My Take | The rising Eurasian primacy of China
- On the grand chessboard of geopolitics, it may be too late for Washington to isolate Beijing
“Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances.”
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives
The relationships between China, Russia and the United States are a lot like the three-body problem in classical mechanics; there are only so many combinations, yet the variables are so complicated as to defy predictions.
Ever since Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, China has always wanted to partner with the US. Even today, in the face of hostilities, it still wants to avoid having the US as an enemy. But wisely, Beijing has also hedged its bets with Russia, just in case Washington would turn on it, as it does now.
America, however, forgot to hedge its bets.