2nc – at: uq o/w link Relations --- particularly in energy --- are strong now --- BUT, that’s rooted in anti-US sentiment --- proves uniqueness doesn’t overwhelm the link
RM 6/14 (RM, citing over 50 experts’ opinions on the China-Russia military alliance, 6-14-2019, "Expert Round-Up: How Likely Is a China-Russia Military Alliance?," Russia Matters, https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/expert-round-how-likely-china-russia-military-alliance) ank
The problem for Trump is that Sino-Russian ties have been improving more or less steadily since the waning years of the Cold War. The thaw between the two communist powers began in the early 1980s and was followed by normalized relations in May 1989. Beijing and Moscow established a “strategic partnership” in 1996 and signed a Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation in 2001. Chinese and Russian leaders now refer to the relationship as a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination,” a convoluted term for a not-quite alliance. (Foreign Affairs, 02.22.17) The two countries cooperate closely across a number of fields. On energy, Russia became the top oil supplier to China in 2016. Crucially for China, it transports supplies overland rather than through contested sea lanes. The nations have partnered on military exercises, including in the Mediterranean and South China Sea, as well as on some joint technology development projects. They have revived their languishing arms trade relationship. … The two countries have also embarked on a number of symbolic people-to-people projects, such as beginning the long-delayed construction of a bridge across the Amur River. And in June 2016, Presidents Xi and Putin agreed to work jointly to increase their control over cyberspace and communications technologies. (Foreign Affairs, 02.22.17) A shared political vision for world order provides the foundation for Chinese-Russian cooperation. It is defined primarily by the desire to see an end to U.S. primacy, to be replaced by multipolarity. … To be sure, there is some potential for a rupture between China and Russia. Moscow worries about a lopsided economic relationship based on trading Russian resources for Chinese finished goods. China’s growing influence in Central Asia and the sparsely populated areas of eastern Russia, Moscow’s arms sales to India and Vietnam and China’s theft of Russian weapons designs all threaten to derail the partnership. … Xi and Putin have found a modus vivendi that downplays and contains those frictions while focusing on the cooperative aspects of their relationship. When Chinese leaders talk about a “new type of great power relations” with the United States, they envision something much like the Sino-Russian relationship as a model. (Foreign Affairs, 02.22.17) Paul Stronski and Nicole Ng, Senior Fellow and Research Assistant, respectively, Russia and Eurasia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow and Beijing have transformed their relationship from being Cold War adversaries to become pragmatic partners with a common goal of pushing back at a Western-dominated international system. Their relationship is tactical and opportunist but marked by increasingly compatible economic, political and security interests. Sharing a geopolitical worldview of multipolarity, they both have firm desires to contain Western power and seek to accelerate what they see as the weakening of the United States. With a common desire to shift the center of global power from the Euro-Atlantic space to the East, they aim to rewrite at least some of the rules of global governance, suggesting that their partnership is becoming increasingly strategic. Yet the Chinese-Russian relationship is complex, with lingering mistrust on both sides. Despite the grand ambitions for cooperation voiced by the two countries’ leaders, achieving substantive results often eludes them, particularly in the Russian Far East and the Arctic, where realizing the plethora of trade, investment and infrastructure deals announced since 2014 has been difficult. (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 02.28.18) Yun Sun, Senior Associate, East Asia Program, Stimson Center [The relationship between Russia and China is more of an alignment than an alliance] because Beijing doesn’t want to be bogged down. … But now with Washington becoming more hostile toward China by the day, the benefit of a solid partnership with Russia outweighs its cost significantly. (South China Morning Post, 06.08.19) Dmitri Trenin, Director, Carnegie Moscow Center
RM 6/14 (RM, citing over 50 experts’ opinions on the China-Russia military alliance, 6-14-2019, "Expert Round-Up: How Likely Is a China-Russia Military Alliance?," Russia Matters, https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/expert-round-how-likely-china-russia-military-alliance) ank
Simon Saradzhyan, Founding Director of Russia Matters The fact that the Russian leadership has come around to supporting OBOR even though it will not necessarily be conducive to some of Russia’s vital interests signals Moscow’s readiness to pursue even closer ties with Beijing. This, in turn, could eventually culminate in the establishment of an official military-political alliance between the two countries if tensions between the West and Russia continue. … In addition to the Ukraine crisis, there are at least five sets of longer-term factors that lend themselves to closer ties between Russia and China… The first factor is trade. … Second, both countries have a vested interest in stability in Central Asia to prevent the rise of militant Islamism there. Third, the two also want to preserve their rights as veto-wielding permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Fourth, they share a number of serious grievances vis-à-vis the Western world. … Finally, Russian leaders have come to believe that the U.S. and its Western partners are in long-term decline, while China is a rising power and engaging it would pay off for Russia. (Russia Matters, 05.12.17) There are, of course, factors that hinder the emergence of a Sino-Russian alliance. These include Russia’s reservations about demographic, economic and conventional military disparities in areas straddling the Russian-Chinese border that may come to threaten Moscow’s control of the Russian Far East. … Another damper on closer Russian-Chinese ties is Moscow’s arms trade and robust relations with such regional opponents of China’s rise as Vietnam and India. China’s expanding foot print in Central Asia, where it has displaced Russia as the dominant economic power, has also caused frictions between Moscow and Beijing. These factors make the formation of a de jure Sino-Russian military-political alliance unlikely in the short term. However, the longer Russia remains in a state of Cold War with the West, the less Russian leaders will factor in these friction points as they decide whether to seek such an alliance as a counterweight. (Russia Matters, 05.12.17) Shi Jiangtao, Former Diplomat, China Reporter at South China Morning Post During his visit to Russia this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping and “best friend” and counterpart Vladimir Putin ushered in a new era for bilateral ties between the two countries… According to former diplomats and analysts, the “bromance” between the two leaders that has been splashed across both countries’ state-controlled media is not just a show of resentment at Trump’s big-stick diplomacy, but of the geostrategic implications on the shifting global political and economic order. (South China Morning Post, 06.08.19)
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