Setting the Stage: An Overview of Chinese and Russian Interests and Influence in the Indo-Pacific

A New FPRI Report

Chinese and Russian Interests in the Indo-Pacific

• China believes it has vital interests in the Indo-Pacific. These revolve around restoring territorial integrity as Beijing defines it, and Taiwan ranks first among interests here.

• Beijing also maintains that its territorial claims in the East and South China Seas are critical to restoring its territorial integrity, but these are really more about establishing a sphere of influence that gives it freedom of action in the region.

• All three of these issues have the potential to bring about a military confrontation with the US, with Taiwan being the most dangerous.

• China’s interests on the Korean Peninsula are focused on maintaining the status quo there, given Beijing’s historical influence in Korea and its proximity to China.

• China and India have been working to mend their fraught relationship, something history suggests will be difficult to achieve.

• Russia has not often acted as an Asian power; many of its historical “turns to the East” have been more driven by its estrangement from the West than interest in and attraction to the East.

• Russia’s relationship with China in the Indo-Pacific must contend with two issues: the growing power disparity between it and China there, and the fact that China has higher order interests in the region than Russia does.

• Russia’s interests in the region are contradictory: it sees China as a natural ally in what it deems an existential struggle with the US and its allies, but Moscow also hopes to preserve its good relations with some of China’s historical adversaries there.

• The most important of these is with Vietnam. Russia’s ties with Vietnam complicate China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

• On the East China Sea and Taiwan Russia’s interests and policies generally align with China’s.

• Although their interests on the Korean Peninsula have mostly aligned, Russia’s recent strategic partnership with North Korea threatens the status quo there.

• If sustained, a rapprochement between China and India would ease Russia’s task of maintaining close ties with both.

Continue reading on www.fpri.org.