Legal Aspects of the Evolution of Relations and the Main Motives for Rapprochement between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China

Aim. The authors interpret Russian-Chinese relations in terms of the crisis of the unipolar world and the result of the failure of the old concept of Russia’s foreign policy, which can be conventionally called “Atlanticism”. Methodology. The article is intended to contribute to the study of the recent history of Russian-Chinese relations, from the point of view of methodology; in this regard, the authors pay much attention to the chronology of the development of relations between Russia and the PRC. At the same time, the authors have the task of showing to non-East historians the process of Russia’s turn towards strengthening relations with China. Results. The authors help the teacher to form ideas about the trends in the development of modern Russian-Chinese relations within the framework of tracing the chronology of changes in these relations in the context of analysing the crisis of the unipolar world. Research implications. The authors divide Russia’s past foreign policy into “Atlanticism” and “Eurasianism”, examining Russian-Chinese relations in the context of the latter, demonstrating that Central Asia and Kazakhstan are now part of the system of joint interests of Russia and China, so Russia’s geopolitical horizons are shifting towards the Pacific Ocean, i.e., far beyond the former USSR.