Interview with Professor Sergey Radchenko

In this article, the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs spoke with renowned expert on Sino-Russian foreign policy, Professor Sergey Radchenko, the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at SAIS Europe in Bologna and faculty member of the Center.

 

With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the relationship between China and Russia has come to the fore. For Professor Sergey Radchenko, the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at SAIS Europe in Bologna and faculty member at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs in Washington, DC, Sino-Russian relations have been a lived history. Born in a little town on the border between the USSR and China and raised on the Soviet island of Sakhalin, just north of Japan, Professor Radchenko became a young witness to the break-up of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Russian Federation that followed. The Russian Far East – once the most militarized and isolated part of the Soviet empire – suddenly opened up to one of world’s most dynamic regions, Northeast Asia. This regional transformation fed Professor Radchenko’s early interest in studying Russia’s interactions with its Asian neighbors.
 
Now a leading expert on Sino-Russian foreign policy, Professor Radchenko began his international academic journey as a high school student, studying abroad in East Texas. As an undergraduate, he studied international affairs in London, focusing on China, and in Hong Kong, further fueling his interest in Chinese language and history. Returning to the United Kingdom, Professor Radchenko completed his Ph.D. at the London School of Economics, and lived in half a dozen countries, including Mongolia and China, before joining the faculty of Cardiff University’s School of Law and Politics as a Professor of International Relations. Now the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins SAIS Europe, where he delivered the Wilson E. Schmidt Inaugural Lecture titled, “Are We Living Through Another Cold War?” at the Bologna Institute for Policy Research Bologna campus, Professor Radchenko has been quoted in and has published across leading media outlets, including The Atlantic, The Economist, Foreign Affairs—in which he recently published an article on the lessons China can learn from German history with colleague Professor Mary Elise Sarotte—and War on the Rocks, among others. In addition to his frequent commentary, Professor Radchenko has published groundbreaking books, including Two Suns in the Heavens: The Sino-Soviet Struggle for Supremacy (Wilson Center Press & Stanford University Press, 2009) and Unwanted Visionaries: The Soviet Failure in Asia (Oxford University Press, 2014).
 
Professor Radchenko is also a faculty member of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs in Washington, DC. “Being in an environment like that is hugely important,” he says, speaking of his colleagues in Washington. “They relate to what I do, but also drive me to pursue new areas.” An expert historian of the Cold War and Chinese and Russian foreign policies, Professor Radchenko takes a highly interdisciplinary approach to the study of Sino-Russian history. In his quest to interpret human behavior, Professor Radchenko integrates psychology and sociology into his historically-informed study of Sino-Russian relations.
 
History reveals a tumultuous relationship between China and Russia, culminating a shared goal of avoiding conflict today. However, Professor Radchenko notes that most people have misunderstood the historical nuances of this relationship. He points out that relations between the two countries reflect a complicated history extending centuries into the past. Much of the dynamic was contentious, featuring border clashes and territorial annexation, and reached a zenith in the 1960s that almost resulted in a war. This tense relationship allowed third parties to enter the space between the two countries. Professor Radchenko points out that a strength of Kissinger and Nixon’s diplomacy was to see “the opportunity to bridge the gap with China and basically utilize the contradictions between China and the Soviet Union.” At one point the United States’ respective relationships with China and the Soviet Union were better than that between the latter two.
 
But China and the Russia learned from negative experiences like these and concluded that it was better to maintain good relations, Professor Radchenko says. In his War on the Rocks article last summer, “Driving A Wedge Between China and Russia Won’t Work,” Professor Radchenko argued that Sino-Russia relations were not as fragile as some believe. “The assumption that the United States can drive a wedge between China and Russia is flawed,” he wrote. “If history has taught them anything, it is that it’s much better to be good neighbors than to be at each other’s throats.” This notion stretches across the political spectrum in Russia—“Today, there is a broad policy consensus in Russia about the desirability of keeping Sino-Russian relations on a positive trajectory in political and economic terms,” he wrote. A shared memory of the bitter confrontation the two states experienced in the 1960s underpins this sentiment, Professor Radchenko explains, and it is not quite as easy for a third party to enter the space between the two countries now.
 
But as Professor Radchenko pointed out in The Economist, the relationship is not the same as the Sino-Soviet alliance of old: “They are aligned, not allied, and this arrangement allows each a degree of flexibility, permitting their interests to converge and diverge as the situation requires.” This does not mean that they can operate with complete independence of each other. Drawing on the lessons of German history, Professor Radchenko and Professor Sarotte’s recent article in Foreign Affairs on China’s position vis-à-vis Russia in the war in Ukraine highlights this. As China remains uninvolved in the conflict, “[t]here are indications that the Kremlin is putting pressure on the Chinese to get off the fence,” they note. “Beijing finds itself at a critical inflection point,” they write, “one where Xi will have to make a choice: either distancing his country from Putin’s atrocious war and trying to bring it to a close or continuing to risk China’s future by remaining in the bad company of a highly unpredictable, dangerous actor.” As Professor Radchenko and Professor Sarotte argue, it is in China’s interest to end the war in Ukraine. “Instead of being dragged along by Russia, China should use the leverage that it has with Putin to persuade him to desist.” As the world watches China’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Sino-Russian partnership is facing a real test.