RUSSIAN CHINESE TAKE AIM
RUSSIA and China are working together to test Joe Biden’s resolve, analysts say, with the Ukraine military threat just one part of this “marriage of convenience”.
Moscow began dismantling its troop build-up on the Ukrainian border last week, after an increasingly menacing series of threats.
But China is still sending record numbers of fighter jets to invade Taiwanese air space, leaving the West stretched on all fronts, against a backdrop of the coronavirus crisis.
Both nations are probing to see how the US president would respond, it is claimed, with a war on
‘Britain’s military is thinly stretched’
two fronts being “a strategist’s worst nightmare”.
Rather than an alliance, it is a “marriage of convenience” between Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, analysts say.
They point out that as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Brussels on March 27 to engage with his Nato counterparts and reassure Europe of America’s commitments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov went to China to sign a declaration pledging to reject the politicisation of human rights and interference in their countries’ internal affairs.
The timing of the visit was no coincidence. Though the two powers have had a “strategic partnership”
since 1997, which was cemented by a treaty in 2001, it is by no means an equal relationship.
China is all too aware of Moscow’s economic reliance on Beijing and does not deign to send its senior ministers to Russia. There are other geographical tensions too.
Theresa Fallon, founder of the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels, said last night: “This isn’t an alliance, but both Russia and China share many common interests, especially where the West is concerned.
“Even a marriage of convenience has children and the longer they’re together the harder it will be to pull
them apart. And they have both been testing Biden.
“China’s escalation in Taiwan just as Putin escalated in Ukraine was no coincidence. They are probing to see how the US responds.
“China feels extremely confident right now because of the way it has handled Covid-19. It is the only economy that grew last year.
‘Putin knows that any co-ordination between Moscow and Beijing represents a major distraction for Biden who still has a pandemic to fight at home. And causing distractions is Putin’s forte.”
She added: “A strategist’s worst nightmare is the two-fronted war.
The conventional wisdom is that you need Russia with you in order to fight China.
“The problem is that this won’t work. You cannot solve the China problem by thinking you can pull Russia into your tent. We need to deal with both problems.
“If people think hard, they’ll see that Putin has won, even though he has withdrawn his troops. And China knows it.”
Russia still has a large military presence in the Crimea, and has kept nearly 3,000 troops on its own border with the Ukraine. This is likely enough to ensure Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO.