As Russia\u2019s military last week launched globe-spanning drills widely seen as a show of strength directed at the United States, President Vladimir Putin made clear which country he sees as standing by Moscow\u2019s side. <\/p>\n
In an opening video address, Putin said 15 \u201cfriendly\u201d nations would observe what Moscow claimed were some 90,000 troops and more than 500 ships and aircraft mobilized for the largest such exercises in 30 years. <\/p>\n
But only China would take part alongside Russia, according to Putin. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are paying special attention to strengthening cooperation with our friendly countries. This is especially important today amid rising geopolitical tension around the world,\u201d the Russian leader said. <\/p>\n
Dubbed \u201cOcean-2024,\u201d the seven days of drills that ended Monday are the latest in a recent slew of military exercises and joint patrols between Russia and China that come on the heels of vows from Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to tighten military cooperation, even as the Kremlin wages its war against Ukraine. <\/p>\n
China sent several warships and 15 aircraft to waters off Russia\u2019s Far East coast for Ocean-2024, according to the Russian military. In addition, Chinese and Russian forces this month touted deepened strategic coordination during joint naval drills in waters near Japan and held their fifth joint maritime patrol in the northern Pacific. <\/p>\n
It follows a raft of joint exercises over the summer, including near Alaska \u2013 where US and Canadian forces intercepted Russian and Chinese bombers together for the first time \u2013 and in the South China Sea, a vital waterway claimed almost entirely by Beijing in which geopolitical tensions are rapidly rising. <\/p>\n
That coordination has been watched with increasing concern in Washington, which has for months accused China of bolstering Russia\u2019s defense sector with dual-use exports like machine tools and microelectronics, a charge Beijing denies as it claims neutrality in the conflict. <\/p>\n
It also comes as the war in Ukraine grinds on and threats escalate, with Putin warning NATO leaders that lifting restrictions on Kyiv\u2019s use of longer-range Western missiles to strike deep inside Russia would be considered an act of war. <\/p>\n
The latest Russia-China military drills fit a pattern of more than a decade of enhanced military coordination between the two countries, experts say. <\/p>\n
But at a time of heightened global tensions \u2013 including over Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, China\u2019s aggression in the South China Sea, and its claims to the self-ruled island of Taiwan \u2013 they also underscore how Moscow and Beijing increasingly view each other as key to projecting strength. <\/p>\n
The joint drills also raise questions about whether the two nuclear-armed powers, which are not treaty allies, could act together in any potential future conflict. <\/p>\n
The relationship between these two giant neighbors has never been simple. <\/p>\n
Moscow and Beijing were once enemies that fought a 1969 border conflict between the Soviet Union and a young Communist China. But recent decades have seen a robust arms trade between the two, and \u2013 especially as Xi and Putin tightened ties more broadly \u2013 a scaling up of military coordination. <\/p>\n
Between 2014 and 2023, the two militaries have held at least four and as many as 10 joint military exercises, war games or patrols each year, including multilateral drills with other countries, according to data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). <\/p>\n
Those drills and patrols have also appeared to observers to become increasingly complex \u2013 for example involving both navy and air forces or more advanced equipment, as well taking place in farther-flung parts of the world. <\/p>\n
In a first this July, both the Chinese and Russian aircraft intercepted near Alaska took off from the same Russian air base, according to CSIS researchers, who also noted this was the partners\u2019 first joint air patrol in the northern Pacific. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not as interoperable as NATO allies, but they are improving and consolidating this strategic partnership or alignment,\u201d said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. <\/p>\n
Being able to work together as a single entity is a core ethos of NATO, the decades-old alliance of 32 member nations that is bound together by a mutual defense pact and is viewed by both China and Russia as a key military rival. <\/p>\n
The demonstration of Russia and China\u2019s consolidation has a clear audience: the US and its allies. <\/p>\n
Putin and Xi have been driven together by a shared view that the West aims to suppress their core interests. For Putin, those concerns include preventing NATO expansion, while Xi eyes control of Taiwan and South China Sea domination. <\/p>\n
Putin spelled out that context in his video address launching Ocean-2024, accusing the US and its allies of \u201cusing the alleged Russian threat and the China containment policy as a pretext for building up their military presence along Russia\u2019s western borders, as well as in the Arctic and in Asia-Pacific.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Russian leader also warned that the US planned to station intermediate and shorter-range missiles in \u201cforward deployment areas,\u201d including the Asia-Pacific region. This appeared to echo comments Putin made over the summer criticizing Washington\u2019s and Berlin\u2019s plan to deploy US long-range missiles in Germany from 2026, and of the US temporarily sending a powerful missile launcher for exercises in the Philippines earlier this year \u2013 a move also condemned by Beijing. <\/p>\n
Both Russia and China want to show the US and its allies that their \u201ctwo militaries are becoming increasingly integrated and any challenge to either risks a combined response,\u201d said Carl Schuster, a retired US Navy captain and former director of operations at the US Pacific Command\u2019s Joint Intelligence Center. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are saying in effect that we can do to you, that is, operate in your backyard like you have been doing in ours.\u201d <\/p>\n
The drills also provide opportunities for each to learn from the other \u2013 as Russia, with its extensive battlefield experience, and China, which has become increasingly advanced in electronic military technologies, each have something to learn from the other, observers say. <\/p>\n
Korolev said it\u2019s \u201cincreasingly difficult\u201d in the wake of the Ukraine war and extensive Western sanctions to know the extent to which the latest drills are also sustaining Sino-Russian technical cooperation on arms, which previously was a feature of their years of steadily enhanced military collaboration. <\/p>\n
In Washington, the optics of the tightening ties are raising concerns over the risk of a simultaneous US military conflict with China and Russia, or even one that could also include other partners, like Iran, with which the two countries held naval drills earlier this year. There are also concerns about Moscow\u2019s potential support for Beijing in any war in Asia-Pacific. <\/p>\n
There, Beijing and Washington navigate a host of potential flashpoints including China\u2019s designs on Taiwan and its mounting aggression in the South China Sea against US treaty ally the Philippines. Both Russia and China have also been warily watching the US\u2019 strengthening of its longstanding ties with regional allies. <\/p>\n
But observers say that despite the growing coordination within joint drills, it\u2019s unlikely there is a clear end goal past sending a strong signal \u2013 at least for now. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that you are going to see Russian planes supporting a Chinese attack on Taiwan, for example, or in a conflict with the Philippines are Russian vessels are going to support Chinese ones? I doubt it,\u201d said Elizabeth Wishnick, a senior research scientist in the China and Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Division at independent research group CNA. <\/p>\n
While Russia and China may have \u201coverlapping interests\u201d they are not on the same page on strategic goals in the region, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you can assume that just because they\u2019re having more military exercises that they\u2019re in lockstep,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
In joint statements, China and Russia insist their relationship is one of non-alignment that doesn\u2019t target any third party. <\/p>\n
Each also has different geopolitical objectives in the region. Russia, for example, maintains close ties with China\u2019s rival India \u2013 and is likely eager to prevent any Chinese ascendancy in Asia that deepens the power imbalance between Beijing and Moscow. <\/p>\n
In turn, China would also be wary of compromising its own strategic aims by acting too directly in concert with Russia \u2013 but also of any action that could destabilize warming ties with its northern neighbor following decades of fractious relations that have previously spilled over into conflict. <\/p>\n
\u201cSimply put, China sides with no one but itself,\u201d said James Char, an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University\u2019s Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. \u201cBeneath the surface, China and Russia continue to harbor deep mutual mistrust.\u201d
But observers say there\u2019s still a potential range of ways the partnership could come to bear if conflict were to break out in Asia involving China. <\/p>\n
Russia would at least reciprocate with the kind of diplomatic and economic support that Beijing has extended to Moscow during the war in Ukraine, analysts say, and would also likely help provide weapons and discounted energy. <\/p>\n
When it comes to joining China in any potential conflict with the US, however, Russia may have \u201cmore to lose and little to gain,\u201d according to Schuster, the retired Navy captain. <\/p>\n
But were China to act against Taiwan, the Russian military could potentially offer limited support like sending ships and air force patrols to waters around Japan, or possibly deploy one or two submarines into the Western Pacific, he said. <\/p>\n
That would \u201cgive the US and its allies another factor of concern as they weigh how to respond,\u201d he said. \u201cBut China will have to offer a lot to convince Russia to join that conflict.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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