Are Cracks Already Showing in the China-Russia Alliance?

Last weekend I wrote several posts on the significance of the China-Russia alliance and Russia's recent saber-rattling. This weekend there were a few of articles in the foreign press discussing frictions between China and Russia, so in fairness I thought I would share the authors' perspectives with you (even though they're obviously off-base).

The first article concerned issues with arms sales between the two countries:

China is running into problems in its military technology dealings with Russia. The country has postponed high-level military talks on defense technology and stopped all new military contracts until Russia delivers an overdue shipment of aircraft, according to industry sources in both countries.

China has also complained about the quality of Russian weapons. Russian dealers, on the other hand, are upset about blatant Chinese imitations of their products, built from designs supplied in the understanding that the weapons were to be purchased.

Russia's delivery problems and quality control issues are not terribly surprising, just as China's flagrant theft of intellectual property is standard operating procedure. But I suspect that these issues are not going to erode the long-term relationship between the two countries. Russia will be more careful with design data, and Russia and China will come to agreements on their contractual issues. Still, it's nice to see that their arms sales are being hampered.

The second article talks about China's long-standing designs on Russian land:

... China officially considers several regions in Russia’s Far East to be only “alienated” from it. China’s territorial claims on Russia are often noted in Chinese grade school geography textbooks, which include a number of Russian Far Eastern regions within China’s borders.
...
In September 2006, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted an unprecedentedly large 10-day exercise, involving the Shenyang and Beijing military districts, the two most powerful of China’s seven military districts. Shenyang abuts the Russian Armed Forces’ Far Eastern District, and the Beijing district shares a border with Russia’s Siberian Military District.
...
To military observers, the Beijing/Shenyang exercises seemed to be practice for a possible offensive operation against Russia, because exercises on such a scale are undertaken only at the final stage of a multi-year programme to train troops to enact specific strategic and operational plans. The geography of the exercises, and the offensive nature of the tasks undertaken, leaves little doubt that Russia was cast in the role of “potential adversary.” Such a show of force is an ancient, traditional Chinese political technique.

This is a bit more serious, in that by appropriating these regions, China can get much of what it wants (natural resources) from Russia without Russian expertise. The article is written as a wakeup call to Putin, trying to convince him to stop his anti-American rhetoric and start looking at real threats. Not very likely, though it's good advice.

I'll close with a link to an excellent piece in The Economist, which talks about the fortunes of SCO (the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) in light of the recent "anti-terrorist" multinational military maneuvers conducted a week and a half ago. Their point is that China's and Russia's goals aren't identical, and China seems to be maneuvering itself towards second-source oil suppliers to reduce their dependence on Russia. Their conclusion:

China, Russia and the countries sandwiched between them can stage a fine military show—but they are not about to merge into a new monolith

We'll have to see what Putin's long-range plan is - I would guess that he'll bend over backwards to keep China happy until his economy is larger and more independent. So unless China ditches Russia, we'll continue to see a strong alliance between the two in the UN, in military sales, in joint projects, and in trade.