Opinion | As China and Russia draw closer, it would be a fool’s errand for Trump to try to separate them

Sino-Russian rapprochement is at an all-time high, and the splintering West can forget about driving a wedge between them. Beijing owes Moscow a debt of gratitude, and it is the US that has lumped China and Russia together as its rivals

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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a signing ceremony after their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on June 5. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 11:00pm, 23 Aug 2019Updated: 11:06pm, 10 Dec 2019

Last September, 3,200 Chinese troops joined Vostok-2018, Russia’s biggest military exercise in nearly 40 years. But far more alarming to the West should have been the first joint aerial patrol over the Sea of Japan and East China Sea on July 23, involving two Chinese H-6K bombers and two Russian Tu-95MS strategic bombers: this was a joint operation, not an exercise.

Yet, although strategic theorist Zbigniew Brzezinski once warned of the danger of the “grand coalition of China and Russia”, The Economist has counselled patience. The magazine reckons the West can afford to wait until a Russian president looks westwards again, and “the man or woman in the Oval Office should emulate Nixon – and go to Moscow”.

This sounds like Waiting for Godot. (He never arrives.) The rapprochement between Beijing and Moscow is at an all-time high. President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have met nearly 30 times since 2013.

In 2016, Russia replaced Saudi Arabia as China’s largest supplier of crude oil. In 2018, bilateral trade hit a record high of over US$100 billion and it is expected to double by 2024. When Putin ends his fourth term in 2024, his successor shouldn’t want to change this.

It would take a lot of imagination to figure out what could erode the bedrock of Beijing-Moscow ties. This relationship is no longer based on ideology, but on growing mutual needs. The old fear some Russians had, that Russia’s Far East might be gradually occupied by Chinese immigrants, is gone. Instead, Russians cross the border for work and Russian tourists flock to beaches on Hainan Island.

True, Moscow views Central Asia as its backyard, but Moscow and Beijing have managed to adapt to and accommodate each other. Now the two countries are working together to advance the projects of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and Moscow’s Eurasian Economic Union.

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