Sino-Russian ties a boon for the world

State officials and prominent politicians from Beijing and Moscow have consistently tried to allay the enduring fear of some Western countries that China and Russia may forge a political and military alliance.

Neither China nor Russia has such a plan or aspiration. Both nations are more than happy with the current arrangement in their bilateral relations, with both sides attaching high value to their respective sovereignty.

Furthermore, China and Russia might hold different positions on some specific issues. The two might even be competitors in some international markets.

However, such disagreement or competition does not prevent Beijing and Moscow from working together on many other issues, where their interests and positions coincide or overlap.

One must also mention that in terms of bilateral trade, mutual investments, industrial cooperation, cultural and human interaction, China-Russia cooperation lags significantly behind that between China and both the European Union and the United States.

More Chinese tourists flock to the US than to Russia. There are many more Chinese students and scholars in Western universities than in Russian higher education institutions.

On the other hand, at least a part of the Russian political class and the intellectual community there consider their country to be an organic part of the European civilization. Finally, neither Beijing nor Moscow displays any intention to impose their respective values, political systems or principles of governance on Western nations or on anyone in the world.

And yet, the "ghost of a new axis" continues to haunt some Western statesmen.

Where does this fear come from? The most natural answer would be that this is a typical manifestation of the age-old conventional Western hypocrisy.

Indeed, the Western "ruling circles" have always needed an "external threat" to justify more military spending, to rationalize forging new military blocs and to ostracize those reaching out to their competitors and adversaries.

Reference to an "emerging China-Russia axis" comes in handy when some politicians try to push for NATO's globalization; the trilateral AUKUS partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US; the trilateral US-Japan-Republic of Korea security cooperation framework; or even the expansion of the Quad alliance among Australia, India, Japan and the US.

Scapegoats are always in demand in global politics, and some Western politicians can hardly find a better excuse than Moscow and Beijing to methodically and relentlessly consolidate against the vast Eurasian landmass. This fear apparently stems from an ancient vision in international relations that if any two nations are getting close, they must be doing so to oppose a third party. This is also the thinking of those who treat international politics as a zero-sum game.

This old logic, however, cannot be taken for granted any longer. By extending this strange logic, would the world be safer, more stable, secure and prosperous if the China-Russia strategic partnership were to fall apart?

Would the Western nations benefit from if they "succeed in" driving wedges between Beijing and Moscow? Instead, any such conflict would only become another source of regional and even global instability, generating many more risks and challenges for everyone in the world, including Western nations.

In an era marked by interconnectedness and interdependence, international relations cannot continue to be treated like a "zero-sum game", even if this was the case earlier. Today, we either win together or lose together.

No wonder, Beijing has always welcomed Moscow's efforts to reengage in bilateral dialogue with Washington, while in Moscow they have always been sympathetic to Beijing's attempts to resolve its trade disputes and geopolitical tensions with the US.

Besides, the whole assumption that Moscow and Beijing are working together to create more problems for some Western powers reflects an arrogant "West-centered" view of the world.

Even if the West did not threaten the two nations at all, Moscow and Beijing would still have many reasons to cooperate with each other. These are two big nations with a shared border, with complementary economies, and similar views on many regional and global problems.

It is worth mentioning that the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation, which opened a new era in bilateral ties, was signed way back in the summer of 2001 — long before Beijing and Moscow began encountering difficulties in their respective relations with some Western powers.

The aggressive posture of some Western powers is undoubtedly one of the factors shaping the China-Russia partnership, but this is by no means the only or decisive factor. One can assume that over time, the significance of this exogenous factor will go down, not up.

These days one can argue that a major problem in international relations is the absence of fear, which earlier used to act as a deterrent against military confrontation between major powers.

However, irrational and unfounded fears are no less dangerous — they can obscure vision, distort realities and trigger irrational impulsive decisions fraught with perilous repercussions for all humankind.

The author is a member and former director general of the Russian International Affairs Council.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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