic, usually fleeting, turns westward have been matched by a cooling of its ties with Beijing, while the opposite tilt produces a predictable warming. While this dynamic has been evident for decades, it has been strengthened by developments since 2014 including the color revolutions. Given the dramatic worsening of relations between the major western countries and both China and Russia over roughly the same period, it is likely that China-Russia relations will continue to deepen in large part in opposition to the west.
Second, military matters have historically formed the bedrock of the relationship and are likely to continue to strengthen. Military-military ties, and especially the sale and transfer of military technology, have long been one of the most substantively important dimensions of China’s relationship with Russia. Moscow’s value as a dependable source of military technology was highlighted in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Incident, when Russia continued to supply China with arms even as the west imposed wide-ranging sanctions.[41] Despite China’s drive to become self-reliant in key defense technology and the poor military performance of Russian military forces in Ukraine, Russia remains a significant inspiration for the People’s Liberation Army and continues to be seen by Chinese strategic commentators as a useful tool to tie down western military forces outside the Indo-Pacific theater. The importance of the military relationship is thus likely to continue.
Third, Moscow and Beijing have seen important reasons to maintain diplomatic alignment, but the diplomatic arena is also one in which significant tensions are evident. China and Russia are likely to continue to present a united front, especially at the United Nations. In the eyes of Chinese strategic thinkers, the primary appeal of Russia as an ally is to secure China’s northern and western border regions while also securing an important diplomatic partner on the UN Security Council.[42] But Moscow has viewed with ambivalence core Chinese priorities in regions like the South China Sea, where it has pursued expanded economic and military ties with Vietnam, and the Arctic, where it views Chinese ambitions with suspicion.[43] Especially if China adopts a more belligerent posture with respect to territorial claims in these regions, it may find that Russia is unwilling to support them. On the other hand, Moscow does appear likely to continue to support Beijing’s highest diplomatic priority, namely its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan.
Fourth, both countries have struggled to expand economic ties, and their ability to do so will be an important determinant of how strong China-Russia relations will be in the years ahead. Economic ties have steadily become more significant for both sides but remain highly uneven and a source of some tension. In 2011, Putin reportedly reacted to a prediction by an American CEO that China would eventually overtake the United States as the locus of the world economy by calling the prospect “an uneasy situation.”[44]Russia’s imports have China increased dramatically in the first decades of the twenty-first century, but Russia is a minor trading partner for China. Moreover, Russia’s exports to China are dominated by oil and gas, while China’s exports to Russia include more specialized and higher-value-added machinery and equipment.[45]The most important question, and certainly one of strong relevance to the west in an era of perceived technological competition, is whether the two countries can successfully expand joint research and investment in advanced technologies.
Fifth and finally, the normative dimension to China-Russia relations is the biggest and most interesting question pertaining to the bilateral relationship. Historical memory plays an important, if difficult to describe, role in China-Russia ties. In the eyes of analysts in both countries, the two nations share a broadly complementary view of modern history, including a belief that both nations’ contributions to the defeat of Germany and Japan during the Second World War are under-appreciated and opposition to the dominant global position enjoyed by the United States in the postwar period.[46]Both countries have placed increasing emphasis on historical revisionism and nationalism, and the extent to which these narratives are mutually reinforcing and accepted by their respective publics will determine how deep, as well as how broad, Sino-Russian relations become in the years ahead.
On balance, these lessons and implications suggest that China-Russia relations will continue to strengthen in the economic and ideological as well as more traditional military and diplomatic domains, but that fundamental tensions will persist that will prevent them from concluding a fully-fledged alliance relationship. Even so, their combined resources will present serious challenges for western interests, including the ability to block action in the Security Council and other United Nations bodies, to present the west with a two-front security dilemma well into the future, and to provide China with a stable, secure, and virtually sanctions-proof source of critical natural resources. Together China and Russia do not approach the combined and united strength of the liberal powers. But they have meaningfully narrowed the gap and have therefore created a source of serious concern to political leaders across the west.
Scott Moore is Director of China Programs and Strategic Initiatives and Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously worked for the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Notes
[1] Alexander Korolev and Vladimir Portyakov, “Reluctant Allies: System-Unit Dynamics and China-Russia Relations,” International Relations 33:1 (2019), 40-66.
[2] Brock Tessman, “System Structure and State Strategy: Adding Hedging to the Menu,” Security Studies 21:2 (2012), 192-231; Alexander Korolev, “Systemic Balancing and Regional Hedging: China-Russia Relations,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 9:4 (2016): 375-397 and Xiaodi Ye, “Explaining China’s Hedging to the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy,” China Review 20:3 (2020), 205-238.
[3] Liu Ying, “Strategic Partnership or Alliance? Sino-Russian Relations from a Constructivist Perspective,” Asian Perspective 42:3 (2018): 333-354 and Brandon Yoder, “Theoretical Rigor and the Study of Contemporary Cases: Explaining Post-Cold War China-Russia Relations,” International Politics 57 (2020): 741-759.
[4] Jing-yun Hsu and Jenn-Jaw Soong, “Development of China-Russia Relations (1949-2011),” The Chinese Economy 47: 3 (May-June 2014): 70-87 and Alexander Muraviev, “Comrades in Arms: The Military-Strategic Aspects of China-Russia Relations,” Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 1:2 (2014): 163-185.
[5] On this relationship see Kenneth Whiting, Evolution of the Sino-Soviet Split: A Summary Account (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University, 1975); Lorenz Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); and Mingjiang Li, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split: Ideological dilemma (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012).
[6] Hsu and Soong, “Development of China-Russia Relations (1949-2011).”
[7] Whiting, Evolution of the Sino-Soviet Split: A Summary Account and Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World.
[8] Hsu and Soong, “Development of China-Russia Relations (1949-2011).”
[9] Hsu and Soong, “Development of China-Russia Relations (1949-2011).”
[10] Janko Scepanovic, “Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: A Question of the Commitment Capacity,” European Politics and Society 2021, https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2021.1932081
[11] Hsu and Soong, “Development of China-Russia Relations (1949-2011).”
[12] Yu Bin, “China-Russia Relations: Between Geo-Economics and Geo-Politics,” Comparative Connections 13:3 (2012), 1-10.
[13] Hsu and Soong, “Development of China-Russia Relations (1949-2011).”
[14] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Between Geo-Economics and Geo-Politics,” and Hsu and Soong, “Development of China-Russia Relations (1949-2011).”
[15] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Between Geo-Economics and Geo-Politics.”
[16] See Vladimir Putin, “Conference on Security Policy Munich, Germany, February 10, 2007,” Air Force Magazine, April 1, 2007, https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0407keeperfile/
[17] Michael Kofman, “The August War, Ten Years On: A Retrospective on the Russo-Georgian War,” War on the Rocks, August 17, 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/08/the-august-war-ten-years-on-a-retrospective-on-the-russo-georgian-war/
[18] On these events see Michael Kofman, Katya Migacheva, Brian Nichiporuk, Andrew Radin, Olesya Tkacheva, and Jenny Oberholtzer, Lessons from Russia’s Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine (Washington, DC: RAND Corporation, 2017).
[19] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Succession, Syria…and the Search for Putin’s Soul,” Comparative Connections14:1 (May 2012): 139-140.
[20] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Succession, Syria…and the Search for Putin’s Soul.”.
[21] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Succession, Syria…and the Search for Putin’s Soul.”
[22] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Russia’s Pride and China’s Power,” Comparative Connections 16:3 (January 2015), 123-140
[23] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Russia’s Pride and China’s Power.”
[24] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Russia’s Pride and China’s Power.”
[25] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Russia’s Pride and China’s Power.”
[26] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Russia’s Pride and China’s Power.”
[27] Alexander Korolev, “Systemic Balancing and Regional Hedging: China-Russia Relations,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 9:4 (2016): 375-397.
[28] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Russia’s Pride and China’s Power.”
[29] Korolev, “Systemic Balancing and Regional Hedging: China-Russia Relations.”
[30] Korolev, “Systemic Balancing and Regional Hedging: China-Russia Relations.”
[31] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Crouching Army, Hidden Alliance?” Comparative Connections 20:3 (2019): 107-116.
[32] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: The Art and Agony of Avoiding an Alliance,” Comparative Connections21:3 (2020):129-142.
[33] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Ending Strategic Distancing in the Era of Social Distancing,” Comparative Connections 22:1 (2020): 127-136
[34] Yu, "Light at the End of the Tunnel?” Comparative Connections, 22:3 (2021), 141-150.
[35] Yu, “Light at the End of the Tunnel?”
[36] Yu, “Light at the End of the Tunnel?”
[37] Simone McCarthy, “China Will Support Russia on Security, Xi tells Putin in Birthday Call,” CNN, June 16, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/asia/china-support-russia-security-xi-birthday-putin-intl-hnk/index.html
[38] McCarthy, “China Will Support Russia on Security, Xi tells Putin in Birthday Call.”
[39] McCarthy, “China Will Support Russia on Security, Xi tells Putin in Birthday Call.”
[40] McCarthy, “China Will Support Russia on Security, Xi tells Putin in Birthday Call.”
[41] Alexander Muraviev, “Comrades in Arms: the Military-Strategic Aspects of China-Russia Relations,” Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 1:2 (2014): 163-185.
[42] Brian Carlson, “China-Russia Relations and the Inertia of History,” Survival 58:3 (2016): 213-222.
[43] Korolev, “Systemic Balancing and Regional Hedging: China-Russia Relations.”
[44] Yu, “China-Russia Relations: Between Geo-Economics and Geo-Politics,” Comparative Connections 13:3 (December 2011): 129-138.
[45] Alicia Garcia Herrero and Jianwei Xu, “The China-Russia Trade Relationship and its Impact on Europe,” Bruegel Working Paper 4: 2016.
[46] Alexander Korolev and Vladimir Portyakov, “China-Russia Relations in Times of Crisis: A neoclassical realist explanation.” Gaye Christoffersen, Ed. Russia in the Indo-Pacific: New approaches to Russian Foreign Policy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2021).
