The national bureau of asian research

the national bureau 
of
 asian research

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russia-china relations
Assessing Common Ground and
Strategic Fault Lines
TABLE OF CONTENTS
v
Foreword
Robert Sutter
1
Chinese Perspectives on the Sino-Russian Relationship
Evan S. Medeiros and Michael S. Chase
13
Russia’s China Policy: This Bear Hug Is Real
Eugene B. Rumer
27
Sino-Russian Security Ties
Richard Weitz
37
Sino-Russian Relations in a Global Context: Implications for the United States
J. Stapleton Roy
nbr special report 
#
66 | july 
2017

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v
FOREWORD
T
he United States has a long experience in assessing the twists and turns of the relationship 
between Russia and China and what it means for U.S. interests.
1
The 1950s and 1960s 
saw Washington monitoring the initially strong and later frayed Sino-Soviet alliance for 
threats and opportunities. President Richard Nixon crafted his opening to Mao Zedong 
amid acute Sino-Soviet military tension and forecasts of war.
2
The successful opening established 
a new framework for analyzing relations between the United States, China, and the Soviet Union. 
This so-called great-power triangle became a focal point of U.S. efforts to sustain an advantageous 
position in relations with Beijing and Moscow.
3
The imperative to monitor changing Russian-Chinese relations declined with the end of 
the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet threat, but it rose again at the turn of the century. 
Repeated government estimates and supporting scholarship assessed the implications of growing 
convergence between Moscow and Beijing. Since Russia and China at the time were both weaker 
than they are today and seemed reluctant to challenge the United States, despite rhetoric and 
diplomatic activism to the contrary, Sino-Russian cooperation appeared to have few substantial 
strategic implications for U.S. interests.
4
In recent years, however, China has become much 
stronger and Russia is now somewhat stronger. As a result, Russian leaders, and to a lesser degree 
Chinese leaders, have demonstrated much more willingness to challenge U.S. interests.
Growing Challenges for the United States 
Common interests, opposition to U.S. pressure, and the perceived decline of the West have 
prompted Russian-Chinese relations to advance in ways that seriously affect the interests of 
the United States and its allies and partners. Russia and China pose growing challenges to the 
U.S.-supported order in their priority spheres of concern—for Russia, Europe and the Middle East, 
and for China, its continental and maritime peripheries. They work separately and together to 
curb U.S. power and influence in the political, economic, and security domains and undermine 
the United States’ relations with its allies and partners in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. These 
joint efforts include diplomatic, security, and economic measures in multilateral forums and 
bilateral relations with U.S. adversaries such as North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Moscow and Beijing 
also support one another in the face of U.S. and allied complaints about Russian and Chinese 
coercive expansion and other steps challenging the regional order and global norms backed by the 
United States.
While not a formal alliance, the Sino-Russian relationship has gone well beyond the common 
view a decade ago that it represented an “axis of convenience” with limited impact on U.S. interests. 
1 
Authoritative literature in this field is enormous. Salient overviews are Lowell Dittmer, Sino-Soviet Normalization and Its International