Wilson Briefs | May 2015

Engage China and Russia with

Issues, Not Scolding
by Robert Daly and Matthew Rojansky

SUMMARY
China and Russia demonstrate a growing affinity in their national interests
and diplomatic styles. Americans have often dismissed Chinese and
Russian international ventures with broad attacks understood by Chinese
and Russians as cultural condescension and used by their presidents to
consolidate domestic support. The United States would engage China and
Russia more effectively by focusing debate on specific policy issues and
omitting more general criticism.

An emerging Russian-Chinese entente

The emerging entente between Beijing and Moscow is more significant and durable than
is typically recognized in the West. Russia and China regularly join forces in the UN Security
Council to veto actions against human rights abusers, and Vladimir Putins and Xi Jinpings

growing friendship, evinced by their upcoming attendance at each others World War II
commemorations, increases the popularity of both men in both countries. They benefit not
only from their images as strongmen, but from championing such principles as opposition
to U.S. hegemony, and building such institutions as the BRICS Bank that offer alternatives to
Western institutions.

Historical affinities: Greatness and suffering

The signs of a Eurasian entente are often dismissed by Western scholars and policymakers
who emphasize the historical enmity and disparate interests between China and Russia and
conclude that Sino-Russian partnership must be illusory. Such dismissals overlook cultural
commonalities that draw proud Russians and Chinese closer together, particularly in the
face of dismissive attitudes from Washington. Both nations are continental
Beijing and Moscow
powers with ancient, deeply mythologized histories. Both pride themselves
both seek legitimacy
on unique national virtues, which the Chinese call their te-se (special
in the claim that they
characteristics) and Russians identify with the Orthodox Church and
defend these virtues from
Russkiy Mir (Russian world). Beijing and Moscow both seek legitimacy
foreign powers that have
in the claim that they defend these virtues from foreign powers that have
humiliated them in the past
humiliated them in the past and seek to undermine them now. Both pride
themselves on resilient suffering (the ability to chi ku, or eat bitterness in and seek to undermine
them now.
Chinese; to endure lisheniye, privation, in Russian).

The American experience carries echoes of Chinese and Russian

apprehensions that should lead Americans to grasp the emotional power of Chinese and
Russian history. To appreciate Russias sense of vulnerability, Americans need only reflect
on their own perennial fear of decline and consider that Russians lived through a real and
catastrophic collapse in power and prosperity only two decades ago. To fathom Chinas
present anger over defeats and insults suffered during and since the Opium Wars of the mid1800s, Americans need only think of the passions still elicited in the southern United States
by discussion of the Civil War. To understand the mindset of people in a state of continual
crisis, real or imagined, Americans should recall their own surge of patriotism and fear and the
rush to war following 9/11.

U.S. attitudes
Nonetheless, U.S. officials have often discredited Russias actions as widely out of step. Even
at the height of the Reset in 2009, President Obama referred to Putin as having one foot

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in the old ways. In March 2013, Obama declared

that Russia, in annexing Crimea, was on the wrong
side of history. Speaking of Russian aggression in
Ukraine, Secretary of State John Kerry said, You
just dont in the 21st century behave in 19th-century
fashion by invading another country on completely
trumped-up pretext. The White House, further, has
stretched its depiction of Putin to cover Russia as
a whole, as when Obama said in an August 2014
interview with the Economist, President Putin
represents a deep strain in Russia that is probably
harmful.
The United States has criticized China similarly. Regarding the Chinese role in the international
system, President Obama said in 2014 that they have been free riders for the last 30 years.
When China tries to build institutions or provide public goods, it is told that its standards fall
short of Americas, as in Obamas defense of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: China wants to
write the rules for commerce in Asia. If it succeeds, our competitors would be free to ignore
basic environmental and labor standards, giving them an unfair advantage over American
workers. We cant let that happen. We should write the rules. In Washingtons comparable
misgivings about the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which would
offer an alternative to the World Bank and other established international financial institutions,
China sees the same denigrating tendency.

Offense taken
Because the Chinese and Russian people are long-sensitized to Americas sense of
superiority, these countries regard the slightest tincture of American contempt as an assault
on national dignity. This helps Xi and Putin mobilize domestic opposition to American values
and policies. Chinese on the Internet and in public conferences responded to Obamas free
rider comment as if they had been attacked as a people. Many Chinese think that the remark
proves Beijings assertion that America seeks to contain Chinas rise. Putin evoked similar
Russian sentiments in a 2014 address to the Federal Assembly, when he touched on the long
history of the Western policy of containment: Whenever someone thinks that Russia has
become too strong or independent, these tools are quickly put into use.

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To manage relations with this China-Russia entente, the United States must understand their
motives and present U.S. policies and values with specificity and without cultural veneer:
U.S. analysis should integrate cultural and historical factors into policymaking and
should strive to understand China and Russia on their own terms, even if those
terms seem offensive or wrong. To build analytic capacity, the United States should
encourage more American university students to take up Russia and China studies and
should invest in exchanges at all levels.
When Washington needs to deliver tough messages to Beijing and Moscow, it should
employ quiet, sustained diplomacy and focus on technical rather than civilizational
issues. When international norms are violated, the United States should identify and
counter specific threats and forego principled exhortations.

Robert Daly
Director, Kissinger Institute on China and the United States

Matthew Rojansky
Director, Kennan Institute

Page 3 image: President Barack Obama meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at his dacha outside Moscow, Russia.
Source: The White House Flickr.

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