It has been widely noted that China and Russia have grown progressively closer over the last two decades with some going so far as to suggest that the two are already informal allies or that formal alliance is imminent. Although the scholarly literature has offered various descriptive or ad hoc explanations of this trend of growing Sino-Russian amity, the bilateral relationship has been the subject of very little scrutiny using rigorous theory. This conference is designed to address the theoretical lacunae in the literature on China-Russia relations by bringing together leading international relations theorists and experts on Chinese and Russian foreign policy. In aggregation, the conference papers advance novel explanations for empirical puzzles in China-Russia relations, generalize from these explanations to advance new developments in IR theory, and derive prescriptions for contemporary policy makers.
Programme outline