Comparative Connections
A Quarterly E-Journal on East Asian Bilateral Relations
China-Russia Relations:
Politics of Anniversaries and Beyond
Yu Bin
Wittenberg University
Past, present, and prospect were played out in the second quarter of 2005 when Russian
and Chinese leaders commemorated the 60th anniversary of Russia’s victory (May 9,
1945) in World War II, mended fences in Central Asia in the wake of a surge of “color
revolutions” in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, and toyed with the idea of a multilateral world
order with a Russia-China-Indian trio in Vladivostok. The quarter ended with President
Hu Jintao’s state visit to Russia, which aimed to elevate the strategic partnership to a new
height. Meanwhile, Russian and Chinese generals were hammering out details of their
first-ever joint exercises in eastern China to be held in the third quarter.
Summits times four
In less than two months, Chinese and Russian leaders met or will meet for Victory Day in
Moscow (May 9), Hu’s official visit to Russia (June 30-July 3), the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Kazakstan (July 5-6), and the G8 summit in
UK (July 7-8). The busy summit politicking began with a journey back to the last world
war when nearly 50 million Russians and Chinese died. Hu met with Russian veterans in
Moscow, paid tribute at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin Wall,
joined 60 other foreign dignitaries in a 75-minute parade, and met Russian President
Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin afterward.
In China, there were numerous commemorations: cemeteries for 11,000 Soviet deaths
were tended; Chinese veterans who served in the Soviet military during the war were
recognized and decorated; sales of Soviet war literature went up; and the Soviet
novel/movie Quiet Dawns – which dramatizes the death of five young female Soviet
soldiers during the war and was banned during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-76) –
was reproduced, with Russian actors and Chinese directors, as a soap on Chinese sta