The Sino-Russian Partnership and Global Order

The Sino-Russian partnership has gone from strength to strength, and relations today are better than at any time in history. Yet this is no alliance, but a classic great power relationship driven by common interests rather than shared values. China and Russia are strategically autonomous actors, with different attitudes and approaches towards global order. They do not operate as a coordinated force and have little influence on each other's decision-making.

Although some of their actions are egregious, it is a cop-out to blame Beijing and Moscow for the crisis of global order. For this has much more to do with the 'suicidal statecraft' of the United States over the past two decades. The onus is now on Washington and other Western capitals to demonstrate the effectiveness of liberal values, norms, and institutions. That means tackling basic failures of governance at home, leading efforts to mitigate climate change and global poverty, and proving that the 'rules-based international order' is more than an arrangement made by the West for the West.

Bobo Lo is an independent international relations analyst. He is also an Associate Research Fellow with the Russia/NIS Center at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) in Paris; a Non-Resident Fellow with the Lowy Institute, Sydney, Australia; and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, DC. Previously, he was Head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, and Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy in Moscow.