The fact that Russia is rich in oil, gas and many other commodities — as well as being its major supplier of weapons — clearly makes it a very attractive partner for China. But Russia has proved a difficult collaborator, loath to meet its needs, certainly on the terms desired by China. In a long-running saga over the route of a new Russian east-west oil pipeline, with Russia reluctant to concede that it should go to China, as proposed by the Chinese, an agreement was finally reached in February 2009 that there would indeed be a branch to China, in return for Chinese loans to Russian firms. [1113] The Russians are wary of becoming trapped in a relationship with China where they are reduced to being the provider of raw materials for their economic powerhouse neighbour. [1114] Since the turn of the century, indeed, the Russians have become increasingly protective of their oil and natural gas interests, aware that, in its weakened state, these are hugely their country’s most valuable assets, especially in a global market where prices, until the credit crunch, were moving rapidly in their favour. Having rolled back American, European and Japanese stakes in its oil industry, Russia is hardly likely to grant Chinese oil companies a similar interest in the future. Moreover, having embraced resource nationalism under Vladimir Putin, Russia is now driving very hard bargains over its oil and gas with both Europe and its former territories. The Russian suspicion of Chinese intentions extends to the Central Asian nations that previously formed part of the Soviet Union. Russian sources, it has been reported, revealed in August 2005 that one reason for Moscow’s haste in seeking to enter the former American base at Karshi Khanabad in Uzbekistan is that China had made discreet expressions of interest in acquiring it themselves. [1115] China has found itself confronted with many obstacles in its desire to acquire oil interests in Central Asia, even in Kazakhstan, where it has its only major oil stake in the region; the considerable resistance and suspicion would seem to have been encouraged by Russia, which regards Central Asia as its rightful sphere of influence. [1116]
None of this is to suggest that the relationship between China and Russia is likely to deteriorate, though that is not inconceivable should Russian fears about the rise of China become acute, perhaps even persuading Russia, in extremis, to turn westwards and seek some kind of solace with the European Union or NATO. It does, however, indicate that serious tensions arising from the major imbalance of power between them are likely to constrain the potential for the relationship becoming anything more than an arrangement for maintaining their bilateral relations in good order, which, given their troubled history, would in itself be no mean achievement. [1117] For the time being, at least, a strong mutual concern about US power is likely to bind the two countries together, as it has already, in a limited but significant way, on issues like Iraq and Iran. At the same time trade between the two has been increasing very rapidly, with a five-fold rise between 2000 and 2007. Russia ’s intervention in Georgia and subsequent recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states in 2008 were not well received in Beijing although there was no official criticism, simply an expression of concern. It was a further reminder that relations between the two powers are far from simple. [1118]
INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA
China and India have much in common. They are both hugely populous countries, demographic superpowers, which are in the process of dramatic economic transformation. Between them they account for almost 40 per cent of the world’s population. They are both continental giants, China a dominating presence in East Asia and India similarly in South Asia. By the mid twenty-first century, they could both be major global powers. Together they threaten to redraw the shape of the world, tilting it massively towards Asia while at the same time projecting a new kind of nation-state of continental proportions in terms of both territory and population, a very different kind of global order from when the world was dominated by a handful of small- and medium-sized European nation-states. It is hardly surprising, then, that China and India are frequently bracketed together. Despite these similarities, however, in many respects the differences between them could hardly be greater, as symbolized by their long border running through the Himalayas, the greatest natural land barrier in the world, which serves to mark out what can only be described as a political and cultural chasm between the two countries. China has the longest continuous history of any country while India is a much more recent creation, only acquiring something like its present territory, or at least two-thirds of it, during the later period of the British Raj. [1119] Chinese civilization is defined by its relationship to the state whereas India ’s is inseparable from its caste society. India is the world’s largest democracy while in China democracy remains a largely alien concept. China has a powerful sense of identity and homogeneity, in contrast to India, which is blessed with a remarkable pluralism embracing many different races, languages and religions. These cultural differences have served to create a sense of otherness and distance and an underlying lack of understanding and empathy. It is true that India gave China Buddhism, and that there were many other intellectual exchanges between the two countries during the first millennium and beyond, but these are now largely forgotten. [1120]
For over fifty years relations between the two countries have been at best distant and suspicious, at worst antagonistic, even conflictual. After 1988 they took a turn somewhat for the better, but despite the warmer diplomatic words, there remains an underlying antipathy. There are two main causes. First, notwithstanding joint working groups and commissions, the two countries have failed to reach agreement on their border. And it was conflict over the border which led directly to the Sino-Indian War in 1962 when China inflicted a heavy military defeat on India which still rankles to this day. [1121] Second, far from exercising unchallenged hegemony in South Asia, India finds itself confronted by Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar, all of which China has deliberately befriended as a means of balancing against India, with these countries embracing China as a way of offsetting India ’s dominant position in South Asia. Of these relationships, the most important is that between China and India ’s sworn foe Pakistan, which, thanks largely to China, possesses nuclear weapons. China ’s shrewd diplomacy has meant that India has constantly been on the back foot in South Asia, unable to assert itself in the manner which its size would justify. India has proved much less diplomatically adept, failing to establish its hegemony over South Asia and not even trying to develop a serious influence in East Asia, notwithstanding the large Indian diaspora in South-East Asia, with which it has singularly failed to establish any meaningful kind of relationship. [1122]
[1113] Yu Bin, ‘ China and Russia: Normalizing Their Strategic Partnership’, in David Shambaugh, ed.,
[1114] Stephen Blank, ‘ China, Kazakh Energy, and Russia: An Unlikely Ménage à Trois’,
[1115] Ibid., pp. 107-8.
[1116] Ibid., pp. 105-8.
[1117] Lowell Dittmer, ‘Ghost of the Strategic Triangle’, pp. 220-21.
[1118] Geoff Dyer, ‘ Russia Fails to Secure Regional Backing’,
[1119] Meghnad Desai, ‘India and China: An Essay in Comparative Political Economy’, seminar paper, Asia Research Centre, London School of Economics, 2003, p. 3; revised version available to download from www.imf.org.
[1120] Amartya Sen,
[1121] John W. Garver,
[1122] Ibid., pp. 370-73; Prasenjit Duara, ‘Visions of History, Trajectories of Power: China and India since De-colonisation’, in Anthony Reid and Zheng Yangwen, eds,