On May 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the Victory Day parade, in which he said of China: "We remember the heroic deeds of all fighters, resistance fighters, underground fighters, and partisans of the anti-Hitler coalition, as well as the courage of the Chinese people to fight against the aggression of militarist Japan and for independence." We will always remember. We will never forget our shared struggles and inspiring traditions of alliance.
Combined with the fact that the first thing Putin will visit after taking office is China, it proves that China is currently playing a pivotal role in Russia's diplomacy and is a target that Russia must woo.
Russia's relations with China are complex, and there are not without contradictions between China and Russia. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia had long existed as a northern threat to China's security, and Tsarist Russia was the imperialist country that had annexed the most Chinese territory. China also effectively contained a large part of the Soviet Union's heavy military clusters in the 80s, and joined forces with the United States to make the Soviet Union suffer in Afghanistan. Russia is now concerned about China's powerful economic impact on its Far East, which could lead to centrifugal tendencies. In Central Asia, Russia has begun to have difficulty controlling it, and it is clear that they will fear that the infiltration of Turkish and Chinese influence will further weaken Russia's control in Central Asia.
But Russia needs China, very much. Russia's greater enemy is the neoliberalism constructed by the United States as a counterweight to Europe, which is one of the sources of Russia's continued turmoil and continued squeeze after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In order to break this US-led model, it is absolutely not feasible to rely on China, which is politically independent and has a huge economy. This is the key factor for Russia to continue to develop and maintain its status as a great power after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Without China's relative neutrality, Russia's ability to maintain the functioning of its basic economic system would be halved, which would make the war extremely difficult and likely to have the consequences expected by the West.
Therefore, Russia's attitude towards China has changed greatly, and it not only attaches great importance to it, but also makes more concessions. The start of construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is a case in point.
France's attitude towards China is also different. France has retained a rare independence from Europe, with greater autonomy than Germany, which is ideologically constrained. Although France's autonomy has also been eroded by a large number of pro-American factions in the country, on the whole it is still able to restrain the influence of the United States to a certain extent, at least better than most Western European countries.
The problem for France is that the era of competition within Europe ended more than 100 years ago, and the countries that can now play the "pole" in the international system need huge sizes, such as the United States, the Soviet Union, and China. It also means that if Europe cannot unite, Europe can only exist as a wealthy political dwarf. Unfortunately, this is the case in Europe, where the United States controlled the military and economic order in Europe after the end of World War II with NATO and the Marshall Plan, and the U.S. Department of Commerce still has long-arm jurisdiction over European mergers and acquisitions.
It is also very difficult for France to become independent, and at the moment France. On the one hand, France needs to maintain its influence in Europe, to be one of the European troika, France needs to continue to play the role of an engine within the EU in order to obtain sufficient available resources, so the EU is the role that France must play and play as a core country, but a large number of American agents within the EU have actually made this core a drag on France. On the other hand, the result of the EU's dependence on the US order is that its own development ceiling depends on the US tolerance ceiling, which means that once it is exceeded, the US will leverage geopolitics to press Europe back to the previous tolerance range, which is the key behind the Kosovo war, the 2014 Ukraine crisis and the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict. France was damaged in these events.
Many of the insulting jokes were themselves part of the public opinion war of the United States and Britain to suppress France, which was similar to the Soviet jokes.
Another important partner and competitor of France is Germany, which needs to work closely together to maintain the unity and integrity of the European Union, but on the other hand, there is still a lot of competition between France and Germany, especially considering that there is a certain competition between France and Germany in terms of leadership and industrial structure, which is also a potential contradiction. Brexit makes it easier for France, but it doesn't mean that France automatically leads the EU. France needs to maintain sufficient industrial advantages, especially in nuclear energy, aviation, etc., and if France does not match China's production capacity and technology as effectively as Germany, then France's position in Europe can easily be shaken even more.
France's greatest interests abroad lie in Africa, which is why France needs to coordinate with China, Africa's largest trading partner, on a number of issues. All this has created a need for cooperation between France and China.
China, of course, wants to promote multipolarity, so that the United States can avoid the United States defining the global order alone and engaging in unbridled strategic oppression. The very existence of China will form a sub-center of power, and the union of such sub-centers will naturally promote the emergence of a multipolar process. However, the suppression of China by the United States still cannot eliminate the space that exists in this process, that is, it cannot effectively curb the cooperation between France and Russia and China. So as long as China maintains stability and development, this space will become larger and larger, so the multipolarity that China hopes for is still possible.
For the United States, if it cannot suppress China in the short term, it will seriously threaten American hegemony in the long run, regardless of whether China intends to replace or disintegrate it. Until they accept reality, there will inevitably be continued repressive actions, which is why Blinken recently imposed sanctions on Chinese institutions in the name of "supporting Russia".
However, the cycle of the game between China and the United States will be very long, and there is no possibility of sudden defeat for either side at present. At present, China only needs to become multipolar, which is an easier goal to achieve than the United States to maintain hegemony.