China and Russia are poised to create a military alliance, the Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post reported Wednesday. “China and Russia are edging closer to a de facto military alliance,” the newspaper said.
During a virtual meeting on Tuesday, Chinese and Russian defense chiefs announced a series of joint military maneuvers and measures cementing an already growing bilateral partnership. Both countries agreed on a “road map for closer military cooperation over the next five years,” the article reported.
The strategic agreement comes as both countries engage in aggressive military build-up aimed at threatening their regional neighbors. The emerging strategic alliance is aimed at countering the United States, the report noted.
If the proposed roadmap goes according to plan, this military alliance could pose a serious threat to United States’ security.
The combined Russia-China military budget surpasses Washington’s defense spending. According to recent estimates, the Chinese and Russian defense budgets are roughly $604 and $200 billion respectively. The U.S. defense budget is currently pegged at $715 billion.
The South China Morning Post reported the emerging China-Russia military alliance:
China and Russia are edging closer to a de facto military alliance to counter growing pressure from the United States, with the Russian defence chief telling his Chinese counterpart that US aircraft activity near the country’s borders had increased.In a video call on Tuesday, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe agreed to expand cooperation through strategic exercises and joint patrols in the Asia-Pacific, including the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, according to Russia’s defence ministry. (…)In a brief statement, China’s defence ministry said the two sides would “continue to deepen strategic cooperation between the two militaries, continue to strengthen cooperation in strategic exercises, joint patrols and other areas, and continue to make new contributions to safeguarding the core interests of China and Russia and maintaining international and regional security and stability”.The defence chiefs discussed joint naval patrols in the northwest Pacific and joint air patrols over the Sea of Japan and East China Sea during the call, and signed a road map for closer military cooperation over the next five years, Russia’s defence ministry said, without giving further details.
As we reported, Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops near its western border with Ukraine. The deployment coincides with the Moscow-backed Belarusian regime’s bid to push thousands of illegal migrants, many of them from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, into neighboring Poland.
Meanwhile, China has sharpened its rhetoric against Taiwan, an independent island nation Beijing regards as part of its own territory. Last month, around 15o Chinese fighter jets, warplanes, and nuclear-capable bombers violated Taiwan’s air defense zone, the biggest breach of its kind by Beijing so far. Chinese President Xi Jinping recently threatened to use military force if the U.S. came to the aid of the beleaguered nation.
Communist China, once a junior partner to Josef Stalin’s Soviet Russia, turned into a bitter rival at the height of the Cold War. Chinese dictator, Mao Zedong, drifted away after Moscow refused to pass the mantle of global Communist leadership after Stalin’s death in 1953. In 1969, the two powers fought a major war over the disputed Sino-Soviet border. During the Cold War, Moscow and Beijing armed and trained competing insurgent groups in the third world countries in the bid to wrest control of the Communist movement.
With China’s economic and geopolitical ascendency, Vladimir Putin’s Russia — a frail shadow of its past glory — is willing to play Beijing’s junior partner, reversing the power balance in this historic partnership.
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