Russia-China Partnership in the Context of US-China Rivalry: Search of Starting Point and Assessment of Prospects

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the analysis of Russia-China strategic partnership in the context of decoupling and rivalry of USA and China. The author revises popular amongst Western experts idea that Russia-China contingence started after decline in relations between Russia and the West in the XXI century. Instead, the author argues that Russia (Soviet Union) –China partnership is a result of long-term and systematic contingence that started in the 1980s. Trigger for that was US-China Rapprochement in the 1970s – a process, which took Soviet leadership over a rough road at the final stage of the cold war and stimulated it to the search of normalization of relations with China, its neighbor with a vast land border. However, later Russia-China relations had been developing regardless of the American factor – a fact that proves mutual interest of both Russia and China in cooperation. Russia-China relations level reached its peak in the period when both Russia and China benefited from relations with the USA and so-called “Global West”, so it can not be concluded that their partnership is the result of worsening relations with the West only. Nevertheless, it’s obvious that currently geopolitical and sanctions pressure of the USA towards both Russia and China brings them even closer to each other but it is still not the prime cause of Russia-China partnership. Assessing the prospects of Russia-China partnership one should take into the consideration that even in the case of the US-China new rapprochement Russia and China would continue to be the key economic partners for each other (especially in the context of energy trade, technology transfer and cargo transportation via Eurasia and Northern Sea Route) so that their partnership would develop regardless of situational changes in their relations with the West.