What brings Russia, China and North Korea closer together
The American missile destroyer "Ralph Johnson" passed through the Taiwan Strait. This is the second passage of an American warship through the Taiwan Strait since the beginning of the year. The first one was recorded on February 1.
As expected, the Chinese authorities reacted negatively to this fact. They regarded it as an escalation of the situation around the island and increased the number of flights of their aircraft through the Taiwan air defence identification zone. But the problem is something different.
After Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine, the Taiwanese authorities began to talk about "a likely imminent attack of China on Taiwan”. The Taiwanese military began to conduct exercises and updated training programs for reservists. The Chinese side responded.
As was stated by the official representative of the PLA Eastern Command Shi Yi, "this is not the first time the United States has committed such provocative actions, sending erroneous signals to forces advocating for ‘Taiwan independence’. But in such statements that were made earlier by Beijing, there is no political exoticism. It’s elsewhere.
Taipei issued a statement from its military department that "at the upcoming stages of the annual Han Kuang exercises in May and July, Ukraine's military experience will be used in the confrontation with the Russian army."
It draws attention to the fact that another American provocative sortie in the Far East coincided with a sharp escalation of tension around Transnistria, which occurred immediately after the visit to Kiev of the heads of the State Department and the Pentagon, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin. In the Transnistrian case, we are talking about connecting Romania to the American "big game", and in the case of Taiwan, about implementing the decisions of the March NATO summit, at which the removal of the bloc's sphere of responsibility beyond the North Atlantic was discussed in detail.
This strengthens the opinion that the United States is trying to set fire to both regions. And not only that. Japan entered the game, conducting naval exercises in the Far Eastern region, and Seoul began talking about the need for "rapprochement with Tokyo”. It is no coincidence that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at a meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, spoke about the "brewing crisis in the Euro-Atlantic."
The US is also trying to destabilise China's "western underbelly" — the Xinjiang Uygur and Tibetan Autonomous Regions of China. Plus, the coup d'etat in Pakistan, the aggravation of contradictions with Afghanistan.
Moscow gave a harsh assessment of the American provocations around Taiwan, calling the "signals sent to China" by Washington "walking on the edge”. Concerned about the growing tensions in the main regions of the world, Moscow and Beijing are increasingly getting closer to each other. And not only in bilateral formats, but also with North Korea.
By all indications, Pyongyang is becoming the third pillar of stability in the Far East, and we can already talk about the emergence of a new, old, time-tested China–Russia–North Korea triumvirate. Probably, it is impossible to exclude the scenario when, in the event of a crisis, China will take North Korea under its "patronage". At the same time, the importance of this piece of the mosaic is increasingly increasing, thanks to the increasing bipolar confrontation between the United States and China.
Russia is still acting as a "support group" in this direction, and in the European one it is on the front line, carrying out a military operation in Ukraine. Such a policy has so far met with understanding and support from China. But the time of big events and quick decisions is on the horizon.
While there are no great hopes that Moscow and Beijing will be able to convince Washington to take a position of geopolitical realism, it is necessary to begin the process of interaction in order to create a regional security regime in a broad context.
Elena Panina, Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute