According to the information released on the website of the Ministry of National Defense, in accordance with the annual cooperation plan between the Chinese and Russian militaries, on the 14th, the Chinese and Russian militaries held a joint strategic patrol, and organized and implemented the seventh joint air strategic patrol in the relevant airspace of the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea.
Speaking of Russia, there have been many reports on the Russia-Ukraine conflict recently, and there is a lot of news that the United States and the West are nearing the end of their aid to Ukraine, and Russia is about to win the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. At such a moment, what are the plans of Russian President Vladimir Putin to choose to send troops to the East China Sea?
In fact, as we said, at present, Russia is about to win the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, but this does not mean that Russia can rest easy. The actual situation is that because of the subversive impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on Russia's overall diplomatic and strategic environment, even if the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is won and Russia's momentum is soaring, Putin still needs to solve many practical problems. Especially in the Pacific waters east of Russia, there is a big problem that needs to be solved, and the name of this trouble is called "Japan", so it is necessary to escalate the counterattack against the United States and the West to the strategic level.
Since the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Japan has chosen to stand on the opposite side of Russia and insisted on launching many targeted measures against Russia, which made Putin very dissatisfied, so last year, Russia took the initiative to stop peace talks with Japan. But Japan is still unrepentant, and even a few days ago, at the moment when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine had been decided, Japan also announced new sanctions against Russia.
It is not surprising that Japan has taken such actions; in recent years, the Japanese government has shown an increasingly strong intention to expand its foreign strategic environment while the right-wing forces are in power, whether it is to promote the "constitutional amendment," raise the defense budget, or order missiles from the United States, all of which reflect Japan's ulterior motives, and Japan has always coveted the South Kuril Islands (called the "four northern islands" in Japan), which are currently controlled by Russia. Therefore, on the occasion of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Japan wants to take the opportunity to make small moves against Russia, vainly using this to invade and occupy the South Kuril Islands, weaken Russia in order to expand its own strategic space, which is very much in line with Japan's current strategic ambitions.
Therefore, Putin's plan to send troops to the East China Sea this time is to use China's strength to counterattack Japan, after all, Japan's ambitions are not limited to Russia, but also involve targeting China.
But what is interesting is that this counterattack by China and Russia not only frightened Japan, but also caused the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force fighters to take off urgently. The South Korean Joint Staff Headquarters also confirmed that the South Korean military immediately dispatched countermeasures. Why is South Korea so nervous?
In the end, it is the problem of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Yoon Suk-yeol's diplomatic propositions are different from former President Moon Jae-in, and he takes a highly pro-American line, so since Yoon Suk-yeol became president of South Korea, South Korea has done a lot of things against China.
Although Russia and South Korea do not have many direct disputes at the moment, South Korea is so pro-American and flattering to Japan, and it is only a matter of time before it goes to the opposite side of Russia. You must know that around this Russia-Ukraine conflict, at least more than 30 countries in the United States and the West have crowdfunded weapons for Ukraine to fight Russia, and as early as the beginning of this year, it was reported that US President Joe Biden intends to let South Korea provide military assistance to Ukraine. Now that the U.S. aid to Ukraine is close to running out, in terms of Yoon Suk-yeol's pro-American degree, we do not rule out that Yoon Suk-yeol will really provide support for Ukraine in the future.
In addition, Russia's relationship with North Korea is gradually escalating, and South Korea is trying to unite the United States and Japan to put pressure on North Korea. Therefore, this Sino-Russian counterattack, the Chinese side will not care, but the Russian side may also consider knocking South Korea on this, so this Sino-Russian counterattack, to a certain extent, can also be said to start with South Korea, and we are not surprised why the South Korean military should take countermeasures, because they know very well that their current behavior is likely to provoke China and Russia.
In this regard, our view is that since we know that we are no match for China and Russia, why should we forcibly target China and Russia? If the ROK is more rational, it should give up targeting China and Russia, so as not to bring humiliation on itself.