Moscow and Beijing caught between history and the present

The two giants of the Asian continent have always been close, but they have never communicated as intensely and amicably as they have in recent times. China's position continues to strengthen despite all the mistrust surrounding Russian projects. The scenario of a ‘reverse colonisation’ compared to the times when Moscow was the ‘big brother’.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The war in Ukraine continues, despite all the more or less credible negotiations that have been going on for weeks now, but as Radio Svoboda columnist Sergei Medvedev says, ‘there is already a winner, or at least a beneficiary, and that is China’.

Beijing's position on the global stage is strengthening, to the point where it appears to be a more reliable partner than the United States, and the ‘Moscow-Beijing’ trade is growing, despite all the Chinese mistrust of Russian rail, road and energy projects.

What does Vladimir Putin's “turn to the East” really mean? Is it a marriage of convenience, a true “eternal friendship” or a long-term strategic choice? Is Russia becoming an Asian country, a vassal of China? This is what Medvedev discussed with sinologist Aleksandr Pantsov, professor at Ohio University, and another specialist, Aleksey Chigadaev, author of the Telegram channel Kitaiskij Gorodovoj, the “Chinese Watch”.

The two giants of the Asian continent have always been close, but they have never communicated as intensely and amicably as they have in recent times. Russia is half Asian and half European, with oscillations between East and West throughout its history, and without any real certainty about the concept of “its own land”, with small communities scattered across a vast territory.

China owes its identity in part to Mongol domination, like Russia, but it has always been in the hands of large clans, unlike the Russians, as Pantsov explains. The mentality of the two peoples has a variable attitude towards the relationship between the individual and the community, with a prevalence of collectivism, of “society” over “the state”, which has often made them feel very close and rather resistant to the concepts of democracy and liberalism.

However, according to experts, Russia's “Asian” nature has become closer to that of Europe with the adoption of Orthodox Christianity, remaining the only Orthodox kingdom in Europe after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453.

Russia's current turnaround, according to Pantsov, is “a return to its most authentic Asian nature”, even if much remains from the Soviet period, which had once again “collectivised” the consciousness of the Russian people, and Putin appears primarily as an heir to totalitarian ideology.

During the period of Tsarist imperialism, Chigadaev recalls, ‘China viewed the Russians no differently than the British,’ even though the Americans were better received than the Japanese, under whose rule they had long suffered, despite the fact that the Chinese consider Japan to be a derivative of Chinese tradition and culture.

The 19th-century colonial legacy is remembered in China as “the century of shame”, with strong resentment towards the Russians, who took millions of square kilometres of territory from the Chinese.

In Soviet times, the Russians were the “big brother”, as was evident in the relationship between Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung. Now the fraternal relationship is being reversed, with Russia inexorably inferior to China, and it is unclear how long Putin will tolerate being overshadowed by Xi Jinping.

Beijing does business with everyone, with Moscow as well as Kiev, buying oil from one and grain from the other, without giving discounts to anyone, but demanding discounts from everyone. As Chigadaev observes, “90% of Ukrainian drones, which destroy Russian infrastructure, are Chinese-made, brought in through third countries”.

China does not invest in Russia, except in projects that directly interest it, while it is working hard to transform the whole of Central Asia into its preferred corridor for commercial transport.

Moreover, the Russians themselves view Chinese intervention in their country with suspicion, if not open hostility, fearing “reverse colonisation”, especially in the Far East and Siberia, and proudly, albeit rather ineffectively, defending their “technological sovereignty”, ironically referred to by many as “technonationalism”.

While Russia seeks to impose its model of imperial autocracy on the whole world, China remains compact in its unique and impossible-to-copy system, with a population ten times larger than that of Russia, to which it therefore lends very little interest.