The “new era” of multilateral cooperation in Eurasia will need not only cooperation between great powers of a “new type”, but also “new thinking” in general. This is, first of all, the task of harmonizing the dialogue between Russia and China, Julia Melnikova writes.
Interaction with China remains one of the most stable and reliable elements for Russia’s foreign policy. The trusting relationship between the leaders of the two countries contributes to the development of a political dialogue in regular high-level meetings and joint statements. Strategic interaction stimulates trade and economic partnership. Even under sanctions, by the end of 2023, bilateral trade turnover exceeded $240 billion. In 2023-2024, Chinese companies actively filled the niches left after the departure of Western suppliers in the market for cars and spare parts, electronics, construction materials, etc. Russian businesses, in turn, sought out new markets in the PRC.
At first glance, the dynamics of Russian-Chinese interaction confirm the persuasiveness of structural realism — a theory that points to the primary importance of the structure of international relations as they relate to individual subjects of global processes. Russia’s “pivot to the East” in the context of the conflict with the West and the underlying redistribution of power potentials between old and new great powers generally confirms the relevance of external explanations for the creation of various partnerships. However, when answering the question of what factors can contribute to the development of constructive interaction between two players comparable in power and international influence, realism pays less attention to how to maintain such interaction in the long term. In other words, how can competition be avoided in the future?
A partial answer to this question is offered by constructivism, which points to the dependence of the model of behaviour towards the counterparty on the perception of the latter. In speeches, the Russian leadership regularly points out that maintaining strategic relations with the PRC fully meets Russia’s interests, but mistrust of China at the level of business circles and the general population persists. Overcoming it requires a general deepening of mutual understanding and/or debunking of negative attitudes about the partner.
Deepening mutual understanding is largely a communicative practice. On the one hand, communication is a favourable tool for strengthening partnerships with the Chinese. Chinese culture, including diplomatic culture, pays more attention to words and images than, for example, American culture. China’s foreign policy discourse is filled with elegant formulations that can be perceived as signals of Beijing’s non-confrontational intentions. China characterizes its dialogue with Russia as interaction between great powers of a “new type”, “relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation entering a new era”, “friendship that is passed down from generation to generation and will never become hostility”, and “a more advanced form of interstate interaction compared to the military-political alliances of the Cold War era”. On the other hand, from a cultural and historical point of view, Russia and China belong to different civilisations. Among decision-makers in Russia, there are far fewer people who are Sinologists and orientalists, than it is required given the new international political conditions. Among business circles and the general public, there are even fewer specialists with knowledge of the region. It is impossible to increase their number several-fold in a short period of time, since the inertia of Westernised behavioural models and business practices in Russian society is very strong. Accordingly, there are gaps at all levels of Russian-Chinese dialogue that could make an additional contribution to improving mutual understanding and communication. The problem, however, is not only on the Russian side. The complexity of Chinese foreign policy discourse leads to the fact that it is not perceived as meaningful or credible.
The SCO was conceived as a forum for communication between Russia, China and the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), dedicated to maintaining regional security and creating conditions for the peaceful development of the countries, as well as overcoming threats of terrorism, extremism and separatism. Over its more than twenty-year history, the organisation has obviously outgrown its original mandate both geographically and functionally. Today, the organisation includes all major Eurasian powers, namely Russia, China, India, Iran and Pakistan. With the accession of the Republic of Belarus in 2024, the western border of the association also shifted.
All these states have their own ideas about threats to national and regional security. Moreover, they can even classify their SCO partners as a destabilising factor. The situation in the field of international security as such has also changed. The growth of global conflict has provoked the erosion of many of the region’s governments, including with respect to non-proliferation and combating organised crime. Accordingly, the polylogue in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation space can no longer and should not be limited to the fight against the “three forces of evil” (separatism, terrorism and extremism). At the same time, the SCO consists of developing countries. When interacting with the Central Asian countries in the “5+1” format , China emphasises the problems of their development: poverty, social inequality, access to natural resources (including traditional and non-traditional energy sources), and weak infrastructure.
At the same time, such problems are not only characteristic of the Central Asian states. To one degree or another, most of the countries — new SCO members — face them, with the possible exception of Belarus. At the same time, a large number of initiatives aimed to solve economic problems coexist in the organisation’s space: this includes the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the “5+1” formats, the Belt and Road initiative, and the North-South ITC aimed at solving problems in the area of regional connectivity, etc. Accordingly, conditions have been formed in the Eurasian space for transforming the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation into a platform for discussing models of multilateral integration of all the aforementioned regional development projects, into a more modern mechanism for building “sustainable security” with multiple dimensions: from military-political to socio-economic.
Establishing communication in Russian-Chinese relations via the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation space in order to maintain constructive, rather than competitive interaction between members does not imply the development of universal ideologies. This is not only impossible, but also unnecessary in a multipolar world. At the same time, developing a new, understandable language of “sustainable security” in Eurasia, thanks to which everyone will be able to contribute to solving and anticipating common problems in their own way, is necessary. This means that work on developing economic cooperation should not replace dialogue with each other, the worldview of partners and their interests. Thus, the “new era” of multilateral cooperation in Eurasia will need not only cooperation between great powers of a “new type”, but also “new thinking” in general. This is, first of all, the task of harmonizing the dialogue between Russia and China.