Natasha Kuhrt
Executive SummaryDespite the challenge from China, Russia continues to wield influence in the region.
Russia and China have a comprehensive strategic partnership based on a relationship that has developed over 30 years, before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
They are largely able to manage their relations within the region, in part via the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and partly due to their shared antipathy to Western norms.
This antipathy is shared by Central Asian states, although they also seek to diversify economic relations away from an overreliance on either Russia or China.
There are no glaring disagreements between Russia and China, but the war in Ukraine highlights some pre-existing and some new challenges, including on issues of sovereignty.
Sino-Russian relations have reached the point of a comprehensive strategic partnership. The relationship raises important questions regarding the nature of their cooperation in key areas — whether Russia is using the relationship to hedge against the United States, or whether it is more a question of mutual status exchange.1 Both countries appear to be questioning the current international order, and their interactions in Central Asia partly raise the question of Russia’s own place in an order that is increasingly dominated by China. At the Beijing Olympics in February 2022, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia and China declared a no limits partnership, one which was “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War Era.” The declaration noted their joint opposition to NATO enlargement, describing it as U.S. hegemonism. They also vowed to oppose attempts to undermine security and stability in their “common adjacent regions.”2 The common adjacent regions must surely have been referring to Central Asia. Both Russia and China agree broadly on the normative aspects of their interactions in the region, and in general have collaborated on security issues, including on the threat from fundamentalism and terrorism. On these, they can count on the support of the Central Asian regimes, whose leaders largely hold similar beliefs about human rights and democratization. Nevertheless, Central Asian states themselves continue to practice multi-vector policies to avoid an over-reliance on either Russia or China, in particular in the economic sphere. Russia has learned to accommodate China in Central Asia, reflecting its high economic dependence on China. In Central Asia, however, Russia remains the preeminent power and China does not yet challenge this preeminence in any overt way.
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