Are Russia and China the best of friends now? It’s complicated, analysts say
"Russia Is Beefing Up Its Nuclear Arsenal. Here’s What the U.S. Needs to Do."
Published Fri, Sep 27 20192:15 AM EDTUpdated Mon, Sep 30 20197:02 AM EDT
Holly Ellyatt @HollyEllyatt
Key Points
* Russia and China appear to be increasing their economic, political and military ties amid poor relations with the West. But the relationship is far more nuanced, experts note.
* While U.S. trade relations with China have soured, as each slap billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs on each other’s goods, trade relations between China and Russia are blossoming.
* Chinese President Xi Jinping even called Russian President Vladimir Putin his “best friend” in an uncharacteristic display of warm relations during a state visit to Russia this summer.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping enter a hall during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on June 5, 2019. MAXIM SHIPENKOV | AFP | Getty Images
Russia and China appear to be increasing their economic, political and military ties amid poor relations with the West. But the relationship is far more nuanced than it first appears with strengths and weaknesses on both sides, experts note.
While U.S. trade relations with China have soured, as each slap billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs on each other’s goods, trade relations between China and Russia are blossoming. Chinese President Xi Jinping even called Russian President Vladimir Putin his “best friend .. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/05/putin-and-xi-meet-to-strengthen-ties-as-us-relations-sour.html ” in an uncharacteristic display of warm relations during a state visit to Russia this summer.
INSERT: Did Donald ever tweet about that? Ah, he probably didn't know as the last thing those close to him would like to do is make him cry. And no way FOX would have upset him by letting him know. Poor Donald if he ever found out.
Xi also promised Putin that China was “ready to go hand in hand with you” and the leaders signed statements committing to “the development of strategic cooperation and comprehensive partnership” between their nations and “strengthening strategic stability (which) includes international issues of mutual interest, as well as issues of global strategic stability.”
Economic ties
Strengthening economic ties is a large part of warm Sino-Russia relations. Last week, Russian and Chinese news agencies reported that the two countries want to double their trade over the next five years, to $200 billion by 2024 — up from $107 billion worth of trade in 2018 — by implementing joint projects in fields of energy, industry and agriculture.
It’s no surprise then that Russia sees China as a massive growth market at a time when its trade with western nations is sorely restricted. Russia is still subject to economic sanctions for its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, as well as interference in the 2016 U.S. election and the nerve agent poisoning of a former double agent in the U.K.
With that in mind, it makes sense that Russia is seeking an economic — and geopolitical — partner and ally to the East.
Their pledge to increase trade comes amid “a bifurcation in the U.S. and China’s spheres of influence,” Cailin Birch, global economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC Thursday.
“Obviously, the U.S. and China have no love lost between them and it would make much more sense for Russia to seek to build ties with this massive emerging market which will be a source of growth, in the way that the U.S. won’t be going forward, and with whom they don’t have the same political conflicts, and that presents a lot more opportunities to the Russian market for Russian energy products and developing their economic ties,” she noted.
For China, a partner like Russia that would “set the U.S. slightly ill at ease would be hugely beneficial,” she added.
Russia also has something that China needs in abundance – energy. Russia is among the world’s top three producers of oil and natural gas whereas China is the second largest crude oil importer in the world .. https://www.iea.org/statistics/oil/ .
“China is the main source of new energy consumption for fossil fuels particularly, and having a strong partner on its doorstep that’s ramping up its production of crude oil, the fabrication of LNG (liquefied natural gas) and the shipping of that all around the world, would also be beneficial to China,” Birch said.
Russia-China war games
Security and defense is another area where Russia and China have ostensibly sought to build ties and experts agree that Russia has more practical military experience than China. Just last week, China’s ‘People’s Liberation Army’ was one of seven foreign forces (including India and Pakistan) invited to join Russia’s “Tsentr 2019” massive military drills .. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/17/russia-conducts-tsentr-2019-military-exercises-with-china-and-india.html .. that took place across a swathe of Russia.
It was the second year China has participated, and its continued involvement is seen as significant by experts like Richard Weitz, senior fellow and director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute.
“Chinese and Russian national security communities share common objectives that can be promoted through further cooperation, such as border security, military technology development, and counterterrorism,” he told CNBC on Monday.
“They also perceive threats from U.S. and allied positions and policies that they can cooperate to thwart, such as U.S. missile defenses and Western military intervention in regional hotspots. They conversely see opportunities to expand their influence at the expense of the United States, including by undermining U.S. bilateral and multilateral alliances.”
Best of enemies?
The old adage that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” could be applied currently when it comes to China and Russia’s relationship with the U.S. right now. Sino-U.S. relations are currently more acrimonious than those between Russia and the U.S, given the lack of resolution to the trade dispute,.
For China, President Trump’s decision to up-end the status quo when it came to Sino-U.S. trade — because of what he has seen as unfair trade practices — and to impose billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs on Chinese imports as a result, has dented its economic growth and potential.
Against this backdrop, boosting Sino-Russia bilateral trade could open a door to growth for both Moscow and Beijing as lawmakers and officials confront trade barriers like sanctions and imports tariffs elsewhere.
“There’s a growing consensus that a partnership between Russia and China is quite a powerful force, led by China rather than Russia, but that between the two of them they could represent quite a powerful bloc and I think the U.S. is growing increasingly concerned by that,” the EIU’s Birch noted.
She added that “Russia would be the junior partner based on size of market and its prospect for growth so obviously in that sense, Russia would be pulled into China’s sway slightly.”
China-Russia: A threat or not?
Experts say the scales have tipped in favor of China being the dominant partner in Sino-Russian relationship and that has injected rivalry into the dynamic which is restricting cooperation on an economic and security level.
“It looks like they’re cooperating, it looks like it’s all nice and rosy in Russia-China relations in military terms - but it’s not,” Mathieu Boulegue, research fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, said.
Speaking at a briefing ahead of the military drills involving China, Boulegue said Russia’s message to China when it involved it in its war games last week was “not about cooperation.” “The message that Russia is sending to China is actually quite the opposite if you look at the deep meaning behind it.”
“It’s about matching Chinese interests in the region because Central Asia right now is a new battleground for influence, not just on the economic side but it’s very much about the growing Chinese influence in the military and security sphere.”
Raffaello Pantucci, director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), also said the relationship between Russia and China was mainly a “utilitarian” one and their alliance shouldn’t be overplayed by analysts.
“What does China-Russia think, how will Russia-China react? – they do have different interests and the danger is that we over-exaggerate this strategic alliance. It’s one that has limitations and questions,” he told CNBC Monday
Nonetheless, the U.S. will likely be watching the Sino-Russia alliance, particularly in terms of defense, carefully especially given the recent breakdown of its own long-standing nuclear arms treaty with Russia. The Hudson Institute’s Richard Weitz noted that military ties between China and Russia have increased dramatically in recent years “and look set to deepen in key dimensions in coming years, including regional security cooperation, arms sales, military exercises, and defense dialogues.”
“Sino-Russian security cooperation presents challenges to U.S. interests, including to the regional security balance, U.S.-led sanctions, and U.S. military freedom of action and access. These challenges would grow if China and Russia were to form a full-fledged defense alliance.”
Why Russia just torpedoed global oil prices [...] There can be little doubt that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pays particular attention to the oil industry, personally made the decision not to cut production. And while Russia appears to now be locked in battle for market share with Saudi Arabia, the real target here is almost certainly U.S. oil producers. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=154314410
Russia Wouldn’t Even Exist Today Without the Bolsheviks [...] Had the country fallen under the sway of bumbling warlords and an internally divided, incompetent .. http://www.persee.fr/doc/cmr_1252-6576_1997_num_38_1_2483 .. SR, it would have entered an extended period of civil war. The fighting would have lasted far longer than the three-year conflict the Bolsheviks ultimately won, more likely resembling the decades of bloody strife that decimated China from 1927 to 1949. [...] There would have been no Cold War. No European Union. No divided Korea. No Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and, consequently, no al Qaeda. Without the Holocaust, would a Jewish state have even emerged in the Middle East? The possibilities are endless. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=153801338
Lest We Forget: The Big Lie Behind the Rise of Trump [...] TRUMP (The O’Reilly Factor, FOX News 3/30/11): He doesn’t have a birth certificate. Now, he may have one, but there’s something on that, with maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. [...] LEBRON: ...”super predator” talk, you know, with respect to criminality and law and order, which is basically code for policing black neighborhoods. P - Somebody like Trump comes in and there’s a perfect storm of fear, loathing and a deep history of using policies to suppress blacks’ freedom and liberties. And Trump comes on the end of a black presidency and says, listen, this man is giving health care away for free; doesn’t that scare you? This man wants to let gay men and women marry. That’s not how you should live your life. This black man is doing that. P - And that’s why it’s no accident he has stepped into the perfect storm, of basically, white paranoia, white fear, of an era of possible black...true black liberation and justice. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=143735867
Trump Just Comes Out and Admits to Entire Ukraine Scam [...] In a podcast interview with Geraldo Rivera that aired on Thursday, Trump was asked, “Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer? Are you sorry you did that?” Rather than stick with his previous denials of ever having dispatched Giuliani to Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in the first place, Trump happily copped to it all, responding: “No, not at all...I deal with the Comeys of the world or I deal with Rudy,” the former of whom, per the president, left “a very bad taste” in his mouth due to the whole Russia investigation. “So when you tell me, why did I use Rudy, and one of the things about Rudy, number one, he was the best prosecutor, you know, one of the best prosecutors, and the best mayor,” Trump said. “But also, other presidents had them. FDR had a lawyer who was practically, you know, was totally involved with government. Eisenhower had a lawyer. They all had lawyers.” FDR and Eisenhower didn’t use their personal lawyers to uncover nonexistent dirt on their political rivals, but, sure, great history lesson. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=153854914 https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=153854914
What Do the Confirmation Hearings Tell Us About Biden’s Foreign Policy?
"Russia Is Beefing Up Its Nuclear Arsenal. Here’s What the U.S. Needs to Do."
With Avril Haines and Lloyd Austin confirmed, key officials are starting to offer hints of what’s in store.
By Emma Ashford, Matthew Kroenig | January 22, 2021, 5:45 PM
Antony Blinken testifies at his confirmation hearing to become the U.S. secretary of state before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington on Jan. 19. Graeme Jennings/Getty Images
Matthew Kroenig: Hi Emma! It has been another big week in foreign policy, and the issue on everyone’s mind for our discussion this week should be quite obvious.
Emma Ashford: Yes, it’s Foreign Policy’s 50th birthday! Congrats to our host for these debates.
MK: Ha! FP has had an impressive run covering some of the biggest events over the past half century. I remember being fascinated by Foreign Policy’s articles on the run up to the Iraq War while a graduate student. And it is an honor to write for the publication today.
But there was another minor item in the news this week you may have heard about: Trump left office and there’s been a transition to a new Biden administration.
IT’S DEBATABLE:Emma Ashford is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Matthew Kroenig is deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center. They debate foreign policy and the 2020 election.
EA: I watched the inauguration—not in person, of course. Even if our Washington, D.C., office weren’t closed for the pandemic, it’s also behind 10 security fences. It unfortunately wasn’t a peaceful transfer of power, but we finally had a small, COVID-appropriate inauguration ceremony, and can now look forward to the Biden administration.
I must admit, it’s a relief. No more waking up in the night wondering what foreign-policy crisis former President Donald Trump might have instigated now. Instead, I get the reassurance of reading Biden and his advisors’ words and knowing exactly where they intend to start foreign-policy crises.
MK: I certainly think we can expect more consistency between word and deed from new President Joe Biden.
But the Trump administration did leave one last gift for Team Biden on the way out the door. In a major move on his last day of office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared China’s actions against the Uighurs in Xinjiang province to be genocide and a crime against humanity. It is the right determination in my view, but it did come a bit late in the game.
EA:Well, that’s the big question. Why now? At this point, it’s fairly clear that China is making a concerted effort to wipe out a minority, even if it is through forced assimilation rather than actual killing. So the genocide designation may well be the right choice. But why didn’t the Trump administration do so years ago? After all, they claim to have been very tough on China in all areas.
MK: You are right that the genocide in China is not as swift or brutal as the killings in Rwanda, but China’s methodical and patient extermination plan is, in some ways, more chilling and just as evil.
EA: You’re right. I think we agree entirely that what is happening in Xinjiang is wrong. But where we might disagree is what to do about it. It’s unfortunate, but there is very little Washington can do to prevent it. And the genocide designation may end up tying the U.S. government’s hands elsewhere.
The Trump administration took a variety of steps in their final weeks just to make things hard for the Biden administration.
MK: The United States has already taken steps, such as placing sanctions on the Chinese officials involved in the genocide. I think the hope was that this public announcement will make it harder for the rest of the world to turn a blind eye, and galvanize a broader international response.
EA: But why now? It seems to fit a broader pattern, where the Trump administration took a variety of steps in their final weeks just to make things hard for the Biden administration. Look at the terrorist designation of the Houthis. That’s problematic for humanitarian reasons, and because it will make it harder to end the conflict in Yemen. I suspect that the Trump administration did it just to force Biden to undo it, and so they can criticize him for it later. They put Cuba back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism List, and even made changes to the U.S.-Taiwan relationship.
MK: The State Department claimed the reason for the late genocide designation was that the lawyers needed time to gather evidence. This may seem implausible to some given the substantial evidence of China’s atrocities, but substantiating that genocide was the Chinese Communist Party’s intent, as required to meet the definition of genocide, is not straightforward.
But if the motivation was to force the Biden team to stumble, it didn’t work. In response to a question from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham in his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken endorsed the move without hesitation. Graham was visibly pleased with the response.
I took it as hopeful evidence that, compared to Team Obama, the Biden administration will be more clear-eyed about, and hardline on, the challenge from autocratic rivals, like Russia and China.
EA: I worry you might be right—and I worry even more about anything that makes Lindsey Graham happy. To be clear, I’m thrilled to see so many qualified candidates appointed to national security posts after four years of nepotism and Trump flunkies. But I do worry that the balance inside the Biden administration doesn’t accurately reflect the Democratic party’s internal debates on foreign policy.
I do worry that the balance inside the Biden administration doesn’t accurately reflect the Democratic party’s internal debates on foreign policy.
Some of his appointees are really quite hawkish, particularly on issues like China. The inclusion of Samantha Power in the cabinet—from her newly elevated perch at the United States Agency for International Development—gives me pause. She has been one of the most consistent advocates for military intervention in government in recent years and has shown no real sign of reconsidering her views in the light of failures in Libya, Iraq, and elsewhere. Yet it’s only been a year since the Democratic primary, where the debates had largely rejected that kind of worldview.
MK: But Biden did win the primary and the election, not Senator Bernie Sanders. So, it makes sense that his appointments are more hawkish than would be expected from a more progressive president.
Lloyd Austin Isn’t Who You Think He Is The “silent general” has never been very quiet on policy. That’s exactly why Biden picked him as defense secretary—and why Washington’s foreign-policy establishment is wary. Argument | Mark Perry https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/16/lloyd-austin-isnt-who-you-think-he-is/
EA: Fair point. But if I could venture a quick prediction, I don’t think the progressive wing of the party will let Biden get away with it quite as much as they did during the Obama administration. I expect to see pushback in Congress, in particular on the war on terror, on Yemen, and on arms sales. Any other thoughts on the confirmation hearings so far?
MK: I was impressed by Antony Blinken and Avril Haines. I’ve had the opportunity to interact with Blinken a bit and he is usually the smartest person in the room. Haines is a highly competent, centrist, and experienced public servant who has vowed to fix the politicization of intelligence.
EA: I was also impressed with Haines, who gave good answers clearly condemning torture and some other progressive hot-button topics. And though we haven’t seen his confirmation hearings yet, I’m particularly pleased that she’ll be complemented by Bill Burns as the CIA director. He’s a thoughtful man who prioritizes diplomacy over the use of force, and he will be able to help his agency play a key role in things like reentering the nuclear deal with Iran.
MK: I am a bit more troubled by the Austin hearings. He is clearly very good, but the norm that retired military officers should be granted a waiver to serve as defense secretary only in “extraordinary” circumstances seems to have flown out the window.
EA:Well, that’s the problem with granting exceptions. Soon, they become the norm. I’m not thrilled about the Austin nomination either on that score. But I am happy to see him nominated, as I suspect one reason he was chosen was his time working with Biden on the Obama administration’s Iraq withdrawal. As Biden himself noted .. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/12/08/biden-heres-why-i-chose-lloyd-austin-for-defense-secretary/ , he and Austin “share a commitment to empowering our diplomats and development experts to lead our foreign policy, using force only as our last resort.” That’s a welcome change. If Biden is looking for a secretary of defense who will implement his agenda rather than push back on it, then Austin may well be a better candidate than the more status quo suggestions for secretary of defense.
I’m also mindful of Meg Guliford’s excellent recent article on Austin .. https://inkstickmedia.com/what-lloyd-austins-nomination-really-reveals/ , in which she pointed out that his nomination means a lot to African Americans and other minorities who work in the lily-white defense policy community. It would have been a shame to let hypothetical civil-military questions torpedo a historic nomination.
It would have been a shame to let hypothetical civil-military questions torpedo a historic nomination.
MK: The hearings also gave us insight into some of the administration’s policy priorities and Biden has already taken action in his first days. I support the decision to reenter the World Health Organization (WHO). The United States helped create the WHO and needs to make it work again. The body needs to be reformed, but if Washington stays out altogether, that will cede influence to Beijing.
Reentering the Paris climate agreement helps with the optics of U.S. global engagement, even if it doesn’t really do much to address climate change. After all, greenhouse-gas emissions fell faster in the United States than in China and Europe, while the country was out of the treaty and they were in.
There is bipartisan agreement that Washington needs to put limits on all these Russian nuclear weapons. If Biden extends the treaty for only one or two years, then he can keep the pressure on Russia to discuss new limits on these other weapons. But, if there’s an agreement to extend for the full five years, Russia will have no incentive to agree to any additional limits.
This might be the first and last arms control agreement of Biden’s presidency.
EA: I feel like you’re always looking for the perfect at the expense of the good. Yes, there are problems with current arms-control treaties, not least the fact that most of them focus too heavily on numerical criteria over qualitative questions like the exotic weapons you mention. These treaties are imperfect, but that doesn’t make them worthless. Signing onto a five-year extension allows the United States to get back into dialogue with Russia about other arms-control restrictions, while not giving up the benefits of the existing treaty. It’s a no-brainer.
MK: There are some who are hostile to all arms control because they believe the United States shouldn’t constrain itself in a deal with an enemy it can’t trust. There are some who think that arms control is a virtue in and of itself, almost regardless of the terms, because it represents cooperation between hostile states.
I am in the middle. I like arms control when it suits U.S. interests, but I don’t think granting Russia a quantitative nuclear advantage for the next half-decade is a good deal for Washington.
I like arms control when it suits U.S. interests, but I don’t think granting Russia a quantitative nuclear advantage for the next half-decade is a good deal for Washington.
EA: Nobody’s granting them anything! They are a country with agency that chose to develop these weapons! We have to deal with the world as it is, not argue about exactly how we want things to be in our perfect universe. And that means that the United States ought to try to improve its position vis-a-vis Russia—on arms control and on other things—while preventing the relationship from getting even worse.
MK: But Americans have agency too! Nobody is forcing the Biden team to extend what has become a one-sided agreement. And improving the relationship is not only a U.S. responsibility. What exactly is Putin doing to try to make things better?
EA: Well, I vastly prefer to be in a position where there are some existing arms control agreements, with all the associated verification and consultation measures, than to live in the Wild West. After all, let’s not forget where arms control initially came from: The superpowers were so concerned about nuclear crises after Berlin and Cuba that it was felt that it was in everyone’s interests to come to an arrangement. I think the Biden administration is simply following that logic to its obvious conclusion.
MK: I am sure we will continue to debate this and other issues over the next four years of the Biden administration. And—if our health and the editors will allow—for the next 50 years of Foreign Policy’s history.
EA: I’m not sure, Matt. Despite your youthful appearance, that would make you almost as old as Henry Kissinger! Let’s see if we make it through the roaring twenties first, shall we?
Emma Ashford is a senior fellow in the New American Engagement Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Twitter: @EmmaMAshford .. http://www.twitter.com/EmmaMAshford
Matthew Kroenig is deputy director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council and a professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Twitter: @matthewkroenig .. http://www.twitter.com/matthewkroenig
Russia Is Beefing Up Its Nuclear Arsenal. Here’s What the U.S. Needs to Do.
[...]
The problem with the squabble over the fate of New START, however, is that it assumes only two potential courses of action: either extend the treaty for five years unconditionally or allow it to expire in the hope of pursuing a more far reaching pact. Members of the disarmament community are pushing for the former option while some defense hawks have expressed interest in the latter.
There is a third, more realistic and more achievable approach: The U.S. should renew the treaty, but only if Russia agrees to negotiate a new one.
New START is a product of its time, reflecting the heady hopes of the early Obama years that both the U.S. and Russia wanted to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons. Although the treaty—by resurrecting a Reagan-era discount for bomber carried weapons—actually increased the number of nuclear weapons allowed to both sides compared to its predecessor (the 2002 Moscow Treaty), it arguably made a modest contribution to stability: It continued limits on traditional U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons and allowed the resumption of onsite verification inspections.
Today’s security situation is vastly different from the one that faced the United States and its allies a decade ago. In addition to modernizing its strategic nuclear forces over the past nine years—a task upon which the U.S. is only now embarking—Moscow has fielded a wide array of air-, sea- and ground-launched shorter-range nuclear forces that threaten our NATO allies but aren’t limited by New START. Indeed, the Senate, in its resolution ratifying the treaty in 2010, called explicitly for future negotiations with Russia to address the asymmetry between the two sides in shorter-range nuclear weapons. Those negotiations still haven’t taken place. Russia has also devised a military doctrine that appears to call .. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R45861.pdf .. for the use of these weapons on the battlefield against NATO to achieve an early victory in wartime.
Additionally, Moscow is developing new and exotic intercontinental nuclear weapons—including a transoceanic torpedo, a nuclear-powered cruise missile and an air-launched hypersonic glide vehicle. These weapons, which don’t have U.S. equivalents, are not constrained by New START either, even though they clearly present a direct threat to the U.S. homeland.
A simple extension of New START therefore would ignore these new, growing nuclear threats and would even enable their unconstrained expansion. In other words, it would undercut Western security while providing an illusion of stability. But New START’s impending expiration could provide leverage for negotiating a new treaty, one that would eventually address the new threats.
To this end, the administration should propose to extend the current version of New START on a renewable basis subject to Moscow’s acceptance of two conditions.
First, Russia will agree to begin immediately meaningful negotiations on a new treaty that would capture all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons regardless of range and would eventually replace New START. One approach to this might be to set an overall limit on each side’s nuclear arsenal accompanied by a sublimit on the number of intercontinental-range nuclear weapons of all types.
Second, to avoid dilatory negotiating tactics by Russia, the United States will reserve the right each year to condition its continued adherence to New START based on the progress—or lack thereof—made at the negotiating table during the previous year.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
