Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean President Kim Jong Un may have stolen the spotlight today, but their American sparring partner, President Donald Trump, made a big appearance in the events in Beijing.
The image of three strong-minded leaders walking shoulder to shoulder ahead of the massive military parade was a carefully choreographed, united, united show between the three forces who showed enthusiasm to overturn the US-led world order.
It wasn’t lost in Trump.
Their presence in Beijing comes less than three weeks after Trump deployed Putin’s red carpet at a US Air Force base in Alaska, followed by Moscow missiles pounding Ukraine.
Trump’s repeated overtures on the Russian Strongman appear to have not affected the so-called “unlimited” partnership between Russia and China.
The relationship has deepened in recent years as cross-border trade has reached new heights. Meanwhile, the two countries continue to engage in security cooperation, and have recently received an announcement that it has conducted its first joint submarine patrol in the Pacific Ocean.
Analysts say the glue that brings these former hostile neighbors closer than ever before is something the US shares as a threat.
“There is a well-known proverb in the Chinese policy community,” says Sang of the Stimson Centre. “China and Russia can share misery, but not happiness.”
Faced with a slump in its domestic economy, China is also tackling a long and painful trade war with the United States.
Meanwhile, Russia, accompanied by its much smaller economy and international isolation caused by its invasion of Ukraine, desperately needed a hand from China, transforming Moscow into a junior partner in this relationship.
Their government has been scuffed for years with the global domination the United States has enjoyed since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And President Trump’s chaotic foreign policy, including attacks on the near-Obaan dismantling of long-standing allies and global free trade, presents China, the world’s second largest economy, on new opportunities.
