Russia, China to get closer in 2023 but it’s unclear if partnership will last: Report

Russia and China are expected to get closer in 2023, but it’s unclear if this partnership will last. The relationship is getting unbalanced as China’s economic and military capabilities are anticipated to increase in the years to come relative to Moscow’s, Geo Politik reported. However, Moscow is deteriorating both absolutely and comparatively, favouring Beijing more and more while raising questions about potential future relationships. Russia is unquestionably the junior party in the partnership because its economy is just one-tenth the size of China’s, the report said.

This year’s events have highlighted Russia’s dependence as media reported quoting Western diplomatic sources that Xi had pushed Putin to postpone any escalation in Ukraine until after the 2022 Beijing Olympics. To support the assertion, the publication has cited circumstances made by the Western diplomat. In an apparent message to Beijing, Russia and Belarus launched joint training exercises called “Allied Resolve 2022,” which finished on February 20–the day of the 2022 Beijing Olympics’ closing ceremony. Additionally, Putin started the invasion on February 24, four days after the Olympics, which was arguably as soon as feasible but far enough away to allow for credible denial,Geo Politik reported.

China may have hindered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but this year saw unparalleled military progress between the two nations. In what seems to be a first for the two nations in the post- Cold War period, Chinese and Russian forces performed a combined bomber patrol and landed at each other’s airfields in late November. During the Quad meeting in May, China and Russia jointly flew bomber patrols. Russian naval troops were joined by an ostensibly uninvited Chinese Dongdiao-class auxiliary general intelligence (AGI) vessel during the Vostok 2018 military drills.However, Chinese ships took part formally in the Vostok exercises in September of 2022, four years later. The People’s Liberation Army dispatched three military branches to a single Russian practise for the first time during Vostok 2022, according to the Global Times.

The Geo-Politik report further states that as long as Russia is involved in a military confrontation in Ukraine, the two sides will likely continue to reject any kind of official military partnership. However, the two sides are intensifying their military collaboration, making it more difficult for the Quad and US allies, particularly Japan, to plan. In this case, Moscow seems even more vulnerable to China’s wishes as the exports from Russia to China represented 4.4 per cent of the Russian GDP in 2021, as the Russian GDP declines itself and trade with the West also declines, that percentage may likely surpass five per cent. Although China may not even bother in this case as Russia’s economy is just one-tenth of China’s.

The dependence of Russia on China goes even further as Russia will depend on China for its technological needs after getting secluded by the west because of its ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. According to Geo Politik a blog informing about key developments including in Asia More than 30% of Russian IT professionals, according to some estimates; the previous CEO of Yandex, perhaps the most successful IT business in Russia, currently resides in Israel. Further, it will be depending on the Asian country for semiconductors, 5G, and other technologies since it is unwilling to buy technology from the West and cannot develop it by itself. And the longer the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues more the Russian economy declines. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)