On March 22, the United States, the European Union, Britain, and Canada jointly imposed sanctions on Chinese officials involved in intensifying human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. Shortly thereafter, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov urged Washington to “halt unilateral bullying, stop meddling in other countries’ domestic affairs, and stop forming small circles to seek bloc confrontation.”

This statement was but the most recent example of the Sino-Russian relationship’s strong momentum. In September 2018, China participated in Russia’s annual Vostok military exercise for the first time. In December 2019, the two countries opened a pipeline that is scheduled to deliver 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China annually by 2024. And, last month, they agreed to build a new lunar station.

Observers have used a wide array of phrases to characterize relations between Beijing and Moscow, among them “Faustian bargain,” “opportunistic mésalliance,” and “morganatic marriage.” But while the relationship may not lend itself to simple encapsulations, it seems clear that the post-Cold War phase of Sino-Russian ties has two core characteristics: “intentional alignment” and “strategic flexibility.”

The two authoritarian powers have been anchored in their opposition to Western — and especially U.S. — influence ever since the Soviet Union’s dissolution, which both humiliated Moscow and made Beijing newly uneasy about the resilience of the Chinese Communist Party.  They have found common cause in contesting a postwar order that, they believe, is too centered around the role of alliances, the promotion of democracy, and the reach of the U.S. dollar. The further Washington’s relations with Beijing and Moscow deteriorate, the further Beijing and Moscow’s relationship is likely to progress.

It is unlikely, though, that the two countries will seek a formal alliance. The Sino-Soviet split, nearly culminating in war in 1969, informs their present reluctance to pursue a relationship that could constrain their freedom of maneuver. While the two countries do not criticize one another publicly, they do not endorse all of each other’s actions either. Beijing has not taken a position on Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, and Moscow has not taken a position on Beijing’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea.

In addition, while going to considerable lengths to depict themselves as acting in concert, they have significantly different approaches to foreign policy.

China often inveighs against the postwar order, and it has launched projects such as the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) to expand its influence outside of that system. But, having benefited deeply from its embeddedness, it also strives to boost its stature within long standing structures. It has the third-largest voting share at both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It is the second-largest contributor to the UN’s peacekeeping budget for the 2019-21 period, having overtaken Japan. And it actively submits proposals to standards-setting agencies that will influence the governance of emerging technologies.

By contrast, explains Bobo Lo, an independent Australian analyst, “Moscow sees little point in trying to work the post-Cold War order from within.” It does have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, but otherwise, it has a limited ability to reconfigure core international institutions. It instead asserts its influence to a large extent by pursuing disruptive efforts that highlight the postwar order’s fragility — whether by hiving off territories from Georgia and Ukraine, propping up a brutal regime in Syria, or launching disinformation operations to undermine Western democracies.

The flexibility of Sino-Russian ties permits the two countries to strengthen their partnership without having to march in lockstep.

A similar duality emerges when examining how China and Russia interact with the United States. While preparing for intensifying competition with Washington, Beijing still values a baseline level of stability in bilateral ties. It appreciates America’s capacity for self-renewal and recognizes that greater coordination between the United States and U.S. allies and partners could challenge China’s continued resurgence. Russia, however, lacking a plausible path to becoming a peer competitor to the United States, may believe that it has less to lose from a comprehensive rupture in their relationship.

The U.S. intelligence community nodded to that distinction in its report on foreign interference in America’s 2020 presidential election. It concluded that Moscow likely “assess[es] that continued influence operations against the United States pose a manageable risk to Russia’s image in Washington because U.S.-Russia relations are already extremely poor.” Beijing, however, “did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk blowback if caught [deploying interference efforts].”

The flexibility of Sino-Russian ties permits the two countries to strengthen their partnership without having to march in lockstep — an entente that can cause significant headaches for the United States. The two countries, for example, have been jointly amplifying conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus. The appearance of a 220 ship-strong Chinese “maritime militia” fleet in the Spratly Islands early last month and the more recent buildup of Russian troops along Ukraine’s eastern border, meanwhile, suggest a concerning possibility: that the two countries might concurrently conduct destabilizing operations in their respective near abroads.  And they sometimes bring to bear complementary strengths: Russia’s military presence in and cultural ties to Central Asia, for example, could help China expand its BRI in the region.

Sino-Russian ties are not without their challenges. The relationship has a complex history, and Moscow may not always be as comfortable with its subordinate status as it is today. For now, though, their partnership will likely proceed apace, and U.S. efforts to drive a wedge between them would only tighten their embrace. China has no reason to disrupt ties with a reliable source of energy and weapons, and aligning itself with a resurgent Beijing advances Russia’s quest to be seen as a great power.

There are limits, however, to both the ideological appeal and geopolitical potential of their partnership.

First, the underperformance of democracies does not necessarily translate into a preference for authoritarianism. While China gains some ideological momentum on the basis of its robust growth, the impending 2022 Winter Olympics is placing its human rights abuses under growing scrutiny. Its “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy is also heightening concerns among advanced industrial democracies about its internal conduct and strategic ambitions. Russia, meanwhile, cannot credibly tout its domestic performance when it criticizes the socioeconomic challenges confronting Western democracies: real disposable income fell for five out of seven years between 2014 and 2020, and GDP per capita is 30 percent lower than it was in 2013.

The best way for the United States to limit the appeal of authoritarianism is to demonstrate that democratic governance can once more serve as an instrument of domestic renewal. The United States and its allies and partners should undertake to construct a more resilient post-Covid-19 architecture — one that is better prepared not only to manage short-term emergencies such as a pandemic, but also to mitigate the long-term, cumulative effects of transnational challenges such as climate change. Beijing and Moscow should worry about losing influence if they do not contribute to that affirmative undertaking.

Similarly, the frailties of the postwar order have yet to reveal a coherent Sino-Russian alternative. To the contrary, while she was chair of the foreign affairs committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Fu Ying attached a telling caveat to her critique: “We are dissatisfied and ready to criticize. Yet we are not ready to propose a new design.”

So long as the Sino-Russian entente is rooted more in shared grievances than in coherent visions, the United States should consider it a challenging condition, not a systemic threat.

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