Russia and China: an old friendship poses new threats

It's been almost three years since Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared unbridled friendship weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Since then, they have backed away from a such rhetorical enthusiasm. The “no limits” language was quickly abandoned, probably at the request of Beijing.

When Putin visited China in May last year, he said he and his counterpart were as close as brothers. Xi more coolly called the Russian president a good friend and a good neighbor. China clearly did not reciprocate Putin's description of an ally.

Yet the partnership continues to broaden and deepen, much to the alarm of the West, on the economic, political and military fronts. The American Council on Foreign Relations recently assessed it as the greatest threat to vital U.S. national interests in 60 years. The past 12 months have seen unprecedented joint military activity by Chinese and Russian forces, although the goal was likely to show off their combined might rather than pursue the interoperability that is fundamental to the U.S.-European alliance. In September last year, the United States first suggested that Beijing could provide direct support to Russia's war machine in Ukraine, beyond the type of dual-use equipment it ships and of the essential role it plays as an export market for Russian oil. A multitude of works on the new Cold War appeared last year.

The confrontation between the West and an axis led by China and Russia, this time with Moscow as junior partner and including Iran as well as North Korea, has alarming echoes of the past. Fears of nuclear war, long latent, have been rekindled. An island, then Cuba, then Taiwan, could become a hot spot. US President Joe Biden has sought to frame the confrontation as a global struggle between an alliance of democracies and the world's autocracies, although Washington sides with Saudi Arabia, while India refuses to take sides against Ukraine and is accused of assassinating critics in Canada.

There is ample evidence that there are in fact limits to Sino-Russian relations, as the war in Ukraine has shown. Despite recent U.S. remarks about lethal aid, China has been conspicuously reluctant to provide arms and ammunition. Russian companies have reported growing obstacles to their operations as Chinese banks have stepped up compliance with sanctions, driven by Western threats, even as priority payments appear to be proceeding unhindered.

Analysis of the two countries' recent security statements reveals that they appear as much about controlling expectations and containing each other's ambitions as about amplifying their power together. Just as Chinese support for Russia's war in Ukraine is limited, although evident, Russia has made it clear that it does not want to wage war on China's behalf.

Former US President Donald Trump's re-election also raised the specter of a reverse Nixon, with the US embracing Moscow and excluding Beijing, given its hawkishness towards China and fondness for Putin. Yet Nixon's rapprochement with China was made possible by the extraordinarily bitter Sino-Soviet split, which followed the Sino-Soviet alliance.

Both players learned their lesson from this clash and would look beyond a single presidential term. It is more likely that Russia will capitalize on all of Washington's incentives and continue to work with Beijing as it sees fit, albeit perhaps more discreetly.

Countries have very different strategies. Putin's Russia is more disruptive, while Xi believes the current order can be tailored to Chinese interests.

This is an alignment, not an alliance, said historian Sergei Radchenko, an expert on Sino-Soviet relations. They are not brought together by ideology but by interests and grievances, threats and opportunities. However, this very limitation makes the relationship more pragmatic and flexible, and therefore more durable.

Trump's return highlights the fragility of the US-European alliance and the difficult task facing new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to consolidate it. The internal problems and contradictions of Western democracies also embolden Russia and China. Yet their own difficulties become more evident. After years of breakneck growth that have propelled it on the verge of surpassing that of the United States, China's economy is struggling (some believe a slowdown may be the most likely incentive for China to invade Taiwan in the years to come, with nationalist pride taking center stage). His diplomatic advances are accompanied by growing questions abroad about the costs of doing business with him. The war in Ukraine has highlighted Russia's military and economic challenges. The hammering of the Iranian resistance axis and the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have exposed other vulnerabilities.

For some analysts, this era resembles more the 1930s, with the collapse of the world order, than the decades after World War II. Acts of wartime violence have doubled in the past five years and an expert on global violence has warned we could be entering a new normal for war.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last fall of a purgatory of polarity that allows countries to do as they please with impunity. The countries of the South paid a heavy price for the Cold War, which resulted in torrid wars that cost millions of lives.

Yet the conflict was, in the words of historian Odd Arne Westad, relentlessly bipolar at its height. We live in a multipolar world, in which powers such as India, South Africa, Turkey and Indonesia pursue their own paths with more determination than ever.

We also live in a much more economically integrated world. The financial isolation imposed on Russia goes far beyond what one might have thought possible. Attempts by Western politicians to reduce dependence on China call it decoupling, de-risking or whatever those terms may be, and its share of the global economy has fallen relative to its summit of 2021. Trump threatened that tariffs would hit him. Sino-US trade has already fallen sharply in 2023. However, it is still more than double China's trade with Russia.

Economic ties, common challenges and the undeniable need for partnership on certain issues, notably the existential danger of global warming, do not necessarily lead to cooperation. The pandemic has demonstrated the urgency of working together for global health, but also how often countries fail, putting national interests first.

Global divisions are likely to widen this year. However, a spiral of escalation should be considered neither desirable nor inevitable.