The Asianist

I posted about the joint Russian-Chinese military exercise earlier.

Elizabeth Wishnick writes in Asia Times Online that Russia and China may be "brothers in arm" in wishing to counter the US dominance, but have different strategic goals:

While Peace Mission 2005 may be a joint exercise, China and Russia are pursuing different goals, and there is little chance of future coordinated military interventions in third countries. Russia sees an opportunity to train its pilots, test its equipment, and, most importantly, showcase its technology for China's purchase. For China, the exercise provides an important training function, but is also designed to demonstrate its naval power to Taiwan and other neighbors.

With the development of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership in the 1990s, Russian officials have consistently expressed their support for a one-China policy. Nevertheless, leaders in Moscow have been equally consistent in their refusal to become involved in any Chinese military confrontation over Taiwan, as their rejection of a location in southern China for the exercises indicates.

Peace Mission 2005 also enables China to send Japan a message regarding Beijing's capability to defend its interests in offshore territorial disputes, but Moscow has quite a different set of concerns there. The Russian government has been successful in recent months in creating a bidding war between China and Japan over first access to Siberian oil. With President Vladimir Putin scheduled to visit Tokyo in November to discuss the territorial issue as well as energy cooperation, Russia may be seeking to prove that it has another option in the form of the Sino-Russian partnership should talks with Japan not go well.

Finally, Russia has its own long-term concerns about the strategic implications of a rising China. As a lead-up to Peace Mission 2005, in late July the Far East military district in Russia held the Vostok-2005 exercise near the Chinese border, involving 5,000 troops and 14,000 personnel from the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service and the Emergencies Ministry, to prepare for threats from separatist and terrorist groups. While the Russian Federation faces many separatist threats, this is not true of the Far East district. In this part of Russia, security concerns revolve around defense of extended peripheries and demographic imbalances, especially vis-a-vis neighbor and strategic partner China.