NEO: Interviews: Russia and China are not planning to attack anyone, but we would like to contain attacks against ourselves. Andrey Denisov: 26-12-2024

Interviews Andrey DENISOV: “Russia and China are not planning to attack anyone, but we would like to contain attacks against ourselves” Yuliya Novitskaya, December 26, 2024 Exclusive interview with a senator, the First Deputy Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the People’s Republic of China (2012-2022) Andrey DENISOV. What is the West most worried about regarding the deepening of ties between Moscow and Beijing? How does the formula ‘double counteraction against double deterrence’ work? Is it possible to view Russian-Chinese relations as a stabilising factor in international affairs? This and much else was considered during our talk. – Andrey Ivanovich, this year we are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with our closest neighbour, the People’s Republic of China. Today, in the conditions of global turbulence, Russia and China are demonstrating a pragmatic approach in the sphere of interstate cooperation, respecting the interests of one another. In your opinion, what is the West most worried about regarding the deepening of ties between Moscow and Beijing? The West not only sees the whole world in a contrasting black and white image, but also emphasises this vision in every possible way – The West not only sees the whole world in a contrasting black and white image, but also emphasises this vision in every possible way. It has divided the entire world into democracies and authoritarian regimes. Both Moscow and Beijing, according to this scale, pertain to authoritarian regimes, which makes us – in their opinion – evil; they are good and we are bad. Although, in all actuality, we have clearly seen the real picture of their ‘democracy’ following the spectacle the United States created in electing their own president. If the word ‘democracy’ is applied there, then it is in very large quotation marks. Not to mention how the West, which has declared itself the beacon of democracy, invades the democratic election processes of other countries with a rudeness unprecedented in recent world history. Look at what is happening in (I will not name countries, I will just point to a region) Eastern Europe, where the results of the development of the political process, which are, first and foremost, expressed through elections, do not equate to the frankly hegemonistic interests of the West. There is not only meddling, but an unfathomable invasion of the life of a state; absolutely shameless and, as I have already used this day-to-day word, rude. And – take note – unpunished. We (although neither China, nor Russia have any sort of relation to these processes) are, apparently, authoritarian regimes far from democracy. I would say that these are the ideological roots of the confrontation, but there are also practical things. In fearing for its hegemony, the West, as I have already stated, is monitoring with twofold energy and attention and attacking those countries that can in some way present an obstacle to this. In the political and military-political sense, this is Russia, and in the economic sense – China. Therefore, the deepening of relations between Moscow and Beijing is a sort of compilation of the most capable powers opposing the West in the modern world. The West does not hide that it would like to separate our two states, the views of which vis-à-vis the modern world are rather close – or, on certain matters, shared – first and foremost to deal with us separately. They want to deal with us, as they cannot re-educate us. – There have already been attempts to re-educate us, we all clearly remember the 90s… – They also wanted to re-educate China (this was a bit earlier in the 80s), making a substantial effort to do so. Until now, however, it seems that the West has understood that this educational process has failed. Thus, we either must be subjugated through force or, as it is in the case of Russia, simply destroyed. How else can the idea of dealing Russia (a nuclear power) a strategic defeat, openly expressed by certain Western leaders, be understood? This can only be achieved through liquidation. These are not made-up concerns; it is what we are dealing with on a day-to-day basis. Or, for example, recently an OSCE session was held. Which kind of statements were presented by our opponents? Look at the current work of the UN Security Council, when the touchiest subjects are being discussed, and then everything will become clear. – You touched upon the UN…In the UN Security Council, Russia and China vote in solidarity in 8 out of 10 cases. What, first and foremost, does this show? Perhaps that Moscow and Beijing’s views of the modern world and world order are identical? – As for 8 out of 10 cases, that is a very approximate estimate. It would be beneficial to verify this from the point of view of arithmetic. But even that is of no importance. What is important is that we truly do – usually – vote like our Chinese partners. But not always. – Why? – Because we are not allies, we do not have the obligation of allies before one another vis-à-vis various international issues. We are two large states. We have our own, sometimes specific, interests. For example, in our case, it would be the situation surrounding Ukraine. China also has some issues with its neighbours, I will not mention with which. It happens that large states experience such problems and we are not at all obliged to agree here. We may, as, for example, China did vis-à-vis Ukraine, keep our views and approaches. Another thing is that our Chinese partners express that they understand the logic behind our approaches. We also understand the logic behind their approaches, however that does not mean that we have obligation before one another. The deepening of relations between Moscow and Beijing is a sort of compilation of the most capable powers opposing the West in the modern world You know, there exists a dilemma about the glass behind half empty or half full. In this case it is not even half-half. If considering the figures presented, then 20% of the glass is empty and 80% is full. This glass is more full than not. This is starkly evident and double as valuable and is not the result of bloc discipline, as is the case with our Western opponents in the Security Council. In our case, as you rightfully pointed out, the most important thing is close – I would even say identical – views of the world and the world order. They coincide on a number of issues; it may even be more appropriate to speak about similarity rather than coincidence. In any case, we and our Chinese partners view the world from approximately the same angle. This is not a far-fetched position adapted to the diktat of someone else. Indeed, both we and our Chinese partners think this way and behave accordingly. – In early November, consultations on the strategic security of Russia and China, which have already become a tradition, took place in Beijing, where it was stated that our countries’ partnership plays an important stabilising role in world affairs. It seems that not everyone understands this. For example, the US National Security Strategy identifies Russia as an immediate threat, while China is its main rival. Meanwhile, the US policy of the so-called dual deterrence of Russia and China endangers the entire global security. In your opinion, to which degree will ‘double counteraction against double deterrence be able to halt the US threat? – I would start my answer from the end. The formula of ‘double counteraction against double deterrence’ is able to put a stop to this and quite successfully so. That is why there is no world war. That is why it has, so far, been possible to somehow limit and keep in control the aggressive and hegemonic interests of our US opponents, along with those who are in the same camp as them. This is, for example, aided by the rather broad and extensive mechanism of political consultations that we have with China as our foreign policy partner. Consultations on strategic stability issues are only one part of the consultative mechanism that involves our state and government structures. On our side, there is the Security Council and, of course, the Foreign Ministry. Consultations on strategic security issues from our side are conducted by the Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council, Sergei Shoigu. His predecessor was Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev. In China there is an official and a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China who is principally responsible for the external activities of his country. That role is currently filled by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, an experienced diplomat and politician. The very subject of these consultations makes it possible to discuss a fairly wide range of issues related not only to bilateral relations to the assessment of certain international problems, but also to communicating the motives and approaches of one’s actions to one’s partner. For example, we do not just analyse any given situation in the Middle East, but also focus on what we consider to be the right thing to do in order to defuse this conflict. Therefore, consultations of this kind play a very important role. As for Russian-Chinese relations as a stabilising factor in international affairs, here I would like to return to BRICS again. I have already said that unlike our opponents or rivals from the Western camp, who act on the basis of the rules and principles of bloc discipline, the group of countries that can be called the Global South, the global or world majority (and this, I remind you once again, is approximately 150 countries of the world, some of which are BRICS member states) has common or similar approaches to assessing the modern world, striving for equality, developing, realising and, accordingly, implementing the collective interests and tasks of all mankind and not of some particular group of countries at the expense of another group of countries. That is all, of course, there is. In general, however, we are still a less stable and more amorphous association. If we take a small group of BRICS member countries, then, of course, the Russian-Chinese dialogue and interaction within it are a stabilising factor. Do you know what this looks like? In a saline solution, a crystallisation point appears in it, around which a solid structure is built. This is precisely what demonstrates the stabilising role of Russia and China in today’s still unstable big world. – Is that why our Western opponents consider us an explicitly hostile force? – Unfortunately so. We have never talked about this in relation to them. For us, our opponents are those who directly threaten our existence. We, and especially China, do not threaten the existence of the West in any way. Beijing has traditionally built its policy solely on conciliatory principles. China is very closely involved in international communication, international trade and international economic and investment cooperation. It presents all sorts of promising projects so as to achieve far-reaching economic goals. Take, for example, China’s One Belt, One Road project… You are quite right to point out that we are, of course, rivals for the West, but we are rivals in a different way. Russia is a kind of immediate threat; we are not considered a powerful and promising rival. They just want to deal with us as soon as possible. They want to destroy, demolish us, as they demolish a piece from a chessboard, so that it does not pose any problem. For some reason, in the West they think that this is how they can handle us. China, with its economic power, is comparable to the economic power of the United States, even in numerical expressions. In terms of gross domestic product by purchasing power parity, China surpassed the US six years ago. If we recalculate the gross product in terms of the ratio of currencies, then the United States is also slightly ahead of China, as the US dollar is strong everywhere. In China, the national currency is the Chinese yuan, which has a certain exchange rate against the dollar and there is therefore a small difference. A number of industrial and agricultural production indicators show that China has long surpassed the United States, whose economy largely depends on non-wealth-generating service sectors. Therefore, it is appropriate to talk about the equality of these two economies. If we take the technological and scientific-technical side of the matter, the Americans were sure that Beijing would never catch up with them. Well, it caught up! And in a number of fields Beijing is already ahead, for example in artificial intelligence, batteries for electric vehicles and solar panels, as well as microelectronics. For this reason they consider it some sort of potential threat and think that if China surpasses them technologically, it will immediately run to destroy them. That is not so. China has always demonstrated a fairly peaceful approach to determining the vector of its policy, aimed primarily at cooperation rather than rivalry. Therefore, it turns out that we have to respond to double deterrence, although it differs slightly in relation to Russia and China, with double counteraction, which is more or less equal and directed against the same opponent. But this does not satisfy us at all, as we also advocate for cooperation, constructive interaction and not outright hostility, largely dictated by ideological factors. If we are listed as bad, then by definition we are bad. And they are the good ones and the good ones have to fight the bad ones. We say that there are no good ones or bad ones. There are countries with their own national interests, with their own ideas about the modern world. Let us get along with each other somehow. But they tell us: no, we will not get along with you, because we are democratic regimes and you are authoritarian. What can we do if our opponents look at us like this? We have to respond with double counteraction. I want to emphasise once again that it is a retaliatory action, albeit a double one, and not an attack. Not a double attack, not a double aggression, but a double counteraction. There is a defensive vision of confrontation embedded in this very word. We are not going to attack anyone, but we would like to deter attacks against ourselves. – Today, China is the main trade and economic partner of Russia. Our mutual turnover has almost doubled, though the figures are still rather humble. How are our countries investing into the economies of one another? – Even though the figures are, as you said, quite humble, it depends on the background against which they are considered. When our mutual trade turnover did not surpass $80-90-100 billion a year, but the US-China trade exceeded $700 billion, there was indeed a big difference. When our trade turnover last year, according to Chinese statistics, amounted to $240 billion (according to our figures it was $228 billion; this difference is due to differing calculation methods, this happens in customs statistics) and the US one fell below $700 billion, this is still a gap, but it is not as big anymore. Our trade is indeed growing at a fairly rapid pace and, let’s be honest, this is a large figure for a country with the size of our economy. A few years back we came in 10th-11th place in China’s trade turnover with foreign countries, a position we maintained. And then we switched to 4th place. This is a very good indicator reflecting our real economic opportunities and needs. For China, we are still not the most significant economic partner. In general, China trades not only with individual countries, but with entire groups of countries and builds its statistics on the basis of this group approach. China’s main partner is ASEAN countries, followed by the European Union in second place and the United States in third. As I said, we are in fourth place. Our trade is developing, which is encouraging, but at the same time we understand that there are certain limitations related to economic opportunities and, probably, to each other’s needs. We supply China with a large amount of energy resources: oil, natural gas and electricity. The more dynamically the Chinese economy develops, the higher its demand for energy resources. – If it is theoretically possible that production rates in China will slow down, will this also mean a decrease in demand for the supply of energy resources? – Exactly right. That is why longer-term economic ties generate mutual investment. We still have a lot of work to do in this direction. We have investments, they are truly mutual. China is probably a bigger investor, but we also provide technical assistance to China, for example in the construction of two nuclear power plants. China has very ambitious long-term plans for the development of its nuclear energy sector and they have their own industry for the production of nuclear-fuelled power units. Since their plans are somewhat more than their own capabilities, our reactors, which are known to be the most economical, reliable and safe in the world, are quite an attractive product for them, as well as for the whole world. If we talk about investing, then, of course, in a normal, stable investment environment, the emphasis is on investing at the level of medium and even small enterprises. And here we have certain problems. We do not always coincide in terms of economic structures, legislative systems and simply the approaches of the business community to building relationships with each other. Unfortunately, we have not yet overcome the focus on an early result, but investments are for a long time, sometimes several years or even decades. This is how China works with Western partners. In our case, the results are still modest. But the future, of course, is in investing, as you need to trade not only finished products, but investment projects that supply goods, for example equipment for investment construction. Such a transition is already taking place, but the pace is still insignificant. We need to work on this. As far as I know, the governments of our countries are working hard on this through existing management bodies for economic cooperation. To be continued… Interview by Yulia NOVITSKAYA, writer and correspondent for “New Eastern Outlook” More on this topic Europe’s Grand Bargain With Trump to Save NATO Salman Rafi Sheikh The West will not succeed in alienating Russia from China Mikhail Gamandiy-Egorov The Hanging of the American Empire on the Israeli Scaffold – Beijing and Moscow Attend the Show Lama El Horr Russia-China led Multipolar World Simon Westwood Sullivan in Beijing: The US Pulling A tired Trick From 1956 Suez Crises Simon Chege Ndiritu Tags: Russia and China About Contact Us Contributors Home Politics Economy Security Society Asia Americas Africa Oceania Europe Interviews Publications X Telegram GAB Vkontakte OK Network edition New Eastern Outlook 2010-2025 Republishing of the articles is welcomed with reference to NEO. The views of the authors do not necessarily coincide with the opinion of the editorial board. Институт востоковедения РАН