Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) made an official visit to Russia on Thursday and yesterday for meetings with key officials, including Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov. The timing, which coincided with NATO and G7 summits between Western powers, underlined that Beijing and Moscow have an alternative cooperation agenda on multiple issues, including the Korean nuclear stand-off and the Syrian conflict.
While Korea tensions probably topped the agenda, the two countries also enjoy an extensive bilateral economic dialogue that has warmed, in certain areas, since the crisis in Ukraine, which has seen Russia’s suspension from the G8 — now the G7.
Following the escalation of those tensions, Russia has, for instance, announced plans for a number of cooperation projects with China, including a new method of inter-bank transfers and a joint credit agency that seeks to create a shared financial and economic infrastructure that will allow them to function independently of Western-dominated financial institutions.
China and Russia are also among the states involved in creating alternative fora to the World Bank and IMF, including the New Development Bank, which will finance infrastructure and other projects in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and a related US$100 billion special currency reserve fund.
Moreover, in the energy sector, the two nations have signed a US$400 billion natural-gas supply deal that will see an approximately 3,200km pipeline from eastern Siberia to northeast China. They have also agreed to construct a second major gas pipeline from western Siberia to China’s Xinjiang Province.
Moscow has opened parts of its upstream oil and gas sector to direct investment from Beijing, including the vast Vankor oil and gas field, while Chinese firms have stepped in to provide Russia with technology and Chinese banks have become an important source of loans for Russian businesses in the wake of Western sanctions.
While the warming in ties since can be overstated, with little substantial progress made to date on the economic and financial projects that have been announced with considerable fanfare, the boost to the bilateral cooperation agenda has helped enable the two nations to work toward stronger, common positions on key regional and global issues.
A good example is the vexed topic of Korean nuclear tensions, which likely topped the agenda.
China and Russia are well aware that security problems on the Korean Peninsula have no easy resolution. Both are grappling with how best to respond to not just the regular missile launches by Pyongyang, but also its nuclear tests.
Recent US rhetoric has given Beijing, in particular, heightened concerns that Washington might now be thinking much more seriously about a pre-emptive strike.
For instance, several weeks ago, US President Donald Trump made clear — prior to his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Florida — that if Beijing “is not going to solve North Korea, we will.”
Moreover, after meeting Xi, Trump sent the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to waters near North Korea. This upped the ante further from US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s striking announcement on a trip to Asia this year that the two decades-long US policy of “strategic patience” toward Pyongyang is now over and “all options” are on the table.
The rise in US rhetoric is one reason Wang asserted last month that “China’s priority now is to flash the red light and apply the brake to both [the US and North Korean] trains” to avoid collision.
Beijing and Moscow are concerned that tensions could spiral out of control and have supported a UN Security Council initiative that would build on a UN vote last year to tighten some sanctions in response to Pyongyang’s fifth nuclear test.
The UN measure favored by Beijing and Moscow would require the US and South Korea to halt military drills and deployment of the controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system in South Korea.
China fears THAAD could be used for US espionage on its activities as much as for targeting North Korean missiles.
Russia shares this concern and Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Gennady Gatilov said last month that THAAD is a “destabilizing factor,” asserting that it is “in line with the vicious logic of creating a global missile shield.”
Gatilov also warned that it undermines “the existing military balance in the region.”
The UN initiative favored by Moscow and Beijing would also put further pressure on North Korea to stop its missile and nuclear testing.
It is feared that Pyongyang might be preparing for a new nuclear test and the regime last month unveiled what appeared to be new intercontinental ballistic missiles.
However, unlike the US, China has been reluctant to take more comprehensive, sweeping measures against its erstwhile ally. The key reason Beijing has differed from Washington over the scope and severity of actions against Pyongyang largely reflects the fact that it does not want to push the regime so hard that it becomes significantly destabilized.
From the vantage point of Chinese officials, this risks the North behaving even more unpredictably and the possibility of the implosion of the regime, which would not be in Beijing’s interests, as it could lead to instability on the North Korean-Chinese border and ultimately the emergence of a pro-US successor nation.
The Russian-Chinese dialogue came at a symbolic moment given that the G7 and NATO met at the same time. While the warming of bilateral ties should not be overstated, it highlights the growing willingness of both sides to develop a significant cooperation agenda on certain bilateral and multilateral issues, including North Korea.
Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.
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