COMBINED RUSSIAN AND CHINESE MILITARY POWER WILL APPROACH BUT NOT EXCEED US:REPORT

摘要

The Sino-Russian relationship will continue to strengthen due to the continuation of U.S. policies towards those two nations, and that "aggregate Chinese and Russian power" will "continue to approach, but not exceed" U.S power through 2022, according to a new Rand Corp. report. The report's authors describe the growing relationship between Beijing and Moscow as one of pragmatism and based on "balancing" against "U.S. hard and soft power." Additionally, China and Russia share a desire to counter a perceived U.S. ideology "of militarism, interventionism and the forcible imposition of U.S. values on other countries." The relationship between China and Russia has gradually developed and grown closer over two decades, according to the report. When Beijing and Moscow launched their first joint "field exercise" in 2003, it signalled that the two countries had moved from a relationship based on "calculation" to one of "cooperation." Between 2012-2017 China and Russia strengthened their relationship from "cooperation" to "collaboration" in large part due to "Western sanctions." In particular, following sanctions placed on Russia in 2014 due to the annexation of Crimea, Moscow pursued "much closer ties" to Beijing.