Crippling sanctions will push Russia closer to China

The crippling sanctions imposed by the West against Russia will push Moscow closer to China, according to panellists at a Straits Times roundtable yesterday on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

However, Professor Kishore Mahbubani, one of the panellists and a veteran diplomat, said that any alliance between the two would not be natural, noting that the longest border which Russia has is with China.

"If I were a Russian strategic planner, I would worry about that long border rather than the European border," he said, noting that the latter was still a very relatively peaceful one.

"So, in the long run, I don't think there will be a natural alliance between Russia and China, although now, for the next few years, there will be a kind of pact where they will work together, for obvious reasons, because both are benefiting from it in the short term," said Prof Mahbubani, who is a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Another panellist, Straits Times associate editor Ravi Velloor, observed that there was already evidence that both countries were cooperating with each other on Ukraine.

"Well, in terms of influencing what happened, I think, the best evidence is that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin waited for the Winter Olympic Games to be over before he moved on Ukraine. So, that is the immediate impact, part of it," said Mr Velloor.

He also highlighted the recent summit between President Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, in which the two countries set out a common world view in a way they had never done before.

He said: "It puts Putin and Russia's fate more into Chinese hands than ever before. In a way, it sort of underscores Putin's complete dependence or increasing dependence on China in a whole lot of sectors, including energy.

"And what he is willing to concede, including space in the Arctic. China describes itself as a near-Arctic state. It is nowhere near the Arctic. And Putin is ready and welcoming of the Chinese presence in the Arctic. He is cooperative in that. And it speaks about cooperating in new fields.

"So, I think it is something that will have a tremendous impact on the world, on Asia, particularly."

Queried by ST foreign editor Bhagyashree Garekar, the moderator of the session, on whether Russia was willing to settle for being the junior partner in the relationship, the third panellist, Straits Times global affairs correspondent Jonathan Eyal said: "There is no question about it. The Chinese economy is about eight times the size of the Russian economy. And let's remember that when the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia and China were more or less on a par in terms of the size of the economy at the time.

"So, it is very much the junior partner. The Russians do a good job at disguising it."

He added: "But there is still a learning curve for the Russians as well to start realising what being a junior partner to China may actually mean. And I don't think they have been that way, and I think that that is the bit of fallout from the Ukraine crisis that will come their way."