Facing pressure from the West, Russian universities partner with Chinese peers

“We are now witnessing rapid growth in Russian-Chinese trade, and therefore specialists in this field are needed,” Vasiliev was quoted as saying by Sputnik’s Chinese website.

“Our new programme is aimed at training such people – specialists with a business education background and bilingualism in Russian and Chinese.”

With the West seeking to isolate Russia in the wake of the Ukraine war, Russian universities are turning to partners in China, where education has become a top priority as the country seeks greater self-reliance in science and technology amid heightened geopolitical competition with the US.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in March, the two sides agreed to “promote cooperation between universities and colleges and support the establishment of an alliance of similar universities and secondary schools in Russia and China”, according to a joint statement signed by the two leaders.

The two countries also agreed to step up cooperation in vocational training and language education.

Guo Qiang, a professor at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications who has studied China-Russia educational ties, said the deeper cooperation in higher education was a reflection of stronger bilateral relations overall, largely driven by shared pressure from the West.

China has refused to join the West in condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Xi accused Western countries of “containment, encirclement and suppression of China” during a meeting with private sector representatives in Beijing in March.

“Both China and Russia are facing ideological pressure and strategic competition from the West,” Guo said.

“Under these circumstances, deepening mutual trust between China and Russia cannot be achieved without people-to-people cooperation, the most important of which is educational cooperation.”

Soon after Putin launched the war in early 2022, many European and US universities suspended cooperation with Russian institutions.

Some European countries, including Germany, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Norway and Lithuania, asked their universities to cut ties with Russia altogether.

Guo said that rather than deter Chinese universities, the war in Ukraine was likely to encourage them to seek cooperation with Russia – home to one of the largest scientific and technical workforces in the world.

“Openness and a cooperative spirit are essential for the development of domestic education,” he said.

“So to some extent, the Ukraine war may instead increase Russia’s incentives to engage with China when its cooperation with the West has been disrupted.”