Thread by @DrRadchenko

The Sino-Russian joint statement, signed in Beijing, is an extremely interesting programmatic document. I am sure we'll soon have the English translation but here's the link to the Russian version: kremlin.ru/supplement/5770. Some observations. 👇🏿

1) This is a major effort to construct a globally-relevant ideological narrative to legitimise Beijing's and Moscow's bid to rework the international order. This is done by semantically challenging widely accepted terms like "international community" and "democracy."

We see this in the preamble, where they talk about Western / US interference in other countries' internal affairs, which is "rejected by the international community."

In section 1, we have a full-fledged discourse on democracy, more or less in the spirit of the recent joint Sino-Russian oped in the National Interest. The central argument: a) democracy is whatever we say it is. b) If it's not what we see it is, then see a).

The same section also talks about "democratisation of international relations," which is a long-running theme of Putin, and which contradicts another one of his long-running themes - strengthening the role of the UN Security Council, where Russia enjoys the right of veto.

This latter theme also appears in the text. My guess is that the "democratic" section was based on a Chinese draft.

2) Section 3 is pretty interesting. Here we have Russia's wording about "indivisible security," which also underpins Moscow's security guarantees ultimatum. Beijing and Moscow promise support in defending each other's "core interests."

The next paragraph shows what this means as far as China is concerned - Taiwan is specifically listed. But we don't have any mention of Ukraine (as Russia's "core interest"). Instead, the following paragraphs talks about "neighbouring areas".

This is interesting because, as @Igor_Denisov has shown, the Chinese seem keen to underplay Ukraine. The fact that it featured nearly at the bottom of Wang Yi's discussion with Lavrov (according to the Chinese readout) and did not even appear in the Russian readout is telling.

3) Other interesting bits in the section: China & Russia jointly oppose NATO enlargement. Criticise "Cold War" ideology. BTW Cold War comes up three times in the documents, which, as a Cold War historian, I find pretty interesting.

4) Lots of criticism of the US in the document. INF & AUKUS in particular. CSTO / Kazakhstan is not broached but it's telling that the statement has five paragraphs on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which the Chinese clearly prefer to the CSTO in matters of Central Asia.

5) The general tenor of the document is China's support for Russia's actions. But the fact that Ukraine is not mentioned *anywhere* in the text would suggest to me that the Chinese are putting some distance between themselves and the Russians on this elephant in the room.