Litany of issues prove --- joint drills, trade, diplomatic issues

Litany of issues prove --- joint drills, trade, diplomatic issues

As the Western world fixates on Donald Trump, Brexit and all its other problems, its rivals watch with fascination and glee. Russia and China are cooperating more closely than ever before, learning from each other and increasingly confident they can remodel the world to their will. Their approach – unashamedly autocratic, tough on human rights and increasingly open to using military force in their neighbourhoods – pushes back against almost all the assumptions the US and its allies have made since 1989. So far, there’s precious little sign anyone in authority in Washington, Whitehall or continental Europe has much of a plan to combat it, at least beyond military and diplomatic posturing. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met each other five times, including at the largest ever joint drills between their armies. Trade between the two nations increased by over 30 per cent in 2018, and is expected to rise further with new infrastructure projects such as the first cross-border rail bridge, finished late last month. On diplomatic issues such as Syria and Venezuela, the two powers appear increasingly in lockstep. –– ADVERTISEMENT –– That doesn’t mean there are not still strains between the two. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of their six-month 1969 border conflict, and there are those in both Beijing and Moscow – particularly in Moscow – who view each other still as rivals. Given China’s enthusiasm for infrastructure projects and Russia’s need for cash, plus the world’s fifth-longest international land boundary, it is striking how limited cross-border links remain: while the rail link is almost finished, a parallel road project remains in stasis. But even that might change. Both Russia and China have a whole host of gains they wish to make, particularly when it comes back to pushing back Washington in their immediate backyards. And collaboration, they suspect, may be the way to do it. At the very least, both Putin and Xi – and the wider leadership around them –seem caught up in a cycle of mutual admiration. In Russia, where many believed they lost the Cold War on scientific and business prowess, China’s economic growth is increasingly touted as a model Moscow, too, should follow. Beijing, for its part, has learned from Moscow’s success in Georgia, Ukraine and beyond in harnessing conventional military force and unconventional subversion to get around decades of Western dominance.