This week, our guest is Zhang Xin, Deputy Director of the Center for Russian Studies at East China Normal University. We discuss the history of Russia studies in the PRC, the Sino-Russian border area, and the logic of the US-China-Russia triangular relationship, among other subjects.
This week, our guest is Zhang Xin, Deputy Director of the Center for Russian Studies at East China Normal University. We discuss the history of Russia studies in the PRC, the Sino-Russian border area, and the logic of the US-China-Russia triangular relationship, among other subjects.
*The Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Stimson Center and produced by University FM.
**The first twelve episodes of this podcast were published by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
(Transcripts may contain a few typographical errors due to audio quality during the podcast recording.)
[00:00:00] Peter: Hi, I'm Peter Slezkine, Director of the Monterey Trialogue, a program hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Since the middle of the 20th century, relations among the United States, Russia, and China have had an enormous impact on each country separately and on the world as a whole. The purpose of the Monterey Trialogue is to better understand these extraordinarily complex and consequential relationship by directly engaging with experts from all three countries.
So, my guest today is Zhang Xin, Associate Professor, School of Politics and International Relations at East China Normal University in Shanghai, and one of China's foremost experts on Russia and Russian history. So, welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:48] Zhang: Thank you very much for your very, very kind introduction.
[00:00:51] Peter: What got you interested in studying Russian? How did you become a professor of Russian in China?
[00:00:59] Zhang: I went to U.S. for graduate school early 2000. Before that, I was an economics major in Shanghai. But when I decided to do a Ph.D. in political science, I didn't want to do a typical comparative politics dissertation on Chinese domestic politics, which a lot of the Chinese students were doing at that time.
[00:01:17] Peter: And you were doing your Ph.D. at UCLA.
[00:01:20] Zhang: UCLA, yes. And I took a course on political economy of post-communist transition. And that just suddenly brought back all my memory about Soviet Union. We grew up in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. Even in Shanghai, geographically distant from Russia, we still got a lot of exposure to Soviet things, Russian things. So, what’s left as part of my childhood memory was all kinds of Soviet Russian movies and tones. I like them a lot.
[00:01:46] Peter: Was this passed down from an older generation? Because the relations were already pretty bad with the Soviet Union.
[00:01:51] Zhang: Yeah. No, no, not from my parents. My mother studied a little bit Russian in high school, but then the relation broke. So, she didn't do anything with that. It's just late ‘70s, early ‘80s, that’s supposedly foreign culture, a large part that was still from Soviet Union.
[00:02:09] Peter: This was true of your generation, generally, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, not of you in particular. Everybody knew these movies.
[00:02:15] Zhang: Yes, yes. But a lot of people didn't get into it. I think there's something about, particularly late Soviet movies, arts, cultures, certain parts of it really resonate very well with me. I still haven't figured out what's exactly there that interests me. So, the class brought out a memory, and I found that maybe this is something I could explore. And then I found out you can apply funds to learn other language. So, I start to learn the Russian language three summers in a row with Middlebury, and during that, went to Russia for the first time in 2005.
[00:02:45] Peter: So, what was your impression of Russia on that first visit in 2005? You'd seen the movies in Shanghai, now you'd gone to LA, and finally here you are in Moscow. So, what did you make of the place?
[00:02:55] Zhang: It's quite experience. I remember the taxi driver who took me from one of the airports, and I see the car got onto the highway and see all the, all the trees on around road. That's a stereotypical Russian image in my childhood memory, all these trees. I forgot English for this.
[00:03:13] Peter: Birch trees.
[00:03:14] Zhang: Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
[00:03:15] Peter: Bai Hua Lin.
[00:03:16] Zhang: Exactly, yeah. I feel, okay, I'm finally in this place and it got me quite emotional when I saw those trees. Also, the program at MU was relaxing. It's not that intensive. So, that left me a lot of time just to wander around the city. I almost follow a certain guidebook every day. Half a day, I will follow one section of a guidebook, just walk around the section. And then, culture-wise, just from such a rich place, both in pre-Russia Soviet period and also the post-Soviet period just give me so much to explore. And everything excites me. And not everything is pleasant. I had some very, very bad memory about neighbors in the dorm building with the university. I think that's part of a student's life there. Overall, it's an impressive trip and just got me further into studying Russia.
[00:04:07] Peter: What was the reaction of Russians at the time in 2005 to somebody coming, well, in your case, from the U.S. but ultimately from China? Did they think that you were Central Asian on first sight? When they found out that you were Chinese, what questions did they ask?
[00:04:22] Zhang: Not really, because there were already quite a lot of Chinese students. At least on Moscow State University campus, the faculty members very used to that. And I was in the language program, so there were the students from all over the world. I didn't stand out as someone special.
[00:04:38] Peter: So, you completed your degree in UCLA, your dissertation, and then you went back to work in Shanghai.
[00:04:44] Zhang: Not directly. I did a two-year teaching as a visiting assistant professor with Reed College in Portland, Oregon. And particularly, on the teaching side, I think I gained a lot of experience. And then I came back to work in Shanghai at my current university, current institution, since 2012.
[00:05:04] Peter: So, to get back to what we begin our conversation with, what does Russian studies look like in China now? How has Russia been studied In China? How has that changed since the founding of the PRC, the ups and downs of the relations with Russia? And perhaps, even in micro terms, have you seen a change in the way Russia is represented professionally among colleagues with students in the last two years, three years?
[00:05:33] Zhang: Since the PRC was founded, I think studying the Soviet Union at that time was extremely important. That was a big brother. Their life system was regarded as China's future will follow. But, you know, the honeymoon period was brief, and then the infamous Sino-Soviet split. And so, that big hit on the whole Soviet study or Russian studies field.
But on average, I think, Soviet Union, at the time, was still probably the most studied foreign country, by all measures, actually. For a while, in the ‘80s, there was a thing among our circles, by the more senior generations. China has the largest, probably most diverse, and by that account, most advanced, group of Soviet experts, because the West, by that time, didn't have the similar institution with the Soviet Union but we had a very similar institution and a very similar communist socialist experience. It's much easier for us to understand what happened on the Soviet to Russian side, much more than, possibly, the Western counterparts.
I think, then, the breakup of Soviet Union was a really key event to the top leadership in Beijing, but also to the whole field. There were debates all through the party and the state, as to how to make sense of the breakup of the Soviet Union and what China's response should be, right? So, it's both shock to the field, but then give also some new impetus. Some of the most famous research circles were actually formed during early 1990s, under, for example, the sponsorship sponsorship and also leadership by former statesman Wang Daohan. So, he actually initiated these research circles, starting from informal way, but getting more and more formal for 10 years in a row. And it was organized in Shanghai. Some of my seniors were the early participants in that, that sort of famous small group annual meeting.
[00:07:25] Peter: Wait, and this famous study group was focused on what?
[00:07:29] Zhang: Mostly on Russia.
[00:07:31] Peter: But on trying to solve a particular problem? Was their subject of study the fall of the Soviet Union and why it had happened?
[00:07:36] Zhang: It's not just a pure academic discussion, but always has some intention to come up with what we do. Particularly, in the late early ‘90s, that kind of format was still rare. But to address these dramatic changes we saw in Soviet Union, that kind of format become important platform for experts to come together, but also, interesting enough, to outside of Beijing, supposedly to give us a more easy environment.
[00:08:02] Peter: But what we should do at that moment meant what China should do now that this other big part of the communist bloc had collapsed.
[00:08:10] Zhang: Yes. But also, around the time of 1991, another big question is how to make sense of the breakup of the Soviet Union? I think the top leadership in Beijing were very concerned with the answer to these questions. You can imagine, there could be a strong parallel between the Soviet Union and China at that time. What was the cause for disintegration of the Communist Party in Soviet Union, the cause for the breakup of the Soviet Union as a political entity, etc.
[00:08:35] Peter: And that was not only an internal party discussion. Some of your senior academic colleagues who may, of course, have also been party members, were involved in analyzing this issue and then presenting their findings to the leadership.
[00:08:48] Zhang: Yeah. Some of the top scholars now, I think, made it their fame in those analysis back in the 1990s. So, their analysis were well-received by the top leadership. So, that become the basis of their career.
[00:09:01] Peter: After this moment of the breakup of the Soviet Union, which attracted a lot of attention analysis, the focus shifted to the U.S. and the U.S. as identical to the globe. And has that now shifted back to, sort of, a more multipolar perspective, or are U.S. experts still the dominant group in international relations and area studies?
[00:09:23] Zhang: Yeah. I think, if I may go back a little bit in time, even in the ‘80s, I think, Soviet Union already began to lose its attraction as a model for Chinese to imagine what a more prosperous, more developed China can look like or should look like. I think the liberal intellectuals in China back in the ‘80s, early ‘90s, it's like, “If we follow the American models, maybe in two or three decades, we’ll be just, like, as prosperous, as developed as United States.”
And that's also reflected in the aspects of community. IR, as a field, that was established in China all through ‘80s and a large part of 1990s, predominantly, as imported academic disciplines, mostly from the U.S. And so, in this, what I call, pecking order in IR field, or even more than IR fields, all across social sciences, experts on the United States have the highest position in this pecking order. And so, it lost, I think, lost a whole generation of young people in China to learn the Russian language, to learn anything related with the Soviet Union or Russia, I would say all through the 1990s.
On the state to state level, since the early 2000s, both were putting a lot of resources, encouraging all kinds of political, economic, social, as well as educational collaboration on multiple levels. I think that puts some new impetus into it that could change the dynamics a little bit, although maybe we’ll wait for another four or five years to see the whole results.
[00:10:54] Peter: And the resources are coming from both directions. Both Beijing and Moscow are interested in generating more expertise about one another.
[00:11:00] Zhang: Yes, there are special funds specifically allocated, designated for China-Russia bilateral academic exchange, both for students to study in each other's country, but also for academic to do a research trip in each country or have a teaching assignment on both sides.
[00:11:19] Peter: When were these resources made available? When was the state beginning to intervene to try to increase the expertise on Russia?
[00:11:25] Zhang: There are multiple programs like that. The one I was referring to study started four or five years ago.
[00:11:31] Peter: Do you have any idea about why this was in reaction to the worsening relations with the U.S. under Trump? Or is it more complicated or more coincidental?
[00:11:41] Zhang: Yeah, I think that's part of the story. I think it reflects the general shift of the strategic focus of the state on the highest level, and also a genuine interest to increase collaboration between the two countries on the official, on the state level, partly as a response to the perceived common threats from either a third party country or third party group of countries. It's worthwhile to invest, to increase, enhance the level and the quality of bilateral collaboration on multiple fronts. And education, young people cultural exchange were regarded as an important part of it. So, I actually got one. I almost went to Russia, but because the pandemic, had to give up in the end.
[00:12:24] Peter: When were you last in Russia?
[00:12:26] Zhang: Actually, it's just three weeks ago. That's my first post-pandemic trip to Russia.
[00:12:30] Peter: And how was it?
[00:12:31] Zhang: I have to say the central parts of Moscow and St. Petersburg were very impressive. It was shining. Really, that's the word I told everyone I met after the trip, is it's shining. And also, particularly for Moscow, it's unbelievably clean.
[00:12:45] Peter: Did you have any feeling if there is a war going on?
[00:12:48] Zhang: No, that's exactly another point I want to get to. At least, for the parts went to, that's only a very small part of the both city and also even smaller part of the Russia as a whole country. But if you just look at these small parts, you don't feel that much the presence of a war. The country is under a supposedly war economy. I think inflation, you can feel it. But other than that, very little sign about the special military operation or the war. Less than I had expected.
And also, another strong impression is there was such eagerness and enthusiasm to do something together with Chinese counterparts or Chinese colleagues on different levels — think tank, university. So, there's such enthusiasm. We already began to feel that a little bit, I would say, from 2021, around that range, we already began to feel it. But I think after 2022, that kind of initiative from our Russian counterparts just become even smarter, stronger. I think, in our previous, some of the collaborations we did, also including those projects I studied, bilateral projects, the typical mood is our Russian colleagues are slower. It's like, “Well, our Chinese friends want to do this. Good. You may have the resources. Go ahead. Do it. If you need to sign some documents, we'll take a look and maybe we'll sign it, but a real action, you do it at first.”
But I think the enthusiasm we feel in recent years was probably unprecedented and also would probably make an impact on the real progress of all kinds of real programs, real collaborations. And that's another big impression I took from this recent trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg.
[00:14:35] Peter: And you don't feel like this is forced and leading. You think that the ties that are being built up will be lasting, that the enthusiasm on the Russian side is to create something enduring, that this isn't a product of obviously difficult circumstances and nowhere else to turn.
[00:14:55] Zhang: That's the big question I'm asking myself and also have been discussed quite extensively among the Chinese experts community, particularly since 2022, right? One, some of the investigations we did, actually, what we did on the China-Russia border two years ago, I think the local businessmen, many of them did very well. In 2023, especially, border trades were, were booming. Some made a good money during those one and a half year. But the question they ask us is that an indication that Russia's pivot to East is finally for real? Because there was similar, right, initiative, especially from Moscow. We need to develop Far East, turn to East. But overall outcome were very limited, to say the most. So, similar question will have been raised and discussed. I don't have a good conclusive answer to that. That’s something I'm still observing. Also, hopefully get a better sense.
[00:15:49] Peter: But it is a question that the Chinese are posing to one another.
[00:15:53] Zhang: Yes. Yes.
[00:15:54] Peter: You went to Moscow and you felt this enthusiasm. Do you feel that same enthusiasm without leaving your hometown? Is it very noticeable that there are now Russians who are not China specialists, who are coming one after another in delegations to Shanghai to try to create new sorts of cooperation?
[00:16:14] Zhang: Absolutely so, especially after the pandemic control policy in China was changed late 2022, definitely see a dramatic increase of inflow of all kinds of delegations from Russia.
[00:16:27] Peter: And what are they coming for? To establish formal relations? To have academic conferences? To do some sort of track to expert meetings? Business relations?
[00:16:35] Zhang: Early on, it's mostly delegations to try to look for opportunity to form some of new collaboration between universities, between think tanks. Probably because I work in this field, so, that's what I mostly receive. But I think that there are also different business group coming to Shanghai for different exhibitions, and also, same industry in the arts and the cultural sphere. So, that delegation coming to Shanghai, I, I can feel it from spring 2023.
[00:17:05] Peter: And they are coming to film Chinese art, to do interviews, and then to bring that back to show that to a Russian audience? Or, they are showing off Russian artwork to a Chinese audience?
[00:17:16] Zhang: Like, RT has a new office in Shanghai, recently. I think their purpose is both ways. But recently, more emphasis is actually, as you just mentioned, film China, and then present those images to a larger audience beyond Russia and China. So, that's what they were telling us.
[00:17:32] Peter: So, RT is filming in China about flourishing Sino-Russian relations, about how wonderful China is, and then that becomes part of their package to the world.
[00:17:42] Zhang: Yes, that's what, at least, what I learned.
[00:17:44] Peter: You were mentioning your research on the border.
[00:17:47] Zhang: Yes.
[00:17:47] Peter: I, last summer, visited Harbin, which is of course not on the border, but nonetheless has a long history tied to Russia, and from there I went to Suifenhe, which is right on the border across from Vladivostok. So, I've seen a little bit of this myself, but don't have a good sense for how it functions. And I imagine our listeners don't, either. So, tell us about the major border crossing points and how they have functioned in general in the last, like, 10 years in what has changed in the last three.
[00:18:15] Zhang: The border trades between Russia's Far East and China's North East have always been an important part of bilateral state-to-state economic relation, but also more important for the two regions across the borders. From, I think, late 1990s, early 2000, there were a little bit of slowdown, partly because the two regions in those two countries’ domestic economies weren't doing very well by themselves. These are both relatively low-income regions and also wasn’t the economic powerhouse within each country's own national economy.
So, for a while, I don't know if you know, there was some quite ambitious region-to-region collaboration development plan on both sides, tried to promote the Russian Far East and China's North East through a cross border collaboration. But overall, the first decade, maybe a decade and a half of implementing that kind of regional development program weren't very successful. And then that's why late… slightly later, the two sides came up with somewhat innovative new way to incentivize and promote region to region, not just state to state, but region to region possible economic collaboration, is the Yangtze Delta, along with the Volga region. So, the idea was we should try subnational regions with a relatively high economic development level, and also with, with a more complementary economic structures, because the Russian Far East and Chinese Northeast overall economic structures seem to be similar. So, the bilateral collaboration may be limited. So, that's another new region-to-region collaboration.
[00:19:57] Peter: So, how has that been going? What sort of projects can the Volga and Yangtze regions cooperate on?
[00:20:05] Zhang: I think there were a much more medium-sized enterprises got involved and a lot happening in the, for example, the equipment, small machineries, things are still going on. It's still under policy radar. So, people still talk about it. But I wouldn't say that we can claim this is a big success. So, this is another example of regional-level possible collaboration mechanism. And then go back to the border trades, I think the past two, two and a half years, there were really some new enthusiasm, border trades particularly from 2023 were booming. You see some of the lines of trucks along the port city, along the border river. And for a while, the bottleneck turned out to be mostly on the Russian side, because the truck came take the stuff they want, but then on their way back, the Russian customer office on the other side, for different, either technical reasons or some other reasons, were much slower to receive these trucks back to Russia.
[00:21:04] Peter: Do you know what goods they're carrying? The few Russians I met in Suifenhe said it was mostly clothes and cars.
[00:21:09] Zhang: Cars could be one of the big components. I don't know exactly the others. I think there are some components for trucks. They are very likely to be reassembled back in Russia. Heavy truck and some of the other equipments were in high demands for equipment trucks that were used for building roads, building buildings. Those kinds of equipments — medium, small or big ones — were in high demand in, in Russia at the time. I think that probably goes through these cities or by trains quite a lot. But there are other agricultural both sides, back and forth.
[00:21:47] Peter: But generally, it did not seem like a particularly dynamic area. So, I went through Dongying, which is just south of Suifenhe, and there's a huge border crossing area that was basically boarded up. It was like a ghost town. And then Suifenhe itself has constructed somebody local, has constructed almost like a tourist complex on the border, with you have to pay a large sum of money to enter. And then there's a place where you can view Russia and North Korea. And there's all sorts of arcs. And it seems pretty empty. And all the stores were empty. And there's a huge five star hotel, which seemed also empty. And it was this big complex built on the hill, a little ways removed from the city, with, I don't know, five people wandering around, looking a little bit lost, and music booming and big buildings standing empty. Is that true, basically, of all the border crossings or I just visited the two empty ones?
[00:22:35] Zhang: I haven't been to all the border cities of port towns, so I cannot say in general. I think what you see, probably, would be very similar for another set of border towns. I think it raised the question, these new booms we see in border trades, the newly gained wealth, how these wealth are allocated in the border cities or how much are translated into a visible, for example, regional developments, rather than coming to become to a pure, personal consumption by small group of businessmen in these border trades.
We went to, for example, Heihe across from the the Russian town city of Blagoveshchensk. I think Heihe is doing fine and they feel the benefits of these new booms in border trade and are also very much keen to further promote. So, I think, probably, Heihe is a more positive brighter example than, maybe, the Dongying, where you've been to.
So, I think that reflects some of the recent changes. But as we just discussed, how sustainable that is and how these newly gained wells are allocated, distributed from both sides is serious question worth further exploring. And those border trades, of course, are only a small part of bilateral economic or political relations. There's a larger story to tell. I think that what you see, what you observe on the field, may also reflect some other features of this larger bilateral relations.
[00:24:10] Peter: Right, so the border trade itself may be relatively small, but that has nothing to do with the overarching Russia-China trade, which is proceeding at a higher level and not executed locally by small businessmen across the border. Briefly, before we get to that higher level, and then discussions about geopolitics to finish, I was also in Harbin, and there, by contrast with the border, everything is tremendously lively. There are huge numbers of people in the historic downtown walking along these pedestrian streets. And every two steps, there is a shop proclaiming to be selling Russian goods, souvenirs, vodka, and chocolate. All of them run by Chinese, no Russian in sight, all the Russian misspelled. But it seems to be an attraction. There are dozens and dozens and hundreds of these stores all filled with customers. Is this a new phenomenon? How appealing is this to the Chinese? There's also an old beautiful church there that seemed like one of the great selfie spots in the country. So, tell us a little bit about this, kind of, new fascination with Russian exotica, Russian memorabilia, souvenirs, and so forth, and how, maybe, Chinese domestic business is making money off of it.
[00:25:26] Zhang: The recent tourist gift shop you see, you're right, that's mostly run by the locals. It's city level plan to rebrand Harbin as this tourist attraction, with its Russian roots or its closeness to the Russian history, Russian culture. Of course, what was put on the gift shop were mostly for tourists from within China, from other parts, particularly from Southwest, Southeast China historically didn't have that much close ties with Russia, Soviet Union. And they came to Harbin, found all these fascinating architectures, which were not all well-maintained, for better or for worse, but then those gift shops, caviar, sausages, karpasi, cheese, et cetera, whatever can be sold as Russian is exotic, interesting. I think the, the Harbin city government is very much keen to promote that side of Harbin.
[00:26:18] Peter: But that is a fairly recent change, right, because before there was a nationalist Chinese effort almost to lay down Russian presence in Manchuria, Harbin's Russian origins, and to, sort of, erase it from the museums, from the local city. Whereas, now, by contrast, it is being very clearly emphasized by city authorities, by businessmen. So, when did that change?
[00:26:42] Zhang: I don't know the exact timing, very likely into the 2000, I would guess. In the past, it's not completely erase of the Russian connection or even the Russian roots. It's a de-emphasized. So, to put more Harbin to this national revolutionary history, emphasize that part of the history. But I think you're right, there are certain complications. I think Northeast China's history, it's got Russia, Japan, and also the whole Korean peninsula, all into it. It's a rather complicated history. So, the recent tourism boom, obviously, the local government want to selectively emphasize certain parts of the history as an attraction for, mostly, domestic tourists.
[00:27:24] Peter: How sensitive is this history, still? You said it's complicated history, that region. So, there were so called unequal treaties between Tsarist Russia and the Qing Empire. There are Chinese who think that much of Far Eastern Russia should belong to China. So, is this still part of the popular sentiment toward Russia, or has it changed?
[00:27:47] Zhang: It's still part of the popular sentiment, but overall, on the state to state level, a series of border treaties, territorial settlement have been firmly legalized from late 1990s all through early 2000s. That's why we see from the state perspective, China and Russia no longer have any, any territorial or border disputes.
But the sentiment in the general public still pop up. It usually would be driven by some ongoing current events. Like, depending on your views of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, those who do not accept Russia's justification for the military operation in Ukraine would then feel more easier or more necessary to bring up all these historical scars, all the supposedly unequal treaties.
[00:28:37] Peter: That's funny. A rejection of Russian border revisionism is more prominent among those who then want to engage in border revisionism on the other side of the Eurasian continent.
[00:28:49] Zhang: I didn't think of it that way, but that's an interesting way to put it. Yes. So, the sentiment is still, I would say, still there. It's hard to tell how strong it is. There's no, as far as I know, there was no actually large scale survey or anything on this particular issue. But mostly, I think the states on both sides tried to correct this English temper down such a sentiment by putting up what I call a rationalist assessment. Like well, we had a historical problem, but it's so important that we reach this peaceful settlement. To reach this peaceful settlement is not easy by itself. So, we should cherish all the results of several decades of hard negotiation and then look forward… to embrace this peaceful settlement and then look forward to actually a good opportunity of joint development to this border region. We no longer, like, back in the Soviet time, station millions of soldiers that we see in China. Millions of soldiers are stationed on both sides. And then each other take the other side as the major source of security threat. So, well, through a peaceful negotiation, we basically settled this security threat from both sides. And that's a huge achievement, and we should cherish it. I think that's what you would hear from, mostly, from the states.
[00:30:00] Peter: The strategic military dimension, at least at this moment, is probably more important than the economic dimension. We were discussing previously how the economic development of the border regions is progressing slowly. These regions are not the most dynamic on either side. But the fact that both China and Russia are preoccupied by threats on the borders opposite from the one they share, is crucial. And the fact that they can take troops away from their shared border to other areas of pressing concern is the most important aspect of what we're just discussing, from what I understand.
[00:30:35] Zhang: Yeah, I would agree with you on that. I think the border treaties, for what I understand, really solved this permanent security concern by both sides. If you go a little bit academic, I wrote about that, that is to solve this ontological security issues for both sides. And then the fact that the border region become a relatively peaceful region opened up for possible joint development was regarded as a huge, huge achievement. And now, as you're right to point out, both countries are likely to be embroidered in the much harsher, much challenging military geopolitical rivalry on the other side of the geographic landscape to keep this border relatively safe without much concern for possible security challenge from each other is indeed important. I, I would agree with you. I think that security aspects probably looms even larger than that the benefits from possible economic collaboration across this now peaceful border.
[00:31:33] Peter: Well, so let's end with a discussion of these broader global geopolitical logics. So, you have written about U.S.-Soviet-Sino relations and now U.S.-Russian-Chinese relations. Can you give us a sense of the configuration of this triangle over time? Where do we stand now? Where are we going? How have we gotten here?
[00:32:00] Zhang: I think the triangle was a metaphor. In this context, people would talk about it’s mostly referring to the late Soviet period, this triangle, right? So, U.S. team up with China in, essentially, to counter against Soviet Union. Before while, I think late ‘80s, early 1990s, this big triangle among these three countries was not existence. So, we cannot take this triangle for granted.
So, by that account, early 1990s, I would say almost into early 2000, this triangle was not there, just it did exist, right? That's why the Russian-Chinese side particularly emphasized the foundation of bilateral relations from 1990s. No alignments, no targeting certain country. Those are the informal guiding principles. So, that no targeting, so that, so the party was not just a play of words. It, indeed, was the foundation early on. It's just solving the border issue was not because we have some other actor or some other forces we’re deeply concerned. It's more from a bilateral side.
[00:33:03] Peter: So, when you're saying the triangle didn't exist during that period, you mean that Sino-Russian relations had a purely bilateral logic, they were not a function of this larger trilateral relationship in which each other side is also looking at the United States?
[00:33:16] Zhang: Yes, yes. So, but I think things do change from early 2000. This sort of party put the United States loom larger and larger. And you can see a very clear parallel, how both China and Russia felt the increasing pressure or concerns or security threats of different natures, at least perceived as coming from the, from predominantly from the U.S. There can be color revolution in Russia's neighborhood, can be the constant threat to have some sort of regime change or change of fundamental applicable institutions for China. And then more and more later, in the sanctions, use of economic tools as political weapons, weaponization of economic interdependence, et cetera.
So, I think that line, that parallel becomes stronger. So, rather than as a targeting third party, I would argue towards the second half of the first decade of 21st century, we've started to witness the increasing emergence of Chinese decision-maker and Russian decision-maker common proactive reaction to a perceived U.S. threat. And that, sort of, bring back this kind of relation in a somewhat reverse sense, right? It's no longer early on, like, some of the Western analysts always call the China-Russia relations an axis of convenience, because the two sides, they argue, ultimately care each one's relation with the, with the West, particularly with the U.S., right? So, the argument I make is maybe slightly different from the Western traditional axis of convenience argument, is that, in that argument, they believe that developed relation can only be tactic because the, the U.S. factor is the more durable persistent one. I think what's changing now is, at least, some people perceive the bilateral is the more durable, persistent one. U.S. is a temporal, gradually peripheralized, marginalized factor, you might say.
[00:35:11] Peter: But wait, so just to get, to make it clear, so this alternative argument is that U.S. hegemony, Western hegemony, is decreasing, whereas, China and Russia will remain neighbors, so this bilateral relationship, the building up of Shanghai Cooperation Organization and greater Eurasia is the enduring structural factor; whereas, Western presence and Russian-Chinese reaction to that is actually decreasing over time.
[00:35:41] Zhang: Yes, I think so. And also, within the Chinese strategic circle, that's why there was a popular catchphrase from late, maybe beginning of 2010, so we need to look for the endogenous traits of China-Russia relations. Try not to look at this relation only through this reactive mode towards U.S. The two sides, as you said, big neighbor country with a long history, huge domestic economic size on both sides. Why do we trade with the U.S. or the Western Europe? Do we have to ship the goods that far to these markets? Why don't we actually encourage, promote bilateral trade? Energy, which makes, by that account, makes so much more sense. So, this endogenous drive essentially reduce the relevance of this big triangle in the traditional sense.
[00:35:11] Peter: But that said, that seems to make sense as an aspiration, that China and Russia could insulate themselves from a declining West and meanwhile build up ties that are regional and durable. But either Russia is currently in a war with the West, China's greatest markets are still Europe in the U.S. So, in, in pure material military economic terms, we seem to be quite a ways off from a view of a Eurasia that functions according to its own endogenous logic and creates its own dynamics of growth. What are the chances of a greater Eurasia led by Russia and China actually cohering anytime soon? Do you think that is a likely proposition? Would you bet on it?
[00:37:21] Zhang: I won’t. I also wrote about how Russia and China perceive this Eurasia space both as a geopolitical space and also economic space in quite different way, and even argue that the so-called conjugation, the 2015, there's a, there's an official statement from both countries by the top leader directly. So, the Russia initiated the Eurasia Economic Union on the one hand, and the China initiated a Belt and Road initiative, especially the belt, the land route, the Silk Road, are not conflicting projects. They are more complementary. And the two states are ready to conjugate in English conjugate, introduce conjugational coordination between them.
Barthol wrote that the perception of the space is quite different. China still emphasize this flow idea. We want to Eurasia… Europe, Asia continent as a flat homogenous space. I think goods and services freely running from East Asia all the way to Europe. But that's at least the early idea perceived Eurasia integration. Russia has a more political perception of Eurasia integration. That's why I always emphasize free flow of goods. But within a state-based territorialized block. So, it's what I call stock mode. So, it's a flow mode versus stock mode. And to…
[00:38:40] Peter: So, for Russia, it's a bounded space. For China, it's a flow all the way from China to Lisbon. And in Russia's idea, it's a bounded Eurasia that is a separate block in a world of blocks.
[00:38:51] Zhang: Yeah, Russian narrative is always… has a boundary idea from where to where. From Vladivostok to, to Lisbon, from now it's a Shanghai to St. Petersburg. I have heard of different versions. But there's a very clear Europe-Asia boundaries. China's initiative, at least until now, wide open. Right now, a belt road goes to Peru.
[00:39:15] Peter: Global this, global that.
[00:39:16] Zhang: Yeah, I think, to some extent, yes. So, I think that's a fundamental different perception of Eurasia space. And that's why I constantly emphasize this is a formative process. Russia these days are talking about new security framework in or for or in Eurasia. I think those concepts have been quite extensively discussed within the Chinese context. I'm not completely convinced China side would… without any condition, just embrace this concept. So, I think that there's different aspects of reason why I wouldn't bet on a coherent integrated Eurasia common space. Or Russians, experts these days emphasize the common neighborhood. Both security and economic common Eurasian neighborhood for China and between China and Russia, I wouldn't bet that it will emerge in any real, concrete, visible sense any time soon.
[00:40:06] Peter: But you're also not predicting a rift between Russia and China.
[00:40:10] Zhang: No. I think another side we see more and more is there is a large group of country outside of this North America, Europe, Asia. And then they'll become increasingly important. And I think both China, Russia, both U.S. and Europe are working very actively trying to make sense of this evolving relation with some people call it the Global South. I think that on the China side, particularly, the top leader has this clear designation. China has always been a member of Global South. So, that tone is set, and you will see tons and tons of activity, think tank, university, media, just to work along that line. So, I think that's also going to be important to go beyond this triangle or go beyond this global West, versus China and the, the Russia. Those relations will be partially also determined by how countries in these blocks, can they work well with the larger group outside of these blocks?
[00:41:07] Peter: Well, so the geometry is even more complicated than I assumed. So, this time, we were going to talk about the triangle of U.S.-Russia-China. There's also the triangle of Global West, Global East, and Global South. Next time, perhaps, we'll talk about these triangles on top of triangles. But I suppose this is enough for now. Thank you very much for joining us. And we hope to continue the conversation another time soon.
[00:41:31] Zhang: Thank you for the interview.
[00:41:37] Peter: Thanks for listening to the Monterey Trialogue Podcast. Make sure to subscribe to the show, so you don’t miss out on any episodes. I’m Peter Slezkine.
The Monterey Trialogue Podcast is hosted by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and produced by University FM.