The stunning collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria was not just a defeat for Assad himself. It was also a humiliating setback for his two biggest patrons: Iran and Russia. For years, both countries had propped Assad’s brutal government, with Russia offering it air power and Iran lending it the manpower of its proxies.
As the Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham rebels advanced toward Damascus, however, neither country was willing or able to rescue Assad. In the end, all Russian President Vladimir Putin could offer Assad was exile, granting the Syrian president and his family asylum in Moscow.
Syria was a dependent of what some have called “the axis of autocracies” or “the axis of upheaval,” the loose group of authoritarian states that have become increasingly cooperative and assertive in challenging the United States and its democratic allies. In some ways, the setback in Syria reveals the limitations of authoritarian cohesion. Both Iran and Russia were too overstretched—thanks to their conflicts with Israel and Ukraine, respectively—to invest enough in Syria to save Assad.
While Iran’s and Russia’s loyalty to Syria turned out to be as brittle as Assad’s regime at the end, the relationship between China and Russia, the two central players in the axis, is very different. The Chinese-Russian relationship is the subject of a groundbreaking new Council Special Report by Robert D. Blackwill, the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at CFR, and Richard Fontaine, the CEO of the Center for a New American Security. Blackwill and Fontaine make the case that the Moscow-Beijing partnership is stronger than at any point in history—stronger even than it was during the heyday of Sino-Soviet cooperation under Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong in the early Cold War.
It is a conclusion shared by Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said in a joint statement earlier this year that Chinese-Russian relations were “experiencing the best period in their history.” While historically there have been limits to the degree of their cohesion, the relationship between China and Russia is more than a marriage of convenience.
Perhaps most alarming is their increasingly close military cooperation. China has helped Russia rebuild its military industrial sector, and there are concerns that Russia might be providing China with submarine expertise and jet engine technology in return. The two countries hold joint military exercises. In July, a formation of Chinese and Russian planes probed Alaska’s air defense identification zone for the first time ever.
The relationship between the two countries is turbocharged by the close personal relationship between Xi and Putin—who have met one-on-one, Blackwill and Fontaine remind us, more than forty times. Xi has called Putin his “best friend,” and the two leaders have characterized their partnership as having “no limits.”
That said, China has stopped short of providing lethal aid for Russia’s war in Ukraine for fear of U.S. sanctions, and it has gently rebuked Russia’s nuclear saber rattling. Russia is very much the junior partner in the relationship.
China’s patience may well turn out to have limits. As we saw with Russia’s abandonment of Assad, at the end of the day, overstretched authoritarian powers will only go so far to help an ally in need.
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