Why are China and Russia promoting relations? | | Political Issues

After weeks of naval battles around the mainland of Japan, Chinese and Russian military forces have sent bombers to Japan and South Korea Air Defense areas, forcing Seoul to strike down its warplanes in response.

In Tokyo on Tuesday, Japanese Defense Minister Kishi Nobuo met with reporters to express “serious concerns” about the joint venture, which took place last week, noting that the Beijing-Moscow march showed “security around Japan is growing”.

As he spoke, his Chinese-Russian counterparts had a lively discussion, in which they praised air and sea sports as “major events” and entered into a new treaty to promote defensive relations.

The road, signed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe, marked the end of a year that saw unprecedented military growth, including a major military coup in Ningxia, China in August, when Russian troops became the first military force. to regularly participate in China drilling, as well as announcements for the co-production of military helicopters, missile launchers and monthly checkpoints.

“It is the strongest, closest and best relationship the two countries have had since the mid-1950s. And probably,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Recognizing that China-Russia relations were already marked by warnings, including a border dispute in the 1960s that allegedly pushed Beijing and Moscow at the end of the nuclear war, Gould-Davies described the current situation as “unique”. Relations have “grown very fast, in the last 10 years,” he said, increasingly due to Western sanctions on Russia over the 2014 Crimean invasion.

Diplomatic, economic relationships

Not only for security the two are close at hand but also politically and economically.

On foreign policy, Beijing and Moscow share common ground with Iran, Syria and Venezuela, and have recently renewed their efforts to lift United Nations sanctions against North Korea.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin of Russia have a personal relationship that, in turn, has met more than 30 times since 2013. The Chinese leader has called Putin his “best friend”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin participates in a video conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, June 28, 2021. [File: Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin, Sputnik via Reuters]

For China, Russia is the largest exporter of arms and the second largest source of oil. And in Russia, China is a major trading partner and a major financial source for its power supply, including the Yamal LNG plant in the Arctic Circle and the Power of Siberia pipeline, the largest $ 55bn gas project in Russian history. .

Gould-Davies of IISS said the main driver behind it all is China-Russia hatred for the good of democracy.

“Both countries are governed by anti-democratic governments that have the same interest in refusing to adopt the Western culture in their own countries,” Al Jazeera said. “They are also interested in sharing in the destruction of countries and treaties, beyond their borders, which are ethical.

Fulfilled prophecy?

The growth of relations has been a major concern in the West, with US intelligence citing China, Russia and their alliances as major security threats to the United States and NATO, a Western security alliance formed in 1949 as a defense against the Soviet Union, plans to expand its interest in counteracting both countries.

In an interview with the Financial Times in London last month, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he did not see China and Russia as two separate threats.

“China and Russia work together,” he said. “All this very divisive concept between China, Russia, Asia-Pacific or Europe – is one safe haven and we must address it together.”

But some say that the analysis is too simple and could lead to “serious errors”.

“There is no big deal against the West,” said Bobo Lo, a former Australian ambassador and independent international expert last month. “What this is, is a very strong relationship, meaning that it is driven by what people like, rather than sharing what they share,” he said at a conference organized by the US-based Center for Global Security Research.

In cooperation with each other, China and Russia achieve “significant benefits”, Lo said, in addition to promoting “legitimacy and stability of their sovereignty”. The security alliance allows Moscow to demonstrate Russia’s influence over the world, he added, while Beijing has access to Russia’s military capabilities and operational capabilities.

The agreement also allows Moscow to “fill in the gaps left by the dismissal of Western companies in Russia” following sanctions imposed after the Crimean occupation. “And investing in Chinese technology has been instrumental in the implementation of Russia’s Arctic LNG missions,” Lo said.

Alexander Gabuev at Carnegie Moscow Center agrees.

Relations between Russia and China are “driven by the essentials that cannot be achieved in the West,” he said, referring to March that the two countries share a 4,300-mile (2,672 miles) border. As a result of the 1969 border disputes, “they know how dangerous and costly it can be to become enemies,” he said.

That is why, he said on Twitter last month, NATO’s claims that China and Russia are serious, “continue beyond the current China-Russia alliance and nuances”.

Both countries are “religious in their own right,” he said. And “by combining China and Russia together as a treaty to be achieved through the use of interconnected arms, the West is at risk of making self-fulfilling prophecy, while the two arms bring about the deepening of China-Russia cooperation, which leads to more. US pressure.”

🧵 THREAD 🧵@jensstoltenberg interview mu @FT shows change @NATORoad to China-Russia axis. Awakening of the story is welcome in comparison to the years of ignorance. However, assumptions about error analysis that increase 🇨🇳🇷🇺 connections can lead to serious errors 1 / pic.twitter.com/ZtFOd6z03f

– Alexander Gabuev Chen Hanshi (@AlexGabuev) October 18, 2021

‘Hypocrite’

For others, the pressure on the US is just the beginning.

“Both China and Russia see the US as a hypocrite who wants to reduce them in order to preserve history,” said Einar Tangen, a Beijing political analyst who also works as a commentator for China’s CGTN radio station.

The US actions in this regard, he said, also included citing the two countries as major national security threats, imposing sanctions on alleged human rights abuses, and creating what Beijing and Moscow see as an alliance against Russia-China.

This includes Quad, a US-led non-governmental organization that includes India, Japan and Australia. The group, which China has denounced as “Asian NATO”, resumed naval operations last year for the first time in 13 years.

Then there is the new security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the US, called AUKUS. Announcing a tripartite agreement in September, the US and the UK said Australia would acquire nuclear weapons – which researchers said would allow Australian troops to monitor the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait waters conflict.

China has criticized the treaty as “irresponsible” to the threat of regional peace, while Russia has said it is “extremely critical to a nuclear-free world power”.

“These [type of actions] urging China to work more closely with Russia to reconsider what happened, “said Danil Bochkov, a researcher at the Moscow-Russian International Affairs Council.

These responses include recent China-Russian experiments near Japan and South Korea, both of which are allied with the US.

Bochkov said the growing conflict could lead to the resumption of the dictatorial regimes seen in the Cold War, a US-led group on the one hand and China, Russia and its allies on the other.

“This creates an atmosphere of seemingly insurmountable conflict,” he said, “giving up all power to regain control of the worst situations against the ‘red lines’ and dangers like local pinprick.”