1. Russia-China Relations and the West
- Author:
- Marcin Kaczmarski
- Publication Date:
- 03-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Transatlantic Relations
- Abstract:
- This paper is part of CTR's Working Paper Series: "Russia and the West: Reality Check." U.S. domination in global politics provided a powerful incentive for the post-Cold War rapprochement between Russia and China. The worsening of Russia’s relations with the West since 2014 made Moscow even more willing to offer significant concessions to Beijing. However, closer Russian-Chinese cooperation predates the Russian-Western crisis over Ukraine and reaches back to the 2008-2009 global economic crisis. Even the growing power asymmetry has not dissuaded Moscow from deepening its cooperation with China. This challenged widespread Western expectations that Russia would be eager to cooperate with the West in order to compensate for China’s increasing advantage. Hence, a potential improvement of Russian-Western relations is highly unlikely to result in the weakening of Russian-Chinese ties
- Topic:
- International Relations, Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, International Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, Trump, and Alliance
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Europe, and United States of America