Update on the world’s most important bilateral relationship, from the West’s political commissars:
The “alliance” is still unholy... but it is no longer doomed to failure
The Empire has only its own blind, overweening arrogance to blame.
“Just a decade ago, most U.S. and European officials were dismissive about the durability of the emerging partnership between China and Russia. The thinking in Western capitals was that the Kremlin’s ostentatious rapprochement with China since 2014 was doomed to fail because ties between the two Eurasian giants would always be undercut by the growing power asymmetry in China’s favor, the lingering mistrust between the two neighbors over a number of historical disputes, and the cultural distance between the two societies and between their elites. No matter how hard Russian President Vladimir Putin might try to woo the Chinese leadership, the argument went, China would always value its ties to the United States and to U.S. allies over its symbolic relations with Russia, while Moscow would fear a rising Beijing and seek a counterbalance in the West.
“Even as China and Russia have grown significantly closer, officials in Washington have remained dismissive. ‘They have a marriage of convenience,’ U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told U.S. senators in March 2023 during Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s state visit to Moscow. ‘I am not sure if it is conviction. Russia is very much the junior partner in this relationship.’ And yet that skepticism fails to reckon with an important and grim reality: China and Russia are more firmly aligned now than at any time since the 1950s.”
Polin Thomas
The “alliance” is still unholy... but it is no longer doomed to failure
The Empire has only its own blind, overweening arrogance to blame.
“Just a decade ago, most U.S. and European officials were dismissive about the durability of the emerging partnership between China and Russia. The thinking in Western capitals was that the Kremlin’s ostentatious rapprochement with China since 2014 was doomed to fail because ties between the two Eurasian giants would always be undercut by the growing power asymmetry in China’s favor, the lingering mistrust between the two neighbors over a number of historical disputes, and the cultural distance between the two societies and between their elites. No matter how hard Russian President Vladimir Putin might try to woo the Chinese leadership, the argument went, China would always value its ties to the United States and to U.S. allies over its symbolic relations with Russia, while Moscow would fear a rising Beijing and seek a counterbalance in the West.
“Even as China and Russia have grown significantly closer, officials in Washington have remained dismissive. ‘They have a marriage of convenience,’ U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told U.S. senators in March 2023 during Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s state visit to Moscow. ‘I am not sure if it is conviction. Russia is very much the junior partner in this relationship.’ And yet that skepticism fails to reckon with an important and grim reality: China and Russia are more firmly aligned now than at any time since the 1950s.”
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/putin-and-xis-un..