Engage China & Russia with Issues, Not Scolding

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Wilson Briefs | May 2015

An emerging Russian-Chinese entente

The emerging entente between Beijing and Moscow is more significant and durable than

is typically recognized in the West. Russia and China regularly join forces in the UN Security

Council to veto actions against human rights abusers, and Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s

Engage China and Russia withIssues, Not Scolding

by Robert Daly and Matthew Rojansky

China and Russia demonstrate a growing affinity in their national interestsand diplomatic styles. Americans have often dismissed Chinese and

Russian international ventures with broad attacks understood by Chinese

and Russians as cultural condescension and used by their presidents to

consolidate domestic support. The United States would engage China and

Russia more effectively by focusing debate on specific policy issues and

omitting more general criticism.

SUMMARY


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growing friendship, evinced by their upcoming attendance at each other’s World War II

commemorations, increases the popularity of both men in both countries. They benefit not

only from their images as strongmen, but from championing such principles as opposition

to U.S. hegemony, and building such institutions as the BRICS Bank that offer alternatives to

Western institutions.

Historical affinities: Greatness and suffering

The signs of a Eurasian entente are often dismissed by Western scholars and policymakers

who emphasize the historical enmity and disparate interests between China and Russia and

conclude that Sino-Russian partnership must be illusory. Such dismissals overlook cultural

commonalities that draw proud Russians and Chinese closer together, particularly in the

face of dismissive attitudes from Washington. Both nations are continental

powers with ancient, deeply mythologized histories. Both pride themselveson “unique” national virtues, which the Chinese call their te-se (“special

characteristics”) and Russians identify with the Orthodox Church and

Russkiy Mir (“Russian world”). Beijing and Moscow both seek legitimacy

in the claim that they defend these virtues from foreign powers that have

humiliated them in the past and seek to undermine them now. Both pride

themselves on resilient suffering (the ability to chi ku , or “eat bitterness” in

Chinese; to endure lisheniye , “privation,” in Russian).

The American experience carries echoes of Chinese and Russian

apprehensions that should lead Americans to grasp the emotional power of Chinese and

Russian history. To appreciate Russia’s sense of vulnerability, Americans need only reflecton their own perennial fear of decline and consider that Russians lived through a real and

catastrophic collapse in power and prosperity only two decades ago. To fathom China’s

present anger over defeats and insults suffered during and since the Opium Wars of the mid-

1800s, Americans need only think of the passions still elicited in the southern United States

by discussion of the Civil War. To understand the mindset of people in a state of continual

crisis, real or imagined, Americans should recall their own surge of patriotism and fear and the

rush to war following 9/11.

U.S. attitudes

Nonetheless, U.S. officials have often discredited Russia’s actions as widely out of step. Even

at the height of the “Reset” in 2009, President Obama referred to Putin as having “one foot

“Beijing and Moscow

both seek legitimacy

in the claim that they

defend these virtues from

foreign powers that have

humiliated them in the pas

and seek to undermine

them now.”



in the old ways.” In March 2013, Obama declared

that Russia, in annexing Crimea, was “on the wrong

side of history.” Speaking of Russian aggression in

Ukraine, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “You

just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th-century

fashion by invading another country on completely

trumped-up pretext.” The White House, further, has

stretched its depiction of Putin to cover Russia as

a whole, as when Obama said in an August 2014

interview with the Economist , “President Putin

represents a deep strain in Russia that is probably

harmful.”

The United States has criticized China similarly. Regarding the Chinese role in the internationalsystem, President Obama said in 2014 that they “have been free riders for the last 30 years.”

When China tries to build institutions or provide public goods, it is told that its standards fall

short of America’s, as in Obama’s defense of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: “China wants to

write the rules for commerce in Asia. If it succeeds, our competitors would be free to ignore

basic environmental and labor standards, giving them an unfair advantage over American

workers. We can’t let that happen. We should write the rules.” In Washington’s comparable

misgivings about the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which would

offer an alternative to the World Bank and other established international financial institutions,

China sees the same denigrating tendency.

Offense taken

Because the Chinese and Russian people are long-sensitized to America’s sense of

superiority, these countries regard the slightest tincture of American contempt as an assault

on national dignity. This helps Xi and Putin mobilize domestic opposition to American values

and policies. Chinese on the Internet and in public conferences responded to Obama’s “free

rider” comment as if they had been attacked as a people. Many Chinese think that the remark

proves Beijing’s assertion that America seeks to contain China’s rise. Putin evoked similar

Russian sentiments in a 2014 address to the Federal Assembly, when he touched on the long

history of the Western policy of containment: “Whenever someone thinks that Russia has

become too strong or independent, these tools are quickly put into use.”



Robert Daly

Director, Kissinger Institute on China and the United States

Matthew Rojansky

Director, Kennan Institute

To manage relations with this China-Russia entente, the United States must understand their

motives and present U.S. policies and values with specificity and without cultural veneer:

• U.S. analysis should integrate cultural and historical factors into policymaking and

should strive to understand China and Russia on their own terms, even if those

terms seem offensive or wrong. To build analytic capacity, the United States should

encourage more American university students to take up Russia and China studies and

should invest in exchanges at all levels.

• When Washington needs to deliver tough messages to Beijing and Moscow, it should

employ quiet, sustained diplomacy and focus on technical rather than civilizational

issues. When international norms are violated, the United States should identify and

counter specific threats and forego principled exhortations.

The Wilson Center

@TheWilsonCenter

facebook.com/WoodrowWilsonCenter

www.wilsoncenter.org

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

One Woodrow Wilson Plaza

1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20004-3027

Page 3 image: President Barack Obama meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at his dacha outside Moscow, Russia.

Source: The White House Flickr.

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Engage China & Russia with Issues, Not Scolding