Impact turns + answers – bfhmrs russia War Good
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Harbor Teacher Prep-subingsubing-Ho-Neg-Lamdl T1-Round3, Impact Turns Aff Neg - Michigan7 2019 BFHMRS
2ac – at: linkUS actions don’t implicate Sino-Russo relations --- prefer consensus among a majority of expertsRM 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 In contrast to these claims, however, the majority of scholars, experts and officials whose articles and statements were reviewed for this article do not believe Russia and China have formed a de facto alliance, although they disagree on how likely such an alliance might be in the future. For instance, Brookings Institution scholar Fiona Hill, who now serves as the Trump administration’s adviser on Russia, and Bobo Lo of the French Institute of International Relations predicted tensions between the two countries in their July 2013 article as “the economic and political gap between a dynamic China and a non-modernizing Russia will be too wide for Moscow to bridge in the Asia-Pacific.” Russian commentator Mikhail Korostikov, too, does not see a Russian-Chinese alliance either now or in the future. In a May 2019 analysis entitled “Friendship at Arm’s Length,” Korostikov argued that “the political ties between Russia and China have reached a natural limit” and “that the feeling of a common threat from the United States is unlikely to lead to a military alliance between the countries.” Allison is equally skeptical, noting in a December 2018 article that while Moscow and Beijing have succeeded in forming a “grand alignment of the aggrieved … the prospects for a Chinese-Russian alliance in the longer run are undoubtedly grim.” Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, is more pessimistic still: “The hope of forming a close alliance with China … [has] faded,” he wrote in April 2019. Others are more optimistic about the prospects for a Russian-Chinese pact. For instance, Alexander Lukin, director of the Center for East Asian and SCO Studies at the Foreign Ministry’s Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), wrote in his 2018 book that “a formal alliance between Russia and China would become a reality” if one condition emerges and that condition is a ‘serious confrontation’ of the U.S. with both Russia and China.” Some Russian officials-turned-experts do not conceal their hopes for such an alliance. For instance, June 2016 saw retired chief of the Russian Defense Ministry’s international cooperation department Gen. Yevgeny Buzhinsky openly call for “truly allied relations” between Russia and China. Less than a year later, in April 2017, Buzhinsky, who became chairman of one of Russia’s leading nuclear policy think-tanks, the PIR Center, along with Karaganov and other Russian participants took part in a meeting of Russian and Chinese experts—held under the aegis of the Kremlin-funded Valdai Club—and “came out in support of a Russian-Chinese military alliance,” according to an account of the event in Russia’s Kommersant newspaper. Russian influentials’ recent musings about a potential alliance with China have been welcomed by some of their Chinese counterparts. Scholars who have seemed to voice support for a Russian-Chinese alliance include professor Zhang Wenmu from the Center for Strategic Research at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and prominent Chinese political scientist Yan Xuetong, who told Kommersant in a March 2017 interview that, “China has half approached the status of a superpower. Therefore, this principle [of not entering into alliances] is no longer in our interest. … I do not understand why Russia does not insist on forming an alliance with China.” Yan subsequently adjusted his views on the issue in a December 2018 article, writing that China sees a U.S.-Chinese bipolar world order emerging and making no mention of an alliance with Russia: “[A] bipolar U.S.-Chinese order will be shaped by fluid, issue-specific alliances rather than rigid opposing blocs divided along clear ideological lines,” he wrote. Other Chinese scholars are even less enthusiastic, expressing doubt that China and Russia will ever enter into a formal alliance. Feng Zhongping and Huang Jing do not see Russia and China in an alliance, but call “the Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership of Coordination and the Sino-Pakistani All-Weather Strategic Partnership … unique and unparalleled”; they also write that some scholars in China argue that, as China’s international clout grows, “Beijing needs to build a special relationship with countries, such as Russia, that lie somewhere in-between partnership and alliance.” Finally, it’s worth noting that public assessments of the bilateral relationship by Russian, Chinese and Western policymakers do not include references to Russian-Chinese alliances either now or in future. Recent Russian and Chinese documents refer to relations as “comprehensive, equal and trust-based partnership and strategic cooperation” and “comprehensive strategic partnership,” respectively, but contain no language on “alliance” or “allied relations.” Moreover, the joint statement on developing the two countries’ “comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction in a new epoch,” adopted during Xi Jinping’s June 5-7 visit to Russia, explicitly says the bilateral relationship will be based on a “repudiation of establishing allied relations, [and of] confrontation, and [on] not being directed against third parties,” among other principles. Russian and Chinese officials routinely describe the current relationship as “comprehensive partnership” and “strategic interaction,” but avoid references to any alliances—and Putin and Xi’s latest (almost 30th) meeting in St. Petersburg was no exception. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu used the same formula verbatim when congratulating Wei Fenghe with his appointment to the post of China’s defense minister in April 2018. Wei more than returned the compliment one year later, calling Sino-Russian ties “the closest interaction, which is the best among all relations between large countries,” during his April 2019 visit to Moscow. However, China’s former deputy foreign minister and former chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress Fu Ying has flatly ruled out a formal alliance: “China has no interest in a formal alliance with Russia,” she wrote in 2015. Western officials, meanwhile, are not uniform in their assessment of the Russian-Chinese relationship. For instance while then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said in June 2018 that he believes there’s “little in the long term that aligns Russia and China,” the director of U.S. national intelligence, Daniel Coats, told legislators in January 2019 that Russia and China "are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s. ” So what would be the most accurate description of the increasingly close bilateral relationship? Is it a “grand alignment of the aggrieved,” as Allison describes it, or an “axis of convenience,” as Lo has put it, or is it a de facto alliance, as per Karaganov? Moreover, if it is not an alliance, will it evolve into one, becoming “America’s nightmare,” or even a “nightmare for the entire Western world?” We have collected over 50 experts’ takes on this relationship, whose evolution may significantly impact the global world order, for you to review and decide for yourself. Download 0.83 Mb. Share with your friends:
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