China In Eurasia

In the latest display of deepening ties between Beijing and Moscow, Chinese and Russian troops kicked off five days of military exercises in northwestern China on August 9.

More than 10,000 troops from the Chinese and Russian militaries are participating in the Zapad/Interaction 2021 drills in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region that will involve large numbers of aircraft, weapon systems, and vehicles.

The military exercises come as the security situation in Eurasia continues to shift, with the U.S.-led foreign military withdrawal from Afghanistan leading to increased fighting between the Taliban and government forces and shaking up the wider region.

This year's training marks the fourth consecutive exercises between Beijing and Moscow and the first joint drills held in China. The maneuvers will focus on stability in neighboring Central Asia as both countries look to showcase the growing cooperation between their militaries.

"This exercise is a natural progression of stronger military ties between the two countries, but the situation in Afghanistan adds an important new layer," Zhang Xin, an associate professor at the Center for Russian Studies at Shanghai's East China Normal University, told RFE/RL. "Both sides are worried about spillover into Central Asia and the new types of security challenges to the region that it could pose."

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on August 5 that the goal was to "consolidate cooperation" and "maintain regional peace and security," focusing on counterterrorism and establishing a joint command center for better cooperation on joint reconnaissance, early warnings, joint strikes, and electronic and information attacks.

Driven together by shared antagonism toward the United States as well as similar strategic concerns for Central and South Asia, ties between China and Russia have grown increasingly close in recent years.

Both Beijing and Moscow have shown an increased willingness to tackle international issues together and the current military exercises focused on security in Central Asia and Afghanistan are the latest display of this evolving dynamic.

But according to Zhang, while military ties continue to expand and the countries find new ways to work together, China and Russia are not progressing toward "a military alliance in the traditional sense."

"This kind of exercise shows a move towards a closed but flexible collaboration between two militaries without entering into a full-scale alliance," Zhang said.

Beijing And Moscow's Evolving Ties

While the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan continues to draw the attention of political and military leaders in China and Russia and presents opportunities for collaboration, ties between the two countries are expanding across several sectors.

Russia-China collaboration accelerated in 2014 following the Kremlin's seizure of Crimea, where Russia was placed in the crosshairs of Western sanctions.

Since then, Beijing and Moscow have seen their relationship grow closer, with expanded trade, high-tech cooperation, and growing political support for each other, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In June, both sides renewed the Sino-Russian Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation as they celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Military ties have also been a focal point.

Chinese and Russian forces have been regularly doing drills together in some form -- bilaterally or through a multilateral organization -- since 2005, and those have expanded to also include joint naval exercises.

Starting in 2018, Beijing and Moscow expanded to larger-scale exercises, which emphasize training top-level commanders to work together and were marked that year by high-profile drills in Russia.

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Russia's Claims Of 'Biggest-Ever' War Games Seen As Sending A Message To The West

But despite the warming military and political ties, analysts say there are limits to the type of partnership that China and Russia are looking to forge with one another.

Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Moscow Carnegie Center, told RFE/RL that neither side wants to be locked into an alliance where they would be brought "into a fight where the other doesn't have skin in the game," pointing to disparities in China's positions toward Ukraine and Russia's toward Taiwan.

"They try to stay out of each other's fights and instead find those areas of overlap in mutual interest," he said. "China and Russia are very pragmatic and both oppose the United States, but both see themselves as great powers and are religious about their strategic autonomy."

A New Consensus

Following the current weeklong exercises, the Russian military and China's People's Liberation Army will also train together in September in drills organized under the banner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian security bloc helmed by Beijing and Moscow.

Like the maneuvers under way in China, the SCO drills will also have a counterterrorism focus.

The SCO -- which in addition to China and Russia consists of India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan -- has become a vehicle for Beijing's growing security ties across Eurasia, which are poised to grow against the backdrop of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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China Eyes Regional Leadership Role As Afghan Fighting Intensifies

Russia has traditionally seen the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as its own sphere of influence, but Beijing's rise as the dominant economic force has changed the dynamics in the region.

In recent years, China and Russia have looked to balance their interests in Central Asia between "Russian military muscle and China's wallet," Anton Barbashin, editorial director at the online journal Riddle Russia, told RFE/RL.

But he says this "consensus is no longer as solid as it was a decade ago" and that moving forward, the evolving situation in Afghanistan and its future effects on Central Asia will play a growing role in shaping China and Russia's future security cooperation in the region.

"We might be looking at the beginning of wider security cooperation over Afghanistan between China, Russia, and the Central Asian states," Barbashin said. "How this progresses will show if the SCO is a real organization capable of deterring the inevitable risks coming from Afghanistan or not."

Welcome back to the China In Eurasia briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China’s resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.

I’m RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish and here’s what I’m following right now.

Ukraine Bends To Chinese 'Vaccine Diplomacy'

Ukraine bowed to Chinese pressure to take its name off an international statement about human rights abuses in China’s western Xinjiang region after Beijing threatened to limit trade and withhold access to COVID-19 vaccines, my colleague Yevhen Solonyna from RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service and I reported.

Finding Perspective: The AP reported in late June, citing anonymous Western diplomatic sources, that China allegedly threatened to block a planned shipment of at least 500,000 Chinese-made vaccines to Ukraine unless Kyiv dropped its support from the call for greater international scrutiny into Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of running an internment camp system for Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

We spoke to three Ukrainian lawmakers and a senior Ukrainian official familiar with the episode who confirmed that this is, indeed, what happened and also provided RFE/RL with new details about the incident.

Among those new details, the senior Ukrainian official told us that China's Foreign Ministry blocked export documents for the Sinovac shots and that Chinese officials “hinted at the reason” for the vaccines being withheld. As soon as Kyiv withdrew its signature from the statement, he said, the documents were processed and Ukraine received its expected batch of vaccines.

But the pressure wasn’t limited to vaccines.

Andriy Sharaskin, a Ukrainian lawmaker from the opposition Voice party who sits on parliament's Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation Committee, told us Beijing also leaned on Kyiv by threatening to limit trade and offered more investment in Ukrainian infrastructure in exchange for Ukraine removing its signature.

On June 30, shortly after the episode, China and Ukraine announced an infrastructure agreement, with Beijing promising to increase investment and attract more Chinese companies into the country.

Why It Matters: China has denied that it engages in so-called “vaccine diplomacy,” where countries leverage the supply of shots to exercise diplomatic pressure and gain political concessions, but this appears to show otherwise.

The incident is also an interesting window into foreign policy discussions under way in Kyiv.

In general, the United States and the European Union are close partners for Ukraine and the country wants to further integrate with the West. Kyiv, however, has found itself frustrated with a string of Western policy decisions and is looking for new ways to draw investment into the country, which has left the Ukrainian government increasingly eyeing China.

As Solomiya Bobrovska, an opposition Ukrainian lawmaker who serves as secretary for parliament's foreign policy committee, told us about the decision to bend to Chinese pressure:

“Ukrainian leaders explained this [position] to us by saying that the collective West has a somewhat cold attitude towards Ukraine, and therefore it’s necessary to pursue the opportunities that are given from other sides,” Bobrovska said.

Read More

● Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba recently authored an article for Foreign Affairs titled Ukraine Is Part of the West, in which he calls for leaders to offer Kyiv a road map for EU and NATO membership.

● Part of Kyiv’s frustration is a recent U.S.-German deal to allow Nord Stream 2, a Russian gas pipeline that will bypass Ukraine. Amy Mackinnon, Robbie Gramer, and Jack Detsch have a good piece on the pipeline’s tumultuous history for Foreign Policy.

Expert Corner: Chinese Tech Spreads Across Eurasia

Readers asked: "How quickly is Chinese tech being adopted across Eurasia and what are its implications?"

To find out more, I asked Bradley Jardine, a fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.

“Chinese tech is being rapidly adopted across Eurasia and includes everything from [telecommunications] and traffic cameras to facial-recognition payment systems. One overlooked implication of enormous consequence is that this technology may facilitate China's growing use of transnational repression due to the lack of regulations on data privacy.

“In 2019, a Uyghur man was stopped at mainland China's border with Hong Kong and interrogated for three days because someone on his WeChat contact list had ‘checked in’ at Mecca, a place of pilgrimage for Muslims. In closely monitored Central Asia, with its large Uyghur diaspora, the proliferation of Chinese technology will result in growing surveillance and harassment of this vulnerable community.”

Do you have a question about China’s growing footprint in Eurasia? Send it to me at StandishR@rferl.org or reply directly to this e-mail and I’ll get it answered by leading experts and policymakers.

Three More Stories From Eurasia

1. Another Attack On Chinese Workers In Pakistan

Two weeks after an explosion on a bus carrying Chinese and Pakistani personnel in northwest Pakistan, gunmen opened fire on two Chinese workers in Karachi on July 28, RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal reported.

What Happened: The string of incidents has left Beijing reevaluating how best to protect its citizens and interests in the country, which has become strategically important as the centerpiece of its multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, as I reported here.

The attacks come as the region braces itself for a worsening security situation in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of American troops, which could spill over into neighboring countries like Pakistan.

The July 14 bus explosion that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese workers, was the deadliest attack ever on Chinese citizens abroad. The workers suffered serious injuries from the shooting, but both are still alive.

The authorities are still investigating both attacks -- Pakistani law enforcement announced that they had arrested two suspects in connection with the explosion -- but the motive behind the attacks is not immediately clear, and no group has claimed responsibility for either incident.

Looking Ahead: While Chinese workers and diplomats have been targeted before in Pakistan, the scope and frequency of the attacks is growing.

This has left Beijing increasingly focused on how to shore up its security in the region. Chinese officials have had several meetings about this with their Pakistani counterparts, particularly the military and intelligence services, and the attacks have also led to speculation that Beijing could push to provide its own security, as it does in many other countries.

But as Ayesha Siddiqa, a research associate at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, explained to me, Islamabad is strongly against such a shift:

“There will be more pressure on Pakistan to protect the Chinese and maybe let the Chinese take care of their own security,” she said. “But Pakistan absolutely does not want this. They do not want Chinese boots on the ground.”

2. Rising To Where?

China’s status in the world has risen dramatically in recent years and Beijing’s clout continues to grow. A few recent developments illustrate this rise in interesting -- and at times contradictory -- ways.

The Breakdown: The Lowly Institute recently published a study looking at the evolution of Chinese diplomacy and compared visits by foreign leaders to China versus to the United States, showing a major increase in face-to-face visits to Beijing.

As the report noted: “In 2019, the year before COVID-19 halted most travel, 79 foreign leaders visited China, while only 27 called on the United States. More world leaders have visited China than the United States in every year since 2013, a sharp turnaround from the American dominance of the early post-Cold War era.”

On the flip side, The Economist had an interesting piece looking at the increase in Chinese asylum seekers, which saw a massive uptick since 2012 when President Xi Jinping took power and has coincided with more repressive policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

Since Xi took the helm, “613,000 Chinese nationals have applied for asylum in another country. About 70 percent of them sought asylum in America in 2020.”

Finally, Qin Gang, one of the pioneers of China’s brash and confrontational “Wolf Warrior diplomacy,” -- that is, the combative tone taken by the country’s diplomats online -- is headed to Washington as Beijing’s new ambassador. It will be an interesting test to see what sort of tone Qin adopts as he navigates a fraught U.S.-China relationship.

This all paints a complex picture moving forward. China’s global status is elevated, but the country is becoming more repressive at home. Meanwhile, its new international stature is just beginning to face its first tests abroad.

3. An Island Divided

Current Time has produced a documentary looking at Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, an outpost on the Amur River in Russia’s Far East that was disputed by Beijing and Moscow for decades but which has now been divided almost equally between the two countries. You can watch part of the video here.

Compare And Contrast: The island, known as Heixiazi in Chinese, is an interesting case study in Sino-Russian relations.

Not only does it illustrate the disconnect between top leaders looking to forge a warmer relationship and the long-standing suspicions from people on the ground, it also shows the disparity between local governments.

Since the formal division in 2008, Russian developers have put forward plans to make the island an important gateway for trade and travel with China, but on the Russian side most people live in dilapidated homes with minimal infrastructure and lack access to many important government services.

The full documentary can be viewed here.

Across The Supercontinent

The Protester: Pickets outside the Chinese Consulate in Almaty have continued for five months as people search for their relatives in China that they believe have been caught up in Beijing’s internment camp system in Xinjiang.

My colleague Nurtay Lakhanuly from RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service profiles Qalida Akytkhan, a 67-year-old pensioner who has become a mainstay of the demonstrations as she tries to find her family members in China.

The Review: Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said that the bloc will publish a report after the summer reviewing its relationship with China. You can read the rest of Borrell’s interview in Spain's El Pais newspaper here.

Reinforcements: Kyrgyzstan received 1.25 million doses of another Chinese vaccine, Sinopharm, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reported. To date, the country has bought 2.35 million shots from its neighbor to the east.

From Russia With...: Officials from Nanjing, the Chinese city that is at the heart of a current COVID outbreak in the country, have said that they believe the source of the infection is an Air China passenger flight that arrived from Moscow.

One Thing To Watch

Many observers thought that both Beijing and the incoming Biden administration would look to cool things down after four years of testy relations under former U.S. President Donald Trump, but this doesn't look to be the case.

Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Wendy Sherman wrapped up a high-level visit to China on July 26 during which she met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng. It was reportedly a tense meeting and a harbinger of things to come. Any repair in relations seems unlikely and the best each side can hope for is to prevent things from deteriorating further.

As Sherman told NPR following her meeting in China: “I think we have to insist that this is a very complex relationship that involves competition, cooperation, and times where it's adversarial and we're going to challenge what China does.”

That’s all from me for now. Don’t forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.

Until next time,

Reid Standish

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