Russia and China’s Enduring Alliance
A Reverse “Nixon Strategy” Won’t Work for Trump
February 22, 2017
Several commentators, among them Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute and Edward Luttwak of
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, have suggested that
U.S. President Donald Trump should take any efforts to warm relations
with Russia one step further and try to enlist Moscow’s help in
balancing a rising China. Trump views China
and Islamist extremism as the two principal challenges to U.S.
security, and he sees Russia as a potential partner in combating both.
The thinking goes, then, that Trump should run a version of the
diplomatic play that former U.S. President Richard Nixon and National
Security Adviser Henry Kissinger followed in the early 1970s when they
thawed relations with Beijing to counter the Soviet Union. This time,
however, Trump would partner with Russia to balance China.
The proposal entices with visions of ambitious strategic gambits across Eurasia, in Trumpian vernacular the “big league”
of geopolitics. Nixon going to China was one of the most consequential
diplomatic deals in U.S. history. What better way for the dealmaker in
chief—especially one who regularly consults with Kissinger—to burnish
his credentials than carrying out a version of it for himself? In
theory, the move would adhere to traditional maxims of geopolitics:
namely, the imperative to maintain the balance of power on the Eurasian
continent. U.S. strategists have relied on this principle to varying
degrees since at least World War II. Further, a strategy that engages
with Russia to counter China might lend a degree of coherence to the
Trump administration’s otherwise disjointed foreign policy.
ALLIED ENOUGH
The
problem for Trump is that Sino-Russian ties have been improving more or
less steadily since the waning years of the Cold War. The thaw between
the two communist powers began in the early 1980s and was followed by
normalized relations in May 1989. Beijing and Moscow established a
“strategic partnership” in 1996 and signed a Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation in 2001. Chinese and Russian leaders now refer to the relationship as a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination,” a convoluted term for a not-quite alliance. Last September, Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi proclaimed that
“the depth and scope of coordination between both countries are
unprecedented.” Robust cooperation has accelerated since Xi Jinping
became China’s top leader in 2012; he reportedly has a warm personal
relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The
two countries cooperate closely across a number of fields. On energy,
Russia became the top oil supplier to China in 2016. Crucially for
China, it transports supplies overland rather than through contested sea
lanes. The nations have partnered on military exercises, including in
the Mediterranean and South China Sea, as well as on some joint technology development projects. They have revived their languishing arms trade relationship. In 2015, Beijing agreed to purchase both Su-35 fighter jets and the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air
missile system from Moscow. The two countries have also embarked on a
number of symbolic people-to-people projects, such as beginning the
long-delayed construction of a bridge across the Amur River. And in June 2016, Presidents Xi and Putin agreed to work jointly to increase their control over cyberspace and communications technologies.
A
shared political vision for world order provides the foundation for
Chinese-Russian cooperation. It is defined primarily by the desire to
see an end to U.S. primacy, to be replaced by multipolarity. Once this
vision is realized, each nation would command an effective sphere of
influence in Asia and eastern Europe, respectively. For now, though,
China and Russia have tenser relations with the United States than at
any point since the end of the Cold War. This is primarily because of
maritime territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas—including
over the Diaoyu/Senkaku, the Paracel, and the Spratly island chains—and
the war in Ukraine, making the Sino-Russian partnership more important
than ever. A recent op-ed in the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily called that relationship “the ballast stone in maintaining world peace and stability.”
A shared political vision for world order provides the foundation for Chinese-Russian cooperation.
In
the 1970s, it was deep discord in the Sino-Soviet relationship that
helped convince China to align with the United States. This discord
culminated in border clashes in 1969. By 1972, relations between the two
communist powers had deteriorated from frosty to outright frozen. When
Kissinger came calling, Beijing already saw Moscow as a bigger threat
than Washington. For Russia today, the opposite is true. Moscow sees
Washington as the primary adversary despite hopes that Trump will repair
the relationship.
Moscow sees Washington as the primary adversary despite hopes that Trump will repair the relationship.
To
be sure, there is some potential for a rupture between China and
Russia. Moscow worries about a lopsided economic relationship based on
trading Russian resources for Chinese finished goods. China’s growing
influence in Central Asia and the sparsely populated areas of eastern
Russia, Moscow’s arms sales to India and Vietnam, and China’s theft of
Russian weapons designs all threaten to derail the partnership. But the
United States’ ability to fuel those disputes in order to foster
divisions remains limited at best. Moreover, Xi and Putin have found a
modus vivendi that downplays and contains those frictions while focusing
on the cooperative aspects of their relationship. When Chinese leaders
talk about a “new type of great power relations” with the United States,
they envision something much like the Sino-Russian relationship as a model.
WEAK RETURNS
In
exchange for turning against China, Moscow might seek the lifting of
sanctions imposed following the annexation of Crimea, an end to U.S.
support for a free and independent Ukraine, and acquiescence to the
regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It may also demand a removal
of missile defenses from Europe, the cessation of NATO expansion, or,
even better from a Russian perspective, the abolition of NATO
altogether. Granting Putin’s wishes on these issues would undermine the
seven-decade U.S. investment in a Europe whole, free, and at peace—an
investment that propelled the United States’ ascension to postwar
primacy in the first place. What is more, accepting Russia’s acquisition
of territory by force would undermine U.S. arguments about the
prohibition of such actions under international law when Beijing asserts
its expansive claims in the East and South China Seas using force.
Even
if Trump convinced Putin to end Moscow’s partnership with Beijing,
Russia would still have little capability to thwart China’s bad behavior
in places that matter. Russia’s Pacific Fleet, although relatively
sizable in number, suffers from severe shortfalls in maintenance, and
many of its assets are aging. Planned additions to the fleet—including
extra missile defense systems and submarines—will bolster deterrence
capabilities but have limited applicability to the types of sea patrol
tasks necessary to counter China’s maritime assertiveness. In theory,
Moscow could help arm Asian nations to contribute to the balancing
effort, but direct U.S. and other allied assistance could easily
substitute for that, building relationships more advantageous to U.S.
interests in the process.
Putin
would also need to patch up diplomatic relations in Asia if he planned
to balance against Beijing. Doing so would require a substantial
diplomatic investment and, likely, Russian concessions. Putin’s
ballyhooed rapprochement with Tokyo seems to have run aground despite
clear eagerness on the part of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a
deal to address the dispute over the Northern Territories islands, which
Russia calls the Southern Kurils, as well as a peace treaty officially
concluding World War II. And Russia’s continued support of North Korea
and staunch opposition to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense
missile defense system has made for rocky relations with Seoul. The
Russian position on the South China Sea—studied aloofness while agreeing
to joint naval exercises with China—means that strategic relations in
Southeast Asia would also require substantial diplomatic spadework
(Putin’s warm relations with President Rodrigo Duterte in the
Philippines notwithstanding).
FINDING LEVERAGE
A
better U.S. strategy for competing effectively in the no-holds-barred
contest of great power politics—including in “triangular diplomacy” with
Moscow and Beijing—would focus on two lines of effort. First, the Trump
administration should work with both Russia and China where possible.
Those efforts should seek to forge a trilateral understanding on
contentious issues affecting strategic stability, such as nuclear and
missile defense issues, twenty-first-century definitions of sovereignty,
and rules for armed intervention. Trilateral discussions should also
build practical cooperation on areas of mutual interest, such as climate
and energy, counterterrorism, and nonproliferation. Addressing
frictions head-on and building habits of cooperation could mitigate
strategic distrust among the three great powers by lessening the worry
that two will cut deals at the expense of the other.
Second,
Washington must continue to do the hard work of maintaining and
building support among current U.S. allies and partners in both Europe
and Asia, along with other increasingly powerful middle-tier states such
as Brazil, India, and Vietnam. Such ties give the United States
leverage over China and Russia, neither of which has similar worldwide
networks of friendly states. The United States must assess the costs and
benefits of finding and keeping friends overseas in a manner that looks
beyond the narrow transactionalism Trump espoused on the campaign
trail. Put simply, when considered in the context of a global
competition for power and influence, a vast network of allies and
partners starts to look more like an asset than a liability.
Trump seeks “good deals” with Russia. Cozying up to Putin in hopes of receiving Moscow’s help in balancing Beijing would not be one.