The Bottle of Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership: Half Full or Half Empty.

What is there to the Sino-Russian strategic partnership, a centerpiece of bilateral political diplomacy since the mid-1990s? Russia?s handling of its China relations under Putin, its decision to deny oil and gas pipelines to China in a time of the latter?s worsening energy security most noteworthy, requires a scrutiny of the substance beneath the rhetoric. This paper reviews the evolution of Sino-Russian relations, political and economic, under Putin and in the Northeast Asian regional context. The main thesis is that the ?strategic? nature of Sino-Russian relations lies in solidifying the basis, however feeble, for substantive engagement in the future. While that future is not assured, the mutual learning that has taken place, provides good ground for a stable relationship between the two power in the Northeast Asian region. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]