CHINA'S FIRST tropical spaceport, Wenchang, is a testament to national swagger. During the Cold War, China launched missiles from the Gobi Desert and other desolate places inland, fearing enemy attacks. But as China became more confident that it could deter invaders, Wenchang became a prime gateway to space. So close to the equator, on the southern island of Hainan, the Earth's rotation gives a boost to every launch. The palm tree-lined coastal area allows the largest Long March missiles to be delivered by sea. Wenchang finally opened in 2016. The tightly guarded launch areas are flanked by a science education center (closed to foreign visitors), replica rockets, statues of flag-waving astronauts and other tourist kitsch, in a Communist Party tribute to Florida.
Here, in this showcase for Chinese technology, a privileged foreign friend – Russia – is given a valuable piece of real estate. The Moscow Power Engineering Institute, a major Russian technical university, has been invited to open a branch in Wenchang with space for 10,000 students in aerospace engineering and sciences. Russian and Chinese scholars and officials held a groundbreaking ceremony in January. Although the 40-hectare campus is bare ground for now, Chinese media have already announced that the Hainan Institute will, unusually, be a Russian-run academy, rather than a joint venture with a Chinese university.
The Russian outpost in Wenchang will be located next to a large, partially built space technology park. On a sultry weekday, a forest of cranes rises above future laboratories, a satellite assembly shed and a radar receiving station. This prime location is proof that Sino-Russian space cooperation, long hampered by mutual distrust between the countries, is making increasing progress.
Examples abound in a study published last year by the China Aerospace Studies Institute, a research arm of the US Air Force. The study describes Russia's growing willingness to help China build missile warning and defense systems and to sell the country advanced rocket engines, overcoming doubts about selling Russian technology to others. It details Chinese and Russian agreements to connect their respective satellite navigation systems, Beidou and Glonass. The two countries have pledged to build a joint base on the moon and cooperate in detecting space debris – a technology that is also useful for tracking an adversary's satellites. The study quotes Xi Jinping, China's supreme leader, linking technical cooperation with Russia to plans to “reform the global governance system” (i.e., pushing America out of the spotlight).
The research describes why the countries have come closer together. China wants to leverage Russia's decades of expertise in space. The Russian space program needs China's money. The country also wants access to Chinese components since Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea in 2014 and Russia was hit by Western sanctions. Putin's all-out war on Ukraine, launched in 2022, has deepened ties between China and Russia. Ordinary Chinese citizens are noticing it, even in sleepy Wenchang.
Zhao Chenxi is head of the Russian department at the Hainan College of Foreign Studies, a vocational school in Wenchang. It is a much more modest institution than the Russian-run campus in her city. But the opening of the Moscow school should give its Russian-speaking students “more confidence in their future careers,” she says. Maybe she's right. Chaguan met students in a Russian culture class who described Russia as a land of opportunity. at Altai State University in Western Siberia. One of them is a 20-year-old surnamed Gao. He calls Mr Putin “very imperious” and the person he most admires after Xi Jinping.
There are parallels between space cooperation and China's broader support for Russia. Western sanctions following the invasion of Crimea have pushed Russia's space industry to overcome its misgivings about China. Today, U.S. officials accused Chinese companies of supplying microelectronics, drone motors and machine tools that Russia's defense industry uses to make missiles, tanks and planes for the war against Ukraine. These dual-use items undermine Western sanctions designed to deprive Russia of weapons. Imposing sanctions was a rational strategy. Yet they have pushed Russia into the arms of China. Russia sends oil and gas to the east at a discount, and imports Chinese electronics, cars and more.
A partner against the West
Even before Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, landed in China on April 24 for a brief visit, the Biden administration and the Chinese government had publicly feuded over commercial sales to Russia that would support Putin's war machine. As President Joe Biden and his team impose ever higher tariffs on Chinese goods and increasingly strict bans on sensitive high-tech exports to China, they cannot credibly use promises of access to US markets to change Chinese behavior. Instead, Team Biden is taking a two-track approach. First come the threats of US sanctions on Chinese banks that finance sales to Russia's defense industry. Then suggestions that Europe's more open markets could close if Chinese companies help Russia attack Ukraine.
US sanctions pose a powerful threat: Banks cut off from the dollar will lose access to most international markets. It is less clear that China actually believes it risks losing European markets. When the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, met Mr Xi in Beijing on April 16, he raised the issue of dual-use items sold to Russia. The Chinese leader gave no discernible ground against Ukraine.
For years, American and Western politicians have taken comfort in the idea that China and Russia had an unequal, unstable “marriage of convenience” that sat well with neither. Mutual distrust limited ties. But look carefully, even in remote places like Wenchang and Sino-Russian interests are aligning that could prove permanent.
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