Sino-Russian relations
|
|
|
|
| Russia | China |
The relationships between the present states of China and Russia spanning several centuries and various systems of government in both countries. While Tsarist Russia initially faced the Chinese Empire , after the October Revolution the Soviet Union first had the Republic of China and from 1949 the People's Republic of China as neighbors. Since the collapse of the communist federation in 1991, the Russian Federation has been China's northern neighbor.
history
Beginning of relationships
In the course of the Russian expansion to the east , the border of the Russian Empire was shifted further and further into the Asian region, where it came across the sphere of influence of the China of the Qing dynasty . The resulting conflicts were settled in the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 , in which the mutual territorial claims were defined. Russia was forced to partially withdraw from Manchuria , but was granted extensive rights to trade with China. The treaty represents the first bilateral agreement between a Chinese emperor and a western state. The agreement was further expanded in the period that followed. In the 19th century, the Treaty of Aigun (1858) and the Beijing Convention (1860) revised the territorial regulations in favor of Russia.
The age of imperialism
When China came under the influence of the European colonial powers after the Second Opium War , Russia also tried to assert its interests in China. For example, it supported Islamic and Mongolian independence efforts in order to further destabilize the confused, uprising situation in northern China. When the Boxer Rebellion was put down in 1900, Tsar Nicholas II participated in the Russo-Chinese War with the deployment of troops and at the same time occupied Manchuria with 200,000 men under the pretext of fighting boxers there. In this regard, it was contractually stipulated in February 1901 that China got the area back, but that Russia was allowed to station troops there to protect the railway lines, i.e. that it could de facto establish a protectorate over Manchuria. Russia thus consolidated the impression on the Chinese side of being one of the worst imperial aggressors.
Establishment of the Soviet Union and the Republic of China
Even after the end of the First World War , in which the Republic of China entered on the side of the Allies, its situation did not improve. Furthermore, the country was under the strong influence of foreign forces and was exposed to the expansion efforts of Japan .
However, Russia was no longer one of these, as it had been ruled by the communists since the October Revolution , who condemned the tsar's imperialist policies. They told the Chinese Republic, which at the time was de facto controlled by warlords (see Northern Militarists ), that they would drop all claims on Chinese territory that the Tsarist Empire had made. Furthermore, supported Lenin on the Comintern , both the nationalists to Sun Yat-sen and later Chiang Kai-shek (the Kuomintang ) and the Established in 1921, Chinese Communist Party , both of which were built as a cadre parties along the lines of Lenin. Both received logistical support as well as ideological and military advisers, through which the SU was able to gain a certain influence. B. 1923 at her insistence to form the First United Front , in which the two rival parties fought together against the warlords. In the course of the Soviet-Chinese cooperation, many cadres also went to Russia to study and thus contributed to a cultural exchange within the elite.
1943–1949: China in civil war
The Middle Kingdom was in the middle of the Chinese civil war between the communists under Mao Zedong and the nationalists under Chiang. The outcome of the war was uncertain for a long time. The Manchuria was occupied for some time by the Japanese. Over time it became clear that the communists were oriented towards the Soviet Union, the nationalists towards the USA . Of great importance was that Stalin did not support the communists in China substantially, but rather supported the Kuomintang with war resources, since he saw the nationalists as more reliable and trustworthy partners. Because the CCP saved supplies and troops for the civil war after the Japanese expansion of China ended. There were two main reasons for this: First, Manchuria had been occupied by the Soviet Union since 1945, which had succeeded in driving the Japanese out of the area within nine days. Moscow secured special rights to railways and especially to ice-free ports in the region. However, these rights could only be formally recognized by the nationalists - for a long time Stalin stuck to his forecast of a nationalist victory. Second, he tried to pit both opponents against each other in order to establish the Soviet Union as the dominant force.
In 1946 the Soviet troops withdrew from Manchuria. The communists could not fully conquer the then industrial center of China until 1948. This was an important step towards the final victory of the communists and the proclamation of the People's Republic of China by Mao in 1949. The nationalists fled to Taiwan as losers in the civil war and continued the Republic of China there to this day .
From this point of view, the Soviet-Chinese alliance from 1950 appears more like a lack of alternatives than a natural alliance.
1950–1956: Alliance
In 1950, China and the Soviet Union signed a friendship treaty. He envisaged an alliance in the event of Japanese (or states allied with Japan; meaning the USA) aggression; Stalin had to give up special rights in Manchuria. Joint economic projects were also started and economic aid for China was initiated. The contract has a very unusual character and points to Chinese independence. Even after Stalin's death in 1953, nothing changed in the alliance - under Khrushchev a similar, expanded treaty was concluded in 1954. The main motive for the treaty on both sides was to create a counterweight to the dominance of the USA. China also needed the technological expertise of the Soviet specialists.
1956–1959: First breaks in the coalition
See main article : Sino-Soviet rift
The first breaches of the alliance were evident on the XX. 1956 party congress in Moscow. First, Khrushchev introduced the principle of peaceful coexistence . Instead, Mao took a more aggressive course and could only superficially accept the new concept. Second, Khrushchev opened up the great criticism of Stalin ( de-Stalinization ) and, associated with it, the criticism of the cult of personality , which indirectly also hit Mao, as Mao was also involved in a cult of personality.
Furthermore, the Chinese deviated more and more from the economic policy course of the model, which provided for the increased development of heavy industry, behind which other economic areas were less important. However, Mao and his followers assumed that building up agriculture and associated light industry was a top priority. In general, these reasons for the break between the two states can be described as ideological conflicts that arose from the contrasts between Khrushchev's policies and Maoism .
China also called for support from the Soviet Union on three points. Negotiations for the supply of nuclear technology to China continued throughout the 1950s , but Moscow did not supply anything substantial. Furthermore, China had border disputes with India . The Soviet Union again did not support China here because, among other things, it exported weapons to India itself. After all, Moscow shied away from the conflict with the US over the Taiwan issue alone and therefore did not support the VR in the bombing of Quemoy .
1960–1985: Open fracture
In 1960, Khrushchev withdrew all experts from China. This was the final, pictorial exit from the alliance. As a result, the bilateral trade volume collapsed sharply . The governments now began to openly criticize each other. It was preferable to attack the other side by criticizing the politics of Sofia or Tirana. Sofia ( Bulgaria ) turned to Moscow, Tirana ( Albania ), however, changed fronts in 1961 and was from then on pro-Chinese, i.e. H. both states followed the same course as their big brothers.
A new quality of mutual tension was achieved with the one-two punch of 1962. A new Sino-Indian border conflict led the Soviet Union to harshly criticize the aggressive style of the PRC. The Soviet Union feared that neutrals (in this case India) could be driven into the western camp. The conflict was exacerbated by the fact that the Soviet Union delivered weapons to India. For its part, the People's Republic of China criticized Khrushchev's policy in the Cuba crisis as a sign of weakness and giving in. The tensions were also characterized by ideological conflicts: it was about the further course towards the imperialist camp , the cult of personality and, in general, the question of which party should assume the ideological claim to leadership in world communism.
The climax of the confrontation was a border conflict in 1969 on the Ussuri River . The conflict was limited on both sides, but for the first time official communist troops fought against each other, as well as the two nuclear powers (China was able to detonate its first atomic bomb without Russian help in 1964 ).
The conflict situation slowly changed when China sought contact with the USA. This was successful - in 1971, the PR China was awarded the seat on the UN Security Council and in 1972 the official state visit of the US President Richard Nixon to Beijing followed. Since the first direct, personal contact between the two governments was a secret visit by the then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger , which he made while the American table tennis team was in China, one still speaks of Nixon's ping-pong diplomacy today .
Moscow responded to this new context with a double strategy: on the one hand, attempts were made to prevent any further rapprochement between the USA and China, on the other hand, it signaled a willingness to relax with Beijing. Before starting any talks, however, China demanded a reduction in the troop presence on the common border, which the Soviet Union did not respond to.
However, even after the death of Brezhnev in 1982 or Mao Zedong in 1976, rapprochement between the Soviet Union and China was not possible. His successor Deng Xiaoping was not nearly as ideologically oriented as he was, but in his opinion there were still the "three obstacles" in terms of realpolitik:
- The military presence of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan (see Soviet-Afghan War ).
- The Soviet engagement in Indochina (The People's Republic of Vietnam , which was loyal to Moscow , had occupied Cambodia , loyal to Beijing , in order to depose the Khmer Rouge ).
- Reduction of the military presence at the border: Immense troop contingents were stationed on the shared border.
1985–1989: rapprochement and normalization
From 1982 onwards, the relationship between the Soviet Union and China began to ease. The USA could not be won over to a further rapprochement, whereby the Taiwan question in particular had prevented further rapprochement. However, a significant easing of the tension could only be recorded since 1985, when the new Soviet leader Gorbachev had shown willingness to give in on the three points for the first time. In the following years, more and more willingness to talk was indicated. In the years that followed, the border disputes slowly began to be resolved. From 1989 onwards, with Gorbachev's official state visit to Beijing, one can speak of a normalization of relations.
The Chinese response to the collapse of the Soviet Union
The Chinese leadership continued its pragmatic, ideology-free foreign policy course despite massive internal criticism of Gorbachev. Beijing saw its actions against the students on Tiananmen Square in 1989 ( Tian'anmen massacre ) and in the resistance to political opening confirmed.
After the incidents of 1989, China was isolated in terms of foreign policy. Russia remained the only partner and, above all, the only willing supplier of armaments technology. Furthermore, on the basis of the five principles of peaceful coexistence and the one-China policy , China wanted to involve the now independent Central Asian states. In the course of its modernization, China relied on a peaceful environment.
1989 to today: increasing cooperation
The collapse of the Soviet Union also marked the end of the rift with the People's Republic of China. The main focus of the Chinese government has since shifted from the danger of a Soviet invasion to the danger of the United States intervening on the Taiwan issue . Russia, in turn, was now concerned about American policies, such as the expansion of NATO and the intervention in the former Yugoslavia . The United States no longer viewed China as a counterweight to Russia, but as a rival for supremacy in the world. This is why China and Russia have now strengthened their ties to jointly resist American power. In 1993 , the two states signed a treaty that formally set the border and resolved any open questions.
.svg)
The discussion of the border disputes that had already begun was continued with the newly created states after the collapse of the Soviet Union: Russia, Kazakhstan , Tajikistan , Kyrgyzstan and China met regularly in the so-called "4 + 1 talks", in which the majority of the Questions could be clarified. From these talks, the “Shanghai Five” were formed in 1996, which in 2001 were renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and also accepted Uzbekistan as a member.
The bilateral relationship has also improved steadily; both states spoke of a "constructive" partnership in 1994 and of a "strategic" partnership in 1996. In 2001, a Russian-Chinese friendship treaty was concluded for a limited period of twenty years , which essentially fixed agreements that had already been made and clarified common interests. The main aim of the framework agreement was to bind the 4th generation of Chinese leaders under President Hu Jintao (from 2003/03) to Russia in the long term, despite the lack of biographical ties with the neighboring country.
The main components of the content are:
- Further expansion of the relationship: strengthening of cooperation in business, environment, military, training, science etc .; Regular meetings
- Limits: abandoning all territorial claims; Respect for mutual territorial integrity (i.e. Russia is on the side of the PRC on the Taiwan issue)
- Foreign Policy: Nonviolent Foreign Policy; Mutual consultation in the event of a conflict; Not joining an alliance directed against the other; Stabilization of the Central Asia region .
- Security policy: Joint fight against the "three forces" terrorism , separatism and religious fanaticism ; Coordination in the fight against crime; Reduction in weapons of mass destruction;
- Recognition of the property of the other: This also aims at the problem that extensive brand piracy is practiced in China .
At the beginning of 2005, China and Russia jointly carried out the "Peace Mission 2005" maneuver on the Shandong peninsula in China : Air and naval landing units used other branches of service to invade a coast. Almost 10,000 soldiers took part on both sides. With regard to the Taiwan conflict , the maneuver was politically explosive, but both the Chinese and Russian sides countered that the exercise was directed exclusively against terrorism and extremism .
In August 2007, the major maneuver "Peace Mission 2007" took place on the surrounding military bases of Chelyabinsk in Russia as part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in which Russia, armed forces from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the People's Republic of China took part. China sent 14 planes and 32 helicopters to the training area some 2,000 km away.
In September 2016 there was a Sino-Russian sea maneuver in the South China Sea, a conflict region (see Territorial Conflicts in the China Sea ).
Economic relationships
During the falling out of the two states, there were no direct economic ties. After the Tiananmen massacre , the western industrialized countries imposed an arms embargo on China. Russia has been the main arms supplier to China since then.
To date, bilateral trade has increased, but it is still at a very low level: At USD 10.4 billion in 2004, the volume of trade (sum of exports and imports) is low when you compare it with China's trade volume with others States compares. In the same year, Germany was in 6th place with USD 54.2 billion, the USA and Japan in first and second place with USD 169.6 billion and 167.9 respectively. China exports mainly textiles, while the majority of Russian exports Exports consists of petroleum . Although the Russian state earns enormous sums of money from exporting energy, it is not sustainable and creates relatively few jobs. During Putin's visit to Beijing at the end of March 2006, the decision was made to build a pipeline from Russia to China, which will more than double oil imports from Russia.
As China is growing rapidly, it needs more and more oil and is trying to diversify its energy sources to reduce reliance on oil supplies across the China Sea . For this reason, China agreed with Kazakhstan to build a pipeline from the energy-rich country in 2005 . In 2014, following the annexation of Crimea, an agreement was reached with Russia to build a gas pipeline and supply gas for $ 400 billion over 30 years.
The trade volume between Russia and China was just under 40 billion dollars after the lull in 2008, rose to over 90 billion dollars by the beginning of 2014 and then fell again to around 50 billion by 2016. Chinese direct investments in Russia had also initially quadrupled to 1,270 million in 2014 and almost halved in 2015.
The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the USA showed the weakness of Russian-Chinese relations, as they acted independently of one another. President Putin was able to gain confidence in the West without joining the war coalition. China then followed a softer foreign policy line vis-à-vis the USA. A mutual agreement only took place ten days after the attacks.
Russian President Putin's visit to China in March 2006
President Putin traveled to Beijing from March 21 to 23, 2006, accompanied by ministers and a 1,000-strong delegation . Political, economic and cultural issues were discussed. The aim of both states was to revive the good relations of the 1950s.
Russia reaffirmed its support for China on the Taiwan issue. They also pushed for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear dispute with Iran . At that time, both of them refused to pass a resolution under Article 7 of the UN Charter , which means that they did not agree to possible sanctions against Iran .
President Putin opened the Russia Year 2006 in China. In return, there was a China year 2007 in Russia. Putin and Hu Jintao met four times within a year.
In 2006 China had three motives for building an oil pipeline to Russia. First, domestic energy production was no longer sufficient to satisfy the growing economy's hunger for energy. Second, the inland pipeline counteracted a possible blockade of the China Sea for merchant ships. Thirdly, the pipeline achieved further diversification of energy sources. The Chinese energy demand was largely covered by coal , which was extracted using outdated mining methods. Oil is Russia's most important economic and political instrument. The PRC should not get a special price. In 2013, a contract was signed with Rosneft for the supply of oil for 270 billion dollars within 25 years, an annual supply which in 2013 corresponded to six percent of Russian production. The construction of the pipeline contrasted with the desire to trade more in high-quality industrial goods instead of 80% raw materials.
Especially in the Russian border regions, the Chinese are often judged negatively, also for fear of the demographic pressure of 200 to 300 million Chinese migrant workers , who could orient themselves towards Russia if the Chinese economic model fails. In China, the perception of the neighbor is consistently more positive; the Chinese tend to see the economic opportunities in Russia.
The conflict over the Iranian nuclear program
Chinese and Russian interests
The PR China maintains good relations with Iran , which has proven to be a reliable trading partner, which in turn depends on the resources from Russia due to the embargo of the Western powers. China gets 13.6% of its oil imports from Iran and is currently involved in the exploitation of a new oil field in Iran. China emphasizes that - unlike the US - it will not interfere in internal affairs because it does not approve of interfering in internal state policy either. However, an Iran capable of nuclear weapons is not in China's interest.
Russia is also interested in a diplomatic solution. Moscow proposed that nuclear enrichment should be carried out at Iranian expense but on Russian soil. Like China, Russia has friendly relations with Iran, one of its largest partners in the Middle East. Russia in particular wants to continue selling its military technology to Iran. 1/3 of the Israeli population is now of Russian origin. The security situation in Israel could therefore increasingly come into the focus of Moscow.
literature
- Herbert J. Ellison (Ed.): The Sino-Soviet Conflict. A global perspective. Seattle 1982, ISBN 0-295-95873-1 .
- Dru C. Gladney: Chinas interests in Central Asia: Energy and ethnic security. In: Robert Ebel, Rajan Menon (Ed.): Energy and conflict in Central Asia and the caucasus. 2000, ISBN 0-7425-0063-2 , pp. 209-224.
- Joachim Glaubitz: China PR, foreign policy. In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics. (Vol. 6, International Relations). Munich 1993, pp. 77-82.
- Sebastian Heilmann: The Politics of Economic Reforms in China and Russia. In: Communications from the Institute for Asian Studies Hamburg. No. 317, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-88910-231-X .
- Dieter Heinzig: The new ideological conflict between Beijing and Moscow. In: Reports of the Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies. No. 37, 1990, pp. 5-11, ISSN 0435-7183
- Dieter Heinzig: Soviet-Chinese Relations in the 1970s and 1980s: From the Cold War to Limited Détente. In: Reports of the Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies. No. 44, Cologne 1984, ISSN 0435-7183 .
- Dieter Heinzig: China as a regional and global challenge for the Soviet Union. In: Reports of the Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies. No. 19, Cologne, 1986, ISSN 0435-7183 .
- Egbert Jahn: Russian Federation / Soviet Union, foreign policy. In: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexicon of Politics. (Vol. 6, International Relations). Munich 1993, pp. 75-485.
- Marlies Linke: Effects of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the changes in the international constellation of forces at the beginning of the 1990s on the People's Republic of China. In: Lothar Hertzfeldt (Ed.): The Soviet Union. Fall of an empire. Berlin, ISBN 3-88939-043-9 , pp. 239-256.
- Alfred D. Low: The Sino-Soviet dispute. An analysis of the polemics. London 1976, ISBN 0-8386-1479-5 .
- Middleton, Drew: The duel of the giants. China and Russia in Asia. New York 1978, ISBN 0-684-15785-3 .
- Nicolai N. Petro, Alvin Z. Rubinstein: Russian foreign policy. From Empire to Nation-State. New York 1997, ISBN 0-673-99636-0 .
- Rosemary Quested: Sino-Russian relations. A short history. Sydney 1984, ISBN 0-86861-247-2 .
- Boris Shiryayev: Great powers on the way to a new confrontation ?. The “Great Game” on the Caspian Sea: an examination of the new conflict situation using Kazakhstan as an example . Publishing house Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8300-3749-1 .
- Franz Stadelmaier: The Soviet Union 1917–1991. Two revolutions change the world. A historical overview. Bonn 1992, ISBN 3-416-02373-0 .
- Oliver Thranert: The Iranian nuclear program. In: From Politics and Contemporary History : Nonproliferation. November 28, 2005, ISSN 0479-611X , pp. 10-16. (Facsimile)
- Gudrun Wacker: Sino-Russian relations under Putin. In: SWP study . No. 19, Berlin 2002, ISSN 1611-6372 .
- Gudrun Wacker: China and Russia: forever friends? In: Institute for Asian Studies (Ed.): China aktuell: journal of current Chinese affairs / GIGA, German Institute of Global and Area Studies. April 2003, ISSN 0341-6631 , pp. 468-474.
- Gudrun Wacker: The PR China and the successor states of the Soviet Union. Part I: The disintegration of the USSR and relations with the Russian Federation. In: Reports of the Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies. No. 49, 1993, ISSN 0435-7183 , pp. 3-14.
- Gudrun Wacker: Russia and China in Central Asia: Partners or Competitors? In: Olga Alexandrowa, Uwe Görtz, Uwe Halbach (eds.): Russia and the post-Soviet space. Baden-Baden 2003, ISBN 3-7890-8392-5 , pp. 498-516.
Web links
- Analyzes, statistics and surveys on Russian-Chinese relations in Analyzes on Russia No. 198 (PDF; 699 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Maneuvers in the South China Sea - China and Russia are practicing in a sensitive region , Tagesschau.de, September 12, 2016
- ↑ Russia is waiting for the Chinese wind , NZZ, October 15, 2016
- ↑ China as an important partner - Rosneft puts out its feelers , NZZ, June 21, 2013