The Historical Evolution of China-Soviet Union (Russia)Relations and its Significance

　　PhD Candidate, Department of CCP History, School of Marxism Studies, Renmin University

　　Abstract: In terms of relationship models, China’s relations with Soviet Union, and later Russia, have undergone transitions between one of allies, to one of confrontation, and more recently one of partnership. Like history which develops organically, the three stated relationship models share strong logical connections between them. On the one hand, the ally and confrontational models are legacies to the partnership model; their influences and restrictions on the latter were largely internalized. On the other hand, the development of the partnership model in the 1990s owes as much to the dialectics of inheritance and abandonment of the ally and confrontation models. It is thus impossible to isolate one model from another. Given such entanglements, core and more pertinent research questions appear to be: what has the current China-Russia partnership model inherited and abandoned from its predecessor models? What are the innovations of the latest model? With a view from history to the present, what form of scientific recognition should scholars attach to this partnership model? These questions can only be clarified with the historical assessment of the internal logics between the “ally-confrontation-partnership” relationship models.