Why US-Russia reconciliation will be difficult despite warmer relations

There is ample evidence that Moscow and the West continue to see each other as adversaries and that Russia views China as a valuable partner
Russia’s growing closeness with China is not equivalent to Moscow becoming Beijing’s junior partner, though, as Russia still has its own goals and priorities

Artyom Lukin

Published: 1:00am, 6 Jul 2021

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There has been a flurry of significant developments in the great power triangle of the United States, Russia and China during the past month. On June 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden held a summit in Geneva.

Some observers interpreted Biden’s willingness to meet Putin, whom he had characterised as a “killer” just a few weeks before the summit, as an indication of Washington’s desire to split Russia away from China.

But does Biden actually seek to drive a wedge into the Moscow-Beijing quasi-alliance? That is unlikely. Biden and his team are smart enough to understand Moscow and Beijing will not fall for such divide and conquer tactics.

Rather than engaging in a hopeless exercise of trying to sow rivalry between Moscow and Beijing, the new US strategy is to stabilise relations with Russia so it can focus on countering China.

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The success of Washington’s “Russia stabilisation” policy is not guaranteed, but it is possible. For one, Russia seems to have much less appetite for confrontation with the West than was the case in the 2010s.

The Biden-Putin summit can be viewed as an attempt to reach a non-aggression pact. It is too early to say if the effort would succeed, but there seems to be a desire in Washington to have such a pact with Russia.

What is the evidence to support this interpretation? First, Biden and Putin issued a statement on strategic stability. Second, they discussed cybersecurity and might have achieved an understanding not to hack each other’s critical infrastructure.

Third, Washington seems to have shelved the idea of admitting Ukraine to Nato and is possibly considering leaving it as a buffer state, which should remove the most dangerous flashpoint between the US and Russia.

By contrast, Biden is offering no non-aggression pact to China. No comparable compromises are being extended to Beijing. One possible explanation is that, unlike in the case of Russia, the US might see a war with China as being far more likely and perhaps even inevitable at some point.

That said, some developments that happened in the wake of the Putin-Biden rendezvous in Switzerland have underscored that Moscow and the West continue to see each other as adversaries and reconciliation will not be easy.

Almost simultaneously with the summit, Russia’s Pacific Fleet held large-scale exercises off Hawaii. They were Russia’s first large naval drills on high seas in the Pacific since the Soviet era.

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On June 23, as part of Nato’s own drills in the Black Sea, a British destroyer sailed close to Crimea. This triggered warning fire and bomb-dropping from the Russians.

At same time, Russia has demonstrated a deepening intimacy with China. In late June, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov became the second Russian cabinet member to visit China since the start of the pandemic after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did so in March. The visit highlighted Russia’s growing reliance on financial cooperation with China.

Last month, Putin and President Xi Jinping held talks via video link on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Russia-China Treaty of Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation. A lengthy joint statement was issued after the virtual summit.

The statement refers to the Sino-Russian strategic partnership as a form of interstate relations which “is not a political-military alliance” but is in fact “superior” to traditional Cold War alliances.

That sounds somewhat ambivalent and suggestive, especially taking into account that the same statement also pledges to enhance the military cooperation of Russia and China, including through “an increase in the number and scale of joint combat training missions”.

Significantly, the two sides dedicated almost two pages of their joint statement to cyberspace. Moscow has traditionally been closely aligned with Beijing on issues of internet and data governance, but this alignment might have now reached a new stage.

It cannot be ruled out that Moscow has agreed to back Beijing’s initiative on global data security standards in exchange for China’s recognition, in the joint statement, of Russia’s special rights as the main littoral state in the Arctic.

This appears to be the first time China has explicitly acknowledged the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic Ocean as Russia’s domain. If someone was waiting for a Sino-Russian clash over the Arctic, they will probably be disappointed.

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Russia’s growing strategic closeness with China is not equivalent to Moscow becoming Beijing’s junior partner. While agreeing with China on most major international issues, Russia has its own vision for Eurasia, which is not completely in sync with Beijing’s.

Tellingly, the Putin-Xi statement refers to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, but the project is placed alongside Russia’s initiative of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. This indicates Moscow does not want the integration in Eurasia to be too Sino-centric and insists on more balanced arrangements.

Even though the Kremlin acknowledges the reality of China’s growing economic preponderance, the integration on the supercontinent should be less centripetal, more multilateral and more Eurasian, with Russia wanting the role of key politico-diplomatic broker for itself.

Artyom Lukin is associate professor and deputy director for research at the Oriental Institute – School of Regional and International Studies, Far Eastern Federal University, in Vladivostok