The Limits of Chinese-Russian Strategic Collaboration; Strategic Insights: v.1, issue 7 (September 2002)

Abstract

On July 16, Beijing and Moscow celebrated the first anniversary of their treaty of friendship and cooperation. The treaty codified agreement between the two sides to collaborate in diluting what each saw as American domination of the post-Cold War international order. Events in the year since the treaty's signing, however, have underscored how limited the basis for strategic collaboration between Russia and China actually is. The treaty, signed in Moscow last year by Russian President Vladimir Putin and PRC President Jiang Zemin, invites immediate comparison with the treaty between Beijing and Moscow in the early Cold War years. That treaty, signed in Moscow on February 14, 1950 by Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, was a full-fledged security alliance, calling for each side to render military and other assistance with all means at its disposal to the other in the event of an attack by Japan or states allied with it--implicitly referring to the United States. This document examines the limits of Russian-Chinese strategic collaboration and the effects this has on the United States.