EXPANSION OF THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE

On 9 May the presidents of Russia and China will look on as units of the Russian and Chinese armies march past in Red Square. There will be no western leaders there because of political differences with the Russian leadership.

This prediction was made in an interview for the German Die Welt newspaper by the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Politics magazine, Fedor Lukyanov. The Russian journalist tried to predict the events of distant 2025: "At the beginning of the 21st century Russia's swing from Europe to Asia seriously worried the Russian people who regarded Asia as something dangerous and mysterious and were afraid of being left without their traditional partners in the West face to face with the yellow threat. But by 2025 public opinion has changed: fear of Chinese expansion has given way to pragmatic considerations." "The Russian economy has gradually begun to shift from West to East." But China "is not driving a wedge in relations between Russia and a politically and ideologically alien Europe".

The author goes on to speculate about forms of power and its continuity in these two countries, but it seems to me that the subject of China's favour towards Russian-European relations, which is given literally a passing mention, is crucial.  

Both countries have clearly expressed aspirations towards leadership which is not restricted to regional limits. Both China and Russia are initiators of global integration projects, but they have a different concept of these processes.

We recall how the idea of a Eurasian Union was presented in 2011. Vladimir Putin, who had just embarked on a third presidential term, called it "the future which is being born today" and a "political-economic bloc" comparable with the European Union! And this union should not confine itself solely to the countries of the CIS. Further integration with China, India, Iran and other Asian and even European countries would ultimately, in the opinion of the architects of this idea, consolidate Russia's status as a great power. Hereupon a broad campaign was unfolded in Russia to advance this idea, including statements about the need to create supranational legislative and executive bodies, a single currency, and so on. Just two years passed when two close allies - Astana and Minsk - categorically opposed the politicization of the union and all talk gradually switched towards a Eurasian Economic Union. In January 2015 the agreement on the creation of the EAEU came into force, but a whole number of unresolved and even controversial issues remained outside the formalities of the process.

So how is China behaving? In a diametrically opposed way! Its foreign policy is subordinated to protecting the interests of its own manufacturers. The idea of a New Silk Road emerged precisely when domestic economic requirements were right for it and, moreover, when the transport infrastructure inside the country was running smoothly and was ready for active economic expansion in all directions. The transport routes to world markets that now exist no longer suit China because of their high cost, unreliability and the time it takes to deliver freight.

The idea of the New Silk Road was presented to the world's public two years after the concept of the EAEU. But despite its huge scale (it embraces tens of countries, three billion inhabitants of the planet and requires hundreds of billions of dollars of investment), this project is now completely feasible and coherently and soundly organized. No politics, purely economics and without any encroachment on the sovereign rights of the participating countries.

It has no ultimate objective or time frame and not only does not clash with any of the existing economic alliances but, on the contrary, has a vested interest in making them part of the process. The Silk Road does not imply the creation of any gigantic structure with harsh rules and commitments by the participants like, say, a free trade area. Basically, it is a global intensive economic convergence in many areas: transport construction, trade, investment, trade liberalization, calculations in national currencies, laying pipelines and the development of telecommunications.

Why, then, did Russia not recognize the need to take part in this project straightaway? There are a number of explanations for this, and those who claim that the Kremlin was forced to turn its sights on Asia after falling out with the West are hugely mistaken. Since the end of the 1990s Russia has been an active participant in international projects for the development of Eurasian transport links. For example, in 2000 it promoted the creation of the international North-South transport corridor and in 2006 the Eurasian Transport Project.

One of the main reasons for the recent lack of faith in the Chinese initiative is that its declarations were too abstract. As the head of the "Russia in the APR [Asia-Pacific Region]" programme of Moscow's Carnegie Centre, Aleksandr Gabuyev, rightly pointed out, the project was not formulated precisely enough to leave Beijing freedom for subsequent interpretation. As the enthusiasm of the Chinese increased, so did the fears of the Russian authorities: "So the Chinese want to consolidate their positions in Central Asia, do they? Or create a rival to the Trans-Sib and the BAM [Baykal-Amur trunk rail project]?" Such fears were fed by the fact that no-one could really understand what Beijing was up to and why.

What we don't understand must be dangerous, especially since emotions about the TRACECA project (Europe-Caucasus-Asia transport corridor), which did not contemplate Russia's participation and was initiated in 1993 by the USA and Europe, had still not subsided.

Russia is still a bit annoyed by China's active cooperation with the countries of Central Asia. And China's new idea could be seen as another attempt to strengthen its influence in this region, especially as those same countries had been regarded as key countries in the TRACECA project.

Moscow officially approved Beijing's idea a year ago when, in May 2014, a joint Russian-Chinese agreement on a new stage of relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic inter-action was signed in Shanghai. The document points out that "Russia regards China's initiative to set up a Silk Road Economic Belt as important and values highly the Chinese side's readiness to take Russia's interests into account during its elaboration and implementation". 

The statement at the end of March that Russia was not only signing up to but was ready for full-scale cooperation so that the "Silk Road Economic Belt and the Eurasian Union would together be able to create additional possibilities for the prosperity of the peoples in these countries" was a demonstration that the Russian leaders were radically reviewing their attitude to the Chinese initiative. The EAEU is a strong bargaining chip in Moscow's hands because now goods from China can reach the borders of Europe, crossing just two customs borders. And other incidental questions can more easily be resolved with one centre than with each country individually.  

"Furthermore, the idea of the New Silk Road logically ties in with the idea of the integration of the Eurasian space, helping to bind it into a single entity through a new system of logistics, flow of goods, transport system, speeded up customs procedures, and so on," Grigoriy Trofimchuk, the chairman of the Council of Experts of the Foundation of Support for Scientific Research "Workshop of Eurasian Ideas", told R+. "The project to construct a Moscow-Kazan high-speed rail route which would later continue on to Beijing may boldly be regarded as the start of this process."

China has already stated its intention to build a high-speed railway linking Beijing with Moscow. A journey on this new 7,000-km rail line would take two days instead of the present six. Transit via Russian railways would reduce the time for delivering freight almost threefold. According to plans, the main 8,400-km transport route as part of the Silk Road Economic Corridor would run through Moscow and end at Rotterdam.

China currently has only three main transport routes, and they are all circular. The first is the Trans-Siberian Railway, from the Russian border to Rotterdam (13,000 km); the second is the sea route from Lianyungang to Rotterdam (10,900 km); and the third is also by sea: Shanghai-Rotterdam (15,000 km). What's more, the main volume of freight takes 45-50 days by the third option, across two regions of active piracy and the Suez Canal, which can no longer cope with freight volumes, and the "narrow" Mediterranean. 

So, along with several routes of the land transport belt, China came out with the idea of creating a new Maritime Silk Road. And in this connection the prospect of year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route circuiting Russia becomes topical. It runs through the waters of the Arctic Ocean and a part of the Pacific which was once choked with ice five metres thick. Global warning has made them an attractive alternative to traditional ocean routes. The Northern Sea Route is shorter than the route through the Suez Canal by 2,440 nautical miles and reduces the length of a journey by 10 days. Investment inter-action projects between the two countries are also due to be integrated into the strategy for creating the Silk Road Economic Belt.

Grigoriy Trofimchuk believes that "the New Silk Road will resolve the difficult task of inter-acting the Eurasian Economic Union with China, bearing in mind that China is not in the EAEU. That is why today the two points of view on the concept of this essentially geopolitical project - the Chinese and the Russian - come together in many ways. If this propitious moment is not taken then the hypothetical disruption of stability in Central Asia could destroy all plans".

So now tell me if China has any vested interest in setting Russia at loggerheads with Europe and the rest of the world now, never mind in ten years' time? Why, if it is economically more beneficial for everyone to be friends and trade with one another? Behind China's economic expansion lies the desire to dominate the whole world, I hear you say. That may be the case, but an aggressor, before seizing his victim, weakens it, not the other way round, giving it the chance to grow stronger.

There will be a parade in Moscow on 9 May, not the one that will be held in 10 years' time. Next month marks the 70th anniversary of Victory Day. There will be many guests, but Vladimir Putin will be waiting for his main one - the Chairman of the Chinese People's Republic, Xi Jinping. He will be waiting to certify the documents of unprecedented strong relations. And whether the same Russian and Chinese leaders will be taking the parade in Red Square in 10 years' time is not important. The main thing is that relations develop into a "tradition of pragmatism", something which we can only be of benefit to all of us.