Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
Business Insider
Russia and China's anti-US alliance is growing even more threatening
By Tom Porter,
7 hours ago
SERGEI BOBYLYOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Russia this week launched large-scale naval and air drills with China.
Military cooperation between the two powers is growing.
Some experts say it's a potential threat the scale of which the US hasn't faced in decades.
China and Russia have long railed against what they claim is the malign influence of US power.
Now, they're sending a signal to the West that they have the combined military strength to challenge US dominance.
On Tuesday, the Russian military launched large-scale naval and air drills in the Sea of Japan alongside China.
Taking place in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, the Mediterranean, Caspian, and Baltic Seas, the "Ocean-24" exercise is massive in scale.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, it involves more than 400 warships, submarines, and support vessels, more than 120 planes and helicopters, and more than 90,000 troops.
"This exercise aims to deepen the strategic cooperation level between the Chinese and Russian militaries and enhance their ability to jointly deal with security threats," China's Defense Ministry said Monday, reported the AFP newswire.
It's the second time in only three months that the powers have held joint military exercises, with drills held near the southern Chinese port of Guangdong in July.
It's a sign of the growing military alignment of the powers, with the China Power Project finding that of the 102 joint exercises held by the militaries since 2003, more than half took place in the last seven years.
Graeme Thomson, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, told Business Insider that Russia and China are sending a message.
"Russia's naval exercises are intended to signal that Moscow is still a global power that can operate in a range of blue-water theaters around the world," he said. "China's participation is part of a long-running trend of deeper Sino-Russian strategic cooperation and military integration."
An anti-US axis
Russian President Vladimir Putin is greeted by a ceremonial guard and received a red-carpet welcome in Beijing, China in May.
Kremlin via Anadolu via Getty Images
On the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, China's leader Xi Jinping and Russia's President Vladimir Putin declared a "no limits" partnership as part of their shared mission to challenge US global dominance.
In the three years since, China has provided Russia with crucial diplomatic and economic support as it faced isolation over the Ukraine invasion, and, according to the US, is providing the Kremlin with increasing support for its weapons industry.
In defiance of the West, both nations are flexing their power and showcasing their capacity to project military strength.
The joint exercises are taking place in the Sea of Japan and Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk.
China and Russia both have territorial disputes with Japan, while China is menacing Taiwan with invasion, a move that could trigger conflict with the US.
"There's clearly an intention on the part of Beijing and Moscow to show that they can jointly project power in the Indo-Pacific," said Thomson.
China's continuing to strengthen its partnership with Russia despite increasingly stark criticism from the West.
The July military exercises came after NATO accused China of being a "decisive enabler" of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Great power competition intensifies
A US military show at a base in Alaska in July, 2024
Anadolu via Getty Images
Some experts are warning that joint Russian and Chinese military strength poses a serious challenge to the West.
It's a potential threat on a scale the US hasn't faced in decades, with its military focused on fighting militant groups in the face of chaos in the Middle East.
The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States last October urged the Pentagon to urgently revise its strategy so it could potentially fight both powers at the same time.
Some analysts, though, are pointing to tensions between Russia and China that could weaken the alliance.
Russia has become a junior partner to Xi's China, and it is increasingly reliant on it to keep its war machine and economy running.
But for now, the alliance is growing closer, and Thomson said that the US will be watching the latest military exercises between Russia and China closely.
"This is yet another signal that the geopolitical environment continues to deteriorate amid ongoing great power competition," he said.
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.