JRL NEWSWATCH: “Is Russia Really Becoming China’s Vassal?” – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/ Mikhail Korostikov
“China may have the opportunity to turn Russia into its vassal, but it has no compelling reason to do so.”
“…. Moscow … is betting on China in the global confrontation with the West …. The trade turnover between the two countries, which reached a record $190 billion last year, increased by another 39 percent in the first quarter of [2023] compared with the same period in 2022. … [A]ll of this has prompted talk that Beijing is using its economic leverage and Russia’s rupture with the West to turn Moscow into a compliant puppet, forcing humiliating, one-sided concessions. … The more than tenfold difference in the size of the two economies has [raised the notion of] ‘vassal dependence’ … [B]ut the shared interests of both countries’ leaderships and the strategic logic of the confrontation with the West create a solid foundation for reasonably equal cooperation. Within that interaction, China does have a certain opportunity to turn Russia into its vassal [] but … has no compelling reasons to do so[,] [a] situation … unlikely to change in the next five to ten years.”