The "new Cold War" and China-Russia relations

Charles Kupchan is recommending a bit more realism on this whole new-cold-war-with-China thing (Biden’s Foreign Policy Needs a Course Correction Project Syndicate 05/14/2021)

In this emerging world, democratic governance will still retain its intrinsic advantage: humans prefer freedom. But for the first time since its emergence as a global power in the 1940s, the US now faces in China a full-spectrum competitor. And because the US needs China’s help to rein in North Korea, arrest global warming, and tackle other transnational issues, it had better start mapping out a strategy that is not just about “us versus them.”

Premising US policy on a clash between democracy and autocracy would not just fail to contain China. Worse, it would actually encourage China’s recalcitrance by consolidating its unholy [sic] alliance with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. China and Russia have been rivals historically, and China’s rise should naturally alarm the Kremlin. But the two autocracies have instead formed a marriage of convenience to resist what they see as the West’s encroaching ambition. [my emphasis]

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs provides some recent background on the still-improving relations between China and Russia (Russians See Greater Reward than Risk in Closer Relations with China 03/21/2021):

Russia and China deepened economic ties in 2014 after the United States and European countries slapped sanctions on Moscow following the annexation of Crimea. Xi Jinping attended Russia’s 2015 Victory Day celebration, where he and Vladimir Putin signed agreements to increase economic and strategic ties. This included a formal link between the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (specifically the Silk Road Economic Belt).

Since then, cooperation has expanded into a variety of domains. Russia has leaned on China economically during the COVID-19 pandemic. China has also found a welcome partner in Moscow as it faces tensions with the United States over trade, human rights, and security issues. During a three-day visit to Moscow in 2019, Xi Jinping stated in a press conference that “Russia is the country that I have visited the most times, and President Putin is my best friend and colleague."