Last week, at the same time as Blinken's visit to China, China also held talks with senior cabinet officials of another nuclear power. In Astana, Kazakhstan, the Minister of Defense of China held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. The two sides said that the interaction between China and Russia is important for global strategic stability. Seeing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's eagerness to ask China to cut off trade with Russia shows how important the meeting between the Chinese and Russian defense ministers and the consensus reached are. The meeting of the SCO defense ministers was held in Kazakhstan. After China took the lead in forming the SCO in 2001, the multinational security mechanism has experienced some ups and downs. For quite a long time, Russia did not attach much importance to the SCO. After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Russia found that there was very little international security cooperation mechanism left that it could rely on, and even the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Russian-led collective security mechanism, could not be relied on. As a result, Russia suddenly attached importance to the SCO.
In the SCO, the core members are China and Russia. In today's Sino-Russian relations, it is realistic to say that China has a certain degree of dominance. China is the world's largest industrial manufacturing country and the most important source of imports of manufactured goods to Russia today. Russia's supply of energy and primary products to China, and the import of automobiles, electronics, machine tools and other medium- and high-end manufactured goods from China have strongly supported the operation of Russia's national economy. China's exports to Russia are all civilian products, and as for how Russia transforms and uses these civilian products, and where they are used, China cannot and has no right to control.
During his visit to China, Blinken ignored China's concerns about US arms sales to Taiwan and the United States' own large-scale arms assistance to Ukraine, but demanded that China immediately stop exporting a variety of strategic materials to Russia. After being explicitly rejected by the Chinese side, Blinken publicly announced that "if he refuses to take the initiative to solve the issue of aiding Russia, he will solve the problem of the donors themselves." In response to such a naked threat, the Russian side is of course also worried that China will not be able to resist the pressure to make some concessions. In fact, the recent tightening of trade settlement activities between China and Russia by several Chinese banks has already made the Russian side highly nervous. As the head of the Russian army on the front line of the military struggle against the West, Shoigu certainly attaches great importance to the issue of Sino-Russian cooperation, saying that Russian-Chinese friendly relations "continue to develop at a high speed and expand in all fields," and military cooperation between the two countries is of paramount importance.
At present, China is also facing serious national security issues. In the face of the extremely hegemonic suppression and provocation of the United States by forming gangs, it will seriously affect foreign trade cooperation, affect China's economic development, and may even lead to the interruption of the process of the country's rise; will it give in to the United States and raise its hands in surrender? If the people of the Chinese United States do not agree, the United States may not accept it, and the United States wants to put China to death. Therefore, in any case, China should try its best to delay the moment of the final showdown with the United States, and it cannot fight alone with the United States, and if it can get the cooperation and support of a nuclear and military power like Russia, it can greatly ease the pressure on our security. Even in Northeast Asia, where Russia's military forces are relatively weak, the joint air patrols and joint sea drills carried out by the two sides on many occasions have effectively deterred the US-Japan bloc. At least let Japan, an ambitious defeated country in World War II, once again recognize its own situation.
Now, the United States has met with strong resistance in its anti-Russian activities in Europe, turned around and organized an anti-China front in Asia. The United States has not only tried to form a trilateral alliance between the United States, Japan, and South Korea, but has also promoted Japan's status as a so-called defense partner. The United States is sharpening its knives, and it is necessary for China and Russia to carry out more extensive and active military cooperation. Therefore, in 2024, we may see more joint exercises and joint training between China and Russia, and we will see more long-distance voyages and fleet operations of the air forces and navies of the two countries. As for whether or not we will carry out military high-tech cooperation at a higher level, it will depend on the US approach. If the Biden administration really pushes China and Russia to that point, I believe the whole world will see what is the strategic potential of a great power.