Abstract
Russia’s foreign policy is characterized by a combination of several conflicting narratives which coexist in a general space of rhetoric on identity, security, and civilizational divisions. Russian perceptions of the United States and China provide a powerful lens for framing not only how modern Russia conceives its foreign policy, but also for understanding its national identity transformations. Culturally and historically, Russia deems itself a part of Western civilization. China looks alien and lacking intellectual and emotional appeal to many Russians. However, the image of the United States in the eyes of the Russian political elite is essentially ambivalent and conflicting, while China is described as a reliable partner. Finding the right balance between the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific vectors will be the key challenge to Russian foreign policy in the years to come. The USA is watching China closely and cautiously; part of this caution will be keeping an eye on Chinese relations with the rest of the world. China is doing the same when it looks at the United States. Within this triangular construct, not losing sight of Russia will be a priority for both the USA and China. This situation creates many opportunities for Russia—if it plays its cards right.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the MacArthur Foundation
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Notes
- 1.
Earlier versions of some sections of this article were published in Zevelev (2012: 104–118).
- 2.
Part of this research was coauthored with Andrew Kuchins. See Kuchins and Zevelev 2012: 181-209.
- 3.
According to Hall, dynastic-sovereign collective identities were replaced by territorial-sovereign, which are in turn change to national-sovereign (Hall 1999: 29).
- 4.
Russian foreign policy debate is rooted in the discussion of IR theory, but has its own purposes, structure, and
dynamic. For the overviews of the Russian discipline of international relations theory, see Shakleina 2002; Bogaturov et al. 2002; Tsygankov 2005; Kokoshin and Bogaturov 2005; Andrei Tsygankov and Pavel Tsygankov 2010: 6375-6387.
- 5.
The discourse of national identity informs Russian theory of international relations, which in turn shapes foreign policy perspectives. Andrei Tsygankov and Pavel Tsygankov when analyzing Russian theory of international relations argued that “Russia has developed three traditions or schools of thinking about Self and Other—Westernist, Statist, and Civilzationist” (Tsygankov and Tsygankov 2010: 6376).
- 6.
Our grouping is both similar and different from Anne Clunan’s taxonomy (Clunan 2009). Clunan’s analysis covers the period from 1991-2004 (to the end of Putin’s first term). She identifies the following seven categories on a spectrum of national self-images which then inform foreign policy preferences: Western (liberal internationalist), Western (democratic developmentalist), statist (statist developmentalist), statist (Eurasian statism), national restorationist, neocommunist, and Slavophile. These categorizations collapse roughly into our three schools. Clunan argues that the Statist and Western self-images, and their subgroups, are the most politically relevant to the formulation of Russian foreign policy.
- 7.
The roots of this Western-focused discourse can be traced back to the nineteenth-century debates between Slavophiles and Westernizers. Slavophiles emphasized the unique character of Russian civilization, based on Slavic Orthodox communitarian traditions, and they are opposed to alien Western civilization. In contrast, Westernizers argued that Russia should emulate and learn from the West.
- 8.
See the discussion of the concept of “civilization” in contemporary Russian discourse about national identity in Zevelev 2009.
- 9.
The following discussion of Russian nationalists’ views is partly based on material in Zevelev 2001.
- 10.
Paul Kowert and Jeffery Legro when analyzing the sources of international norms suggested that there were three processes that generated, maintained, and changed them: ecological, social, and internal. See Kowert and Legro 1996: 470.
- 11.
See the excellent overview of China’s foreign policy schools of thought in Shambaugh and Ren Xiao 2012: 36–72.
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Zevelev, I. (2015). Russian Perspectives on US–China Relations and the Twenty-First-Century Global System. In: Klieman, A. (eds) Great Powers and Geopolitics. Global Power Shift. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16289-8_7
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