2.6 Sino-Russian Relations

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From the course by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Chinese Politics Part 2 – China and the World

55 ratings

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Chinese Politics Part 2 – China and the World

55 ratings

One of the most significant changes in the world in the past 30 years is the opening of China to the outside world and its engagement with that world. In the initial years of the opening, external forces influenced China’s economy, regional balances, bureaucracy, as well as the political authority of local leaders in the coastal areas. More recently, the world is feeling the effects of a rising China which seeks resources and talent from all around the globe and uses its financial wealth to strengthen its position in the world. This course tracks the opening of China up from 1978 until it joins the WTO, focusing on how the world affected China’s internal development. We then look at various aspects of China’s “going out strategy” — its search for energy, talent, as well as its relations with the United States and the states within the Asia-Pacific region. The instructor has been deeply engaged in research on all these topics, having lived in China during various stages of China’s opening to the outside world. Course Overview video: https://youtu.be/7FpNL67EbE4

From the lesson

Module 2: China’s Changing Relations with the World, 2000-2016

2.1: International Structure: Realism and Constructivism11:55

2.2 International Political Economy and National Power10:58

2.3 Domestic Politics, Leadership and Foreign Policy2:50

2.4 Sino-US Relations: The Most Important Bi-lateral Relationship in the World7:06

2.5 Sino-Japanese Relations12:05

2.6 Sino-Russian Relations3:53

2.7 Relations with Taiwan and Hong Kong11:40

2.8 China’s Regional Ties3:45

2.9 China and ASEAN8:49

2.10 China and the Korean Peninsula4:19

2.11 China and Central Asia: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)5:06

Meet the Instructors

David Zweig
Chair Professor of the Division of Social Science and Director of Center on China’s Transnational Relations

[MUSIC]

Another very important relationship is Sino-Russian relations.

If we look at it from a strategic perspective,

first thing we see is a very long common border.

And it had been the scene of war in 1969 and

major troop placements up until 1989.

Now Russia sells weapons to China, but the military and

Nationalists in Russia worry about China's rise.

And maybe those weapons one day will be used against Russia but

they have some common views about the world.

They both favor a multi-polar world, they want to see less US influence.

They oppose sanctions on countries that violate international norms.

But on the other hand, China is quite uncomfortable with the recent Russian

takeover of Crimea and it's incursions into Eastern Ukraine.

Because they see this as deep penetration,

deep interference in another countries internal affairs.

They also compete within the Shang-Hai cooperation organization in Central Asia

where China has a larger economic role.

But the Russians really have great political leverage

with the ruling families that run these areas.

Now, we can see in terms of the mutual perceptions again and

using the data from the Pew Research Center.

We can see two points I want to make, one is, we've got a pretty big gap here.

In 2011, this is China's favorability in the eyes of Russians and

this is the Russia's favorability in the eyes of Chinese.

The Russians feel much better about the Chinese

than the Chinese do about the Russians.

And here, you get a difference of 16 points, right and

then in 2015 we get again, a huge gap.

Here we're talking about 28% difference in the mutual

perception but here we can see, that even though this jumped up.

The reason it got better was, that In 2014,

Chinese felt better about the Russians for a period of time.

And then it reverted back down to similar to the pattern,

which is about 50% of Chinese have a favorable view about Russians.

Now, this is also a very good energy relationship,

this is a political economy perspective.

This is the key energy relationship with agreements to build power plants.

Russia will build power plan for China in Siberia, using Russian coal.

They have an oil pipeline from Russia to China and they've been negotiating for

a long time and finally sealed a deal on natural gas.

But that deal on natural gas in 2015 actually, It was quite good for

China in terms of price.

Because the Russians, after having invaded the Ukraine,

the Europeans stopped buying Russian gas.

And so, Russia had to sell the gas and so China could get a good price but

trade between the two nations has increased dramatically.

Basically doubling from 50 billion U.S.

dollars to 100 billion U.S. dollars in five years.

But a trade is, what does Russia have to export?

Largely it has primary products, right, oil, gas, gold and

more like a developing country.

While China exports higher value added goods such as electronics.

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