Summary:
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However, the alliance between China and Russia against the United States was far from inevitable; it just came to fruition a year ago and is far more flimsy than most media commentary suggests.
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As a result, Russia and China were integrated into the free-market globalization system designed by the US and EU.
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The Biden administration and the “Asia first” position ignore the enormously important substantive contrasts between Russia and China.
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The Biden administration’s answer to China’s dim view of Russia has been to ignore the murkiness and fuel concerns that China’s covert intention is to aid Moscow.
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It is time for the United States to look for fresh opportunities within the strategic triangle rather than attempting to push Russia and China closer together.
The US, China, and Russia strategic triangle have reemerged as the centre of attention in world geopolitics. As US President Joe Biden has been busy negotiating Atlantic and Pacific military alliances to contain both powers, Chinese President Xi Jinping is making a high-profile trip to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Biden administration frequently portrays this balance of power as the result of a theoretical struggle between democracy and despotism. However, the alliance between China and Russia against the United States was far from inevitable; it just came to fruition a year ago and is far more flimsy than most media commentary suggests.
Washington is preparing for a protracted conflict with China and frequently sees the Ukrainian conflict as an initial skirmish in that more significant conflict. Beijing has a distinct perspective on the situation and feels pressured by US antagonism to support Putin despite strong reservations about his conduct. Russia is reacting angrily and insecurely, paying little attention to the repercussions. Our current situation is a turning point in a troubled past for relations between the three nations, but that past offers multiple paths into the future. We still have the option to depart from the current course toward catastrophic conflict.
The Cold War saw the formation of the US-China-Russia strategic triangle when, in 1950, Mao Zedong’s revolutionary China allied with the Soviet Union to counter what it saw as the US-led rebirth of Japanese imperialism in Asia. Yet as ideological disagreements corroded the alliance and Mao grew resentful of Soviet snobbery, the Sino-Soviet break occurred in 1963. Ultimately, this led to a gap that Nixon exploited in 1971 by deciding to join Mao and China and the United States against the Soviet Union.
Before abruptly ending with the fall of the Soviet Union and the Chinese government’s execution of demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the strategic drive for US-China ties built over nearly two decades. As this was happening, US-Russian relations appeared to be improving due to Yeltsin’s accession to office and unwavering support for US-supported free market reform. Yet, there was no US-Russian alliance against China. Instead, the 1990s’ events laid the groundwork for an uneasy consensus on both sides while fostering hidden tensions that would eventually come to light.
China became the world’s sweatshop, Russia became a major supplier of minerals and fossil fuels, and the United States provided both countries with capital, technology, and know-how through market reform in the former state-planning systems. As a result, Russia and China were integrated into the free-market globalization system designed by the US and EU. All three countries had business success. At the same time, a growing concern over terrorism and Islamic insurrection brought the three nations together over security issues. After 9/11, both China and Russia backed the US War on Terror, while the US supported repression in Xinjiang and Chechnya.
During the 2008 global financial crisis, the consensus behind corporate profit and anti-Muslim security politics disintegrated. The political economics of growth was severely disrupted in all three nations, and hopes for prosperity through more global integration were proven false. The stark economic inequality that had emerged due to market expansion now represented a significant economic and political issue in all three nations, giving nativists, nationalists, and protectionists—those who had previously been sidelined by globalization—a chance to gain ground.
The very process of globalization paved the stage for a new era of great power warfare. China and Russia steadily became closer after the crises of 1989, realizing that they shared similar grudges and anxieties about American influence. Both nations’ leaders had imposed severe limitations on political freedoms; in the case of Russia, Putin was trying to regain control after Yeltsin’s erratic free-market reforms had wreaked havoc on the nation and society in the 1990s; in China, the goal was to safeguard both domestic and foreign business interests by suppressing labour to keep wages low and by stifling the social unrest brought on by rapid economic growth and high levels of inequality.
Present problem
Despite American lectures on democracy and human rights, US support for the Color Revolutions that toppled leaders across the former Soviet Union, US military aggression to topple regimes it disagreed with, and the expansion of US military alliances, leaders in both countries believed that slowing the pace of liberalization was essential to achieving national success.
Disappointed that China and Russia would not follow their example, US policymakers saw illiberalism in both nations as proof that their respective political systems must,t by their very nature,e be authoritarian rather than as a reaction to market expansion. At the same time, the “end of history” idea that so many had absorbed was disproved by the defeat in Iraq, failure in Afghanistan, and ultimately the financial catastrophe of 2008. US policymakers searched for someone to blame as they dealt with slow development at home and loss of influence overseas.
They discovered it in China, the only developed country to quickly resume vigorous growth by bringing Chinese companies into markets previously dominated by US exporters. In tandem with the rest of the world, China became more nationalist and authoritarian. This reorientation was manifested in rising internal repression, vehement foreign policy rhetoric, and a new willingness to use economic pressure to pressure nations like US allies South Korea and Australia into acting in a way that was inconvenient to China.
The “democracy vs autocracy” slogan is not the main reason US leaders see this as a threat; Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy, for instance, makes it clear that authoritarian nations are welcome to join the US coalition as they oppose China and Russia. The administration has invested much time and effort in strengthening ties with increasingly severe but strategically advantageous nations like India and the Philippines. Instead, China poses a challenge because, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted, it is the only nation powerful enough to alter the US-dominated international order while refusing to recognize US authority. Hence, the Biden administration entered office eager to capitalize on Trump’s anti-China stance. It expanded its influence by forging new relationships with wealthy nations to restrain and isolate Chinese dominance.
Biden initially attempted to isolate Russia, learning from the mistakes of the 1950s to avoid seeing the two nations as a single entity. Biden travelled to Europe in June 2021 to refocus the G7, NATO, and the EU against China. After his tour, he met with Putin to discuss stabilizing US-Russia relations. Putin was willing to put aside his security concerns about the US, according to Biden, who revealed this at a press conference after the meeting. “I think the last thing he wants now is a Cold War,” Biden added.
Biden was mistaken. Yet instead of reconsidering its strategic focus on China’s containment, the administration grouped Russia and China, identified them as the main drivers of authoritarianism globally, and started advancing the same case against both. By forcing the two to combine against the American threat and missing significant opportunities to diverge from a course toward a disastrous great power clash, the US policy has been brought to a standstill by this failure to discern between China and Russia.
Elbridge Colby, a former official in the Trump administration, made the case that an alternative to Biden’s strategy would be to change the focus away from Russia to entirely focus all US resources on restraining China. This viewpoint affirms that although Russia is only a diversion, China challenges US power.
Both the Biden administration and the “Asia first” position ignore the enormously important substantive contrasts between Russia and China. China is more powerful than Russia, not simply because it has achieved success inside the global system, which has proven impossible for Russia, but also because it has done it in a way that makes it stronger. In contrast to Russia, China’s interests are more closely entwined with those of the US bloc and the Global South. The history of the strategic triangle has given rise to the potential of a Chinese-Russian coalition against the U and the possibility of US-China talks on how to reform and stabilize the international order.
Because of their mutual grudges against the United States, China sympathizes with Russia. As a result, China declined to impose sanctions on Russia and offered some diplomatic cover for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Like other great powers, China abandoned cherished ideals when they were inconvenient, such as its support for sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In the meantime, China has refrained from giving Russia deadly aid, generally complied with US sanctions, criticized Russian acts and threats subtly and emphasized the negative impact of the war on the Global South. China published a set of guiding principles for settling the crisis last month, which included steps that both Putin and Zelenskyy alternately praised.
The Biden administration’s answer to China’s dim view of Russia has been to ignore the murkiness and fuel concerns that China’s covert intention is to aid Moscow. Biden questioned the value of China’s peace principles, saying, “Putin is cheering it, so how could it be any good?” The government has been claiming that China is considering supplying weapons to Russia for weeks, ostensibly too to discredit China’s assertions of neutrality while acknowledging that there is no evidence to support this claim. Administration officials are no longer attempting to accentuate disparities between China and Russia, unlike in 2021. Instead, they contest the existence of any differences.
It is time for the United States to look for fresh opportunities within the strategic triangle rather than attempting to push Russia and China closer together. A more promising strategy would acknowledge the critical distinctions between Russia and China and use that understanding to forge a modus vivendi between the US and China rather than dividing the two. Compromise with China would increase diplomatic opportunities for bringing Russia to the negotiating table and stop the current rush toward a significant clash with China—which Biden says he wants to avoid.
The United States and China currently see each other as incompatible, even though these differences frequently have the potential to be complementary. Making room for China in the global system is a far better strategy for achieving US goals than a destructive attempt to isolate and exclude it, whether the issue is a worldwide climate transition, a framework for developing country debt restructuring, or using diplomatic influence over both sides to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.
