The United States and Contemporary

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Insights and Implications Brandon K.
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Editor
Brandon K. Yoder

The United States and Contemporary

China-Russia Relations
Theoretical Insights and Implications
Editor
Brandon K. Yoder
Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

ISBN 978-3-030-93981-6 e-ISBN 978-3-030-93982-3

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive

license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
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absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
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“This ambitious and well-organized volume argues convincingly that IR
theory is crucial for understanding Sino-Russian relations, while also
drawing on this critically important, understudied case to further
develop IR theory. No other collected volumes address the topic in a
theoretically rigorous way and very few independent studies even
attempt to do so. The chapters in this volume are critical reading for
scholars of IR and Russian and Chinese foreign policy, but are also
accessible to area experts or policymakers that may not be familiar
with specific IR theories. Given the crucial importance of the subject
matter, and the quality of the scholarship, the book will inform scholars
and policy practitioners for years to come.”
—Andrej Krickovic, Associate Professor, Faculty of World Economy
and International Affairs, National Research University Higher School of
Economics, Moscow, Russia
For my parents,
Olen C. Yoder
and
Barbara Kneen Avery
Acknowledgements
The inception of this volume was a conference in August 2017 titled “IR
Theory and China-Russia Relations after the Cold War” organized by
the Centre for Asia and Globalisation (CAG) at the National University of
Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) School of Public Policy. Since then,
despite a rapidly changing geopolitical context, the theoretical
arguments advanced at the original conference have held up
remarkably well. Versions of several of the papers were published in a
special issue of International Politics (Volume 57, Number 5) in 2020,
from which the authors have substantially adapted their chapters to
account for recent developments and extend their theoretical reach to
new puzzles that are constantly emerging in US-China-Russia relations.
I want to express my deep gratitude to the participants at the
Singapore conference, the contributors to this volume, and the
anonymous reviewers for constructive comments that have helped
sharpen our arguments along the way. The original conference and this
book would not have been possible without generous financial support
from the LKY School and CAG, and especially from the backing of the
Former Dean of the LKY School, Kishore Mahbubani, and the former
Director of CAG, Huang Jing. In addition to the contributors to this
volume, the original conference benefitted from the participation of
Kanti Bajpai, Paul Fritz, Selina Ho, Alexander Lukin, Robert Ross, Sun
Xuefeng and Tao Wenzhao, and from insightful discussant comments by
Ja Ian Chong, Thomas Gold, Ted Hopf and Chin-Hao Huang. Byron
Chong and Khasan Redjaboev provided invaluable research assistance.
Finally, special thanks to Geetha Chockalingam, Anca Pusca and the rest
of the editorial staff at Palgrave Macmillan for their patience and belief
in the project and for guiding it through the publication process.
Canberra, Australia

Brandon K. Yoder
Contents
International Relations Theory and the Puzzle of China-Russia
Alignment
Brandon K. Yoder
Typological Theory and Description of China-Russia Relations
Measuring Strategic Cooperation in China-Russia Relations
Alexander Korolev
China, Russia and the United States:​Balance of Power or National
Narcissism?​
Gregory J. Moore
Partnering Up in the New Cold War?​Explaining China-Russia
Relations in the Post-Cold War Era
Huiyun Feng
Deductive Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations
China’s and Russia’s New Status Relationship
Deborah Welch Larson
China and Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony
John M. Owen IV
The Paradox of Sino-Russian Partnership:​Global Normative
Alignment and Regional Ontological Insecurity
Elizabeth Wishnick
Inductive Theory Building from China-Russia Relations
The US Factor in China’s Successful Reassurance of Russia
Brandon K. Yoder
Bargaining, Nuclear Weapons, and Alliance Choices in US-China-
Russia Relations
Andrew Kydd
Sino-Russian Logrolling and the Future of Great Power
Competition
Kyle Haynes
Prescriptions and Predictions for U.S.-China-Russia Relations
America’s Growing Agreement on Countering Russia-China
Challenges
Robert Sutter
Conclusion:​Explaining the China-Russia Partnership
Brandon K. Yoder
Index
List of Figures
Measuring Strategic Cooperation in China-Russia Relations

Fig.​1 Stages of alignment formation

China and Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony

Fig. 1 Causal logic by which liberal hegemony promotes China-Russia

cooperation (Reproduced from Owen IV, John M. 2020. Sino-Russian
Cooperation Against Liberal Hegemony. International Politics 57 (5):
809–833)

Fig.​2 Freedom House ratings for China, Russia and the United States

The US Factor in China’s Successful Reassurance of Russia

Fig.​1 Spatial graph of rising state types

Bargaining, Nuclear Weapons, and Alliance Choices in US-China-

Russia Relations

Fig.​1 The bargaining model

Fig.​2 Three way threats:​Before Chinese growth

Fig.​3 Three way threats:​After Chinese growth

Fig.​4 Three way threats:​After Chinese growth, with US nuclear

primacy

Conclusion: Explaining the China-Russia Partnership

Fig.​1 Synthesis of causal arguments in the book

List of Tables
China, Russia and the United States: Balance of Power or National
Narcissism?

Table 1 China-Russia trade statistics, 2005–2020 (Billions of U.​S.​

dollars; China’s data)

Table 2 China-U.​S.​trade statistics, 2005–2020 (Billions of U.​S.​dollars;

China’s data)

China and Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony

Table 1 CINC scores

Notes on Contributors
Huiyun Feng is Associate Professor in the School of Government and
International Relations at Griffith University. She is a Co-CI of a three-
year MacArthur Foundation project “Understanding China’s Rise
through the Eyes of Chinese IR Scholars” and a Co-CI of an Australian
Research Council Discovery Project “Decoding Revisionist Challenges to
the International Institutional Order.” Her publications have appeared
in European Journal ofInternational Relations, Security Studies, The
Pacific Review, Chinese Journal ofInternational Politics, among other
journals. Her recent publications include co-authored books How China
Sees the World: Insights from China’s International Relations Scholars
(Palgrave 2019), Contesting Revisionism: China, the United States, the
Transformation of International Order (Oxford University Press, 2021),
and a co-edited volume, China’s Challenges and International Order
Transition: Beyond Thucydides’s Trap (University of Michigan Press,
2020).

Kyle Haynes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political

Science at Purdue University. His work focuses on international
security, US foreign policy, great power politics, and interstate signaling.
He has published his research in leading journals, including the
American Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, the
Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Security, Conflict
Management & Peace Science, and International Interactions, among
others.

Alexander Korolev is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International

Relations in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South
Wales, Sydney. He received an MA in International Relations from
Nankai University, Zhou Enlai School of Government (2009), and Ph.D.
in Political Science from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2012).
His research interests include international relations theory and
comparative politics with special focus on China-Russia relations, great
power politics, and small and middle powers under the conditions of
intensifying great power rivalry. He has published on the related topics
in various academic journals, including International Relations, Foreign
Policy Analysis, International Studies Review, Journal of Strategic Studies,
Pacific Affairs, and Asian Security, among others.

Andrew Kydd received his Ph. D. in political science from the

University of Chicago in 1996 and taught at the University of California,
Riverside and Harvard University before joining the Department of
Political Science at the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 2007. His
interests center on the game theoretic analysis of international security
issues such as war, terrorism, trust and conflict resolution. He has
published articles in the American Political Science Review,
International Organization, World Politics, and International Security,
among other journals. His first book, Trust and Mistrust in International
Relations, was published in 2005 by Princeton University Press and
won the 2006 Conflict Processes Best Book Award. His second book,
International Relations Theory: the Game Theoretic Approach, was
published by Cambridge University Press in 2015.

Deborah Welch Larson is professor of political science at the

University of California, Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. at Stanford
University. Her publications include Origins of Containment: A
Psychological Explanation (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1985); Anatomy of Mistrust: US-Soviet Relations during the Cold War
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997); and “Status Seekers: Chinese
and Russian Responses to U.S. Primacy,” International Security 34, no. 4
(Spring 2010): 63–95 (with Alexei Shevchenko). She has most recently
published Quest for Status: Chinese and Russian Foreign Policy (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), with Alexei Shevchenko.
Gregory J. Moore (Ph.D. University of Denver) is Professor of Global
Studies and Politics at Colorado Christian University. Formerly with the
University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China (2015–2020), and a fellow at
the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of
Advanced International Studies in Washington (2019–2020), his
research interests include international relations and security, Chinese
foreign policy, US foreign policy, Sino-American Relations, East Asian
IR/security and politics. He is the author of numerous articles on
international relations and Northeast Asian security issues, is
author/editor of North Korean Nuclear Operationality: Regional Security
and Non-Proliferation (Johns Hopkins, 2014), the author of Niebuhrian
International Relations: The Ethics of Foreign Policymaking (Oxford,
2020), An International Relations Research Methods Toolkit
(forthcoming, Routledge), and is working on a book on Sino-American
relations. He is a member of the (U.S.) National Committee on United
States-China Relations and President of the Association of Chinese
Political Studies.

John M. Owen IV is Taylor Professor of Politics and a Senior Fellow at

the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of
Virginia. Owen is author of Confronting Political Islam (2015), The Clash
of Ideas in World Politics (2010), and Liberal Peace, Liberal War (1997).
He has published scholarly papers in the European Journal of
International Relations, International Organization, Internationale
Politik und Gesellschaft, International Security, International Studies
Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, and other journals. His articles have
appeared in Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, National Interest, New
York Times, and USA Today. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of Security
Studies and has held fellowships at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton,
Oxford, the Free University of Berlin, the WZB Berlin Social Science
Research Center, and the University of British Columbia. He is a
recipient of a Humboldt Research Prize (2015). He holds an AB from
Duke, an MPA from Princeton, and a Ph.D. from Harvard.
Robert Sutter is Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the
Elliott School of George Washington University (2011–). His earlier
fulltime position was Visiting Professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown
University (2001–2011). Sutter’s government career (1968–2001) saw
service for Congress as senior specialist and director of the Foreign
Affairs and National Defense Division of the Congressional Research
Service, and for the Executive Branch as the National Intelligence
Officer for East Asia and the Pacific. A Ph.D. graduate in History and
East Asian Languages from Harvard University, Sutter has published 22
books (four with multiple editions), and hundreds of articles and
government reports. His most recent books are Chinese Foreign
Relations: Power and Policy of an Emerging Global Force, Fifth Edition
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and US-China Relations: Perilous Past,
Uncertain Future, Fourth Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).

Elizabeth Wishnick is Professor of Political Science at Montclair

State University and Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East
Asian Institute, Columbia University. Her book, China’s Risk China’s Risk:
Oil, Water, Food and Regional Security (forthcoming Columbia
University Press) addresses the security consequences of energy, water
and food risks in China for its Eurasian neighbors, a topic she explores
in a related policy blog, www.chinasresourcerisks.com. Dr. Wishnick is
known for her research on Sino-Russian relations and China’s Arctic
strategy. She is the author of Mending Fences: The Evolution of Moscow’s
China Policy from Brezhnev to Yeltsin (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 2001, 2014), articles on Chinese and Russian foreign policy, and a
series of policy studies on Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Arctic. She
received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, an M.A. in
Russian and East European Studies from Yale University, and a B.A.
from Barnard College.

Brandon K. Yoder is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of

Politics and International Relations at Australian National University,
and a non-resident Research Fellow in the Lee Kuan Yew School of
Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. His research
centers on international relations theory and the politics of China and
East Asia, and employs a combination of formal models, historical case
studies and laboratory experiments. He is the editor of a special issue of
International Politics titled “International Relations Theory and China-
Russia Relations after the Cold War” (Vol. 57, No. 5, 2020). His work has
been published or is forthcoming at leading journals in IR, such as the
American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, and
the Journal of Conflict Resolution.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
B. K. Yoder (ed.), The United States and Contemporary China-Russia Relations
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93982-3_1

International Relations Theory and the

Puzzle of China-Russia Alignment
Brandon K. Yoder1
(1) School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National
University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

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 (Korolev 2019; Kashin 2019; Blank 2020). Experts
on the bilateral relationship have documented dramatic increases in
cooperation on virtually all dimensions. Diplomatically, China and
Russia have issued numerous treaties and joint declarations signifying
increasingly positive relations,1 and face-to-face meetings among their
top leaders have become quite frequent (Fu 2016; Saradzhyan and
Wyne 2018). Their economic cooperation, though still not
extraordinary by global standards, has increased rapidly, more than
tripling from 2005 and 2014 and expected to double again by 2024
(Elmer 2019; TASS 2021). China is now Russia’s largest trade partner,
including a $400 billion energy agreement in 2014, and there remains
plenty of untapped potential for cooperation, e.g., in the Russian Far
East, the Arctic, and in Central Asia through the China-led Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) (Fu 2016; Charap et al. 2017; Stronski and Ng 2018;
Saradzhyan and Wyne 2018; Stent 2020, 3–4; Lukin and Novikov 2021,
36–41). Relations have also steadily grown more institutionalized,
characterized by increasingly structured and binding bilateral treaties,
and by the two countries jointly occupying key positions in emerging
international groupings such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) and the BRICs (Cox 2016; Cooley 2019; Stent 2020, 6–7; Lukin
and Novikov 2021). And militarily, China and Russia are increasingly
coordinated, conducting joint exercises, extensive exchanges of
technology and personnel, and high-level consultations that are moving
substantially toward integrated military command (Fu 2016; Yu and Sui
2020; Korolev 2020).
Understanding the causes of this cooperative trend is of critical
practical importance. Given the combination of China’s massive and
growing economic power, Russia’s still-formidable military power, and
the two countries’ geographic and demographic gravity, a China-Russia
“axis” is uniquely capable of challenging the power of the US and its
allies or revising important aspects of the US-led international order
(Cox 2016; Steinberg 2018; Blank 2020; Kendall-Taylor and Shullman
2021). Yet whether and to what degree China and Russia will do so, and
the resulting effect on the shape of the international order, depends
greatly on the depth, breadth, and durability of their partnership. This,
in turn, depends on the two countries’ motivations for their
cooperation: What are the national goals, beliefs, and external
incentives that have pushed them together over the last 30 years?
There remains a great deal of dissonance on these questions in the
literature on China-Russia relations. Some see China-Russia
cooperation as an “axis of convenience” that belies preferences and
values that conflict as much as they accord (e.g., Lo 2008, 2017, 2020;
Gabuev 2016b; Freeman 2018; Steinberg 2018; Stronski and Ng 2018;
Baev 2019; Kaczmarski 2020). Others see it as a deep and enduring
relationship based on common identities, economic interests, and/or
geopolitical goals (e.g., Rozman 2014; Cox 2016; Wishnick 2017;
Medeiros and Chase 2017; Wilson 2019; Rolland 2019; Stent 2020;
Kendall-Taylor and Shullman 2021; Lukin and Novikov 2021). Yet these
disagreements have been largely unproductive: Despite a wealth of
excellent scholarship on this relationship that has thoroughly
documented its evolution and identified many potential factors at work,
little progress has been made in reaching consensus regarding the
character and causes of China-Russia cooperation.
This introductory chapter argues that answering these questions
requires careful attention to theory. Yet theory has been sorely lacking
from existing scholarship on China-Russia relations. This has caused
scholars to talk past each other, basing their arguments on unstated
assumptions and unspecified causal mechanisms that inform which
evidence is considered and how it is interpreted. The lack of explicit
theory precludes evaluation of competing hypotheses against the
empirical record, and thus the formation of logically coherent and
empirically supported explanations for increasing China-Russia
cooperation.
The chapters that follow develop and apply well-specified theories
to post-Cold War China-Russia relations to explain empirical
phenomena that are puzzling for baseline versions of the three main
theoretical approaches in IR: realism, liberalism, and constructivism.
Importantly, this volume is not intended to be the last word on the
China-Russia relationship, but rather as a first step toward productive,
theoretically informed scholarly debate. It builds on the previous work
of area specialists by introducing theories of international conflict and
cooperation, which can then inform subsequent empirical work. The
chapters in this book present hypotheses for increasing post-Cold War
China-Russia cooperation and test them against the default alternative,
structural realism. This lays the groundwork for subsequent
scholarship to test these hypotheses, and others, against each other in
order to assess the applicability, compatibility, and relative weights of
alternative causal mechanisms. Furthermore, the novel theoretical
contributions in this volume advance IR scholarship more broadly and
introduce important mechanisms that may generalize to other cases.
This introduction first reviews the scholarship on China-Russia
relations through the lens of the methodological literature on causal
inference and explanation in qualitative research, to demonstrate the
necessity of theory for explaining outcomes in a single case. Next, it
shows that baseline versions of the major IR paradigms are inadequate
to explain increasing China-Russia cooperation over time and lays out
the volume’s goals in introducing novel theories to this case. Finally, it
summarizes the individual contributions to the book, and, while
acknowledging their limitations, argues that they collectively represent
a major contribution to scholarship on China-Russia relations and IR
theory more broadly.
Scholarship on China-Russia Relations and the
Necessity of Theory
Despite its centrality to contemporary international politics and the
extensive attention devoted to it by area specialists and policy experts,
the marked improvement in post-Cold War Sino-Russian relations has
been the subject of very little scrutiny using rigorous theory.2 Myriad
ad hoc explanations of this cooperative trend have been advanced, with
correspondingly diverse predictions about the durability and
implications of Sino-Russian cooperation. Many of these explanations
center on the role of the US, which has adopted several policies that
have been purported to drive China and Russia closer together,
including NATO expansion, democracy promotion abroad, the
development and deployment of US missile defense systems in Europe
and Asia, and American denial of Chinese and Russian identity goals by
insisting on a “unipolar” rather than a “multipolar” international order
(e.g., Lo 2008, 2020; Lukin 2015; Cox 2016; Charap et al. 2017;
Medeiros and Chase 2017; Bolt and Cross 2018; Rolland 2019; Stent
2020; Lukin and Novikov 2021). But additional causes of increasing
China-Russia cooperation have also been put forward. These include
shared illiberal regime types and common preferences regarding norms
of sovereignty and human rights (Rozman 2014; Lukin 2015, 2018; Cox
2016; Charap et al. 2017; Bolt and Cross 2018; Rolland 2019; Lo 2020),
compatible political models and national identities (Kerr 2005;
Ferdinand 2007; Rozman 2014; Wishnick 2017; Lukin 2018; Wilson
2019; Larson and Shevchenko 2019), mutual concerns about ethnic
separatism (Kerr 2005; Lo 2008; Odgaard 2017; Saradzhyan and Wyne
2018), prospective gains from economic cooperation (Swanströ m 2014;
Lukin 2015; Charap et al. 2017; Medeiros and Chase 2017; Freeman
2018; Rolland 2019; Lukin and Novikov 2021), and personal affinity
among national leaders (Ferdinand 2007; Lo 2008, 2020; Gabuev
2016a; Wilson 2019; Baev 2019; Stent 2020; Foot and King 2021).
Problematically, however, few of these explanations for increasing
China-Russia cooperation are grounded in explicit theoretical terms,
and those that are gain little explanatory leverage from the theories
upon which they draw (see below).3 Yet theory is a logically essential
component of explanation.4 Thus, any claim about the causes of
increasing China-Russia cooperation necessarily rests upon a
theoretical framework, even if the underlying theory is left implicit or
underspecified. Theories are general statements about the causal
relationship between two (or more) variables, which specify how
change in the cause(s) produces change in the outcome (Van Evera
1997). Theories allow observers to simplify an infinitely complex
reality that could not otherwise be understood. In other words, facts
cannot simply “speak for themselves” in explaining events, as
practitioners who reject theory often assert.5 Theories are necessary to
identify which of the innumerable potential causal factors are likely to
affect the outcome of interest, and, just as importantly, to specify causal
mechanisms: How particular factors generate their effects, individually
or in combination. An explanation, as opposed to an inference, must
identify the causal mechanisms by which one set of variables affects
another, not simply establish that a causal relationship exists (Miller
1987; Brady 1995; Waldner 2007).6
In principle, there is no reason that these essential functions of
theory for explanation cannot be accomplished implicitly, and thus no
inherent reason to disqualify explanations that leave theory implicit. As
detailed above, scholars of China-Russia relations have clearly been
able to identify many plausible causes of increasing bilateral
cooperation. Moreover, it is certainly possible that the mechanisms by
which these hypothesized causes have produced Sino-Russian
cooperation can be specified in terms specific to the China-Russia
relationship, without reference to the general theory from which they
are derived. In practice, however, when theories are left implicit it tends
to be because analysts are not conscious that they are employing theory
at all, and thus are doing so non-rigorously via analogy or “folk
wisdom” (Walt 2005). Correspondingly, explanations built on implicit
or underspecified theory tend to suffer from two major problems, each
of which is manifested in the literature on China-Russia relations: (1)
biased or arbitrary selection of causal factors and (2)
underspecification of causal mechanisms. Each of these practices
results in failure to critically evaluate proposed explanations against
alternatives, and hinders convincing explanation of the observed
outcome: increasing China-Russia cooperation.
 The first of these problems—arbitrary consideration of causal
factors—can be manifested in two ways: omission and
overdetermination. The former refers to explanations that focus on a
single causal factor while failing to consider alternatives or to seek
falsifying evidence. Examples from the China-Russia literature include
explanations that privilege, inter alia, status motivations (Deng 2007),
balance of power (Li 2007), international norms (Kaczmarski 2015;
Odgaard 2017), economic complementarity (Swanströ m 2014;
Freeman 2018), and national identity (Rozman 2014; Wilson 2019) to
the exclusion of any alternative hypotheses. Yet much of the evidence
cited in such works—e.g., China’s and Russia’s common dissatisfaction
with the status quo order, joint membership in the SCO and the BRICS,
concerns over NATO expansion, and increasing bilateral trade and
investment—is observationally equivalent; that is, it supports multiple
alternative hypotheses. These authors vindicate their favored
arguments by fiat, not by contested evaluation of their causal
propositions against the empirical record. The latter would require
specification of the theories underpinning both their favored
explanations and competing alternatives.
A related manifestation of omission bias is the invocation of an
overly broad causal factor that is consistent with multiple competing
explanations. For example, Bobo Lo famously refers to the increasingly
cooperative China-Russia relationship as an “axis of convenience,”
arguing that China and Russia are cooperating primarily due to a
shared interest in “countering American ‘hegemonism’” rather than to
compatible identities or ideologies (Lo 2008, 16, see also pp. 5–6, 43–
44, 180–182 as well as Lo 2017, 2020). Yet, as the contributions of John
Owen and Deborah Larson to this volume illustrate, from a
constructivist point of view the impetus for China and Russia to
cooperate in opposition to American power can be intimately linked to
their identities and ideologies. For Larson, China and Russia are
cooperating to satisfy their identity goals of regaining great power
status, which the US has denied them, while for Owen their shared
illiberal ideologies have constituted the liberal US as a common threat,
and impelled Sino-Russian balancing. Furthermore, joint Sino-Russian
opposition to US power could also result from either commercial
factors identified by liberalism (i.e., a desire to revise the rules of the
international economic order) or realist security concerns, which can
be further disaggregated into concerns about American power and
American intentions. Lo states his argument in a way that does not
differentiate between alternative motivations for China-Russia
cooperation and therefore does not permit adjudication between
competing hypotheses. Explicit attention to theory makes this problem
clear.
The second way in which arbitrary selection of causal factors is
manifested is overdetermination. This refers to “kitchen sink”
explanations, which assign causal salience to a litany of factors without
attempting to adjudicate between these potentially competing
hypotheses or assign them relative weights. In other words, these kinds
of explanations present laundry lists of plausible hypotheses and imply,
without rigorous specification or evaluation, that “everything matters.”
For example, Alexander Lukin (2015, 32–34) lists eight factors that
have motivated China-Russia cooperation (shared preferences for
multipolarity over unipolarity, strict Westphalian sovereignty,
outcomes regarding Korea, Syria, and Iran, revision of international
financial rules, expanded bilateral trade, development of their eastern
borderlands, stability in Central Asia, and illiberal values). Bolt and
Cross (2018) identify security, border stability, authoritarian legitimacy,
internet governance, opposition to US missile defense systems, and the
personalistic relations between leaders as salient causes of China-
Russia cooperation. Angela Stent (2020) variously points to China and
Russia’s shared domestic systems, opposition to the US-led order,
motivations to combat terrorism/separatism, and their growing
economic and energy interdependence. None of these works specify
how much each of the factors they cite have mattered, how they relate
to each other (e.g., whether they are complementary or competing,
their causal status in terms of necessity and sufficiency, and whether
they interact to enhance or mitigate each other’s effects), or what other
potentially competing hypotheses might exist. These tasks require
disciplined attention to theory and are crucial for the initial step of
merely establishing causal hypotheses, prior to evaluation of those
hypotheses against empirical evidence.
Importantly, this criticism of overdetermined “kitchen sink”
explanations should not be confused with a rejection of multicausal
explanations. Of course it is possible and indeed is almost certainly
true, that multiple causal factors are at work in explaining China-Russia
cooperation. The real world is overwhelmingly complex, and thus it is
likely that “lots of stuff matters.” But it is precisely because of this
overwhelming complexity that rigorous theory is needed to simplify
reality and get at the causal factors that are most important. “Kitchen
sink” assertions do not explain because they do not simplify; they do
not make choices about which causal factors to focus on and why, and
therefore merely reproduce a reality that is too complex to be
understood. Such “explanations” that lack theoretical underpinnings
are little better than pure description for advancing our causal
understanding of China-Russia relations. Moreover, we do not want to
presume, without careful examination, that every plausible explanation
for China-Russia cooperation is necessarily correct, as kitchen sink
arguments implicitly do. Rather, we want to examine which factors
matter and which do not, and among those that do matter, how much.
Most importantly, we want to know why each factor matters, i.e., the
causal mechanisms underpinning the causal effects.
Rigorous specification of causal mechanisms is crucial for
adjudicating between competing hypotheses (Waldner 2007). Causal
mechanisms tell analysts what evidence they should expect to find if a
particular causal hypothesis is correct, and, conversely, what evidence
would lead them to reject that hypothesis (e.g., Van Evera 1997; George
and Bennett 2005; Waldner 2015). In other words, mechanisms define
the observable implications of a hypothesized explanation, thereby
making causal claims falsifiable and allowing contested appraisal of
alternative hypotheses against the empirical record. Without well-
specified causal mechanisms—i.e., without rigorous theory—we cannot
adjudicate between competing hypotheses for China-Russia
cooperation.
Causal mechanisms are not only essential for evaluating competing
hypotheses, but also for combining complementary ones into a
coherent multicausal explanation for a specific outcome in a particular
case—what Katzenstein and Sil (2008) term “analytical eclecticism.”7
First, mechanisms identify which causal factors are parts of mutually
exclusive explanations, versus which potentially have complementary
or interactive effects. Second, mechanisms define which aspects of the
outcome each variable can account for and thus which variables are
necessary to explain the outcome and which conjunction of variables is
jointly sufficient. This allows analysts to assign causal weights to each
necessary factor and to avoid overdetermination by establishing when
a sufficient explanation has been reached (Waldner 2015).
Existing explanations for increasingly cooperative China-Russia
relations, built on implicit theory, omit or underspecify causal
mechanisms, with stark consequences. For example, one of the most
important early works on China-Russia relations is Deng Yong’s (2007)
argument that Sino-Russian cooperation has been primarily driven by
status concerns and not realist balance-of-power dynamics. Yet despite
presenting a deep descriptive narrative centered on status, the
theoretical underpinnings of why and how states seek status and how
status concerns promote cooperation are left unspecified. Moreover, the
rival realist hypothesis and its accompanying causal mechanisms,
which Deng (2007, 865, 881) summarily rejects, are left entirely
unstated. It is therefore impossible to know what evidence would
falsify Deng’s status-based argument, or which aspects of Deng’s
descriptive narrative are observationally equivalent (i.e., consistent
with both the realist and status-based alternatives). Indeed, this
characterizes much of the evidence he cites—e.g., shared revisionist
preferences for the international order, joint membership in the SCO,
Russian concerns over NATO expansion, and a “non-zero sum”
characterization of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership vis-à -vis the
US. In the absence of clearly stated mechanisms, Deng cannot
adjudicate between his favored explanation and its rivals. In contrast,
the contribution by Deborah Larson in this volume makes a similar
overall causal claim to Deng’s favoring status over material factors, but
presents the mechanisms and observable implications of these two
competing hypotheses. This allows Larson to convincingly marshal
evidence that is consistent with her favored explanation and
inconsistent with its main rival.
Bobo Lo (2008, 2017, 2020) advances roughly the opposite claim as
Deng and Larson in his seminal work: Shared interests (implicitly,
material interests) on an important subset of issues have driven China-
Russia cooperation, rather than compatible identities. But Lo likewise
fails to specify the theoretical mechanisms that connect his causes of
China-Russia cooperation—opposition to US hegemony, opposition to
liberal domestic norms, and prospective economic benefits—to the
outcome of increasing China-Russia cooperation over time that he
describes. How have US hegemony, which has been diminishing, and
liberal ideas, which appear to be constant, impelled increasing China-
Russia cooperation? If the prospect of economic benefits has motivated
greater cooperation, why did it not emerge sooner? Absent causal
mechanisms, Lo has no basis for addressing these questions. But most
importantly, it is also unclear why Lo sees a lack of ideological
motivation for this cooperation, whereas other well-qualified area
experts viewing the same evidence (e.g., Kerr 2005; Deng 2007;
Rozman 2014; Kaczmarski 2015, 2020; Wishnick 2017; Larson and
Shevchenko 2019; Wilson 2019; Krickovich and Zhang 2020) view
ideology as a central cause (see below). Theoretical underspecification
prevents these scholars from productively engaging each other’s
arguments and precludes adjudication of their competing causal claims.
Most recently, Lukin and Novikov (2021) attempt to combine these
two perspectives, but fail to do so coherently. Though claiming to
employ an “English School” approach to explain the emergence of a
cooperative Eurasian “international society” led by China and Russia,
they state their deductive logic in an unfalsifiable way: “an international
society…does not necessarily have to be based on cultural unity,
common values, and other non-institutional components”; rather, it is
“common interests that play a decisive role in forming an international
society” (Lukin and Novikov 2021, 30). Yet without defining the content
of the interests in question or even excluding cultural factors, this
statement is consistent with almost any causal story. As such, their
explanation of China-Russia cooperation is essentially tautological:

Institutionalization of [China and Russia’s cooperation],

combined with their will to protect their spheres of influence
and the need for coexistence, serves as drivers for the interstate
relations to be regulated not just through balance of power
mechanisms, but rather through norms and platforms of
international cooperation. We also argue that external
geopolitical pressure and having a certain hegemonic
state/states inside international communities serve as a clear
 leader are the standard mechanisms of fostering the emergence
of an international society. (Lukin and Novikov 2021, 30)
To paraphrase, institutionalization causes institutionalization (the
“norms and platforms of international cooperation”), but so do any or
all of the following factors: hegemonic power, external geopolitical
pressure, and the needs to protect spheres of influence and to achieve
“coexistence.” This is not a well-specified synthesis, but simply a
kitchen sink claim that everything matters, deflecting the crucial
questions of which causal factors are primary either in weight or in the
causal sequence, and how exactly they interact.

Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations

To be clear, the foregoing discussion does not imply that any of the
causal claims in prior scholarship are necessarily wrong; indeed, many
of the same broad arguments are advanced in this volume. Rather, it is
that they are unconvincing, because there are gaps in the causal logic
underpinning how the purported causes produce their effects, a
corresponding ambiguity about what evidence would support or
disconfirm the proposed explanation, and inattention to rival
hypotheses that might be equally or more consistent with the empirical
record. The task at hand in the current volume is to provide the
theoretical underpinnings that are necessary to (a) rigorously evaluate
these competing hypotheses against the available evidence and (b)
aggregate complementary causal factors into a coherent and sufficient
multicausal explanation.
This volume introduces well-specified theories to the analysis of
contemporary China-Russia relations, which is a necessary first step
toward achieving these aims. The chapters that follow identify causal
variables that are present in the China-Russia relationship and lay out
clear causal mechanisms that plausibly link these variables to the
outcome of increasing bilateral cooperation since the end of the Cold
War. However, the authors do not rigorously test these arguments
against each other or attempt to expand the corpus of empirical
knowledge surrounding China-Russia relations. Rather, they attempt to
establish the plausibility of their proposed explanations by drawing
heavily on the empirical literature cited above, to show that these are
consistent with the available evidence in ways that the default
alternative—mainstream neorealism—is not.
The establishment of multiple well-specified theoretical
explanations for China-Russia cooperation is an essential first cut that
then lays the groundwork for more rigorous testing of these
alternatives against new evidence gathered by area and policy experts,
who are best equipped to gather and interpret the facts on the ground.
This, in turn, will almost certainly prompt additional theoretical
development and refinement to account for novel empirical findings.
Thus, the current volume is not intended to “solve” China-Russia
relations, but rather to engender an ongoing dialectic between theory
and evidence that that will facilitate scholarly progress. Indeed, far
from dismissing the contributions of area specialists such as those cited
above, the theoretically oriented contributors to this volume depend on
them, both for descriptive inferences that generate empirical puzzles
and facilitate inductive theory building, and for uncovering evidence
that can delimit and adjudicate between alternative hypotheses. Yet, as
argued above, theorization is an equally essential component of the
scholarly division of labor: It guides area experts and practitioners to
what causal factors they should consider, what evidence they must
marshal to evaluate those causes, and how to combine them into a
satisfying explanation. This role has heretofore been absent from the
literature on contemporary China-Russia relations. Thus, although the
arguments in this book do not necessarily offer complete explanations
of China-Russia cooperation, they make an outsized contribution to
advancing our understanding of this crucial case by introducing well-
specified theories that can be productively evaluated against each other,
as well as other alternatives that are subsequently proposed.
Not only does this project advance our understanding of China-
Russia relations specifically, but it also makes a substantial contribution
to IR theory more broadly. The cooperative post-Cold War trend in the
bilateral relationship seems puzzling for baseline versions of each of
the major paradigms of international relations theory: realism,
liberalism, and constructivism. The basic assumption of mainstream
realism is that states seek to maximize their security. The primary
mechanism realists have advanced for doing so is balancing. When
threatened by a more powerful state, less-powerful states align with
each other to balance the common threat, thereby enhancing their
security. Thus, realists explain state behavior primarily by the
distribution of power in the international system (Waltz 1979).
The straightforward realist hypothesis is that China-Russia
cooperation is a classic balancing response to the threat posed by the
more-powerful US.8 In static terms, this would make sense. As an
explanation of the dynamic puzzle of increasing China-Russia
cooperation over time, however, the realist balance-of-power
mechanism lacks plausibility. According to balance-of-power logic,
China’s rising power, coupled with its geographic proximity and
longstanding border disputes with Russia, should have made it a
growing threat to Russian security after the Cold War, while the US, in
decline relative to China, should have become relatively less
threatening. Yet China’s rise has coincided with Sino-Russian
rapprochement, rather than Russian balancing against China and
increasing bilateral hostility.9
In contrast, systemic-level liberalism focuses on the role of
institutions in allowing states with imperfectly overlapping interests to
overcome coordination problems and concerns about cheating to
achieve mutually beneficial cooperation (Keohane 1984).10 The
absolute gains from this cooperation, in turn, have a pacifying effect by
increasing the opportunity costs of military conflict (Rosecrance 1986).
Yet immediately following the Cold War, institutionalization of the
China-Russia relationship was virtually non-existent, whereas both
countries were (initially) becoming increasingly integrated into the US-
led international order. Moreover, China and Russia were far more
economically interdependent with the West than with each other, a gap
that has only grown. From a liberal perspective, China and Russia
should therefore have moved steadily closer to the West politically after
the Cold War, while holding each other at arm’s length. Their increasing
bilateral institutionalization despite meager economic ties is itself a
puzzle for liberalism that its proponents have not addressed.11
Finally, constructivism relaxes the assumptions of realism and
liberalism about states’ goals, and adopts an ideational, rather than a
materialist, ontology. States can pursue any ends, depending on their
own national cultures (Katzenstein 1996) and their intersubjective
identities vis-à -vis other states, which are informed by their past
interactions (Wendt 1999). The tradeoff of this ontological flexibility,
however, is that it is often difficult to conceptualize and measure
ideational causes separately from the outcomes they are purported to
produce, and to make ex ante predictions about the effects of ideas,
which have many sources and take many forms. From a constructivist
perspective, the stark differences in Chinese and Russian political
ideologies and national cultures, as well as their long history of
antagonism, presaged continued post-Cold War animosity. Existing
constructivist works on China-Russia relations have struggled to
account for how these historical animosities and ideological rifts have
been mitigated or overcome. Consequently, these works have described
normative convergence between China and Russia, but not successfully
disentangled it from the outcome of increasing bilateral cooperation
that they claim it explains (Kerr 2005; Ferdinand 2007; Wishnick 2017;
Wilson 2019).12

Contributions and Limitations of the Book

The chapters in this volume pursue its twin goals—explanation of
increasing China-Russia cooperation and advancement of broader IR
theory—in three interrelated ways. In Part 1, “Typological Theory and
Description of China-Russia Relations,” the contributions by Korolev,
Moore, and Feng present typologies—theoretically informed
descriptions—that characterize and categorize recent developments in
China-Russia relations.13 These chapters serve to establish empirical
puzzles in China-Russia relations, which the subsequent chapters then
attempt to explain. In Part 2, “Deductive Application of Theory to China-
Russia Relations,” the chapters by Larson, Owen, and Wishnick do this
by applying nuanced versions of existing theories to the China-Russia
case. These novel applications also serve as important hypothesis tests
that augment confidence in the generality and explanatory power of
their causal logics. Conversely, the chapters by Yoder, Kydd, and Haynes
in Part 3, “Inductive Theory Building from China-Russia Relations”
develop novel theoretical explanations for Sino-Russian cooperation,
which can then be generalized to other cases. Both the deductively and
inductively derived theories are syntheses and/or extensions of the
baseline versions of realism, liberalism, and constructivism
characterized above, and account for key aspects of the China-Russia
partnership that existing alternatives do not.14 The concluding chapter
then integrates these theoretical mechanisms to provide a fully
specified, sufficient explanation for increasing Sino-Russian
cooperation, which, along with Robert Sutter’s Chapter 11, yields
predictions and policy prescriptions for US-China-Russia relations. The
contributions to this book therefore work in combination to both
improve our understanding of a crucially important contemporary case,
while also advancing IR theory in substantial ways.
Alexander Korolev’s chapter, “Measuring Strategic Cooperation in
China-Russia Relations,” draws on a series of objective indicators to
establish the main outcome that the other contributions seek to
explain: the secular trend of increasing cooperation between China and
Russia since the end of the Cold War. Although many scholars of China-
Russia relations have noted this trend, they have relied on ad hoc
measures of cooperation that are neither systematic nor logically or
empirically justified. Korolev, in contrast, develops a theoretically
informed typology of military alignment, a concept that has never been
systematically defined and operationalized despite its centrality to IR
scholarship. Drawing on primary Chinese and Russian sources, Korolev
then applies his multidimensional index to measure China-Russia
military cooperation over time. His chapter therefore not only makes an
essential contribution to the current volume by establishing the core
dependent variable, but also contributes a novel typology and empirical
index that will be of general importance in IR. As Korolev
acknowledges, this typology is a first cut that remains imprecise.
Nevertheless, his application of the framework to China-Russia
relations demonstrates its value as a systematic measure of this crucial
variable and as a baseline for further refinement in subsequent work.
An alternative typology and a very different conclusion are
advanced by Greg Moore in Chapter 3, “China, Russia and the United
States:​Balance of Power or National Narcissism?​,” which introduces the
concept of national narcissism to characterize the trilateral relationship
between China, Russia, and the US. In contrast to balancing, which
involves a high degree of cooperation, national narcissism implies a
system of atomistic, uncoordinated states who pursue narrow self-
interest in their bilateral relations with each of the others. Examining
the impact of Sino-Russian defense and trade ties, the degree of
bilateral policy coordination in the Ukraine crisis, and the potential role
of the SCO in anti-American balancing, Moore argues that Sino-Russian
solidarity in the face of European and Western pressure is utilitarian
and shallow. Although China and Russia both oppose the US on major
questions of global order, he contends that they have continued to
behave self-interestedly in their relations with each other, not as
partners attempting to bolster each other against a common opponent
let alone as ideological compatriots who identify with each other’s
interests. Thus, Moore concludes that neither mutual balancing nor
concert, but rather narcissistic opportunism, is the best description of
current China-Russia-US relations.
Whereas Korolev and Moore develop typological theories to
characterize the outcome the other contributors seek to explain,
Chapter 4, “Partnering Up in the New Cold War?​Explaining China-
Russia Relations in the Post-Cold War Era” by Huiyun Feng focuses on a
key independent variable, the convergence in Chinese and Russian
threat perceptions of the US, which pervades each of the subsequent
arguments. For Feng, the US has driven China and Russia together in
four ways, each of which she locates within mainstream theoretical
paradigms: (1) NATO expansion and support for Taiwan’s de facto
independence; (2) US democracy promotion and humanitarian
intervention in the Middle East and Central Asia; (3) US deployment of
missile defense systems; and (4) US opposition to China’s and Russia’s
“assertiveness” in what they perceive as their respective spheres of
influence in the former Soviet Union and maritime East Asia. The
subsequent contributions to this volume specify the theoretical
mechanisms connecting these US behaviors to China-Russia alignment
and subject them to preliminary empirical evaluation. Feng’s chapter
thus serves as an important overview that helps to tie the volume
together.
Part 2, “Deductive Application of Theory to China-Russia Relations,”
begins by introducing an additional factor linking US behavior to Sino-
Russian cooperation. In Chapter 5, “China’s and Russia’s New Status
Relationship,” Deborah Larson applies her pioneering social identity
theory (SIT) to explain the nature and extent of China-Russia
cooperation. Through careful process tracing, Larson offers qualitative
evidence that China and Russia are not simply balancing against
American power, but rather trying to restore their great power status
while maintaining a distinctive identity separate from the West. She
argues that China and Russia are engaged in social cooperation,
whereby each recognizes the other’s superiority in a different area—
economic wealth for China, military power projection for Russia—in
order to enhance their respective status in the eyes of the US. In
contrast to the status-based explanations advanced in the current
China-Russia literature, Larson specifically identifies foreign policy
behaviors that are consistent with SIT, but not with competing
materialist explanations.
Whereas Larson rejects realism wholesale, Chapter 6, “China and
Russia Contra Liberal Hegemony” by John Owen advances an innovative
synthesis of material and ideational factors to explain why China and
Russia are increasingly balancing against the US, instead of each other.
Building on Feng’s theme of democracy promotion, Owen argues that
American liberal hegemony—the combination of preponderant
material power and a liberal ideology—threatens the Chinese and
Russian regimes in two ways: Firstly, by attracting adherents within
each country and threatening to undermine their legitimacy, and
secondly by pulling liberal third-party states out of the Chinese and
Russian spheres and into alignment with the US. In response, China and
Russia have fought back, supporting one other as each works to
undermine liberal hegemony according to their respective strengths,
e.g., Russia’s electoral interference and disinformation campaigns in
liberal democracies, and China’s use of its economic clout to promote
and preserve neighboring authoritarian regimes. Importantly, however,
Owen predicts that if the post-Trump US continues to retreat from its
liberal ideology, then the US threat to China and Russia will fade, and
with it the impetus to Sino-Russian cooperation.
In Chapter 7, “The Paradox of Sino-Russian Partnership:​Global
Normative Alignment and Regional Ontological Insecurity,” Elizabeth
Wishnick agrees with Owen and Larson that China and Russia enjoy
normative alignment at the global level, but argues that their relations
are simultaneously characterized by regional apprehension. The two
states adopt competing regional narratives, stemming from differences
in their historical experiences, understandings of borders, and
perceptions of their own regional roles. These competing narratives, in
turn, engender an “ontological security dilemma,” wherein China and
Russia’s conflicting identities cause them to forego opportunities for
mutually beneficial regional integration. The barriers to regional
cooperation were laid bare during the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw
rapid border closures and stark interruptions of bilateral trade in key
sectors, despite high resource complementarities. Nevertheless,
Wishnick maintains that China and Russia’s regional insecurity from
each other is unlikely to yield opportunities for the US or other states to
wedge them apart on global issues. Although China and Russia have
eschewed greater interdependence, they also have quelled the open
competition over their border and regional spheres that plagued their
relations during the Cold War, which allows them to cooperate in
opposing the common threat they perceive from the US. Interestingly,
then, China and Russia have more trouble navigating their own complex
border history than in jointly confronting the challenges of the current
global order.
In Part 3, “Inductive Theory Building from China-Russia Relations,”
the chapters by Brandon Yoder, Andrew Kydd, and Kyle Haynes
introduce novel rationalist theories that transcend the
realist/liberal/constructivist ontological debate. Yoder adopts an
informational approach in Chapter 8, “The US Factor in China’s
Successful Reassurance of Russia,” to explain China’s reassurance of
Russia in the late 1990s and 2000s despite high initial distrust. Yoder
shows how the presence of a third-party threat can increase the
credibility of a rising state’s reassurance signals in two ways: (1) It
reduces incentives for hostile risers to misrepresent their intentions,
making it easier for the decliner to identify truly benign risers; (2) it
places enduring constraints over the riser’s behavior that will induce it
to cooperate in the future even if its preferences do not perfectly align
with the decliner’s. Thus, like Feng and Owen, Yoder attributes Russian
alignment with China to its threat perceptions of the US, but only
insofar as those threat perceptions have allowed China to credibly
signal its benign intentions to Russia.
In Chapter 9, “Bargaining, Nuclear Weapons and Alliance Choices in
US-China-Russia Relations,” Kydd advances a novel extension of
balancing theory to explain sustained China-Russiaalignment against
the US. He presents a trilateral bargaining framework, in which one
country (representing China) is growing in power relative to two others
(representing Russia and the US). The model shows that as China gains
power, it acquires a credible threat to fight both against the US and
against Russia, with whom it has significant conflicts of interest. This
incentivizes Russia to first adopt a “non-aligned” posture such that all
three states balance against each other dyadically, but then to
eventually put aside its differences with the US and align against China.
Yet empirically, Russia has been drawing ever closer to China even as
the latter rises. To account for this, Kydd extends realist balancing logic
by introducing a crucial overlooked variable: the balance of nuclear
forces. As the US has steadily and dramatically upgraded both its
offensive and defensive nuclear capabilities (a factor Feng emphasizes),
China and Russia have grown increasingly concerned about the security
of their nuclear forces against a US first strike and their resulting
vulnerability to American coercion. This has sustained Russia’s
incentive to remain aligned with China beyond what typical balance of
power or threat would predict.
Kyle Haynes builds a rationalist argument in Chapter 10, “Sino-
Russian Logrolling and the Future of Great Power Competition,” that
China and Russia are engaged in a form of logrolling at the international
level. Although Chinese and Russian preferences diverge from those of
the US, the two states also hold broadly incompatible preferences for
the shape of the international order—both seek to impose more
hierarchical orders in their local regions that would subordinate the
interests of external parties, including each other. Yet China and Russia
value these regions asymmetrically. Whereas China prioritizes East Asia
and the Pacific, Russia prioritizes Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
Thus, China and Russia have incentives to support the other’s
revisionist actions in its home region in exchange for reciprocation in
their own home region. Haynes concludes that although Russia and
China have few shared positive interests, the two states could very well
maintain their limited but highly consequential “axis of convenience”
for the foreseeable future.
Part 4, “Prescriptions and Predictions for U.S.-China-Russia
Relations,” begins with Chapter 11, “America’s Growing Agreement on
Countering Russia-China Challenges” by Robert Sutter, which looks to
theories of domestic politics to explain major shortcomings in US
foreign policy for dealing with the increasingly urgent problem of
Russia-China cooperation. At the root of these shortcomings is a
longstanding lack of consensus among American elites, interest groups,
and broader public opinion on how to deal with China. By contrast,
since 2014 there has been widespread agreement among US leaders
favoring tough measures against Moscow’s challenges to American
interests. However, there was a remarkable convergence of views
during the Trump presidency in favor of an across-the-board hardening
of US policy toward China—including over China-Russia cooperation—
and that newfound consensus remains strong, with the Biden
government’s adoption of the goals and many of the means of the
Trump administration’s tough policy approach toward China. As a
result, Sutter argues, the current US approach toward China and Russia
is more unified than in the past and no longer encumbered with elite-
public and interparty misalignment.
The concluding chapter attempts to adjudicate debates and resolve
apparent contradictions among the preceding arguments to arrive at a
complete, synthetic explanation of China-Russia cooperation. However,
although this collection is a substantial advance in scholarship on
China-Russia relations, it also contains important limitations. It does
not adjudicate between the alternative hypotheses advanced in the
preceding chapters by rigorously testing them against each other.
Rather, the more modest empirical goal is to show that the hypotheses
in each chapter are more consistent with the available evidence than
the default alternative hypothesis of mainstream neorealism.
Moreover, the synthetic argument that emerges in the conclusion is
not intended to be the final word on the China-Russia relationship, but
rather a first cut at a complete and sufficient causal explanation. By
advancing well-specified theories, the arguments that follow are
amenable to contested appraisal against the empirical record, and
thereby facilitate cumulative scholarly progress that has been lacking in
previous work on China-Russia relations. Subsequent empirical work
on China-Russia relations will now be able to draw on the theories
advanced here to derive clear hypotheses about the causal variables
and mechanisms driving increasing post-Cold War China-Russia
cooperation, and identify precisely what evidence would support or
reject these arguments.
Finally, the theories advanced in this volume also contribute to IR
scholarship beyond the China-Russia relationship. The three
applications of existing theories to this novel case help to increase
confidence in the generality and explanatory power of the causal
mechanisms for which the authors find empirical support. The three
original theories potentially make an even greater contribution, by
identifying novel causal processes that may be operating in other cases.
Kydd’s theory of nuclear balancing is an important generalization of
existing realist balance of power that may account for many other cases
that have previously been considered anomalous for realism. Yoder
contributes to the burgeoning literature on the general conditions
under which foreign policy signals are credible. And Haynes’s logrolling
mechanism seems likely to be a common facilitator of cooperation
among states with seemingly incompatible preferences. Thus, even if
subsequent empirical scholarship were to cast doubt on these theories
as explanations of post-Cold War China-Russia cooperation, they
remain important contributions to IR that may have explanatory power
in other cases.

Conclusion
Theory is an essential component of explanation. This is true regarding
both the average causal effects of a single set of factors across multiple
cases or for a multicausal account of a specific outcome in a single case.
Yet in the large and growing literature seeking to account for increasing
China-Russia cooperation since the end of the Cold War, theory has
been either underdeveloped or absent entirely. This has precluded both
the rigorous evaluation of competing hypotheses against evidence and
the identification of how various causal factors have worked in
combination to produce the observed outcome. The chapters that
follow are a first step in filling this theoretical lacuna, introducing well-
specified theories that can account for empirical puzzles in the China-
Russia relationship that mainstream IR theories cannot. In doing so, the
volume facilitates scholarly progress in understanding a crucially
important contemporary case, while also advancing international
relations scholarship more generally.

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Footnotes
1 The two countries’ official characterization of their relationship in treaties and
joint declarations has progressed from one of “good-neighborliness” in the early-
1990s, to “constructive cooperation” in the late-1990s, to “comprehensive strategic
partnership” in 2001, to “comprehensive strategic partnership and coordination” in
2012, to “comprehensive strategic partnership of equality, mutual trust, mutual
support, common prosperity and long-lasting friendship” in 2016. Most recently,
Vladimir Putin declared in May 2021 that “Russian-Chinese relations have reached
the highest level in history.”

2 A rare exception is Andrej Krickovic (2017), who applies the theoretical logic of
power shifts developed by Dale Copeland (2000) to explain why Chinese and Russian
interests currently align. China uses Russia to oppose aspects of US hegemony it
dislikes without bearing the costs of a direct challenge that would jeopardize its rise,
while Russia needs China’s support to mount its challenge and stave off decline.
Other exceptions include the essays in a special issue of International Politics upon
which a subset of the chapters in this volume are based (for an overview see Yoder
2020).

3 Merely referring to theory explicitly is obviously no panacea—it must be done in a

way that carefully specifies causal mechanisms and observable implications of
competing theories, so that their hypotheses can be appraised against the empirical
record. Although there have been a handful of works that advance explanations of
post-Cold War China-Russia cooperation that draw explicitly on IR theory (Kerr
2005; Ferdinand 2007; Li 2007; Odgaard 2017; Wishnick 2017; Wilson 2019; Lukin
and Novikov 2021), most of these attempts share the shortcomings of the
atheoretical literature, as discussed in detail below (for exceptions see Krickovic
2017; Yoder 2020).

4 This claim is axiomatic in the philosophy of science literature. For particularly

trenchant explications of the logical necessity of theory for explanation in social
science, see Brady (1995) and Waldner (2007).

5 On the widespread resistance to theory in both policy and academic circles, see
Walt (2005) and Mearsheimer and Walt (2013).

6 An explanation accounts for a specific outcome in a particular case and includes a

complete causal mechanism that explicates how the independent (causal) variable(s)
produce the outcome. In contrast, inference means establishing that a causal
relationship between independent and dependent variables exists in general terms,
but it need not account for the outcome in any particular case, nor identify the
mechanism the underpins the causal relationship.

7 As defined in the philosophy of science literature, an adequate explanation must

combine plausible causal mechanisms that are jointly sufficient to produce the
observed outcome (Miller 1987; Waldner 2007).
Another random document with
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fancies of a maniac. While on the floor beside the bed lay stretched, in a
pool of blood, his beloved Julia, her head half-severed from her trunk.
The tragic story unfolded only when the police arrived. It then became
clear that Julia, her head half-severed from her body, and therefore a corpse,
had yet, with indomitable purpose, come upstairs to warn her timid sister
against the homicidal lunatic who, just escaped from an Asylum nearby, had
penetrated into the house. However, the police consoled the distracted father
not a little by pointing out that the escape of the homicidal lunatic from the
Asylum had done some good, insomuch as there would now be room in an
Asylum near her home for Geraldine.

III

When the gentleman from America had read the last line of The Phantom
Foot-steps he closed the book with a slam and, in his bitter impatience with
the impossible work, was making to hurl it across the room when,
unfortunately, his circling arm overturned the candle. The candle, of course,
went out.
“Aw, hell!” said Mr. Puce bitterly, and he thought: “Another good mark to
Sir Cyril Quillier! Won’t I Sir him one some day! For only a lousy guy with
a face like a drummer’s overdraft would have bought a damfool book like
that.”
The tale of The Phantom Foot-steps had annoyed him very much; but
what annoyed him even more was the candle’s extinction, for the gentleman
from America knew himself too well to bet a nickel on his chances of
remaining awake in a dark room.
He did, however, manage to keep awake for some time merely by
concentrating on wicked words: on Quillier’s face, and how its tired,
mocking expression would change for the better were his, Puce’s, foot to be
firmly pressed down on its surface: and on Julia and Geraldine. For the
luckless twins, by the almost criminal idiocy with which they were
presented, kept walking about Mr. Puce’s mind; and as he began to nod to
the demands of a healthy and tired body he could not resist wondering if
their home town had been Wigan or Bolton and if Julia’s head had been
severed from ear to ear or only half-way....
When he awoke, it was the stillness of the room that impressed his
sharply awakened senses. The room was very still.
 “Who’s there!” snapped Mr. Puce. Then, really awake, laughed at
himself. “Say, what would plucky little Julia have done?” he thought,
chuckling. “Why, got up and looked!”
But the gentleman from America discovered in himself a reluctance to
move from the bed. He was very comfortable on the bed. Besides, he had no
light and could see nothing if he did move. Besides, he had heard nothing at
all, not the faintest noise. He had merely awoken rather more sharply than
usual....
Suddenly, he sat up on the bed, his back against the oak head. Something
had moved in the room. He was certain something had moved. Somewhere
by the foot of the bed.
“Aw, drop that!” laughed Mr. Puce.
His eyes peering into the darkness, Mr. Puce stretched his right hand to
the table on which stood the automatic. The gesture reminded him of
Geraldine’s when she had touched the white rabbit fur—Aw, Geraldine
nothing! Those idiotic twins kept chasing about a man’s mind. The
gentleman from America grasped the automatic firmly in his hand. His hand
felt as though it had been born grasping an automatic.
“I want to tell you,” said Mr. Puce into the darkness, “that someone is
now going to have something coming to him, her or it.”
It was quite delicious, the feeling that he was not frightened. He had
always known he was a helluva fellow. But he had never been quite certain.
Now he was certain. He was regular.
But, if anything had moved, it moved no more. Maybe, though, nothing
had moved at all, ever. Maybe it was only his half-awakened senses that had
played him a trick. He was rather sorry, if that was so. He was just beginning
to enjoy the evening.
The room was very still. The gentleman from America could only hear
himself breathing.
Something moved again, distinctly.
“What the hell!” snapped Mr. Puce.
He levelled the automatic towards the foot of the bed.
“I will now,” said Mr. Puce grimly, “shoot.”
The room was very still. The gentleman from America wished, forcibly,
that he had a light. It was no good leaving the bed without a light. He’d only
fall over the infernal thing, whatever it was. What would plucky little Julia
have done? Aw, Julia nothing! He strained his ears to catch another
movement, but he could only hear himself breathing—in short, sharp gasps!
The gentleman from America pulled himself together.
“Say, listen!” he snapped into the darkness. “I am going to count ten. I am
then going to shoot. In the meanwhile you can make up your mind whether
or not you are going to stay right here to watch the explosion. One. Two.
Three. Four....”
Then Mr. Puce interrupted himself. He had to. It was so funny. He
laughed. He heard himself laugh, and again it was quite delicious, the feeling
that he was not frightened. And wouldn’t they laugh, the boys at the Booster
Club back home, when he sprung this yarn on them! He could hear them.
Oh, Boy! Say, listen, trying to scare him, Howard Cornelius Puce, with a
ghost like that! Aw, it was like shooting craps with a guy that couldn’t count.
Poor old Quillier! Never bet less than five hundred on anything, didn’t he,
the poor boob! Well, there wasn’t a ghost made, with or without a head on
him, that could put the wind up Howard Puce. No, sir!
For, as his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and helped by the
mockery of light that the clouded, moonless night just managed to thrust
through the distant window, the gentleman from America had been able to
make out a form at the foot of the bed. He could only see its upper half, and
that appeared to end above the throat. The phantom had no head. Whereas
Julia’s head had been only half-severed from—Aw, what the hell!
“A family like the Kerr-Andersons,” began Mr. Puce, chuckling—but
suddenly found, to his astonishment, that he was shouting at the top of his
voice: anyhow, it sounded so. However, he began again, much lower, but
still chuckling:
“Say, listen, Mr. Ghost, a family like the Kerr-Andersons might have
afforded a head and a suit of clothes for their family ghost. Sir, you are one
big bum phantom!” Again, unaccountably, Mr. Puce found himself shouting
at the top of his voice. “I am going on counting,” he added grimly.
And, his automatic levelled at the thing’s heart, the gentleman from
America went on counting. His voice was steady.
“Five ... six....”
He sat crouched at the head of the bed, his eyes never off the thing’s
breast. Phantom nothing! He didn’t believe in that no-head bunk. What the
hell! He thought of getting a little nearer the foot of the bed and catching the
thing a whack on that invisible head of his, but decided to stay where he
was.
“Seven ... eight....”
He hadn’t seen the hands before. Gee, some hands! And arms! Holy
Moses, he’d got long arms to him, he had....
“Nine!” said the gentleman from America.
Christopher and Columbus, but this would make some tale back home!
Yes, sir! Not a bad idea of Quillier’s, that, though! Those arms. Long as old
glory ... long as the bed! Not bad for Sir Cyril Quillier, that idea....
“Ten, you swine!” yelled the gentleman from America and fired.
Someone laughed. Mr. Puce quite distinctly heard himself laughing, and
that made him laugh again. Fur goodness’ sake, what a shot! Missed from
that distance!
His eyes, as he made to take aim again, were bothered by the drops of
sweat from his forehead. “Aw, what the hell!” said Mr. Puce, and fired again.
The silence after the second shot was like a black cloud on the darkness.
Mr. Puce thought out the wickedest word he knew, and said it. Well, he
wasn’t going to miss again. No, sir! His hand was steady as iron, too. Iron
was his second name. And again the gentleman from America found it quite
delicious, the feeling that he was not frightened. Attaboy! The drops of
sweat from his forehead bothered him, though. Aw, what the hell, that was
only excitement.
He raised his arm for the third shot. Jupiter and Jane, but he’d learn that
ghost to stop ghosting! He was certainly sorry for that ghost. He wished,
though, that he could concentrate more on the actual body of the headless
thing. There it was, darn it, at the foot of the bed, staring at him—well, it
would have been staring at him if it had a head. Aw, of course it had a head!
It was only Quillier with his lousy face in a black wrap. Sir Cyril Quillier’d
get one piece of lead in him this time, though. His own fault, the bastard.
“Say, listen, Quillier,” said the gentleman from America, “I want to tell
you that unless you quit you are a corpse. Now I mean it, sure as my name is
Howard Cornelius Puce. I have been shooting to miss so far. Yes, sir. But I
am now annoyed. You get me, kid?”
If only, though, he could concentrate more on the body of the thing. His
eyes kept wandering to the hands and arms. Gee, but they sure were long,
those arms! As long as the bed, no less. Just long enough for the hands to get
at him from the foot of the bed. And that’s what they were at, what’s more!
Coming nearer. What the hell! They were moving, those doggone arms,
nearer and nearer....
Mr. Puce fired again.
That was no miss. He knew that was no miss. Right through the heart,
that little boy must have gone. In that darkness he couldn’t see more than
just the shape of the thing. Aw, Goddammit! But it was still now. The arms
were still. They weren’t moving any more. The gentleman from America
chuckled. That one had shown him that it’s a wise little crack of a ghost that
stops ghosting. Yes, sir! It certainly would fall in a moment, dead as
Argentine mutton.
Mr. Puce then swore. Those arms were moving again. The hands weren’t
a yard from him now. What the hell! They were for his throat, Goddammit.
“You swine!” sobbed the gentleman from America, and fired again. But
he wouldn’t wait this time. No, sir! He’d let that ghost have a ton of lead.
Mr. Puce fired again. Those hands weren’t half-a-yard from his throat now.
No good shooting at the hands, though. Thing was to get the thing through
the heart. Mr. Puce fired the sixth bullet. Right into the thing’s chest. The
sweat bothered his eyes. “Aw, hell!” said Mr. Puce. He wished the bed was a
bit longer. He couldn’t get back any more. Those arms.... Holy Moses; long
as hell, weren’t they! Mr. Puce fired the seventh, eighth ... ninth. Right into
the thing. The revolver fell from Mr. Puce’s shaking fingers. Mr. Puce heard
himself screaming.

IV

Towards noon on a summer’s day several years later two men were sitting
before an inn some miles from the ancient town of Lincoln. Drawn up in the
shade of a towering ash was a large grey touring-car, covered with dust. On
the worn table stood two tankards of ale. The travellers rested in silence and
content, smoking.
The road by which the inn stood was really no more than a lane, and the
peace of the motorists was not disturbed by the traffic of a main road.
Indeed, the only human being visible was a distant speck on the dust,
coming towards them. He seemed, however, to be making a good pace, for
he soon drew near.
 “If,” said the elder of the two men, in a low tired voice, “if we take the
short cut through Carmion Wood, we will be at Malmanor for lunch.”
“Then you’ll go short-cutting alone,” said the other firmly. “I’ve heard
enough tales about Carmion Wood to last me a lifetime without my adding
one more to them. And as for spooks, one is enough for this child in one
lifetime, thanks very much.”
The two men, for lack of any other distraction, watched the pedestrian
draw near. He turned out to be a giant of a man; and had, apparently, no
intention of resting at the inn. The very air of the tall pedestrian was a
challenge to the lazy content of the sunlit noon. He was walking at a great
pace, his felt hat swinging from his hand. A giant he was: his hair greying:
his massive face set with assurance.
“By all that’s holy!” gasped the elder of the two observers. A little lean
gentleman that was, with a lined face which had been handsome in a striking
way but for the haggard marks of the dissipations of a man of the world. He
had only one arm, and that added a curiously flippant air of devilry to his
little, lean, sardonic person.
“Puce!” yelled the other, a young man with a chubby, good-humoured
face. “Puce, you silly old ass! Come here at once!”
The giant swung round at the good-natured cry, stared at the two smiling
men. Then the massive face broke into the old, genial smile by which his
friends had always known and loved the gentleman from America, and he
came towards them with hand outstretched.
“Well, boys!” laughed Mr. Puce. “This is one big surprise. But it’s good
to see you again, I’ll say that.”
“The years have rolled on, Puce, the years have rolled on,” sighed
Quillier in his tired way, but warmly enough he shook the gentleman from
America with his one hand.
“They certainly have!” said Mr. Puce, mopping his brow and smiling
down on the two. “And by the look of that arm, Quillier, I’ll say you’re no
stranger to war.”
“Sit down, old Puce, and have a drink,” laughed Kerr-Anderson. Always
gay, was Kerr-Anderson.
But the gentleman from America seemed, as he stood there, uncertain. He
glanced down the way he had come. Quillier, watching him, saw that he was
fagged out. Eleven years had made a great difference to Mr. Puce. He looked
old, worn, a wreck of the hearty giant who was once Howard Cornelius
Puce.
“Come, sit down, Puce,” he said kindly, and quite briskly, for him. “Do
you realise, man, that it’s eleven years since that idiotic night? What are you
doing? Taking a walking-tour?”
Mr. Puce sat down on the stained bench beside them. His massive
presence, his massive smile, seemed to fill the whole air about the two men.
“Walking-tour? That is so, more or less,” smiled Mr. Puce; and, with a
flash of his old humour: “I want to tell you boys that I am the daughter of the
King of Egypt, but I am dressed as a man because I am travelling incognito.
Eleven years is it, since we met? A whale of a time, eleven years!”
“Why, there’s been quite a war since then,” chuckled Kerr-Anderson.
“But still that night seems like last night. I am glad to see you again, old
Puce! But, by Heaven, we owe you one for giving us the scare of our lives!
Don’t we, Quillier?”
“That’s right, Puce,” smiled Quillier. “We owe you one all right. But I am
heartily glad that it was only a shock you had, and that you were quite
yourself after all. And so here we are gathered together again by blind
chance, eleven years older, eleven years wiser. Have a drink, Puce?”
The gentleman from America was looking from one to the other of the
two. The smile on the massive face seemed one of utter bewilderment.
Quillier was shocked at the ravages of a mere eleven years on the man’s
face.
“I gave you two a scare!” echoed Mr. Puce. “Aw, put it to music, boys!
What the hell! How the blazes did I give you two a scare?”
Kerr-Anderson was quite delighted to explain. The scare of eleven years
ago was part of the fun of to-day. Many a time he had told the tale to while
away the boredom of Flanders and Mesopotamia, and had often wanted to
let old Puce in on it to enjoy the joke on Quillier and himself but had never
had the chance to get hold of him.
They had thought, that night, that Puce was dead. Quillier, naked from the
waist up, had rushed down to Kerr-Anderson, waiting in the dark porch, and
had told him that Puce had kicked the bucket. Quillier had sworn like
nothing on earth as he dashed on his clothes. Awkward, Puce’s corpse, for
Quillier and Kerr-Anderson. Quillier, thank Heaven, had had the sense not to
leave the empty revolver on the bed. They shoved back all the ghost
properties into a bag. And as, of course, the house wasn’t Kerr-Anderson’s
aunt’s house at all, but Johnny Paramour’s, who was away, they couldn’t so
easily be traced. Still, awkward for them, very. They cleared the country that
night. Quillier swearing all the way about the weak hearts of giants. And it
wasn’t until the Orient Express had pitched them out at Vienna that they saw
in the Continental Daily Mail that an American of the name of Puce had
been found by the caretaker in the bedroom of a house in Grosvenor Square,
suffering from shock and nervous breakdown. Poor old Puce! Good old
Puce! But he’d had the laugh on them all right....
And heartily enough the gentleman from America appeared to enjoy the
joke on Quillier and Kerr-Anderson.
“That’s good!” he laughed. “That’s very good!”
“Of course,” said Quillier in his tired, deprecating way, “we took the
stake, this boy and I. For if you hadn’t collapsed you would certainly have
run out of that room like a Mussulman from a ham-sandwich.”
“That’s all right,” laughed Mr. Puce. “But what I want to know, Quillier,
is how you got me so scared?”
Kerr-Anderson says now that Puce was looking at Quillier quite amiably.
Full in the face, and very close to him, but quite amiably. Quillier smiled, in
his deprecating way.
“Oh, an old trick, Puce! A black rag over the head, a couple of yards of
stuffed cloth for arms....”
“Aw, steady!” said Mr. Puce. But quite amiably. “Say, listen, I shot at
you! Nine times. How about that?”
“Dear, oh, dear!” laughed Kerr-Anderson. But that was the last time he
laughed that day.
“My dear Puce,” said Quillier gently, slightly waving his one arm. “That
is the oldest trick of all. I was in a panic all the time that you would think of
it and chuck the gun at my head. Those bullets in your automatic were
blanks.”
Kerr-Anderson isn’t at all sure what exactly happened then. All he
remembers is that Puce’s huge face had suddenly gone crimson, which made
his hair stand out shockingly white; and that Puce had Quillier’s fragile
throat between his hands; and that Puce was roaring and spitting into
Quillier’s blackening face.
 “Say, listen, you Quillier! You’d scare me like that, would you! You’d
scare me with a chicken’s trick like that, would you! And you’d strangle me,
eh? You swine, you Sir Cyril Quillier you, right here’s where the strangling
comes in, and it’s me that’s going to do it——”
Kerr-Anderson hit out and yelled. Quillier was helpless with his one arm,
the giant’s grip on his throat. The woman who kept the inn had hysterics.
Puce roared blasphemies. Quillier was doubled back over the small table,
Puce on top of him, tightening his death-hold. Kerr-Anderson hit, kicked,
bit, yelled.
Suddenly there were shouts from all around.
“For God’s sake, quick!” sobbed Kerr-Anderson. “He’s almost killed
him.”
“Aw, what the hell!” roared Puce.
The men in dark uniforms had all they could do to drag him away from
that little, lean, blackened, unconscious thing. Then they manacled Puce.
Puce looked sheepish, and grinned at Kerr-Anderson.
Two of the six men in dark uniforms helped to revive Quillier.
“Drinks,” gasped Kerr-Anderson to the woman who kept the inn.
“Say, give me one,” begged the gentleman from America. Huge, helpless,
manacled, he stood sheepishly among his uniformed captors. Kerr-Anderson
stared at them. Quillier was reviving.
“Gets like that,” said the head warder indifferently. “Gave us the slip this
morning. Certain death for someone. Homicidal maniac, that’s ’im. And he’s
the devil to hold. Been like that eleven years. Got a shock, I fancy. Keeps on
talking about a sister of his called Julia who was murdered and how he’ll be
revenged for it....”
Kerr-Anderson had turned away. Quillier sobbed: “God have mercy on
us!” The gentleman from America suddenly roared with laughter.
“Can’t be helped,” said the head warder. “Sorry you were put to trouble,
sir. Good-day, gentlemen. Glad it was no worse.”
 IX: TO LAMOIR

A LAS, it is a pity I know so little of trees and flowers, and how I shall
tell this tale without their help I cannot imagine, for it is a tale that
demands a profound knowledge of still, gentle things. But I daresay it
will get itself written somehow, and saying that leads us to quite another
question, for serious men will have it that that is the pity of nearly all the
writing of our time, it just gets itself written somehow.
Now it is difficult not to think a little of my own life in telling of Hugh
and Lamoir, for they helped me when I was very young, for a long time
they were my only friends in London, and ever since they have remained
the dearest. But it was only the other day that Hugh told me about the tree. I
suppose he must have had a sort of idea of what might happen and wanted
to tell someone about it while he could. But it’s odd that I had known him
all those years, him and Lamoir, and he had never so much as mentioned
the tree—when out he suddenly comes with it!
Of course there will be those to say that he hadn’t concealed anything
worth concealing, that it’s an impossible story anyhow, and who could
believe it? But I do believe it decidedly, for how could Hugh have made it
up? Hugh wasn’t an imaginative man, not a bit. That, in point of fact, is
what the story is about. Of course, he had a passion for fine things, a
passion for touching fine things, but your collector or your connoisseur isn’t
generally anything of an imaginative man. Lamoir, now, she was quite
different, and she might easily have thought of the garden and the tree and
the whole business, but so far as I can make out Hugh and Lamoir never
once breathed a word to each other about it.
I have never been able to think of Lamoir quite steadily, I liked her too
much. I know a writer is supposed to be impersonal, but that can’t be
helped. She knew the very hearts of trees and flowers, Lamoir did, and she
was always so still and quiet, like a flower herself, that you never knew
what she was thinking of. And that is more or less how the trouble between
them began, so Hugh told me the other day. He never knew what she was
thinking of, but he hoped for the best, and then one day he found that she
had been thinking away from him all the time. That is what Hugh said. But
I feel that the truth of it was that he never thought Lamoir was thinking of
anything at all, except maybe about what a good husband he was, and then
one day he got a shock. Many men seem to be like that, they have happy
natures, for when their wives are quiet and thoughtful they never dream that
those thoughts might be out of accord with their own, and when they do at
last realise that something has been wrong all the time they are surprised
and hurt and want to know why they were not told sooner. As though, you
know, some things can be told sooner, as though some things can be told
until it is too late!
Now Hugh and Lamoir were a difficult pair to know, together or singly.
Hugh wasn’t at all your democratic sort, there was nothing at all easy-going
about him. I remember once seeing him in a crowded room and thinking he
was like an island of nerves in an ocean of grins. Lamoir said he was proud.
He simply didn’t seem to concern himself at all with other people’s
opinions; it was as though he just hadn’t the time to go about dealing in the
slack forms of geniality which pass for manners in this century. That is
Hugh’s phrase, not mine. Lamoir left him about nine years ago.
They say that people made a great fuss over Lamoir when she first came
from India, because she was so lovely. That must have been about twenty-
five years ago, and about nine years ago she packed up a lot of trunks and
went to Algeria. People were very surprised at that, for Lamoir was beloved
of everyone, and she seemed to be liking her life in England—as much,
anyhow, as anyone ever does seem to like his or her life in England, for
there seems to be a feeling in people that one shouldn’t like living in
England. I like it very much myself, but then I am not English. People said
vaguely that she was going away because her heart was weak—quite all
right, but weak, and that she must have quiet. She never came back.
I went to see her in Algeria two winters ago. I wanted very much just to
see how she was in that solitary new life. Naturally I didn’t tell Hugh the
main reason why I was going to Algeria, and I think he had an idea I was
going there to try to write a book about it, one of those marvellous books
about sheiks and sand and suburban Englishwomen with love flaming in
their eyes to such a degree that none of their friends at home would ever
recognise them. As Hugh never used to speak of his wife one had nothing to
go on as to what his feelings about her were, and so, of course, one said
nothing about her either.
 Just the same, that is how I found Lamoir. She had the grace of silence,
of reflection, to a rare degree. Some people found her frightfully dull, but
then imagine what “some people” are, it can be said that their disapproval is
a distinction that no fairly admirable person should ever be without. The
house she was living in had been the palace of the last of the Admirals of
the Dey’s fleet, Lamoir said, and one could well believe it. There were
dungeons below, deep, dark, crooked, with chains and iron clamps on the
walls where the poor devils of Christian slaves used to be kept, and on the
morning Lamoir was showing me round there was a vampire-bat hanging
asleep from the black broken walls. From the dungeons there was a secret
passage, Lamoir said, down to the bay two miles away at the foot of the
hill, and through this passage the old Admiral scoundrel had tried to escape
when the French stormed the town about eighty years ago—or maybe it was
more or less than eighty years ago; I don’t know when it was, and Lamoir
didn’t know either.
One morning we were walking about on the pink tiles of the flat, uneven
roof, not talking much, while below the sea slept. Lamoir asked after Hugh,
just how he was, and I said he was quite well. “Lonely,” I added.
We sat on the parapet of the roof, looking down the hill at the white
untidy town. There was an American liner in the bay, like a smudge. At last
Lamoir said: “Yes, he was always lonely. Lonely and proud. Hugh is very
proud. Don’t you think so?”
I said: “And you, Lamoir, aren’t you proud, too?”
You see, I knew nothing of the difficulty between Hugh and Lamoir. All
I knew was that two dear friends of mine had parted from each other nine
years before. Lamoir was looking towards the sea, she was smiling. Then
she shook her head suddenly. Her hair was quite grey, and short, and curly
—you can see how attractive Lamoir was, an autumnal flower.
“Oh, no!” she said. “I’m not proud, not a bit. And I don’t like proud
people.”
“I do!” I said.
She said gravely: “You do, of course. But you are young, and it’s quite
right that you should like proud people and should try to be proud yourself,
though I should think your sense of humour would bother you a little while
you were trying. I think young people should be proud, because if they are
not they will put up with makeshifts and get dirty; but elderly people and
old people should not be proud, because it prevents them from
understanding anything.”
“But elderly people,” I said, “don’t they get dirty too, if they’re not
proud?”
She laughed at me, and all she said was: “I was talking about nice
elderly people.” And there the conversation ended, just nowhere. I think it
very silly in a man to go generalising about women, but if I were to start
generalising I might say that most abstract conversations between men end
nowhere, but you have a feeling that at least something interesting has
passed, while with a woman an abstract conversation ends nowhere and you
have a feeling that she has only been talking about whatever it was just out
of politeness.
I remember that what struck me most about Lamoir at that time was how
happy she was, happy and feeling safe in her happiness. That puzzled me
then, for I knew she loved Hugh.

II

I would see a good deal of Hugh, sometimes going to stay with him at
Langton Weaver, and often, in London, dining with him at his house in
Charles Street, just he and I alone. It was very pleasant to know of a quiet
house in which I might now and then pass an evening talking, as one always
did with Hugh if one talked at all, of books and tapestries and fine things. I
never knew a man who had such a passion for the touch of fine things as
Hugh, and seeing him thoughtfully holding a little old ivory figure in his
hand one might almost think his skin was in love with it.
But a few weeks ago, the last time I was ever to dine with my friend, it
instantly struck me that he was in quite a different mood. And presently he
told me about the garden and the tree. He didn’t preface it with anything in
particular, he was thoughtfully twisting the stem of his port-glass when he
said: “Nearly nine years since I have seen Lamoir——”
I said vaguely: “Yes....” Never once, you see, in all those nine years, had
he so much as mentioned the name of Lamoir, and so I felt rather stunned at
first.
Hugh went on thoughtfully, not particularly to me: “And the first time I
saw her I was nine years old. She must have been seven.”
 I said: “But I always understood that Lamoir passed her childhood in
India and never came to England until she was twenty or so! I’d no idea you
too were in India when you were little.”
“I wasn’t,” he said, and he smiled, I think out of shyness just because he
was talking about himself. “I wasn’t. That’s why, you see, it was so funny
——”
I was trying to imagine Lamoir seven years old. It was easy, of course, as
it always is easy with people one likes. Her curly grey hair would be golden
then, and maybe her grey eyes would be more blue than grey, and they
would look enormous in a tiny face. And she would be walking, very still,
making no noise at all, with two thin brown sticks for legs and two blue
pools for eyes, very thoughtful indeed, and all this would be happening in a
garden of red and yellow flowers with a long low white house nearby. That
was how Hugh first saw Lamoir, in a garden, and nearby a long low white
house with a broad flight of steps up to the open doorway and tall, shining
windows.
Dazzling white the house seemed to him, Hugh said, but that must have
been because there was a very brilliant sun that afternoon. There was no
noise, except just summer noises, and although he didn’t remember actually
seeing any birds there must have been a lot of birds about, because he heard
them. And simply masses of flowers there were in that garden, red and
yellow flowers, and over a grey wall somewhere there was hung a thick
curtain of flowers that may have been blue roses. And they may very well
have been blue roses, Hugh said. And bang in the middle of all those
flowers was Lamoir, staring at him as he came into the garden. Hugh was so
surprised, he said, that he didn’t know what to say or do.
He hadn’t, you see, intended coming into that garden at all. He hadn’t, a
moment before, known anything at all about that garden or whose garden it
was or even that there was a garden there at all. That is the funny part about
the whole thing, the way it just sprung out at him, garden, Lamoir, blue
roses and all, out of the summer afternoon. But there it was, and there
Lamoir was, staring at Hugh. Not that she looked a bit surprised, Hugh said,
although she was such a kid. She just stuck her finger into her mouth and
came towards him.
Hugh’s father’s place, Langton Weaver, lay on the slope of a low hill not
far from Hungerford, looking over the plain towards where the old red
Elizabethan pile of Littlecott lies embowered in trees. Hugh, that bright
afternoon, was kicking his heels about in the lane outside his father’s gates,
which was of course against all rules. But Hugh was lonely that afternoon,
he never had any brothers or sisters, and he was wondering what he would
do next, and he was hoping that someone would come along to do
something with—when, bang, there he was in that garden and a little kid
advancing on him with a finger stuck in her mouth. It was very odd, Hugh
said.
“Hullo!” she said. All eyes, that’s what she was.
“Hullo!” Hugh said. She was only a kid, after all. Hugh was nine.
“You’re a boy,” she said.
“Of course I’m a boy,” Hugh said, and he was going to add “just as
you’re a girl,” but a fellow couldn’t stand there arguing all day with a slip
of a thing like that. Then he suddenly remembered he didn’t know where he
was.
“I say,” he said, “I don’t know how I got here. What’s this place?”
She twisted her finger out of her mouth and stared at the wet thing. Hugh
remembered that it shone in the sun. And her hair shone in the sun, too.
Hugh said her hair shone even when they were in the shade. But of course
he didn’t attach any importance to that kind of thing.
“I say, where am I?” Hugh asked again. He must have sounded pathetic,
in spite of himself.
“You’re here,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Hugh,” he said. “But, I say, where’s here? I’ve never seen that house
before. My father’s got the biggest house round here, Langton Weaver. My
father’s Lord of the Manor, and when he’s dead I’m Lord of the Manor.”
“Oo!” she said, staring.
Hugh said he felt frightfully let down. Any other kid would have exalted
the merits of her own house, but she just swallowed everything and stared
at you. Hugh said he felt as though he had been boasting.
“Our house doesn’t look so jolly clean as this,” he said. “Rather live
here, any day.”
And he suddenly realised he was speaking the truth. That was the
amazing part of it, Hugh said: suddenly to feel that he would much rather
live here than in his father’s house. With this kid. And from that moment,
somehow, he forgot every particle of his surprise at being in that garden.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Not got a name,” the kid said. “No name.” All legs and eyes, that’s
what she was.
“But you must have a name!” Hugh cried. “Everyone’s got names, even
dogs and cats. We’ve got seven dogs and they’re all called after every day
in the week except one because you can’t call a dog Sunday, father says.”
“No name,” she said breathlessly. “I’m me.”
“But look here, how do they call you when they want you?” He thought
he’d got her there all right, Hugh said.
She giggled. “I just come,” she giggled. “I don’t need to be called. Oo!
Just come when I’m wanted. Did you want me? You did, didn’t you?”
He stared at her, he was so dumbfounded. Jiminy, hadn’t he wanted her!
Anyhow, hadn’t he wanted something to happen. But how had this kid
known that?
“Look here, no rotting!” he warned her.
“Not rotting,” she said, sucking her finger. “What’s rotting?”
“But what’s this place?” he asked almost frantically. “Hasn’t it got a
name either?”
“Oo, yes! Playmate Place.”
“It’s not!” Hugh cried. “Not Playmate Place! You’re rotting now.”
Hugh says she took her finger out of her mouth, stamped her foot and
screamed at one and the same time. “It is called Playmate Place and
Playmate Place and Playmate Place! So there!”
“Oh, all right!” Hugh said, and he didn’t let on any further about his
opinion of a house called Playmate Place. Hugh says a boy of nine would
rather die than live in a house called Playmate Place. It sounded so soft. But
she was only a kid, after all, and she couldn’t know anything.
“I’m going to run now,” the kid said, standing on one leg and staring at
the other.
That was too much, Hugh said. She was going to run! As though she
could run! “Beat you blindfolded,” he just said.
 “Oo, you try!” she giggled, and she turned, and she flew. She just flew,
Hugh said. All brown legs and golden hair. He hadn’t a chance. But he must
have been quite a nice boy really, Hugh said, because he began laughing at
himself. He beat this kid!
She stopped, miles away, just under a tree. Hugh panted on. And they
must have run some distance, for the house and the blue roses were no
longer visible. Hugh couldn’t remember any of the particulars of where they
were now. There was a sense of flowers, he said, clean flowers, a lot of
flowers. And that tree, under which Lamoir was waiting for him. Of course
he didn’t know she was Lamoir then. That tree seemed to him a big tree.
Hugh said that when you touched it it smelt like a sort of echo of all the
good smells you had ever smelt.
But he hadn’t come quite up to her when she turned and, before you
could say “knife,” shinned up that tree!
“I say!” cried Hugh.
“Can’t catch me!” panted a little voice from among the leaves.
“Can if I want to,” said Hugh, looking up. All he could see between the
leaves was something white.
“Like you to want to,” piped the something white, and Hugh fell in love
for the first and last time in his life.
When he caught up with her, on a branch high up, she said “Oo!” and
gave him a damp kiss on his cheek. She didn’t giggle or anything, she was
as serious as a man playing cricket. Hugh felt rather ashamed.
“Look here,” he said, to say something, “what’s this tree called? Never
seen a tree like this before.”
“It’s a lovely tree,” she said, staring. “It’s called Playmate Tree, of
course.”
“That’s a soft word, playmate,” Hugh rashly said.
She stared at him with those big grey eyes, Hugh said, so that he began
to feel weak, just weak with meanness. And then she said “Yow!” and wept.
Well! She wept. Hugh didn’t know what to do, stuck up there on a branch of
a tree and this kid crying fit to break her kid’s heart. He kept muttering, “I
say, I’m sorry,” and things like that, and then he found she was somehow in
his arms, and he kissing her and kissing her hair. Her hair smelt like the
tree, Hugh said, so it must have been a funny sort of tree.
 “Kiss the tree now,” the small voice said. “You’ve hurt it.”
“Oh, I say!” said Hugh, but he did as he was told, and then they climbed
down the magic tree in silence, he trying to help her and almost breaking
his neck. They walked slowly back, hand in hand, towards where the house
was, through the sweet lush grass. There was music somewhere, Hugh said.
Or maybe there wasn’t and he only thought there was. And Hugh said that
he was happier at that moment than he had ever been since in his whole life.
“Mustn’t laugh at words like playmate,” said the wise kid. “You’ll get
hurt if you do.”
“I say, I’d like to see you again,” Hugh said shyly, and he found himself
walking on the dusty lane towards Nasyngton! He was almost in
Nasyngton, he could see, down the slope, the thick old bridge over the
Kennet. He must have walked two miles or more while he thought he was
in that garden. Playmate Place. He stopped to wipe his face, wondering
passionately. He was simply streaming with perspiration. But what had
happened to that old garden, that’s what puzzled him. And that kid! That
jolly little kid. He rubbed his cheek, but he couldn’t be certain if there still
was a damp patch where she had kissed him. Anyhow, it would have dried
by then, and, anyhow again, he’d got so hot since.
When he got home Hugh told Hugh’s father the outline of his adventure,
and Hugh’s father told Hugh he had broken rules by being outside the gates
at all and that he must have been dreaming, but Hugh said passionately that
he was sorry he had broken rules but he hadn’t been anything like
dreaming, and Hugh’s father told Hugh not to be an ass, and two years later
Hugh’s father died.
Hugh did not see the garden of the white house again. Playmate Place.
Hugh, as he grew up, blushed to think of Playmate Place. He had blushed at
the time, and later on he blushed at the very thought of it. He wouldn’t have
dared let any of his friends at school even dream of his ever having
swallowed such a soft yarn as the Playmate Place one. But, despite himself,
the face of the kid whose name was to be Lamoir stayed with him, and her
silver voice, and her enormous eyes. And now and then in his dreams, Hugh
said, he would seem to hear the faint echo of an “Oo!”

III
 It was almost twenty years to a day after the adventure of Playmate Place
that Hugh met Lamoir at a party at Mace, Guy de Travest’s place. Miss
Cavell her name was. He recognised her, he said, at once, at very first sight.
She had been seven then and she was twenty-seven now, but he knew her
on sight. And when she spoke, he was quite certain. Of course she didn’t
suck her finger and say “Oo!” any longer, but without a doubt Lamoir
Cavell was the grown-up of the kid of Playmate Place. And he actually
found himself wondering, as he talked to her that first time at Mace, if she
recognised him—and then he almost laughed aloud at his childishness, for
of course the whole thing had been a boy’s dream. But it was very odd, his
dreaming about someone he was actually to meet twenty years later. And
once he fancied, as he turned to her suddenly, that she was looking at him a
little strangely, in a puzzled sort of way maybe, with that small slanting
smile of hers as though she was smiling at something she just hadn’t said.
Oh, Lamoir must have been very beautiful then!
She was born in India, where old man Cavell was something in the Civil
Service, and she had lived in India until recently, when her father died.
Hugh, that first time, asked her if she had ever been in England as a child,
and she said, staring at him in a way that seemed so familiar to him that his
heart gave a throb: “Only in dreams.” But he didn’t tell her about the
Playmate Place then. Then was the time to tell her, then or never. He never
told her.
They walked in enchantment, those two, for the next few days. Guy de
Travest has told me since that the whole house-party went about on tiptoe,
so as not to disturb Hugh and Lamoir in their exquisite contemplation of
their triumph over the law of life, which is of course unknowable, but must
be pretty depressing, seeing what life is.
They were married in the little village church at Mace, and Hilary
Townshend was Hugh’s best man, and Hilary has told me since that he
almost wept to see them going away—knowing as he did so certainly,
Hilary said, that Hugh and Lamoir had taken the one step in life which will
wake any couple up from any dream.
Hugh continually pulled at the stiff grey affair on his upper lip as he told
me of his marriage. “It’s Playmate Place,” he said, “that is important in the
story: much more important than my married life. Lamoir and I never quite
reached Playmate Place in actual life. We were in sight of it sometimes—
when I let Lamoir have her head. But I only see that now, I didn’t realise it
then.”
He said that about the importance of Playmate Place quite seriously.
And, you know, I took it quite as seriously. A dream or vision or whatever it
was, that has lasted fresh in a man’s mind from the age of nine to the age of
forty-nine is, after all, a thing to be taken seriously. I haven’t, as a rule,
much patience with dreams; and there’s a deal too much talk of dreams in
the novels of the day, for it’s so easy to write “dream”; but Hugh’s, as they
say, rather “got” me.
He never spoke about it to Lamoir. “I began to, several times,” he said,
“but somehow I never went on. You see, there was such a difference
between our life together and the way we had been together in that garden. I
mean, such a tremendous difference in spirit. She was the same, but I—
well, I was the same, too, but only that ‘same’ which had jeered at the word
‘playmate.’ It’s difficult to explain. I knew, you see, as I said things that
might hurt her, that I was in the wrong—and I didn’t want to say them,
either—but somehow it was in me to say them and so I said them. It’s
somehow the impulses you can’t put into words that are the strongest.”
The marriage of Hugh and Lamoir appeared to have gone much the same
way as most marriages. At first they were very happy, and they were quite
certain that they were going to be even happier. Then they thought that
perhaps they were not so happy as they had been, and then they were quite
certain that they were not so happy as they had been. Hugh said it was more
or less like that.
Hugh, at the time, had thought privately that this was because Lamoir
did not take very much interest in his collections of fine things. Not that he
wasn’t quite contented with his marriage. Good Lord, contented! I wonder
what Lamoir thought about that. Contented! But she never confided, that
quiet Lamoir.
It was a great unhappiness to her, Hugh said, that there were no children.
A very great unhappiness. He hadn’t, he admitted, minded so much,
because year by year he was growing more absorbed in his collections.
Throughout his married life he would go off searching Europe for pieces.
Italy, Greece, Spain. At first he used to take Lamoir with him, but later on
she would stay at home. She preferred that, Hugh said. She wouldn’t stay in
the London house, but at Langton Weaver, the house which was larger but