Opinion | Why Beijing should be wary of having a weakened, China-dependent Russia on its hands
- Beijing’s association with Moscow may not only have reputational consequences in the wake of the Ukraine war, but is also becoming controversial at home
- China should be wary of Russia’s impact on its own ties with the West, and as Europe shuts the door on Russia’s west, a shift of focus to the Far East may also be problematic
However, one thing the Russians and the Chinese can be sure of is that regardless of the consequences of the Russian aggression, Russia will be increasingly reliant on China. These concerns were raised within Russian academia before the atrocities in Ukraine. Even French President Emmanuel Macron bluntly said that if the Kremlin put all its eggs in China’s basket, it could become “China’s vassal”.
Currently, despite Russia’s strict censorship and desperate shaping of the narrative around the Ukraine war, Russian academics are still expressing their views on China.
Alexei Maslov, head of the Institute of Asian and African Studies at the Moscow State University, argued that Russia is falling into a dangerous addiction to China, while Vassily Kashin, a senior fellow at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, pointed out that Russia’s earlier attempts to diversify economically away from China and to other Asian powers were pretty much over.
Russian Sinologists believe that China will benefit from Russia’s war-induced dependency as it will be in a more favourable negotiating position. However, I would argue that aside from some limited economic gains and as long as Vladimir Putin is in charge, Russia’s dependency can be a headache for China in the long run.