Authors

Discussion

As permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China have engaged with international security in its regional and global dimensions. Their annual joint declarations adopted at bilateral summits usually contained numerous provisions related to ongoing security crises and regional conflicts. This engagement tended to be superficial, though, and a joint position on an issue was not usually followed by any meaningful action. The patterns of Russia and China’s engagement have begun to evolve in the 2010s. During that decade, Russia and China increasingly positioned themselves as global rather than regional security actors, going beyond casting a vote at the UNSC and ritual summit communications. In the case of Russia, the military intervention in Syria turned out to be a turning point, which paved the way for Moscow’s increasing military footprint in the African continent. For China, the ubiquitous presence of the Belt and Road Initiative played a similar role, forcing Beijing to consider security implications of expanding economic influence. Exploring the parallel rise of Russia and China as global security actors, the proposed paper delves into the domestic-international dynamics that has been driving these processes.