Over the past 42 years, China's reforms and policies of opening up have not only strengthened its economic positions, but it made China the leading global economy, also a leading world power, and the creator of new political discourses. However, the more powerful you become, the more intense the competition becomes. Speaking about China’s political and economic rivals in the international arena, what first comes to mind are the United States, which was steadily losing the position of global hegemon in recent years.
However the weaker the United States are, the stronger is their desire to confront China. Now the United States has two main instruments in that respect: first the trade wars with China with concomitant sanctions and a deterrence policy, namely the creation of an anti-Chinese coalition not only in the Pacific region, but also around the world. In return for joining the coalition, the United States offers false privileges and empty promises to a number of countries. A vivid example is the recent statement by Donald Trump about expanding the G7 format, proposing to include India and South Korea, and of course, return Russia to the group. While India and the Republic of Korea enthusiastically accepted the proposal, hoping to strengthen international influence, Russia, in turn, was not happy with this "handout": from the mid-2000s until the period of the annexation of Crimea to Russia, Russia remained in the G8, but this did nothing to stop the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime in Libya nor prevent a military conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia. Speaking of the latter, Russia was once again betrayed by the “international community”, when in constant dialogue with the USA and EU countries, these states, backstabbed Russia, convinced the whole world that in reality it was Russia who attacked small Georgia. The same thing then happened in cases of Crimea and Ukraine. But there is a positive moment in this story - Russia has learned a lesson, and is unlikely to be capable of believing the promises of the West in the future. At the same time, Russia is actively developing a strategic partnership with China, and the Russian experience in relations with the West is extremely useful for China.
At the moment, trade between China and the Russian Federation exceeds $ 110.75 billion, and China is Russia's largest trading partner. Russia's export is 85% in raw materials: oil, gas, LNG, timber products and metals, while only 15% falls on food, agricultural products, chemical products and engineering products. Now Russia is launching a number of new projects with China: the Power of Siberia gas pipeline, the construction of the Power of Siberia-2, the Amur Gas Chemical Complex, the Arctic SPG-2 and many other projects that are planned for the future. The year 2020 was declared as a year of scientific, technical and innovative development of Russia and China. In fact, this happened because of the closure of borders due to the pandemic which transformed interaction and dialogue into digital format.
Last October, agreements on trade and economic cooperation were reached between the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China. The priority task of the EAEU is to make it compatible with the “One Belt-One Way” initiative proposed by Comrade Xi Jinping as a sustainable development strategy for Russia and China. The conjugations of these two projects are global: firstly, there are no analogues of similar projects in the world, and secondly, this is an opportunity not only to develop the infrastructure of one of the most undervalued regions in the world, but also, to get serious returns in form of accelerated economic growth.
It is under the condition of creating partnerships and joint projects that the successful development of globalization is possible, which is the core of stimulating the global economy and trade. Just 10 years ago, the United States advocated globalization, because it was beneficial to them, however since 2016, Trump began to defend the ideas of protectionism and began a trade war with China, which continued to be an advocate of free trade. America became a superpower because of its ideology: freedom of speech, freedom of enterprise, equality of all before the law, freedom of trade. Now America is betraying its own ideals when these ideals ceased to suit them.
The world is faced with a crisis today, one analogues of which did not exist before. The last two major crises were the Great Depression of 1929-1933 and the World Financial Crisis of 2008-2009, and the difference in their settlement is also symbolic. In 1929, the world took the path of protectionism and protecting its markets, which led to a protracted crisis. Everyone coped with economic disasters alone, as a result the crisis was very difficult and long. It led to Nazis coming to power in Germany and consequently the worst disaster in the history of mankind. In World War II, one must bare in mind, that the Soviet and the Chinese people suffered the greatest losses.
In 2008-2009, countries acted together and did not close markets, quite the contrary, they defended the principle of free trade. As a result, the world economy recovered quickly, and China became the flagship of world economic growth, which accounted for about 30% of world economic growth.
China’s actions over this time have repeatedly helped the global economy delay the start of the recession. In 2014-2016, there was a risk of a world recession due to a fall in world commodity markets. From 2017 the global economic growth also began to slow down, but the crisis did not happen thanks to China's efforts to stimulate the economy. This stimulations came from projects in the “Belt and Road” countries, and projects in Africa which helped improve the quality of life in those regions that were previously considered world peripherals.
In the current extremely difficult moment, the United States are threatening the global economy with a protracted recession, loss of tens of millions of jobs and massive poverty. At the same time, while they are advocating for the protection of their national market, US transnational corporations retain their presence in almost every country. It turns out that the US authorities are trying to impose their own rules of the game on the world, though they themselves do not follow them.
Now that Sino-US relations are extremely tense, the world risks splitting into two systems of globalization: all production chains will be located only in the countries of the pro-Chinese or pro-American block, as well as investments and foreign trade. The commodity circulation between the blocks will be minimal and will occur only where there are no alternatives. For example, Russia cannot produce technologies as fast as Japan does, but Japan does not have the same energy potential as Russia. The Covid-19 pandemic showed the whole world that help can sometimes come from countries that were not usually expected: both China and Russia sent medical products, medicines and equipment to the United States, simply because people's lives cannot be measured by economic wars and political intrigues. The bipolarity of the world and its potential division into a pro-American and pro-Chinese camp would prevent providing of emergency assistance to people, stripping people from necessary medications and treatment. And this is just the top of the iceberg.
The world is instable: today's allies can become enemies. So it was with Russia and Ukraine, the same is happening with China and India now. However, it is important to understand that both Russia and China are always initiators of negotiations for a peaceful resolution of conflicts, urging opponents to negotiate, and take up arms and break ties developed over the years. This approach brought Russia and China closer together, the same was during the Soviet as it is in the modern times. Without exaggeration, we can say that Russia is the only world power capable of sincere friendship with China. Now we see how the United States is trying to give up the Middle East to Russia, recognizing all the merits of our state in the fight against world terrorism. The Ukrainian conflict is also quieter, US pressure on Russia in this issue is extraordinarily weakening, just like the EU’s accusations against Russia. However, Russia is not buying into the "imaginary" recognition of the same fictional “international community”. At the same time, Russia, while maintaining the status of a world power, protects China from made up Western accusations. Russian success in military operations allows us to strengthen Russian-Chinese cooperation in the field of security, joint military exercises which demonstrated to the world the military potential of both countries, and made it clear that together we can resist the aggression of NATO and the pro-NATO countries.
The crisis is a good time to understand who is a true friend. Only Russia and the Russian Foreign Ministry acted as defenders of China against Western resolutions that urged the international community to accuse China of distributing Covid-19 and admit China's guilt in hiding important information about the virus. After that the west has increased the pressure in connection with the Hong Kong situation. Officially, Russia prevented the spread of these far-fetched accusations.
At the same time, the United States has recently intensified contacts with Russia and is offering Russia participation in the expanded G7 format. Also, according to some undisclosed information, the United States is ready to abandon Ukraine and Syria in exchange for Russia's support for the anti-Chinese bloc. This approach would not be a precedent for the United States. At one time, China received a place in the UN Security Council from the United States. This policy was known as “Nixon’s China”. During that time the United States provided a huge amount of direct investment to China, which, thanks to reform policies and openness, over decades became an economic superpower. The US did that in exchange for Chinese distancing itself from the Soviet Union.
The best answer to the current American policy of containing Russia and China may be the deepening of our bilateral cooperation and the implementation of new joint investment projects in Russia with the participation of Chinese investments, as well as the development of a bilateral technology transfer programs. This approach would strengthen both Russia and China, and it would reinforce their position in opposing Western imperialism, which is usually concealed, and comes in the name of preserving peace and stability.
Vitaly Mankevich–the President of The Russian Asian Union of Industrialists and entrepreneurs