Context

• In June 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping described Russian President Vladimir Putin, as “my best friend and colleague”. 

Significance of  such description

• It’s the first time since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, such public friendliness has been seen between leaders of Russia and China. 
• It has sparked intense discussion on whether they are moving in the direction of a formal alliance, and what that could mean for the rest of the world.

The key triangle

• The triangular relationship between America, China and Russia has, for the most part, shaped global politics since 1950. 
• India is not a part of this triangle; yet they represent our three most consequential relationships. Hence, a proper appraisal of the Sino-Russian relationship will be critical to our foreign policy calculus.

Factors strengthening Sino-Russian relationship

• • The disintegration of the Soviet Union essentially negated the Russian threat in Chinese eyes.
  • The three pillars on which the Sino-Russian partnership currently rests are a 

• peaceful boundary, 

• expanding trade and

• a shared distrust of American intentions.

• Falling oil prices and fears of new sanctions on Russian gas supplies are demolishing the core of Russian exports to Europe, thus compelling them to depend to an even greater degree on the Chinese. 
• Western actions to punish Russia have served to strengthen China’s position in the strategic triangle.
• For instance after the western sanctions, 
  • China-Russia trade has more than doubled to $108 billion
  • Russia’s central bank has increased its Chinese currency reserves from less than one per cent to over 13%, and 
  • China has surpassed Germany as the principal supplier of industrial plant and technology. 
• Coordinated action in multilateral forums, increasingly sophisticated joint military exercises, and including activities with third countries such as Iran, reinforce that Russia and China are morphing into an alliance.

Challenges ahead

• The growing power-gap is threatening to further reduce Russian influence in their ‘near-abroad’ and to confine Russia to the periphery of global power. 
• Russia still regards itself as a world power and hopes to be at the centre of a Eurasian arrangement that stretches from the Pacific to the Atlantic. 
• Chinese continue to nurse historical grievances despite the formal resolution of the border issue.
  • China still makes critical references to the nearly 600,000 square miles of Chinese territory that Tsarist Russia allegedly annexed in the late 19th century. 
  • Russia is also concerned over Chinese migration in the Russian Far East.
• Russia presumably thinks to control China through its energy dependency and China feels that it can integrate Russia into its economy by redirecting Russian oil and gas eastwards.

Conclusion

• The new reality of Sino-Russian relations is where substantial expansion of bilateral cooperation is accompanied by growing asymmetry and China’s pre-eminence, including in Russian ‘backyards’ such as Central Asia and the Arctic regions.
• A strategic partnership with Russia based on the absence of fundamental conflicts of interest and a shared belief that some form of multipolarity is better than any sort of Sino-U.S. alliance, is important for India, and this relationship deserves more attention from both sides. 

References

1. https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/china-russia-ties-as-a-major-determinant/article32398740.ece