Will Russia Be the Real Loser in the New U.S.-China Cold War?

[Ptarmigan]

Will Russia Be the Real Loser in the New U.S.-China Cold War?
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-russia-be-real-loser-new-us-china-cold-war-150071

China found itself in the international wilderness after its suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests. The violent crackdown elicited widespread condemnation from the West and, shortly thereafter, the United States and the European Union imposed an arms embargo on China that remains in place to this day.
 
In the subsequent years, Beijing found an unexpected partner in post-communist Russia. The collapse of the Soviet Union had financially devastated the Russian arms industry, making it very eager to do business with an economically-ascendant China. Over the following decade, China bought up Russian fighter jets and missile systems as part of its quest for military modernization, emerging as Russia’s largest arms customer in the process.

More than thirty years later, a new crisis could once again bring China and Russia closer together. An outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus in the Chinese industrial center of Wuhan has over the past few months spiraled into a global pandemic and economic depression, inciting an international backlash against China along the way.

Amidst the recent turbulence, Russia was among the few nations that sided with China against its critics. With the current global health crisis taking an increasingly geopolitical turn, Moscow and Beijing are looking to each other for support.

The coronavirus pandemic has battered China’s global image in recent months, as well as its business interests overseas. The United States has led the charge against Beijing, with the Trump administration blaming China for the outbreak and a growing number of Republican senators threatening to adopt punitive legislation against the People’s Republic. Numerous European governments have accused China of seeking to exploit the crisis for political gain and of sending them faulty testing equipment.

Even several of China’s close African partners have lashed out at Beijing for reportedly discriminating against their citizens as part of its public health restrictions.

It seems like China and Russia are allies. They have had a rocky relationship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sino-Russian_relations

[Ptarmigan]

The Chinese influx into Asian Russia
https://asiatimes.com/2019/06/the-chinese-influx-into-asian-russia/

On the global geopolitical stage, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are best buddies, united by shared interests and personal bonhomie.

But in Russia’s east, there is suspicion toward a capital that is far closer than distant Moscow.

Resentment toward Chinese tourists – who appear in huge numbers, often lack social graces and tend to patronize Chinese, rather than local businesses – is not unique to Russia. Nor is fear of China’s ever-growing economic clout.

However, in the vast, underpopulated reaches of Siberia and the Russian Far East, these factors are exacerbated by an age-old fear: That of being demographically and economically swamped by the giant next door.

Russia Far east has large influx of Chinese.

[Ptarmigan]

Chinese in the Russian Far East: a geopolitical time bomb?
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2100228/chinese-russian-far-east-geopolitical-time-bomb

Recent meetings between Beijing and Moscow – at the Belt and Road Forum last month and at a two-day summit last week in Russia – are the latest in a string of efforts to strengthen Sino-Russian ties, especially along the border. However, like many nations, Russia has found that working with China can be a double-edged sword.

Sino-Russian relations are “at their best time in history”, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russian media attending the summit – words that were backed up with the announcement of a US$10 billion fund for cross-border infrastructure projects.

But for all the fanfare surrounding the fund, Chinese investment in the region is helping to fuel tension, raising fears of China’s growing presence in the Russian Far East. A side effect of Beijing’s investment – an influx of Chinese migrants – is often perceived by locals as an expression of China’s de facto territorial expansion. Some Russian political groups and media outlets have tapped into this anxiety and deliberately sensationalised it. An apocalyptic film China – a Deadly Friend (in the series “Russia Deceived”) became an instant internet hit after its release in 2015. In the film, we are told China is preparing to invade the RFE in its quest for global dominance and that Chinese tanks could reach the centre of the city of Khabarovsk within 30 minutes. Just 30km from the Chinese border, Khabarovsk is the second largest city in the RFE after Vladivostok and the region’s administrative centre.

China and Russia has a rocky relationship.

But the issue of Chinese presence in the RFE touches a raw nerve in Russia, largely for two reasons. First, Russians view it in the context of the enormous and growing economic and population incongruence with China and second, the three-decades-long Sino-Soviet confrontation, including border clashes in the late 1960s.