The day war broke out in Ukraine, we sat for dinner with the Chinese ambassador to the United States to celebrate the 50th anniversary of then-US president Richard Nixon’s historic journey for peace and the cultural legacies of the American and Chinese people. The coincidence borne by fate, or yuanfen , of the dinner celebrating the “week that changed the world” was apparent. The Shanghai Communique of 1972 made clear that the US and China would oppose efforts by the Soviet Union or any other major power to dominate Asia. History might be rhyming. Ambassador Qin Gang told us: “The China-US relationship has come to another historical juncture. We are entering a new round of mutual exploration.” But are we really? That is certainly what China would like the US to believe to facilitate its next decade of strategic objectives with its superpower polar twin. The China-Russia communique of February 4 was perhaps a move to reverse the Sino-Soviet split, but rereading the text shows there is little that cannot be undone should China accept that the fates are not with Russia. As Nixon said, “great nations act on the basis of interest, not sentiment”. China’s rise has been inertial, dependent on the consistency of its political system, the growth and education of its population, its embrace of elements of capitalism and the insatiable economic demand of the US. Despite its resource wealth, Russia continues to experience declining living standards and therefore political instability under President Vladimir Putin because of its errant foreign policy. The Soviet Union did in large part win World War II and make technological leaps thanks to US aid, technology transfers and approved and unapproved Soviet spying on the US, yet Russia now has little to show for these efforts. Perhaps Putin should have taken note and engaged in a similar anti-corruption drive to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Russia’s geopolitics thrives on chaos while China is nuanced and considered in its approach. China is driven by collective wisdom rather than the abilities of one man. Putin has evidently succumbed to the aphrodisiac of long-held individual power. In economics, a steady rise through compounding outshines any highly volatile strategy over time. This explains the difference in economic trajectory and global power between China and Russia. Russia has reversed China’s geopolitical goals, bringing about unity in Nato , something close to unity in the European Union, and destabilising the Belt and Road Initiative while casting a spotlight on the Sino-Russian entente and the latent geopolitical threat such a grouping would represent to global peace and prosperity. Russia is moving payments for “unfriendly” countries to roubles. It is just one further iteration for all Russian natural resources to trade in roubles once currency volatility abates. Russia seeks to gain from China’s rise at what could become Beijing’s significant expense as Moscow’s plans take full shape. Russia will never agree to be dependent on one rising Eastern master and is China’s “grey rhino” – a highly probable yet neglected threat, akin to the elephant in the room and the improbable and unforeseeable black swan. Multipolarity, expressed as the rise of China, is near certain yet depends on controlled Chinese economic and foreign policy. What would ordinarily be a matter of time could yet be disrupted by Russian chaos. The war will disrupt the food supply of billions, putting China’s belt and road investments at risk. There can be no security in mass poverty and famine in the developing world. In the chaos, Russia will thrive as the marginal resource supplier to the detriment of dynamic, forward-looking societies. Russia’s justification for annexation via independence referendums is at odds with the one-China policy. Russia might have become a mercenary tool to draw attention away from China’s geopolitical realities, but this is no longer possible. A Cold War mentality became permanent with Putin’s threat of nuclear escalation . Aleksandr Dugin’s 1997 book Foundations of Geopolitics states that Russia should “provoke all forms of instability and separatism within the borders of the United States”. Russia is using divisive social theories to polarise Western society and declare to conservative religious societies that the West is the Antichrist. Russian invasion of Ukraine worsens fertiliser crunch, risking food supplies China will have no standing in a religious compact. As Nixon said, “The answer to a false idea is truth, not ignorance.” Via US congressional investigations, Western society will depolarise. China embraces technology as a modern society, yet it is clear that Russia prefers reaction to progress, both cultural and technical. About 70,000 IT specialists left Russia in March, and more than 100,000 are expected to leave in April. Washington will not lift sanctions on the use of US microprocessor technologies in Russia. There will be no useful artificial intelligence collaboration between Russia and China going forward. China remains optimally positioned with a dynamic and proven technology partner in the US. Economic co-dependency has not sustained good relations between the US and China of late. The US is not on a crusade for global democracy given the limitations of its power, but rather it wishes to maintain its geoeconomic interests while developing an understanding of the geopolitical realities of other great powers. Qin also said: “Our common enemy should be the major challenges concerning the survival and the development of both countries and mankind.” What mattered to Nixon was that “the Soviet Union threatens us. China … does not”. Russia now threatens us all, the West deliberately and China non-linearly. It is for China to decide where its geopolitical interests remain, yet it seems clearer than 50 years ago from across the Pacific. We know Mao Zedong’s choice; we are all waiting on the collective wisdom of Xi’s. Christopher Nixon Cox is the grandson of president Richard Nixon. He is the CEO of Lightswitch Capital, a member of the board of directors of the Nixon Foundation and a trustee of the American University of Afghanistan James Arnold is a British financier and an investor in deep-learning technologies who writes on US politics and foreign affairs