August 16, 2015
The Sino-Russo Rundown
Russia and China seem to be growing closer by the day. In May 2015, Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Russia. As China’s official media opined at the time, “China and Russia are deepening and celebrating their old friendship marked by successful cooperation and win-win results, while simultaneously adding new facets to their strategic partnership.”
Maybe, maybe not. There are two schools of thought about the likely trajectory of the Sino-Russian relationship. The first, which could be called the “fatally flawed” school, includes former senior U.S. officials and luminaries, such as Joseph Nye. It holds that the Sino-Russian relationship is a marriage of convenience—riven with mistrust—and consequently, as one author wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “China and Russia are unlikely to forge a sustained strategic partnership.” The second school of thought could be called the “mighty axis” school. It tends toward the view that China and Russia are building a lasting partnership to challenge U.S. dominance. That partnership will become “a feature of a new, post–Cold War geopolitical order,” as Princeton’s Gilbert Rozman wrote in a Foreign Affairs article. Russia and China will start in Eurasia, the thinking goes, but they have global aspirations.
Read the full article in Foreign Affairs.
More from CNAS
-
Sharper: Axis of Upheaval
A loose but growing coalition between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea demonstrates that their combined strategic interests have the potential to pose significant economic...
By Anna Pederson
-
The Will and the Power: China’s Plan to Undermine Pax Americana
From Washington’s Farewell Address to Biden’s national security strategy, the core U.S. national interest, unsurprisingly, has not changed: to ensure the fundamental security ...
By Richard Fontaine & Robert Blackwill
-
Beyond China's Black Box
China’s foreign and security policymaking apparatus is often described as a metaphorical black box about which analysts know little. That is true to an extent, but at the same...
By Jacob Stokes
-
Sharper: Maritime Security
The importance of securing the maritime domain is rapidly increasing. From the South China Sea to the Red Sea, the U.S. and its allies are experiencing escalating challenges t...
By Anna Pederson & Charles Horn