Russia and China are hell bent on building a ‘grotesque alliance’ of anti-West countries, an expert has warned.
MEP Daniel Hannan has noted that battle lines are being drawn up as ill-liberal regimes looked to take advantage of the West “losing ground.”
Vladimir Putin has overseen Russia’s drift into China’s orbit following the international isolation and economic shocks that met his invasion of Ukraine.
China meanwhile is in an increasingly open struggle to unseat the United States as the World’s leading economic and military power.
Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Hannan declared: “Hence the grotesque coalition that the Russians and Chinese are assembling. Its members have next to nothing in common.
“Some are Marxists, some Islamists, but all resent what they see as Western, liberal arrogance, and exult in the belief that a reckoning is nigh.”
He added: “If Putin manages to hang on to conquered territory in Ukraine, it will be seen as a definitive defeat for the West, a Suez-level reversal, inciting not only a Chinese grab for Taiwan, but a series of unrelated conflicts.”
Vladimir Putin recently travelled to Beijing to mark a celebration in China marking a decade since the launch of the country’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
Putin has been strengthening ties with Chinese leader Xi Jinping following the invasion of Ukraine which left Moscow frozen out of Western markets and institutions.
China has allowed Russia some international cover over the conflict in Ukraine by refusing to overtly condemn the invasion, choosing to instead remain neutral.
Beijing has opened up much-needed financial links to Russia which have helped the Kremlin keep the economy afloat amid heavy Western sanctions.
Some analysts argue that the ever-growing closer ties between Russia and China have the former as the more junior party, with Putin increasingly dependent on the goodwill of Xi.
