Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction -- pt. I. Breznev's Containment Policy. 2. The Soviet Union's China Strategy, 1969-79. 3. The Sino-Soviet Conflict in Perspective -- pt. II. The Road to Beijing. 4. Leadership Change in the USSR and Sino-Soviet Relations, 1980-85. 5. Pressures for Continuity and Change in Soviet China Policy in the Early 1980s. 6. From Rapprochement to Normalization. 7. The Gorbachev Revolution and China Policy -- pt. III. Toward Sino-Russian Partnership. 8. Sino-Russian Relations in the Yeltsin Era. 9. Moscow and the Border Regions Debate Russia's China Policy

The article examines Sino-Russian relations in Central Asia against the background of the deepening partnership between Moscow and Beijing. We have yet to see any substantial Sino-Russian cooperation in Central Asia, even though Xi and Putin pledged at their March 2023 summit meeting to expand such cooperation. China's Central Asian diplomacy has been more active of late, but this has not necessarily come at the expense of Russian influence. While some Chinese experts see Russia's distraction with the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to advance the PRC's economic interests in the region, others point to China's soft-power deficit as an obstacle to further gains. Despite China's growing economic clout, Russia retains considerable negative hegemony and has sought to check Chinese plans for energy connectivity to maintain its own role as a regional energy supplier. Though the two countries share an interest in preventing the expansion of Western influence, Russian and Chinese actions have in fact led the Central Asian countries to seek partners outside the region.

After dismissing the Sino-Russian partnership for the past decade, scholars now scramble to assess its significance, particularly with US foreign policy in disarray under the Trump administration. I examine how China and Russia manage their relations in East Asia and the impact of their approach to great power management on the creation of an East Asian order. According to English School theorist Hedley Bull, great power management is one of the ways that order is created. Sino-Russian great power management involves rule making, a distinctive approach to crisis management, and overlapping policy approaches toward countries such as Burma and the Philippines. I conclude with a comparison between Sino-Russian great power management and the US alliance system, note a few distinctive features of the Trump era, and draw some conclusions for East Asia. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)

This paper argues that Russia and China are partners of consequence and that the neglect of the normative dimension of the Sino-Russian relationship has led its impact on global governance to be undervalued and misunderstood. Following a constructivist approach, the paper examines the shared norms underlying an ever closer Sino-Russian partnership, despite divergent interests in a number of areas. A first section examines how shared norms lead Russia and China to define their identity similarly, facilitate joint actions, and constrain their individual policy choices. For Russia, elaborating its own unique identity is crucial to its claim to global status, though complicated by interactions with multiple 'Others.' Russia's effort to engage Asian partners is often viewed as hedging against China, but as second section argues that Russian engagement in Asia is better understood in terms of Russia's effort to define an Asian identity. A third section highlights the securitization/desecuritization dynamic in Sino-Russian economic relations. Xi Jinping's efforts to redefine China's global role reinforces its tendency to desecuritize the vulnerabilities that lead China to seek economic cooperation with Russia. Russia, fearing becoming a 'resource appendage' of China, then securitizes economic relations with China. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

Russia's cooperative approach to Asia contrasts with its assertiveness in Europe and the Middle East, though the Russian military also has made provocative maneuvers near Japan and US Pacific bases. Ukraine may be far from the Asia-Pacific, but the Ukrainian conflict also casts a shadow on Russia's Asia policy.

Although China is Afghanistan's neighbor, strategic partner, and one of its largest foreign investors, it has kept a low profile overall on Afghanistan compared to other states in the region. This article seeks to understand China's Afghanistan policy within the context of the Chinese government's overall approach to foreign affairs. A review of China's Afghanistan policy show a reluctant involvement, with domestic economic and security interests leading and foreign policy following. A final section examines the uncertain policy environment that China faces in devising an Afghanistan policy and some of the scenarios that Chinese scholars envisage for Afghanistan post-2014.