Moscow and Beijing, the de facto couple is in crisis

This article was published in issue 11 of Vanity Fairon newsstands until March 15th.

As of February 24, China is no longer the immediate opponent of the United States of America. Russian aggression on Ukraine temporarily deviates American priority towards Moscow. And it cracks the strange Sino-Russian de facto couple, which since 2014 has occupied the nightmares of Western strategists. Mark Twain argued that history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes. The parable of the forced man alignment between Moscow and Beijing seems to confirm the thesis of the famous American novelist.

It all started in February-March 2014. In Kiev, the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich was driven out by popular acclaim from the first peaceful revolt, then also armed in Piazza Europa (Jevromaidan). Putin’s last hope of finding a bank in the West thus faded, ingloriously. To avoid total isolation, Putin flew to China to offer himself to Xi Jinping, recently risen to great helmsman of the Empire of the Center. As a dowry, the Russian president brought energy supplies via the new Siberian Power of Siberia pipeline, high technology and armaments. Xi Jinping allowed himself to be persuaded, but only on the basis of a pact of interest. His reasoning was more or less this: we are both in America’s sights; divided we will always be the weakest, united we can put Washington under pressure. Neither for him nor for Putin was it an easy choice.

The Chinese and the Russians express two civilizations, even before two historically rival powers. They deeply distrust each other. Today, while the Russian attack on Ukraine continues to rage, some Chinese perhaps regret that agreement, which immediately offers Beijing a little respite from the confrontation with the United States. Putin had probably not warned Xi of his intentions, at least not of the scale of the attack. If Russia wins in Ukraine, China would find itself running a much more favorable relationship than Moscow. If, on the other hand, it loses, the Russian Federation would risk disintegrating, with unthinkable but nevertheless enormous consequences. China would lose its only “ally” and see its northern border destabilized. In the United States the idea of ​​reopening dialogue with the People’s Republic takes shape in order to definitively break the path of the strange Sino-Russian couple. On the contrary, repeating the maneuver with which Kissinger and Nixon detached China from the Soviet Union in the early 1970s, accelerating the final crisis of the Bolshevik empire.

The game in play today between Beijing, Moscow and Washington is no less important. We don’t know how yet, but it will draw a new world. But this time through a war that everyone hopes will not end in a world conflict. However, it is not yet clear how to thwart this nightmare.