A Russia China alliance causes extinction – cyber threats, democratic and economic crises, Chinese expansionism, Russian aggression
Kendall-Taylor and Shullman 19 [Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS. BA in politics from Princeton University, PhD in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. Was deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. Adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her work has been published in numerous political science and policy journals. David O. Shullman is Senior Advisor at the International Republican Institute. Served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia on the National Intelligence Council. PhD in Political Science from UCLA, a MALD from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a BA in Government from Georgetown., “How the Russian-Chinese Partnership Threatens U.S. Interests,” Foreign Affairs, 5-14-2019, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2019-05-14/russian-chinese-partnership-threat-us-interests, accessed 7-30-2023, HKR-SWY]
While Washington takes a wait-and-see approach, Moscow and Beijing could be coordinating to significantly thwart U.S. interests over the next 15 to 25 years. The two powers may never forge a formal military alliance, but they could still work together in ways that cause major headaches for the United States. Imagine, for example, that Russia and China coordinate the timing of hostile actions on their peripheries. If China made aggressive moves in support of its sovereignty claim in the South China Sea at the same time that Russia made further incursions into Ukraine, U.S. forces would struggle to respond effectively to either gambit.
Nonmilitary collaboration between Russia and China could weaken the United States and even threaten its way of life. Both countries are likely to use their cyber and disinformation capabilities to, as the director of national intelligence put it in January, “steal information, to influence our citizens, or to disrupt critical infrastructure.” China currently does not exhibit Russia’s zeal for using such measures, particularly against the United States; but if U.S.-Chinese relations darken, Beijing could plausibly take a page from Russia’s playbook and mount coordinated, deniable cyberattacks or interference campaigns against the United States.
China and Russia behave very differently in pursuit of their foreign policy objectives, but the combined effect of their actions is often greater than the sum of its parts. In Europe, for example, China has amassed economic influence through growing trade relationships and Belt and Road–related infrastructure investments not contingent on standards for democratic governance and human rights, particularly in eastern Europe, Greece, and Italy. This engagement will ultimately translate into political leverage, as it already has in many countries in Asia. Russia, for its part, appears intent on pursuing hybrid tactics that disrupt democratic processes. On their own, each of these activities is already worrisome for the United States and Europe. But a scenario in which each country’s actions amplify the other’s is not hard to imagine. China, for example, could eventually use its growing ownership of European ports and rail lines to slow a NATO response to Russian aggression. Likewise, Beijing could use the economic leverage it has accrued to quietly dissuade an already reluctant NATO member state such as Hungary or Turkey from responding to Russia’s hybrid tactics, which could ultimately serve to discredit NATO’s commitment to collective defense.