Many have warned of a developing China-Russia axis following the countries’ announcement of a “no-limits” partnership last year, just as Vladimir Putin was poised to launch an all-out war on Ukraine.
Some, including Putin, have denied any intention of creating a military alliance, even as the two countries announce closer military ties.
It would be brave, bordering on foolish, to accept his word. The world is a more dangerous place now than it was last year, and it was more dangerous last year than in 2021.
The ongoing war in Ukraine, combined with a deepening conflict in the Middle East, with possible severe consequences for the flow of world trade through Yemen’s Bab el-Mandeb strait, are serious enough. If there were to be an attack (or even a blockade) against Taiwan, the US would face the prospect of a crisis on three fronts, with China, Russia, and Iran, driving developments.
The three countries, together with North Korea, have a shared opposition to the world order that the United States and its democratic allies put in place 80 years ago. This arrangement allowed the US to prevail in the Cold War, and to manage the global system over the past 30 years. Russia and China’s no-limits partnership has at its core the determination to dismantle the existing US-centered world order.
This embryonic alliance developed while the US was focused on a very different threat; that of global terrorism following the 9/11 attacks. US administrations lost focus on great power competition and instead sought to eliminate the threat of terrorism by remaking key Middle Eastern regimes. This was hugely expensive and delivered few of the promised results.
More seriously, the Global War on Terror (GWOT) restructured the military for overseas contingency operations and shrank the defense industrial base to the point that we cannot now provide the quantities of weapons at the scale that a major war against a near-competitor requires. And the US now has an electorate deeply fatigued by foreign military engagement.
The Sino-Russian alliance is very different from those of the US. There are few positive shared values or cultural fundamentals. Instead, it is a coming together of authoritarian states with the shared purpose of opposing the United States and its allies. Beijing and Moscow see themselves as united in a civilizational struggle against the West.
There is no question of their hostility and unity of purpose, but there is a question of if and how quickly the Sino-Russian political and economic axis will morph into a hardcore military pact.
In July, Russian and Chinese naval forces conducted a joint military exercise in the Sea of Japan. While China’s state-run Global Times declared that the Northern/Interaction-2023 exercise marked the first time that both Russia’s navy and air force had taken part in a joint drill led by the Chinese navy, PLAN, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Russia and China held five or more military exercises in the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea last year.
There’s something still more concerning. Russia possesses some high-end military technologies. If it shared those with China (and there are now signs that it is doing so), this would change the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific faster than most analysts have anticipated, especially if China gets access to naval technologies for its rapidly growing maritime forces.
This expanding Sino-Russian military cooperation should give Washington pause. In key areas of defense technology, Moscow has much to offer Beijing, and as Putin grows more dependent on Xi for political and economic support, those technologies, especially hypersonics and attack submarine propulsion systems, can help the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Liberation Army Navy leapfrog into key areas where they are currently deficient.
The same goes for operational and tactical lessons the two can draw from each other, laying the foundation for a degree of interoperability that didn’t exist before. It is fair to assume that under their “no-limits partnership,” naval drills of the sort witnessed earlier this year are just the beginning of a deepening military-to-military cooperation between the two countries.
There has also been a significant expansion of Russian-Chinese economic ties, not only when it comes to Chinese purchases of Russian energy, but also in terms of an increase in China’s presence in the Russian market, replacing key Western companies that have left due to sanctions.
For instance, Great Wall Motor is now the second-largest seller of new cars in Russia behind only Lada, the iconic Russian brand produced by AvtoVaz. In September, Chinese and Russian ministers called for greater cross-border ties and deeper mutual trade and investment cooperation.
The expansion of cross-border commerce between the two countries is particularly significant as both the Russian Far East bordering on China, as well as North Korea, are fast becoming critical zones of regional trade. Chinese state media recently reported the planned expansion of grain imports from Russia, announcing the construction of a grain corridor linking Russia to Heilongjiang, China’s northeastern breadbasket.
The official claim is that the corridor will bolster China’s food security, with Xi personally touting the growing importance of the northern axis for the economy.
There are good reasons for Russia and China to accelerate cooperation. Economic and demographic trends do not favor either dictatorship. The war in Ukraine has awakened much of the West to the existential threat the Sino-Russian alliance poses to the free world.
The Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on October 7 and the subsequent Israeli retaliation in Gaza have effectively marked the widening of the frontline of great power confrontation, and — should Hezbollah or other Iranian-backed groups join the fight — threaten to ignite a wider war in the Middle East and beyond.
In extremis, this could transform the decades-long stand-off between the United States and Iran into an all-out kinetic conflict, with Washington stepping up its aid and support for Israel.
The Hamas attack has finally revealed to even the most skeptical US decision-makers that there is a larger threat unfolding across different theaters in the world.
A full-scale China-Russia alliance would present the United States with a threat unlike any it has confronted since the end of the Cold War.
America is not lacking in resources, but it does need a clarity of purpose akin to what it possessed during the Cold War, especially when it comes to the military threat. Washington must communicate what is at stake should Russia win in Ukraine, and should a wider war engulf the Middle East.
United States resources are being stretched by multiplying regional crises while it seeks to forge a national consensus on how to rebuild its military after two decades of counter-insurgency warfare and overseas contingency operations that shrank its force and shifted its focus away from force-on-force combat.
The American people are remarkably steadfast on national security issues, as shown by a recent, major survey that found around two-thirds support outward-looking defense and national security priorities.
It should not take too much leadership and bipartisan effort to rally the nation behind a clear-eyed response to this new age of great power competition. At that point, the Sino-Russian challenge will face a far more formidable response from the United States and its allies.
Chels Michta is a Nonresident Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Chels is a former CEPA Title VIII Fellow and is currently a military intelligence officer serving in the US Army.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Army, the US Department of Defense, or the US government.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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