Against the backdrop of a western diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, China and Russia have marked the occasion by showing off their increasingly close relationship. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin posed for pictures with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the opening of the 2022 Winter Games, declaring their opposition to further enlargement of Nato and calling on the western alliance to “abandon its ideologised cold war approaches”.

In a joint statement, the two leaders announced a new era in relations that would “know no limits” and be “superior to political and military alliances of the cold war era”. Meanwhile they said Nato must “respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries … and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other states”.

In light of Moscow’s aggressive stance over Ukraine and equally combative noises emanating from Beijing over the future of Taiwan, many international observers are concerned at the increasingly close relations between the two countries.

The chair of UK’s parliamentary defence committee, Tobias Ellwood recently wrote that the west has only belatedly woken up to the challenge from Russia’s increasingly close relationship with China. “Russia provides oil, gas and military hardware. China, in return, provides advanced technology,” he wrote, adding that: “Today, we are seeing the birth of a potent anti-democratic alliance. It is on track to see the world shear into two spheres of competing influence. And we have let it happen.”

It was not until 2021 that NATO explicitly recognised the challenge presented by a Russia-China rapprochement.

Read more at The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/russia-and-chinas-growing-friendship-is-more-a-public-relations-exercise-than-a-new-world-order-176314

Image courtesy: EPA-EFE/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin/Sputnik POOL