Defense Secretary James Mattis, who is generally both pragmatic and strategically-minded, sees "Little in the long term that aligns Russia and China." Yet a deeper look at their relations suggests that China and Russia may well build a united front to confront the United States and its allies.
Russians who claim on domestic television that Moscow and Beijing have already established such a relationship in all but name will admit sotto voce that China's investment in Russia has been disappointing, that Chinese banks fear exposing themselves to U.S. sanctions by working in Russia and that Russian officials are leery of a settlement of their country's territorial dispute with Japan because any cession of Russian-held lands could encourage new Chinese claims.
Moscow's foreign policy commentators similarly acknowledge that a U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty would allow Russia to strengthen its nuclear deterrence vis-à-vis China and-so long as the United States and Russia can develop new understandings and Washington avoids actions that threaten Russia-that it may be better off without INF limits.
China is now Russia's top trading partner, responsible for 15 percent of Russia's foreign trade in 2017; Moscow expects bilateral trade to reach $100 billion in 2018.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said that China's relations with Russia are "At the best level in history," while Russian president Vladimir Putin has asserted that "China is our strategic partner and the level of relations between our countries is unprecedentedly high." Well-connected, prominent Russian experts go even further; on a recent episode of The Great Game, a program on Russia's Channel One, each of the four Russian politicians and specialists participating in the discussion spoke of a Chinese-Russian alliance as an emerging reality.
Still, the combination of Russia's interference in America's 2016 presidential elections, the partisan exploitation of this interference by Congressional Democrats, and hostility from the bulk of the national security establishment to Trump's worldview has prevented him from reshaping American policy towards Russia.
Russia has seemingly acquiesced to China's proclivity for reverse-engineering Russia's military technology.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/dangerous-liaisons-38722
Russians who claim on domestic television that Moscow and Beijing have already established such a relationship in all but name will admit sotto voce that China's investment in Russia has been disappointing, that Chinese banks fear exposing themselves to U.S. sanctions by working in Russia and that Russian officials are leery of a settlement of their country's territorial dispute with Japan because any cession of Russian-held lands could encourage new Chinese claims.
Moscow's foreign policy commentators similarly acknowledge that a U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty would allow Russia to strengthen its nuclear deterrence vis-à-vis China and-so long as the United States and Russia can develop new understandings and Washington avoids actions that threaten Russia-that it may be better off without INF limits.
China is now Russia's top trading partner, responsible for 15 percent of Russia's foreign trade in 2017; Moscow expects bilateral trade to reach $100 billion in 2018.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said that China's relations with Russia are "At the best level in history," while Russian president Vladimir Putin has asserted that "China is our strategic partner and the level of relations between our countries is unprecedentedly high." Well-connected, prominent Russian experts go even further; on a recent episode of The Great Game, a program on Russia's Channel One, each of the four Russian politicians and specialists participating in the discussion spoke of a Chinese-Russian alliance as an emerging reality.
Still, the combination of Russia's interference in America's 2016 presidential elections, the partisan exploitation of this interference by Congressional Democrats, and hostility from the bulk of the national security establishment to Trump's worldview has prevented him from reshaping American policy towards Russia.
Russia has seemingly acquiesced to China's proclivity for reverse-engineering Russia's military technology.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/dangerous-liaisons-38722
No comments:
Post a Comment