Even before Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing last month to strengthen Russia’s “unrestricted” partnership with China, Western media began doubling down on the widespread consensus that the war in Ukraine would only bring Beijing and Moscow closer the opinion of. While not unfounded, this casual observation demonstrates an incomplete understanding of the complexities of geopolitics and Beijing’s strategic perspective, and masks recent subtle but important changes in the Sino-Russian partnership. Because not only has the balancing force in Sino-US relations further shifted in favor of Beijing, but the deep flaws in Sino-US relations have also been highlighted. A study of the evolving politics of memory in both countries reveals how Beijing, as an emerging senior partner, pursues a very different policy agenda than its now junior partner, Moscow.
May is a month full of historical symbolism in Russia. On May 9, Vladimir Putin hosted a military parade in Moscow to mark the 79th anniversary of the founding of the Russian Federation, on the first day of his new six-year term as President of the Russian Federation.th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. In a speech to the nation, as in previous years, he paid tribute to the fallen heroes and veterans of the Soviet Union who liberated Europe from Nazism and denounced Western attempts to distort the “truth” of this history. Putin also reserved praise for the contributions of other allies, but contrary to last year’s explicit recognition of the contributions of the United States and Britain, this time he singled out China and the Chinese people’s courage in resisting militaristic Japan.
A week later, Putin arrived in Beijing for his first state visit as the newly elected leader. In an interview with Chinese state media on the eve of his visit, Putin praised the two countries’ cooperation during World War II and emphasized China’s contribution to the Allied victory. The Russian president even claimed that “it was China that blocked the main force of Japanese militarism, allowing the Soviet Union to concentrate on defeating Nazism in Europe.” This does not appear to be unusual for Chinese audiences, as it is consistent with Beijing’s recently revised official interpretation of World War II history. From a Russian perspective, however, it was a stunning concession and represented a significant shift in Moscow’s consistent narrative that the Soviet Union should bear primary credit not only for defeating Nazi Germany but also for defeating Imperial Japan.
These shifts in Moscow’s rhetoric about the Patriotic War and the contributions of its former allies indicate two things. First, Moscow has abandoned its efforts to engage the United States to restore the cooperative “spirit” of this shared past—an effort that continued even as recently as last year. This was clear from the strong language in this year’s Victory Day speech, in which Putin castigated “Western elites” for their policies “to foment regional conflicts, inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts and to curb sovereignty” and the independent center “Global Development”. Secondly, the change in rhetoric means that Moscow acknowledges that the balance in its relations with its main “comrades” then and today is changing. Until recently, China was ostensibly the “junior partner” in Moscow’s World War II discourse, and Putin’s extraordinary statement confirms that this role has now been reversed.
Yet while Putin has veered toward a militant, anti-Western memory politics line, his close friend Xi Jinping has done just the opposite. Since 2015, Beijing and Moscow have held joint war commemorations for several consecutive years, and the trend of joint commemoration of the war has been rising, but the Chinese leadership suddenly changed direction in 2022. A memory strategy that subtly distinguishes its historical discourse from that of Moscow by shifting the focus from the Second World War to contemporary crisis responses and peacemaking efforts. A clear sign is that, unlike previous years, no high-profile Chinese leaders will attend Russia’s Victory Day events in 2023 and 2024.
Xi Jinping’s state visit to Serbia this month provided a second clue that Beijing is careful to avoid escalating tensions with the West. Xi Jinping arrived in Belgrade on May 7, a move widely seen as highly symbolic, just as U.S. stealth bombers dropped five satellite-guided precision bombs on the People’s Republic of China’s embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists , 25 years after twenty diplomats were injured. In 2016, during a state visit to Serbia (one of China and Russia’s key allies in Europe), Xi Jinping paid tribute to three “martyred” Chinese at the scene of an explosion, an incident that some believed was a CIA attack on the Chinese ambassador A deliberate attack on the museum, they were “martyred” in the explosion. This time, however, to the surprise of many, Xi Jinping did not visit the site, apparently to avoid exacerbating tensions with the United States
A third sign that Beijing’s memory politics is aimed at improving relations with Washington comes in the form of a recent series of “people-to-people exchanges” between China and the families and friends of American heroes who served in China during World War II. Last summer, Xi Jinping wrote a friendly letter to the descendants of U.S. Army General Joseph Stilwell, who is remembered in China today for his heroic actions as commander of the China-Burma-India Theater and returned to the U.S. Volunteer Army One surviving member wrote a friendly letter. Although the more than 2,000 Soviet pilots who aided China in the early stages of the war received little attention from Chinese official media, these American war heroes have always been hailed as the epitome of the “lasting friendship between China and the United States.”
These latest trends in historical statecraft signal significant differences between Russian and Chinese worldviews and strategic intentions. As Eric Zhang and I recently showed in a study of the memory of World War II, Russian official discourse is often strongly universal and ideological, easily inviting principled external opposition, China’s historical narrative, on the other hand, is more flexibly centered around ad hoc, pragmatic policy goals targeting specific regions or issue areas. While Moscow reacts and increasingly clings desperately to a selective interpretation of the past, Beijing appears more focused on completing a pragmatic, positive and forward-looking agenda. This is not to deny the existence of shared values and strategic goals, but rather to reveal the less obvious differences and weak conceptual foundations of their purported friendship.
China’s emergence as a senior partner in Sino-Russian relations, coupled with Chinese leaders’ intention to improve relations with Western countries led by the United States, may be good news. If Beijing indeed believes that avoiding conflict with the United States and improving relations is imperative, it should continue to defuse a potential memory war with the West that Moscow is exploiting to justify and threaten its aggression in Europe. Help promote and maintain actual war. It should proceed very carefully with plans to celebrate the 80th anniversary announced in a joint statement last weekth Celebrate the anniversary of the victory of World War II with Russia in 2025 and “jointly promote a correct view of history.” It would be wiser to continue down the path chosen in 2022 towards memory diversification and downgrade.
At the same time, if Washington is serious about “truly stabilizing, improving and advancing” relations with Beijing, it should see the current state of Sino-Russian relations: a window of opportunity to not only “thaw” bilateral tensions with Beijing, But it also ensures that the latter have other options rather than falling further into the arms of Moscow. This is not to say that the West should try to drive a wedge between China and Russia. Xi Jinping will not allow this and it may be counterproductive in any case. Instead, Washington should exercise restraint in the use of measures, sanctions and threats that may enjoy strong bipartisan support but end up fueling self-fulfilling tensions by pushing Beijing into the arms of Moscow. prophecy. With the U.S. presidential election approaching, there are questions about whether prudent policies will be in place until at least the end of the year; the question is whether the current window of opportunity still exists.
Further reading on electronic international relations
