Russia, China – neither allies nor rivals
There have been some wild theses lately, including among the Indian pundits and think tankers, that consequent upon Russia’ s tensions with the West, Moscow has ‘pivoted’ to China in strategic terms and a Sino-Russian axis is steadily taking shape in world politics and that these two ‘Eastern” powers are all set to challenge the United States.
Some speculators even went to the extent of fancying that the fate of the American dollar is sealed and it is a matter of months before the Bretton Woods system comes crashing down.
This was of course fantasyland and anyone who has followed the trajectory of Russian-Chinese relations through the past decades would know that there are far too many complexities (and contradictions) involved in this relationship and it can never be the case that they would simply decide one day to embrace each other and become allies.
Paradoxically, the US strategy toward Russia and China is itself predicated on the virtual certainty that the latter two can never form an axis in the international system.
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2014/12/22/russia-china-neither-allies-nor-rivals/
