Does U.S. President Donald Trump’s unprecedented tariff war against China contain an element that could draw Moscow away from Beijing so that the overall global balance of power remains in favor of Washington?
Over the last few days, this question has become an important topic for discussion among the American strategic elites, as Trump’s sweeping global tariffs notably do not include Russia.
Though the sanctions-hit Russia does not have a great trading figure with the Western world, it is speculated that the U.S.-China trade war may marginally increase demand for some Russian products.
Agricultural exporters in Russia may benefit from the China-U.S. rift; they may find South America to be a good market. The supply of animal products from Russia could also gain momentum. In fact, China may emerge as a good market for Russian wheat and energy. Russia may be able to capitalize on the escalating trade war by replacing U.S. energy (LNG) supplies with China, it is said.
The point being made is that if the whole world gets involved in a trade war, everyone will certainly not care about Russia and Ukraine.
However, regardless of whether America’s trade war against China benefits Russia or not, it is important to note that Trump has consistently believed that it is not in the American interest for Russia and China to get closer.
“As a student of history, which I am — and I’ve watched it all — the first thing you learn is you don’t want Russia and China to get together,” Trump told Fox News shortly after he wrapped talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin that fell short of securing a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine.
Casting doubt over the foundation of Moscow and Beijing’s bilateral relationship, Trump pointed out that “it wasn’t natural. They’re probably friendly now, but we’re going to be friendly with both.”
Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Antonio Rubio, has also been on record that Russia remaining a “permanent junior partner” to China would pose a problem for the United States, with “two nuclear powers aligned against” it.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever be successful completely at peeling them off … a relationship with the Chinese,” Rubio had said while calling Russians “increasingly dependent on the Chinese,” which is “not a good outcome either if you think about it.”
In fact, it is against this background that many analysts have seen Trump’s stance on ending the Ukraine war to be an attempt to split Moscow from Beijing, in a so-called “reverse Nixon” — a reference to America’s efforts in the early 1970s to divide the two powers.
Trump, it is said, is following late President Richard Nixon, a fellow Republican, who opened to China in 1972 to exploit the Sino-Soviet split to contain Moscow. However, this time, the roles are reversed, as the United States seeks to engage Russia in an effort to weaken China’s strategic position.
The assumption is that, with the right incentives, Moscow might be willing to moderate its ties with Beijing, Washington’s primary geopolitical challenger at present.
Continued American antagonism toward Moscow is believed to only push Russia further into China’s strategic orbit. If the two powers deepen their military, economic, and diplomatic coordination, Washington faces a significantly more complex threat environment.
This approach of Trump towards Russia seems to have divided the American strategic elites.
Michael McFaul, Professor of Political Science, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and Evan S. Medeiros. Professor and Penner Family Chair in Asian Studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University have argued in an essay in Foreign Affairs magazine that comparing the present with 1972 is flawed.
They argue, “Back then, Washington recognized and exploited, rather than produced, a deep Sino-Soviet split to improve relations with Beijing. Not only does such a split not exist today, but Beijing and Moscow are now true strategic partners. Both Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping see the United States as the greatest threat to their respective countries and have built an institutionalized relationship based on converging material interests and common autocratic values. Putin has no reason to give up China’s extensive, concrete, and reliable support to Russia’s civilian economy and defense industry in exchange for ties to Washington that may not last past the end of Trump’s term in 2028”.
Further, McFaul and Medeiros warn that Putin will exploit a diplomatic thaw with the U.S. to serve his own ends, balking at the notion that Russia’s leader would prioritize Russian interests. For them, any attempt to peel Russia away from China is imprudent because it would make Moscow a “pivot player in the competition between Beijing and Washington.”
But then, there are scholars like Mark Episkopos, a Eurasia Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, who argue that it is good if Moscow remains a pivot player between Beijing and Washington.
“Recognizing and acting on this reality sets the stage for a long-overdue strategic retrenchment that lightens the American burden in Europe, something most presidents since Dwight Eisenhower have tried to accomplish, and generates a host of positive spillover effects that would put Washington on better footing to productively engage China. Indeed, for Russia to act as more of a pivot player and less as China’s situational partner against the West would in itself be a major victory for the U.S. and Europe”.
After all, there are inherent fault lines in the Russia–China relationship, with the traditional Russian elites always considering themselves to be “part of the West”, despite the biggest portions of Russian territory falling in Asia. Added to this is the fact that historically, Russian rulers considered China to be an enemy, not a friend, something EurAsian Times had once dealt with in detail.
Russia shares a long border with China and a long history of often bitter and complex relations. Besieged by a growing problem of demographic decline, many Russian analysts fear that Siberia and the Russian Far East will soon be overrun by migrant Chinese laborers. This fear is genuine, as anybody familiar with Chinese history will admit that Chinese territorial claims all over Asia often followed its emigrants.
When seen through the prism of history, China and Russia have fought a border war already (1969). It is true that at the moment, China is not officially claiming the territories it lost to the Czarist Russia in 1858-1860, including all of Primorye and the Amur Valley.
But no one in China has forgotten about this annexation of the 19th century. In their private capacities, some Chinese propagandists do remind from time to time that Siberia, including the strategic port of Vladivostok, belongs to China.
The current border (approximately 2,740 miles) is an artifact of “the 1860 Convention of Peking’, at a time when the Second Opium War had weakened China and Czarist Russia was expanding.
They say that Vladivostok was a military harbor built on the Chinese city of Haishenwai, which was annexed “via (the) unequal Treaty of Beijing (Peking).” Time has changed. Now, China seems to be much stronger than Russia. And it is natural, as Russian political scientist Andrei Kalachinski admits, “If a large state (i.e. China) grows stronger, it is logical that it starts thinking whether it has handed over too many of its territories in the past two centuries.
Besides, the Russians are not comfortable with the growing Chinese activities in Central Asia, which Moscow always considers to be falling under its sphere of vital interests.
Russians realize that China’s march to become the second most powerful nation in the world after the United States is going to be at their cost; all told, hitherto, Russia was considered to be the number two nation in the world, at least in military and scientific capabilities.
Given the above arguments, Trump’ orchestrating a “reverse Kissinger” (it was President Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who had courted China) — pulling Russia closer to balance a rising China, may make sense for a Russian leadership that prides itself on its ability to pursue an ‘independent’ foreign policy. A marriage of convenience between Moscow and Beijing may not remain a steadfast alliance, and thus it is conceivable to predict an inevitable loosening of Chinese-Russian ties.
But it is possible, as Dr. Timothy Less, Convenor, Geopolitical Risk Study Group, Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge, argues, if Russia feels confident that the U.S. no longer threatens it, this would mean granting Russia a buffer in Ukraine, ending NATO expansion in the east, and abandoning efforts at regime change in Russia.
“A pivot to the Euro-Atlantic would require the restoration of economic ties to replace those Russia has established with the PRC, beginning with the lifting of sanctions. It may also depend on reintegrating Russia into global governance institutions, such as the Group of Seven (G7)”.
Can President Trump guarantee that? As it is, the Trump regime’s term is only four years, and the U.S. has a huge trust deficit even with its closest allies and partners. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not going to ignore this before responding to Trump’s gestures.
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
