Sarah Paine — How Russia sabotaged China's rise

Episode Overview

• The podcast provides a historical analysis of the Russo-Chinese relationship, framing it as a long-standing power struggle, not a natural alliance, historically defined by Russian efforts to keep China weak.
• It traces the ideological and strategic breakdown of the Sino-Soviet partnership in the 20th century, which led to a bitter rivalry and a new geopolitical triangle involving the United States.
• The discussion assesses the modern "partnership of convenience" between Putin and Xi, highlighting the significant power imbalance in China's favor and the inherent fragility of the relationship.
• It argues that Russia's aggression is driven by internal dysfunction and a historical pattern of imperialism, not a defensive reaction to NATO expansion.

Key Concepts

• Russia's Continental Security Strategy: Russia's foreign policy has historically been driven by the need to avoid two-front wars and prevent strong powers from emerging on its borders, leading it to actively destabilize and weaken China.
• The Sino-Soviet Split: Ideological and personal clashes between Khrushchev and Mao, disputes over nuclear technology, and conflicting foreign policies culminated in a complete breakdown of their alliance, leading to the 1969 border war.
• The Strategic Triangle: The hostility between China and the USSR allowed the United States to become a "swing power," aligning with China against the Soviet Union to alter the Cold War's balance of power.
• Imbalanced "Partnership of Convenience": The current "no limits" relationship is transactional, not a true alliance. China is the dominant senior partner, leveraging a weakened Russia for cheap resources and diplomatic support against the West.
• China's Lessons from the Soviet Collapse: The Chinese Communist Party concluded from the USSR's fall that it must ruthlessly suppress dissent, prioritize state-controlled economic growth over political reform, and use nationalism to ensure party survival.
• NATO as a Defensive Reaction: The argument that NATO expansion caused Russian aggression is dismissed as "gaslighting"; instead, NATO's growth is framed as a direct response by Eastern European nations seeking protection from Russia's long history of imperialism.

Quotes

• At 17:33 - "This is not an alliance... This is a partnership of convenience." - The speaker's analysis of the current "no limits" relationship between Putin and Xi, arguing it lacks the mutual trust of a true alliance and is instead a transactional arrangement where China holds the upper hand.
• At 27:17 - "We have not yet presented our account for this list [of stolen territory]." - A powerful 1964 quote from Mao Zedong, cited by the speaker to show that China's grievances over territory lost to Russia are long-standing and may one day be acted upon.
• At 49:34 - "Don't hesitate to deploy the tanks, do not tolerate dissent." - The speaker lists the first major lesson China took from Gorbachev's reforms, contrasting his leniency with China's own forceful suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests.
• At 57:42 - "It is their totally dysfunctional domestic system that offers everybody else nothing but problems, and instead of focusing on that and fixing it... they're just invading other people." - The speaker identifies internal Russian failures, rather than external threats, as the root cause of its aggressive foreign policy.
• At 1:04:06 - "I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy's devices." - Quoting Pericles, the speaker concludes with a warning that the greatest danger lies not in the actions of adversaries like Russia and China, but in the potential for Western leaders to make strategic mistakes.

Takeaways

• The current Russia-China alignment is fragile and rests upon a long history of rivalry and mistrust; it should not be viewed as a permanent or ideologically coherent bloc.
• Russia's foreign policy is primarily driven by its internal systemic failures and a legacy of imperial ambition, not by external threats from the West.
• China is strategically exploiting Russia's international isolation and military preoccupation in Ukraine to secure its own long-term economic and geopolitical interests as the clear senior partner.
• The greatest strategic risk for the West is miscalculation—either underestimating or overreacting to the partnership in a way that forces these two wary rivals into a more durable alliance against a common enemy.