US forces Moscow and Beijing into marriage of convenience
- A resurgent China and a revanchist Russia could not care less if the United States remains a democracy or turns itself into a proto-fascist regime, but they do feel threatened geopolitically and territorially by Washington’s belligerence
Like many observers in the United States, they are responding to a joint statement of China and Russia to support each other.
The two countries are described – or rather denounced – as endorsing each other’s foreign policy wish lists, with Russia affirming China’s opposition to “any forms of independence of Taiwan” and China denouncing “further enlargement of Nato” near Russian borders.
Maybe in Washington, it’s considered illegitimate to challenge US global hegemony, even in their own neighbourhoods, but deterring Taiwan independence and securing Russian borders are at least, arguably, justifiable defensive policies for both countries.
It has been pointed out that Russia and China have many potential points of conflict. So why are they now engaged with each other? Blaming them for trying to make the world safe for dictatorships and to undermine democracies is absurd.
China and Russia bond over their opposition to a US-led world order
With perfect cynicism, both countries are happy to work and trade with a democracy or an autocracy, just as the US does and always has done, so long as they consider it to be in their own interest to do so. Chinese and Russians couldn’t care less if the US remains a democracy or turns itself into a proto-fascist state. The latter outcome may even be more dangerous to both.
A straightforward explanation is always preferred to a convoluted one such as “they hate freedom”. Simply, they are driven together because of US pressure, or if you like, belligerence. It’s time those in charge of US foreign policy return to first principles and ask themselves why Richard Nixon established diplomatic relations with Maoist China in the first place.
As articulated by Henry Kissinger, it was mostly to discipline and restrain Soviet Russia. Alternatively, he argued, the US would eventually have to tilt towards Russia to contain the Chinese. That was in the early 1970s when the Soviet Union was cut off economically from the capitalist West and China made negligible contributions to the world economy. With a resurgent China and a revanchist Russia, Kissinger’s lesson, in the balance of power, is even more relevant today.
But for three administrations – Obama, Trump and Biden – Washington has done nothing but force both great powers to jump into bed together. And Americans wonder why!
