The two nations' presidents are brought together by a shared adversary: America
in Dushanbe, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, acts among other things as a hotel for visiting dignitaries. It is marked out by tinted windows, purple neon and an excellent Chinese restaurant. The last is not all that surprising. The distinctly swanky edifice was built and presented to the Tajik ministry of defence by the People’s Republic of China.
But by 2016, if not before, Chinese army units had begun to appear in Tajikistan, ostensibly to watch over the Wakhan Corridor—a strip of Afghanistan that separates Tajikistan from Pakistan. Later that year China staged a war game with the Tajik army, some of whose younger officers have been trained in Shanghai.
“Russia is the country that I have visited the most times, and President Putin is my best friend and colleague,” said Mr Xi. They strolled around Moscow Zoo, inspected two pandas lent by China as a sign of great trust and were greeted in Mandarin by Russian children.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the dream of Russia as a fully Western power was revived in full force. “Our principles are clear and simple: supremacy of democracy, human rights and freedoms, legal and moral standards,” Russia’s president, Boris Yeltsin, told thein 1992, aligning the country with America and Europe. No such comity for the East. “Ideology differentiates us from China, but we are neighbours and must co-operate.
Russian rent-seekers and their short-term interests play a central role in the Sino-Russian relationship. “Sometimes it seems that Russia’s policy towards China is shaped by the lobbying interests of the Kremlin’s heavyweights,” says Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think-tank. The same is not true in reverse. Private Chinese firms are reluctant to invest in Russia. Some fear American sanctions; others worry about the lack of property rights and clear rules.
In the energy sector China has access to some of Russia’s most valuable assets. Chinese state energy firms own one-fifth of an Arcticproject developed by Novatek, an energy firm partly owned by Mr Timchenko. Nearly half of all drilling equipment used by Russian oil firms comes from China. China has helped Rosneft, Russia’s national oil company, to make acquisitions, and buys ever more of its oil.
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