This report analyzes Russia’s use of diplomatic, military, and economic instruments of statecraft to advance its interests in the Indo-Pacific region and examines how China perceives it. As with all reports in this series, this one defines the Indo-Pacific region as the Area of Responsibility (AOR) of the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). Within the AOR, it examines Russia’s activity in the subregions most significant for Russia’s strategic interests:
China, the Southeast Asia and South China Sea (SCS) region, India, and the Korean Peninsula.
Russia has utilized instruments of statecraft to maintain a two-level engagement pattern in the region—systemic balancing and regional hedging. At the level of systemic balancing, Russia unequivocally embraces China as an economic, military,
and political ally to balance the United States or the West more broadly. However, at the level of regional hedging, Russia diversifies its economic, political, and security bets by engaging with China’s actual or potential adversaries and avoids explicitly taking one side at the obvious expense of another in regional disputes: Moscow hedges its bets between different states, including China,
to maximize cooperation opportunities. This two-level engagement pattern does not undermine Russia’s systemic alignment with China, but it reduces Moscow’s dependence on Beijing and makes the regional aspects of China-Russia relations more complex.
The intensification of US-China rivalry and the deterioration of China’s relations with India, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian states are conducive to Russia maintaining this two-level pattern. The worsening US-China relations incentivize Beijing to consolidate its alignment with Russia. Simultaneously,
Beijing’s growing capabilities and aggressive pursuit of its territorial claims in the region make regional powers proactively seek closer ties with Moscow, recognizing that unequivocal alignment with the US will irreversibly antagonize China, which is not in their interests.
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