In recent years, relations between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China have become increasingly close. Countries are increasing economic cooperation, increasingly unite on political issues. What is it: vital necessity or short-term political expediency? try to understand.
What caused the rapprochement between Russia and China?
Making a huge economic breakthrough, China has emerged as a major economic competitor to the former first-tier trading powers: USA, EU, Japan. The Chinese economy is growing at a rapid pace, but meets with US opposition.
Trying to curb China's growing economic dominance, Donald Trump even went to unleash a trade war with the Celestial Empire.
In this situation, China needs a strong and reliable partner. Europe is too dependent on the USA. Japan is a traditional enemy. India is a geopolitical adversary in the Himalayas. Remains Russia - the country, which has enormous potential for economic development, large resources, and besides, it has a large and long border with China.
For Russia, in its turn, rapprochement with China is a breakthrough of certain isolation, resulting from the imposition of sanctions. USA, Canada, Japan, the countries of the European Union as a whole adhere to an anti-Russian position, and although the same France or Germany make concessions on Nord Stream 2, otherwise they are also committed to the sanctions line. Cooperation with India with Russia also does not advance beyond the "applied" - the supply of military equipment and certain goods.
Consider Iran, Syria, Venezuela or African countries such as Sudan and the Central African Republic as full-fledged economic partners are simply ridiculous - they cannot give so much, how much does cooperation with economic centers like the United States give, Europe or China. And it is in this situation that China turns out to be a kind of "magic wand" for Russia, allowing in a rather difficult situation to establish profitable transnational trade, sell your resources and goods and not even use dollars for mutual settlements, what they really want in Beijing itself.
Of course, for Russia and China, rapprochement is not uncontested. Any country can find other partners, but it is the Russian-Chinese tandem that seems to be the most desirable. There are now several obvious points of intersection of Russian-Chinese interests.. Let's try to look at them in more detail..
At first, in Eastern, Central, Southeast Asia stability and security depend on the effectiveness of interaction between Russia and China. This is the fight against religious fundamentalism in the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia, countering separatism in East Turkestan, fighting the penetration and expansion of American influence in the Asia-Pacific region, which is already very large and threatens the Chinese, and Russian interests - military-political and economic.
Secondly, Russia's old dream is to create a space for non-dollar settlements. China also dreams of this, willing to reduce the dependence of their economy on the United States. But without Russia's participation, China cannot afford a de-dollarization strategy, but joint efforts can really create a non-dollar space, which would later cover other countries.
Thirdly, this is the formation of new institutions of the digital economy, which Russia, and China are also hoping to be freed from American influence.
How Russian-Chinese cooperation is developing
We can say that, that the last few years have become a breakthrough in Russia's pivot to the east - to China. Almost every day brings us new information about various transactions, agreements with a neighboring country. So, on Sunday 16 June in Harbin (China, Heilongjiang) presented the index of China-Russia trade and economic cooperation, shortly named "Harbin".
It was developed by specialists from the Academy of Social Sciences of the People's Republic of China., People's University of China, University of International Business and Economics commissioned by China Economic Information Service (CEIS). The purpose of the index is to reflect the existing dynamics of trade and economic cooperation between the two states., development trends of trade relations between China and Russia.
Experts have called the cause of the strengthening of supervision in the militants' Al-Rukbane "
The appearance of the index is evidence of the deep interest of the Chinese side in building up bilateral economic relations.. Besides, since the index is developed in the border harbin, Chinese experts count on turning Harbin into a key center of Russian-Chinese economic cooperation. And this cooperation is progressing at a rapid pace.
At first, China becomes one of the key buyers of Russian oil and gas. The Power of Siberia gas pipeline is under construction, which will provide China with Russian gas in even larger volumes. And now the Chinese direction is even more promising for us, than European, as the Chinese market is truly bottomless.
Secondly, China buys a wide variety of other natural resources from Russia, from precious metals and precious stones to wood. true, the scale of the export of Russian timber to the Middle Kingdom is frightening, as often Chinese companies act as poachers, illegally cutting down Russian forests and exporting them to China.
But now China is interested in purchasing those goods., which were practically never imported from Russia before. for example, Russian dairy products can be supplied to China. Such, as in Russia, there are simply no dairy products in China. And fermented baked milk, kefir, yogurs could easily travel in huge quantities from Russia to China, the only question is marketing strategies, because so far Russian dairy products are almost unknown to the Chinese consumer.
No questions even with logistics. for example, there is a huge Ussuriysk dairy plant "a stone's throw" from China, which can supply large volumes of products to neighboring Heilongjiang province. The shelf life of Russian kefir is seven days. And it will be delivered to China from Ussuriysk in a few hours. It is much more profitable financially for the Chinese., than to buy a very expensive New Zealand kefir, which is delivered by air.
UN makes predictions, that the world trade in dairy products is 2027 will grow by 10 billion, moreover precisely at the expense of China and the countries of Southeast Asia, but the entire Asia-Pacific direction is very close to Russia and can be considered as a priority. Russia has a very tangible chance to take this place almost completely.
Besides, China needs huge stocks of soybeans after the start of the trade war with the United States, which China used to buy from the United States. Unfortunately, soybean culture in Russia has never been so developed, how in the USA, therefore, while China is forced to buy soybeans from Brazil.
But there is a chance, that Russia, slightly modernizing agriculture, will be able to supply more and more soybeans to China. Especially, that in Russia GMOs are not used for growing soy, which improves product quality. Already exported 800 thousand. tons of soybeans, but we are talking about increasing export volumes to 3,7 million tons in the very near future. Chinese companies are showing increasing interest in purchasing Russian soybeans, which can increase the number of plantations for its cultivation in the agricultural regions of our country. Following the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, regional restrictions on the supply of soybeans were also lifted.
Possible contradictions
But rapprochement with China is fraught with numerous risks for Russia. So, the development of trade relations with the Celestial Empire is an unambiguous "Sinification" of Russian economic spaces. Chinese business is actively penetrating the Far East, in Transbaikalia, Eastern Siberia and even west. Chinese investments are followed by shares in companies, Chinese workers.
Recently, China has been increasingly hinting at the possibility of using the Northern Sea Route within the framework of the Great Silk Road concept.. But the NSR is a purely Russian communication and so far Russia controls it, but what will happen next? China is, Meanwhile, builds icebreakers - while, that does not have cold seas and does not need icebreakers, unless we talk about the development of the Northern Sea Route. But if the US Russia refuses, then China, due to the existing "special relationship", can no longer refuse.
How do you see the future of Russia?
Development of transport corridors through the territory of Eurasia, including Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus - not Russian, and Chinese projects, and Russia remains on the sidelines in them, since China is also an ideological inspirer, and the main beneficiary. And China absolutely does not need the dominance of the Russian Federation in trans-Eurasian trade. Probably, Moscow understands this very well, but what is the alternative?
China has its own distinct interests in regions such as Central Asia. And here they are fundamentally at odds with the Russian. The ideal option for China is the transformation of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, to a lesser extent Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in their junior partners - satellites. It is no coincidence that China is so actively investing in Central Asia. China is unlikely to be, so that in the future Russian dominance in Central Asia will continue, even a political. Eurasian Union, if it is viable, ultimately may not be under the Russian, and under the Chinese umbrella.
The same situation is in Mongolia, which was previously considered the sphere of influence of Russia. Now Mongolia is increasingly cooperating with China, which by the way has its own Mongolia - the province of Inner Mongolia, inhabited by Mongolian peoples and economically living better than its sovereign neighbor.
Finally, China is actively working in the Russian Transbaikalia, in the Far East, which runs counter to Russian national interests. known, that the Chinese inhabit a number of regions of the South Far East, Transbaikalia, build up their presence there, mixed families are created. There is a certain demographic expansion, to stop which, due to the specifics of the population of the region, the Russian authorities are simply not able to. And they will not go into conflict with China now., limiting, for example, the presence of Chinese citizens in the Russian border regions.
China and Russia have many competitive crossroads in other regions, from South Asia to East Africa., where the Celestial Empire also does not want to yield to Moscow and will allow Russia to be only in secondary roles, providing some assistance to Chinese projects. Идеологическое обоснование найдется – противостояние Америке и американскому влиянию, а вот выгодополучателем в финансово-экономическом отношении будет, of course, Celestial.
In this way, усиление Китая далеко не во всех случаях несет однозначно позитивные последствия для России. И к одной экономике свести все невозможно, especially, что в модели китайско-российского экономического сотрудничества Россия остается на подчиненных позициях. For China, this is such a giant and resource-rich Kyrgyzstan with a huge territory, which you can learn, through which to transit their goods, where can you buy oil, gas and anything on an industrial scale.
Ilya Polonsky
