Sun 16 (Yun Sun is a senior associate with the East Asia Program at the Henry L. Stimson Center and a non-resident fellow of the Brookings Institution. Her expertise is in Chinese foreign policy, US-China relations and China’s relations with neighbouring countries and authoritarian regimes., 2016, "Sino-Russia Strategic Alignment and Potential Impact of a Trump Presidency" Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep08018) ank
Rarely has any issue been more polarising than the assessment of Sino-Russia relations in recent years. Analysts and observers are either convinced of another emerging Sino-Russia alliance against the West, or dismissive of any meaningful, sustainable strategic relationship between the two while citing their ‘peril of proximity’, painful historical record and the strategic distrust. Neither description accurately reflects the nature of Sino-Russia relations under the Xi Jinping administration in China. In the past three years, China and Russia have forged new foundations for a third option- a strategic alignment primarily based upon a shared sense of vulnerability and threat perceptions regarding their external environment. This is largely the result of the heightened confrontation both China and Russia have encountered vis-à-vis the United States due to their assertive foreign policy in the Western Pacific and in East Europe, (especially in Ukraine), respectively. Furthermore, the personality and preferences of the Chinese top leader and the general public have also played an important role in constructing the strategic alignment as well. The key variable in the Sino-Russia relations is exogenous rather than endogenous, otherwise such strategic alignment would have emerged between the two neighbours long before with or without the changing external environments for both countries. The United States, or the threat perception of the US, has been an indispensable determinant in both countries’ calculations regarding their mutual alignment decisions and actions. In this sense, the alignment between Beijing and Moscow is critically subject to the changes to, and impacts by, their evolving relations with the United States. President-Elect Trump has vowed to improve relations with Russia and indicated his willingness to negotiate with China. While the fundamental differences and the persisting structural issues between the US and the two countries are unlikely to be fundamentally changed by one president, the potential impact of the Trump presidency over Sino-Russia alignment should not be underestimated. ‘The best stage of Sino-Russia relations’ in the Chinese perception
