Are China and Russia Ganging Up on the US?

As the eyes of the world were on the Chinese 2008 Olympic Games, Russia made a nasty incursion into Georgia. Could this be the first step in a multi-polar world in which Russia and China will ally against the US?

Peter Zeihan, an analyst for Stratfor (July 22), has provided a brilliant overview of the relationship between Russia and China:

• Geography. As Jared Diamond has told us in Guns, Germs, and Steel, history is not independent of geography. With Russia and China, geography is a big player. Russia east of the Urals and China west of its coastal provinces is vast, empty, and forbidding. Not much trade goes between them either. The ancient Silk Road that once ran along what are now the borderlands between them was a trade route for luxury goods. Last week I wrote about that Chinese/Persian trade long before Russia existed. It is apparent that China and Russia are not going to have much of a trade relationship. Luxury goods come by sea.

• Fruits of Empire. The Russians were creating empire across Siberia and its southern belt of Muslim states throughout the 19th century, at the same time that Americans were moving toward the Pacific. The Chinese were not able to defend pieces of China (such as Manchuria) that the Russians took. But in 1904-5, Russia’s success was challenged by little Japan, which took Manchuria away from them, a major humiliation. Today, although Russia still holds Siberia all the way to the Pacific, they only hold it until the Chinese decide to take it. Both sides know this.

• Burgeoning Wealth. Both Russia and China are flush with money today, but there is a difference. The Chinese are building an industrial society at breathtaking speed; the Russians make nothing that anybody wants. Instead, their current wealth, which has produced more billionaires living in one place than any place in the world, is the result of natural resources—primarily petroleum and natural gas—much in demand today. When that demand goes-- and it will--Russia (and Saudi Arabia and all the other oil-tyrannies) will be back to their former squalor.

• Demographics. China has a population of 1.3 billion; Russia has 141 million. Even under the Soviet Union, all the little countries that they had absorbed did not have large populations. Even more serious is the population crash facing Russia—a combination of low fertility rate and declining longevity due to excessive alcohol and cigarette consumption. Russia has always been nervous about this difference with China. A land war between them, considering geographic distances and difficulties, would not be in Russia’s favor.

• China’s Problems. As well as they are doing today, China too walks on a tightrope. All those foreign athletes arriving in Beijing wearing breathing masks are experiencing what the Chinese put up with every day. Environmental degradation in China—air, water, and soil—is major, and the Chinese know it. They need to do three things to continue to thrive: the first is maintain their good relationship with the US, not only as trading partner, but as protector of sea routes upon which China depends. Second, embrace green technology to replace coal and oil. And third, as their abuse of their rivers (contamination and drying up) makes agriculture impossible, you can be sure they will be moving into Siberia, which has plenty of fertile soil and water, and which, if global warming continues, will be a prime region for them.

China currently has too many people, but their draconian one-child policy and the traditional preference for boys are starting to cut that population down. We are not even looking at the social ramifications of these policies, but they will have an effect on China’s future.

The only areas in which Russia and China agree are national sovereignty (theirs) and no outside interference in internal affairs.

It doesn't seem that China and Russia will be ganging up on us in the near future, if ever.

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Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and author. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.net.