Special Forum

Recent official US statements postulate Sino-Russian enmity towards the US.1 Moreover, they rightly highlight an unprecedentedly close alignment of these two states against the US.2  In other words the triangular relationship is now a relationship of two against one. Following the US assessment, this article opposes the reigning academic view, expressed in numerous recent studies concerning Russo-Chinese relations that these two states are not allied against the US.3 Despite the expert consensus that no alliance or no formal alliance between Russia and China exists notwithstanding their visibly growing intimacy, I dispute that finding.4  Instead, there is an increasingly open anti-American alliance taking shape, albeit an informal one. To be sure, Moscow keeps inventing euphemisms to disguise what is going on.  First it was called a comprehensive strategic partnership.5  More recently in November 2018 President Putin called it a “privileged strategic partnership.”6  Both these formulations sound like attempts to deceive foreign observers as to the alliance’s real nature.  Thus, Putin described comprehensive strategic partnership as follows:

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