Richard Sakwa (Kent) - Russo-Chinese Relations in a Time of War

Thank you very much. It's great to be here with you. Trinity College as I said yesterday, this is my first time to Dublin and it's a great pleasure to be here and by definition everyone my first time in Trinity College and also Dublin nice to be here because over the years I've met so many scholars, great scholars from this institution from this great institution even. So today I will be talking about Russo-Chinese relations in a time of war. I'll have four sections so first some introductions and then I'll go through the basic question. So a few opening comments about to put it into context. I'm arguing that the Russo-Chinese relationship is one of the most important consequential ones of our time. It raises some fundamental questions about how we understand international politics today and indeed the very notion of what everybody's talking now as you know about the collapse of international order that the world is going to hell in a hand cart and all sorts of apocalyptic discussions. Peter Thiel is pretty good on that even J.D. Vance and others but that the world is changing. Xi Jinping of course when meeting with Putin says the changes of the nature we've not seen in a hundred years and so on. I'm arguing that not that these changes signal a basically a fundamental division in international politics. You could even say in globalization that on the one hand I'm arguing that there is what I call a political West. Others can call a collective West. Russians love to call it the collective West. The West itself loves to call it the liberal international order. Whatever that was. I don't think that existed and lately after 1989 after this this thing, uh radicalized, it called itself the rules-based order. Again, who makes the rules, who on what basis, and whose order is it is the question. But, to understand the so you Sino-Russian relationship, it's one needs to understand the beast or the entity not not against which it is forming, but in whose relationship and whose shadow it is taking shape. And we need to I certainly would argue that this political West was established after 1945. That we haven't fully understood just the depth of the transformation that this political West wreaks on its member states. I'm talking about the institutions of that political West, obviously NATO from 1949, the European Union, and the whole framework of international political economy against which it was and through which it was established and works. We're talking about IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization, and so on. All effectively dominated by this entity. Uh the this political West transforms the states which are its members. And you know, many places I'm not going to go into it because that's not our subject today, but the key one is de-sovereignization. In other words, losing ability to have strategic thinking, strategic development which is autonomous. Even with outside outwith, I think in Scotland they'd say the European Union, they're still Britain for example after Brexit has doubled down on the other side of the political West, that is the security apparatus. It's not only institutional of course, it is also ideological this this political West. Clearly by uh after the after the end of the Soviet Union after the collapse of the Soviet model in the Soviet block, this political West fundamentally radicalized radicalized in all sorts of ways. Again, it's not my subject, but just to understand the context. It radicalized Well, I'll just briefly name some of the ways in which it radicalized. It radicalized in a Hegelian manner, that is with all this Fukuyama type Koyev type thinking about the end of history. Uh it radicalized in a Kantian manner with the absolutization of human rights and certain ethical norms which uh strangely it radicalized in a Hobbesian way, not only of course military the the radicalization of suppression of if you like an internal anarchy. It radicalized in a Hayekian manner for neoliberalism. >> [snorts] >> Uh and so on, it ultimately even radicalized in a Schmittian manner. That is the distinction between friend and foe became absolutized in this political entity which I call the political West. So, uh it's uh Uh so this uh Uh and so in other words, the logic of Cold War is perpetuated and it is a logic of conflict in this body. Uh uh after the end of the Cold War, this political West this collective West this rules-based order this liberal international order claimed to be uh about it began to usurp the role of the international system in which it is embedded. So, until 1989 you had two major contending models of world order. You had on the one side the political West, and on the other side, you had the Soviet system, Soviet-type socialism, uh and all of its uh achievements and failings. As long as the Soviet Union existed, it acted as a spur for the political West to maintain its unity and to maintain, if you like, limits to its behavior to certain degree, and also forced it to develop the social democratic welfare state internally to make sure that the effective effectiveness of Soviet socialism uh did not become overwhelming. Anyway, uh today, the Russo-Chinese alignment, not an axis, not an alliance, alignment, is the beginning of a reconstitution of an alternative model of world order. It's not the same, and it's not even defined in opposition to the political West, because it is defined precisely by its attempt to salvage the international system which was established in 1945. So, we have an international system which is based on the United Nations, and on that basis, a whole body of international law was generated. Uh we have a whole stack of institutions, uh World Health Organization and a whole stack of others. This international system is the larger framework in which politics uh takes place and has done since 1945. This international system, as it builds on earlier failings and achievements of the Versailles system since 19 after 1919, of the Congress of Vienna system, Utrecht in 1714, which basically established the rules of diplomacy, and of course, Westphalia, which talks about sovereignty. The fundamental principle today of this international system, the Charter international system, as I call it, is the this Charter International System is based on sovereign internationalism. Sovereignty plus multilateralism in an a vision of internationalism. By contrast, the fundamental ideological animus behind and underneath this political West, the collective West, is as certainly was until uh recently liberal globalism. So, globalism as opposed to internationalism uh and liberalism we have than sovereignty. So, you have a set of contrast. In short, today the major contestation is not just over between if you like alternative models of world order, but the Russo-Chinese model of world order is in it's about the international system as much as it is about contestation between uh blocks of states if you see what if you say so. I'll I'll I'll explain that again. That the whole point is that the the Russo-Chinese alignment stands in defense and all the documents and I'll go about this later uh are declarations in favor in supporting the Charter System. So, it's this is what adds s- s- a particular depth to uh international politics today. So, uh So, as I say, we have then the emergence of a uh Russo-Chinese alignment which is the core of an alternative model of world order. I don't know what we could call it. I sometimes would say if we have a political West, let's call it the political East. Uh recently uh John Ikenberry, who's a great apostle of the liberal international order, has talked in an article in uh Foreign Affairs well, well, not so recently, 2018, uh in which he talked about a global West, a global East, and of course, a global South. But, whichever way, but that was really just simply a geographical without any really sense of conceptual framework underlining it. So, we have a Russo-Chinese alignment at the core of an alternative model of world order. It isn't simply certainly, and it isn't even anti-Western. It is post-Western, or even let's just go even further, non-Western. The fundamental argument is that it is opposed to the hegemony of anybody, in particular, of the political West. So, therefore, it is not simply counter-hegemonic, in other words, doing the same thing from the other end. It is anti-hegemonic. It is challenging the very foundations on which and the type of politics practiced by the political West. So, it is a challenge which everybody often thinks of it in geopolitical terms or economic terms. I'd argue it's far more profound than that, because it is about the an argument about the very character of international politics today. And you know, one can elaborate on that and just to say that this is, if you like, you could use the word existential, but I would actually say it is an ontological shift. It's saying looking at the world in a very different way. And when you start looking at it from Beijing or Moscow, or even New Delhi to a to some degree, and certainly by other elements of the nascent political West, for example, the ASEAN countries. I've talked a lot with people from the ASEAN countries, where that from the beginning the the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. They in their charter and their documents very specifically, first of all, condemn hegemony, but above all, they are talking about defending the charter system and about a different type of politics which can be based on cooperation, peace, and development. Can you believe such words today? So, it's in other words, it's an ontological challenge about about meaning and purpose in international politics. It's reflected in in China, of course, the four global initiatives, but it's about sovereignty. It's about a different way of looking at and doing international relations as opposed to the neorealism or realism of the American dominated and a different vision of the English school thinking, but there's also, of course, Chinese and Russian ways of doing international studies, of studying international politics. So, as I say, there is a an emerging to give substance to this nascent political East. There's a whole range of non-Western institutions. Even as we meeting here now, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization just met a few days ago in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. And the Shanghai Cooperation Organization now covers or it's got its core members of four Central Asian states, Russia and China along with Iran and Belarus. And of course, China, sorry, India and Pakistan who joined a few years ago. They cover, as Putin noted in Bishkek, 42% of the world's population. In other words, nearly half the world's population are in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Another of these major organisations in which Russia and China aligned together is of course the BRICS plus organisation association. And the BRICS plus organisation association called Brazil, Russia, India, China South Africa plus five more including Egypt, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Egypt, Ethiopia that these countries cover enter 4.7 billion people. So more than half the world's population are in these bodies. In other words, there's things going on and we know of course that Donald J. Trump absolutely hates BRICS and made it explicitly his goal to destroy it because it's based on a very substantive vision of multipolarity which in other words as opposed to unipolarity. So there's a challenge. There's a real challenge going on at the moment. And the question then is will this nascent new model of world order create an international system of its own if you like bypassing the Western-dominated one? By that, the question that is a question that focuses on can the United Nations survive today? It's clearly in a particularly weak state. The United Nations which once inspired generations in fact for example in Cambridge in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United Nations Association was the by far the largest student organisation. It was huge and there were meetings and a lot of enthusiasm and so on. I wonder how it is today. I go and so quite active in it and giving talks to the United Nations Association. Unfortunately, the how can I put it? The demographic age group involved are not of the youngest, let's put it this way. Which is a great shame because it'd be lovely to see more people getting involved in the in defense of what is the fundamental framework of of cooperative global order today, which is the United Nations. And it it's not just the Nations as institution, it's the whole idea of committee, it's the whole idea of cooperation, it's the whole idea that as a charter puts it, putting an end to the scourge of war and so on. All of that which used to infuse and infused first and second generations after the Second World War has seemed to fallen in abeyance. And so there's many people I know certainly in Russia who say, "Look, this isn't working. We need to establish a new framework, an alternative because the West has dominated with the three permanent members France, UK, and the United States. And the British are dominating the Secretariat in the United Nations and is manipulating the agenda, manipulating the way it works. Anyway, that's the framework, that's the context in which Russo-Chinese relations develop. So my second section is maybe looking at specifically the relationship between the dynamics of non-block Russian Russo-Chinese alignment. Again, I'll just reiterate that it's not simply the opposite of the political West, it's a new game entirely. Or certainly it's an attempt to establish a new framework. So it's not just the And this and this has been there all the way since the very beginning of post-communist Russo-Chinese relations. For example, the Soviet-Chinese joint communique of 1991 included an anti-hegemony provision. So well before Putin, well before Xi Jinping, this was there. Set the tone for later relationships. So, in other words, there's a profound dynamic which transcends individual leaders involved in it. I won't go into all the details of the various stages of the Russo-Chinese relations since the end of the Cold War, but it's quite clear that those what they called in 2015 that the bilateral relationship was elevated to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in the new era. And then, of course, in 2022, it was a no-limits partnership, and so on. And all their documents in recent times condemn the so-called rules-based order and so on. And it's also this relationship, I don't go through all the institutions and all the meetings. It's underpinned by a remarkable shift in popular sentiments. And with Russian views of China after 2014 becoming much more favorable, today three-quarters of Russians see China in a positive light and only 14% negatively. And while 55% argue that Russo-Chinese relations raise Moscow's global standing. And therefore, this alignment is increasingly embedded in a new social reality. The number of Chinese students in Russia has tripled in 10 years, and it's it's increasing very fast. And vice versa, given easing of visa restrictions and so on. But and so on. Um, the question then becomes, will it last? And of course, there's all sorts of negatives and issues involved, including very painful history of relations between the two countries. But let me establish and see what the framework, the foundations of this partnership, of this alignment. Uh, and I I'll argue that it rests on five main pillars. So, five main pillars in which uh the this relationship is now built. The first one is a the defense of common norms, which picks up on what I've just been saying. So, this is it's an anti-hegemonic alignment, not a counter one. In other words, it's not simply doing what the West is doing, but from the other end. It's actually saying we need to do something different. It is in opposition to what they say to the double standards generated by Western hegemony. By definition, the West will be double standards because uh it's it it's it's that's simply the fact that it's uh it is a fact a rebellious child within the international society, which it itself created in 1945, which generates all these contra- various contradictions. Uh, and so these these common norms are in defense of sovereign internationalism versus and opposed to the hegemonism of liberal globalism. Uh, so this is the very real foundations. And of course, again, I could there's a lot of paper and documentation uh social about that. Uh, for example, Xi Jinping at the virtual Davos World Economic Forum in January 2021, Xi Jinping argued that multilateralism was the only way way to deal with global problems, including the pandemic at that time. Uh, and uh and so on. Um, so Uh, in the sense In other words, a strong defense of sovereignty. Uh, a strong defense of internationalism. In other words, a strong defense of the foundational principles of the UN Charter system. So, and there's a lot involved in it. Again, both of them are very concerned but in all the various documents about the the world once again sleepwalking into conflict. In particular, for example, there was one big speech talking about where where like we were in the 1930s. And again, in danger of the challenge of stumbling into war. So, that's So, the And also, the two countries work quite closely at the United Nations. There's a long history of the two countries voting together or and exercising veto powers jointly or abstaining when the interest of the other is in question. Uh So, the two countries are often accused of knowing what they do not like but are failing to propose a model that would be attractive to other countries. A fair criticism, but as I say, the idea of sovereign internationalism is not a negative norm but provides a framework for international pluralism and diverse developmental paths. So, the So, that's the first pillar, a joint understanding of international politics and joint defense of the United Nations Charter system and of international law. And therefore, the principles of sovereignty, non-interference in the domestic affairs, and so on. Of course, that is open to the criticism that it's all very fine being standing in defense of the charter norms in international politics, but that doesn't guarantee the defense of those selfsame charter norms in domestic politics. And of course that's a valid criticism. So the second pillar rests on energy investment and trade. Uh by 2018, Russia has become China's major oil supplier. That's the single largest one. Uh and of course in that year a second branch of the East Siberian Pacific Ocean, the ESPO pipeline, uh doubled uh Russia's direct oil exports to China. With this is a spur which goes down to China. And at the same time uh Beijing purchased oil from the pipeline's Pacific terminal at Kozmino. So there's all sorts of way. Uh Gazprom's Power of Siberia pipeline started pumping gas in late 2019 and now um basically delivers 38 billion cubic meters. Uh there's uh plans for another 10 billion to be added. The endless debates over the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, Soyuz Vostok, across Mongolia uh has been going on and is usually uh given as a say the fact that there's been no agreement on the second pipeline. They have agreed on the route that it would go uh via Mongolia. So there's basically, finally after many many years, a a decision has been taken on that. But there there's no works there has been some geological work but no uh work has actually started on the pipeline. The major division is pricing. The Chinese want it uh to be super cheap uh and the Russians of course want it to be uh more competitive uh competitively priced. And this is where all those debates about Russia emerging as a junior partner and so on, given the war and Russia's commitments and need uh and loss of the West European energy market, the question of course, including the blowing up of Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022, that basically the argument is that China has Russia over a barrel and therefore can impose its own terms. And this is usually signified as a an example of the way that China is exploiting its dominant position and so on. I'm not entirely sure because Russia is not giving in as it were and the debates continue for a start which shows a certain bargaining capacity. There's also that the Chinese involvement in the um the Yamal development. I won't I don't go into much detail but there's whole vast books and studies on the Russo-Chinese energy relationship and it's a fascinating one actually. Also just to say that in terms of trade Russia is now emerging as one of China's major sources of agricultural imports. So which is something quite new. Russia had in the late Soviet years could not even feed itself. It had to import wheat from Canada and the United States and now it's one of the world's major imports. In fact Russia makes more money or did before the war more money from food agricultural exports than it does from arms exports which of course have also collapsed since the war. So there's a there's a In other words the Russian and Chinese economies are becoming more and more deeply entangled. There are negatives that since the war China has reduced its investments in energy Russian energy projects. So there it is now. The third pillar is security and defense. Chinese forces regularly take part in China's in Russia's annual military exercising. Amazingly it participated in 28 between 2002 and 2012. And this is now become far more formal with major Chinese participation in these annual exercises. Of course, since the war, these annual exercises have been scaled down because they simply haven't got enough forces. But more than that, there's even uh talk of China and Russia uh relaxing its traditional refusal to join form to have formal alliances. Um this has not taken place, so this is why at most we can talk about Russian-Chinese relationship as a quasi alliance rather than anything else. Though I don't think that the word alliance is even necessary in this context because that again would be repeating the type of block politics which is obviously characteristic of NATO and of the Western alliance system. Whereas what we have in Russia is a far more and China a far more flexible, far more open-ended approach to alignment. Uh and in fact you could say it's the emergence I talk about it as an alternative model of world order. Uh you could call it perhaps if you are Gramscians a historic block. That in other words, a type of on the international level a historic block is emerging. But on the military defense elements uh that ch- Russia became was one of the most important suppliers of weaponry to China for many, many years. Uh and of course though maybe this is controversial, I'm not sure, but certainly as far as the Russians are concerned, Beijing reverse-engineered the Sukhoi 27 and SU-33 to create the J-11B and J-15 and so on and so forth. Today, of course, it is China which is taking the lead in innovation and development of uh defense technologies including fighter jets and so on. And of course the avionics which is a fundamental and crucial element. So, uh uh but still it is enormous amount of since the war has begun in 2022, the uh so-called Ukrainian war, uh Russia has lifted the ban on some of the export of some of the most sensitive and highly developed uh military uh engineering equipment and uh and items and including electronics. Uh so, in other words, it's a full-scale uh involvement and and China's taking advantage, well, understandably. Uh so, and more than that, there's a there's also, for example, um and the in other words, the intermeshing of the two of the Russian and the Chinese defense industries. For example, uh the Moscow Power Engineering Institute has been allotted 40 hectares to establish a university for some 10,000 students of area space engineering and science in China. And uh Russia helped China build missile warning and defense system. Uh and Russia and China are linking their respective satellite systems. This is Baidu in China and GLONASS in Russia. So, again, uh on that item, we could uh I mean, whole books have been written on the subject about this intermeshing. As I said, this is a huge development. Uh and so, will this develop into something more? Strategic partnership, uh missile joint missile attack warning systems, uh and so on. The fourth pillar is what uh they call conjugation and uh and or rather decoupling in other words. What I have in mind is that the Eurasian Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative after 2015 were to be they the word they use is conjugation. In other words, it's [snorts] that they would work together. Of course, the Eurasian Economic Union has not developed in any particularly effective manner since its establishment in 2015. But nevertheless, there's all sorts of ways. The decoupling is of um mobile telephone systems and so on from Western technologies, just as the Western countries are decoupling from Chinese technologies. So this is the decoupling. There's a fundamental technological decoupling of Russia and China from Western technologies. Simple as that. That until recently Russia was using Siemens as its foundation. Today it is Huawei and uh other and ZTE and others at the heart of Russia's plans not just for 5G, but working together on 6G development. So and in fact Huawei is the and the giant M to S, the Moscow telephone system of building the 5G network in Russia will build it. And there's also also joint cloud development going on. And of course, Russia is helping Huawei find ways to reduce the burden of US sanctions. And so there are clear synergies between the two countries. Um so I I'll stop there on that bit. The fifth pillar is the joining of these non-Western regional associations. I talked about that before. But it's they're also establishing all sorts of alternatives. For example, the um the the uh AIIB A I I B um for the development bank, uh which is uh um which uh is now one becoming quite an important international investor uh that in all sorts of ways uh there's work work uh going on. Also, um China has become claims to be a near Arctic power uh and therefore is being in becoming closely involved in Arctic development. So, these five pillars provide a strong foundation for one of the great geopolitical alignments of the 21st century. But, as I say, it's not just geopolitical, it's also, if you like, geo-economic and geo-ideological. Uh that this is a fundamental way of development. Um So, my next section is just simply to say, well, what's happened since the war? Um this war, of course, the Russo-Ukrainian war of 2022. Uh the joint statement of the 4th of February, just a couple of weeks before the war began, 2022, uh talked about, as I said, a no limits friendship. And this has been sorely tested in the last few years that uh in all sorts of way China has helped Russia withstand the sanctions. But, it is not doing so uh in a way that will expose it to the imposition of secondary sanctions on itself. So, uh so that's that's I think the basic formulation that China has stepped up to purchase Russian energy uh and, of course, has been selling trucks, cars, and much else that compensated for the ban on the sales um from the West. Uh if you go to Moscow today or to Russia, to any major city, that it's astonishing just how fast the Mercedes, the Volkswagens, and all the other Western cars have given way to Chinese marks. It's extraordinary. You see on the streets of Moscow now every third, not quite second yet, every third, fourth car is a Chinese one. So, it's suddenly uh the world looks very different. It's happening. In other words, this war is is accelerating things that were happening anyway, and it's precipitating a global life, a rift, a gulf between this political West and the political East, and of course with the global South uh as part of the struggling for the influence over the global South. Uh of course, these sanctions are hugely uh you know, distorting the ability for these relations to develop. Um And again, as figures say, Chinese exports to Russia have increased by over 60% since the beginning of the war and provide a lifeline for the Russian economy. Semiconductors, of course, uh telecommunications equipment, machine tools uh are the largest categories. Uh And trade volumes also driven by oil and gas sales. So, they reached a Russian trade with China hit a record of $240 billion in 2023. So, it's since then it's sort of um it it's uh not gone up so much because clearly the Russian economy is suffering in in all sorts of ways. The one one way in which a lot of the trade takes place is through a gray economy, through parallel imports, uh and various ways to avoid uh the imposition of US secondary sanctions. So, there's a whole art uh involved of doing it. And of course, China has sometimes set up shell companies effectively so that if they're sanctioned to um protect the major companies. So there's a whole art to how to avoid sanctions. Uh As for the war itself, in February 2023, China issued a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine. This was in practice less a peace plan than a statement of general principles that could underpin a peace process. And it thus stood in stands in marked contrast to various other peace proposals which have come from the United States or even from Vladimir Zelensky himself in Ukraine, which basically demand Russia's capitulation. Uh so it's China has in the early days tried to intervene. Also there were I mean there's been various other initiatives. There was one with a Brazilian advisor foreign policy advisor to Lula, President Lula da Silva in Brazil and various joint initiatives. But the the framework is which I will list out. I think it's important that when he met German Chancellor at that time Olaf Scholz in April 2024, she outlined four principles for the peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis. Uh which of course focused on as he says peace and stability rather than seeking selfish gains, cooling down the situation rather than adding fuel fuel to the fire. Sounds banal, but it's these important principles. Third, accumulating conditions for restoring peace rather than further aggravating tensions. And fourth, reducing the negative impact on the world economy because of course the war does have a huge impact. Our energy um have gone up quite significantly, fertilizer costs and so on in the early days of the war and now because of the third Gulf War. Uh Of course, as has become customary, engagement between representatives of the political West and the political East is a dialogue of the deaf. This is why I say this is There is an ontological gulf. Uh that means in every fundamental sense that the world is seen in fundamentally different ways from from these two countries these these two alignments, if you like. So, China in this conflict in the war presents itself as the mediator and of course that that is very important and it's dispatched envoys to Moscow, Kyiv, and other capitals. It did not accept Ukraine's invitation to attend the Kyiv-organized peace talks in Switzerland in June 2024. Uh and instead gathered support for an inclusive peace conference attended by all the belligerent parties. This has not taken place yet, which now in the fifth year of the war there's still no ability to have a some sort of genuinely inclusive peace process. Uh I and as I said there's there's all sorts of other initiatives. So, this is quite important in the sense that China there's an alignment, but in this war China is not like no Well, no other country is Everyone is trying to align to try to find a way beyond the war and not to intensify it apart from countries in the political West. Uh so, um after Putin was reelected again in 2024, his first visit abroad in the middle of the war was to China. And then a joint declaration was issued, the standard one in support of the United Nations, in support of international law, condemning hegemonism, and so on. So, this is basically quoting I'm thinking it's Putin's speech talking about the multi-dimensional development of relations based on the wide convergence of core national interests. And this takes place annual meetings. And so, these institutions like Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, and all the others are provide provide an opportunity for them to meet. Just recently, Putin met Xi Jinping. I I have lost count, but I think this was the 48th meeting, 48th meeting of Putin and Xi Jinping since they came both respectively came to power. So, it's quite astonishing personal relationship, which of course the question then becomes, will it last after their their respective leaderships end? I I think it will. So, and of course both of them are committed to what they call the democratization of the system of international relations, a synonym for dismantling Western dominance and the so-called rules-based order. So, we have an alternative architecture of international politics being built. Uh the fund to finish in this section, the puzzle for many people remains about why China is willing to jeopardize its relations with the West to support Russia, if only tacitly, in its wartime struggle. Uh one notable critic today argues that China today is in danger of repeating the mistake made by Germany in 1914 in supporting Austria-Hungary as it harassed its neighbors in the Balkans, in particular Serbia, even as German leaders appealed to the high principles of international justice. Uh so, uh Arne Westad argues in in new book on the subject that this hypocrisy helped produce war in 1914. Right now, China is repeating that mistake with its treatment of Russia. So, although the comparison is instructive, the situations are very different. China sees in Russia's struggle an analog for its own ability to sustain its sovereignty and independence against the hegemon today. Uh as one commentary puts it, China realizes that if it wishes to break the US monopoly on power, it can't go about it alone. Uh aside from requiring a strong Russia to help reform the US-dominated international system, Russia China needs Russia for its long-term survival. Uh and this commentator refers to the Chinese proverb, "Once the lips are gone, the teeth the teeth will feel the cold." Chinese elite thinking is divided. Uh but overall believes that the US is using the Ukraine war to encircle China. Hence, it wants to stand by Moscow to prevent the US winning. And of course, once it wins if it does against Russia, we know who's next in line for the Russian treatment. So, it's quite clear uh that you know, famous tweet in the early days of the war, which was that you want us to help us to defeat Russia so that then you can set about defeating us. So, and so no it's Of course, division there divisions in thinking in China. There's divisions in Russia as well about the quality and the nature of the relationship. Uh so, and of course, at the same time the United States is strengthening its own It's You know, it's not actually formally called this, but if you like, there is a type of Asian NATO developing. This political West was always never confined just to the West, of course, with security treaties with Japan and South Korea. Uh but today it's going even further, uh which is clearly targeting uh Russia and China. For example, the uh the the AUKUS alignment with Australia is quite clearly part of that, the Quad attempts to revive it, and so on. So, there's a whole stack of elements going on at the moment. Uh but as I say, to end this section before the conclusion, the tightening of this alignment between Russia and China is indeed one of the most geopolitical outcomes, uh not just of Putin's war, but of uh into in international politics today. So, in conclusion, it's clear that the Sino-Russian partnership can no longer be dismissed as one of convenience. I reference uh Bobo Lo's book of 2008, in which he described Russo-Chinese relations as an axis of convenience. As I said at the time, well, one would hardly want to have an axis of inconvenience, and so it's clearly something in the interests of both of them. But, it's more than just simply convenience is my argument. They are, of course, it's convenient. You wouldn't want to do something which was against your own interest. It's But, it's the cornerstone, I would argue a bit more, is the cornerstone of a nascent international society, if you want to use English school language. Uh a political East that is increasingly attractive to many countries in the global South. And I think that is the case. It's the fact that only total countries in the world, 49 countries have joined the sanctions regime against Russia. 49 countries out of 193, despite enormous pressure being exerted by the United States and its allies and other countries to join the sanctions. So, that's uh clearly I another issue of clearly there is a fundamental um you know, asymmetry in this relationship. The Chinese economy and go classically gives the thing that the Soviet economy in the old days was four times larger than the Chinese one in 1989. Uh and look at it today. Uh and so, the Chinese economy is at least 10 times larger than Russia's. At least, maybe between eight and 10. Uh so, maybe even more. So, it's quite clearly uh there's a disparity, but this doesn't really matter because it was always going to be an asymmetrical relationship and that's no bad thing because it's not a It is not an analogue of the political West. I repeat that because the dynamics of this Atlantic alliance system, call it what you like, is based on block politics. It's based on uh how can I put it? Homogenization of ideological orientations and indeed uh suppression internally of dissident thinking. If for example, Victor Orban or Robert Fico, uh countries which try to stand against Atlanticism and militarization and so on today, uh are disciplined. In other words, block discipline is now more intense than it was even at the height of the initial Cold War I. So, uh but it's a different game, as I keep stressing. Uh and therefore to use that measure, which of course most Western international relations studies do, use Western measures on something which is non-Western and explicitly. And of course, then we can apply all that, you know, very interesting language of Amitav Acharya, and that's about a multiplex world. And I think that these this Russo-Chinese alignment is a good example of a multiplex world. It's a multiplex relationship and not reducible to a single element. Quite apart from a very simple fact is that the two share today, with Mongolia in between, it's a 4,000 km border. So, just simply it makes sense these two great Eurasian powers not to have the militarized border. And of course, if Russia is defeated in this war, and if NATO then extends itself to China's northern boundary, it's just say it's If you're sitting in Beijing, it's a military strategic nightmare facing just a simple bottom If nothing else. So, quite it's uh something which I think many Western analysts don't seem to understand. Uh but it's also of course challenging liberal globalism. As I say this this huge uh theoretical conceptual gulf between it. Um Uh and so, as I say this profound alignment, not an access, not a an alliance, is a sustainable Yes, there are all sorts of difficulties, as I say, the historical divisions which I haven't talked about, you know, all the way from the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, and all of the For example, one of the examples people give about the tensions is that Chinese maps or books atlases now, for example, include those parts which were Vladivostok and all of that part north of the Amur River and Ussuri River to the east of it, are now pictured as Chinese. But of course, that, as far as I understand it, is a misrepresentation. It was showing how it it was and what the territories were rather than uh reflecting a claim to it. But, nevertheless, uh Russo-Chinese relations go back at least 500 years. They've been very stormy, but today, uh in the post-Cold War years, they've developed on a framework which I think is sustainable and uh not just of mutual benefit, but also of establishing a pattern of relationships which is a model, perhaps, uh for international politics more widely. Uh and if only other countries could move away from militarism uh towards an agenda of sovereign internationalism in defense of the United Nations, which is uh under greater threat today than it's been since 1945, then perhaps there is a possibility for us to get through this without a renewed global war. So, I'll stop there. Thank you.