Chinese and Russian nuclear-capable bombers conducted a “joint patrol” over the Sea of Japan in a military gesture that dramatized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vow to remain unified with his communist neighbour.
“Some of our Western partners are openly trying to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing,” Putin told his foreign policy team in a Thursday speech. “We are well aware of this. Together, with our Chinese friends, we will continue responding to such attempts by expanding our political, economic, and other cooperation and coordinating steps in the world arena.”
That statement would soon be punctuated by a quartet of Russian and Chinese strategic bombers, whose 10-hour flight drew precautionary sorties of fighter jets from Japan and South Korea. The sincerity of the alignment between Moscow and Beijing has spurred debate in Washington, but the show of force Friday allowed the two main rivals of the United States to display a united front in the same week that a dispute between Japanese and South Korean officials derailed a trilateral meeting at the State Department.
“China and Russia are neighbours and true partners that can stand the test of anything,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Friday. “To develop a high-level strategic partnership of coordination is a long-term strategic choice made by both sides based on respective national realities. We have no intention of forming an exclusive clique, and it’s simply impossible to drive a wedge or sow discord between us.”
Those statements may not just be propaganda, despite historic tensions between the two continental Asian powers that have led many analysts to surmise that Putin would beware a junior partnership with China.
“I think that the divergent interests that exist between the West and Russia and between the West and China are far more significant, at this point than any divergent interests between Russia and China,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Mazza told the Washington Examiner. “There’s a potential for tension in the relationship. … They are fare more likely to mess up their own bilateral ties on their own than we are to do it for them.”
A variety of U.S. policies, perhaps most especially punitive sanctions that limited Russia’s economic opportunities in Western countries have contributed to the recent alignment between Putin and Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping. That dynamic has spurred discussion about whether a recalibration of U.S. sanctions could have the effect of heightening Russian interest in eastward expansion, thus inducing the Kremlin to chart a course at odds with China.
“The military plank of the new U.S. policy would entail easing U.S. opposition to Russian arms sales to any country in the Indo-Pacific theatre that seeks to acquire those weapons to resist Chinese expansion,” Wess Mitchell, who led the State Department’s Europe and Eurasian Affairs Bureau from 2017 to 2019, argued in a recent feature. “There is no reason that the United States should wish to sanction companies or individuals in India, a strategically vital country that America is trying to court when the weapons triggering the sanctions are aimed at the common foe of China.”
India has joined the so-called Quad — along with Japan, Australia, and the United States — in part due to bloody border tensions with China. Yet Indian officials also have a long history of purchasing Russian weaponry, including a pending deal for advanced Russian anti-aircraft missile systems that could run afoul of U.S. sanctions designed to drive a wedge between Russian arms dealers and their foreign customers.
Putin, for his part, described India as a “specially privileged partner” just moments after touting the endurance of Sino-Russian relations.
“We intend to build up our truly multifaceted bilateral cooperation,” Putin said. “We regard India as an independent, strong centre of the multipolar world. We have a similar foreign policy philosophy and priorities.”
Washington Examiner
