The perception of China as a growing and global threat has become a bipartisan issue in Washington that more or less seamlessly persisted through the handover of power from the previous presidential administration to the current one. Indeed, over the past several months, the United States government effectively managed to rally its allies in multiple corners of the world to recognize and stand up to the China challenge (see China Brief, March 25; see EDM, June 21, July 6). Russia in turn, is seen by Washington as an active troublemaker and a potentially deadly nuclear superpower—but one with a relatively small, stagnant economy that is incapable of mass-producing modern warships or any other industrial hardware at China’s level. Western diplomats and political leaders have been increasingly vocal in telling their Russian counterparts to be aware of the potential threat emanating from Beijing. With China’s outreach continuously expanding economically, technologically, and militarily, while Russia languishes, the ostensible enhanced strategic partnership between the two Eurasian countries is increasingly lopsided. Their advice to Moscow: look out and distance itself from Beijing or Russia may end up a Chinese dependency or vassal, losing its coveted sovereignty, and maybe even territory, to a not-so-gentle master.
OP-ED
Pavel Felgenhauer: Russia moves closer to China
China's President Xi Jinping (L) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin attend attend a meeting with members of the Business Council and management of the New Development Bank during the BRICS Summit in Brasilia, Nov. 14, 2019.
