China and Russia Have Found New Reasons to Team Up
The autocratic superpowers are increasingly pooling their advantages in taking on the Western democracies.
Stronger together.
Photographer: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images
Through the latter decades of the Cold War, there was little cooperation or alignment between the Soviet Union and China. The Russians had a far more developed global military presence, a higher level of ambition to impose their ideology on others, and a much bigger economy. China was primarily focused inwardly, struggling (and eventually succeeding) in lifting most of its massive population out of poverty and in building an economy that could support it. By the early 1960s, the communist powers had decisively split.
The world has moved on, and today there is a rapidly growing rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing, most recently seen in China’s firm support of the Russian-led intervention in Kazakhstan’s civil unrest.