World and I Magazine - The Emerging Sino-Russian Axis

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C U R R E N T I S S U E S
JUNE 2000

The Emerging Sino-Russian Axis

by Alexander V. Nemets and John L. Scherer

The Chinese-Russian alliance is a reality the United States governments seems to overlook and underestimate.

he hoped-for death knell of anti-Western authoritarianism that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 seems to have ended with the formation of a Chinese-Russian military alliance in December 1999.
The new alliance includes Belarus and Kazakhstan. Belarus joined this Eurasian bloc when it signed the Union Treaty with Russia on December 8, 1999, a few hours before then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin left for China. Belarussian President Aleksander Lukashenko had proposed establishing a Minsk-Moscow-Beijing strategic axis as early as January 1997, according to the China Daily.

Chinese-Russian alliance: Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Beijing.

        For its part, Kazakhstan has endorsed Moscow's and Beijing's foreign policy initiatives at every opportunity.
        "The Chinese-Russian alliance is a reality," says Thomas Robinson, a prominent expert on China and Russia at American Asian Research Enterprises, a private consulting firm in Reston, Virginia. "It should be taken into account seriously enough by the U.S. government."
        Many observers agree with him. Many others--such as David Shambaugh, a professor of political science and international relations at George Washington University and a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., policy institute--don't agree, however. "Chinese-Russian relations do not qualify as a military alliance," he says, "because the two countries don't have an official mutual-security agreement."
        But developments over the past few years seem to support the notion that a politicomilitary symbiosis between the two nations is gaining strength. At a summit in April 1996, Russia and China for the first time announced a "strategic partnership for the twenty-first century." By the end of 1996, significant numbers of Russian troops had been transferred from the Chinese border to the Moscow and St. Petersburg regions. Soldiers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) withdrew from the Russian border to the "Taiwan front" and to positions along the South China Sea.

The Russian media have estimated that during 1998--99 more of the output of the Russian defense industry was delivered to the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army than to the Russian army itself.

        At a summit in Moscow in November 1997, China and Russia resolved their long-standing border disputes and agreed on foreign policy goals, namely, that Taiwan must return to China, that Chechnya is an inseparable part of Russia, that neither nation would impose sanctions against Iraq, and that both Moscow and Beijing would oppose an East Asia theater missile-defense system and a U.S. national missile-defense system. In October 1998, Chinese and Russian diplomats and high-ranking military officers began discussing a joint air-defense system as an appropriate response to U.S. moves toward a missile defense.
        NATO operations in Iraq in December 1998 and in Yugoslavia during March-July 1999 convinced Moscow to turn from the West to China, despite a desperate need for loans and Western investments. The May 7 bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade brought Beijing onboard. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov traveled to Beijing at the beginning of June last year, and Col.-Gen. Zhang Wannian, the first deputy chairman of China's Central Military Commission and de facto commander in chief of the PLA, went to Russia June 9--17 to work out the details of the alliance.
        During the Yeltsin-Jiang summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on August 24--25, the two sides codified the military alliance and, at the same time, agreed to speed the delivery of the most advanced Russian weapons to China.
        President Vladimir Putin, who was Russia's prime minister between August and December 1999 and acting president from December 31 until his presidential election victory in March, has allowed ties to the West to weaken, revived the Russian military-industrial complex, placed police and security officials in important government posts, and strengthened relations with China, which has wholeheartedly supported Russian military actions in Chechnya [see "What's at Stake in Chechnya" on p. 300].

POWER FROM THE BARREL OF A GUN

fficial statistics have reported that China purchased at least $6.5 billion in weapons from Moscow between the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and early 1999. The actual figure is probably two to three times higher if the "gray" market (space technology, equipment and plans for the Hanzhong uranium-processing plant, and top-secret items) and the "black" market (smuggled Russian military equipment and technology, and the employment of thousands of Russian scientists and engineers in the Chinese defense industry) are included. During interviews, members of the Russian Academy of Sciences indicated that 3,000 to 5,000 Russian defense scientists and engineers were working in China in mid-1994. A reasonable estimate today is that the number has risen to between 7,000 and 10,000.
        "U.S. government and official intelligence structures tend to overlook and underestimate Chinese-Russian connections," says Arthur Waldron, one of the leading U.S. experts in PLA modernization. He is professor of international relations at the University of Pennsylvania and director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
        Beijing may have bought up to $3 billion in Russian weapons during 1999 alone. The Russian media have estimated that during 1998--99 more of the output of the Russian defense industry was delivered to the PLA than to the Russian army itself.
        At the latest summit in Beijing on December 9--10, Yeltsin and Jiang formalized the Chinese-Russian military alliance and concluded an agreement to sell $20 billion in weapons and technology to China during 2000--2004. These new weapons will include more than 70 advanced Sukhoi--30 jet fighters, 5 Sovremenny-class destroyers, 8 modern Kilo-class diesel submarines, and several nuclear submarines.

A Chinese military honor guard.

        Analysts believe that the reinvigorated military alliance will result in a tougher Russian-Chinese foreign policy toward the West. This policy shift has already shown up in the two countries' joint opposition to the expansion of NATO, the Atlantic alliance's operations in Kosovo, any Western interference in Russian operations in Chechnya, Western criticism of human rights abuses, and changes in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Moscow has recently warned that even Western threats to impose sanctions and interrupt economic assistance are unacceptable.
        While Washington busies itself with details, some analysts say, the Clinton administration should pay special attention to one big idea. Separately, Russia and China have a hundred problems. Now as close as lips and teeth, these nations appear to represent a huge political and military threat.
        During Yeltsin's visit to China in November 1992, specialists on both sides signed an agreement to build a plant to process uranium and plutonium at Hanzhong in Shanxi Province. This complex went on stream by degrees between 1996 and '99, permitting Hanzhong to produce as much weapons-grade plutonium for missile warheads as the Chinese want, according to reports in Izvestia and Pravda.

THE MISSILES

he Chinese staged the largest military parade in their history on October 1, 1999, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The event was, in every sense, a tribute to Chinese-Russian military cooperation.
        The Chinese included four types of ballistic missiles in the parade. Two, the DF--11 and DF--15, are short-range missiles, entirely designed and manufactured in China, that can hit Taiwan. The DF--21A, an intermediate-range missile, incorporates Soviet SS--20 rocket technology.
        The final test of the DF--31 ICBM, another nuclear missile stuffed with Russian technology, took place on August 2, 1999, and serial production started almost immediately. Its range is 5,000 miles. By December 1999, several DF--31s were deployed at a new missile base in Sichuan Province. The PLA will also emplace some of these rockets in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, from where they can reach Alaska and Washington State.
        The DF--41, the latest Chinese solid-fueled, mobile ICBM, will be operational by 2002--2003. Targets 7,500 miles distant, including the western United States, will come within range. Russian media have reported that Moscow helped Beijing with the DF--41 missile engines.
        By autumn of 1999, Beijing had agreed to purchase two "slightly used" Typhoon-class strategic nuclear submarines from Russia, according to a report on the Web site Russiatoday.com. Each has 20 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and each missile bears 10 nuclear warheads. This means that 400 Chinese nuclear warheads will be able to hit any target in the United States later this year.
        Within the next decade, China plans to build at least one and perhaps two aircraft carriers to project power in the western Pacific.
        Since 1981, the Chinese have deployed about 20 ICBMs that can reach the United States at the unimpressive rate of one or two a year or none at all some years. Unfortunately, data from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and other sources suggest that the Chinese probably have concealed at least another 100 such missiles--perhaps carrying up to three warheads each--deep inside tunnels in the Taihang Mountains southwest of Beijing.

RUSSIAN TRUCULENCE

his past October and November, Russia tested six long-range ballistic missiles in rapid succession. It has recently drafted a new military doctrine asserting the right to use nuclear weapons first. The tone of the doctrine was described as "strikingly anti-Western," and U.S. officials expressed surprise.
        In these changed circumstances, the United States must probably approach strategic arms reduction talks and any revision of the 1972 ABM Treaty fully aware it is now dealing with two nuclear powers working in tandem. A reduction of missiles by Washington and Russia will benefit China and could--most likely would--substantially increase the dangers for the United States.
        Russian and Chinese leaders initialed a joint air-defense agreement during the August 1999 summit at Bishkek. Its major component, the S--300 air-defense system acquired from Moscow, is reportedly more reliable than the U.S. Patriot antimissile complex. The S--300 can hit missiles and aircraft at a range of 94 miles and at an altitude of between 65--100 feet and 9 miles. China presently has nothing that can deal with U.S. ICBMs and SLBMs, and the S--300 will partly fill this gap. The Chinese multilayered air-defense network is to be finished by 2006.
        The PLA has already purchased several dozen S--300 systems, bartering for them with underwear and other consumer goods. According to news reports, China acquired additional systems from the Russians during 1998--99, and it is expected to buy a far larger number within a year or two. The Russian component of the unified air-defense system could include the more advanced S--400 system, which has a range to 156 miles.
        The PLA navy has also turned to Russia to modernize and expand its fleet. By mid-2000 the PLA "greenwater" (offshore) and "bluewater" (oceangoing) fleets will bristle with Russian weapons. Beijing has purchased at least two, but more likely four, Sovremenny-class destroyers that can use ultrafast Moskit missiles to attack aircraft carriers.
        Adm. Dennis Blair, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, has noted that the best current intelligence estimates indicate that Beijing will not represent a serious military danger to the United States for at least 20 years. But this assessment has ignored the likelihood that China will threaten Taiwan and American interests in the western Pacific much sooner.

THE FATE OF TAIWAN

or years, Washington has weakened and qualified its commitment to defend Taiwan, recognizing the existence of only one China and urging the mainland and Taiwan to resolve their differences themselves. The Clinton administration views Chinese entry into the World Trade Organization as a boon for trade and cooperation. Chinese President Jiang, according to skeptical observers, considers the deal a way to cultivate friends in the West who will not waver when the Chinese navy moves against Taiwan and into the western Pacific.

Even with far smaller numbers of nuclear missiles, China could inflict unacceptable damage on the missile-defenseless United States in a nuclear exchange, and a new administration might simply feel it could not risk everything for the small island.

        As a matter of fact, some analysts say, the mainland may not need to mount an amphibious assault. Wheeling out just part of its ICBM force from the Taihang Mountains and deploying the Typhoon submarines could persuade Washington to withdraw its support from Taiwan. In that case, the huge U.S. missile advantage would be meaningless. Even with far smaller numbers of nuclear missiles, China could inflict unacceptable damage on the missile-defenseless United States in a nuclear exchange, and a new administration might simply feel it could not risk everything for the small island.
        According to this scenario, within the next few years--or even this year--Beijing may simply tell the Taiwanese they can no longer rely on U.S. assistance in a confrontation and offer Taipei a coalition government. With Washington out of the picture, China, backed by Russia, could conceivably take control of the island without firing a shot.
        The Sino-Russian alliance changes the geostrategic picture dramatically:

Beijing could have the capability to force the issue of Taiwan by the end of 2000.
NATO and Washington's relations with Russia and China will become increasingly belligerent and tense.
In a crisis, Washington will have to deal with two nuclear powers simultaneously.
The Russian economy will improve as it sells more weapons to China.
Several nations, including Iraq, Iran, and some of the former Soviet republics, will gravitate toward this new axis, and the conflict between blocs may once again move to the Third World.
It throws into question the notion that expanded trade with China will make the country democratic and dissuade it from taking control of Taiwan.

National Security Adviser Samuel Berger warned not long ago that Moscow or Beijing could reemerge as a threat but that the United States ought "not presuppose that outcome, or make it more likely by acting as if it has already happened." Unfortunately, it has already happened.

As a researcher at Science Applications International Corporation in Minneapolis, Alexander V. Nemets has prepared scores of major reports on Chinese-Russian relations. John L. Scherer has written extensively on Russia, China, terrorism, and foreign affairs and for many years edited the yearbooks USSR Facts and Figures Annual and China Facts and Figures Annual.