#Sino-Russian

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2023: A Russian Perspective on China-Russia Relations

Sampling domestic opinion pieces in foreign language press is interesting since you get an internal perspective rather than the foreign propaganda bias in pieces intended for a foreign audience. Recent improvements in machine translation — the DeepL Chrome browser plugin/extension, DeepL, ChatGPT or Google Translate are all useful tools — make it much easier to do extensive reading in foreign…

[captain-price-unofficially]

Sino-Vietnamese War, 17 February – 16 March 1979 (3 weeks and 6 days)

[tomorrowusa]

« Four main factors will influence the course of the war. The first is the level of resistance and national unity shown by Ukrainians, which has until now been extraordinary. The second is international support for Ukraine, which, though recently falling short of the country’s expectations, remains broad. The third factor is the nature of modern warfare, a contest that turns on a combination of industrial might and command, control, communications and intelligence systems. One reason Russia has struggled in this war is that it is yet to recover from the dramatic deindustrialisation it suffered after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The final factor is information. When it comes to decision-making, Vladimir Putin is trapped in an information cocoon, thanks to his having been in power so long. The Russian president and his national-security team lack access to accurate intelligence. The system they operate lacks an efficient mechanism for correcting errors. Their Ukrainian counterparts are more flexible and effective. In combination, these four factors make Russia’s eventual defeat inevitable. In time it will be forced to withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea. Its nuclear capability is no guarantee of success. Didn’t a nuclear-armed America withdraw from Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan? »

— Prof. Feng Yujun, Director of the Center for Russian and Central Asian Studies at Fudan University, writing at The Economist (archived).

Prof. Feng is one of China's leading "Russia watchers". His views may not reflect official thinking of the Chinese government though they are probably not distant from it.

China is currently benefiting economically in several ways from the war, but this does not mean Putin is highly regarded among Chinese policy makers.

Putin made a gross miscalculation with his invasion of Ukraine. He has put his military on international display as embarrassingly incompetent. Russian military hardware has been shown to be generally inferior to what Ukraine has gotten from the West and also inferior to various items of Ukrainian manufacture. Russia's few recent successes involve using its own troops as cannon fodder to make slow and costly advances.

With Putin's three-day "special operation" heading into day 789 and with Russian casualties equal to the population of a medium large city, Putin has clearly lost face in China.

[thoughtlessarse]

Not too long ago, tension over possession of islands in the rivers that form the Russian-Chinese frontier led to armed confrontation. These days the same islands are declared “a place of friendship.” But those feelings of amity may not run deep. Heixiazi, the Chinese half of a divided island at the confluence of the Ussuri and Amur rivers, looks “like Disneyland,” according to Akihiro Iwashita, a Japanese scholar who is an expert on Russia’s border issues with China and Japan. He first visited the island, known on the Russian side as Bolshoy Ussuriysky, in 2008. At that time, the Chinese had made major improvements to its side, building a large nature reserve, border defenses, including a watchtower, and a bridge from the mainland to the island, Iwashita told Eurasianet in an email interview. When he revisited in 2017, the Chinese wetland park was attracting more than 600,000 tourists a year. Other attractions, including a wild bear reserve, were quickly added to the complex. Meanwhile, the Russian side remained largely undeveloped, Iwashita said. The only major improvement he noticed was the Amurskaya Creek Bridge, a car crossing that connects the island to the Russian mainland and, strategically, to the city of Khabarovsk. -Two decades have passed since the formerly contested island was divided between China and Russia on a “50-50” basis. “One island two countries” became the motto. In May of this year, the island hit the headlines during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing. There, the Russian leader agreed to a roadmap for the island’s joint development. In June, officials announced plans to build a transit checkpoint with China. By 2030, up to 1.5 million passengers and more than 1.3 million tons of cargo could pass through the crossing annually, Russian officials suggest. The Russian Far East Development Ministry was euphoric: The island is becoming a “place of Russian-Chinese friendship.” But is everything as rosy as it seems?

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[faultfalha]

The failed uprising by Prigozhin has had unforeseen consequences, according to a top White House official. "It's triggered a psychology about warlords in China that we didn't anticipate," he said. "We're still trying to figure out what it all means." The official refused to elaborate further, but acknowledged that the situation is "fluid" and "changing by the day."

[999-roses]

I get what they're asking (and maybe why they're asking) but strictly speaking, all chinese people are indigenous to china, including the ethnic majority, han chinese (of which there are many MANY subgroups, mostly categorized by region and language spoken). I wish that all anglophones can understand this.

There are many indigenous cultures in China, do they have subcultures on the app and like NativeTok does in the west?

The concept of indigenous peoples/culture in China is different than in the west (where I think we tend to think of indigenous identity relative to initial settlement and historical European colonisation), but generally speaking yes, people of ethnic minorities are active on douyin and appear to share their culture (dance, attire, song, etc) or regional jokes (mostly language/accent memes from what I've seen).

There are 56 officially recognised ethnic groups in China, with much more specific/local groups that might get grouped in with a larger one (for example, the Mosuo people who live near Lugu Lake in Yunnan and Sichuan are officially categorised as part of the Naxi ethnic group. By official categorisation, really all that means is that is what they would likely write on any official documents and what it would likely say on their national ID card). Of the 56, the Han people are the ethnic majority (91.1% in 2020).

Of course, the most populous ethnic groups are the most visible, so from personal experience there are some ethnic groups that I have never seen any douyin videos from, or have only seen mentioned by others not of that group. From personal experience, the ones I tend to see are Mongolian, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Bai, Kazakh, Uyghur, and less often, Zhuang, ethnic Korean, ethnic Russian, Tujia, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Hui, and Wa. So... not that many out of 56, obviously, but I sense that part of this is also the result of my algorithm.

I have an ethnic minority tag you can check out. It primarily consists of traditional clothing, dance, and song.

[could8963]

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Red-Hot Opposition Facing Axis if It Tries Swing From Cold Russ Front,” Windsor Star. October 20, 1942. Page 13. ---- World map showing the major fronts in Eurasia.

[tumbler-polls]

Submitted by @ytilaremehpe-sselhtaed

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2023: Leviev on Russia-China Summit and Tactical Nuclear Weapon Deployment Friction

The Ukrainian newspaper Korrespondent, quoting exile Russian military analyst Ruslan Leviev of the Conflict Intelligence Team. argues the Xi-Putin summit was a failure, and was ‘apparently’ shortened by a day [seen no reference to his elsewhere, perhaps Leviev has his sources?], and the Russian deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus is becoming a sore point in Russia-China…

[mariacallous]

After more than a decade of the largest war in Europe since the Second World War, the West can no longer ignore the fact that the tipping point of the global balance of power lies in Ukraine.

While relentlessly pursuing its genocidal policy to destroy Ukraine as a nation and Ukrainians as a distinct national and ethnic group, Moscow has been pushing an international agenda of a 'new world order’ to replace the Western-led, rules-based system of international relations.

The West’s weak response to Russia’s threat to international peace has catalysed an imploding of the global security order. We are facing an emboldened Sino-Russian alliance which strongly believes there is a window of opportunity to gain the power to set the rules for a new, unfree world, ruled by force.

Russia’s large-scale destruction of Ukraine is tangible evidence of how international peace can crumble in front of our eyes when rogue actors who seek to detonate it demonstrate more determination and resolve than those who purport to defend it. The free world’s demonstrable lack of resolute will to uphold international law is a major factor in the current global crisis and invites further chaos and violence.

This historic moment calls for urgent revision of the current Western course of conspicuously inadequate actions to remove the threat of Russia as the linchpin of the anti-Western, anti-democratic axis. If the world is to avoid a new global conflict, Western policy must be refocused on a full commitment to defending the principles of the liberal rules-based order that is designed to make the world safer.

The Russian Threat

Vladimir Putin’s Russia is not just an existential threat to Ukraine. Russia's aggressive, revanchist regime is the origin point of the international anti-Western axis. Just as at other critical moments in its history, Russia is once again redefining itself through confrontation with the West. Moscow is challenging Western primacy in international relations in order to reclaim its status of global power. For the Kremlin, the freedom to act above and outside the limits and restrictions of international law is the symbol of such supremacy.

For the past two decades, the world has been observing an escalating 'Russia crisis' – the critical threat posed by a criminal, militarised, totalitarian, aggressive, revanchist and genocidal regime to international peace. Rather than countering the growing threat, Western policy has relied on the 'too big to fail’ approach in dealing with Moscow. Consequently, Russia has largely enjoyed protection from the consequences of its criminal actions, and has been able to continue pursuing its nefarious strategic course.

Moscow’s goal is to replace the current liberal, rules-based international system with a ‘new world order’, where the role of the West is notably reduced. This was Vladimir Putin’s message in speeches given in 2014, 2023 and 2024.

In 2014, Putin made a threatening warning which made clear that Russia will have no limits in pursuing this goal:

‘... changes in the world order – and what we are seeing today are events on this scale – have usually been accompanied by, if not global war and conflict, then by chains of intensive local-level conflicts.’

Russia’s hostile ambitions were spelled out formally when, in 2021, Moscow issued an ultimatum to NATO, publicly outlining its far-reaching demands for a dangerous level of influence over the eastern flank of the alliance.

Moscow’s determination to defy the West has been severely underestimated. The quest for a ‘new world order’, driven by the Sino-Russian alliance, is changing global dynamics. In essence, the new Eastern-led order is based on taking advantage of the globalised economy while destroying the liberal rules-based international order. Rogue regimes in Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and Belarus are being legitimised. The expanding BRICS group is building an alternative economic system of the 'global majority’ to provide shelter from Western sanctions and ensure global political dominance.

To claim domination, the Sino-Russian alliance is committed to:

Advancing an international agenda of creating spheres of influence by instigating conflicts and chaos to fracture global solidarity.

Displacing the universal rules-based order through special bilateral arrangements that advance a global power alignment tilted towards their alliance, with Beijing being the biggest beneficiary.

Reversing humanity’s progress by challenging the universal nature of human rights and political freedoms.

Reducing the global domain of freedom by subverting democracies and by corrupting political and economic establishments to foment authoritarianism.

Diminishing the influence of Western democracies in international relations by subverting international organisations.

The objective of the Sino-Russian strategy is a return to an inherently dangerous and divisive 'might makes right’ reality in international relations. While disguised as a universal order of sovereign and equal states, such a system defies the equal application of international law to exempt the great powers from any restrictions imposed by universal rules.

The new Eastern-led order will privilege major international actors with influence and power to coerce smaller countries. While talking about ‘multipolarity’ and ‘multilateralism’, both Moscow and Beijing share the position of denying smaller countries equal standing in international relations. This essence of the ‘new order’ is illustrated perfectly by the policy of the anti-Western axis towards Ukraine, which promotes and serves Russian interests.

The West’s Self-Defeating Russia Policy

At its core, Western Russia policy – especially since Vladimir Putin’s revanchist speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference – has been mostly focused on global strategic stability.

The US’s reset of relations with Russia after the latter’s 2008 war on Georgia ushered in a period of a doomed appeasement strategy. Instead of taming Moscow’s aggression by firmly upholding international law, Putin’s quest to satisfy revanchist ‘grievances’ was tolerated. This policy resulted in destructive consequences for the world. An emboldened Kremlin unleashed disinformation, interference, corruption, subversion and violence on a scale which affects the entire trajectory of global affairs.

Russia’s war on Ukraine has been the main point of its attack on international peace and security in its efforts to re-establish global dominance.

From the beginning of Russia’s illegal and unprovoked war of aggression on Ukraine in 2014, the West misdefined this interstate war as a ‘Ukraine crisis’ to diminish the international threat of an aggressive Russia. The horrific images of Moscow’s 2022 large-scale offensive and consequent massacres of Ukrainian civilians forced Western leaders to face the grim reality of the actual ‘Russia crisis’. Now, in 2024, there is finally a growing understanding that Moscow is using its war against Ukraine as a system-changing conflict within a global confrontation driven by the Sino-Russian alliance to bring down the Western-led rules based order.

Despite committing grave violations of international law and undermining world peace, Russia has largely enjoyed protection from the consequences of its criminal actions. At the same time, Ukraine – the victim of Russia’s unprovoked and illegal aggression – has been bound hand and foot in exercising its legal right to self-defence

Russia – a country with nuclear capabilities and an army, territory and economy many times larger than that of Ukraine – continues to be shielded from concerted international action to counteract its genocidal war of aggression, while Ukraine – a country which gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security – has been struggling to receive sufficient international support to defend itself against genocide and safeguard international principles that benefit all.

The inept international response to Russia’s war against Ukraine exposes the grotesque design of the international security system. Eight decades on from the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, the peace and security of humanity is still at the mercy of the two totalitarian, genocidal regimes in Moscow and Beijing, and critically depends on the political resolve in three Western capitals – Washington, London and Paris. In Ukraine’s case, the political position in Berlin also bears influence, considering Germany’s important role in the EU and NATO.

Western powers continue to treat Russia as a pillar of the strategic global balance. It is as a direct consequence of this radically flawed approach that Western policy towards Russian aggression has been ultimately premised on Kyiv making concessions to Moscow.

From 2014, Russian interests were accommodated by ever-shifting Western red lines on the invasion; by the position of there being 'no military solution’ to the conflict which invited bolder Russian aggression; by Washington’s ‘leading from behind’ to avoid a more active role in fulfilling its obligations under the Budapest Memorandum; by symbolic sanctions incommensurate with Moscow’s transgressions; by the Berlin- and Paris-mediated ‘peace process’ which implied concessions from Ukraine by design; and by the policy of ‘de-escalation’ which denied military assistance for Ukraine to mount an effective defence.

While Western support for Ukraine has dramatically increased since 2022, when Russia’s role as the aggressor was finally recognised by the UN, the policy approach has remained stuck in the logic that ‘Russia is too big to fail’.

All the major points of Western policy, such as the refusal to deploy NATO troops in Ukraine; the limitations on the use of Western-supplied weapons to strike military targets in Russian territory (and for some, even in Ukraine’s Crimea); and statements like 'Russia cannot win in Ukraine’, ‘we will support Ukraine for as long as it takes’, ‘we must help Ukraine to strengthen its position at the negotiating table’ or ‘Ukraine will be able to join NATO after winning the war’ reflect the underlying reality that Russia’s interests, however illegitimate, play a weighty role in Western decision-making.

Instead of fully committing to helping Kyiv repel Russian aggression, the West chose to pursue 'escalation management’, enabling Moscow to wreak havoc in Ukraine and largely protecting Russia from the war.

The limited support for Ukraine makes clear that the West never truly had a strategy for Russia’s defeat – which would entail complete unconditional withdrawal of Russian military formations from all of Ukraine, the renunciation of Moscow’s territorial claims, justice for war criminals, and reparations. Without Russia’s defeat, there cannot be a Ukrainian victory, only de facto or de jure concessions by Kyiv.

A defeated Russia is an infinitely lesser threat than an undefeated Russia. Sacrificing Ukraine will not solve the problem of the aggressive, revanchist, totalitarian Russian state. If the black hole of Putin’s Russia swallows Ukraine, it will increase its gravitational pull. The West will face the consequences of the new global power re-alignment, consisting first and foremost of Sino-Russian domination in Europe.

In fact, by refusing to shoot down Russian missiles and drones in NATO airspace; by refusing to implement a humanitarian military mission to protect Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, especially its nuclear power plants; by drip-feeding military aid to Kyiv, withholding critically needed weapons and imposing restrictions on Ukrainian strikes against Russia; by stalling on NATO membership for Ukraine; and by accepting China’s say on the security of Europe, the West – and the US in particular – has already manifestly relinquished its leadership role in international relations.

The self-defeating policy of risk aversion has also severely damaged the credibility of NATO’s own deterrence. NATO is projecting the image of a panic room, not that of an actionable force capable of providing security – even for its own members.

The Cost of Inertia is Rapidly Rising

The alarming lack of resolute political will in Western capitals to uphold the fundamental rules of global security is giving oxygen to Russia’s and its anti-Western allies’ ambition to reshape our world according to their oppressive vision. 

The West cannot isolate itself from the outcome of Russia’s war. This is no longer about ‘helping Ukraine’, but about the responsibility of Western governments to their own citizens to ensure a peaceful future. 

The West’s obsessive and unjustifiable avoidance of confrontation with Russia in fact increases the risk of direct engagement becoming the only option. For now, while the Ukrainian army maintains high combat readiness, NATO countries can still avoid a direct face-off with Russia by deploying their troops away from the frontline to help Ukraine protect civilian areas and critical infrastructure and deter invasion from Belarus or, potentially, Russia-occupied Transnistria in Moldova if Russia succeeds in subverting the pro-Western course of Chișinău.

With North Korea sending troops to fight Ukraine, the West’s response to Russia’s war is a watershed moment for the future of humanity. Ukrainians shouldn’t be fighting alone to defend the rules-based order. Not fighting alongside Ukraine means helping Russia to achieve its nefarious goals.

If the West fails to defend the universality of the values of freedom and justice in Ukraine, it will eventually find itself in the role of the global ‘minority', while the Sino-Russian alliance will be legitimised as the voice of the ‘global majority’ and proceed to impose its will over the entirety of the international system.

The free world urgently needs leadership from both sides of the Atlantic to safeguard the vision of the rules-based order, where countries are protected from spheres of influence and oppressive domination. Rogue states breaking the foundational rules of global security and peace must face a commensurate response. The world needs united and devoted action to save Ukraine in order to save the world.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Chinese infantry standing on a destroyed Vietnamese T-34 near Lang Son, 1979

[thesoftestcowboy]

I'm curious about something... (and fucked up the last poll. if u saw no u didnt)

*As in, you enjoy listening to it, like it aesthetically, think of it as attractive, whatever. This is NOT about whether or not you understand the language or if you like whatever you associate with it or whether or not it's "useful" (e.g. If you do not speak a single word of japanese but really love how it sounds, vote for it. if you think italian sounds sexy but don't really care about visiting Italy, vote for it. If you like the look of the hebrew alphabet but not how it sounds, DONT vote for that. It's about the sound.)

Before you come at me: These categories are not perfect. Some of them are sub-categories of a bigger family (Indo-European), some languages are in the same category but sound really different etc etc. I had to leave out or group some of these together in a way that I felt made most sense for what I wanna know & the demographics of this site. I'm not a linguistics expert.

Feel free to share your thoughts in comments or tags! 👍

[arsonistblue]

these are all off the top of my head, so i apologize if a listed language is technically part of another language family/branch!

also, i wish i had more than ten options, but alas (so if you speak a language that isn’t in any of these families/branches please tell me, i’m really curious!!)

[accio-victuuri]

wang yibo - one and only movie wins BRICS award

On the evening of the 23rd local time, the 2024 BRICS Film Festival concluded in Moscow, the capital of Russia, and China’s “One and Only” won the Special Jury Award.

According to reports, the BRICS Film Festival attracted dozens of films from Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, Egypt and other countries to participate in the competition and exhibition. China selected the film "One and Only" to participate.

After the review, the Chinese film "One and Only" won the Special Jury Award. The head of the Chinese delegation and chairman of Changying Group solemnly accepted the award on behalf of the crew and delivered an acceptance speech, saying that they will continue to strengthen Sino-Russian film cooperation and exchanges and recommend more outstanding Chinese films to participate in the BRICS Film Festival.