Una Bērziņa-Čerenkova
The Emerging Joint Russo-Chinese Military Hi-Tech Agenda: Posturing or a New Reality?
The possibility of China's deepening engagement with Russia in cutting-edge military technology adds diffficulty to crafting a joint NATO approach to China. The leaders of Russia and China have referred to the current relationship between their countries as the best in the history of mutual exchanges, have shown support to each other’s visions and pursuits, and the political establishments of both states publicly maintain the mutual complementarity of the engagement. The security domain of the "China-Russia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination (for a New Era)" is the most-watched of all Eurasian, if not global partnerships, even more so after China's symbolic endorsement of Russian grievances over NATO expansion as a reason for Russia's attack on Ukraine. The mutual understanding goes beyond rhetoric, exemplified by May 24 Russian and Chinese joint patrol over the Japanese and East China seas involving strategic bombers timed for when US President Joe Biden was about to conclude his Asia visit. The actual operatability, scope and depth of the military cooperation remain debated, however.
The aim of the current project is to gauge the depth, motivations and implications of the military high-tech cooperation between Russia and China to determine whether the Sino-Russian messaging is just posturing in the face of common enemies, or indeed constitutes a new security reality. The project builds on dr. Bērziņa-Čerenkova's prior research on the implications of China's rise for NATO and the Sino-Russian relations.
Biography
Dr. Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova is a political scientist, China scholar, Head of Political Science PhD programme and China Studies Centre at Riga Stradins University, Head of the Asia program at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs, a member of the China in Europe Research Network (CHERN) and European Think Tank Network on China (ETNC). After having defended her doctoral dissertation on traditional Chinese discourse, she has held a Senior visiting research scholar position at Fudan University School of Philosophy, Shanghai, China, and a Fulbright visiting scholar position at the Center for East Asia Studies, Stanford University. Bērziņa-Čerenkova is a European China Policy Fellow at MERICS and an affiliate of the Lau Institute at King's College, London.
Publications
Dr. Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova publishes on PRC political discourse, contemporary Chinese ideology, EU-China relations, Russia-China, and BRI, her most recent monograph is “Perfect Imbalance: China and Russia” (World Scientific, 2022). Currently, she is working on an edited volume on Chinese political discourse as a fellow at the Academy of International Affairs NRW.
Selected publication
