Soft Power of People’s Republic of China in Sino-Russian Relations

This article examines China’s Soft Power not as an abstract external resource of the PRC, but as an operative mechanism within Sino-Russian relations. The aim of the study is to identify the main channels, forms, and limits of the effectiveness of the Chinese Soft Power in bilateral interaction. Academic publications and analytical works devoted to humanitarian cooperation between China and Russia, language training and higher education, cultural diplomacy, media interaction, tourism, and the perception of the neighboring country’s image served as a research material. It is shown that the Chinese Soft Power in the relations with Russia is implemented through the humanitarian contacts institutionalization, language and educational infrastructure expansion, the joint production of symbolic and informational meanings as well as via cultural and tourism practices. The author concludes that the strong side of the Chinese Soft Power lies in its systemic nature, personnel reproducibility, and its ability to transform cultural presence into a sustainable infrastructure of trust. Its weakness is associated with the persisting gap between a high level of political trust and the slower formation of deep cultural closeness at the societal level.