The national bureau of asian research

No Alternative
The partnership with China has undoubtedly served the interests of Russia’s ruling elite. It 
appears to be a deliberate choice of the Kremlin, sustained over a long period of time, and is likely 
to continue as long as the current elite remains in power. Looking back at the development of 
Russian-Chinese relations over the past three decades, one might ask whether Russia might have 
pursued an alternative course. A brief overview of the relationship from the standpoint of the 
Russian elite suggests that there never was an alternative to the present course and state of affairs, 
at least not without regime change.
The reconciliation with Beijing during the late Soviet period under Mikhail Gorbachev, after 
three decades of hostilities, was undertaken as part of a general shift in Soviet foreign policy from 
confrontation to peaceful coexistence with both the West and China. The Soviet economy could 
no longer sustain the burden of competition on two fronts, and the task of launching economic 
reforms called for cuts to defense expenditures. That was one of the major drivers of détente with 
both Beijing and Western governments—a necessary step to which few, if any, alternatives were 
available to the Soviet leadership.
The implosion of the Russian economy that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union and 
the domestic political turmoil that engulfed the country for most of the 1990s left few resources 
available to the Kremlin to design and implement an activist foreign policy. Thus, the path of 
reconciliation remained the only feasible course for Russian foreign policy with China. China, 
however, was still in the early stages of its economic transformation and hardly in a position to 
serve as a source of financial aid or know-how. The Kremlin thus had no choice but to accept the 
West’s terms in exchange for its assistance. However, it did so with growing resentment.
Russia’s relations with China, by contrast, did not suffer from such resentment. To the contrary, 
Chinese skepticism of Russia’s experiment with political reforms stood in stark contrast with 
the West’s urging of more reforms and insistence on adherence to the “Washington consensus.” 
As the West sought to expand its network of relationships and influence in areas that Russian 
elites considered their sphere of interest—the states of the former Soviet Union—Russia sought to 
engage China as a counterweight to the West. The convening of the Shanghai Five—Russia, China, 
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan—in 1996, followed by the establishment of the Shanghai 
Cooperation Organisation in 2001, was an important upgrade in the bilateral relationship between 
Moscow and Beijing.
The subsequent development of trade and economic relations between Russia and China was 
consistent with the course of their political relationship. As China’s economic growth gathered 
momentum, the Russian economy continued to sputter. It was beyond the Kremlin’s ability to 
set the terms for economic relations with China, and trade developed along a pattern that 
Russian policymakers have publicly lamented but done little to correct: Russian raw materials 
flowed to China in exchange for manufactured goods. The two economies were thus becoming 
complementary. Russian exports to China fed its economic rise, while the flow of manufactured 
goods in the opposite direction ensured that the Russian economy was relieved of the burden of 
modernizing and developing its own manufacturing base.
In the early 21st century, the acceleration of Chinese growth and the spike in commodities 
prices further cemented that relationship. As Sergei Ivanov, then chief of staff to Putin, told the 
Financial Times in June 2015, “in the 2000s, when we had very high oil prices, the motivation 

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for carrying out structural reforms and diversifying the economy was not very high.”
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The 
economic boom that Russia experienced during that time was fueled by commodity exports and 
thus worked against, rather than for, the diversification of the Russian economy, and by extension 
helped cement Russia’s role as a raw materials supplier to China and consumer of its imports. This 
asymmetrical partnership was further strengthened in the beginning of Putin’s third presidential 
term in 2012. In a symbolic move, the Russian president chose not to travel to the G-8 summit in 
Washington, D.C., shortly after his inauguration and instead made his first foreign trip to China. 
Putin could not have more clearly signaled his rejection of the West and embrace of the partnership 
with China in the wake of the domestic unrest and Western criticism that accompanied his return 
to the presidency.
Given the course of Russia’s development since the collapse of the Soviet Union, one might ask 
whether at any point in the past three decades Russia had the option of choosing an alternative 
path. The answer is that within the constraints of Russian foreign policy—the weak underlying 
economic conditions and priority given to regime survival above all else, often at the expense of 
the country’s long-term development and economic and social modernization—the ruling elite 
did not have another option. Considering Russia’s long-term trajectory as a declining power, 
there was, and continues to be, no alternative to a strong relationship with China. Russia can ill 
afford to have China as an adversary. Moreover, given the existential threat that a partnership 
with the West holds for the country’s ruling regime, a close relationship with China—even as a 
junior partner—is the only sensible choice.
This is not to say that Putin would not seek to exploit such an opening to advance his own 
interests, but this would not lead to a new U.S.-Russia-China geopolitical realignment. Japanese 
prime minister Shinzo Abe’s recent attempts to achieve a breakthrough in relations with Russia 
are instructive in this respect. Abe’s intense diplomatic engagement with Putin focusing on the 
issue of the four islands occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II and still held by 
Russia was partly motivated by the rather transparent desire for a rapprochement with Russia at 
the expense of China.
Putin has gone along with Abe’s courtship, while inflating expectations in Tokyo of a 
breakthrough in relations. His visit to Japan in December 2016 did not produce any tangible 
results for the Japanese side, beyond the promise to keep talking. For Putin, however, the visit was 
a significant breakthrough. Despite the efforts by the Obama administration to sustain a regime 
of international isolation around Russia (and Putin personally) in the aftermath of the Ukraine 
crisis and Russia’s expulsion from the G-8, Putin broke through that cordon sanitaire and was 
warmly received in Japan. He thus demonstrated that Russia is by no means isolated on the world 
stage and succeeded in cracking the solidarity of the new G-7. Russia’s relations with China, in the 
meantime, do not appear to have suffered as a result of Putin’s flirtation with Abe.
Implications for the United States
Events since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, launched an undeclared war in Ukraine, and 
rejected the post–Cold War security order in Europe, have extinguished any remaining hopes for 
what had already become an increasingly unlikely prospect—that Russia would become a security 
7 
“Transcript: Interview with Sergei Ivanov,” Financial Times, June 21, 2015.

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partner to the United States and its European allies. Without a fundamental change in U.S. policy, 
the relationship with Russia is more than likely to remain adversarial.
Should the new U.S. administration deliver on its promise to restore relations with Russia and 
strike a new partnership, this partnership is likely to prove disappointing for U.S. policymakers and 
fall short of their apparent expectations. It may pay off in greater Russian willingness to cooperate 
in the fight against ISIS, although Moscow has shown little inclination to become involved in 
the Syrian conflict beyond its support for the ruling regime. However, a renewed partnership is 
unlikely to result in Russia being willing to forgo its close relations with China and side with the 
United States, should the Trump administration challenge Beijing’s position on Taiwan, trade, the 
disputes in the South China Sea, or North Korea—the major issues identified by the new team as 
its priorities with China.
Taiwan. U.S. relations with Taiwan might be considered a potentially thorny problem for 
Russia, which has had its own challenges with sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia has 
both struggled to restore its control over the North Caucasus and violated several of its neighbors’ 
territorial integrity. Moscow had maintained—quietly—contacts with Taipei during the Cold 
War. There is also the history of Soviet involvement with Chiang Kai-shek under vastly different 
circumstances. However, nothing in the history of Russian foreign policy before or since 1991 
suggests that Moscow may be inclined to exploit this issue for geopolitical or some other advantage 
and depart from its long-standing adherence to the one-China policy, which recognizes that 
Beijing is “the sole legitimate government of the whole of China,” that “Taiwan is an inalienable 
part of the Chinese territory,” and that “the Taiwan question falls within China’s internal affairs, 
in which external forces have no right to interfere.” As a result, Russia “will not establish official 
relations with Taiwan or conduct official exchanges.”
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The expansion of trade and economic 
relations between Russia and Taiwan after 1991 was not a departure from that policy. Given the 
strategic importance of Moscow’s relations with Beijing and the interests at stake, its position on 
Taiwan and the one-China policy promises to remain “clear, firm and consistent,” as recently 
reaffirmed by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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Trade. A shift in Russia’s position on trade closer to that of the new U.S. administration would 
likely be inconsequential. Russia is not a big enough economy or trading partner for the United 
States or China to matter for either country’s stance opposite the other. Russia’s bilateral trade with 
China and the United States in 2016 is estimated at around $66 billion and $20 billion, respectively.
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For comparison, trade between the United States and China was approximately $600 billion.
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