How Russia Views China: A Conversation with Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor
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I'm Bonnie Lin, Director of the China Power Project and Senior Fellow for Asian Security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In this episode of the China Power Podcast, we're discussing Russia's views of China and how Russia seeks to deepen its relationship with China. What is driving recent statements from Moscow on the China-Russia relationship? How has this partnership aided Russia in its war in Ukraine and other Russian objectives?

Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor joins us to answer these questions and more. Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for New American Security. She works on national security challenges facing the United States and Europe, focusing on Russia, authoritarianism, and threats to democracy, and the state of the Transatlantic Alliance.

Prior to joining CNAS, Dr. Kendall Taylor served for eight years as a senior intelligence officer. From 2015 to 2018, she was deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In this role, Dr. Kendall Taylor led the U.S. intelligence community's strategic analysis on Russia, represented the IC in interagency policy meetings, provided analysis to the National Security Council, and briefed the DNI and other senior staff for White House and international meetings. Prior to joining the NIC, Kendall Taylor was a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she worked on Russia and Eurasia, the political dynamics of autocracies and democratic decline.

Andrea, thank you so much for joining me today. Yeah, it's good to be here, Bonnie. So this podcast today is a bit unusual because we actually just covered China-Russia in one of our podcasts a couple weeks ago. But given the recent developments in relations between the two countries, I thought it would be very important to bring you on to look at what's happening now and really look at it from the Russian angle.

So a couple of weeks ago, I hosted Liz Wyschnik to discuss China-Russia military exercises in July and August of this year.

we mentioned that China had an unprecedented rate of military exercises with Russia. Now this month, in September, we're seeing Russia engage in what it calls one of its largest military exercises in 30 years, and Russia has invited China to join. At the same time, we're also seeing joint patrols and drills between the two coast guards. From what you're seeing, what is driving this increase in military activities between the two countries, and particularly from the Russian perspective?

Well, I think it's undoubtedly the changing geopolitical environment. So both Russia and China have seen such a significant deterioration in their relations with the United States. And so for Russia, but probably also China, I think they both look at these types of exercises as a way to better position themselves for what they expect to have as a long-term confrontation with the United States and its allies.

For Russia, though, I mean, I think a lot of this is born out of necessity. Russia is looking for any and all means to deepen its relationship with China across all dimensions of its partnership, in large part because Russia needs the military and economic support from China to help it sustain its war in Ukraine.

So that really has become such a driving factor, at least from the Russia side, driving and increasing the urgency of the outreach and engagement with China. So, as I said, a lot of it is born out of necessity, but I also think it's not just about Russia's ability to sustain its war machine and that that is most urgent and important.

But part of what Russia is trying to do also is to compel the West and the United States in particular to give in to its demands. Moscow really wants to be seen and create an image as being a dangerous and formidable threat. It wants to create an atmosphere of risk. And I think by exercising with China, Russia's really trying to project its strengths,

It wants to tell Washington that it has the staying power, that it's not isolated. A lot of what the United States and its allies have been trying to do is to isolate and cut off Russia. But this is Russia's way of saying, look, we've got friends in important places.

And then finally, a lot of this is about taking the fight to the West. Of course, the incursion into Alaska's airspace that was part of the previous exercises, I think, is designed to say, like, we're willing and able to take you on. And look, we can encroach on your backyard just the way that we believe that you're encroaching in ours. So a lot of it is caught up with the war in Ukraine, but it's also part of Russia's

desire to position itself to engage in what it sees as a long-term confrontation with the West. And does Russia believe that China is largely on the same page as Moscow, aligned on the most important issues?

I think in so many ways they are aligned, at least on the stuff that matters. So, you know, that shared geopolitical threat assessment, seeing the United States as its most significant threat, trying to push the United States out of their respective backyards. So for Russia, out of Europe, China, out of the Indo-Pacific.

So the fact that they both view the U.S. as such a fundamental threat, I think, is the fuel to the relationship. They may have disagreements in this or that area over this or that issue, but that overarching imperative and drive to not have a bad relationship between each other so that they can focus exclusively on taking on the West,

I think is really the driving piece. So again, like not aligned in all areas and all issues, but that overarching imperative makes it easier to dismiss the areas where they disagree, or at least to try to prevent them from spilling over to taint the rest of the relationship. Andrea, you mentioned the war in Ukraine as driving some of the urgency within Russia to reach out to China.

We've also seen some reporting by the Financial Times that China is providing lethal aid to Russia now in exchange for potential Russian transfers of advanced technology. This includes, for example, transferring Russian submarine technology to China. What do you make of this Financial Times report and what would such a move mean on China's part?

I think it's such an important question, Bonnie, but let me first start by putting what China has been doing for Russia in the war in Ukraine in a little bit of context.

In addition to support from North Korea and Iran, it's really been China that has been the most critical lifeline, providing the technologies, the chips, the other things that have been cut off by Western sanctions and export controls that have allowed Russia to sustain its war machine. It's allowed Russia to stay in the fight in Ukraine.

That list is long, and I think the U.S. intelligence community really deserves a lot of credit in how forward-leaning it's been in its willingness to declassify what

China is doing for Russia. So there's a long list of things where China is increasingly inching up to this line of lethal aid. So they've been providing machine tools for tanks. They've been providing propellants for missiles, lots of intermediary goods that can be used to produce gunpowder and explosives. They've provided turbojet engines.

and really importantly, geospatial intelligence that Russia has used to hit targets inside Ukraine. So they, China, have been playing a really critical role in this war. I think earlier this year, the UK government came out and talked about the fact that they have evidence that China is providing lethal aid to Ukraine. It was really notable because at that time,

The United States senior officials from the Biden administration came out very quickly to kind of quash those stories and say that they didn't have any direct evidence that China was providing lethal aid for Russia. And that's notable in large part because the United States has really laid down as a red line.

The difference between non-lethal aid and lethal aid and has in repeated interactions with the Chinese government communicated that if Beijing were to cross this line into providing lethal aid, that there would be very serious consequences for

for those actions. So the fact that now the Financial Times is reporting based on comments from a senior US Biden administration official, Kurt Campbell, that perhaps China has moved into the realm of lethal aid, it's really notable. I think there's still a little bit of lack of clarity out in the open source about just what China is doing. But if you look at the comments from Kurt Campbell,

He says explicitly, and I guess I'll just quote this because it's so important. He says, quote, these are not dual use capabilities. These are component pieces of a very substantial effort on the part of China to help sustain, build and diversify various elements of the Russian war machine.

He does not ever use the term lethal aid, but I guess I would argue based on what Kurt said that it sounds very much like lethal aid. And so the key question is, what is the Biden administration thinking and what do they plan on doing?

My concern is that they're not using the term lethal aid because it would then require them to follow through and impose these very substantial costs. From a different realm, in the democracy realm, oftentimes there'll be things that look an awful lot like a coup, but the United States is not willing to label it as such because then it prompts a legal process

through which they would have to impose a number of sanctions and take a number of steps that sometimes they might not want to do. So I'm a little bit worried that they're not using the term lethal aid because then it would require them to follow through on imposing very substantial costs on China.

I guess the more generous interpretation is that if there is new intelligence, that if new Chinese actions have been detected and the administration is aware of them, maybe Kurt doesn't want to use the term lethal aid yet because now the bureaucracy has to really work through the interagency process.

what that response will be. There's going to have to be a lot of coordination, including hopefully with U.S. allies in Europe who might want to at least coordinate or match some of the actions that the United States would take. So we're left with perhaps more questions than answers. But to me, Bonnie, it does sound like China is

If they haven't already crossed the line, but it sounds like they are planning to do so. I mean, I guess that's the other notable thing is that despite the cost to China, that they have been willing to support Russia. I think that was one of the key questions I had in the early days of this war is whether or not Beijing would be willing to incur costs on behalf of Russia.

And that was an open question. But now that they have progressed as far as they have in providing support to their most important partner in Moscow, it seems like they are indeed willing to incur some costs in order to back Russia and its war effort in Ukraine.

And as we look at what Russia is already willing to provide China or supposedly willing to provide China, from your perspective, how much further could Russia go in the future in terms of providing more arms or advanced technology to China? In other words, how much is Russia willing to give? It's a great question. And I think, again, just to start from a slightly wider perspective,

It is really important what Russia is getting for China, but it's just as important what Russia is having to give away in return. And one of the dynamics that I'm paying a lot of attention to is then how Russia's increasing reliance on its backers, China, but also North Korea and Iran,

is shaping the extent to what it has to do in order to maintain their support. And the key question is, just as you said, Bonnie, as they get more reliant and more, perhaps more desperate in the war in Ukraine, might they be willing to give away increasingly sophisticated technology?

And I think this recent U.S. statement about what Russia is giving to China is really significant. I think we've heard now that Russia is helping China to develop its submarine, aeronautic and missile technology. So this includes things that allows China to make its submarines even more quiet for stealth purposes.

And I'll note, so we did some work on Russia-China back in 2021, in January of 2021, where we were looking at the military relationship between Russia and China. And at the time, it was already significant. And we noted a lot of things that we're talking about in this discussion, the way that exercises were growing in scope and frequency and the increasing cooperation on defense technology.

But at the time, we weren't talking about things like submarine and missile technology. And in fact, when I went back and looked at the report we had written, we hived that out as like an extreme case of what Russia could be doing, noting that it was so much more sensitive to be doing these things.

joint development projects are working together on these types of technologies that four years ago, we thought that was kind of at the outer bounds of where this relationship could go. And now we're here. I mean, it's really like remarkable. And so I just like I say that because there's still, I think, a lot of people who are a bit dismissive about the depth and significance of the Russia-China relationship. And when you look

at how far we've come just over the past four to five years. It's really significant. And so this announcement for me really just drove home how the world has changed in the aftermath of Russia's invasion and that Russia would be willing to give away these very sensitive technologies

speaks volumes, I think, about the depth of the relationship and where it could go. I don't know exactly what the next technologies that China would be looking to get from Russia. Obviously, they will remain interested in air defense and missile deals, and they always are looking for the continued provision of jet engines and other things. But in terms of the more sensitive technologies, I don't know exactly where it could go. And the thing that I think we have to be really aware or

cognizant of is a lot of these deals may now be taking place out of the public eye. As they're meeting more and more discreetly, I think a lot of these deals will be kept secret. And so I don't think that we'll always even know the extent of the cooperation or oftentimes there might be a significant delay in our understanding of the technologies that are changing hands. But it's really significant. We've really, things have changed quite a bit in the last four to five years.

Andrea, to your point about how we only know a fraction of what's going on, I think that was exactly the point that Deputy Secretary of State Kirk Campbell mentioned in his recent testimony, in which he said that we're still catching up in terms of our understanding about the depth of the China-Russia relationship and the extent of engagement at the highest levels between the top leaders.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's so true. And again, it's something that we wrote about back four to five years ago. And so to see that that's where we are today in just four to five short years, this relationship is deepening and it's deepening quickly. And from your perspective, before you saw the news break in terms of the United States revealing Russia's willingness to transfer potential submarine technology to China, did you or other leading Russia experts expect this to happen?

There was an awareness or an appreciation of the fact that the more desperate that Russia got, the more likely it would have to give away increasingly sophisticated things in order to satisfy China. So it's not totally unexpected that we've gotten here. But again, like when you go through the list of military cooperation and the defense technology that they've exchanged in the past, again, when we were looking at this in January of 2021,

That kind of submarine and missile technology really was at the outer bounds of what we thought Russia would be willing to provide. And at least at that point in time, it seemed to me unlikely that we would get there anytime soon. So this has been a really, I think, an acceleration of the timeline. But once Russia invaded Ukraine and when we saw how reliant Russia was becoming on its backers,

I think that that was something that people immediately began raising the alarm bells on and warning that Russia would become a key enabler of other U.S. adversaries. And this is a dynamic that isn't just playing out in the Russia-China realm, but certainly with North Korea and Iran. Both of those countries have a long list of technologies available.

that they would like to receive from Russia. And so it's very plausible that the relationship will accelerate with those countries as well, and that the United States then will be looking at increasingly capable adversaries, not just in China, but also in North Korea and Iran.

Let me now shift the conversation to Ukraine. We continue to see the Ukrainian side reach out to China to find a way to potentially either work with China or at least bring in some positive Chinese influence on finding a way to end the war. Does Russia have any concerns that China will work with Ukraine in any way to undercut its interest in the war? So first point is, yes, the Ukrainians continue to be optimistic that China can play a constructive role.

And I have to say, for my part, I think it's exceptionally misguided. I attended a meeting a week or so ago when some very senior Ukrainian officials were here in Washington, D.C.,

And as part of their remarks, they did talk about President Zelensky's theory of victory that he's going to reveal or present to the world, I think, up at the UN. They didn't give away any of the specifics that were in that plan, but they did talk about just how important they thought Beijing would be in being able to advance and enact President Zelensky's theory of victory. But to me, it feels so misguided. And I see for the reason...

that you're asking about is because China's loyalties are very clearly to Moscow. And earlier in the war, I think we're all aware that China came out and revealed its 10-point plan, their peace plan for how they envisioned bringing an end to the war in Ukraine. And at the time, Moscow issued cautious praise for the document. I think it was the Russian spokesperson who basically said that any attempt to produce a plan to end the conflict

deserves attention. And that's in large part because the Chinese plan wasn't serious. It didn't say anything about getting Russian forces off Ukrainian territory. It wasn't really a plan for peace, but it was a plan for Ukraine's subjugation. And so long as that's the position that China takes, then Russia has no problem with China being in the mix and trying to be the responsible global actor.

So, no, I don't think that Russia is concerned that China would misstep in any way, that they would put pressure on Russia to concede to something that Putin doesn't want to do. One of the reasons that their relationship has worked so well is because both leaders, I think, fully respect the core national security interests of the other.

So President Putin, I would imagine, doesn't weigh in or wouldn't place any demands or any pressure on Xi over his conduct over Taiwan or in the Indo-Pacific. And likewise, I don't think President Xi would ever be willing to pressure Moscow in any meaningful way over its relationship or its dealings with Ukraine. Those things they understand

to be out of bounds. And I think that's one of the reasons why their relationship works so well. So from the Russian perspective, no, I think it behooves them to have China involved in this process, given the deepening relationship that they have with Beijing. And I can't imagine that China would ever put pressure on Putin to do something that would violate what Putin believes are his core national security interests, particularly in Ukraine.

Andrea, to your point that Ukraine might be overly optimistic when it comes to China, how has that impacted Ukraine's approach or strategy towards the conflict or towards ending the conflict? My sense is that Ukraine's approach to China has largely been shaped by this belief that China will play a significant role in the reconstruction of Ukraine. And that President Zelensky, therefore, hasn't been willing to pressurize

pressure Xi in any way, that they've been relatively silent when Xi and Putin continue to meet. Obviously, it was only just recently that there were direct meetings between the Chinese and the Ukrainians, whereas Xi and Putin had met many times. We understand that the Russians had put pressure on the Chinese to skip Ukraine's peace conference this summer in Switzerland.

And again, the Ukrainians have remained relatively mum on those issues, I think, because they, A, it is probably this belief that they can play a significant role in reconstruction. And it must be that they are trying very hard to get China to play a constructive role. Again, I don't think that will work.

But they do continue, I think, to have a belief that China can play a role. And if there's any country in the world that can apply pressure on Russia, it would be China. Like that calculus continues to play a role. But I just don't see. I mean, I think if anything, Putin's invasion of Ukraine has underscored exactly where Beijing's loyalties lie.

And even though they're having now to incur costs as a result of their support for Russia, that seems something that they've been willing to do, at least to some degree. In terms of where loyalties lie, we've seen recent statements from Russia's foreign ministry suggesting that Russia could combine forces with China if both China and Russia faced a significant threat. How important are these statements? Are they new and are these in line with what you've seen before?

To me, it seems that the statements stem again from this desire by Russia, but probably also China to project strength, to try to convince the United States and its allies of the depth and significance of their partnership. To me, I think they view a lot of utility out of trying to intimidate the United States and presenting this front of a very deep and potentially threatening partnership,

But to me, it doesn't seem plausible to me that that would happen. My understanding of the Russia-China military relationship is that they're not working towards interoperability. And so talking about combining forces to me seems like a bridge too far, or at least doesn't comport with my understanding.

understanding of the way that that military relationship has worked. My understanding is that they could deploy separately, but together, meaning if they were fighting in a theater, they could divide the theater and work towards the same goal, but they wouldn't ever be working towards that kind of interoperability.

It seems to me, at least looking at this from the China angle, that even though China has been more willing to do more with Russia, including more military exercises with Russia, that China is more restrained rhetorically than Russia. In other words, China has been less willing to use similar language touting the relationship in the same way that we've seen Putin do, in the same way that we've seen come from the Russian foreign ministry. Are you seeing that too?

Yeah, I think that's right. And it gets back to that idea of signaling strength, demonstrating that they're not isolated, trying to instill in the United States and allies a sense of fear or concern about the threats that a combined Russia-China framework

force would present as all part of a way to compel the United States and Europe to go along with Russia's desires in Ukraine in particular. And this relates to a larger strategic question I have for you. And that is, to what extent do you see Russia now really trying to coordinate with China when it makes major strategic decisions?

You mentioned Iran and North Korea earlier. To what extent, as Russia is engaging with Iran and North Korea, are you seeing Russia coordinate first with China or at least coordinate immediately with China after engaging with these countries? I think it's really hard to know. And once again, I think that Putin and Xi give each other opportunities.

quite a bit of latitude to conduct their foreign policies and national security interests according to their own parochial interests. And so I don't give the sense that Putin is coming to Xi for permission to do anything.

I don't think, for example, that Xi was aware that Putin was going to invade Ukraine. And in this case, I don't think that Putin would ever come to Xi and ask for permission to deepen his relations with North Korea. That's just not the way that the relationship works.

I think that Putin, you know, obviously continues to see himself as an equal of Xi on par with China. And I think Xi does a really good job at always treating Putin as an equal and not a junior partner in the relationship. I'm sure that the Chinese are attuned to Russian concerns about being the junior partner in the relationship. And it seems to me that Xi is

goes out of his way to ensure that he doesn't fuel those anxieties inside Russia. So it's hard for me to imagine yet that Putin would go and ask for permission. And it's true that it may cause some concern in Beijing, the way that Russia has deepened that relationship. But again, it goes back to the point I made earlier that

there may be some discrete disagreements in the relationship, but the overarching imperative to remain on the same page to challenge the United States helps them compartmentalize or paper over, or at least work very hard to prevent any disagreements from spilling over and undermining the larger relationship. So to me, like that seems to be what

the dynamic is. And then, of course, North Korea is able to benefit quite a bit from playing one side off the other. It's given itself a lot more room for maneuver in that situation.

Andrea, you mentioned the term junior partner, and I just want to get your perspective on this. It seems like what you're saying is that you don't think Russia views itself as a junior partner in this relationship, even though there's recognition within Moscow that it's becoming more dependent on China. Is that right? I don't think Putin views himself as a junior partner to Xi, and I think that's an important distinction. I think that there's a lot of elite and people in Russia who do understand and worry quite a bit

that Russia is becoming the junior partner, that they will at some point, especially if these trends continue, become much more subservient to China. That's a risk that people, I think, can see and worry a lot about.

I think from Putin's perspective, if he is aware of the widening gap between Russia and China, he's not bothered by it at this point because the most immediate threat is what's happening in Ukraine and his fear that the United States will use Ukraine as a springboard to undermine Russia. And so he, I think, is willing to accept the longer term risk that they might become increasingly dependent on China.

in order to address the immediate need to take on Ukraine and counter the West. So again, I think it's hard to know exactly what Putin believes. I don't think that Putin probably sees himself as the junior partner, but he probably recognizes the extent to which he needs China, and he's willing to accept that trade-off.

Thank you. I want to get your thoughts on several headlines we're seeing now about how Russia is facing economic obstacles when it comes to dealing with China. So some of the headlines we're seeing are reporting on lower energy exchanges or slowing energy exchanges between the two countries. Chinese banks refusing to accept direct transactions from Russia itself.

even if the transactions are rarely denominated. How do you view these headwinds in the context of the larger China-Russia relationship?

Yeah, that's a good question. And it's hard to know exactly how significant the delays are. It is definitely true. And I've been reading some of the same headlines that some Russian companies are facing growing delays and rising costs on payments with their partners in China. And that is, as you said, as a result of Chinese banks tightening their compliance following Western threats of secondary sanctions for dealing with Russia. But it's not true how

pervasive the problem is. And it does seem that transactions with China aren't a problem to Russia's leadership in large part because payments in priority areas are still proceeding smoothly.

So when you have the big companies or strategically important like Russia's commodity exporters and China's exporters of vital technologies, my understanding is that a lot of those transactions are still working and going through quite smoothly.

And that it's just a lot of Russia's smaller companies that are really bearing the brunt of the costs, which is of less concern to Russia and to the Kremlin in particular. So it's hard to know exactly how significant it will be, of course. I mean, I think it's not insignificant in the sense that it's something like billions of won worth of payments that are being held up.

And we know and understand that China is Russia's largest trading partner. I think now that China accounts for almost a third of Russia's foreign trade, they get all of the things that have been cut off from the West, like the cell phones and other consumer goods that are being held up.

because of sanctions. So there is important things for the Russian public that are coming from China. And it seems like companies who are dealing, those smaller companies, are bearing the brunt of this. So it's hard to know exactly how significant this will be. And I get the sense from looking at Russian statements about this that

You know, they talk about the spirit of partnership and we'll be able to work out these problems. And this is a complicated time. And we're confident that our friends in Beijing will be able to find solutions. So it is happening now. But I would imagine that this is something that both sides will probably be willing to work through over the longer term.

Speaking of the longer term, let's look at where the relationship is now and where it could go. I know this is a topic that you've worked on for quite some time. Are there ways from your perspective to divide China and Russia? And if so, what are the things that the United States can do in this realm?

Well, I don't think that there are things that we could do to drive a wedge between Russia and China. As you noted, we've been working on this topic for quite some time and really thought long and hard about whether or not there were wedges we could drive. Are there many wedges, something in the Arctic maybe, or maybe in Central Asia where Russia and China's interests don't align?

The problem that we run into, I think, is that, yes, there are divisions, there are fissures in the relationship, but the United States actually has very limited leverage over making those fissures any worse. And so it's more a matter of an expectation that perhaps over time, these fissures will become more significant.

and ultimately limit the depth of the partnership. But that's not where the relationship is headed. And as I said, it does seem to me that they are very conscientious and intentional about ensuring that any differences are compartmentalized. We're doing some work right now on Russia, China in Central Asia. And of course, that's a region where lots of experts have long warned that

that Russia and China could butt heads as China has increased its economic presence and slowly seeped into the security realm with some border security outposts in Tajikistan and other places, that that's something that Russia would bristle at. And that just hasn't been the case, and nor do I expect it to be the case for some time. So to me, the future of the relationship is one where it will continue to grow, where Russia and China will continue to de-conflict

and figure out areas where they can work together. So in Central Asia, for example, to me, it feels like they're using that region as a,

an opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of their leadership. They're working together in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Russia and China are working together in the BRICS. They're both working to expand those international organizations, bringing in Iran. We've heard that Turkey wants to join the BRICS. And through some of these mechanisms, I think Russia and China are increasingly able to

I mean, international institutions can help normalize norms, their venues that countries can ensure that their views become the prevailing view. And so as they continue to work together in these venues, it does feel to me that they are building the building blocks of an alternative order.

and trying to broaden the umbrella of countries that are willing to work with them more closely. I've talked a lot about Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, what we call the axis of upheaval. But I would expect that over time, they're going to work very hard to grow the number of countries that...

preside in that camp. Obviously, it's not a bipolar world and there's lots of countries, India, South Africa, all of these countries that are kind of swing states in the middle. But I think they're working very hard to court a number of these countries and that they're going to try to grow the coalition of countries that view the world

through their lens or at least sufficiently dissatisfied with the U.S.-led order and now have more opportunities to push back and stand up against the West. So I think we're really kind of at the beginning stages of this project to try to construct and build an alternative order in opposition to the U.S.-led order.

And I think that's just going to create a lot more volatility in terms of conflict, coups and other things, but also just a lot greater headwinds to the United States' ability to advance its own interests and values.

And let me throw out a hypothetical here. If after the U.S. elections, we have a drastic change in U.S. policy where we try to end the Ukraine conflict relatively quickly, and at the same time, the United States reaches out to Russia, would that, from your perspective, be able to drive somewhat of a wedge in terms of Russian interest to engage or strengthen its relationship with China?

Well, I hope that's not the policy that we get because it would be, I think, quite disastrous for European security and obviously, first and foremost, for Ukraine. But no, I don't think that that would be the case because I think if, and I guess I would assume that under that situation, we'd be talking about a President Trump presidency because I think that there would be a lot of other additional contradictions in that relationship. For example, President Trump

has strong feelings and a lot of animosity towards Iran. I think that there'd just be enough prickly issues around the margins that Russia wouldn't fully take the bait. Obviously, they could try to extract as many concessions as possible, but my assumption is they'd extract the concessions, pocket them, and then continue doing exactly what they're doing by working with China in opposition to the United States.

So I think any concessions, again, would just be pocketed to the great detriment of the United States and its allies. And then we'd be living in a very different world where the United States is significantly weakened. And I think actually Russia, China and its fellow backers would be quite emboldened and perhaps even view that kind of as a moment of weakness in the United States that they could exploit.

I think they generally see a United States that's in decline and they're working to accelerate that decline. So again, pocketing the concessions and then continuing their efforts to weaken the United States, reorder the security order in Europe, push the United States out of Europe and therefore revise the international system in a way that they would believe affords them the power and influence that they believe they deserve.

And is there anything that we can do to slow the deepening of relations between Russia and China? And particularly, again, looking at this from the Russian perspective? I don't think we can slow the depth of the partnership or the deepening of the partnership. And so the way I would think about it is how do we prepare for and contain the negative implications of their growing partnership?

So one opportunity that I think could help prevent the implications from becoming more significant are greater U.S. efforts to reach out to the so-called swing states. So the Saudi Arabias and the Turkeys and the Indonesias and the South Africans, these are all countries that I think will play an important role in determining the future trajectory of the international system.

And so working and reaching out to those countries on very pragmatic terms and to articulate what's important to us. So, for example, to prevent Russia, but also China from establishing bases, preventing Russia, but also China from accessing sensitive technologies.

I mean, I think there's a number of things that we would really like these countries to do that we could have a very kind of pragmatic, almost transactional agreement on. So that's one way that I think you could at least contain the implications of that relationship. But I also think that the preparation is really important. And I think a lot about this, obviously, in terms of the Europe context.

And one of the things I worry about quite a lot is the prospect for a two-front war, potentially Russian opportunistic aggression in Europe. As that relationship deepens, to me, that scenario becomes ever more likely. And so how can we prevent that? Well, we can better prepare.

If the United States is engaged in the Indo-Pacific, the United States won't have available military capabilities to bring to Europe to reinforce the way that NATO plans and expects that we would. And that, I think, would change the balance of forces that Putin would see. And that would be a moment he could be quite tempted to try to undermine NATO once and for all.

And so this is something that we can anticipate and our European allies and partners, as they're increasing defense spending, can begin investing in those capabilities that would not be made available to Europe should the U.S. be in the Indo-Pacific.

And in that way, we can make sure that we're able to retain a credible deterrent if the United States is engaged in the Indo-Pacific. So that's just one example. So to me, it's a lot about trying to contain the implications and preparing to prevent the worst implications of their deepening partnership.

Thank you, Andrea, for your assessment that perhaps the best that we can do is to contain the negative implications of the growing China-Russia partnership. And we should not be optimistic or assume that we can divide the two countries.

Thank you also for sharing a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion on the China-Russia relationship and your insights on how Russia is thinking about China, as well as Russia's incentives to continue to deepen the relationship with Beijing. Thank you again, Andrea, for joining me today. Thanks, Bonnie.