The Regime Preservation Roots of the Sino-Russian Strategic Alignment

• In Event: Great Power Competition

Abstract

This paper analyzes the logic behind the Sino-Russian alignment, which has grown into one of the greatest challenges to the U.S.-dominated international order. Extending the omnibalancing theory of international alignment (David 1991), the paper proposes a new analytic framework for analyzing the strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing, which puts concerns about domestic political survival of the two increasingly personalist autocracies at the heart of their convergence. Focusing on Russia, which has been the crucial pivot and catalyst of this partnership, the paper finds that the crucial breakthroughs in the Sino-Russian alignment have occurred not as a reaction to external threats, such as the expansion of NATO, but in the wake of major protest waves that have threatened the Putin regime’s grip on power. Reacting to these challenges, the Kremlin has subordinated Russia’s foreign and security policy to the interests of regime survival, adopting a confrontational posture toward its neighbors and the West to rally nationalist sentiments, demobilize opposition, and justify its growing authoritarianism. The paper’s empirical analysis indicates that Moscow has primarily pursued partnership with Beijing – often in defiance of geopolitical logic – to mitigate costs of this assertive international stance.

Sources cited:

David, Steven R. “Explaining Third World Alignment.” World Politics 43, no. 2 (1991): 233–56.

Author

• Aleksandar Matovski, Naval Postgraduate School