Sino-Russian Joint Statement concerning the Deepening of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in the New Era

The following are my takeaways from the  current March 2023 “Sino-Russian Joint Statement concerning the Deepening of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in the New Era”.

Many topics had been touched upon before, in Beijing’s and Moscow’s “joint statement on international relations”, issued in Beijing in February 2022, but that statement had been issued shortly before Russia tried a full invasion of Ukraine.

According to the March 2023 statement, Sino-Russian relations are not similar to military and political alliances of the cold-war era, and not directed against third countries. Beijing and Moscow say they want to build “exemplary major-power relations” – viewing each others as “priority partners”, respecting each other all along, and treating each other as equals.

That’s basically the same model Xi Jinping tried to introduce into Chinese-American relations ten years ago, as described by Xinhua back then in June 2013, and further explained by Yang Jiechi, CPC Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group secretary at the time.

The March 2023 statement then highlights the usual emerging multi-polar world, one where “peace, development, cooperation and win-win are the unstoppable historic trend” (reads as if there had been no international cooperation before 2023), and an increasingly strong position of emerging markets and developing countries and where regional powers (地区大国, Russia? :)))  “resolutely defend their legitimate interests”.

^{Bragging in German, eating humble pie in Chinese: Sputnik/Rossya Segodnya propaganda celebrates first anniversary of full-scale Ukraine invasion as “dawn of a new world order (Febr 24, 2023) and covers Russia’s support for “China’s core interests” (March 22, 2023)}

Economic Cooperation

The two sides “adhere to the principle of mutual benefit” and intend to further deepen cooperation in the fields of modernisation.  A fair and predictable investment environment is to be created, and financial cooperation (with increased use of own currencies) and mutual supplies of agricultural products and food (互输农产品和粮食的多样性和供应量) are also on the agenda. There’s talk about diversity in those supplies, too, so it seems to avoid the question if this is meant to support food security in China, or if it is just meant to make Russian markets more diverse.
Increased use of own currencies isn’t a new topic. Xi Jinping raised the topic in a speech to a Gulf-Cooperation Council audience, too, in December last year, and Putin had advocated it as soon as in 2008. Cooperation on technology and innovation, such as AI, internet of things, 5G, low-carbon economy are also mentioned by the 2023 joint statement.

The remarks about iinvestment also refer to a Sino-Russian Investment Cooperation Planning Outline (中俄投资合作规划纲要), which is part of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship.  Supply chain stability and security, optimized trade structures and cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises of both sides are to be promoted.

It’s hard to tell from declarations like this one how far it will help Russia to develop its economy, but it does probably throw Moscow an economic lifeline. That, however, goes without saying even without this month’s joint statement. China doesn’t want Putin to go under.

Russian-Ukrainian war

Which leads us to the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The two sides express deep concern about comprehensive challenges for international security, express believe that there is a shared fate of all countries and peoples and that no country should achieve its own security at the costs of other countries’ security.
双方对国际安全面临的严峻挑战深表关切，认为各国人民命运与共，任何国家都不应以他国安全为代价实现自身安全。

It hadn’t read much differently in February 2022, a few weeks prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine:

The sides are gravely concerned about serious international security challenges and believe that the fates of all nations are interconnected. No State can or should ensure its own security separately from the security of the rest of the world and at the expense of the security of other States. The international community should actively engage in global governance to ensure universal, comprehensive, indivisible and lasting security.

Less obviously related to the Ukraine war, maybe, but from the 2023 statement, one year on:

The two sides emphasize the significance of the “Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races” and reaffirm that “a nuclear war cannot be won or won”.
双方强调《五个核武器国家领导人关于防止核战争与避免军备竞赛的联合声明》的重要意义，重申“核战争打不赢也打不得”。

How reliable this assurance will be, remains to be seen. Russia has toyed with nuclear threats during the past year, and continues to do so.

Multipolar World

In the broadly  and vaguely defined field of “terrorism”, the 2023 statement is more detailed than in that of 2022, demanding “objective, fair and professional” investigation of Nord Stream attack (应对“北溪”管线爆炸事件进行客观、公正、专业的调查) and agreeing to strengthening law enforcement cooperation concerning the “three evils”, including color revolutions, East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), transnational organized crime, economic crimes, and drugs trade. Listing ETIM, popular uprisings and organized crime in one go is certainly an intentional step to make the Sino-Russian public (and unknown swathes of international public opinion) get used to this kind of world view.

As for the world beyond bilateral relations, the multipolar one with the unstoppable historic trends of peace, development, cooperation and win-win, Beijing and Moscow emphasize “the democratization of international relations“, every country’s “right to choose its own path of development (with the likely exceptions of Taiwan and Ukraine, if it is up to China and Russia), and a continued implementation of the Agreement on Economic and Trade Cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Eurasian Economic Union signed on May 17, 2018.^*)

Taiwan

As mentioned before, “democratization of international relations” isn’t for everyone in the Sino-Russian statements  – not for Ukraine or Taiwan.

Russia reiterates its scrupulous respect of the one-China principle, acknowledges that Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, opposes any form of “Taiwan independence”, firmly supports China’s actions to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
(俄方重申恪守一个中国原则，承认台湾是中国领土不可分割的一部分，反对任何形式的“台独”，坚定支持中方维护本国主权和领土完整的举措。)

Indeed, both issues. Ukraine and Taiwan, are closely related. Both China and Russia intend to annex foreign territory (Russia has already done so, although not to the extent  it would like to, and China, if it wants to attack Taiwan, will have to depend on its Russian hinterland. However, Moscow’s compliance with Beijing’s “one-China” charade is no particular hint into that direction, as it is being played along with by many other countries too, although in varying degrees. All the same, China’s planned aggression of its own, against Taiwan, is one of the reasons why it needs to cultivate relations with Moscow as closely as it does.

Military concerns

China and Russia (apparently) see U.S. in breach of Biological Weapons Convention, and call for institutionalized effective inspection mechanisms. Demands for  were quite likely included at Russia’s particular request. The Ukraine bioweapons conspiracy theory of March 2022 – a year ago – may remain a scarecrow in the Moscow muppet show, and probably works well on parts of the global public. The March 2023 statement deplores a U.S. “cold-war mentality” and the “negative influence” of the Indo-Pacific Strategy” on regional peace and stability in that region.

As far as Beijing and Moscow are concerned, NATO isn’t welcome in the Indo-Pacific either. The statement says that NATO should remain a regional (i. e. European) and defensive alliance. The statement also expresses concern about NATO “undermining” Asia-Pacific “peace & stability”.

Generally speaking, China seems to get more out of the strategic partnershp and the “major-power relationship” than Russia. That becomes obvious, because apart from the EAEU bits, most concerns are rather about China’s than about Russia’s. There are, however, demands that there should be no unilateral sanctions without approval of the United Nations Security Council (not an issue in the 2022), and a note that

the two sides oppose politization of international cultural cooperation, and discrimination against people in the fields of culture, education, science, and sports, based on nationality, language, religion, political or other beliefs, or national or social origin.
双方反对国际人文合作政治化，反对以国籍、语言、宗教、政治或其他信仰、民族或社会出身为由歧视文化、教育、科学、体育界人士。

This may be read as a hint to the “Olympic Committee”, among others.

Covid Pandemic

I’ve left that out here. Both Sino-Russian statements, Febr 2022 and March 2023, are full of it, with the usual complaints and demands, but the world is moving on.

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Note

*)

There needs to be a mention of the institution that are supposed to help bring about the multipolar world, according to Beijing and Moscow. That would be – according both to this month’s and the 2022 statements – the WTO (including remarks that can be read as a Chinese reaction to “discrimination” against it concerning the chip industry), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS, G20, and APEC. Accession of the African Union was added to the G20 issue this time, but hadn’t been a year ago.

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Related / Updates

「主要重点是经济方面和高科技领域」, sputnik.cn, Mar 26, 2023
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China’s Position: Ukraine still hopes for the Best

On February 27, Ukraine issued a rejection of sorts of China’s February 24 position paper “on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis”. Advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Mykhailo Podolyak, told “Freedom TV”  that the only effective measure the position paper called for was “immediate cessation of fire.”

“This means that Russia will remain in the occupied territories, we will have a new dividing line, and we will have a slow absorption of Ukraine. That is, the slow death of Ukraine,” the TV station quoted Pdolyak.

The rejection from Zelensky’s office, but only in an unofficial interview, suggests that Kiev doesn’t want to anger Beijing and possibly provoke Chinese lethal-arms supplies to Russia that wouldn’t happen otherwise.

^{中共中央外事工作委员会办公室主任王毅会见乌克兰外长库列巴，慕尼黑，Febr 18, 2023}

In an article published on March 3, “Freedom TV” quotes interviewees as saying that “it is too early to say that China is openly opposing Ukraine”. China’s “global ambitions”, its long common border with Russia, and its dependence on Russian energy supplies as well as the two countries’ traditional alliance are quoted as factors supporting the bilateral relationship, but “Beijing will not sacrifice its own well-being because of Russia, experts are sure”.

Part of China’s “well-beings” is the arable land it owns in Ukraine. It shouldn’t be too difficult to replace, given that Beijing’s investment companies are scouting all continents for farmable land to buy or rent, but it wouldn’t be fun to see the goose being killed by Russia – even if it isn’t quite the “golden” goose.

Besides, at least one of “Voice of America’s” interlocutors, Taiwan International Strategic Study Society director Ching-Sheng Lo (羅慶生), took a rather critical view of China’s food security, a year ago.

Lo Ching-Sheng says: “Having bought that much grain, with storage for a year and a half, there’s nothing to care about – no problem in the short run. If this should turn into an Afghanistan kind of war of twenty years, China’s problems will be very big.”
罗庆生说：“因为中国买了太多粮食的关系，它储存了一年半的粮食，所以一年半之内它不会有事情，所以短期的话没问题。长期的话，如果说变成阿富汗战争那个样子打个20年，那中国的问题就很大了。”

But the Russian hinterland will count more than Ukraine – be it for China’s “global ambitions”, be it for its food security. Beijing took a speaking decision in early February, 2022, a few weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine started. Answer to the unfolding crisis: more grain imports from Russia.

Ukraine’s hopes on China are unreasonably high. As Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a fellow for international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote,

The party can survive setbacks in the chip war, but the stakes are much higher in the fight for food security. Failure on the food security front will threaten the survival of the regime.

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Related

Kuleba addresses Asia, March 22, 2022

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EU: “Just protecting the freedom of expression”

All the news that’s fit to blog.

Fri, Febr 24, 2023	One year after the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, China publishes a Confucius-says “position paper”. Originally, it had been advised as a “peace plan” by China’s supreme diplomat Wang Yi, but has since been de-ambitioned. Meantime, China’s foreign-ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) offers a clue as to why: FMPRC tweet, Febr 24, 2023
Thu, Febr 23, 2023	The central committee of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, 民進黨) approved a timetable that presidential nominations would be decided by April 12, and Legislative Yuan nominations in May. It appears to be widely accepted among the party’s legislators that, in the light of a poor showing in Taiwan’s “mid-term elections”, i. e. the country’s local elections in November 2022, more time is needed to prepare for the nation-wide presidential and legislative elections next year. Lai Ching-te, the incumbent Tsai administration’s current Vice President, has recently been elected chairman of the DPP, and Chen Jien-jen, Lai’s predecessor as Taiwan’s Vice President from 2016 to 2020, became head of the cabinet in January this year. Source: 央廣 / Radio Taiwan International
Wed, Febr 22, 2023	High-level foreign-policy and defense officials from Japan and China met at Japan’s foreign ministry in Tokyo on Wednesday. It was the first such meeting after an interruption of about four years. Chinese Deputy foreign minister Sun Weidong (孙卫东) was quoted as saying that there was “an important consensus” that neither country posed a threat for the other. However, Sun also said that there were Chinese concerns about Japan’s “strategic documents” issued in 2022, and Japan’s increasing cooperation with “outside forces” (域外力量), and about “negative tendencies” in Taiwan. Source: Radio Japan
Wed, Febr 22, 2023	Russian president Vladimir Putin met China’s chief diplomat Wang Yi in Moscow on Wednesday. The Kremlin published a detailed account of the meeting the same day. Source: Kremlin
Wed, Febr 15, 2023	Pyongyang was said to have gone under a Covid-related lockdown in late January, allegedly lasting from January 25 to 30. But was there a lockdown at all? Source: SinoNK
Tue, Febr 14, 2023	Chen Xuyuan (陈戌源) was – effectively, maybe not nominally yet – fired as chairman of the Chinese Football Association earliert his month, after having been confronted with the usual suspicions of “serious violations of discipline”, which appears to serve as a regular CPC codeword for corruption charges. Chen, a Shanghai native born in 1956, was also the football association’s deputy party secretary. Source: Ifeng
Mo, Febr 13, 2023	“Less then half the world is on the internet”, a BBC documentary broadcast told the audience on February 11, two days ahead of World Radio Day. Source: BBC
Tue, Febr 7, 2023	Critics of the EU’s censorship policy against Russia’s foreign-language service “RT” had a field day early this month, after the EU’s high-representative for for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, had told a “European Union External Action” (EEAS) conference that by imposing “restrictive measures on the Kremlin’s propaganda machinery and effectively ban them from operating within the European Union”, “we are not attacking the freedom of expression, we are just protecting the freedom of expression”. The EU’s “restrictive measures” aren’t limited to banning RT work from within the EU. Access to RT from EU countries is only possible via VPN. This includes the organization’s German and Chinese services. Main Source: EEAS

Wuxiwooshee: Trying to transcribe Major-General Jin Yinan

–

That’s Major-General Jin Yinan (金一南), a Chinese Major-General, Professor, author and CPBS radio columnist with peculiar opinions about the Netherlands and Norway (click picture underneath for more info):

Also, I find him difficult to understand.

Here goes:

Question: 欢迎收听一南军事论坛。我是[Zhou Yuting]。 北约军事委员会主席罗伯·鲍尔^*)一月二十八日在接受媒体采访时公开表态说，北约准备与俄罗斯直接对抗。他的这个表态迅速引发国际社会的广泛关注。对此，俄罗斯国家杜马回应称，这种言论正在将整个世界投入和战争。那么北约真的要直接与俄罗斯开战吗？ 和战争的威胁是否离人类越来越近。这些就是今天一南军事论坛要关注的话题。首先欢迎金一南教授。金一南教授，您好！

Jin Yinan: 你好！

Question: 我们都知道自从俄乌开战以来，以美国为首的西方国家在对俄罗斯实施多轮建立制裁的同时，还…不断的向乌克兰提供各种军事援助。那么，北约军事委员会主席罗伯·鲍尔的自谈表态是否意味着北约已经做好准备将直接与俄罗斯开战？

Jin Yinan: 他这种讲话就北约准备与俄罗斯直接对抗－－这种话的份量非常重。不是间接对抗。与俄罗斯直接对抗。几乎就说就让往这个欧洲大战faran中。这是一个非常严重的采取啊。我觉得一辈子两次世界大战see-sai和现在有长效和平的欧洲人应该对鲍尔的话感到非常震惊。 原来北约的整个态度－－谴责俄罗斯，制裁俄罗斯，提供优先的军备－－这个优先军备是什么呢？就wuxiwoosheewooshee现在慢慢转进wuxiwoosheewooshee。现在向乌克兰提供美国的Abrahams坦克，德国的”豹”式坦克等等适于最先进的一种坦克…，那就完全不是wuxiwoosheewooshee了，是wuxiwoosheewooshee。
[…..]

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Notes

Clues:	防御性的武器 — 进攻性的武器
*)	Robert Bauer
—	Want to try yourselves? Give it a go there (starts at 19′ 45”)

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German Chancellor’s first China Visit: Opportunities and Liabilities

It is going to be the first visit to China for German chancellor Olaf Scholz who took office late last year with a three-party coalition (SPD, Greens, and FDP).

On Friday (November 4), he is scheduled to meet “President” Xi Jinping, according to his office’s website, and following that, a meeting his planned with him and Li Keqiang, his actual colleague as head of a government. Bilateral relations, international topics such as climate change, Russia’s “war of aggression” against Ukraine and the situation in the east Asian region are said to be on the agenda. “Federal Chancellor Scholz will be accompanied by a business delegation during his visit”, the office’s statement concludes.

^{Not everybody’s first visit}
Shanghai’s “Jiefang Daily” suggests^*) that

many European companies have experienced serious economic problems this year, because of the energy crisis, high inflation, rising interest rates and problems like the economic slowdown. It is crucial for these European companies to make up for these losses in Europe by profiting from the Chinese market. Brudermüller for example, CEO at Germany’s chemical giant BASF, plans to further expand BASF’s “favorable investments” in China. It’s business report shows that unlike in Europe, results in China have been positive.
欧洲很多企业今年以来由于能源危机、高通胀、利率上升和经济放缓等遭遇严重经营困难。对这些欧洲企业来说，用中国市场的收益弥补在欧洲的亏损至关重要。比如德国化工巨头巴斯夫集团首席执行官薄睦乐就打算进一步扩大巴斯夫在中国的“有利投资”。业绩报告显示，与在欧洲的亏损不同，巴斯夫集团在中国的增长一直是正向的。

–
Michelin’s business report, said to have been published on October 25, also shows rapidly rising sales in China, in contrast with an eight-percent drop in Europe, “Jiefang Daily” reports.

Michelin’s handsome China numbers notwithstanding, the “Global Times”, a Chinese paper for a foreign readership, blames a “sour-grape” mentality for France’s differences with Germany’s China policy. Those differences probably exist, with Paris being more skeptical about Chinese “opportunities” than Berlin, but you might consider Germany’s dependence on Chinese export markets as a liability, rather than as an opportunity, just as well.

While the SPD remains highly cooperative when it comes to China business, both its coalition partners have advised caution. And while it may be difficult to forecast a trend of future German investment in, exports to and supply chain connections with China, there are statements from German business circles you wouldn’t have heard a few years ago.

China itself rather bets on protectionism, but wants to get into the act globally, including in Germany (China setzt selbst eher auf Abschottung, will aber überall in der Welt mehr mitmischen, auch bei uns in Deutschland),

German weekly “Focus” quotes Martin Wansleben, head of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce.  Scholz should champion clear-cut rules.
It isn’t only France that is concerned about Germany’s economic dependence on China. “Voice of America’s” (VoA) Chinese service, too, points out that “the West shows growing concern about Chinese trade practices and its human rights record”, as well as unease about “Germany’s dependence on the world’s second-largest economic body” (对德国对中国这个世界第二大经济体的依赖感到不安).

VoA also quotes a German government spokesman as saying that while Berlin’s view on China had changed, “decoupling” from China was opposed by Berlin.

When you keep pressing people for a while, the main problem appears to be China’s aggressive policy against Taiwan. Most Germans (this blogger included) never expected that Russia would really invade Ukraine. Now that this has happened, peoples’ imagination has become somewhat more animated – and realistic.

The Social Democrats are more skeptical than its middle- and upper-class coalition partners when it comes to the West’s human-rights agenda, and rightly so. (If China put all its SOEs on international sale, you wouldn’t hear a word about the Uyghurs from Western governments anymore.)

But the Russian-Chinese alliance is a fact, and so is that alliance’s preparedness to annex third countries. That is something the Social Dems can’t ignore. If the press, the oppositional CDU/CSU and the SPD’s coalition partners statements are something to go by, the tide of German integration with China’s economy is being reversed.

“Nothing speaks against German SMEs continuing to import their special nuts and bolts from China”, a columnist mused on German news platform t-online last week, but not without a backup source.

China’s propaganda doesn’t look at Scholz’ visit in a way isolated from its other global contacts. In fact, the German visitor is mentioned in a row with General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyễn Phú Trọng, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan – all of them bearing testimony, or so the propaganda suggests, of how attractive “Chinese opportunities” (中国机遇) actually are.

But Germany’s dependence on China, while worrying and in need to be cut back substantively, shouldn’t be viewed in an isolated way either. Scholz visit won’t even last for a full day, without an overnight stay, and also in November, Scholz will travel to Vietnam. Statistics appear to suggest that German industry will find backup sources there – if not first sources just as well.

And Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister and one of the leaders of the SPD’s China-skeptic Green coalition partner, is currently travelling Central Asia. All the countries there “once hoped to be a bridge between Russia, China, and Europe,” German broadcaster NTV quotes her – the European Union needed to provide Central Asia with opportunities. Options beyond Russia and China, that is.

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Notes

*)	“Jiefang” actually “quotes foreign media”, but Chinese propaganda is often very creative in doing so – therefore no names here.

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Li Zhanshu: “Russia made an important Choice and acted firmly”

Meeting Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko
Xinwen Lianbo, Sept 11, 2022

Li Zhanshu’s talk isn’t exactly going viral on Chinese mass media, and appears to be only just beginning to catch attention on Twitter . The current Chairman of the Standing Committee of the “National People’s Congress” (China’s rubberstamp parliament), told Russian parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and leaders of Russian parliament factions that

We see that the United States and its NATO allies are expanding their presence near the Russian borders, seriously threatening national security and the lives of Russian citizens. We fully understand the necessity of all the measures taken by Russia aimed at protecting its key interests, we are providing our assistance,

and

On the Ukrainian issue, we see how they have put Russia in an impossible situation. And in this case, Russia made an important choice and responded firmly

A transcript (and a much-shared video) on Twitter in Chinese:

对俄罗斯在核心利益和重大关切问题，中方对俄罗斯也是表示理解和充分的支持。就像现在的乌克兰问题，美国和北约直接逼到俄罗斯的家门口，涉及到俄罗斯的国家安全和人民的生命安全，在这种情况下，俄罗斯采取认为适合应当的一些措施，中方是表示理解的，并且从不同方面给予策应。

栗战书：“对俄罗斯在核心利益和重大关切问题，中方对俄罗斯也是表示理解和充分的支持。就像现在的乌克兰问题，美国和北约直接逼到俄罗斯的家门口，涉及到俄罗斯的国家安全和人民的生命安全，在这种情况下，俄罗斯采取认为适合应当的一些措施，中方是表示理解的，并且从不同方面给予策应。”） https://t.co/MGaeCh9GUZ

— Wen 💙💛 (@wenyunchao) September 14, 2022

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The translator adds a disclaimer, saying he doesn’t understand Li’s Shanxi accent too well, but that this is about what he said.

Radio Pravda dlya Rossii (“Truth for Russia”) on Vacation

According to its Twitter account, Radio Truth for Russia / Радио Правда для России (Radio Pravda dlja Rossii) is currently taking a summer break. Not sure if this affects their shortwave transmissions.

Please check their Twitter feed for updates.

Information about times and frequencies of their broadcasts on shortwave – in addition to their youtube channel – vary, but 9670 kHz, 6070 kHz and 13600 kHz are often mentioned.

For a number of reasons (safety, appropriate use of donations, etc.), I wouldn’t expect QSL cards from this broadcaster.

Central Asia: Russia’s Restive “Bulk” of Allies

Links within blockquotes added during translation.

In another bid to prove his president’s claim to the global public that you can’t isolate Russia, Russian foreign minister Lavrov wrote in a signed article for Rossiyskaya Gazeta that Russia could see its trade with Central Asia growing dynamically despite “the turbulent geopolitical situation”, and that “the bulk” of Central Asian countries were Russia’s allies.

There’s probably a need to emphasize that, although the Russian government-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta may not be an ideal communication channel to the Central Asian public.

That was long ago: a QSL card
from Radio Tashkent, December 1985

But then, security issues aren’t only Russia’s issue. Its allied “bulk” is worried about Moscow’s miltary rampage in Ukraine, and China’s relations with Central Asia may become affected, too.

“Due to its size and geography, China’s role [in Central Asia] will grow [following the war], but the SCO won’t have many success stories to point to”,

RFA/RL quotes Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

“Beijing is also now seen as a supporter of Russia and as a country that isn’t doing much to restrain Moscow when many [SCO members] are seeing it as a potential threat.”

Pengpai News (“The Paper”, Shanghai), by no means a natural critic of Russia, suggested in an article on April 25 that

Since Russia started its “special military operation” againly been upped further, and their immediate and long-term political and economic effects are slowly emerging. In the five Central Asian countries that once belonged to the Soviet region, the Russian-Ukrainian state of affairs has given rise to worries, with their approach becoming more and more subtle.

在刚刚经历过“一月政变”的哈萨克斯坦，从总统托卡耶夫到外交部长和国防部长都在公开表态中与莫斯科保持了一定的距离。哈官方承诺不会成为帮助俄罗斯规避西方制裁的工具，并接待了专程到访的美国副国务卿，两国还宣布拟扩大高水平战略伙伴关系。

Kazakhstan’s regime, despite Russian military dispatches to quell demonstrations against the Tokayev regime only weeks earlier,

officially promised not to become a tool that would help Russia in evading the West’s sanctions, and received a US deputy secretary of state’s special visit. The two countries announced that they would broaden their high-level strategic partnership.

哈官方承诺不会成为帮助俄罗斯规避西方制裁的工具，并接待了专程到访的美国副国务卿，两国还宣布拟扩大高水平战略伙伴关系。

Timur Suleimenov, first deputy chief of Kazakhstan’s Executive Office, is quoted by Pengpai News as saying that his country, while a member of the Eurasian Economic Union,

we are also a member of the international community. We do not want America and the European Union to impose secondary sanctions on Kazakhstan, therefore we have to prove to our European partners that Kazakhstan will not become a tool for Russia to evade America’s and the EU’s sanctions. We will abide by the sanctions.”

“虽然我们和俄罗斯、白俄罗斯一样，是欧亚经济联盟成员，但我们也是国际社会的一员，我们不希望美国和欧盟对哈萨克斯坦实施二级制裁，因此我们必须向欧洲的伙伴证明，哈萨克斯坦不会成为俄罗斯规避美国和欧盟制裁的工具。我们将遵守制裁。”

Kazakhstan’s president, having just been protected from his own people by Russian troops,

presented, in his State of the Nation address on March 16, an entire set of reform plans, and acknowledged frankly that the Russian-Ukrainian state of affairs had made the importance of national independence obvious. He promised to carry out comprehensive political reform.

托卡耶夫在最近一次于3月16日所作的国情咨文中拿出了一整套改革方案，他坦言眼前的俄乌局势凸显了国家独立重要性，并承诺进行全面政治改革。

Uzbekistan is quoted as even telling Russia to stop its “aggressive” behavior (停止“侵略”行为). To find a peaceful solution, Uzbekistan’s foreign minister Abdulaziz Kamilov is quoted,

“We support the search for a peaceful solution to this state of affairs, and a solution to this conflict by political and diplomatic means”. For this, “(Russia) must first end military activity and its invasion.”

“我们支持寻求和平解决这一局势，并通过政治和外交手段解决这一冲突”。为此，“（俄罗斯）首先必须结束军事活动和侵略”。

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan who are more dependent on Russia, and who have Russian military bases within their borders, kept “prudently silent” after the launch of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. To offset the return of many of its migrant workers from Russia, however, Kyrgyzstan negotiated with South Korea and Turkey, apparently to find work for its citizens there, and asked Turkey to ease visa restrictions on migrant workers.

The fallout, according to Pengpai News, is there: Both Kazakhtan and Uzbekistan are drawing closer to America. Even Russians flee to Uzbekistan, the Pengpai article says, to avoid military service in Russia. And Uzbek nationals have been warned by their government that they could face five years in prison if they serve in Russia’s military.