Moscow Between Beijing and Historical Decline: The Geopolitical Dimension of the «Russia-China Alliance»

China is guided exclusively by a pragmatic balance of long-term interests, where economic rationality is clearly subordinated to strategic security. For Ukraine, this means that the involvement of China as a guarantor of peace, a reliable mediator or an impartial arbitrator is unlikely.

After the start of a full-scale war against Ukraine, the Russian Federation finally found itself in a situation where it lost the opportunity to balance between the West and the East. If for three decades after the collapse of the USSR, Russian diplomacy tried to pursue the so-called «multi-vector policy», using the contradictions between the world centers of power, then after 2022 the space for such a maneuver has almost completely disappeared.

Large-scale international sanctions, political isolation from the democratic world, economic separation from European markets and the gradual destruction of relations with the West have put the Kremlin in a position where China is actually the only strategic partner left.

That is why today Moscow does not see a real alternative to orientation towards Beijing. The Russian totalitarian leadership is increasingly demonstrating its willingness to agree even to frankly disadvantageous economic conditions for itself just to maintain Chinese support.

This applies to energy exports, the development of transport infrastructure, the use of Chinese technologies, financial settlements in yuan and an increasing dependence on Chinese industrial products. This indicates the rapid transformation of Russia into an economic vassal of China and its deep integration into the orbit of Beijing’s geopolitical influence.

However, this is precisely the fundamental strategic mistake of the modern Russian political elite. The Kremlin still does not seem to fully understand the nature of Chinese foreign policy, which has been formed not over decades or even centuries, but over millennia.

After all, Chinese civilization historically proceeded from its own vision of the world order, at the center of which was China itself. Pragmatism, long-term strategic thinking and maximum avoidance of emotional attachment to allies are characteristic of the Chinese political tradition.

And this «Chinese world», closed in on itself, has historically perceived other civilizations and peoples not as a system of equal partners, but as a periphery that must voluntarily recognize China’s cultural and political superiority and adapt to its interests.

In the modern dimension, this historical code has transformed into Beijing’s desire to build a new multipolar world, where China once again occupies a central place, and smaller states are integrated into its economic and technological orbit through global projects such as «One Belt, One Road».

It is clear that in Moscow there is no one to explain to dictator Putin that China has never built international relations on the basis of romantic notions of friendship or ideological solidarity. Its foreign policy has always been based on the categories of benefit, stability and the gradual increase in its own power.

And the fact that China has been friends with itself first and foremost throughout its many millennial history largely reflects the logic of its strategic thinking. For Beijing, any partnership is only a tool for achieving its own national interests.

And no matter how the Kremlin tries to interpret the relations between Moscow and Beijing, the modern «Russian-Chinese alliance» is no exception to this rule. Despite regular statements about «boundless partnership», there is an obvious asymmetry of power between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China.

The Chinese economy is many times larger than Russia’s, China’s technological potential is growing rapidly, while Russia is increasingly turning into a supplier of raw materials and a dependent consumer of Chinese goods. And this puts Moscow in the conditions of an asymmetric unequal partnership and subordinates its geopolitical interests to Beijing’s strategic goals.

And there is an increasing impression that Moscow is gradually losing subjectivity in relations with China. If ten years ago Russia sought to position itself as an equal center of power in a multipolar world, now it is increasingly playing the role of a junior partner, whose capabilities are determined by Beijing’s willingness to support it economically and politically.

Of particular interest is the fact that China actually benefits from almost all the consequences of the current international crisis. It buys Russian resources at significant discounts, expands its presence in the Russian market after the withdrawal of Western companies, strengthens its own currency as an instrument of international settlements, and at the same time avoids direct military intervention in the war. Beijing gains strategic advantages without having to incur significant political or military costs.

But if we assess the situation from a long-term perspective, we can argue that China is using Russia’s current weakness to gradually expand its influence over vast territories of Northern Eurasia. This is especially noticeable in Central Asia, where China’s economic presence already significantly exceeds Russia’s. More and more states in the region are focusing on Beijing as their main trade and investment partner.

The processes in the Russian Far East are no less indicative. Although the issue of possible territorial changes remains the subject of numerous political discussions and has no basis for unambiguous forecasts, one thing is obvious: China’s economic influence on this region continues to grow sharply. The population of many bordering Russian territories is decreasing, while Chinese economic activity is only growing.

That is why an interesting political analogy can be drawn. If historically the Russian Empire expanded its possessions through military expansion and the forcible annexation of other peoples’ territories for centuries, then modern China is increasingly using a completely different mechanism – economic penetration, investments, financial dependence and control over strategic infrastructure. This is a much cheaper, less risky and often more effective way of forming spheres of influence.

From this point of view, it can be figuratively said that Xi Jinping headed a kind of historical commission to dismantle the imperial illusions of modern Russia. This is about the gradual deprivation of its status as a great global power, which for centuries was one of the main elements of Russian political identity.

Beijing understands perfectly well that Russia is an artificially created state. And the modern Russian Federation inherited territories formed as a result of the centuries-old expansion of the Russian Empire and the USSR, which included the lands of many different peoples with their own cultural, linguistic and historical identity. This multinational structure has long been a source of both strength and internal contradictions.

Of course, Russia’s war against Ukraine has significantly exacerbated these internal problems. Colossal military spending, demographic losses, economic pressure from sanctions, technological lag, and increasing centralization of power are gradually undermining the stability of the state system. At the same time, regional elites are increasingly forced to operate in conditions of reduced resources, which increases dependence on the federal center.

Does this mean the inevitable collapse of the Russian Federation? History knows many cases when major states experienced deep crises without losing territorial integrity, just as there are examples of their collapse. Therefore, none of these scenarios can be considered predetermined. Although it is becoming obvious that Russia is entering a long period of systemic structural degradation, the results of which will depend on a combination of internal and external factors.

For Ukraine, something else is fundamentally important now. Regardless of the future form of Russia’s statehood, the significant weakening of its military, economic and political potential objectively reduces the possibilities for Moscow to pursue an aggressive foreign policy.

That is why Ukraine’s strategic interest is not only the dismantling of the imperial structure of the Russian Federation in its current form, but also the formation of an international environment in which neither Russia nor any other totalitarian state will be able to impose its will on its neighbors by force.

After the end of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the issue of the security of a united Europe will be determined not only by the future of Ukraine within its composition, but also by what Russia itself will become. If it retains its ugly revanchist ideology and archaic imperial thinking, the threat of new conflicts will remain high.

If Russia follows the path of de-imperialization, de-Putinization, demilitarization, de-radicalization and de-occupation – the return of all the occupied territories to other states (Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Japan), this will create the conditions for its return to the civilized international community and the construction of a safe world.

However, today we can only draw one conclusion: Moscow is increasingly integrating into the sphere of Chinese economic and political influence, gradually losing space for an independent geopolitical game.

In the short term, this allows the Kremlin to somehow maintain the functioning of its war-torn economy and continue its suicidal confrontation with the West. However, in the long term, such a model increasingly resembles not a union of equal states, but a relationship in which one side determines the rules of the game, and the other is forced to adapt to them.

History has repeatedly demonstrated that empires rarely collapse instantly. Most often, their decline occurs gradually: first economic power is lost, then technological leadership, then political influence, and only then the geopolitical consequences become apparent.

Whether this process will become irreversible for Muscovy, time will tell. However, it is already obvious that the center of gravity of Eurasian politics is increasingly shifting from Moscow to Beijing, which means a fundamental change in the balance of power, the consequences of which will determine international politics for decades to come.

The loss of the Russian Federation’s status as the dominant Eurasian center and its degradation to the level of a junior partner of China creates a radically new geopolitical security reality for Ukraine.

On the one hand, Moscow’s tectonic weakening objectively reduces its long-term offensive potential, destroys the myth of an «invincible superpower» and opens a historical window of opportunity for Kyiv for final integration into the Euro-Atlantic security architecture as an inseparable and strong element of the West’s defense.

On the other hand, the transformation of the Russian Federation into a resource and technological appendage of Beijing means that future de-occupation, reparations, reconstruction, and security guarantees for Ukraine will increasingly depend on the global confrontation between the United States and China.

In this scenario, Ukraine’s subjectivity in the world will only increase if Kyiv can move beyond its status as a recipient of Western aid and establish itself as an independent strategic player capable of effectively deterring both direct military threats from the East and the covert economic and information expansion of the new Asian power.

A study of the geopolitical triangle between Beijing, Moscow and Brussels suggests that China is guided exclusively by a pragmatic balance of long-term interests, where economic rationality is clearly subordinated to strategic security. For Ukraine, this means that the involvement of China as a guarantor of peace, a reliable mediator or an impartial arbitrator is unlikely.

Since its policy towards the Russian-Ukrainian war is determined not by the norms of international law or sympathies, but by the desire to use Moscow as a strategic buffer and battering ram against the global dominance of the United States, while minimizing its own economic losses from sanctions from Brussels.