With Beijing celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule, there’s been a heated discussion across the Western world about the role that China is going to play in the global affairs. Among those taking part in the discussion there’s been those pointing out to the growing military cooperation between Beijing and Moscow.

As it’s been underlined by a once respected Western media source, for the longest time any relationship between Russia and China would be dismissed as a marriage of convenience with limited impact on American interests. But since Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia after the coup in Ukraine in 2014, Chinese and Russian authorities have increasingly found common cause, disparaging the Western-style “rule-based order” and offering themselves as alternatives to America’s post-war leadership.

As Western countries carry on their meddling with the internal affairs of nations in the eastern hemisphere, political cooperation among nations such as China and Russia becomes a major geopolitical factor. As China and Russia are growing even closer, it becomes evident that this new arrangement is going to present a challenge to Washington’s dominance on the geopolitical stage.

As it’s been noted by John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School:

“The world system, and American influence in it, would be completely upended if Moscow and Beijing aligned more closely.”

Indeed, the ties between Russia and China go back decades, as those countries were bound by a full-fledged military pact some time ago. Among the reasons behind this rapprochement one can name the omnipresent external threat to the very existence of those states, as the West has done everything it could to undermine both of those both internally and externally.

It’s no coincidence that Article 9 of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation Between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation states:

When a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that peace is being threatened and undermined or its security interests are involved or when it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats.

Of course, some may argue, nor Moscow neither Beijing are duty-bound to rush to each other’s aid, but its wording is reminiscent of the North Atlantic Treaty, where there’s no guarantee that anybody would rush to your rescue should things go south. That’s the reality of modern diplomatic relations, where treaties are driven by the commitment of the participating parties towards a common goal instead of formal obligations. So careful wording is a modern imperative in such documents, and those who drafted the above-mentioned piece were no strangers to this concept.

So, it’s safe to say that Moscow and Beijing are coordinating their goals, military planning and production capabilities, and they’ve been doing this since the early 2000s.

However, the turning point in the bilateral relations between Russia and China can be traced to a major spike in anti-Russian sanctions that occurred in 2017. Against this backdrop, Moscow proposed that a comprehensive roadmap should have been developed, covering the time span of three years and encompassing all the areas of military cooperation between the states. China was happy to accept this proposition largely to the fact that it was facing the prospect of a full-blown trade war with the United States, that was later launched by the Trump administration.

As the situation on the geopolitical stage remains highly volatile, it’s no wonder that both Moscow and Beijing describe each other as close strategic partners. With Beijing being yet unable to reach nuclear parity with the United States, it gravitates closer to Moscow and its massive nuclear stockpiles. This year’s China’s Defence White Paper states that the cooperation between the states remains on a particularly high level, with a special emphasis being laid on the fact that it will not threat any third party, unless the latter decides to attack any of the two states.

The intention of pursuing further rapprochement can be observed in the way Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia was carried out last June. In particular, he signed a number of military deals with his Russian counterpart, with the parties pledging their commitments to pursue the goal of preserving security, addressing threats and creating favorable conditions for further rapprochement……more here