nc – at: !/t – econ coop bad

2nc – at: !/t – econ coop bad

The US won’t backlash to Sino-Russian economic cooperation --- they won’t be a threat to US interests, BUT coop does solve our impact

Third, joint opposition is different from joint action. For instance, some scholars have argued that China and Russia are counterbalancing the USA through the SCO in Central Asia.24 Despite the gradual evolution of the SCO, however, the hard security aspect of the organization remains underdeveloped. The SCO, which is arguably a China-driven project, is more about economics, trade and ensuring that the Central Asian elites remain focused on combating separatism and religious extremism. More importantly, the SCO lacks any formal or joint command structure, and has no access to armed forces, as for instance NATO or even the Russia-led Eurasian security organization the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CTSO) have. While the SCO has at times worked as a convenient platform from which China and Russia can fret about the US military presence in Central Asia, there have been few, if any, attempts to move beyond rhetoric. 24 Chaka Ferguson, “The Strategic Use of Soft Balancing: The Normative Dimensions of the ChineseUltimately, China and Russia are still heavily focused on maintaining functional relations with the USA, at least in the short to medium term. For China, the USA and the West more generally still represent the default go-to place for trade, markets, technology and scientific exchange. China has made great strides in modernizing its economy and is in certain areas approaching parity or even overtaking the West, for instance in e-commerce or the electric car industry. Overall, however, China still lags behind the West in a number of key industries. While politically important for China and a key partner in energy and the arms trade, Russia is no substitute for the West in many key areas of trade and technology.