Triangle of Great Powers: Will Russia-China rapprochement turn into a full-fledged military alliance?

Russia (along with the United States) possesses the world's largest nuclear arsenal (about 4500 warheads), while China has the world's largest army and a huge technological base that can ensure its substantial modernisation in the foreseeable future. The combination of these two elements creates a military power that, if not capable of challenging the US military machine, can at least become a formidable problem for it.

The strategic alliance between China and Russia, which many in the West increasingly see as a new 'axis of evil', has been rapidly strengthening in the wake of Russia's attack on Ukraine and the imposition of broad Western sanctions. However, this strengthening is primarily political and economic, not military. Will China and Russia be able and willing to take their relationship to the level of a full-fledged military alliance? In what situations might they decide to provide direct military support to each other? And how will the long history of distrust and rivalry between these two giants affect these prospects?

A comprehensive report by the RAND Corporation, which examines various factors and scenarios of military cooperation between Russia and China, attempts to answer the question of whether this threat to American military dominance could materialise.

Alliance of mistrust

Not so long ago by historical standards, from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, China and the USSR, separated by a 4200 kilometre border, were in a state of confrontation, expending significant military resources. Today, however, they appear to be natural strategic partners, shaping their policies and objectives around their rivalry with the US. Partnership with China is an unconditional priority for Moscow, allowing it to avoid isolation and maintain its claims to great power status, as noted in the RAND report. For Beijing, this partnership is also crucial, as it increases China's international political weight, brings economic benefits, and strengthens its position in the confrontation with the US.

The two countries' military partnership has a particular, albeit not untroubled, history. Russia played a significant role in the early stages of China's military modernisation: from 1999 to 2006, China was the largest customer of Russian arms manufacturers, accounting for 34% to 60% of Russia's defence exports, according to the authors of the report. Subsequently, trade volumes declined, largely because China's copying of Russian technology and re-export of Russian weapons was a source of constant complaints from Moscow. However, between 2014 and 2018, Russian shipments rose again, reaching 70% of China's arms imports. Beijing and Moscow also announced joint initiatives to develop submarines, helicopters, drones, missile defence systems, navigation satellites, and early warning systems for ballistic missile attacks. Since 2005, China and Russia have conducted around 25 joint military exercises.

However, RAND experts believe that the depth of this military cooperation is limited by a number of factors. First, there is insufficient trust between the Chinese and Russian militaries. Additionally, there is insufficient trust within each system – between the top political leadership and the military organisation. The leaderships of both countries are similar to each other in their adherence to the 'religion of distrust' and reliance on ultra-centralised governance. This similarity reduces the potential for cooperation between the two military machines.

Second, the potential for military cooperation depends on the compatibility of the armed forces, which, however, are currently developing on different tracks. Unlike twenty years ago, China's army is now moving towards creating high-tech forces capable of conducting non-contact and asymmetric warfare. Meanwhile, Russia's leadership has had to postpone modernisation tasks, focusing on the prolonged war in Ukraine, which is depleting its manpower and military production.

Third, China and Russia do not have a history of successful equal alliances. Even when they were on the same side of a conflict (such as during the wars in Korea and Vietnam), their interests and ambitions hindered the development of a joint strategy. The past ‘eternal friendship’ of the 1950s turned into uncompromising enmity.

A fourth negative factor is the differing views of Moscow and Beijing on the role of nuclear weapons. Russia's weakness in conventional weapons and technology, contrasted with its enhanced nuclear power, differs from China's greater conventional power and its nuclear arsenal, which is 11 times smaller (410 warheads in 2023, according to SIPRI). Chinese leaders, who obtained nuclear weapons in the 1960s, have acknowledged that they cannot afford a costly nuclear arms race and hold a sceptical view of the effectiveness of nuclear weapons as an instrument of deterrence and coercion, experts say. Xi Jinping's reaction to Putin's nuclear blackmail during the Russia-Ukraine war reflects Beijing's discomfort with such threats.

Finally, another negative factor in the formation of a full-fledged military alliance has been the Russian military campaign in Ukraine itself. Although the Chinese propaganda machine reproduces key Kremlin talking points, and expanding mutual trade is becoming a key factor in the sustainability of the Russian economy, China's actual support for Russian aggression has serious limits. China and Chinese businesses are not prepared to suffer economic damage as a consequence of their support and have largely complied with direct US prohibitions, including in the area of military cooperation.

The Russian leader's obvious strategic miscalculation – overestimating his own capabilities and underestimating his adversary – has likely reinforced Beijing's perception that moving toward a full-fledged alliance with Russia would come at too high a cost, far outweighing its potential payoff, the report concludes.

Scenarios for three small wars

RAND analysts model three scenarios where allied actions of Russian and Chinese forces are played out in specific theatres of conflict: around Japan, North Korea, and Iran.

In the first scenario, China and Japan enter into a confrontation over the insignificant Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Beijing's calculation that the US would not intervene in a minor dispute proves wrong, China suffers defeat in conventional military actions, and Russia enters the conflict to support its ally. After several weeks of hostilities, the parties begin negotiations, fearing the risks of nuclear escalation. The conflict leads to the formation of a full-fledged defence alliance between China and Russia, with Moscow determining the format since China is weakened by losses and Moscow has proven the significance of its nuclear component.

The second scenario unfolds around an accident at a North Korean nuclear reactor. An imagined Korean ‘Chornobyl’ leads to a political crisis in North Korea and the paralysis of the central government. In response to the deployment of American naval forces in the Yellow Sea, China, with support from Moscow and ignoring protests from South Korea and the USA, deploys troops to North Korea to secure nuclear and missile sites. In this scenario, Beijing takes the lead in resolving the conflict, while Russia has to accept a certain level of Chinese dominance in exchange for promises of economic dividends. Moscow's involvement is limited to providing intelligence, logistics, humanitarian, and other supporting operations.

In the third scenario, the militarisation of Iran's nuclear programme leads to a series of strikes on its facilities by Israel. Iran mobilises its forces and proxy regimes in the Middle East to act against American and Israeli military forces. Moscow and Beijing, without openly entering the conflict, organise support measures for Iran. In this scenario, Russia and China appear to be equal partners and demonstrate greater coordination due to their lesser degree of involvement in the conflict.

The modelled scenarios help to identify the challenges that the two armies are likely to face in their joint political and military planning. To achieve true interoperability, Russia and China will have to follow the path of the United States and its allies, who have spent decades investing time and resources into creating command and control compatibility infrastructure within NATO and the US-South Korea alliance, according to RAND. Readiness for real mutual assistance requires high levels of trust, enshrined in binding treaties. All three scenarios highlight the high level of political rivalry between the potential allies.

Triangle of great power

Washington should not bet on driving a wedge between China and Russia – their mutual interest in opposing the United States is too significant today. However, Americans should pay attention to the sources of contradictions and friction between the two countries, which have very different understandings of their leadership and their risks, the RAND experts conclude.

Indeed, the history of Russia-China alliance in the mid-20th century, which ended with a transition to acute hostility, may not have been a case of personal ambitions of the then leaders of China and the USSR. After a period of 'eternal friendship' in the 1950s, the intensity of confrontation and mutual hostility between the two countries reached such a level by the second half of the 1960s that it became one of the key factors that pushed Soviet leaders to choose a course of 'détente' in its relations with the West. The position of 'junior partner' proved unacceptable for China, despite the significant difference in economic and military potential with the Soviet Union. Conversely, in the early 1980s, amid a new round of Cold War escalation between the USSR and the US, China moved towards de-ideologising relations with the Americans as part of its ‘policy of reform and openness’.

Unlike the West, which has been the main direction of external communications for Russian leaders and elites for several centuries, Moscow's communications with Beijing have always remained fragmented, and the common enemy has been the sole ground for rapprochement. At the same time, great power status for both countries remains something of a super-idea of their own existence, requiring constant confirmation, at least from the perspective of 'internal optics'.

For several centuries, Russia has asserted its status as a superpower in the face of the West. As Cold War studies show, Soviet leaders were also focused on such recognition, and Vladimir Putin has largely inherited their perceptions and strategies (→ Sergei Radchenko: Nuclear Inferiority Complex). It is in the struggle for recognition that confrontation with the West periodically becomes a guiding principle of Russia's external and internal policy. Conversely, this confrontation almost loses its meaning if it does not lead to such recognition, which will happen if Russia finds itself as the junior partner in its alliance with China.

In 2002, Russians were more assured of the 'greatness' of the United States than their own country, according to Levada Centre polls. In the mid-2010s, Russia and the US had swapped places on the ladder of 'greatness', and China seemed to Russians to be an ascendant power on par with the United States. In 2023, amidst a new confrontation with the West, 80% of Russians surveyed were ready to recognise their country's great power status, far more than the proportion who were prepared to recognise China's great power status. China has apparently not yet occupied the same place in the national imagination of Russians as the United States and the West once did. But will Russians be ready to recognise China as the number one great power in the next cycle, and will the alliance with China still make sense for Russia if its main reason for this alliance is rivalry with the USA?

'Great countries' in the perceptions of Russians, 2002-2023, % of those surveyed