Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics by Bobo Lo, (Chatham House, London, and Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D. C. 2008).

Reviewed by Martin McCauley

Russia and China have been neighbours since the sixteenth century, when the Russian Empire expanded to the Pacific Ocean.  Until 2000, Russia was dominant, but since then the Middle Kingdom has held sway.

China, Korea and Japan have always impinged on the Russian mind.  Until quite recently they have never been treated as equals.  Russia, unlike Britain, Germany, Italy and France, has clung on to the territories which it forced China to cede to it.  It will surprise some readers to learn that the ‘unequal treaties’ of Aigun (1858), Peking (1860), Tarbagatai (1864) and other lands lost in the 1880s amounted to 1.5 million square kilometres, or about 10 per cent of the territory of contemporary Russia.

To be fair, China is also an empire.  The Middle Kingdom—so called because the Han Chinese (occupying about 60 per cent of the territory) surrounded themselves with buffer zones to protect themselves from invasion by barbarians, ranging from Manchuria to Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Vietnam—is extremely sensitive about protecting the integrity of its territory.  The concept of ‘One China’ includes Taiwan, and uniting the stronghold of the Guomindang with mother China is an important goal.  Something which plays on the Russian mind is: how long until Beijing begins to demand that the unequal treaties be renegotiated?  When this day arrives, Moscow might think of playing their card: how long until China gives real autonomy or independence to Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, and so on?

Russia likes to think that its relationship with China is a strategic alliance which will blunt US hegemony in the world.  It is nothing of the kind. It is a tactical relationship which Beijing uses to promote its own interests.  China has no intention of becoming embroiled in an alliance with Russia which would cause it problems in Washington.

Bobo Lo, in this fascinating, intelligent, wide-ranging book, sees the Russo-Chinese relationship as an axis of convenience.  He delves into the history, the present status and the future of the relationship.  As such, it is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand this complex phenomenon.

China regards the hundred years before 1949 as the century of humiliation.  Russia was a major winner in the stakes of dismembering a weak Qing dynasty (1644-1911).  The May the Fourth Movement in 1919 began the struggle for modernization.  Was America the model to follow, or could China fashion a model based on Chinese characteristics?  The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 began a bloody period which ended with the victory of Mao Zedong’s Communist Party of China in 1949.  China committed itself to a western model.  However, it was not the liberal-democratic, free-market approach but the Soviet Marxist model which took precedence.

Mao looked up to Stalin, but the vozhd had no intention of allowing China to become so strong that it could challenge Moscow for hegemony in the Communist world.  He palmed the ‘Great Helmsman’ off with supervising the North Korean and Vietnamese Communist Parties.  He had wanted to guide all Communist Parties in Asia towards revolution.

So vain was Mao that he believed that he was the natural leader of the Communist world after the death of Stalin.  The Soviets were having none of that.  Nikita Khrushchev openly expressed his contempt for the Chinese leader.  Mao thought that Nikita was a clown.  Relations deteriorated to the point where the Soviets withdrew their specialists from China.  Mao complained bitterly that they took their blueprints with them.  The Soviets had promised to make China a nuclear power, but Khrushchev reneged on the deal. Lo gives the impression that all were withdrawn but some Soviet and East Europeans stayed.

It was inevitable that China would develop its own nuclear bomb.  Relations under Leonid Brezhnev deteriorated to the point that border conflict broke out along the Ussuri river in 1969.  The visit by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 repaired some of the damage, but his presence hugely embarrassed the Chinese leadership.  Young Chinese wanted perestroika in their country as well.  The end result was the tragedy of Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

Yeltsin got along famously with President Jiang Zemin.  He had studied in Moscow and spoke Russian.  Boris loved reminiscing with him about life in Moscow in the early 1950s.

The Putin years saw great efforts by the Russian President to upgrade relations, but by the beginning of this century China was clearly roaring ahead economically.  Beijing was mainly concerned to acquire hydrocarbons and arms from Russia.  As Lo points out, China became exasperated with Russia.  One day the Russians would say a deal was on, the next it was off, and so on.  He fails to point out that this was due to the infighting among the clans in the Kremlin.  There was no single decision maker.  Arms were a different story.  Russia was the only country which would sell China war matériel.  All this has come to a halt, as Beijing now needs only cutting-edge military technology.  They also demand technology transfer, which means the Chinese can copy the designs and manufacture the arms themselves.