Military Cooperation Between Russia and China: The Military Alliance Without an Agreement?
I plead with people on my list to read the entire above-referenced report which illustrates the unique and dangerous (for the USA security) relationship between RUSSIA and China. I have excerpted (below) some important paragraphs:
“Furthermore, in 2019 Russia’s prime minister signed a decree authorising the defence and foreign ministries to start negotiations with the Chinese defence ministry on a military cooperation agreement. No other details are available but it seems military cooperation between the two countries may develop to forms other than the traditional military-industrial cooperation.35 According to Vasily Kashin, the new phase of the Sino-Russian military relationship will probably be “enshrined in the Sino-Russian agreement on military cooperation, which will replace a rather vague document signed in 1993 and is likely to be signed in the near future”.36
“Nowadays, Russia and China do not generally expect each other to become direct security threats under their respective current political regimes. Vasily Kashin believes some military planning against each other is being conducted, but conflict is considered a low probability, possible only in the event of very dramatic political change in one of the countries.37 Kashin notes that, despite the ongoing progress in general political/economic relations between the two countries, the growth of their defence cooperation is limited by the extreme technological nationalism of their defence establishments: “In fact, the technological nationalism on both sides seems to be more rampant than it was in the Cold War era”, he says.38 Michael Kofman argues that “the problem for any prospective military alliance between the two states is that China is revisionist in the Asia-Pacific region, where Russia is a status quo power, and the inverse is true in Europe”. Thus, “they do not require each other for security guarantees or extended nuclear deterrence, hence there is no basis for a military alliance”.39
“However, while scholars, experts and politicians discuss whether or not military cooperation between Russia and China is in the form of an alliance, the two countries are improving relations in several areas, including the military. Although Moscow and Beijing deny that they intend to establish a military alliance in the immediate future, military cooperation is increasing. Moreover, the two cooperate closely on international issues and coordinate their activities. For instance, they have very similar views and positions on Middle East issues.”40
“However, the main driver of their close relations in the international arena is the rivalry with the common adversary: the United States. It is possible to say that, until the US is perceived by both as the main adversary and the main source of common threat, or black swan scenarios such as a change of political regime in Russia (involving not only Putin leaving the presidency), military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing will probably increase in the coming years. According to the CAN’s Dmitry Gorenburg, “bilateral cooperation is unlikely to advance to the level of a full alliance because of differences in geopolitical interests and asymmetries of power, with Russia remaining reluctant to fully acknowledge China’s geopolitical rise”. But US actions to pressure both Russia and China have the effect of pushing the two countries closer together.41 However, the current state of the relationship could be defined as Dmitri Trenin puts it: “China and Russia pragmatically engage in increasingly close cooperation on issues of common interest, while agreeing to amicably disagree where their positions do not align”.42
“Moscow may also try to manoeuvre between China and the US, which would realistically be better for Russia than staying on one side and is tacitly suggested by the so-called Primakov Doctrine, which is admired by Russia’s current foreign-policy elite. This position may be one of the main components of the multipolar international system preferred and promoted by Moscow. However, strengthening relations with Beijing is currently the Kremlin’s priority, and this is not in Washington’s favour. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, explains Moscow’s vision thus:
…our American colleagues adamantly want to mobilise essentially all their external partners to deter Russia and China. At the same time, they do not hide the desire to embroil Moscow and Beijing, to upset and undermine multilateral unions and regional integration structures developing outside of American control in Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific region.”43
All this suggests that, probably at least for the immediate future, military and security cooperation between Russia and China will increase but both sides will keep an eye on each other with the aim of not repeating past mistakes.”
In brief, the two countries are linked at the hip, and consider the USA their respective No. 1 enemy.
Have we forgotten the Reagan-Gorbachev Education, Cultural and everything else agreements signed in 1985? They are still in effect.
This research should be forwarded to controlled media which presents an entirely different picture.