Editorial Board

Nobody Wants to Join Putin's 'Dictators' Club'

Concerns over Russia, China and Iran forming a new Tripartite Pact are vastly overblown.

September 2, 2016 at 3:01 PM UTC

By The Editorial Board

The Editorial Board publishes the views of the editors across a range of national and global affairs.

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At this weekend’s G-20 summit in Hangzhou, China, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be in attendance as the host’s guest of honor. It’s quite a turnaround for someone who was kicked out of the even more elite G-8 (now the G-7) just two years ago.

This change in fortunes for Putin, who gave a swaggering interview to Bloomberg News on Thursday, has some people worried. They fear that, with its increasing ties to China and Iran, and new outreach to Turkey and Egypt, Russia is forming a bloc of authoritarian countries to upset a global status quo set by the democratic nations of Europe and North America. Is this “dictators’ club ” an echo of the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan in World War II?