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US Needs to Focus on Beijing to Break China-Russia Alliance: Expert

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Washington’s policies in recent years have pushed China and Russia to rally with other adversaries of the United States across Asia and Europe to form a deepening alliance, according to China expert and author Brandon Weichert.

“For the first time, really, we are seeing the fusion of Eurasian power under China and Russia,” Weichert recently told EpochTV’s “China Insider” program.

“Because Beijing is as convinced as Moscow is that America means to do to them what we did to Saddam Hussein, and that scares them. And so they are now looking for allies,” he said.

One of those allies, according to Weichert, is Iran, which “has become a quasi colony for both Russia and China.”

He also described North Korea as “a cat’s paw for Beijing.”

“Russia is also trying to get more influence with Kim Jong Un to also make them into a potential lever to use against us as a distraction,” he added.

The expert believed that it was China or more probably Russia that equipped North Korea with hypersonic capabilities as North Korea claimed its first successful test of a hypersonic missile in September 2021.

Weichert described such actions as “an attempt to basically create a shield of autocracy on the outer periphery of Eurasia and the Middle East by giving some medium-sized powers … capabilities and guidance in challenging American power.”

“I think these entities are operating together as one and their mission is to roll back American military power projection,” he added.

He referred to a warning by 20th century English geographer Halford Mackinder, known as the father of geopolitics, to illustrate the harm of such engagements.

Back then, Mackinder alerted the then British Empire that as a maritime power on the edge of Eurasia, it had to make sure to “prevent any major military rival or group of rivals from aligning on the Eurasian mainland,” Weichart said.

Mackinder reasoned that by keeping the Eurasians divided against each other, Britain prevent a major threat from arising, he added.

Weichert said that this applies to the United States today and stressed that Washington needs to work to break this deepening Eurasian bond.

Countermeasures

To that end, the analyst noted that America should put constraining the Chinese regime as its first priority rather than confronting Russia.

He reasoned that China, as the second-largest economy in the world, has bigger resources to expand its worldwide influence, which it can also use to further its alliance with Russia.

“China, with its economy, its linkages to the world system is able to basically fund a large export project for pushing autocracy to the rest of the world,” he said.

Meanwhile, “Russia is going to rely increasingly on those economic linkages that are growing with China,” he added.

Consequently, the expert suggested that President Joe Biden negotiates with Russian President Vladamir Putin to work on a diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine war. Further, the United States should shift away from the frontlines of Europe and let our allies there deal with the Russian threat on their own, because, he said,  “We have bigger fish to fry. And that is China.”

To counter the Chinese Communist Party, the United States should move to decouple from China economically, according to Weichert.

“What we should be doing is going after Western tech companies attempting to do tech transfers to get business in China … [and] classify those as bribes under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

“We can start building the next industrial revolution here rather than outsourcing it to China,” he said.

“If we can contain China and go after China over the next decade, we might not only be able to preserve America’s dominant role in the world, but we might actually be able to undermine Russia as well,” he added.

Hannah Ng

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David Zhang

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David Zhang is the host of China Insider on EpochTV. He is currently based in New York and Washington DC covering China-related news. He focuses on expert interviews and news commentary on China affairs, especially issues regarding the U.S.–China relationship.



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