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China-Russia Lovefest

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

On January 19, 2021, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo released a final Trump Administration statement condemning China for its atrocities in Xinjiang against the minority Uyghur Muslim population. As we move into 2021 under the new Biden Administration it seems appropriate to look at the current state of relations among the big three: US, China, and Russia. Although there remains an underlying current of distrust between Beijing and Moscow, the leaders of the two communist states continue to work together to undermine the status of the United States as leader of the free world and the most powerful nation on earth.

President Biden assumes office at a time when the United States cannot afford to underestimate the short—term geopolitical consequences of expanding and deepening China-Russia cooperation. For the duration of the Cold War, the US was able to play the “China card.” During the Nixon years when Beijing decided it needed a market for its fledgling export trade, it moved toward the US. The time was ripe for rapprochement. The great state players remain the same today, but the game has changed. 

President Xi Jinping over the last decade has driven his country to develop advanced, offensive military capabilities, a large and relatively sophisticated export-based economy, and he has carved out a global political role he believes is befitting that of the head of the former Middle Kingdom. Neither China nor Russia abide by the norms of the international rules-based system. Unlike the Soviet Cold War era, however, China is a rising aggressive state that poses the greatest national security to the US and the entire West in modern times. President Xi has stated that his goal is no less than to remake the world in China’s image. 

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Until President Trump assumed office no Administration since that of President Reagan had the political willpower to push back against the Chinese state. In 2021 the China-Russia alignment represents a very real and present threat to West. Russia’s expanding support of its ally in the east extends from joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean to acting as a force multiplier by complementing China’s military adventurism. Again, the amplified challenge is real. Russia is supplying its ally with advanced weapons that are speeding China’s takeover of the South China Sea and reducing the likelihood that the United States will be able to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific in the future.

A report published last week from the Center for New American Security says: “Russia and China are popularizing authoritarian governance, exporting their best practices, watering down human rights norms, backing each other up to defend strategic interests in multilateral forums, creating norms around cyber and internet sovereignty, and bolstering illiberal leaders and helping them stay in power.” The anti-democratic synergy these states create is magnified across a number of fields and designed to push authoritarian systems as the solution while diminishing the influence and power of the United States.

By working together Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are teaming up to reduce the impact of American sanctions and export controls. If they are successful Washington will have little leverage over China’s actions abroad in the near-term. Although the two communist giants do not agree on all issues, they have a unity in purpose when it involves working in tandem to counter-balance US global influence. Now that China and Russia have resolved most of their territorial issues, and the 1950’s dispute over Russia’s reneging on its promise to give China the bomb are fading, the world cannot count on the Russian-Chinese relationship deteriorating any time soon. Moscow’s political analysts view Washington as the immediate threat. That means playing the “China card.” In the defense sector, on democracy and human rights issues, inside the world of technology and cyberwarfare, and the economic realm China and Russia today find more reasons for synergy than cynicism. That should greatly concern the incoming Biden Administration.

Photo: China Defence Ministry