The Future Russia-China Alliance Takes Shape

Tensions rising: Russia joins South China Sea dispute as Chinese ally, plan joint naval exercises

In the wake of the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague purporting to decide the South China Sea dispute between China and the Philippines in the Philippines’ favour, the Chinese – Russian alliance, whose very existence some people continue to deny, has bared its teeth. This has taken the form of the announcement of joint Chinese – Russian naval exercises in September in the South China Sea.

The announcement was made in Beijing and came with the usual assurances that the exercises are routine and are not aimed at any third party. No-one should take those assurances seriously. All the indications are that the exercises were hurriedly agreed by Beijing and Moscow in response to The Hague ruling. By agreeing to participate in the exercises Russia is demonstrating in the most emphatic way possible its unequivocal support for China in the dispute. As for the party against whom the exercises are aimed – or to be more precise against whom they are intended as a signal – that party is of course the US, who the Chinese suspect (correctly) of being the party that was ultimately responsible for the case in The Hague being brought at all.

The joint Chinese – Russian naval exercises in the South China Sea in fact represent a certain departure for the Chinese and the Russians. The Russians have no interests in the South China Sea and they would not be holding military exercises there were it not for the fact that the interests of their China ally in the area are being challenged.

The two countries have never before made their mutual military support for each other in a dispute with the US quite so obvious. It is almost certainly no coincidence that the Russian media has been giving heavy publicity over the last few weeks to the participation of a Chinese army contingent in the International Army Games hosted by Russia, which began on 30th July 2016. It is probably now only a question of time before Chinese army units undertake joint military exercises with the Russian army in the European territory of the Russian Federation (joint exercises by the Chinese and Russian militaries in Central Asia and the Far East now happen regularly).

As the Chinese and the Russians heighten the military profile of their alliance, the Chinese also scored a diplomatic victory at the recent ASEAN summit. An attempt to include a reference to The Hague decision in the summit’s final communique was blocked by ASEAN states like Cambodia and Laos, which are friendly to China.

http://theduran.com/russia-backs-china-south-china-sea/

 

Russia and China can never be true Allies, there is historic tension between the two cultures, and there is a shared border with a history of quarrels. If they could not sustain an Alliance under shared ideology I doubt they can do so now. A American Russian Alliance makes far more sense.

 

we have been enemies since 1945

so it will never happen.

nor do we want it to happen

 

So what is your point, we were enemies with England for about 60 years...things change, today it is far more beneficial for American interests to align with Russia rather then continue this Russo phobic streak that makes zero geopolitical sense.

 

Oh YES!!! Come on China & Russia join together in unison & confront the so called Western alliance & NATO. You have only to kick in the door & the whole sstinking mess will collapse!

Well at least stand up to the US bully-boys who have tried to dominate the Pasific since their colonial war in the Philippines.

Death to American Imperialism!

 

You do know that China is a Han empire, where they oppress many non Han populations? I guess you saw Braveheart to many times and think Only the Anglo's are capable of imperialism.

 

how do you feel about Russian Imperalism?

 

Maybe, maybe it makes more sense, but I'm not sure an American Russian Alliance could be real. Despite the fact Russia and America have never been at war against each other. But when Russia was a communist country, it had the opposite ideology, that supposed to be why Russia and USA were enemies. Today Russia is not comminist for 25 years, and moreover for about a decade it tried to join the western US led club but finally failed, and now Russo-American relations are worse that ever. Looks like communism wasn't the real reason of Russian-American antagonism. As for tensions between cultures, France and England were enemies for centuries, France and Germany as well, but now they are allies, besides Russia and China have never conducted any major wars.

 

There is no such thing, it's not part of their nature. ..and those who believe otherwise are merely projecting their own greed into them. Russia was the object of Western aggression every 20 years in one way or another by Western Europe for almost 1,000 years... and it still is today.

 

No I never knew about the "Han" ... please tell me some more.

I did watch "Braveheart" once & thought it was a joke ... I despise Scottish Nationalism

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I love Russian "Nationalism"

Sorry if I didn't answer your obtuse question.

 

The Han are the major ethnic group in China.

It is worth noting the last dynasty, the Qing, were Manchu.

 

The US always needs an enemy, to feed the war industries with tax money. Allow Russia in to the club is not what the US wants to do. What would we spend half of our federal spending on, if we didn't keep a enemy somewhere? This is the military industrial complex Ike tried to warn us about, and no one paid attention. Politicians are complicit in all of this and it only gets worse.

The US has been ruled for a long time by rich elite special interests, with the big one being the banking cartel. They are now where they want to be, too big to fail and too big to jail. We are ruled over by a particular kind of banking and corporate capitalism, which seeks to pull the wealth out of as many nations as possible, plundering them. This is our history post ww2. That is why we help with coups, why we destabilized the middle east, and it drives our foreign policy , which to americans looks to be insane. But there is a method to the madness, and it always concerns money in one way or the other, money for a small group of very powerful elites. IF you understand this, then all of it begins to make sense, otherwise it looks like a tale told by a madman. Our troulble in America is most americans are just fed propaganda, kept divided, which keeps the current criminal system, the American empire in place. It is a different kind of empire, in that it doesn't seek to take land, other countries, it just seeks to have a gov't in place that allows for their wealth to be extracted. It is currently even extracting wealth from the working and middle class in America using the new scheme of free trade globalization. All you have to do is to look at the fact it has created the greatest disparity in income in the US since the Gilded Age, even surpassing that age. All of the evidence is there, but most americans do not have the intelligence to arise above the propaganda and look at all of the evidence.

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The US always needs an enemy, to feed the war industries with tax money. Allow Russia in to the club is not what the US wants to do. What would we spend half of our federal spending on, if we didn't keep a enemy somewhere? This is the military industrial complex Ike tried to warn us about, and no one paid attention. Politicians are complicit in all of this and it only gets worse.

The US has been ruled for a long time by rich elite special interests, with the big one being the banking cartel. They are now where they want to be, too big to fail and too big to jail. We are ruled over by a particular kind of banking and corporate capitalism, which seeks to pull the wealth out of as many nations as possible, plundering them. This is our history post ww2. That is why we help with coups, why we destabilized the middle east, and it drives our foreign policy , which to americans looks to be insane. But there is a method to the madness, and it always concerns money in one way or the other, money for a small group of very powerful elites. IF you understand this, then all of it begins to make sense, otherwise it looks like a tale told by a madman. Our troulble in America is most americans are just fed propaganda, kept divided, which keeps the current criminal system, the American empire in place. It is a different kind of empire, in that it doesn't seek to take land, other countries, it just seeks to have a gov't in place that allows for their wealth to be extracted. It is currently even extracting wealth from the working and middle class in America using the new scheme of free trade globalization. All you have to do is to look at the fact it has created the greatest disparity in income in the US since the Gilded Age, even surpassing that age. All of the evidence is there, but most americans do not have the intelligence to arise above the propaganda and look at all of the evidence.

 

The friction has nothing to do with Americans, and everything to do with the political pressure on Washington from those that have their own historical hang ups towards Russia... such as the East European Jews, Poles, Ruthenians from Western Ukraine and elsewhere, etc.

As for the Americans, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of Evangelicals who have converted to the Russian Church... so cultural differences really plays no part in it. .

 

Damn do you have some irrational hatred for the US. I'm guessing it's the classic pathetic, jealous, lazy, stuck up European bit with you?

 

Shhhhh. Go back to your turnips.

 

"Han" is the self-name of the main ethnic group in China, more than 90 %. They use it since the days of Han dynasty (206 BC -220 AD). No matter what the dynasty rules China: Sui, Ming etc, as a self name they always use the word "Han".

But I do not agree with the thesis that they allegedly severely oppress minorities. The Chinese do a very clever ethnic policy inside the country. Yes of course they may prohibit some of freedoms for ethnic minorities that may harm the integrity of the state. But these minorities have many privileges. In particular the policy of restriction of birth rate in China concerns only Han. Ethnic minorities do not have such restrictions, that is the privilege already for the Chinese measures.

China often is criticized for the annexation of Tibet. But there is one nuance - having come to Tibet Chineses abolished slavery that existed there until the mid of XX century. People in Europe usually do not know the fact that the Dalai Lama's family was the most important slave owner in Tibet. They had about 40 thousands slaves at the time of the Chinese annexation. Yes Tibet lost its independence. Was it good or was it evil for ordinary Tibetans is a moot point .

 

The subsequent Han dynasty ruled China between 206 BCE and 220 CE, and created a lasting Han cultural identity among its populace that has endured to the present day.[50][51] The Han Dynasty expanded the empire's territory considerably with military campaigns

now you are educated.

 

First of all it is a really unbelievable impudent behavior of China in this South Chinese Sea dispute! You must only take a look on the globe or a map of the region and everyone who still claims that Chinese is right with their acting needs glasses or is helpless ignorant in his hate against the so called West!
Let’s say about 220 sea miles away from Sevastopol are rich oil resources estimated and Bulgaria or Turkey claims this area as their own territory and denies any Russian or Ukrainian right about etc.
I think no one of you Pro-Russian folk will accept this … but much more worse is what China makes here!

However … anyone who is really wondering about the closer relationships between China and Russia must be blinded too and does not realize that the USA are guilty by their own for such relationships.
The USA had under the last 5 Presidents the bad habit to ignore any international law which is disturbing their goals, ignoring the interests of others and impose their own will on many… and who does not follow is in serious trouble.
So no wondering that the victims of this behavior work more and more closer together in new alliances and so on.

 

Has no one in this thread ever heard of the SCO?

 

more sense? hah, please explain how! Russia is poor, weak, and undeveloped, has few friends, and their future is one of declining population, and shrinking economy. What would the US gain? please explain.. curuious to hear what delusions you people have.

I agree with you that it makes more sense for Russia to ally with China than with the US. But it seems that many american right wingers like Russia, probably they are attracted to strong-man Putin. Since you are Russian, I wonder what do Russians think about the US? As far as I know russians don't really like the US very much. True? Also, if there was a US-Russian alliance, we know what Russia could gain from it. The US could allow Russia to have eastern europe in the sphere of influence. But what would the US gain from such an alliance? Do you know of anything Russia could offer to make it worthwhile? I genuinely wonder.

 

I doubt with a statement like that you would actually listen to my argument...

So I posted this before in other threads, I believe Europe is on a decline it has few resources, under financed military, demographic issues, and it is just not stable enough in the long run. Russia offers energy resources and a capable military, with a union of USA,Canada, UK and Russia and puppet states like Saudia Arabia they can control most of the worlds energy, water, and military resources. I think such a union would be much more beneficial to US long term interests then one with a sick Europe.

 

Well....you can't but be happy for those unfortunate Russians, they finally have some battlefield partners. Of course, if I were Putin, I wouldn't depend on Chinese reliability that much as much of their economy is dependent on Western commerce.

 

I tend to agree on China's claims on South Chinese Sea area, I think they are a bit exaggerated, but in political sense it doesn't matter. It's not Russia's business at all. How the participants of the dispute are going to deal with it - it's on them - China, Philippines, Vietnam and so on. Russia is not going to embroil in the process of negotiations or courts or whatsoever. Russia simply sends a message - any Russian ally can count on Russia's support of this or that sort.

 

Regarding this case....what kind of Russian support are you referring to?

 

kay, let me adress each point you made

I listen, but it's just that your argument is very, very poor, and it seems you don't really know what you're talking about tbh. I try to say that politely, but you are grossly ill-informed.

See, you say europe is in decline, but have you seen russia? First off, their gdp is the size of italy, and they're not even classed as an advanced economy or an industrial country by the IMF. They're literally a developing nation, not kidding. sure they have resources.. so does congo. the thing is, Russia ONLY has gas and oil. They have a resource extraction based economy, not an economy based on industry and consumer demand. The combination of low oil price and sanctions have really crippled russia. Russia needs investment and technology for the economy, but it's the west which has that. Economic forecasts for Russia are abysmal for these reason. russia also has a growing muslim population, and declining ethnic russian population.. same problem as in europe.

I still don't understand what you think Russia could offer you. If you want energy, just buy it. Russia still sells to Europe. It has to sell or they will collapse. It's not a strong position.

Capable military? NATO minus the US still dwarfs Russia in terms of military spending. And what would you need russian military strength for anyways? I mean, for what purpose do you need russian military help? I see no reason. France and the UK have good power projection and can help out around the world.. Russia can't project force very far from russia itself.

No, I still don't understand. Russia has nothing to offer. And I definitely don't understand why you'd trade away europe, which aside from the US is the second strongest economy and military! It's just ridiculous.