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Over the post-Cold War era, China has been committed to intensifying its strategic partnership with Russia in an attempt to usher into the world a new order. To achieve this goal, these two states have since the end of the Cold War expanded their cooperation, including the oil and gas cooperation. The research objectives of the paper are to explore the latest development in the China–Russia oil and gas cooperation and the motivations and outcomes from a Chinese perspective. It contributes to the scholarly discussion by analyzing China's intensified energy cooperation with Russia in the greater picture of China's rise and examining it in a political economy way. This paper finds that the rapidly enhanced energy cooperation is a visible manifestation of China's quest for energy security and a greater say in the world energy market. This paper concludes that China wishes to achieve three objectives by intensifying its oil and gas cooperation with Russia: this first is related to China's sustained economic growth; the second to China's aggravated security environment since the US 'pivot to Asia'; the third to China's dream of restoring its past status as a great power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the post–Cold War era, China and Russia have been committed to creating a strategic partnership in an attempt to contain the US hegemony and bring the world a new international order. As a part of this partnership and their efforts in achieving the above goals, these two states have increasingly intensified their military cooperation over the past two decades. The rapidly enhanced military cooperation is a visible manifestation of China's quest for military modernization to meet the challenges of a potentially military intervention launched by the USA in Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea as well as for a delicate moment of global power shift caused by the rise of China. It also shows China's strategic intention of enhancing its "hard" power in order to elevate its status at the systemic (global) level. In so doing, China wishes to achieve two interconnected objectives. One is related to China's strategic and security environment that, from the Chinese perspectives, has been drastically aggravated by the US containment of its rise. The other relates to China's long cherished dream of restoring its past glory of "Fuqiang" (wealth and power) by enhancing its national power and rising in the global power hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]