Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Beijing Olympics. In a joint statement, the two said that “friendship between the two states has no limits” and “there are no forbidden areas of cooperation.”
The statement was striking for its clarity, but it should not come as a surprise. The systematic interplay between Russia and China’s aggressive revisionist strategies has been especially visible for the last several years. The threat of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine has now brought the de-facto alliance into sharp relief. U.S. policy, however, still does not reflect this reality.