The Manchester China Institute

With China’s tacit support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been much talk in global media about a new China-Russia alliance against the West. This has been supported by evidence of military cooperation, such as joint naval drills in the East China Sea in December 2022, as well as Xi Jinping’s advocacy of an authoritarian “Beijing model” as an ideological and political alternative to the “Washington consensus”. But China and Russia have a long history of conflict as well, from imperial Russian aggressions against Qing China, to the Sino-Soviet split during the Cold War.

So what are the prospects for Sino-Russian relations in the 21st century? How do mainland Chinese view Russia? We are joined by four scholars currently working on different aspects of China-Russia relations:

• Ed Pulford, Lecturer in Chinese Studies, Manchester (Chinese views of Putin; Sino-Russian friendship);
• Elena Barabantseva, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Manchester (male Chinese views of Russian and Ukrainian women);
• Tao Wang, Hallsworth Research Fellow, Manchester (what surveys reveal about Chinese attitudes towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine);
• Yi Wang, Assistant professor in politics, U. Birmingham (recent Chinese social media debates over Russia).