Brian M Downing
The Russian view
Russian political culture has been shaped by devastating Mongol, Lithuanian, Polish, Swedish, French, and German invasions. Russian villagers have had to scan open horizons for signs of danger. Rulers in the Kremlin have had to do the same. Events along the periphery today are seen in this light. China’s expansion, power, and potentials cannot be going unnoticed, even early on on the march west.
China is a powerful, ambitious state whose military focuses on the US and East Asia for now, but whose manifest destiny lies in the Eurasian land mass. This will dawn on Russians, from villages around Vladivostok to the corridors of power in Moscow, if it hasn’t already. Putin’s nationalist-populist base values strength and prestige. The Orthodox Church has long been closely aligned with powerful rulers in keeping out marauding armies, decadence, disease, and ruin. Every Russian in the Far East Province sees their towns increasingly populated by Chinese.
Putin knows this. After all, he grew up in Leningrad not long after the Third Reich’s catastrophic three-year siege and his career was in the suspicious, almost paranoid bureaus of the KGB.
He also knows that the military power he has built back up over the years is concentrated in the west and Middle East. His forces in the east are inferior yet are expected to guard an immense amount of territory, hold up former SSRs, and guard against Islamist militancy. They could never hold up against a concerted effort from China – admittedly an unlikely prospect but one security bureaus must ponder and plan for.
Scenarios
The two powers today benefit financially from Beijing’s exploitation of the Near Abroad. Out and out war is far from the horizon. Skirmishes like those in 1969 are unlikely but disputes and fights may break out between Russian and Chinese nationals over the latter’s presence, displays of wealth, and relationships with local women.
Russia can use oil diplomacy to moderate China’s power. It can lower prices to gain more returns from the Near Abroad or raise them to signal concerns. However, China is diversifying its oil imports and developing fields in Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan. Moscow might see diversification as unfriendly and ominous, at least in the long-run.
Russia can strengthen ties with autocrats in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakstan and their armies. In the Great Game British and Russian officers dressed in colorful local garb and parleyed with tribal chieftains. But two can play that game and China can offer much more. The Greater Game will repeat the parleys, though with suits and stuffed briefcases instead of mufti and gold coins.
China’s ascent has brought a sense of limitlessness – perhaps imprudence as well. There may be pressure inside China to assert control over territory lost in centuries past to grasping tsars. Expropriating the expropriators might still have meaning inside China, despite its embrace of capitalism. Every Chinese knows the term Unequal Treaties.
Russian security bureaus may sense China’s confidence and fear its imprudence. They may press Putin to curtail China’s creeping Sinicization of their Near Abroad. Putin must know that Sinicization threatens his image of a strong ruler, defending the motherland. This could bring political turmoil to the Kremlin. Officials and generals know well of their country’s long history of troubled successions when a powerful leader dies, leaving no anointed successor and a country open to turmoil and foreign intrigue.
Russia could counter Sinicization with hefty investments and engineering projects of its own, making the region closer to Moscow oligarchs than to Beijing’s co-prosperity sphere. However, the Russian economy is frail and Moscow lacks the kapital. Moscow could go to go to western investment, private and state, to help hold onto the Near Abroad. This of course would require a fundamental shift in policy and a reorientation of strategic priorities from the West and Middle East.
That’s not forthcoming. Putin’s strategic calculations are warped by hostility to the West, especially the US. But foreign policy is a long game. It’s been going on for millennia and will continue for decades, as China’s power continues to rise and Russia’s stagnates. Players are readying a Greater Game.
© 2020 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.