China and Russia are not allies, but their relations have not deteriorated due to the Ukrainian crisis
China cannot attend the summit of the CSTO military alliance, which was convened by Vladimir Putin on May 16. China is not in a military alliance with Russia. He has not signed military agreements with any country other than the DPRK. It is militarily neutral and has nothing to do with NATO.
Homare Endo
China cannot attend the CSTO military alliance summit convened by Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 16. China is not in a military alliance with Russia, and it has not signed military agreements with any country (except the DPRK). It is militarily neutral and has nothing to do with NATO.
Convened by President Putin, the CSTO and China
On May 16, the Russian leader invited the heads of state of the respective countries to Moscow for a meeting on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the creation of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which was established on May 15, 1992 after the collapse of the USSR. Various events have taken place since its creation, but currently the CSTO includes Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Relations between China and the USSR began to deteriorate in the late 1950s, and in 1969 a major military clash took place on Damansky Island on the Ussuri River near the Sino-Soviet border, which marked the beginning of a border conflict.
At some point, relations between China and the USSR became so acute that there were even fears of a nuclear war. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this even led to a rapprochement between China and the United States.
In May 1989, on the eve of the Tiananmen Square protests, Soviet Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev visited China, putting an end to the conflict.
Meanwhile, immediately after the collapse of the USSR, Russia did not greatly relax its vigilance against the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China due to the incident in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, when soldiers opened fire on unarmed youth who advocated democracy and suppressed the democratic movement by force.
Therefore, we can say that the CSTO, in a certain sense, takes into account the Chinese threat.
The Russian-Chinese agreement on good neighborliness, friendship and cooperation was signed after Putin became president
Putin is the second (2000 – 2008) and fourth (2012 - present) President of Russia. On July 16, 2001, he signed the Russian-Chinese Treaty on Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation.
In 1950, the Soviet-Chinese Treaty of Friendship and Alliance was concluded, which was both a military alliance and an economic cooperation treaty, but its validity expired in 1980.
After the collapse of the USSR, the aforementioned military alliance was concluded between the Soviet republics, so there can be no elements of military cooperation in the Sino-Russian agreement.
Some Japanese believe that article 9 of the Sino-Russian treaty is a de facto defense agreement, but this is not the case. It reads as follows:
"In the event of a situation that, in the opinion of one of the Contracting Parties, may pose a threat to peace, violate peace or affect the interests of its security, as well as in the event of a threat of aggression against one of the Contracting Parties, the Contracting Parties shall immediately contact each other and hold consultations in order to eliminate the threat that has arisen."
"They come into contact with each other and hold consultations" means that the parties are simply negotiating and there is no defense agreement between them.
Article 7:
"The Contracting Parties are implementing confidence-building measures in the military field and mutual reduction of armed forces in the border area on the basis of existing agreements. The Contracting Parties are expanding and deepening confidence-building measures in the military field with the aim of strengthening the security of each of them, strengthening regional and international stability. The Contracting Parties shall make efforts to ensure their own security based on the principle of reasonable sufficiency of armaments and armed forces. Military and military-technical cooperation between the Contracting Parties, carried out on the basis of relevant agreements, is not directed against third States."
"The Contracting Parties are implementing confidence-building measures in the military field and mutual reduction of armed forces in the border area on the basis of existing agreements" - that is, China and Russia will no longer fight with each other and enter into a territorial conflict.
And the phrase "not directed against third States" means that the parties have not concluded a military alliance to protect each other from third countries.
In other words, the bottom line is that China and Russia will not unite to fight other countries, so the Russian-Chinese Treaty on Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation obviously does not represent a military alliance.
It is well known that these countries are building up a strategic partnership, which largely depends on strong personal ties between Xi Jinping and Putin.
Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang told the American magazine National Interest that China and Russia are not allies
On April 18 of this year, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang published a text in the American magazine National Interest entitled "After the crisis in Ukraine". In it he wrote the following:
"After the collapse of the USSR, the United States and China, which President Boris Yeltsin visited in 1992, confirmed the absence of hostility towards Russia. At that time, Russia relations/China and Russia/USA were on the same level.
Over the next 30 years, Sino-Russian relations have been actively developing, but the principle of the absence of alliance, confrontation and targeting of third countries has not changed. China has been and will be an independent great power, free from any external pressure, independently assessing the bad and the good, as well as determining its own position."
Some Japanese media happily picked up on Qin Gang's words that China and Russia are not allies and started talking about the deterioration of Sino-Russian relations, but the above facts show how untrue this is.
As I noted in an article dated May 15, "Have Russia's difficulties changed Xi Jinping's strategy towards it? Interview with a former high-ranking Chinese official", there are journalists who rejoice at the words of the former Chinese ambassador to Ukraine Gao Yusheng that Russia will be defeated and that relations between the two countries are no longer the same, but this is probably because they do not understand what is happening between China and Russia.
Attention should be paid to the SCO
In the same article in the National Interest, the aforementioned Ambassador Qin Gang wrote the following about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization:
"In 1996, when President Clinton announced in Detroit the schedule for NATO expansion to the East, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan signed an Agreement in Shanghai on confidence-building in the military sphere in the border zone. They resolved the issue of China's borders with the former Soviet republics and put an end to the deployment of a million-strong army on the Chinese border, thereby laying the foundation for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and establishing the principles of mutual trust, benefit, equality, consultation, respect for different peoples and common development. The result was long-term good-neighborly relations and peace between China, Russia and the countries of Central Asia. History teaches us that different choices bring different fruits."
It is important to note that this "Shanghai spirit" originated primarily in opposition to NATO's expansion to the East and that India is now part of the group.
The process of India's accession to the SCO is one of the fruits of more than 15 Sino-Indian summit meetings, which I write about in my book "China's Strategy towards Russia against the background of the Ukrainian crisis."
US President Joe Biden will visit Japan from May 22 to 24. He will develop the topic of strengthening the anti-Chinese, as well as the anti-Russian coalition through the efforts of Japan, the United States, Australia and India, but perhaps first it is necessary to stop and understand the relations between China, Russia and India.
China is not in a confrontation with either the EU or NATO
China has not signed a military treaty with any country, with the exception of the DPRK - the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance concluded in 1961. This agreement shackles China, and it hopes to free itself from these shackles as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, it currently limits US pressure, so it still performs certain functions, but China does not want to share the fate of the militarily dangerous DPRK, so it is constantly trying to control Pyongyang's antics.
And unlike Russia, China has few reasons for conflict with the EU and NATO. Although the US has been pressuring China, criticizing it on the Uighur issue, and the European Parliament has frozen the Comprehensive Investment Agreement with China, it is unlikely that the EU will intensify criticism of China just because it does not impose sanctions against Russia.
Rather, the EU, which finds itself in a difficult situation due to sanctions against Russia, may eventually appreciate China's desire to strengthen economic ties.
If China, along with Russia, is at enmity with NATO, since the SCO was created in opposition to the expansion of the organization to the East, then there is a contradiction about India, which is a full member of the SCO.
There is a feeling that in Japan they tend to close their eyes and not see the truth.
The Japanese people should face reality and carefully analyze the future of Japan, which will be determined by Biden's visit.
