Russian President Vladimir Putin has said recently that his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this week in Shanghai marked a new stage in Russia-China relations, and that the two countries will roll out all-around cooperation. China and Russia signed a $400 billion (237.1 billion pounds) gas supply deal on Wednesday, securing the world’s top energy user a major source of cleaner fuel and opening up a new market for Moscow as it risks losing European customers over the Ukraine crisis. Furthermore, the two countries began joint military exercises in the East China Sea in a clear show of strength against Japan, a western ally.
The Chinese President has also openly demonstrated his desire to create a counter-alliance to the U.S. Speaking on May 20 President Xi Jinping called for the creation of a new Asian structure for security cooperation based on a regional group that includes Russia and Iran and excludes the United States. Clearly pointing a finger at the United States he called NATO an outdated thinking of the Cold War. According to him, “We cannot just have security for one or a few countries while leaving the rest insecure”. In his speech Mr. Xi Jinping offered an alternative vision for the region based on an all-inclusive regional security framework rather than individual alliances with external actors like the United States. China’s proposal to push forward with the ambitious Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific met an especially chilly reception from the U.S., which is focused on a 12-country trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which excludes China.
The move has clearly unsettled the Western establishment. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that China and Russia are becoming more aggressive as they perceive the U.S. pulling back from world affairs. In other words, Russia and China are standing up to the American hegemony and pushing back against the U.S. aggression that the world had witnessed over the last few decades.
This China-Russia alliance should be welcomed as a counter bloc to the failing and desperate Western dominance concentrated in Washington. Ever since the break-up of the Soviet Union, America has imposed its economic model that favours corporations and the financial elite, while squeezing the ordinary people. Any country that refused to bow down to American pressure was attacked militarily under false pretexts of “civil protection” and “national security concerns”. Unfortunately regional powers such as Russia and China were unable to prevent America from imposing its self-destructive neo-liberal order on other countries. However, recently China and especially Russia have started to fight back. Russia has averted another disastrous intervention in Syria and has fought back against the Western-backed coup in Ukraine.
Now, with China and Russia closely aligned, the two countries will be able to prevent the U.S. and its Western puppets from further carrying out its economic imperialist agenda. With the European Union crumbling under the weight of Euro-sceptic opinion of the general public, as illustrated by the European election results tonight, the U.S. is losing its closest ally. The EU will have to make a choice whether to continue to be a puppet of Washington, thus risking the wrath of its European citizens and eventually reaching complete self-destruction, or choosing to build closer ties with China and Russia.
The new alliance will stop the expansion of American and European military as well as economic global influences. This will be a welcome step, as Western dominance over the last few decades has only achieved more insecurity and an economic system that benefits a few, but punishes the many.
Western nations, and its masters in Washington, ought to reconsider their tough stance on Russia. In the near future it will be the new alliance that will be making the new rules of the game, therefore, the West ought to treat China and Russia with respect and lose the arrogant attitude that has dominated the Western world for so many years.
Alexander Clackson is the founder of Global Political Insight, a political media and research organisation. He has a Master’s degree in International Relations. Alexander works as a political consultant and frequently contributes to think-tank and media outlets.
