Foreign Policy by Default and by Design:

Comparing Russia and China

Sergei Medvedev,Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia)

Linda Jakobson, SIPRI (Stockholm, Sweden)

Paper to be presented at the Sixteenth Annual World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities,

14-16 April 2011, Columbia University, New York City

APRIL 2011

This paper has been written in the framework of the Academic Grant 10-01-0121 of the Higher School of Economics “Authortarian Capitalism in International System: A Comparative Analysis of Russia and China”.

Introduction: The Post-Liberal World

The first decade of the 21st century, the so-called ‘noughties’, have seriously questioned some of the liberal beliefs of the past concerning the international system, namely the link between globalization and democratization, and between political and economic liberalization. At the same time, the ‘noughties’ have questioned the power of international institutions and regimes, and indeed the entire myth of the New World Order.

On the one hand, this was a period of impressive economic growth, especially in the emerging markets, driven by the apparent triumph of consumer capitalism, high prices on raw materials, and the virtual financial economy. At the core of this boom was the new invention of the financial analysts, the BRIC quartet (Brazil, Russia, India, China), where Goldman Sachs analysts projected steady growth until year 2050.[1]

However, rampant economic globalization did not lead to the emergence of mechanisms of global governance, even less so to the establishment of a more equitable and sustainable global regime. Economic liberalization did not result in democratization, equity and justice, and a growing economic interdependence did not lead to peace. Therefore, when almost a decade of growth ran into a recession, and the global financial and economic meltdown of 2008-2009, governments across the globe retorted to the well-tested protectionism, nationalization, and increased intervention by the national Central Banks, this further undermining the myth of globalization and interdependence.

By the same token, international regimes, created during the Cold War and intended to lead the world into a more peaceful and prosperous 21st century, were put into question, or altogether abrogated, in the first decade of this century. Among them were the non-proliferation regime, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) regime as well as other arms controls agreements that appeared outdated, and in need of revision, like the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. Despite the good intentions, human rights regimes never materialized or institutionalized, undermined by the US-led Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).

Also the institutions, inherited from the previous decades, have proved largely ineffective in solving problems of peace and security, like the United Nations, overshadowed by the 1999 Kosovo fiasco, and the OSCE, blocked by the increasingly obstructionist Russian stance. The EU in the wake of the Fifth (2004) and the Sixth (2007) enlargement was stretched to the limit both in terms of widening and deepening, as signified by the Dutch and French veto of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005, and the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty (effectively replacing the Constitutional Treaty ) in 2008. As far as the institutions born after the end of the Cold War, like the CIS with the attendant Collective Security Treaty (CST) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are concerned, they have had very limited impact on the international system, especially the moribund CIS, and are mostly used as power levers of, respectively, Russia and China.

In other words, regimes and institutions that 10 years ago were considered to be the building blocs of the new international systems have at best stalled or at worst failed. In their stead came the nation-state. After the ‘post-sovereign’, globalizing, and idealistic 1990s, in the 2000s the nation-state came back with a vengeance. In the wake of terrorist attacks of 9/11, the United States, driven by the neo-conservative “Project for a New American Century” and led by an ultra-nationalist president George W. Bush, embarked on an anti-terrorist crusade, rampant patriotism back home, and a near complete disregard for international regimes, treaties and alliances abroad. Across the ocean, Russian president Vladimir Putin pursued his own peculiar kind of nationalism, reviving traditional Russian visions of statism and Great Power, and promoting a home-grown ideology of ‘sovereign democracy’ to justify his authoritarian rule.

By the same token, Russia, as well as other oil exporters like Bolivia and Venezuela, has embarked on policies of energy nationalism, while Iran is challenging the entire international community pursuing a nuclear energy program as an ultimate marker of sovereignty. Even in a ‘postmodern’ polity like the EU, occurrences of re-nationalization of politics have occurred, as happened with the aforementioned French and Dutch veto on the Constitutional Treaty, and “new Europeans” like Poland pursuing their sovereign agendas at the Union level.

As a matter of fact, the ‘noughties’ had effectively dealt with the Wilsonian liberal myth of the 1990s, based on Western triumphalism, idealistic globalism à la Thomas Friedman,[2] and the ideology of ‘transition’ à la Freedom House. Robert Kagan has summarized this sentiment in his 2008 article on the “End of the End of History”,[3] while Thomas Carothers was writing about the end of the ‘transition paradigm’ as far back as 2002.[4]

The post-liberal, post-transition trend in international relations is taking shape through multiple interactions of key global players. Paradoxically, one of the key forces behind the new post-liberal trend was the policy of the leader of the ‘free world’, the United States under the George W. Bush Administration which, back in the ‘noughties’ had done its utmost to discredit the liberal and democratic idea by the war in Iraq, disrespect for the international community, and a corporate-patriotic revanche back home. Two other players of the post-liberal world are Russia and China. During the 2000s, they have consolidated their own brand of national capitalism, with a strong impact on sovereignty, and a staunch suspicion of international institutions and regimes. Against the predictions of the democratic transition theory, the post-Cold war shifts have not led these countries to the establishment of liberal democratic regimes and deregulation of economies, but rather to the contrary: economic growth has produced increasingly apathetic consumer societies and authoritarian political outcomes.

Both Russia and China can be seen as basket cases of the ‘end of the transition paradigm’. As put by Alexander Lomanov, Russia and China were “quite successful in effectuating a ‘transition without a destination’ or, in other words, a type of transformation that does not envision a merger with already existing organizations on terms set forth by the latter.”[5] Or, as put by Lilia Shevtsova in her book of the same name, they were “lost in transition”.[6] However, a question remains whether the issue of transition was in the cards at all, and not just a mental construct imposed by the Western analysts on transformations driven by internal forces and measured by indigenous criteria. One can argue that the word ‘transition’ does not explain much in the complex game of elite privatization, transformation of the ‘bureaucratic market’ in both Russia and China, and consolidation of power and property in the post-totalitarian era. In fact, neither Russia nor China were ‘lost’ but have effectively arrived, and their ‘destination’ turned out to be different from that envisioned by the transition theorists: a national authoritarian-bureaucratic capitalism.

The main reason for success of this model was a favorable situation on the world markets, which demanded Russia’s oil and gas as well as Chinese workforce and commodities. Thus, the governments of these countries could reach high growth rates and provide citizens with the level of welfare and individual liberty acceptable for the respective societies, while controlling the political life and skillfully appealing to the anti-Western sentiments in order to legitimize the regimes. If anything, incorporation of Russia and China into the world economy in the 1990s and 2000s did not lead to their political allying with the West. Rather to the contrary, Chinese and Russian economic clout became a instrument in their relations with the West, and a source of friction in these relations. A good case in point is Russia’s use of the energy lever in its dealing with the ‘near abroad’ and the EU. The EU which accounts for over 50 percent of Russia’s external trade as well as most of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Russia. And yet, the paradox of the situation is that the closer the EU and Russia get to each other, territorially or economically, the more problematic their relationship becomes, so that interdependence and contiguity turn into a source of permanent frustration.[7]

A similar combination of enhancing economic cooperation against the background of mutual caution and distrust also exists in the relations between China and the West. From the one side, the growing scope of trade makes the parties increasingly interdependent. From the other side, the Chinese social and political model is so different from the Western one that it turns out to be immune to liberal critique. “China belongs to a group of countries that can afford to disregard compliance with the increasingly complicated criteria of the ‘Western clubs’ and maintain dialogue with them at the same time.”[8] The West is increasingly anxious about this duality of relations, as highlighted by diplomatic conflicts around the suppression of national minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang. The West is not united though. Thus, the EU is more concerned with the relations with its direct neighbor and major supplier of oil and gas, Russia, while the U.S. has to pay special attention to the rise of China, on which the U.S. are vitally dependent in economic and financial spheres.

Russia and China thus emerge as two key variables of the post-liberal trend in world politics. Are they challengers or custodians of the emerging world order? Are they driven by ideology or pragmatism? Standing at the point of global bifurcation into the national and post-national domain, ‘hard power’ and ‘soft power’, sovereignty and interdependence, what are their policy priorities? This chapter seeks to evaluate foreign policy of Russia and China using four sets of criteria:

  • Approach to the present-day international order: Status-Quo or Revisionism
  • Methods of decision-making: Ideology or Pragmatism
  • Use of instruments of power: ‘Soft Power’ or ‘Hard Power’
  • Understanding of international relations: Sovereignty or Interdependence.

In the final analysis, foreign policy of Russia and China is tested for overall cohesion, consistency and strategic thinking.

1. Approach to the International Order: Status-Quo or Revisionism?

Russia

One of the main geopolitical consequences of the demise of the USSR was the end of the bipolar international system. A status-quo, based on the combination of the institutional and political factors, was broken and since that time actors have been trying to find new foundations for a stable international order. Initially, at the end of the 20th century, it was presupposed that such a balance could be reached by filling old institutional forms inherited from the Cold War with a new liberal contents. Instead of being reformed, the old post-World War II institutions were reoriented towards ‘civilizing’ and integrating post-Communist societies: Russia took a seat of the USSR at the United Nations Security Council; NATO prepared for Eastern enlargement; the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank gained more international weight during the period of large-scale post-socialist economic reforms. In a brief ‘unipolar moment’ it seemed that Russia and other post-Communist countries would quickly complete the tasks of transition and join the developed countries of the West, following which a new liberal status-quo in the international system would be reached, the End of History.

In fact, in the 1990s, Russia, then considered a nation ‘in transit’, followed the emerging ‘New World Order,’[9] first enthusiastically, and later reluctantly (see the debates on the first wave of NATO enlargement[10]), accepting all its basic postulates: democracy, liberalism, international institutions, normative dominance of the West. Another wave of Russia’s rapprochement with the West came in the early 2000s, when Russia, led by the pragmatic Vladimir Putin, sought to follow the quickly evolving US-led international order – ultimately acquiescing to NATO’s war in Kosovo in 1999, the US War on Terrorism in 2001 (involving the invasions Afghanistan and later in Iraq), the abrogation of the ABM Treaty by the US in 2001, and ultimately NATO enlargement into the Baltic countries in 2004.

However, the period of a ‘cooperative Putin’ turned out to be short-lived, and since the 2003-2004 different processes both inside and outside Russia have pushed the country to start challenging the fragile international consensus. Russia’s political regime began its authoritarian drift; the legitimacy of the US as the world leader was weakened after the invasion of Iraq in 2003; the EU was facing a crisis of integration, caused by the consequences of enlargement and the failure of the first attempt to adopt the European Constitution in 2005. The conflict level in international relations stared to rise, and Moscow gradually changed its stance – from a pragmatic alliance with the West to increasingly anti-Western (but also pragmatic) activism aimed at using the uncertainty of international relations to Russia’s advantage. The cover page of the Economist on December 11, 2004 featured the picture of Vladimir Putin dressed as a boxer and the cover story was titled “The Challenger” and concluded that “It is time to see Mr. Putin as a challenger, not a friend.”[11]

After several years of continued economic growth and international turbulence in the mid-2000s Russian foreign policy found a new quality and became revisionist. The irony of the situation, it was not revisionism per se, but rather a struggle for the preservation of Russia’s current international position and status-quo, which in contrast to Russia’s geopolitical weakness of the 1990s was perceived as revisionism. In fact, opposing the US attempts to deploy the ABM elements in the Czech Republic and Poland and rebuffing the plans of NATO’s enlargement into Ukraine and Georgia, were an attempt to return to the status quo ante, and a nostalgia for the days of the Cold War when Russia had a right of veto over strategic decisions on the European continent.

As put by Dmitri Trenin in 2008: “Briefly put, Moscow is trying to replay the end of the Cold War. This is not to say that the Kremlin seeks to revive the Soviet Union, establish garrisons on the Elbe and the Vistula or re-enter Afghanistan. Moscow seeks an equal footing with its partners East and West and recognition as a power center in the region that stretches from the European Union to China’s borders and from the North Pole to the Middle East.”[12]

Opinions about the new Russian foreign policy stance were split. Some critics stated that Russia’s advances to countries like Venezuela, Iran, and the Palestinian Autonomy became yet another manifestation of Russia’s perennial anti-systemic tradition, formed by “‘the Bolsheviks-outlaws,’ who were ready to form blocks with other offended states in order to resist the world leaders of their époque.”[13] Meanwhile, others supported these steps as a welcome counterbalance to Western expansionism.

Indeed, in the 2000s Russia has become a revisionist state, but it was the revisionism of a special kind: a nostalgic and defensive revisionism of a depressed and defensive geopolitical giant. Memories of the role that the USSR played in the world, and the remaining military and political resources continue to support Russia’s foreign-policy inertia. Though Moscow sometimes may not articulate its interests and prove its competence, it is clear that it has sufficient status for the participation in global governance.

Russia’s self-assurance of the past decade was mainly supported by the growth of the energy factor in the international relations, and the rise of ‘energy nationalism’ on the world stage. The hike in oil and gas prices in the 2000s permitted Russia’s elite to cope with the most critical social problems inside the country and to make itself noticed in the international arena. Moscow was quite liberal in the use of its energy weapon against its neighbors – Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia.

It should be specially mentioned that Russia’s revisionism has a defensive nature. With these actions Russia tried to stop the process of the expansion of the sphere of Western dominance, being unable to suggest any real alternative projects. Also, Russia’s ‘revisionism’ is measured against a very uncertain (almost non-existent) international status-quo. The extent of ‘revisionism’ is often decided by the political scientists and experts, and by the dominating public attitudes, rather than by any objective criteria.