2 weeks Ago By Graham Bradley
I n February 2022 Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced in Beijing that the relationship between the two great totalitarian states, China and Russia, was a “friendship without limits”. Within three weeks, Putin launched his blitzkrieg-style but miscalculated invasion of Ukraine. having possibly delayed the assault until after the conclusion of the Beijing Winter Olympics as a courtesy to President Xi.
Suddenly the joint statement raised the spectre of Russian expansionism backed by China and also supported by Russia’s southern ally Iran, at that time viewed as a formidable, well-armed force and puppet master across the Middle East. Three years on, Russia’s military failures in Ukraine have led China largely to bury the “without limits” formula in its official propaganda. But how solid is the Russia–China relationship in reality? This is the geopolitically important question Geoff Raby explores in his new book Great Game On .
Raby is well placed to analyse this...
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