Russia and China line up against the United States in a “limitless” partnership

China and Russia proclaimed a close strategic partnership to counter what they see as the United States’ malign global influence on Friday, when Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Russia’s Vladimir Putin on the opening day of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

In a joint statement, the two countries said their new relationship runs deeper than any Cold War-era political or military alliance.

“The friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation”, they declared, announcing plans for collaboration in a number of areas such as space, climate change, artificial intelligence and Internet control.

The agreement constitutes the most detailed and firm declaration of the determination of Russia and China to work together – and against the United States – to build a new international order, based on their own interpretations of human rights and democracy.

Suffused with ideological discourse, it was not clear whether it would immediately translate into increased tangible and practical cooperation – despite Putin’s much fanfare announcing a new gas deal with China on Friday – or whether it was intended to be more of a general statement of intent.

Jonathan Eyal of the London think tank RUSI said the statement marks a “front rebuttal” of the American and Western vision of the world and the construction of a possible military alliance between Russia and China.

“It is the most explicit articulation of the strategy of ‘making the world safe for dictatorship’“, He said. “It is a historic point because they both feel cornered and feel that their time has come to expose their vision of the world and aggressively promote it.”.

The two countries have grown closer as both have come under pressure from the West on a range of issues, including their human rights commitments and Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine. The moment of the announcement was very symbolic, in an Olympic Games organized by China that the United States has subjected to a diplomatic boycott.

Each of them went much further than before, Eyal said, by explicitly endorsing the other on key issues of dispute with the United States and its allies:

• Russia expressed its support for China’s position that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and its opposition to any form of independence for the island.
• Moscow and Beijing have also voiced opposition to the AUKUS alliance between Australia, Britain and the United States, saying it increases the danger of an arms race in the region.
• China joined Russia in calling for an end to the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and supported its demand for security guarantees from the West, issues that are at the heart of Moscow’s confrontation with Washington and its allies for Ukraine.

The two countries expressed concern about “advancing US plans to develop a global missile defense and deploy its elements in various regions of the world, along with increasing its high-precision non-nuclear weapons capability for disarming strikes and other strategic objectives.”

On the other hand, without naming Washington, they criticized attempts to “certain states” to establish a world hegemony, fuel confrontation and impose its own rules of democracy.