An emerging alliance between China and Russia, at least for the time being, which puts the potential differences between the two powers on the sidelines, has led to a complex geopolitical dynamic. As India, Japan and Europe seek to drive a wedge between the two Asian powers, Central Asian countries, where anti-China sentiment is growing, are quietly entrenched in the hope that competition in Asia will give them greater maneuverability.
On a visit to Russia last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced at a annual economic forum in Vladivostok, set up to attract Asian investment in the Far East, a $ 1 billion credit plan to finance the region's development. Moody and Russian President Vladimir Putin also agreed to set up a sea route between the Far East capital of Vladivostok and Chennai, India, which would reduce transport time from 40 to 24 days.
The maritime line is likely to be an extension of the Indian Ocean corridor, which links India to Japan and the Pacific, and competes with Chinese lines, a chain of ports across Asia where China has invested heavily. In contrast to Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has attended the forum since its inception in 2015, has not announced any major deals in response to Putin's insistence that “developing the Russian Far East, strengthening its economy and potential for innovation, and raising the living standards of its population and others, are our priority. President and our main national goal ».
As the alliance cracked across the Atlantic, the EU's ambassador to Russia and one of the EU's top diplomats, Marcus Idrar, acknowledged the importance of Putin's priorities when he urged the European bloc to engage broadly with Moscow on some of the most difficult political and security aspects of its relationship, despite From the differences over Russian aggression in Ukraine and Georgia, human rights and alleged Russian interference in various European elections.
Affinity is necessary
In a note to senior officials, Ederer suggested that telecommunications over the fifth generation, the protection of personal data, the Arctic infrastructure, the development of common policies on issues such as customs and standards by the EU, Russia, Norway and Iceland should all be on the agenda. Business between the EU and Russia.
"Leaving room for our competitors in any of these areas, by not engaging, would be more detrimental to the interests of the European Union," he said. He said a "realistic" move to "strengthen coordination" with Russia is necessary to combat "Eurasian competition" as China's influence grows. The EU "will lose everything by ignoring the strategic shifts in Eurasia," says the European ambassador, who believes that engagement not only with China but also with Russia is "a necessary condition to be part of the game and play our cards where we have a comparative advantage."
Moody, Abe and Edder see the opportunity in what Thomas Graham, a former US diplomat and managing director of Kissinger and his associates, calls Russia's need to "diversify its strategic partners in the Far East to maintain its strategic independence from China."
The EU, India and Japan hope to benefit not only from Russia's requirements for diversified investment, but also Putin's need to counter widespread anti-China sentiment in the Far East, which has turned against his government as protests intensified in the capital. Month, a third of his seats in the Moscow Provincial Council.
Anti-Chinese encroachment on the region's natural resources, including water, is growing east of the Urals, especially in the region beyond Russia's Baikal lake. A petition launched earlier this year by prominent Russian businessmen, which opposes China's plans to build a water bottling plant on the shores of Lake Baikal, has drawn more than 800,000 signatures, indicating the depth of popular discontent and the dangers of Russia's alliance with China.
Russian demonstrations against China
Protests erupted earlier this year in several Russian cities against Chinese penetration in the Far East, where Russian citizens and environmentalists accuse China of destroying Russian water bodies and the natural habitat of the Siberian tiger and the endangered Amor tiger. The demonstrators, who also condemned the construction of housing for Chinese workers, are demanding a ban on Russian timber exports to China. The anti-China protests underlie the unbalanced nature of economic relations, which Russian scholar Leo Aaron says is “in keeping with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin's definition of colonial trade, as one country becomes a source of raw materials for another.”
Aaron explains that China is Russia's second largest trading partner (after the EU) and Russia's largest single partner in exports and imports. For China, the Russian market is, at best, second class. The researcher said that Russia ranks tenth in Chinese exports, not ranked in the top 10 in imports or overall trade.
He said three-quarters of Russia's exports to China are raw materials and natural resources, in exchange for consumer goods, electronics and machinery, which account for the bulk of Chinese sales to Russia. European, Indian and Japanese efforts to take advantage of anti-China sentiment in Russia are taking hold.
In 1911, Russian writer Nikolai Dimitrievich warned that "Russians are being displaced by the yellow races that seize trade, industry, wages, and so on."
President Putin, who heads a country with economic problems, cannot create margins where he can maneuver when needed, alone. He hopes that India, Japan and Europe will help.
Encouraging signs
Russian experts have expressed confidence that Moscow will not have to choose between Beijing and New Delhi. They argued that despite Western media reports of growing competition between India and China, the two countries are far from antagonistic. Looking at China-India relations in recent years, Russian experts saw several encouraging signs, such as the successful escalation of the border crisis in Beijing and New Delhi in 2017, the absence of major military deployments from either country targeting the other country, and the positive attitudes offered by Modi and Xi. Ji Ping, towards each other.
Together, these factors led Moscow to conclude that Beijing and New Delhi would not object to its efforts to maintain friendly relations with the other. Moreover, some Russian analysts see an opportunity in the growing tensions between the West and India over Kashmir and human rights to bring the three countries closer.
However, India has a long way to go before it can compete with China in the Russian Far East, or elsewhere in the country. Last year, trade between Russia and India reached $ 11 billion. During the same time period, trade between Russia and China was valued at $ 107 billion, making Beijing the largest trading partner of Russia.
800
A signature against plans
Chinese factory to build
To fill the water, on
The shores of Lake Baikal.