From the security realm to extensive infrastructure projects, the Sino-Russian duo has acted as a key force shaping Eurasia’s contemporary political, logistical, economic, and institutional landscape. Yana Leksyutina, Professor at St. Petersburg State University, explores the complex interplay between Russian and Chinese foreign policy outlooks—highlighting points of overlap as well as divergence, and pointing to the need for Moscow and Beijing to be joined by other powers sharing in the desire to stabilize an international system in crisis.
The concept of aligning Chinese regional and global initiatives with the national development strategies of other states has become an integral part of China’s foreign policy vision—and practice—since the unveiling of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. Beijing’s large-scale plans to establish new international transport corridors and to develop new trajectories and forms of inter-state connectivity required coordination with the national development plans of states interested in participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.
In its engagement with major powers seeking to advance their own integration projects and connectivity initiatives, Beijing has faced the task of aligning the BRI not so much with the national development strategies of those powers, as with the regional and global initiatives they have put forward. Now, thirteen years after the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, there are ample grounds to assert that such alignment has been achieved only with Russia, while other major actors have moved to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative. One need only recall the European Union’s Global Gateway strategy, advanced in response to Chinese connectivity plans, or Washington’s proposed multilateral mechanism—the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.
It is only in its interaction with Russia that Beijing has succeeded in achieving political alignment between the two countries’ initiatives, and in demonstrating in practice the viability of the concept of a new type of great-power relations proposed by Xi Jinping—relations grounded not in a zero-sum philosophy, but in the pursuit of compromise and mutually acceptable solutions to complex issues. When, in May 2015, the parties announced in a joint statement the alignment of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road Economic Belt, this reflected a principled choice by the two states’ leaders in favour of not setting regional initiatives against one another. Russia and China began to view their respective initiatives across the Eurasian space not as contradictory or competitive, but as capable not only of peaceful coexistence, but also, potentially, of complementarity. An important consensus was reached on the need to identify points of convergence and to avoid “unhealthy” competition between initiatives.
As time has shown, this was a prudent decision. However, the current geopolitical situation—both globally and across Eurasia—demands more. The mere absence of opposition between Russian and Chinese initiatives, and the taking into account of each other’s interests, is no longer sufficient. The emerging geopolitical landscape and balance of power increasingly require the consolidation of states that share common values in world politics and common principles for the development of inter-state interaction. What is needed is a search for synergy between Russian and Chinese efforts in Eurasia, aimed at shaping an interconnected Eurasian space, as well as at constructing a regional architecture for cooperation and security across the continent. This, in turn, requires a convergence of views regarding the future configuration of Eurasia—its prospective order.
At the present stage of Russian–Chinese interaction, however, a lack of coordination is evident in the spatial structuring of foreign policy and in the vision of Eurasia as a macro-region. While Russia’s foreign policy strategy distinctly foregrounds Eurasia as a space for the application of initiatives and connectivity projects, Eurasia has yet to enter the core focus of China’s foreign policy planning and practical activity. Even the announcement and implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative did not lead Beijing to revise its perception of the Eurasian space or to conceptualize a “Eurasian idea”, nor to articulate a Chinese notion of Eurasia. Moreover, the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative itself expanded beyond its original regional scope, evolving into the global Belt and Road Initiative.
By contrast, Russia’s contemporary international identity is inseparably linked to the notion of Russia as a Eurasian great power. The major international initiatives advanced by Moscow are closely tied to Eurasia and are designed with Eurasia in mind. Over the past decade and a half, Russia’s vision of the trajectory of Eurasian “integration of integrations” has evolved from the concept of a “Greater Europe”—the idea of establishing a unified economic, political, and cultural space stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok—to that of “Greater Eurasia”, and subsequently to the Greater Eurasian Partnership. The intensifying confrontation between Europe and Russia since February 2022, although it has effectively excluded the European Union from Russia’s “integration of integrations” plans, has not led Moscow to abandon its course towards developing the Greater Eurasian Partnership. In the updated version of the Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation of 31 March 2023, Eurasia is identified as a distinct regional priority, with the stated objective of “transforming Eurasia into a unified, continent-wide space of peace, stability, mutual trust, development, and prosperity”. In February 2024, President Vladimir Putin put forward the idea of forming a “new framework of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia”.
In Chinese foreign policy planning, by contrast, there is no Eurasian vector as such, nor is there a developed conceptualisation of a Eurasian agenda. There exists a policy towards neighbouring countries—the so-called neighbourhood or peripheral diplomacy—as well as distinct approaches towards Central Asia and South-East Asia; a clearly articulated Chinese agenda is also evident for the Asia-Pacific region. However, an overarching strategy for the development of the Eurasian space is absent.
A defining feature of contemporary Chinese diplomacy is its operation on two levels—global and narrowly regional (or even country-specific)—while a macro-regional vision of Eurasia is lacking. In recent years, Beijing has attached increasing importance to issues of global governance, advancing global initiatives, working towards the provision of global public goods, and developing new initiatives, policy prescriptions for development, as well as ideas and concepts intended for the international community. This creates the impression that the global scale is coming to the fore in Beijing’s diplomatic activity.
Within China’s foreign policy toolkit, even the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has been reassessed—an organisation that would seem, by its very nature, to be regional. From a focus on ensuring practical cooperation with Central Asian countries, China’s interest in the SCO has increasingly shifted towards discussions of global governance and the promotion of Chinese global initiatives. It was at the Tianjin SCO summit that China advanced its fourth global initiative—complementing the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilisation Initiative—namely, the Global Governance Initiative.
While Russia has put forward the idea of creating a Eurasian security architecture, China has proposed the Global Security Initiative. It should be noted that these initiatives are not contradictory, and their underlying principles are very similar, yet their spatial focus differs.
Beijing has neither a Eurasian strategy nor initiatives specifically tailored to Eurasia. With regard to the Eurasian macro-space, China operates through regional and subregional vectors, among which the Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, Europe, and the Middle East are prioritised. It is indicative that, at the recent traditional press conference held during the “Two Sessions”, Foreign Minister Wang Yi identified the construction of an Asia-Pacific community as a key objective during China’s APEC chairmanship. The Asia-Pacific vector is particularly pronounced in Chinese foreign policy. Previously, Beijing has advanced concepts such as the “Asia-Pacific Dream”, a new security architecture in the Asia-Pacific, and the joint construction of an Asia-Pacific community of shared destiny.
At the same time, the spirit of the times points towards a more targeted engagement with the Eurasian space. The intensification in recent years of great-power rivalry and of tensions between the United States and the European Union, on the one hand, and China, on the other, as well as the growing confrontation between the West and Russia, is driving profound transformations—above all across Eurasia. Moreover, in a period of global turbulence, the breakdown of the international system, the erosion of institutions and mechanisms once deemed immutable, and the reconfiguration of supply chains and transport logistics, new opportunities are emerging to structure the Eurasian space and its political and economic processes. Demand for such structuring is increasing.
Taking into account the similarity of views held by Russia, India, and China on the international order, as well as the emergence of new shared and serious challenges and threats requiring a joint response, the first step should be the restoration of a communication mechanism among the three largest Eurasian powers—namely, the resumption of trilateral meetings at the level of foreign ministries. Given the accumulated contradictions between China and India, this is a difficult step—a step requiring political will, and one that is likely to have no real alternative if the parties are genuinely guided by the objective of creating an interconnected Eurasian space of security, stability, development, and prosperity.
