By James Xu '18
Due to the sanctions placed on Russia over the Ukraine Crisis, the Kremlin recently decided to open up Vankor, a rich new oil field, to Chinese investments.The Vankor oil field is located in the heart of Siberia. It produces 440,000 barrels per day, all of which are shipped southeast, with the majority feeding to northeastern China. Deputy Prime Minister Dvorkovich said, “We just have to overcome a psychological barrier before handing the hydrocarbon reserve to China.” He stated that such event has never happened in Russian history. This monumental agreement is simply a microcosm of a series of events that represents the increasing cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. However, will such partnership evolve into a long-term alliance, or will historic dispute and mistrust continue to persist despite diplomatic dependency?There is an old saying in Chinese culture: one mountain cannot contain two tigers. Indeed, the two countries have tiger-like characteristics. First of all, both nations, from their citizens to their leader, seek to capture past glory. Restoring their glory days means the domination of their perspective region. However, accomplishing such goals would put the interest of China and Russia in conflict. The border issues in northeastern China and southeastern Russia are only temporarily subdued but are never resolved. Additionally, the two powers also have significant competition with respect to expanding their sphere of influence in Central Asia. Beijing desires to harvest natural resources and Moscow, of course, is always in the process of reasserting its dominance over former Soviet satellite states. In short, both Asian powers feel contained by the status quo dictated by western powers, but they do not share the same vision of the future.Secondly, both Russians and Chinese carry extreme pride. Both wanted to be the big brother in their partnership. Half a century ago, even when both were under the communist camp, China and the Soviet Union did not have a fruitful alliance. Russia, being the leader in the socialist world, dealt with China with a sense of superiority, something that Mao did not appreciate. Today, the situation is reversed. China is on the rise while Russia is in decline. Any kind of alliance would feature Russia as the junior partner, something that many Russians, who still hold the dream of creating a pan-Slavic state, cannot accept.Finally, the two reasons mentioned above combined with the tumultuous historic relationship resulted in distrust that still lingers despite the recent breakthroughs. In spite of the recent energy deal that would ship 38 billion cubic meters of oil annually from Russia to China, Putin still considers Europe as his most desirable trading partner. Xi Jinping still cannot sever trading ties with the U.S., South Korea, and Japan no matter how bitter the diplomatic relationship seems to be. In addition, it is no secret that Russia has hesitated to sell its most advanced military technology to China. In fact, Moscow has recently sold more advanced naval arms to Vietnam; this has been viewed by Beijing as a way to balance its ambition in the South China Sea, an act of betrayal. Such distrust renders the Sino-Russian partnership temporary rather than permanent, no matter how extensive the cooperation is between the two aspiring nations. Sources:http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/china-and-russia-vs-the-united-states/http://www.businessinsider.com/r-learning-mandarin-in-the-tundra---russia-invites-china-into-oil-business-2015-4http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/ukraine-and-the-russia-china-axis/