Sneak Preview: Disrupting the China-Russia Axis (a Brief from FilterLabs)

FilterLabs will soon publish a brief entitled Disrupting the China-Russia Axis. It covers two countries where it is notoriously difficult to break through the propaganda to how people there really feel about the so-called axis. Spoiler alert: it’s complicated.

Here’s one of the charts from the brief with a preview of some of our findings. We’ve also included some bonus analysis, reminding us that there is always more to the story.

If you ask Vladimir Putin, he will tell you that the Russian-Chinese economic partnership has “no limits.” But when FilterLabs used Talisman, our data dashboard, to look at sentiment toward Chinese-Russian economic cooperation in Russian conversations online, a more complicated picture emerged.

As you can see in the chart above, sentiment on social media was consistently lower than in the mainstream press (which itself was, notably, not uniformly positive). Talisman gives us a few likely reasons why “no limits” may not be the best way to define the relationship:

Parroting Putin’s propaganda. Russian press coverage emphasizes trade deals and repeats Putin’s assessment that “China's economic development model has proven more effective than the US's.”

Russian experts disagree. While you will not hear much criticism on Russian television, censorship does not extend to some elite business newspapers, conferences, and other specialized venues. In Vedemosti, a leading business daily, one expert writes that “China rarely invests directly in Russia. By the end of 2022, China’s total accumulated investments in Russia amounted to $9.9 billion, just 0.3% of its total foreign investments. While Russia seeks investments in high-tech industries, China focuses on mining, real estate, and banking.”

Russians worry about Chinese firms undercutting Russia’s domestic production. For example, a news article reported that only 11% of the money that Russians spend on new cars remains in the country's economy. One VK post citing this article encapsulated much of the Russian sentiment: “Of course, because the Moskvich is generally Chinese, the new Lada models are also Chinese. What else do you want? The only completely Russian car is the UAZ, but not all of us are hunters and fishermen.” Note: Moskvich and Lada are Russian car manufacturers; UAZ makes off-road vehicles, buses, and trucks.

Russians see China as an unreliable ally. In comment sections of sanctions-related news articles, people point out that China is de facto “bending the knee” to the U.S. (e.g., Chinese banks not processing some Russian payments starting in mid-2024). On VK, some also voice fear that certain regions of Russia are becoming dependent on China; to them, the relationship feels more “parasitic” than bilateral.

Stay tuned for more in the upcoming FilterLabs brief: Disrupting the China-Russia Axis. In the meantime, you can also check out some of our previous insight reports and recent newsletters.

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